By Ted Belman
From now on comments on every post must relate to the content of the post.
Comments that don’t relate to the post must go here.
Any person who contravenes this demand will be put on moderation. Also their offending comment will be trashed.
The reason for this demand is so that people who want to read comments which pertain to the post, don’t have to wade through the chatter.
Everyone will be happier.
@ dove:
I NEVER give somebody a name gratuitously
— and a smear artist like BR richly deserves every name he’s given.
@ bernard ross:
You quoted ME, but likewise gave no answer. I’m still awaiting it.
That’s just your back-handed way of admitting that you’re willing to accept the support of an obvious paranoiac even if it means being her enabler. As usual, you’re like two drunks holding each other up as they stagger home at closing time.
LMSS. It is a fact that you’ve never shown a syllable of mine to CONSTITUTE ‘psychobabble’ (while displaying plenty of your own TRUE & FLAGRANT psychobabble at every opportunity).
Moreover, it is also a fact that YOU constantly demonstrate that I’ve been right on target where YOU are concerned. Your vile, slimy maliciousness is thick enough to cut with a knife and spread with a trowel. As for Madam Ding-a-Ling, there’s nary a single post of hers that doesn’t put her paranoia on full display for all-&-sundry to see.
What ever gave you the idea that I’ve EVER had any use for your notion of ‘credibility’??? You flatter yourself beyond belief!
What ‘church’ would that be?
You can ‘notice’ all you like, but I was serious as a coronary in what I said. There are some personalities which are more at risk for ailments of one sort than another. And you’re at risk for progressive cognitive dementia — Alzheimer’s. (But then, what would I know. . . .)
It’s plagiarism only if you omit acknowledgment that you’re quoting somebody. I never do that. The fact is that most of you do make an unconscious — and quite flagrant — practice of projecting, particularly where I’m concerned. I could tell you WHY that is, but you’re not in a listening mood in re such matters.
A guy who has used the term “swindle” literally hundreds of times on this site has very likely been the OBJECT of a swindle (perhaps several such).
@ dove:
No way Jesus had a wife.
From an earlier exchange:
@ bernard ross:
It remains a fact, all the same, that the narrative IS accepted. I repeat:
Unlike yourself, I’ve not gone so far overboard in my prejudices than I cannot see clearly enough to read the polls, which consistently CONFIRM what I said above. One example among many:
“NEWSWEEK Poll found that 84 percent of American adults consider themselves Christians, and 82 percent see Jesus as God or the son of God. Seventy-nine percent say they believe in the virgin birth, and 67 percent think the Christmas story – from the angels’ appearance to the Star of Bethlehem – is historically accurate.”
No, I gave the reason why they are not permitted to TEACH it. I neither said nor suggested they do not accept it; that was your interpolation on behalf of your wishful thinking. You love putting words in my mouth, because you are not an honest man.
Coming right up:
In every state where the general populace is permitted a direct say in the matter via referenda, ballot initiatives, plebiscite, etc., the People overwhelmingly REJECT same-sex ‘marriage’ — by both state law and state constitutional amendment; as of 2013 there were 32 states that had done so.
However, liberal judges have made a practice of overturning these initiatives. (In Calif, the courts overturned TWO such initiatives.) The ‘law,’ thus, most emphatically does NOT represent what is ‘acceptable’ fact. The People do not accept criminal prosecution of homosexuality but they will not confer honor upon the mock-marriage of two persons of the same gender, notwithstanding WHAT the ‘law’ says.
Nice try, but no cigar. Unlike you, I read the polls. They are explicit, and they consistently agree with me, not you.
Wishful thinking, and nothing but. Enjoy your fantasies; they’re all you’ve got.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUnE4Xs5Bc0&feature=player_detailpage
Don’t stop there with your story telling D. What is the untold story from age 12 to 30? There were some writings discovered that he wrote referring to his wife. Some christian historians say that his first wife was a scribe…. and the stories just keep on popping up.
@ bernard ross:
What ‘evidence’ specifically? Of the videos I’ve seen, the ‘overwhelming evidence’ is overwhelmingly CIRCUMSTANTIAL. No smoking gun; no case.
Don’t need to. MY position enjoys the presumption of veracity. You & Huffy have to disprove it — and that means, effectively, proving a negative. If you could produce OTHER contemporaneous accounts which directly contradicted the Gospel account, you might have something to take seriously. As it is, however, all your strivings amount to speculation.
And you keep rehashing the same sneering, jeering drivel YOU began with, while still refusing to do your homework by reading the original texts.
@ bernard ross:
There is every reason to, if you are making the claim that they called themselves by that name. It’s clear that they didn’t, but you won’t cop to it because your whole mountain of malevolent, anti-Xtn venom RESTS on it.
