Hot answers tagged deuteronomy
24
In the 1950s, a guy named Ras Shamra unearthed tablets which may describe a Ugaritic pagan ritual of a kid being cooked in milk. You can read all about Ras Shamra's discoveries in this PDF document (info on this topic on p.5).
In the above article and in countless others I've read, this ritual is described as historical fact and assumed without any ...
20
One of the principles of talmudic reasoning is that there are no unnecessary words in torah -- so since this law is stated three times, we must be able to learn something new from each statement. Tractate Chullin (113-116) explains that there are three prohibitions:
cooking meat and milk together
eating such a mixture
deriving benefit from such a mixture ...
9
I decided to build a canonical answer to this question, since it seemed that all three answers had something to offer.
Greek and Hebrew
The Hebrew word yare (Strongs H3372) carries a number of meanings. There is both the definition being "terrified" or "afraid" along with the definition of having "reverence", "awe", or "respect".
In Greek, the word ...
9
According to classical Jewish interpretation, Dt 22:22-29 all deal with various situations of forcible and statutory rape as well as extramarital relations. The differences in the cases are mainly:
the woman's marital status
the woman's virginity
the degree of consent or lack thereof that can be inferred from the geography
Verse 22:28 deals with only one ...
7
Probably not.
The word used for Rahab in Joshua 2 is zanah <02181>. According to Wikipedia:
The Hebrew Bible uses two different words for prostitute, zonah (זנה) and kedeshah (קדשה). The word zonah simply meant an ordinary prostitute or loose woman. But the word kedeshah literally means "consecrated (feminine form)", from the Semitic root q-d-sh ...
7
Deut. 32:20 and Hab 2:4 both contain the Hebrew word emun (Heb: אמון), translated in the KJV as "faith." Emun is H529 in Strong's where it's defined as "faithfulness, trusting."
However, the word emun derives from the root word aman (Heb: אמן), which is a very common word in the Bible. Aman is strong's H539 where it's defined as: "to support, confirm, be ...
7
I've often heard that 'fear' as in 'fear the LORD' should not be understood to be 'fear' as in 'afraid', but rather 'awe' and 'reverence'.
But myself, I want to be cautious about watering down the 'fear' as in 'afraid' side, because:
I feel a sort of cultural pressure to do so which I think I then read back into the bible
There are usages that clearly ...
6
RJ Rushdoony in his Institutes of Biblical Law vol 1 Pg 300 says:
The Ras Shamra tablets indicate that such seething was a Canaanite sacred ritual. It would appear that the fertility cults believed that they could either stimulate or destroy fertility at will, since it was under their control.
It is speculated that this law was implemented as an act of ...
6
...I am the Lord, and I will
bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will
deliver you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an
outstretched arm, and with great judgments; and I will take you to Me
for a people, and I will be to you a God; and ye shall know that I am
the Lord your God, who brought you out from under ...
6
Could not the Lord have "instigated" the people to spy the land through indirect means, and therefore solve the conundrum?
For example, Satan incited David to number the Israelites in a census (1 Chr 21:1), but in 2 Sam 24:1 it is the Lord who is the subject of the Hebrew verb סוּת, and therefore in the immediate grammatical context it was the Lord who had ...
5
The exact reason for Ruth being introduced to the transaction is undetermined in scholarly literature (Expositor's Bible Commentary Introduction to Ruth).
Here is one possibility that isn't explicit from Scripture, but I can see the law being interpreted this way. Not only must the land stay in the clan, but it must stay as close within the family as ...
5
Levirate marriage in the Bible predates the legal source you reference in Deuteronomy 25:
And Judah said unto Onan: 'Go in unto thy brother's wife, and perform
the duty of a husband's brother unto her, and raise up seed to thy
brother.' (Genesis 38:8 JPS)
Therefore, Boaz's concern with levirate marriage and the keeping of property in the family ...
5
There does not seem to be any way to narrow the gap. This might be intentional, the intent being to establish a generally negative moral value to kings gathering harems, but allowing for the necessity of politically expedient marriages with foreign royal families.
The term "many wives" is as specific as the OT gets.
Kings 11:4 is clearly an indictment of ...
4
Well, how you reconcile contradictions in the Bible depends largely on your orientation to reading and interpreting the Bible. :)
My own belief is that the Bible speaks with multiple voices, and so it is essentially disingenuous to pretend that "the Bible says" one thing about a particular topic. Different parts of the Bible express different perspectives ...
4
The word in Exodus 20:21 which you translate as 'tool' is the Hebrew חרב which most literaly means 'sword'. Rashi there explains that a sword is designed to shorten life, while an altar is designed to lengthen life by being used to achieve atonement. It makes sense, therefore, that one should not be used in the formation of the other.
