I am glad to see we have finally moved on past the semantic wrangling that was beginning to annoy many of you. I fully understand how circular arguments like that could wear thin, but I thought the subject was worth pursuing, and if, by wading into it, we managed to make a little bit clearer the range of opinions that are expressed by the various terms, then great.
As for the new topic about the Old Testament, specifically the Torah, I can clarify a few things... though I think this subject is even farther off the OP than trying to define atheism better.
1)
The Old Testament is not synonymous with the Torah.
The Torah is just the first 5 books... Genesis through Exodus. While some of the Torah does contain the type of egregious legal advice that was mentioned above (Leviticus primarily), a lot of that stuff is found in the other books. The Old Testament is called the Tanakh and includes The
Torah ("Teaching", also known as the Five Books of Moses),
Nevi'im ("Prophets") and
Ketuvim ("Writings")—hence TaNaKh. The name "Miqra" (מקרא), meaning "that which is read", is an alternative Hebrew term for the Tanakh. Only the Torah is considered to be the word of G*d. The books of the prophets are reveared to a lesser extent, and the Writings (with historical stuff from the Kings and scribes) is only given mild credence.
As Eliyahu was saying, the books of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) were relayed with an accompanying oral tradition passed on by each generation, called the Oral Torah.
I am not defending the Bible, but there are some
interesting things to note about it. The Torah is by and large identical (letter for letter) to the oldest scrolls we have found. It is copied fastidiously by a Sefer whose only job is to copy it error free and takes many months... If there is a single error, it must be burned and started again. I can think of no other books with this level of editorial accuracy
ever in all of history. Our modern science books are more prone to typos and errors by a factor of 100.
2)
Oral Traditions
As for Oral Traditions, while they may change, the handing down of wisdom from Qabbalistic master to master until things like the Zohar codified them is not the same as a kid's game of telephone. These are wizened Qabbalists passing on what, to them, are Earth shattering secrets to other venerable scholars with a similar respect for what is being taught. Not unlike the oral traditions of Kung Fu masters. Furthermore, the Jewish people have always been more scholarly and bookwormish than any other group. Jewish houses were always filled with precarious towers of books that actually got studied and debated for hours on end on a daily basis.
3)
Surface vs. Deeper Levels
Hebrew texts, and the Torah specifically, were not designed to be easily understood by simply reading the apparent meaning. This 1st, surface level, was often just some harmless historical stories with some Jewish flavor and some basic concepts. This is called the
PASHAT – Simple Level – the obvious straight doctrinal or historical meaning of the passage.
The levels of meaning that go deeper, go all the way down to
SOD – Deepest or secret, hidden level of Scripture, which can only be discerned through the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) and deeper study... and beyond. Here is a basic primer on Qabbalistic ides written for non Jews and people with a mild interest.
http://www.withoneaccord.org/assets/images/freedownloads/Kabbalah.pdf
A deep study of this is a lifelong process that never ends. The fact is that people who criticize the Torah, have never actually read it... even if they read their translation of the book 50 times. Jews, due to being constantly persecuted, innately paranoid, and masters of codes and cyphers... created a system by which their many historical antagonists could not understand the books they stole from them. If you belong to a mystical sect entrusted for keeping huge and awesome secrets... and you tended to have every major power in history try their best to exterminate you and destroy your knowledge... you tend to get rather clever.
If you have never studied any Qabbalah, you are not qualified to comment about what the Bible does or doesn't say. It is just as if you intercepted a super-spy communique and didn't know the code by which to decipher a message that on the surface seems somewhat tame.. though still filled with pointed references to heady shit, miracles, extra-terrestrial beings, giants, wizards, ungodly experimental beasts etc. etc.
Personally, I find this fascinating, and have been exposed to many of the over 600 ways to interpret the Torah... and yet, it is a relic of a bygone era. I think in
this time, that information should be spread
far and wide. This stuff needs to be practiced and not merely handed down. With holographic codes this detailed, it takes a very long time to just be able to read some bit of wisdom properly. If you can only start this process at 40 (and with a wife and kids no less) then the chances of you being able to utilize this info before you died (remember the life expectancy of the day) were slim. Most Qabbalists can barely learn some secrets and pass along the art of deciphering them before croaking.
And yet, even still, the word Cabalist was synonymous with Wizard in the Middle Ages.
Today, it is possible to get the real teachings and put them into practice in a way that it never was before. We
could have a generation where prophets are relatively common. IMHO this world needs more masters and not more scholars.
4)
JC a Qabbalist?
I would say the odds are that he was. If he was a biblical prodigy, he would have known how to get to the deeper stuff, and thus unlocked the magic.
Truth be told, by Jewish Prophet standards, he wasn't all that advanced. Nothing he did miracle-wise hadn't been already done numerous times before. His largest miracles were only witnessed by a handful of people directly. Even feeding the masses with loaves and fishes or turning water into wine at a large party were only directly witnessed by the people immediately around him.
Christians hate this, but there are at least 10 prophets, dozens of Qabbalists, and hundreds of Tzadikim who have more miracles and more impressive miracles attributed to them. A guy who starts his public prophetic life at 30 and is gone by 33 without having taught
any of his followers the full secrets, is considered a
failure by Jewish standards. Certainly
not the
Meshiach ben David (Messiah) who was supposed to become "King of the Entire World" and rule in the flesh for 1,000 years of peace so profound that people would beat their swords into plowshares and learn the arts of war no more.
He
might have a case for being the
Meshiach ben Yoseph (The Lamb of G*d). His name
was Yeshua ben Yoseph after all, and he
was led to the slaughter. But Jews do not believe the Meshiach ben Yoseph to be the same person as the
actual savior. And, Yeshua was not the first or last prophet, saint or whatever to be led to the slaughter and claim to be a redeemer. For Jews, the proof is in the putting. Are we saved? NO. End of story.
I guess this is long. I can go into some details later on, but suffice it to say that parting the Red Sea in front of the entire nation of Israel and a good deal of Pharaoh's army, holding it open long enough for a gigantic convoy of men, women, children, donkeys and possessions to pass across the sea floor, and then closing it on the largest armed force of the time...
completely obliterating it...
after having killed every first born male in the largest kingdom of the day...
this is another order of magnitude higher than simply healing a few sick people, resurrecting Lazarus in front of maybe 6 people, and then resurrecting yourself, but
only appearing in the flesh to a small band of followers who you
still don't finish teaching before beaming back up to the mothership. There is a reason why Jews still prefer
Moshé ha Nuvi'i (Moses the Prophet) and
Eliyahu (Elijah) over JC... who most Jews
will begrudgingly recognize as Jewish Prophet, but one who made as much trouble as he fixed and was rather immature. (probably because he wasn't 40, married and with kids ;-)