Not material to the point — which was NOT, here, what constitutes a “christian,” but rather, what the disciples, at the time, called themselves. They plainly did not call themselves by that name, and you are off-point.
Did not say it ‘quoted’ the neighbors; only that “Christian” was the handle that the neighbors used to REFER to them as distinct from the rest of the city.
The absence of the word “neighbors” is an irrelevant dodge on your part. That it was the neighbors who called them “Christians” is the only reasonable inference from 11:26. The account clearly is NOT alluding to any ‘self’-designation on the part of the apostles or it would’ve used a reflexive verb. Instead it merely says they “were called” by that name; strictly passive voice. No way it was they themselves who used the term, and THAT’S the point here.
All there were were the disciples & the neighbors. There’s no 3rd possibility. And if they really were calling themselves by that name, there would’ve been further usages of it not only in Acts but elsewhere as well in NT. There are none.
@ bernard ross:
🙂
@ dweller:
Your babbling again. You keep repeating yourself. Have you convinced yourself yet of your repetitive babbling?
dove Said:
Not to worry, its like water off a ducks back; he is my entertainment when I am bored, like a cat plays with a ball of string or a mouse, I enjoy sticking pins in his hot air balloon.
dweller Said:
what you call yourself is very unreliable as fact because you also call yourself a jew while believing that a jewish messiah was already pooped out of a virgin who was “unionized” by a god, you also say you are not a christian but fit the dictionary definition of a christian as being one who follows jesus, you also say you never lie and never psychobabble. therefore, the last thing we can rely on is your word.
dweller Said:
spot the error!
bernard ross Said:
dweller Said:
Indeed it does appear to be heading that way. I used to think it was just your psychobabble, chronic lying and obsessive compulsions but now I see that you cannot even discern what is a generally accepted FACT from a generally accepted mythology.
this is indeed an absurd statement:
dweller Said:
It appears that you have gone so overboard in adoration for your progeny of a god and a woman that you cannot even see clearly.
bernard ross Said:
dweller Said:
LOL, you merely gave an excuse as to WHY they do not accept your myth of a god mating with a woman and pooping out a messiah, but as usual you never demonstrated that another of your ludicrous assertions was a fact. In a democratic country we must assume, unless you can demonstrate evidence to the contrary that the law generally represents what is an “acceptable” fact. Not only your god unions with women but they dont even recognize the existence of your nitzri as a fact in the history classes at school. LOL, “generally accepted fact”
dweller Said:
On the contrary , you keep making assumptions, they may identify as christians because they may “accept” the principles enunciated by the mythical character but even while doing so they do not accept the mythical character as a fact of history and probably because they do not accept the ludicrous narrative which you tout here of a god in a woman pooping out a messiah.
Like you they like a chinese menu where they pick what they like and leave the rest. Furthermore the majority of the nation may identify christian but many may actually be secular. It doesnt matter what they call themselves or what they identify as but rather how they behave: they do not behave as if they believe your god mating woman story is a FACT because if they did they would have it taught in their schools history class along with your mythology as a fact of history. As it is it is left to the sunday school mythology class that most of them do not take seriously.
I believe that soon we might be able to say that you are never right about anything and be accurate in our assertion.
Bernard Ross Said:
you quoted me but still gave no answer.
dweller Said:
the only thing right on the money is that YOU are the ding a ling. It is a fact that YOU have NEVER shown once that your psychobabble is right just like you never showed it with Dove. You stated something but as usual never gave any evidence or support, you merely expressed the opinion of an obsessive compulsive liar who believes that gods mate with women and poop out messiahs….. not much credibility for your opinions there, just like your church.
Bernard Ross Said:
I notice these days that more and more you cannot think of anything to say but feel you must say something in return even if it sounds ridiculous. You merely hurl back at me, and others, what they said to you…… now thats plagiarism. 😛
dweller Said:
you “suspect” lots of things that make no sense like this:
a god went into a woman and the progeny was a jewish messiah
😛 😛 😛 😛
SO MUCH FOR WHAT YOU “SUSPECT”!
@ dove:
That’s yourself you’re speaking of, not me.
I treat everybody the same way; that’s not ‘judging’ OR ‘condemning.’ That’s just being fair. NOBODY gets a pass from me merely by virtue of their identifying as a ‘Jew’ (or as anything else). Judgment & condemnation are YOUR trip.
You’ve never known anybody who is just like me.
BS. It’s plenty of my business if you use the lame excuse that you have a ‘duty’ to come down anybody who’s ‘disrespectful of Torah’ to attack me personally — when there are lots of readers here who aren’t even observant, or even believers at all.
If you shoot at me, I WILL shoot back; got that?
