Posts by David

15

Did the serpent have legs before the curse?

by Acluetofindtheuser in

genesis 3:14 – “then jehovah god said to the serpent: “because you have done this, you are the cursed one out of all the domestic animals and out of all the wild animals of the field.

on your belly you will go, and you will eat dust all the days of your life.”.

the old gb and gb 2.0 differ on this matter.

David_Jay

The Jewish answer to this question is "yes," but it's not what you might think.

"In Jewish religious thought Genesis is not regarded as meant for a literal reading, and Jewish tradition has not usually read it so," states the well-known Jewish scholar Steven T. Katz. Keeping this in mind, I repeat that the answer to the original question ("Did the serpent [in Genesis 3] have legs before the curse?") is: "Yes, the serpent did."

But the story is allegorical. As suggested by Jewish exegesis, in the narrative the serpent has both hands and legs (and obviously fingers and feet/toes). It loses these to the curse: "On your belly shall you crawl / And dirt shall you eat / All the days of your life." (Genesis 3:14, NJPS Tanakh) Again the account is not meant to be historical, claiming that snakes once had appendages.

In Judaism the talking snake is also not identified with Satan the Devil or any type of demonic being. Instead it is a type of personification that plays off the innocence of Adam and Eve. Their innocence is exemplified by their being nude (in Hebrew 'arummim,) whereas the serpent is "shrewd" ('arum). The play on words is lost in English, of course.

Unlike Christianity which sees this as a story of a "fall from grace" and thus the origin of the "Original Sin" that gets passed on from Adam and Eve to their progeny, Jews read this as a story illustrating a simple truth: humans ruin things when they give in to ambition. Already created in the "image of God," humans are described as subject to being the architect of their own disasters when they choose to abuse their God-like status.

The "serpent" may be representative of this ambition or desire, thus setting the tone for the Torah which follows. Remember that Genesis is not a standalone work, but merely part of--and the introduction to--the entire Mosaic Law. This is the beginning not of a history book but the foreshadowing framework for the Law of Moses, with the "sin" of Adam and Eve only setting the tone anticipating the need for the Torah (which, by the way, arrives later at Mt. Sinai and generally fills the rest of the Book of the Law, overtaking the narrative).

In conclusion the "serpent" is neither the "snake" of our current zoology nor the Devil in disguise. The narrative describes not the origin of sin, but merely describes the innate human appetite for evil that has Torah as its antidote. That this story is meant specifically to describe the Jewish position only and not a historical origin of humanity lies in the fact that Jews see the Torah as binding only on the nation of Israel, not Gentiles. It could therefore never be literal, historical, or universal.

42

#1 ANSWER THIS: Why would an omnibenevolent and omniscient god put us through tests of faith?

by EdenOne in

i'll be starting a series "answer this:" with thought-provoking questions for debate.

your arguments for and against are most welcome.. i'll start with this: .

why would an omnibenevolent and omniscient god put us through tests of faith?.

David_Jay

An old friend of mine who was really like a brother to me in the Jehovah's Witnesses contacted me a couple of years ago. He let me know he no longer believed that the JWs are the true religion and, as he so eloquently put it "that crap about overlapping generations," and that he was ready to come on out. We talked a handful of times and then it all stopped. After some time of silence from him, I finally heard back. It was a brief note, and the last communication since, but just a brief text: "I can't leave. What if they're right?"

There is a method some teachers use with students. You often see it more with coaches and college professors than anyone else, but they will often put pupils to a test that can often lead to some abandoning the course or leaving the team. While some of those who give up are freely allowed to go, select others will be stopped. "Not you," the instructor will say. They will apply pressure to force such students to undergo their test. Why? Because they know the student's potential and the outcome of the student if they but allow themselves to undergo a test they would have otherwise given up on before attempting. Sometimes you have to test someone with the impossible in order for them to stop believing in the impossible. Sometimes the student must test their own perceptions in order to accept reality.

In Judaism, this is one of the main explanations on why God tests us. Like that friend of mine who is still a JW, he won't believe it if I or you or anyone else tells him that there isn't a chance that the Witnesses are right. He has to experience it for himself. He doesn't need to be reasoned with. He needs to experience for himself that he is being held captive by his own beliefs about the Witnesses. He has to see by example that his beliefs don't work, that the world is not flat. Sometimes God tests some of us to force us to face and overcome what holds us back. God knows the outcome, but we don't.

