Date: Fri Sep 19 09:15:18 1997
To: Frank Grose
From: Rob Weinberg
Subject: Re: Bible Study
At 11:23 PM 9/18/97 0500, you wrote:
As such, do you keep the Sabbath, dietary laws, observe Passover, can you read Hebrew, etc., or are you Jewish in nationality with no active religion?
More the latter, a lot of the latter actually, despite very little of the former. I don't keep the Sabbath or observe kashruth (the dietary laws). (I've got a pork roast recipe that's "to die for.") I can follow more than read Hebrew, but I do read, although I can't translate or anything. My wife and I recently got tutored in beginning Hebrew by an acquaintance. For having had no exposure to it, (she's not Jewish), she did very well. For me, it was a matter of remembering my Hebrew from 25 yrs. ago.
There was a rabbi here who was leading a Talmud study group, and both of us were very interested in that. But it didn't last too long, the rabbi left town. I'm hoping the new rabbi will start one, although I'm not a member of the synagogue.
As to holidays, there was a joke when I was growing up in Huntsville that you knew when the High Holy days were because the Weinberg's came to temple. We did celebrate Passover recently at the invitation of a wonderful elderly couple my wife met while going back to college.
The Bible is the foundation on which our laws were based. There is some exciting stuff in there.
I wouldn't say it's THE foundation, but certainly it's a major foundation of law in western civilization.
Consider this. If there is a God who created us, then surely he could get a message to us. But how does He authenticate his message? He does it by telling history in advance. We call it prophecy.
Accepting, arguendo ; ) that there is a God, I would not rely on the Bible as God's message. If we're looking for proof, it's all around us in the wonders of world. The problem with reliance on the Bible is that it's been translated and interpreted by people with agendas. It's been translated and re-translated, filtered through so many generations of people that it is, at least as reported to me by others, not inherently reliable as "the word of God."
Clearly (always be wary of lawyers who use the word "clearly"), the Bible is an authoritative source of great moral and spiritual truths. And certainly, to follow its teachings, including the New Testament (pardon), is one way to become closer to God. But to insist that it was written BY God is, to me, not really necessary to accepting those truths.
Consider what you said in an earlier message: "God told Abraham that through his seed, all the earth would be blessed. Your sharing information with me is a fulfillment of that promise." Accepting the first sentence as true, then why couldn't the Bible be written by men, sharing information, spreading the seed, etc.? If that's true, then we may accept that the Bible was written by men who were told of others' experiences with God. It doesn't invalidate the "truths" in the Bible, nor make them inherently suspect either, it just puts it in perspective that the Bible is a compilation of related experiences of men in their own search for God.
In this way, the writings of the apostles are more readily accepted because their premise is that they were written by identifiable people who were relating their experience with Jesus.
For example, study Genesis Chapter 5. It is the genealogy from Adam to Noah. Look up the meaning of the Hebrew names. When read as a sentence, you'll find a hidden message.
Shakespeare and other poets used to play games with words and numbers too, and therefore I'm not sure that's proof that the Bible was written BY God.
You made reference in an earlier message about "separation of church and state." Do you know where that phrase came from and what it meant?
The phrase or the concept of the "wall of separation" between church and state was actually coined by Thomas Jefferson. I'll have to dig it up.
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