I call a spade a spade; that’s simple discernment. There’s no emotionalism in it; therefore no judgment either (for emotionalism is what lies at the core of judgment).
There is no more judgmental an individual on this site than yourself; you derive a perverse kind of pleasure from judgment. I daresay, Madam Ding-a-Ling, you’ve got a whole lot MORE in common with those who raised you than you can remotely imagine.
@ bernard ross:
It does matter that you change mine.
Anything I said would be ‘absurd’ to you. (And what else is new?)
Only because the law does not permit them to. The left acquired a stranglehold on the teaching curricula decades ago, and by classifying the gospel accounts as “religion,” effectively removed them from any history syllabi. Does not mean the people do not accept the nativity narrative & others. They DO.
So — to bring the matter back on-point — since that view is the accepted one, it enjoys the presumption of veracity, and any challenge to it bears the burden of proof; not vice versa.
It is you who are wrong. If they didn’t endorse the gospel narratives, they would NOT identify as “Christians.”
@ bernard ross:
Do you want an answer, or don’t you?
You keep trying to re-write my words. What I said was:
“You’ve NEVER been able to show a single instance of my being wrong about someone’s emotional and psychological makeup (including your own, BR).”
What’s more, I was right on the money wrt the ding-a-ling I said was terrified that Jews won’t like her. If you honestly can’t see it, you’re stupider even than I thought you were (and that’s sayin’ somethin’), because she’s way more obvious about it than the rest of you.
PresentCompany is far more likely to contract Alzheimers than any other regular blogger on this site.
If I truly HAD any tricks, you wouldn’t have the hope of a snowflake in Hades. It may be that “nobody puts one over on Fred C. Dobbs,” but I suspect that LOTSA folks have on the likes of you.
@ dweller:
There you go again…..being self absorbed. Back off from judging and condemning Jews. I hate to tell what happened to another guy I know who is just like you.
So???? What’s it to YOU? It’s none of your business. Go back to your christian bible. ‘Judge not – lest ye be judged. Condemn not – lest ye be condemned.’ Before you try to take the speck out of anyones eye, take the plank out of your own eye first.’
@ dove:
Your cheap, pandering appeal to Jews and to women just shows that you cannot stand on your own two feet.
As I said, “It’s easy enough to see, Dove, that you’re not REALLY against name calling. You’re just against being on the receiving end of it — and against having those persons you rely on for validation being on the receiving end of it. You’re a sanctimonious hypocrite.”
From you? nothing more than rot — and you never fail to deliver on it. So you can expect me to keep calling you on it.
@ yamit82:
Calling a spade a spade.
Even YOU know I’m right about her.
If you were an honest man, you’d COP to it. But you won’t, because you know you can use her support, sick & twisted though it rather obviously is — so you give her the validation she so desperately wants. She is unmistakably sick.
But you are knowingly wicked.
Have never been under any shrink’s care. Nor have I ever said anything to that effect.
If you could’ve found such a statement from me in the archives, you’d’ve whipped it out in a heartbeat. The fact that you didn’t do so — the fact that you didn’t LEAD with such a statement — speaks volumes for the liar you are.
@ dove:
Back off from defending myself? Dream on.
Right after the attacks stop, the defenses will stop.
Not unless; not until.
He told you that, did he?
“Forgive God”?
Gee, THAT’s big of them.
HE says everything He created was good
— not merely “good,” but “very good” — i.e, TRULY good. Gen 1:31.
He does that constantly.
But He created nothing ‘evil.’ He creates things ; not behavior.
He would not judge what was what it was created to be from the beginning. Nothing was created w/ the INTENTION that it be ‘evil.’ (That very proposition is a slander on His Name.) Evil came later.
YOU have no business judging GOD.
I don’t ‘pound’ anybody with anything. If you’re feeling ‘pounded,’ you’re on the run from a guilty
conscience.
I’m the one poster here who has never had ANY interest in making NYBODY ‘submit.’ It’s Capt Huff’n’puff who plays the role of the Thought Police around here; lay your declaration on him, not me.
That line was strictly intended to shore up your insecure Jewish credentials at my expense.
Cram it.
YOU have NO BUSINESS judging the Jewish people. If you think you can pound us with your NT crap and think that we will submit then you don’t understand NEVER AGAIN.
@ dweller:
lol…the only peeps who might characterize me the way you do is anti-semites or just plain old woman haters.
Yes, I did call you a Dork. Are you trying to imply that you actually have feelings and that offended you?
What do you expect? Especially back in the day with your version of Adam and Eve. Dork is about the nicest name I could call you. I called the former now dead pope a dork too. if the truth fits…….WEAR IT!
@ yamit82:
Good video. I like that it is recent. I had to take a pause for the cause and watch Canadas Foreign Affairs Minister get egged by Palestinians.
dweller Said:
More playing mystic shrink fegele?
