<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV>[Vision2020] An admonishment to Ralph</DIV><DIV><BR></DIV><DIV>Phil Nisbet pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com</DIV><DIV>Sat Aug 27 14:46:09 PDT 2005</DIV><DIV><BR></DIV><DIV>I have seldom read a response on V2020 in which the author is more in need</DIV><DIV>of sensitivity education and a dose of multicultural training than Ralph’s.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>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"!<BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><BR></DIV><DIV>Hey Ralph, we do not have a Hebrew Bible. I know that may come as news to</DIV><DIV>you, but the “Old Testement” is not Jewish, it’s a much translated group of</DIV><DIV>Jewish writings, but its not Torah.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>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.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>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.<BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><BR></DIV><DIV>And Ralph, yes, we Jews believe in Heaven and in Hell.</DIV><DIV><BR></DIV><DIV><A href="http://judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_o/bl_simmons_heavenhell.htm">http://judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_o/bl_simmons_heavenhell.htm</A></DIV><DIV><BR></DIV><DIV>Your body may die, but the soul and spirit return to G-d from whence it</DIV><DIV>comes. We, that is to say our bodies on this earth, will all go to the same</DIV><DIV>place, to whit we shall return to the dust that He fashioned us from, but</DIV><DIV>the essence of who we really are does not die.</DIV><DIV><BR></DIV><DIV>That concept is fundamental to Jewish belief Ralph.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">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. </DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"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).</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"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).</DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><BR></DIV><DIV>Then your understanding of ‘slavery’ in early Jewish society is</DIV><DIV>fundamentally flawed. There is no idea put forward that women be treated</DIV><DIV>differently than men in regards to indentured servitude. And further, it is</DIV><DIV>indentured servitude and not slavery. A slave who can be treated as a human</DIV><DIV>chattel is not allowable under the Law. Not only must he be freed and set</DIV><DIV>upon his way with payment for his services at the end of 7 years, but he</DIV><DIV>must also be freed from the contract for his services under numerous</DIV><DIV>circumstances of abuse of that contract by his employer. The term is bound</DIV><DIV>servant, not slave in the Roman definition.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>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.<BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><BR></DIV><DIV>Slavery in the Roman or Greek sense of a human chattel was anathema. If a</DIV><DIV>Jewish owner of a servant’s contract beat his servant, that servant</DIV><DIV>recovered damages. In the Roman model, the owner of a slave had free</DIV><DIV>ability to simply kill a slave just for the personal heck of it.</DIV><DIV><BR></DIV><DIV>European slavery, as later practiced in the South was not based upon any</DIV><DIV>Torah concepts for ‘slavery’, it was a Roman institution.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>Ralph: For centuries Christians used the Bible as an excuse for the slave trade. Just ask Doug Wilson.<BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><BR></DIV><DIV>If you want to comment on Christian institutions, feel free, but before you</DIV><DIV>comment on Jewish ones, you need to educate yourself beyond your fairly</DIV><DIV>anti-Semitic concepts of our history and beliefs.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><BR></DIV><DIV>Phil Nisbet</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR></DIV><DIV>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. </DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></FONT></BODY></HTML>