There are other possibilities too in some instances. Briefly they are:

1. We are wrong about how we define God's benevolence and, like a child who thinks their parents are being unfair or mean, see a test from a wrong perspective.

2. We are applying a limited Christian interpretation of Scripture to God, and are reading "tests" in the Bible where there are none. Was Adam and Eve really being tested with the Tree of Knowledge or is that something you are holding over from Watchtower theology?

3. You are reading into actual Scripture narratives of tests a successful outcome that isn't there. Christians tend to see Abraham's offering of Isaac as passing a test and proving his faithfulness. Jews often see it as Abraham failing to really understand God, having to be literally stopped due to his lack of insight. The suffering caused by the test is often seen by Jews as due to Abraham's failure, where as it is seen as a grace from God and victory by those who read it in the light of Christ's suffering and crucifixion.

4. God may not be as all-knowing as some say God is. Does a genius stop learning? Does a body builder stop exercising once they get that "perfect body" they've been working for? No. There is a view in Judaism that God created humans in order to grow in perfection. God would not choose to be static in the perfections God possesses. Because Jewish interaction with God is often to wrestle with God, debate God's demands, and do the very opposite of the obedience and submission which make up Christian and Islamic membership, Jews often feel God made humans to tell God "no," so God could learn that the universe won't fall apart if others live as freely as does God. Jews debate whether God really knows it all and often challenge God on this (like Abraham and Moses did).

Lastly, "tests" may not really come from God. This could very likely be a very ancient way Scripture described the normal challenges of life. Judaism often sees all things, good and bad, as part of God's creation. Therefore "tests" are merely being attributed to God in Scripture perhaps, just as evil sometimes is. Christians put too much emphasis on trying to read our ancient narratives and primitive mythos as applicable to the evolved and far-advanced God-concept as now understood by Jews. We Jews were primitive once too, you know. Trying to say God is exactly like you read in ancient descriptions of God is pretty unfair. How would you like it if people judged you today based on what they knew of you when you were still a Jehovah's Witness?

13

Reasons to break free from religion

by googleTTATT in

i am compiling my list.

you can add yours if you like to.. 1. the hypocrisy in religion.. 2. religion make good people bad and bad people worse and worse people worst.. 3. the false dates given in religion.. 4. religions use their fundamental books to suit their beliefs.. 5. wrong and distorted views about sexual life.

the list goes on.

David_Jay

WTWizard,

One of the things I despised about Jehovah's Witnesses was their constant imposing of a definition or standard upon something (a standard or definition they often invented) and then using this to prove their claims on how something has failed because it does not live up to that same made-up standard of definition.

It is not an axiom that religion is "supposed...to teach about metaphysics." In fact there is no such universally-accepted statement from academics, scientists, anthropologists, etc. that impose such a requisite adding that if a religion does not meet this standard then it fails for not 'teaching what it is supposed to teach.'

This doesn't mean that religion is therefore harmless and should be immediately taken up by all. But such a requirement is something you are clearly imposing upon religion, something you are inventing.

Religion may be as horrible as you claim, but your failure to reject the Jehovah's Witness practice of forcing a requisite upon religion and saying that it fails when it doesn't meet that standard demonstrates that you are only willing to part with those JW mindsets that no longer fit your current stand against all religion. Such a method of judging something is as dishonest and illogical outside the Watchtower as it is when practiced by those who still worship it.

Where for instance does Judaism program its members "to accept poverty and misery in your life, as a virtue"? Except for where Torah teaches Jews to accept and treat the poor no differently from an other, the objective is always to work to remove the burden of poverty and suffering from oneself and others. There is no virtue in accepting a state of suffering or being poor in Judaism. The main teaching of Tikkun Olam across Judaism is about eradicating poverty and suffering from ourselves and others. The common stereotype that "the Jews have all the money" comes from the fact that unlike Christianity and your uneducated claim, we teach no virtue in being poor and suffering. We are noted for often being quite productive and even more financially stable by comparison with others due to this tenet of Judaism.

Claiming that we generate that which encourages accepting an impoverished and suffering state is itself "stupid." You are posting unfounded claims which cannot be supported, and is this not often considered the very definition of what it means to be and act "stupid"?

I don't condemn your general stand on religion, but I do condemn the ignorant statements you are propagating to support your stand. Such a stand can be made on logic and facts without having to impose made-up and impossible-to-support standards for religions.