The only one blogging and commenting on this site that we know for certain (unless he is lying) that has been and may still be under a shrinks care is you. You have so admitted as much and it’s as you say “in the archives of this blog”. AH!!! 😛
@ yamit82:
I am listening to it now..from 114 on. I have seen this Rabbi before. He is right….some Jews study the NT. It is not a requirement for a Jew do to so but we rely on those that do to give us proper interpretation because gentiles cannot properly interpret the NT. They are incapable of coming at anything from a Jewish perspective because they are not Jewish!
@ dove:
I haven’t attacked a single Jewish soul YET. . . . The kind of souls I have ‘attacked’ (counter-attacked, actually) may like to PRIDE themselves on being ‘Jewish,’ yet they bear a strikingly close resemblance to a number of goyish souls I’ve ALSO had occasion to lay into — and for pretty much the same reason. . . .
Modern Xty isn’t bent on “destroying the Jews.” But if you don’t want religious discussions, then you should take up your complaint not with me, the defender — but w/ those on this site who have clearly BEEN on the religious attack. If you retain enough rationality to count the numbers of posts, you should have no problem identifying just who those individuals are.
The fact is, however, that you are a true paranoiac. I’m not being facetious, or rhetorical here. I’m serious as a coronary. You are — quite literally — paranoid, and if I were a betting man, I put my chips on the likelihood that you’ve been TOLD this before, by professional types.
You don’t, eh? — How ’bout names like “asshole”? or “Barbie”? or “queer”? — you ok with THEM? Because HE routinely calls ME by those names (and others I’ll not repeat, but which remain in the archives for retrieval any time you care to look).
And how ’bout “the dork”? — recognize that one? You should, since YOU used that one on me.
It’s easy enough to see, Dove, that you’re not REALLY against name calling. You’re just against being on the receiving end of it — and against having those persons you rely on for validation being on the receiving end of it. You’re a sanctimonious hypocrite.
“Care about Jews”? — a curious expression, to say the least. WHICH ‘Jews’ did you have in mind?
— vicious Jews? hateful Jews? malicious Jews?
I was raised in the Jewish community. Was active constantly in Jewish organizations both secular and religious. Received the Ner Tamid award as a Boy Scout in the troop sponsored by my parents’ synagogue. I was the cantor’s protégé in that shul till I went off to the university, where my interest in and commitment to the Jewish community continued unabated. I know, and have known, one helluva LOT of Jews.
Some of them made aliyah and live in Israel now, w/ their families & their children’s families. Some have since passed on. Many remain good friends of mine and of my OWN family, part of which has lived in Israel for several decades.
None of those Jews, however — NONE — ever acted toward me, or toward anybody else (Jew OR gentile), in a manner comparable to that of the ‘Jews’ whom I have to deal with most regularly on this page of the blogsite. By the Jewish standards under which YoursTruly was raised, the latter constitute a disgrace to the Jewish people and to the God who called the Jewish people into being for His purpose and for His good pleasure.
So, under the circumstances, you’ll pardon me if I chuckle — while stifling a yawn — upon hearing that I ‘don’t care about Jews.’
dove Said:
They have then abandoned the battlefield and are rendered defenseless.
Here is on rabbi who confronts them face to face head on and never loses a confrontation.
If it’s too long for you to watch then watch from 1:14 to the end. Worth while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok9Esd9QX9E
dweller Said:
Psychobabble cretin at it again. What do you do keep a persoanl diary about the personal information some have made in their comments to psychoanalyze them and their motives?????
How is your non existent wife?
How much is your welfare check each month?
Are you still dropping acid/
How often were you raped in prison?
Spent 2-5 on drug possession charges?
Tried actinjg and was a failure.
Tried selling wine and never made money?
Your family cut you off?
You had a love thing for your mother?
@ yamit82:
I love this Rabbi! You have posted him here before. I actually told my Rabbi about him and what he said about miracles…..lol. My Rabbi thought what a good and funny response.
The angle alot of Rabbis around here use is to try and convince pastors to leave us in G-ds hands and wait until the Messiah comes. The problem is that I don’t think the pastors are buying that angle. They really believe they are suppose to redirect us and correct us.
@ dweller:
I actually already went face to face with many a christian and catholic. Did my duty.
Now it’s time for my reward. To spend my time and money where it counts.
BACK OFF. Ted is not an athiest – nor is he observant. I understand why. We are a PEOPLE first – with Torah etched in our soul whether we know it or not.
Once the holocaust has been appropriately dealt with you will see more Jews forgive G-d.
For G-d created evil – G-d must judge evil.
YOU have NO BUSINESS judging the Jewish people. If you think you can pound us with your NT crap and think that we will submit then you don’t understand NEVER AGAIN.
