Not this again.

[mamadeb]

Every so often (like every two weeks, it sometimes seems) someone hits on the "new" idea that people against homosexuality are hypocrits because they only read this one line in the Jewish Bible and no others. Hilarity ensues. (This meme has been around forever. Why do people treat it like someone came up with fresh each time?)

And, yes, they are. Either you believe that Christianity makes the Torah laws moot (other than those specifically referenced in the NT, I guess, plus, for some reason, the Ten Commandments) or you believe they are still in force, which contradicts the NT. (Not that people who aren't Jewish are liable for those laws anyway, but let's pretend they're for all the nations, not just one.)

So their point is, actually, right.

Except. They do it by *making fun* of those silly Torah laws that NO ONE follows, such as kashrut or shatnez, or maybe laws that aren't followed because they were voluntary in the first place - *if* you do this thing, this is the way to do it. If you don't do this thing, just move along to the next verse, although take a lesson in proper behavior along the way.

Unless - I couldn't get past the shrimp in the current video - they say something about converting to Judaism - that they know that there are people out there who actually obey these laws.

Comments

[museclio]

Well... for example, I don't look for a Leviite when I have a sore on my hand to inquire if it's leprosy.

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

Ordinary levites don't help - you need a Cohen. Also, there are books for Cohanim to help them learn the laws of tzaarat - even books in English. However, ISTR chazal decreed that tzaarat no longer exists because we aren't careful enough about our speech(*). In any case, we don't wory about tumah and tahar except for niddah and cohen issues until the Beit Hamkidash is rebuilt.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I should hope not. You want a Kohen.

[museclio]

Point. Been too long since I read it. FWIW the video afterwards pretty much talks about being able to stone one's wife or sell one's child for maybe 20 seconds and moves on.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Personally, I reserve my mockery for Christians who cherry-pick Old Testament admonitions to find the ones that support their personal horror of homosexuality while ignoring the ones that, inconveniently, condemn things they enjoy (shrimp, for instance). Particularly since, as you point out, there are inherent contradictions between the OT and NT that are, in part, the foundation of Christianity.

[museclio]

And I think that's usually what's being made fun of. It's that inherant hypocracy, not the law itself.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's when my blood pressure started to rise.

1. Selling the daughter = putting her in someone else's household with the hope of marriage to the master or his son. If they don't at least betroth her by puberty, she goes home with cash and prizes.

2. Stoning one's wife. The implication is that if a man wants to kill his wife, all he has to do is accuse her of adultery and she's gone. Because the Torah doesn't have straightforward rules of law and witnessing before a person of either sex is condemned to death for any reason - not to mention a rather elaborate procedure if a man with no legal proof suspects his wife of adultery. Which, as a minor point, isn't a stoning offense anyway. It's a hanging one. (NT is a lousy place to learn Jewish law.)

[sistercoyote.livejournal.com]

I see that you've mentioned the point that I was coming in to observe, which is that the laws for the Jews are different than the laws for the Christians.

The problem is that the people who are using the Levitical Codes as their justification for being against homosexuality seem to be mostly Christian and not Jewish, and thus should (theoretically) not be looking back to the Torah/OT for guidance at all. Which leaves them with one rather ambiguous statement by Paul that is more likely to apply to temple prostitutes than it is to male/male (or female/female) loving relationships, and that's not a lot to go on.

(Are you talking about God Hates Shrimp or something else?)

I have often wondered - and I don't say this because I have anything against the OT but I am wildly not very religious except in some extremely complicated ways (and I say all that to say that I'm really trying not to be offensive) - what it would be like to start a sect of Christianity that only looked at the NT, and only considered the OT as a historical document in the sense of "this is what was before Jesus and is interesting as backstory but not as guidelines for living".

Of course, that would still leave me with the problem that is the Pauline teachings, but...