4
The NET Bible note reads:
Heb “the sons of Israel.” The idea, perhaps, is that Israel was central to Yahweh’s purposes and all other nations were arranged and distributed according to how they related to Israel. See S. R. Driver, Deuteronomy (ICC), 355-56. For the MT יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּנֵי (bÿney yisra’el, “sons of Israel”) a Qumran fragment has “sons of ...
4
Dr. Meshulam Margaliot points out that Midrashic tradition is divided about what was written on which tablet. The options seem to be:
1–5 on one and 6–10 on the other. (This is the tradition interpretation that is most common in art and synagogue decoration.)
All 10 on each tablet.
Even numbered on one and odd on the other (as suggested by ...
4
To quote Rashi, which you already know:
you may slaughter… as I have commanded you: We learn [from here] that there is a commandment regarding slaughtering, how one must slaughter. [Since this commandment is not written in the Torah we deduce that] these are the laws of ritual slaughtering given orally to Moses on [Mount] Sinai. — [Sifrei ; Chul. 28a]
...
3
(This answer is from a Christian perspective.)
Since this question deals with the significance of the imagery, it is helpful to look at other places in Scripture that use similar imagery.
1) 1 Kings 18:30-32 recounts a time when Elijah rebuilt one of these altars after it had been torn down:
Then Elijah said to all the people, “Now come to me.” So ...
3
Calvin, Gill citing Maimonides, and Mathew Henry all give the reason as the prevention of idolatry. Drawn from them:
Such an altar is easily thrown down to prevent idolatry associated with it.
This would remove the temptation of making it into a sort of graven image.
The other nations cut stones for their altars
Many holiness laws have them not do things ...
3
It isn't necessarily a contradiction; perhaps "visiting the iniquities of the fathers on the children" doesn't mean punishing the children for parental sins. The text doesn't say "punish", after all. This was explained to me by analogy with alcoholism: the children of alcoholics are more likely than average to become alcoholics themselves, so in a sense ...
3
When the Israelites entered the Promised Land the Amalekites had “tripped them up.” That is, they attacked the Israelites at their weak spot, or at their hindermost part or "tail," which was comprised of those who had lagged behind (Deut 25:17).
The Hebrew word for the hindermost part of the body is עָקֵב, which is used in the Hebrew Bible to refer to the ...
3
The Hebrew word יָרֵא (yare', H3372) carries a number of nuances. In addition to "fear", "afraid" or "terror", it also can mean "reverence", "awe", "honor" or "respect". The Greek word φοβέω (G5399) carries very similar meanings.
Effectively, all of these verses are saying exactly the same thing: There is only One that you should fear/reverence/honor - ...
3
According to the Sages of the Talmud, "entering into the assembly" means marriage.
Maimonides codifies this law of the four nations as follows:
Any gentile who converts to Judaism and accepts upon himself all the
commandments of the Torah and slaves who are freed from slavery,
attain the status of a Jew as the verse says: 'As for the
congregation, ...
3
The three festivals (Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot) were times when everybody was commanded to assemble in Jerusalem. They were celebrated with festive meals, including some of the meat that had been offered on the altar. (These offerings are listed throughout Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.) The rabbis of the talmud understood that Shabbat should also include ...
2
There is an obvious implied rule from the actual listed forbidden birds, that you can use to infer the rules: birds that eat seeds or insects are fine, birds that eat meat, fish, or carrion are not. It's basically an injunction against birds of prey, sea-birds, and carrion birds, and (I believe) this is how it is interpreted. So that if you ask is an emu ok, ...
2
As a practical matter, birds are harder to catch and distinguish from afar. Remember, you could corral a pig or cow, but domesticated fowl were far more rare. (I'm forgetting now if they had chickens in ancient Israel or not). Bird hunting with bow and arrow is also not something you did very often either. In short, you don't really get close up to birds, ...
2
This answer is from a Christian perspective (as requested), and reflects the position that the promise was Christ, and not all prophets (culminating in Christ.)
"Exhibit A"
We have a Divinely-inspired Christian interpretation of the passage in Acts 3. After Peter healed the Lame Beggar, the men of Israel stood amazed. Peter asked why they were staring at ...
2
The answer is surprisingly simple. First the Edomites resisted them, then later on the Edomites became afraid of them and allowed them to pass:
‘You have been traveling around this mountain country long enough. Turn northward and command the people, “You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers, the people of Esau, who live in Seir; and ...
1
Blotting out the memory of Amalek can't mean completely eliminating any memory of same, because the torah itself tells us about Amalek and there is no indication that humans have permission to alter the text of the torah. So blotting out Amalek must mean something else.
The medieval commentator Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchak) wrote on Deut 25:19:
you ...
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