@ yamit82:
Sheer delight to give you tsuris, Mofo (since you asked). . . .
LATELY that’s been the case, since I have to spend so much time defending myself against constant & deliberate assaults from yourself & your clique of fellow-sickos BECAUSE of my beliefs.
So, if I don’t ‘contribute’ much in other threads of late, you can thank your OWN sorry ass for that.
This is a flat-out lie — and you know it to be a lie, because it was you SPECIFICALLY who spent months, when I first came on-board, trying to drag out of me what I believed about all sorts of things.
The attacks began after that, and have never ceased. In the past year they have increased in both intensity and duration. When they end, I can return to spending more time on other threads. It’s just that simple.
@ dove:
Horse pucky. Lots of readers (and bloggers here) aren’t even observant. Some are outright atheists (Ted, for one). Yet they aren’t attacked. Judaism isn’t like RCC, with a set core of beliefs one ‘must’ subscribe to. Those who try to forcibly corral other Jews into such are not to be trusted.
Frankly, I think it is YOU who are disrespectful to Torah. But I don’t assault you for that. I merely shoot back at your attacks on me for speaking my mind.
I call a spade a spade, and a personal attack is PRECISELY what your conduct consists of; no if’s, and’s, or but’s.
There’s NOTHING ‘cold-hearted’ about NT. You simply associate NT w/ the imbeciles who raised you. Unfortunately, however, by resenting their book (as a substitute resentment for THEM), you never considered NT on its own terms, APART from your household connections (consequently you got nothing about it right).
So, in turn, you now take it out on me, for having the stones to tell you how the cow ate the cabbage.
Nor do I ‘shove’ my beliefs on you (or on anybody else). If you don’t like what I write, don’t read it.
The TRUTH is that your attacks reflect nothing more (or less) than your sick & pitifully needy attempts to shore up your Jewish bona fides at the expense of any apparent ‘non-conformist.’
“Everybody’s gotta have somebody to look down on
Prove they can be better than at any time they please
Someone doin’ somethin’ dirty, decent folks can frown on
But if you can’t find nobody else, then help yourself to me…”
I’ve never posted on such sites, but I seriously doubt they would treat you discourteously.
— though I do think that you need to believe that they would.
I don’t think ‘respect’ has a damned thing to do with it. Sounds more like you’re simply putting a pretty face on your cowardice. You just don’t have the gumption to go toe-to-toe with them, and you know it.
@ dove:
@ bernard ross:
ANSWERS TO A PASTOR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZW-NKGXFGg
@ bernard ross:
P.S. What D does is attack the Jewish soul – any way he can and he still doesn’t get it that we don’t want to have religious discussions on religion that is hell bent on destroying the Jews.
I don’t like the names he calls you either. He obviously doesn’t care about Jews. Some xtians at least have the decency to tread lightly – he does not. He keeps going for the jugular and it boomerangs right back at him – and so it should!!
dweller Said:
Stupid fool!!!
Skip the Jello for desert and have some hemlock!!!! Try it you will love it and what comes after, an eternity with yeshu
or satan it’s the same thing after all.
dweller Said:
Why don’t you tell us what your real purpose is. You contribute almost zilch in any thread if it doesn’t have to do with your pagan idol yeshu and apologist attempts to defend your beliefs which nobody asked you to divulge or elucidate upon.
@ bernard ross:
@ bernard ross:
I didn’t personally say that. That was a piece from Judith Shulevitz. I may not agree with everything she says but what I was more trying to outline is the common Jewish dislike for Paul – the Founder of Christianity.
Perhaps that is something between the gentiles and G-d? It’s not our concern. What is our concern is the persecution of the Jews under the guise of catholic/christian that still goes on til this day! Torah has not been replaced by NT.
I’ve heard that before that Jesus was ‘sent’ to redeem the gentile. The Jews have already been redeemed by our covenant with G-d. We had already been forgiven for golden calf stuff – a huge deal for G-d.
Even if that is the case for the gentiles – they still never learned. Their religion is full of ‘golden calf’ images and statues. G-ds problem. We just need to defend ourselves and reject any notion of being pulled in the direction of ‘golden calves’. We know better.
dove Said:
It was my understanding that in Judaism those gentiles who observed the Noahide Laws had a place in the afterlife and therefore there would have been no need for sending Jesus for the purpose of providing the same that already existed.