Do you think I could make a living off of it? :P

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

Not that they hold by this themselves, but I'll point out that while kashrut regulations apply only to Jews, according to halacha the prohibition on the specific male - male sex act is prohibited under the Noachide laws, and thus applies to Jew and Gentile alike. Admittedly, I don't know anyone who thinks that lesbian marriages are ok, while gay ones aren't.

[sistercoyote.livejournal.com]

Wait!

Could you elaborate on point 1? Or maybe point me at the relevant verses? I had never heard this before.

[museclio]

Not disagreeing, merely pointing out that it's not a huge plot point. Regardless, Christians shouldn't cherry pick is what I take away.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I still don't like the implication of that "silly, irrelevant, outdated 'Old Testament'.

I do understand the actual point. Because they are hypocrites. I get that. But the way they make that point is to say that Torah is either evil or irrelevant.

[museclio]

I know ritual purity and non are less important than they used to be, but the point it many religious Jews wouldn't go looking for what to do about the skin sore (and yes I know it's not really leprosy, it's a bad translation).

[museclio]

There is also some dispute if it was talking about actual male/male sex or homosexual male prostitution. Fun with the Tanach in context.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

Your second para: almost exactly what "my daughter the theologian" says - the only difference is re the 10 Commandments: she says they are so heavily qualified in the NT that the two-item summary is all that is relevant to Christians.

She has the same views on the people you refer to as Beatrix Potter had on Unitarians (to whom her family belonged): anybody who is going to go down that road at all should do it properly and convert to Judaism. She does not approve of the "pick and mix" approach to Scripture.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

There's a video going round with a Prop 8 musical.

Features Jack Black as Jesus eating shrimp. (Because Jesus was, apparently, a bad Jew. Or something.)

If they made a point of, oh, "Are you guys Jewish?" somewhere along the way, I might be happier.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Yes, but they seem to have forgotten that those laws ARE sacred to another religion. So making fun of them without at least mentioning that is...annoying.

[sistercoyote.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay. I don't have a lot of patience with Jack Black (or shrimp eating) to begin with, so I skipped the video when it popped up on my page this a.m.

I don't know. Was Jesus a bad Jew? The Pharisees probably thought so, given his attitude toward the Sabbath and the fact that he ate with tax collectors and the like, but I honestly have no idea.

[cyprinella]

Maybe it's that the sort of folks that think that the whole OT/NT thing is such a revelation are probably the sort of folks that are completely ignorant to anything to do with Judaism other than Hanukkah? I used to be like that and went through a stage of "LOL outdated!" before getting smacked upside the head for being an ignorant moron.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

You have a good point here, and I, for one, am not going to use this argument anymore, and will up your point next time someone uses this argument in my hearing.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Must apologize. No cash and prizes. Got that wrong. :)

Exodus 21:7-11
A father can sell a minor daughter (can't sell an adult) to be a maidservant, on the condition that she be betrothed to the master or his son. She cannot be sold to anyone else. If they do marry, she is to be treated exactly as any other wife. If she marries his son, she is to be treated as a daughter of the household. If they do not treat her well, she can go home.

This is plain text. No interpretation or reading between the lines. And marrying minor, prepubescent girls was hardly an unusual thing in that time and place.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Except one of those people was Aaron Sorkin in the West Wing.

But he may well think that way anyway.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

She does not approve of the "pick and mix" approach to Scripture.

What other alternative to this besides fundamentalism is there?

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well. The Pharisees won, anyway. Because they insisted on the law rather than Temple ritual as the center for Judaism, they survived the Destruction. Or, I should say, WE survived. I know they're the bad guys in the NT, but there really weren't any Sadducees at the time most of it was written.

And, well - I never figured out what was wrong with the tax collectors. Were they non-Jews?

[sistercoyote.livejournal.com]

Ah, well. The cash and prizes part would be cool, but probably too much to ask for. :)

And no, no it wasn't unusual then and there. No guarantees that the girl would grow up to be a full adult, for one thing - nor that the potential spouse would live that long!