50

Pharaoh tries to kill all male babies - later Moses orders the very same thing!

by George One Time in

so many things that i just discoved about the bible.. .

so from the book my book of bible stories, we all know how little moses was saved from a cruel pharaoh.

of course the king of egypt was afraid that those cute little babies would endanger his empire eventually.

David_Jay

Neverendingjourney wrote:

What matters most for purposes of this discussion is how the words were understood at the time they were written.

But first stated:

Why do we have to judge the written words through the prism of how Jewish people interpret them

How can you understand "how the words were understood at the time they were written" if you don't want to "have to judge the written words through the prism of how Jewish people interpret them"? Don't you have to go back to how the original audience interpreted them? Weren't they Jews?

And isn't the reason for modern critical analysis of Jewish texts among the Jews to get to the original understanding of what it meant to the first audience in the first place? That is what I am talking about, not some new interpretation.

Apparently I either write in gibberish or there are a few people who cannot understand what I write or some people are just so ready for a fight against anything that sounds like a support for religion that they can't see straight enough to see what I've written.

Who told you that the very first Jews understood this text as literal? Christians? A crazy cult in NY?

This is my very last reply, forever. I am so done. I don't care what you believe or anyone believes, to be honest. Judaism is not a religion of beliefs anyway. So I don't give a hoot. I never have.

50

Pharaoh tries to kill all male babies - later Moses orders the very same thing!

by George One Time in

so many things that i just discoved about the bible.. .

so from the book my book of bible stories, we all know how little moses was saved from a cruel pharaoh.

of course the king of egypt was afraid that those cute little babies would endanger his empire eventually.

David_Jay

Good grief!

I made reference to employing a critical based text to learn more about Exodus in my first post. "The Jewish Study Bible" employs scholarship that includes academic voices that are Christian, even referencing Islamic theolgy. The scholarship is provided by some who are secular or Jews that you would call atheist by definition.

I would also recommend employing the use of the Catholic "New Jerusalem Bible" with the full footnote apparatus and their NABRE translation released in 2011 by the USCCB and CBA. The annotations in the NRSV study editions are great too. All of these use critical exegetical approaches that are academically sound and interconfessional.

I am all for critical approaches to Scripture. But what is being discussed here is anything but.

Just added my original post for thought. Forget anything I've posted here at all. Shalom.

50

Pharaoh tries to kill all male babies - later Moses orders the very same thing!

by George One Time in

so many things that i just discoved about the bible.. .

so from the book my book of bible stories, we all know how little moses was saved from a cruel pharaoh.

of course the king of egypt was afraid that those cute little babies would endanger his empire eventually.

David_Jay

Jehalapeno,

If you got that I was saying these comments on this thread were anti-Semitic then you didn't read my post well enough.

What I am saying is that people are coming to conclusions about the Exodus account based on what non-Jewish people have taught them--or worse judging it on the interpretation of a crazy-ass cult that tells people the deaths in Exodus are literal.

50

Pharaoh tries to kill all male babies - later Moses orders the very same thing!

by George One Time in

so many things that i just discoved about the bible.. .

so from the book my book of bible stories, we all know how little moses was saved from a cruel pharaoh.

of course the king of egypt was afraid that those cute little babies would endanger his empire eventually.

David_Jay

While a lot of Christians (and Jehovah's Witnesses) often read these texts with approval of the death of the Egyptians (and others of God's "enemies"), Jewish exegesis isn't as forgiving or accepting. Too often these Jewish texts are judged merely by their Christian interpretations, whereas those of the Jews get ignored. The result is often like judging a movie by the words of someone who misunderstood the film instead of watching it on its own terms and perhaps listening to the commentary track of the film's producers to make sure you've got the correct understanding of it before coming to a conclusion.

To begin with, the narrative of the Ten Plagues is not taken as literal history by the Jews. Did you ever notice how often the Egyptians lose their animals to plagues? There is one plague where all the livestock die, but in the plague of hail there is still Egyptian livestock leftover to die in that plague. If all these animals died twice over, where did the firstborn of animals come from to die at Passover? With all the animals dead, where did the Egyptians get their horses to drive their chariots? Didn't they all die at least once? You mean after killing them three times over, those horses still came back to life in order to chase down the Israelites? If you ask me, that's some pretty poor delivering of us Israelites by God. First thing he should have done is made sure those horses stayed dead!