Mike Devolin probably knows a bit about this
@ dweller:
You are on a Jewish website. It is our duty
dweller Said:
there is everything sinister about the behavior of the christians to the jews for 2000 years, including this very minute with the BDS churches.
dweller Said:
yeh, blah blah blah… your BS speculations like your “neighbors” in your fable.
dweller Said:
LOL, he already “brought it” umpteen times, you are late to the table and slow to the draw. His videos were excellent and debunked all your ludicrous fables over and over again from different sources. I got it, it was all simple with none of the pretend complications, red herrings and mountains of baloney that you post over and over, reposting the whole thread that came before like an OCD with Alzheimers. There were so many more things added in the videos beyond the few arguments we were discussing here. You kept trying to spin out the few simple arguments into enormously long winded rants but the few points were very simple.
-Your NT had no evidence or support except from christian sources which lack credibility
-None of your NT fables were shown to have any more factual basis than goldilocks 3 talking bears including your nitzri, his disciples, your god mating woman who pooped a jewish messiah, etc. even if Jews wrote them, though they were unproven to be Jewish authors.
-Christians are followers of Jesus notwithstanding your baloney according to 3 dictionaries posted and you are a christian who spouts NT like a parson at his pulpit
-christianity hijacked the Jewish bible and used it to build their own religion and then proceeded to libel swindle, torture and slaughter jews for almost 2000 years and ongoing.
-you have no problem accepting the facts of the NT in spite of receiving through christian hands.
-you beleive in the union of your god with a woman who had a virgin birth of a jewish messiah
-you beleive that your god, your messiah are the same as the Hebrew G_D and the Jewish messiah.
watch the videos if you are at all interested in the open mind you speak of as they are mostly by christians and atheists and make lots of sense in terms of plain logic.
no need for lots of your long long stories that always end up at the same place of weeks before.
@ dove:
There are as many Jewish ‘ways of life’ as there are Jews
— more, actually.
There’s more to ‘respect’ than genuflection to human authorities in the matter.
I don’t have to put such things on display to please you, or anybody else. I’m not here for that purpose. If YOU are, then you have an axe to grind. (That’s a polite way of saying you’re a fake.)
The posting record will clearly show that I am FAR more the party attacked than ‘attacking’ around here. You and the rest of the clique just don’t like having your noses rubbed in your own bigoted bilgewater. When your (and their) attitude changes, you won’t feel like you’re under ‘attack.’
Until then, get used to it.
@ yamit82:
LSHMSFOAIDMT. . . . Paul was speaking of becoming “as a Jew” CULTURALLY when among Jews; just as he spoke of becoming as a Greek CULTURALLY when among Greeks, etc. The modern expression, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” conveys the same sentiment. There’s nothing sinister about it, Bozo. It’s not about faking religion.
I am more of a Jew than BOTH of you put together.
There’s no time like the present, Huff’n’puff
— bring it.
@ dweller:
I am glad you have no respect for me – it means I am doing my job. 🙂
I meant you have NO RESPECT for the Jewish JEWISH JEWISH JEWISH way of life. You have no respect for Torah – certainly none that you have demonstrated.
Your constant attempt to attack my persona as well as other Jews on this site is dispicable.
Just when I thought there could be no one worse than Paul…..along comes Dweller…..trying to be just like him.
Here is another take from a Jew – actually Jewess on Paul theology.
Was Paul a Jew?
A new generation of scholars argues that the apostle long considered the progenitor of anti-Semitism never left his religion
By Judith Shulevitz|November 11, 2009 7:00 AM|Comments: 0
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The apostle’s many faces (Clockwise from top left: Rembrandt; statue from church in the Dolomites; Valentin de Boulogne or Nicolas Tournier; statue from Cathedral Notre Dame in Amiens; Greek mosaic; Weckmann; El Greco; statue from 16th century Austrian altar)
Jews don’t like the apostle Paul. Jesus they can live with; he was a good-hearted rebbe whose words were twisted to say things he didn’t mean. But Paul was the twister, and can’t be forgiven. “Jesus, yes; Paul, never!” as one Jewish biographer of Paul puts it. As a zealous convert who equated the Torah with death, Paul is deemed the father of anti-Judaism (the theological critique of Judaism as a religion), the grandfather of anti-Semitism (the hatred of Jews as people), and the inventor of the theology of the Cross (an excuse for many massacres of Jews). Even Friedrich Nietzsche, no friend of the Jews, said Paul “falsified the history of Israel so as to make it appear as a prologue to his mission” and was “the genius in hatred, in the standpoint of hatred, and in the relentless logic of hatred.”
Me, I came late to the Jewish dislike of Paul. I loved the Paul I read in college, the one who taught St. Augustine and Martin Luther and Pascal and Kierkegaard how to gaze ruefully into their divided selves. This was the Paul who wrote, like a Freudian neurotic, “For what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” I was well into my 30s when I discovered the unpalatable Paul. One night over maybe a third glass of wine, I proposed a book about Paul to an editor friend. My Paul would be a precursor to modern assimilationist Jews—embarrassed by Judaism, dismissive of his yeshivish education, fiendishly good at reading texts against themselves, a little too eager to please the goyim. My friend laughed at what he took to be my stab at provocativeness. “Judith,” he said gently, “you can’t defend Paul as a Jew.”
