[Vision2020] Re: Admonishment to Ralph

[Ralph Nielsen]

> [Vision2020] An admonishment to Ralph
>
> Phil Nisbet pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com
> Sat Aug 27 14:46:09 PDT 2005
>
> I have seldom read a response on V2020 in which the author is more  
> in need
> of sensitivity education and a dose of multicultural training than  
> Ralph’s.

Ralph: I feel I'm being unjustly attacked. I was replying to  
Christian misrepresentation of the Bible and Phil Nisbet attacks me  
for being "anti-Semitic"!
>
> Hey Ralph, we do not have a Hebrew Bible.  I know that may come as  
> news to
> you, but the “Old Testement” is not Jewish, it’s a much translated  
> group of
> Jewish writings, but its not Torah.

Ralph: Somebody is really mixed up here. I have no less than two  
copies of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, plus further copies of the  
Torah alone in Hebrew. I also have an excellent book by John J.  
Collins, a Catholic scholar, entitled "Introduction to the Hebrew  
Bible" (Fortress Press, c2004). The term "Old Testament" is a  
Christian designation with a polemical meaning. That is why careful  
scholars call it the Hebrew Bible. It is also called the Tanakh, but  
most non-Jewish people are unfamiliar with this term.

The Torah, Mr. Nisbet, consists of the first five books of the Hebrew  
Bible (Tanakh). It is also called the Five Books of Moses, or the  
Pentateuch.
>
> And Ralph, yes, we Jews believe in Heaven and in Hell.
>
> http://judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_o/ 
> bl_simmons_heavenhell.htm
>
> Your body may die, but the soul and spirit return to G-d from  
> whence it
> comes.  We, that is to say our bodies on this earth, will all go to  
> the same
> place, to whit we shall return to the dust that He fashioned us  
> from, but
> the essence of who we really are does not die.
>
> That concept is fundamental to Jewish belief Ralph.

Nisbet also refuses to recognize that there is no life after death in  
the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). In fact, he can't show us one  
single person in the Tanakh who died and went to heaven.

"There is not a hint of [life after death] in the Torah, or in most  
of the [Hebrew] Bible. There, human death is final. ... With the  
possible exceptions of Elijah and Enoch, all biblical personalities  
die and their death is final." (Etz Hayim; Torah and Commentary.  
Jewish Publication Society, 2000. p. 1436).

"The constitution of human life, as understood in Israelite thought,  
reveals no principle of survival. Neither "soul" nor "spirit" is a  
component entity that survives death. The human person is an animated  
body, and no other form of human life is conceived of. The underworld  
of the Old Testament is mentioned many times, and sometimes described  
vividly (Isaiah 14). These descriptions show that Sheol is no more  
than a vast tomb where the bodies of the dead lie inert(Job 10:21;  
17:13-16). Sheol is not a form of survival but a denial of survival;  
all come to Sheol and the good and evil of life cease there." (John  
L. McKenzie, S.T.D., in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, 1990. p.  
1313).

>
> Then your understanding of ‘slavery’ in early Jewish society is
> fundamentally flawed.  There is no idea put forward that women be  
> treated
> differently than men in regards to indentured servitude.  And  
> further, it is
> indentured servitude and not slavery.  A slave who can be treated  
> as a human
> chattel is not allowable under the Law.  Not only must he be freed  
> and set
> upon his way with payment for his services at the end of 7 years,  
> but he
> must also be freed from the contract for his services under numerous
> circumstances of abuse of that contract by his employer.  The term  
> is bound
> servant, not slave in the Roman definition.

Ralph: "When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not be  
freed as male slaves are" (Exodus 21:7 Jewish Publication Society  
Torah).  These strictures did not apply to non-Hebrew slaves.
>
> Slavery in the Roman or Greek sense of a human chattel was  
> anathema.  If a
> Jewish owner of a servant’s contract beat his servant, that servant
> recovered damages.  In the Roman model, the owner of a slave had free
> ability to simply kill a slave just for the personal heck of it.
>
> European slavery, as later practiced in the South was not based  
> upon any
> Torah concepts for ‘slavery’, it was a Roman institution.

Ralph: For centuries Christians used the Bible as an excuse for the  
slave trade. Just ask Doug Wilson.
>
> If you want to comment on Christian institutions, feel free, but  
> before you
> comment on Jewish ones, you need to educate yourself beyond your  
> fairly
> anti-Semitic concepts of our history and beliefs.
>
> Phil Nisbet

Ralph: I was commenting on Christian misuse of the Bible, as anyone  
can plainly see. But Phil Nisbet has shown us that some Jews also  
misuse the Bible.

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