The Trinity revisited

Dr. Grover,

Well, I certainly sympathise with your preference for the oldest Greek version available.

Permit me to point out (he said smugly) that even in the most Reform of Jewish congregations, Torah is ALWAYS read in Hebrew and the sefar torah is ALWAYS written by qualified scribes with a two thousand year old error check system...

Also, (he said even MORE smugly) the central event in a Bar (or Bat among liberal Jews) Mitzvah is for the child to show the entire congregation that he (or she) can READ TORAH HEBREW!

Maybe Christians should consider a similar requirement?

Insufferably yours,

 

Dr. Osbourne,

Your rabbi's having pointed out the Kohen, Levi and Israelite continuum vis-a-vis the "Good Samaritan" parable in Luke 10 is interesting, although I would say that IMO (and in my understanding of the text) your rabbi misses the point of the story entirely. In fact, as written, the story really only makes complete sense in a Jewish context, for at least a couple of specific reasons.

The first of these relates to the context of the Luke passage at hand. Jesus' parable is prefaced by an exchange with a "lawyer", or "expert in Torah":

Jesus is here quoting both Deuteronomy 6:5 (part of the Sh'ma) about loving God, and Leviticus 19:16-18 about loving one's neighbor. Hillel is recorded in the Talmud as saying regarding the latter, "That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it." (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a). The question which arose in Judaism, however, and which Jesus was here challenging, was the identity of one's neighbor. Classical and Medieval references abound (including, surprisingly, even the interpretation of Maimonides) which indicate that "neighbor" was restricted to fellow Jews (see here for an essay by Rabbi Harold Schulweis on that topic). Jesus was challenging this notion that "neighbor" could only mean someone of one's own ethnicity or religion.

Why Samaritans, then? Interestingly, Samaritans were not gentiles per se. Although 2 Kings 17 (in the Tanakh) describes the origins of the Samaritans as being a mixed-race people who were descended from both the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom as well as other conquered peoples who the Assyrians brought in in order to dilute ethnic identity. Ezra and Nehemiah further note that although the Samaritans claimed to want to help in building the Temple, they were barred from participation. The admixture of Jewish and pagan practices described in the 2 Kings passage seems to have given way in a relatively short amount of time to a form of Jewish religion which denied all prophetic writings (as well as, of course, all Mishnah) and was centered on Mount Gerizim, on which Alexander permitted the Samaritians to build a Temple of their own; this Temple was later destroyed by Hasmonean (e.g., Maccabean) king Hyrcanus in revenge for an attempted desecration of the Temple in Jerusalem (by throwing dog bones into it on the eve of Yom Kippur! [quoting from memory on that one]).

Samaritans and Jews lived in mutual antipathy largely because they regarded one another as heretics, which in a way made them worse than Gentiles, who were regarded with more indifference than antipathy. This is borne out in the narrativve later on in Acts, where the Gospel's acceptance among a section of the Samaritans brings joy, but no tension, because in any case they were regarded as semi-Jewish and the issue of circumcision was not a problem as they adhered to Jewish practice on that. Later on, in Acts 10, when Peter goes to the home of the Gentile Cornelius (and even more so in the Jerusalem Council recorded in Acts 15) there is much discussion regarding to what degree to Gentile followers of Jesus should be required to follow Halachah.

Thus, when Jesus spoke out the Parable of the Good Samaritan, he deliberately chose to depict someone who would naturally be regarded as bad because of their religion or ethnicity doing good deeds omited by those who were supposed to be religious. It was irony in which Jesus is depicting a heretic following the command of Leviticus 19:16: "neither shalt thou stand idly by the blood of thy neighbour". Certainly there are many passages in which Jesus is challenging a section of the Jewish leadership, but in this case He is challenging ethnic prejudice. Why is He challenging Jewish ethnic prejudice? Because He lived in Judea, and that is the kind of people who lived there! When I speak on this topic, I often encourage people to think about who their Samaritans are. Certainly if Jesus were to teach this parable today (in Israel or anywhere else), he would use someone other than Samaritans to make His point; there's only something like 100 Samaritans left now.

Peace,

Matt

 

===

No, you are not insufferable to me.

And your point is well taken.

Bill

 

Matt,

I really don't think it matters that much. I agree with you that the story says pretty much the same thing either way, which is that one's actions count regardless of who one might be.

BTW, The idea of "neighbor", BTW, is not without interest. Now that I've mentioned it, I'll have to go look it up again, (which is the disadvantage of having YOU post here ) but I seem to recall that there are three groups to whom that word might apply;

-other Jews, of course,
-gentiles in the same community as Jews; and
-the third group. These people, IIRC, are the "strangers amongst you" who are required to be treated equally before the Law. As I understand it, these folks were sort of like "resident aliens". In return for being allowed to dwell in Jewish communities, they agreed to abide by Jewish commercial and criminal law and, one would presume, pay taxes. They were not, however, gerim, converts. MOST of the admonitions concerning one's neighbor seem to apply to other Jews and this third group. Neighbor rarely meant anyone else.

 

Oh, and regarding Rabbi S.'s piece; he illustrates something without saying it.

(BTW, Matt, note the EXTENSIVE citation to ancient and earlier sources? Nanny nanny noo noo!)

And that is, the definition of neighbor CHANGES with changing circumstances. Where, I ask you, did Maimonides LIVE? Why, in Muslim Spain, of course! The Jewish community was much better off under the Muslims than it EVER was under the Christians, but it was still isolated and "legally disabled" as a barely tolerated non-muslim minority. For the sake of the community, the community needed to support its members FIRST.

In later times, it probably wasn't a good idea to condemn Christians as pagans...not when they were likely to burn your town down and you with it if they got annoyed...

 

Interesting bilingual statement:

"Nani Nani" (maternal grandmother in Hindi & Urdu) "Nu Nu" (meaning, erm, "Nu?"... no, wait, it kind of means "Well?" or "Isn't it?" or something, nu?)

I agree with the idea that a community needs to take special care for it's own members, especially in a situation in which the community is a persecuted minority (whether under dhimmitude or something else). Still, that doesn't excuse the harshness of Maimonides' interpretation of "neighbor", a harshness which did go back to Mishna.

I think it's important to remember, though, that the problem is more universally human. People in power are unfortunately often not adverse to ignoring even the tennets of their own supposed faith by bringing persecution on others. Certainly this was true of "Christian" persecution in medieval Europe, but it is also reflected in, for example, Hasmonean king Hyrcanus' forceable conversion of the Idumeans (that is, Edomites) to Judaism less than 100 years before Jesus came or the persecution of, say, Quakers by puritans in New England.

Peace,

Matt

 

nani nani noo noo

Matt,

I put that phrase in because I believe that scholarly discourse should ALWAYS be conducted in precise, scholarly language.

You agree, I'm sure?

 

Re: nani nani noo noo

 

Re: Re: I have to ask this...

Forgot to mention this discussion board.