But now it seems that you can. Just as historians studying Jesus have uncovered a more Jewish version over the past 50 years or so by trying to understand him as a creature of his own place and time (first-century Palestine in the grip of apocalyptic fever), so a new generation of Pauline revisionists have discovered a more Jewish Paul, a product of the same place and time. Paul Was Not a Christian is the title of a book published this fall; what he was—and never stopped being—according to New Testament scholar Pamela Eisenbaum and the revisionists she echoes was a law-abiding Jew. He never converted to Christianity, because no such religion existed in his day. (Paul came along shortly after Jesus died.) All Paul did was switch his affiliation from one Jewish denomination to another, from Pharisaism to Jesus-ism. (Some other recent works of Paul revisionism include Reinventing Paul by John G. Gager, What Paul Meant by Garry Wills, and Paul Among the People by Sarah Ruden, which is coming out in February.)
Paul didn’t nullify Jewish law, nor did he, as Luther would claim later, place grace above works (that is, to paraphrase crudely, the acceptance of Jesus over the performance of mitzvot), or justification by faith above justification by law (being seen as righteous by God by virtue of your belief, rather than by virtue of your good deeds). Or rather, Paul did do those things—a less Lutheran version of them, anyway—but he didn’t mean for the whole world to do them, too. He attacked Jewish law only in the context of a very narrow debate raging in the earliest decades of the Jesus movement. Some Jewish Jesus-movement activists said that their pagan acolytes had to convert to Judaism before they could join the movement. Paul disagreed in the strongest possible terms (he did everything in the strongest possible terms). He maintained that these gentiles had to follow only the pre-rabbinic equivalent of the Noahide laws—the seven edicts against idolatry, adultery, etc., that all non-Jews are expected to follow. After hearing Jesus’ call—the first and still greatest revisionist, Krister Stendahl, insists that Paul experienced a call, in the manner of a Protestant minister, not a conversion—Paul took it upon himself to roam Asia Minor and preach the gospel to gentiles, and he so opposed their becoming Torah Jews that he devoted most of his letters to assaulting all the other evangelists who thought they should. These, one deduces, had been following him from city to city and telling his congregants that he was wrong about Judaism, which naturally enraged him.
If all this is true, it follows that when Paul condemns Jews, he is aiming his barbs at my meddling fellow Jewish missionaries of Christ, not the Jews, a people I harshly reject. And when he speaks of Judaism having been superseded, he means Judaism as a lifestyle to be aspired to by pagans, not Judaism as practiced by Jews. (In Acts, Jews do persecute Paul for preaching the gospel. But Acts doesn’t count as a source for Paul, since the man who probably wrote it, Luke, came along nearly half a century after him, by which point the Jesus movement was busily suppressing its Jewish roots.)
If Paul thought he was a Jew, why did he fight the conversion of the gentiles? It wasn’t just that making Greeks and Romans adopt the demanding Jewish lifestyle made his evangelizing harder, though it did. It was that Paul had a unique theory about Jesus and what he meant to gentiles. If you’d been able to ask the revisionist Paul what he thought, he’d have said something like this: When Judgment comes (and Paul thinks it’s coming any day now), God will still redeem Jews who have obeyed his commandments. What Jesus has changed is God’s plans for the non-Jews. No longer will they be barred from the Kingdom to Come on account of their sins—their promiscuity and idolatry and so on. God sent them Jesus and he died for their sins and now they, too, can be saved, as long as they accept him and live good, clean Christian lives.
Paul is supposed to be the genius who overcame Jewish particularism and invented religious universalism, but the new Paul didn’t do that. He didn’t believe that the Jewish God stopped being Jewish. Nor did he think Jesus superseded God’s covenant with his chosen people. What Jesus mainly did was die for the goyim: “What Torah does for Jews, Jesus does for gentiles,” writes Eisenbaum.
So what are we, as Jews, to make of the Jewish Paul? I instinctively agree that he must have seen himself as a Jew. It belies everything we know about human nature to imagine Paul converting from highly educated Greco-Roman Jew to anti-Jewish Christian who rants about Jewish law like someone encountering it for the first time. But do we have to let him off the hook for anti-Semitism? Was he a Jew whose message was distorted, presumably by the Gospel writers and early church fathers, or was he a demagogue who hurled distortable insults with reprehensible abandon? This is a question that won’t be answered easily. Paul was a difficult writer and a non-systematic thinker, dashing off letters in response to crises in his congregations rather than laying out his ideas in expository fashion. Whether you’re seen as critiquing lovingly from the inside or attacking coldly from the outside depends a lot on your tone, and even the best scholars of first-century Greek don’t agree about Paul’s tone.