Starting to get the picture? It would take much too long for me to go through all the details (you could simply read "The Jewish Study Bible" which employs the JPS text of the Tanakh for a concise introduction into how these texts are meant to be employed by their authors), but there's a lot of "dying" that goes on in this narrative that doesn't really mean what JWs and Christians tell you it means.

You are judging the monotheistic God concept of Judaism not by its theology but by its legendary description of the Exodus (and it's not even the one we annually repeat on Passover in our Haggadahs either). And to make matters worse, you are using basically the same interpretation of this tale taught to you by a cult (of all things), and making a conclusion about God on that basis.

Mind you, I'm all for atheism. The love of my life was an atheist. Many practicing Jews are atheists. Give me an atheist for a friend over a theist any day!

But you might want to employ just a little more logic here. This isn't a factual story. We didn't get Passover from the Exodus (we were likely celebrating Passover before we were slaves in Egypt). If we don't read what's written in Exodus on Passover night when we reenact our Seders on the most holiest of our days, obviously something's amiss in the conclusions you may be making here on this thread. Ever wonder where our wine use comes from? Why the roasted egg? Why don't we paint our doors with blood on Passover like the Torah demands here? Exodus is far more complex than what some are reducing it to here.

I get it. You don't believe in God. You may be concentrating specifically on what JWs have taught, I get that. But you are also nevertheless dealing with cultural subjects which are currently under attack around the world right now in a new wave of anti-Semitism. A little differentiation may be called for. And I am sure that some here may be applying their opinions not just against JWs teachings but to this cherished part of Jewish culture in general.

Remember, don't judge the Jewish religion, it's monotheistic concept, or its text merely by what a crazy cult from upstate N.Y. taught you. If you're gonna criticize it, at least do it based on our own Jewish exegesis.

74

Was/Is Religion Useful Even if it isn't True?

by cofty in

in his book "the righteous mind" jonathan haidt proposes that religion served - and continues to serve an important role in bringing about cohesion within non-kin groups.. to put it very briefly haidt advocates a form of group selection but only insofar as it applies to humans.

our unique brains have made it possible for us to cooperate in groups in ways that are impossible for all non-human species.

despite their intelligence you will never see two chimps helping each other to carry the same log or one chimp pulling down a branch while the other removes the fruit.. his description is that humans are 90% chimp and 10% bee.

David_Jay

Ruby456,

Don't mistake my words as implying that others do not derive their culture from religion. My words also don't imply that we don't sometimes arrive at the same spots, Christians, atheists, and Jews (though rarely). The manner we travel can differ highly nevertheless.

Our brief conversation here may illustrate how difficult it can be to explain a non-Western concept to someone who has only been exposed to Western ones influenced by Christianity (in this case likely the "black-and-white" compartmentalization of Jehovah's Witnesses). A secular Western society built upon and/or having emerged from Christian culture can differ from that of a culture built upon another religion. If that other religion is not based on adherence to a creed or beliefs, how is "secularization" defined? How would you do it?

In Christian based-cultures secularization gets defined by a lack of belief or faith. Those who "go through the motions" but do not "believe" are not considered good or authentic Christians. When one does not mentally assent to the creed, one becomes "faithless," and technically that usually spells a loss of religion.

In Jewry one's belief has no salvific value nor ensures or denies membership. Jews can have all sorts of beliefs and can even reject certain standards of Judaism (Reform Jews, for instance, don't accept the concept of a coming personal Messiah). Humanistic, Reconstructionist and Jews that claim atheism have no "belief" in God but can still clearly practice the religion: lighting candles and reciting prayers on Shabbat, holding a Seder on Passover, etc. Zionism is totally "secular," so to speak, but it is founded on concepts from the Jewish religion.

See what I mean? What is "secular" has to be defined by something totally different when belief, creeds, and faith do not play a part.

To conclude, there is the example of one of my best friends, Wally. Wallace is an atheist, born into an atheist family. He never practiced any religion (except for perhaps "worshipping" Richard Dawkins for a short time...until he saw "militant atheism" backfire in his home state of Louisiana and then Dawkins started saying things like God "probably" doesn't exist--Wally, really lost a hero there for a while). Today Wally practices Buddhism, and we get along fine. Oddly, however, Wally didn't immediately recognize that his "anti-religious" stand was being violated by himself. Buddhism, as you know, is a religion but it doesn't actually involve the worship of deities (though some debate this). After a bit of self (soul?) -searching, Wally came through this, still practicing Buddhism where it adds meaning to his life.

