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> this stems from the notion that the Jewish legal rules are of divine origin, and so if something was excluded, then its absence is intentional I would like t
by derefr 5y ago
> this stems from the notion that the Jewish legal rules are of divine origin, and so if something was excluded, then its absence is intentional
I would like to understand the reasoning behind the belief that even legal rules of divine origin would include mention of things human culture would have had no concept of, and human language no word for, in the time the rule was made — such that the rules would be "complete for all future time" rather than "those relevant as of the time of covenant."
Wouldn't even a god think it more optimal to hold off on telling us rules about e.g. which synthetic meats are kosher, until we invent such things?
It seems awfully suspicious to the validity of that interpretation, that there are plenty of specific/concrete prohibitions given amongst divine rulings, but of those, none are about things that were entirely mysterious at the time, written down "as spoken" without understanding, only able to be made sense of centuries/millennia later.
In fact — the Hebrew god is an intercessor god, not an absent god; don't they already "amend" their own previous rules whenever they communicate specific orders / demands / requirements to particular people? Does that not, by itself, disrupt the interpretation of the initial set of laws given being a perfect closed set, never to be updated, applicable to all future circumstances? Would a perfect body of divine law not already imply those orders / demands / requirements, such that there would be no need for further communication?
- golemiprague 5y agoIn Jewish monotheism god is beyond time and space, probably because the concept of God tries to encompass the infinity of the universe in time and space and the lack of understanding of those things, us being humans. Therefore when we ascribe some will to god, specifically the will for humans to follow all those rules, we believe that this god "exists" in every time and every space, past present or future. That's why also the "spirit" of the rules doesn't matter, we don't try to understand god, all we can is to try to understand things which are in the realm of science. Spirit of the rules is something that might exist in a human moral system, not something we believe that came from a transcended entity beyond our understanding.
- derefr 5y agoOh, I do get that; I'm more asking why a timeless god wouldn't tell the Jews 4000 years ago to e.g. not construct or partake of social-networking apps (and other such things where they'd have no idea what their God was on about.) An intercessor god dreamed up today would certainly give commandments like that; so why wouldn't a god giving commandments 4000 years ago, but who "exists outside of time", do the same?
- bostonsre 5y agoMaybe it changed its mind or maybe it drip feeds the laws over time since it knows humans could misinterpret laws for things that do not exist yet. (disclaimer: completely agnostic)
- sterlind 5y agoor give laws that are simple to articulate, but cover lots of future scenarios via precedent and emergent behavior. the golden rule has held up pretty well (in terms of being applicable, not in terms of being adhered to.)
- derefr 5y agoThe commandments that generalize are the exception, not the rule. You know there are mitzvot about which positions of the priesthood should or should not be allowed to eat specific varieties of grapes (that only grew in Canaan) during specific growing seasons, right? Those are pretty concrete rules, that don't really generalize. The sort of thing you'd expect to see matched by modern equivalents. And yet, these are believed to be literal divine law, just as much as "thou shalt build an ark" etc. is. Also, there are separate mitzvot for kosher-ness rules for basically each kind of animal, starting with general classes, but then getting increasingly specific and obscure/unlikely-to-be-eaten-by-humans. (Almost exactly as if a series of people were actively pestering a High Priest with trivia questions like "but when is it ritually-impure to eat flying insects, though?", where they then felt the need to make a ruling.) If you're curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments#Canonical_order https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments#Canonical_ord...