@ dove:
Made up my mind about you all right . About the rest of my explorations, I remain very much a seeker.
There is NO view of mine — none — that was not Jewish BEFORE it was ever ‘Christian.’
Respect for you? — no, Madam; not an ounce.
@ mrg3105:
D is not seeking anything – he has already made up his mind.
I think it’s repulsive that he continues to spew his christian views on this site – NO RESPECT!
@ dove
dweller is not a ‘lone wolf’, because to compare him to one would be to compare him to a tzadik since the expression originally referred to Binyamin ben Yaakov
In any case, a ‘lone wolf’ is a canine to be weary of because survival is hard when one is alone. This was the emotion reflected in Yosef when he asked about his maternal brother on reuniting with his other brothers.
dweller is of course on a ‘hunt’ of a different kind.
Clearly all of you have way too much time on your hands, but what dweller seeks is I think even he forgot.
dweller Said:
It doesnt matter that you change my words as it is just as absurd.
dweller Said:
And yet considering there are so many christians in the US, Canada and europe, they do not teach jesus in their history or science classes as being factual. So even here you are wrong: NOT generally acceptable as factual but discussed as stories. All those christians and the nation they run teaches darwinism in their schools and relegates your god mating women stories to a dung heap. They appear to have had the sense to separate your fairy tales from their daily factual reality and relegate your myths to theological studies at best, and these are not considered to be factually related.
Bernard ross Said:
I already told you umpteen times. Christian transmission is governed by their 2000 year habit of libeling swindling, burning the books of, torturing, slaughtering the jews.
I do not understand why it is so hard for a “jew” to understand that they cannot be trusted to transmit the truth on any issues related to Jews and judaism. they have a dog in the race, an axe to grind. why is it so difficult for you.
I suspect you are not a Jew but marketing like your hero Paul appearing as a Jew when marketing to the Jews. Certainly a jew could not possible give christians the same credence as jews.
Bernard Ross Said:
you always appear to need retraining, like a recalcitrant puppy dog. I said evidence and support. The david and goliath story can be factual or true, it does not impact on judaism or the fundamental beliefs of Judaism. However it is much more believable than the story of gods mating with women and pooping out Jewish messiahs and that story is central to the whole christian mythology. We had this discussion at the beginning: had you given jewish support for the facts of your mythology wrt jews you would have given some credible support for consideration but instead you claimed jewish authorship which went unproven AND bore no relevance to the factual nature of your assertions. Your only support was through christian sources which must be in this issue, as repeated and shown to you so often, a totally incredulous source.
why are they totally incredulous you ask? I repeat:
They hijacked the jewish bible and proceeded to libel, swindle, torture and slaughter the jews for 2000 years and have not yet stopped. Why must I keep repeating the same facts over and over to you… is it that Alzheimers again?
dweller Said:
poor little whiny dweller, did you forget your hanky to wipe your little whiny snotnose. Your churlish and girlish attempts at psychobabble and ad hominem to cover up your ludicrous attempts at argument have no effect upon me.
you have been systematically defrocked as a Pauline fraud and marketer touting the absurd narratives of gods mating with women and pooping out jewish messiahs. I merely show you for what you are, a liar and an intelllectual bankrupt, and simply one more evangelist stalking the Jews with fairy tales.
of course you are upset but try not to get your tears on that pile of BS you are sitting upon as it might get messy.
Bernard Ross Said:
and yet you never show us how reason and logic combined with your reliance on intuition and the NT led to those most ludicrous of assertions. You merely state these ridiculous assertions as if you were preaching from your pulpit to a congregation of adoring and ignorant acolytes who dote on your every word. After all what sane person would asert such foolishness. 😛
Bernard Ross Said:
LOL, more avoidance of what would appear to the forum to be absurd if you answered.
dweller Said to Dove:
LOL, everyone is becoming familiar with your ludicrous psychobabble and how you use it whenever you are intellectually bankrupt. remember
looks like your Alzheimers is kicking in again, or maybe you thought we had forgotten your tricks? 😛
Bernard ross Said:
dweller Said:
😛 😛 😛 😛
You always run away like a little girl when backed into a corner. you know that if you deny this self evident fact that most Jews know, you would be seen to be a laughingstock and therefore you hide behind your skirt of ad hominem.
the Christians hijacked the jewish bible, used it as a foundation for their own fairy tale, proceeded to stalk, libel, swindle, torture and slaughter Jews for 2000 years and still doing it today…….AND YET YOU believe them and give them credibility in issues related to Jews. LOL, what a joke.