J. C. Salomon

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I’m an engineer, graduated with a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from the Cooper Union, and working in that field in the Greater NYC area.

My interests are varied and include computers & computer programming, science fiction & real-life space exploration, politics, and religion; see my active accounts on Stack Overflow.

Read my (very sporadically-updated) blog, or follow me on Google+.

	943 reputation	bio	website	jcsalomon.github.com	visits	member for	1 year, 3 months
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1h	comment	How can we determine when an image is a symbol? @MatthewMiller, I didn’t think you’d meant that; I used that as an example of a clearly invalid reading.
2h	comment	How can we determine when an image is a symbol? As an aside, rule #3 would tend to exclude most Christological readings of the Hebrew Bible [“Old Testament”]; Rabbi Hirsch would consider this a feature of his system, not a flaw.
Mar 28	comment	Why did the Samaritans worship God in Mount Gerissim rather than Jerusalem? @Mawia, they claim not to worship any god but God; and there’s no indication that there are any remnants of their old pagan worship still around. Things might have been different 2,000 years ago; you might get some interesting information by asking about the Samaritans on ✡.SE.
Mar 19	comment	What did Isaiah intend with his unusual usage of “create” in Isaiah 45:7? Zoroaster lived and taught long before Isaiah’s times (ca. 1000 BCE, vs. 700 BCE); the prophet may have been reacting directly to that philosophy. (Source: Rav Schwab on Yeshayahu.)
Mar 19	comment	How many wives does Deuteronomy allow a king to have? Actually, the fact that David did not marry Avishag is taken in halacha to indicate that he was married to the maximum allowable number of wives.
Mar 5	comment	Esther 4:14 observation & translation Welcome to BH.SE. I’d suggest you clarify what it is you’re looking for; the StackExchange sites work best for Q&A rather than discussions. Could you perhaps find a specific question which we might answer for you?
Jan 16	comment	Did Pharoah have free will? See also <aishdas.org/asp/2013/01/2-kinds-of-law.shtml>.
Dec 30	comment	How are we to take the fact that Lot offered his daughters for rape? @MonicaCellio, you ought to turn that comment into an answer. Jewish tradition does not consider Lot to have been righteous; the Midrash makes much of the fact that he chose Sodom, where the people were so wicked, as the place to live after he separated from Avram.
Oct 25	comment	Did women contribute to the temple in exodus 35:22? Much of the jewelry mentioned were for both men & women: rings, nose-rings, and others depending on how the nouns are translated. (I hope, @RonMaimon, you’re not claiming your translation of the nouns is better than anyone else’s too.)
Oct 23	comment	What do the days of Obadyahu's youth concern us? Emphasis. It’s one word in Hebrew, and an easy way to emphasize what he’s saying.
Oct 21	comment	A woman is not to put on a man's dress? Not an answer, but on this topic: In the halachik understanding of this verse, the prohibition extends beyond cross-dressing to either sex taking on the gender rôles of the other; specifically, women are indeed forbidden from going armed to war.
Oct 10	comment	What is the significance of Methuselah's name? R.S.R. Hirsch has an interesting take on the names of both antediluvian lines, referring to stages of deviation from and return to God’s will, and the attitudes of the leaders towards the hoi polloi. If I can find a copy handy I’ll write this up as a full answer, but from what I recall Hirsch translates Methuselah as “casting aside [shelaḥ] the ignoble masses [methu]”; i.e., while some in that generation were righteous, they ignored their responsibility to teach others.
Oct 5	comment	Satan: Stumbling Block or Accuser? Do you have a source for the root set ([שט] or [סט])?
Sep 27	comment	Ecclesiastes 4:12 A cord of three strands is not quickly broken Looks good to me.
Sep 27	comment	Ecclesiastes 4:12 A cord of three strands is not quickly broken @Kazark, I've up-voted your answer based on the first two paragraphs. I also commented to note my disagreement with the third. Would you accept an edit to add the qualifier “From a Christian perspective…” at the beginning of that last paragraph?
Sep 27	comment	Ecclesiastes 4:12 A cord of three strands is not quickly broken Jack & “swasheck”: Agreed. Somehow we ought to distinguish the applicability of a verse (which will often vary greatly between Jewish, Christian, & academic interpreters) and its meaning (which will sometimes vary too, but usually not as far).
Sep 10	comment	Ecclesiastes 4:12 A cord of three strands is not quickly broken As @MonicaCellio points out, the trinity reference is not needed in the answer. From a Jewish perspective, this verse is Midrashically taken to refer to the Patriarchs. Not all of Abraham’s sons were worthy, similarly for Isaac, but Jacob’s sons had three righteous forebearers and so all turned out right since “a cord of three strands is not quickly broken”.
Apr 11	comment	Did women contribute to the temple in exodus 35:22? The trop separate the first four words from the rest of the verse; seems the Massoretes had your question in mind.
Apr 11	comment	Why does God say he only revealed his name, Yahweh, to Moses? The b- prefix would better translate as “with” rather than “in”, hence “with my name YHVH I did not make myself known to them”. Considering the strong association between name and identity, this can equally be read as a lacuna in the Patriarchs’ understanding of God’s YHVH-ness as their ignorance of the name.
Apr 11	comment	Why does God say he only revealed his name, Yahweh, to Moses? Why do you translate the words “לא נודעתי” as “I did not make known” rather than the reflexive “I did not make myself known”? In order to get at the translation you’re using, the text should have been “לא הודעתי”.