Hot answers tagged deuteronomy
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 ...
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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 ...
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]
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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
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 ...
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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 ...
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
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 ...
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
According to Jacob Milgrom:
Both ideas inhering in the kid prohibition—the reverence for life and Israel's separation from the nations—are also present in the dietary laws, the former in the blood prohibition and the latter in the animal prohibitions. Thus the kid prohibition was automatically locked into Israel's dietary system. Therefore, ...
1
That chapter is a rather miscellaneous compendium of law. You might equally ask what the law about rape has to do with the law about returning lost property.
"Treat marriage in a respectful way" is an awfully cleaned-up formulation for the law that concerns violations of the marriage contract, with potentially fatal consequences.
Anyway, if you skip the ...
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 ...
1
The punishment of one persons sin upon their children is pertaining to national judgments. It means our sin does not only effect us but as it enters society, if it goes unrepentant of, it is like a cancer invading the whole body. Eventually a whole nation can suffer the eventual downfall and judgment as a result of the sins of a forefather hundreds of ...
1
I think the verse can be proposed as ‘the children of Israel’ because it makes good sense that way, but seems illogical when considered as ‘according to the number of the gods’.
The words ‘divided mankind’ may very well indicate the division of the world into’ various languages’ after the tower of Babal, as this is was practically sets the boundaries of ...
1
Even though allegorical methods are criticized they should not be excised from the conversation.
Acceptable worship of God is done God's way. The stone is the way God created it. It requires no work of the hands of men to be acceptable to Him.
An idol is a creation of man where he worships his own effort. We might paraphrase the words of Nebuchadnezzar ...
1
Jacob Milgrom considers four theories about how the command came about:
Maimonides suggested that it was a reaction to a specific Canaanite practice.
Philo suggested the practice was inhuman for the same reason killing a young animal and its mother on the same day or killing an animal before it's weaned.
Beginning with the work of Émile Durkheim, it has ...
1
The commingling of life and death was sacrilegious in the Hebrew Bible.
For example, animals that are scavengers (lobster, shrimp, swine, dogs, vultures, lions and tigers, etc.) may thrive by habit on waste (garbage, refuse, scum, and/or other dead and decayed creatures), and thus they are unclean. Such animals could not be used for human consumption or ...
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