But I found it odd, in the end, how he was terrified about "coming out" to his family as gay. There has been no religion in his family for a few generations. All of them are atheists. Still, he had misgivings, had something inside him that made him feel it was wrong to not be heterosexual, and we had many talks about this for almost 6 years before he was able to come out to his family. (They weren't surprised and were totally accepting.) Today he has a great husband and is raising a family (with a mixture of Buddhism tossed in). Wally is a great example of the questions of what makes a religion, a religious person, what defines "beliefs," where secular does and/or doesn't mean, and an example of crossing or blurring lines.

So what I've been saying is that there are perhaps more questions than definitive answers.

74

Was/Is Religion Useful Even if it isn't True?

by cofty in

in his book "the righteous mind" jonathan haidt proposes that religion served - and continues to serve an important role in bringing about cohesion within non-kin groups.. to put it very briefly haidt advocates a form of group selection but only insofar as it applies to humans.

our unique brains have made it possible for us to cooperate in groups in ways that are impossible for all non-human species.

despite their intelligence you will never see two chimps helping each other to carry the same log or one chimp pulling down a branch while the other removes the fruit.. his description is that humans are 90% chimp and 10% bee.

David_Jay

Ruby456,

No. Definitely not. I had no intention to say or imply that Judaism is "leading the way." Also, as included in that article from Cambridge I cited, it should be clear that I was also not saying that religion was the default setting for all culture.

No, instead what I am talking about is that religion is often defined from a Western point of view, seen through a lens a bit tinted by Christianity. This is a bit close-minded but undertandable. Because we've been Jehovah's Witnesses (most of us have) and most of us nothing else (maybe a similar type of Bible Christian), we have been taught to see religion as a creed or set of beliefs one assents to. This leads to people debating with atheists and atheists with them over beliefs: one says they believe this, the other says they do not believe it. The two agree, however, that religion and God involve the requisite of "belief."

But there are religions where belief plays little to no part. Buddhism and Judaism, for instance, are practiced, not believed in. Judaism doesn't require any of its adherents to believe in a creed or assent to any doctrine or even hold any particular concept of God, if any at all. Being Jewish is who you are and what you do. God to us will always defy conceptualization, and unlike Christianity we do not foresee a day in which "all will be revealed" and we will know God fully and see God face-to-face. Belief takes a back seat when your God has no face to reveal.

What I was saying is that this very ingredient of religious people like that of the Jews, a religion that is performed not mentally assented to like Christianity, created a culture and a people based on their performance of that same religion. In turn it has allowed for God to evolve from that static concept confined to the pages of Scripture (at least in Judaism). You can believe in Judaism all you want, but it will never make you a Jew. Judaism is an active response to their God concept, even when the Jew who performs it is atheist. (And most of the debates here revolve around very ancient concepts of God which haven't been held in Judaism for millennia.)

Like the OP stated, religion here has had a use. It created and preserved a people. But is this a use that can be discarded? Can you take away this type of religion and still have Jews who are defined by it? True, it may have introduced a concept (monotheism) that caught on, but its evolving view of God doesn't seem to be appreciated. My final questions in my post were therefore rhetorical. I don't see people willing to more past the "religion=belief" paradigm or the one where God is not limited to what can be read in ancient texts, not among Westerners anyway.

74

Was/Is Religion Useful Even if it isn't True?

by cofty in

in his book "the righteous mind" jonathan haidt proposes that religion served - and continues to serve an important role in bringing about cohesion within non-kin groups.. to put it very briefly haidt advocates a form of group selection but only insofar as it applies to humans.

our unique brains have made it possible for us to cooperate in groups in ways that are impossible for all non-human species.

despite their intelligence you will never see two chimps helping each other to carry the same log or one chimp pulling down a branch while the other removes the fruit.. his description is that humans are 90% chimp and 10% bee.

David_Jay

What is considered “religion” today was not necessarily the same thing in the past in all cultures. Ancient gods and their cults with their mythology served ancient nations much as flags, a coat of arms, and the political folklore serve modern societies today (consider American legends such John Henry, Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, and even fictionalized narratives and events in the lives of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Paul Revere).

