Falwell says it is heresy to use King James Bible??

salvic?

 

Maybe that was a typo?

Thanks for the kind words on the dissertation; I'll make sure to email it to you when I'm all done (it'll probably be early 2006). You might also enjoy Montefiore and Loewe's The Rabbinic Anthology (now long out of print, but available through Bookfinder); my local rabbi recommended it to me years ago, and it introduced midrashic literature to me in a way I never thought possible. Highly recommended.


Cheers,

 

I have M&L; it's bedside reading when I visit some out-of-town relatives, where I keep a shelf of books. It is a terrific book, and best of all, it's certified Neusner-free by the Pa. Dept. of Agriculture!

 

Re: Re: Re: Falwell says it is heresy to use King James Bible??

 

I respect profoundly anyone, Christian or Jew, who can make sense of Mordechai Kaplan.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Falwell says it is heresy to use King James Bible??

 

Thanks for this, but it isn't really so hard if you luck into the easy sources early. His journals are actually a great place to start, because there he does provide paragraph summaries of ideas that take him 20 pages to explain in his books.

The explanation provided in the soc.culture.jewish FAQ is also well done, though I believe the statement "Kaplan did not believe in G-d" to be in error because Kaplan most certainly did believe in God (the earlier statement that Kaplan suppored a "naturalistic conception" of God is much closer to the truth), and he tied salvation together with much more than the mere desire for self-improvement. But those (understandable) errors aside, it's a pretty good summary.


Cheers,

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Falwell says it is heresy to use King James Bible??

==

Arius in his private creed of 328 is very willing to say that Jesus suffered , was resurrected, is coming again as Savior. But, only the Almighty Father (patera pantokratora) is the one God (hena theon).

Even Channing is very willing to say that Jesus is Savior , but Channing is Unitarian and denies that Jesus is God. [Channing, Unitarian Christianity,II:1].

So, IMO, I think that there are many exceptions to your rule. As Carl is so very exceptional, perhaps he is one .

 

Kaplan developed the concept of "Jewish Civilization" best reflected in Reconstructionism, right? There really doesn't NEED to be a God as Other, to Kaplan. Sometimes I get the idea that Kaplan agrees with me that the traditional God is a human creation that may, or may not, bear any resemblance to the objective God, if there is one.

It's almost like Zen. Jews do what they do because they are Jews. No other explanation exists; none is required.

But if this is so, what's the POINT?

Maybe I'm just confused.

 

Actually, I think the fact that Jews do what they do and even exist as an identifiable race and faith after 35 centuries of great civilizations attempting to eviscerate them is a remarkable testimony to the existence of the Diety they worship, whether sincerely or by rote. Think of it: the Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Nazis, etc, all seeking to destroy them, and where are those other great civilizations today? And there are the Jews--surrounded on all sides by enemies--alive and well in Israel, just as their God foretold over 2,500 years ago--enough to give one pause.

 

Kaplan would say that Jewish civilization must rest on some concept of God, but that this concept of God may change over time.

I mostly agree with you, too--and what you've described is very similar to Kaplan's position, except that he goes a step further to posit something very much like Tillich's belief in God as Ultimate Concern. The only difference is that Kaplan believes that there is, by definition, a God (which he most commonly defines as "the [power or energy] that makes for salvation"). From a 1929 journal entry:

I don't go quite as far as Kaplan--I don't believe that God is just an attribute of the universe, or at least not based on my current meager understanding of the universe--but I agree with him that the anthropomorphic model of God presented by the majority of the world's faiths can be unconvincing.

Kaplan would argue that Jewish civilization should be about salvation. Salvation, as he defines it in The Greater Judaism in the Making (1960), goes something like this:

Now, you might find yourself wondering how this gels with a naturalistic concept of God. This is the central question of Kaplan's philosophy, and I can't do justice to it in one paragraph, but I can say that it has to do with the fact that Kaplan has a humanistic understanding of God. He believes God to be an abstract expression of supreme love and creative power--one that no doubt does exist, but in a way most theologies have not conceived.

To become better human beings in communion with God (however one defines her/him/it) and our neighbors.

I'm beginning to reach the conclusion that when it comes to matters of religion, everybody's confused.


Cheers,

 

I'm beginning to reach the conclusion that when it comes to matters of religion, everybody's confused.
_________________________________________


As a well-known Jew once said: "We see through a glass, darkly."

 

Maybe so. Even agnostic nosborne will be in Temple tonight for the beginning of Rosh H'shanah. Can't explain exactly WHY, but there it is.

 

I think this reflects the thinking of Sherwin Wine rather than Kaplan.

 

Diets vs. Deity

There you go with that "diety" again! We're not talkin' about the South Beach Diet here!!!

It is spelled D-E-I-T-Y!!!!!

 

You got me there, Carl--touche!

 

Um, cough, gasp, gag, snicker--oy, Jimmy, Jimmy, Sherwin Wine and Mordecai Kaplan in the same sentence? Sherwin Wine??? Now that's confused.

 

Well, in my opinion neither one can hold a candle to Martin Buber.

Isn't Wine from your neck of the woods?

 

It reflects the thinking of both, though they meant different things by it. Kaplan's "Judaism as a civilization" (the title of his best-known book) argues for the traditional Jewish religion, as reconstructed and transvaluated to address the modernist challenge. Wine posits a humanistic and purely cultural Judaism completely free of the the Jewish religious framework (which isn't really a new idea; the only new thing is that he institutionalized it). Personally, I tend to think that Mordecai Kaplan is to Sherwin Wise what Akira Kurosawa is to Ed Wood.


Cheers,

 

In some ways, agreed; in some ways, not. Buber was a completely different breed of cat, focusing on the internals of Judaism rather than what I'd call the meta-Judaic questions Kaplan asks. If you like Buber, you should read Abraham Joshua Heschel, especially Man is Not Alone; if I had to name the best book about faith ever written, that would probably be my choice.


Cheers,