Not all gods and their cults were as cohesive to ancient life and culture as others. The worship of YHVH by the Hebrews was at first extremely divisive. Monotheism, and the worship of an invisible deity that had no image was not an immediate crowd pleaser for the Israelites. Even the Scriptures tell of how often the Hebrews employed household gods and embraced idol worship as their neighboring peoples did, even for generations after the Exodus.

It was not until the Davidic dynasty that archeology begins to find support for the mythos of the Nevi'im and the united worship of YHVH. King David appears to have made it his state religion at the expense of all the other Hebrew gods, and a conquest intended to bring the tribes of Israel under the one dynasty and worship of the one God failed when the nation divided into two: Judah and Israel.

A peculiarity is also noticed in that the monotheism of YHVH under Judah was quite different than the formula used for heathen and later pagan deities and their cults. The gods of the Gentiles were made in the image of humans: they were anthropomorphic and were cursed with the same jealousies, vanities, and other failings mortals had to deal with, often mirroring them to their own detriment and the universes they ruled over.

The monotheistic God of Abraham was the opposite. First and foremost this God resembled nothing human, nor was YHVH imagined to have the failings that humans did. There was a vast separation constantly portrayed in the cult between humanity and God, with even the only physical representations of God (the Shekinah and the Ark of the Covenant) hidden from view. No image of this God was possible because unlike pagan deities YHVH was not anthropomorphic. Even in the mythology of God, YHVH is a self-designation that is nothing more than circular reasoning: “I am defined by what I am.” While Xenophanes of Colophon came close to grasping the concept of a single and transcendent deity that was “not at all like mortals in body or mind,” for the most part YHVH didn’t catch on with Gentiles. YHVH hardly caught on with the Jews until after the Babylonian exile.

But it should not be a foregone conclusion that religion was almost universally subscribed to in the ancient world. A University of Cambridge study on ancient history demonstrates that atheism thrived in the ancient world of gods and temples and cult priests and priestesses. Religion may never have been the “default setting” for humanity much as the worship of YHVH was not as useful a tool for national unity as some might suggest.

One must also not excuse the earliest views of YHVH in the Torah and Nevi'im as devoid of all humanistic traits and faults. Often the God of Abraham comes across not too different from the gods of the nations. The sacrificial practices of the Hebrews (which they inherited from their Gentile neighbors) are often attributed to God as is their lack of egalitarian views when it comes to dealing with other races, cultures, and even among the sexes, all of which gets attributed to God as if such behavior is based on instruction is from heaven. The description of battles and their subsequent plundering (which in more often than not is over politicized in favor of the Hebrews, if not outright fictionalized in the name of poetic licence for Biblical narrative purposes) makes YHVH appear outright bloodthirsty and uncaring.

The description of the God of Abraham changes almost overnight with the approach of the exile to Babylon however. The prophets describe a God that doesn’t require the sacrificing of animals or demands the spilling of any type of blood. YHVH of the prophets decries violence, claims that the religious priesthood is corrupt, and teaches that Torah is supposed to come from the heart and not from writings on stone. Even the psalms written in this era have God refusing the slaughter of beasts upon altars, like the prophets demanding personal repentance and faithful justice as offerings instead. Festivals are bemoaned, the Temple is condemned, and even the previous religious view the Hebrews had of God is challenged.

It is in Babylon that the cult of YHVH becomes a religion and becomes the useful tool that preserves the identity of the Jews. Judaism is born, one that teaches the children of Abraham that they neither need to literally possess a land or have a temple or offer sacrifices in order to serve God. A religion of egalitarianism begins to start (albeit painfully slow), and even with the fall of the Second Temple it does its job of preservation.

But is it still necessary? Today the concepts of monotheism in Judaism have evolved far beyond the static representations found in Scripture, so much so that Christianity and Islam which sprung from their cult has not (and may never) catch up. With the introduction and now rapid growth of post-denominational, post-rabbinical Judaism a new jump in monotheistic evolution is happening, and as the gulf widens between Jewish concepts of the God-concept and the still picture of the unchanging God adopted by Muslims and Christians, the line between religion and cultural identity of the Jews blurs. How much is worship of what was once called a deity thousands of years ago and how much makes up the earmarks of a people called the Jews? Is it all religion? Is it all culture? Is it a mixture, indivisible and now something different? And is this something different serving a new purpose yet to be understood until that purpose is served?

And what will happen if the other monotheistic faiths catch up with this evolution of God?

David_Jay

Posts by David_Jay