"Old Testament" justice
There's a post going round DW like it was Tumblr and I commented on it, but apparently not on the journal of its originator. I am therefore ranting because I have neither the time nor the energy to address this issue every time I encounter said post.
This post wishes Mitt Romney a well-deserved catastrophic loss, and I'm all for that, but there is a phrase in it that pisses me off a lot, and that phrase is "Old Testament justice."
When Christians and non-Jews raised in Christian societies say this they are buying into the notion that all of the Jewish scriptures early Christians appropriated and the Nicene Council decreed to be part of the "Bible" (there are other scriptures, both Jewish and Christian, that did not make the Nicene cut) were essentially a rough draft, an outdated contract, which was meant to be taken as literally as the particular brand of Christianity takes the Gospels or more so, generally not subject to interpretation. Then, they say, Jesus came and fixed everything--liberated everyone from the mean, unnecessary, petty, and cruel bits.
(We will not stop to ponder why some people think the instruction not to eat pigs and to abstain from mixing milk and meat is more mean, unnecessary, petty and cruel than instructions to the effect that G-d might kill people who have sex in a way that G-d doesn't like, because that's messed up, yo. There's also considerable controversy over what the original Hebrew in that bit even means--it doesn't say that you shouldn't be a lesbian, it doesn't say that men like David and Jonathan shouldn't love each other, it simply instructs men to refrain from a practise which may have been male rape or may have been Teh Buttsecks as a specific act, forbidden we don't know why, but possibly for health/hygiene reasons. In any case, the death penalty as described in the original text is not something that people are supposed to enforce, it's a description of the spiritual penalty for engaging in these activities.)
My point is that this very phrase "Old Testament" is why the phrase "Judeo-Christian" is such an insulting canard--the values Christians ascribe to Jewish scripture are generally atrocious. In point of fact debate and interpretation of Torah law is not just acceptable, it is required, which is why there are zillions of volumes of Talmud, multiple religious movements and traditions within Judaism, and rabbinical courts that are still active today for resolving questions of religious law. Most of the bits that sound particularly cruel when viewed through the Christian lens are mitigated by thousands of years of Talmudic jurisprudence and tradition that maintains that they can only be enforced under very exceptional circumstances, if at all.
When Christians refer to "Old Testament justice", they generally mean justice without compassion--Gevurah (righteous anger) without Chesed (lovingkindness) or Tiferet (balance, beauty, measure, temperance).
And if you cannot see why I and others might find that an insulting characterisation of our scriptures, traditions and people, I really don't know what else to say, except STOP SAYING THAT--AT LEAST WHERE I CAN HEAR IT.
I'm quite sure that authentic Jewish justice would be pretty hard on ol'Mittens, and if you know what it actually is, feel free to invoke it upon him. But please don't give strength to the notion that our G-d is the bad cop and Jesus is the good cop and we're all stuck in the brutal past the Christians have all superseded.
This entry was originally posted at http://tiferet.dreamwidth.org/78465.html on Dreamwidth, and you won't be able to comment anywhere else. In order to comment in my journal on Dreamwidth, you will need to register your OpenID before commenting. Sign into Dreamwidth using your LJ or IJ OpenID; you will be asked if you'd like to register your OpenID. Please do so, and then subscribe and grant/request access to my Dreamwidth journal. Once I've approved you, you'll be able to comment.
This post wishes Mitt Romney a well-deserved catastrophic loss, and I'm all for that, but there is a phrase in it that pisses me off a lot, and that phrase is "Old Testament justice."
When Christians and non-Jews raised in Christian societies say this they are buying into the notion that all of the Jewish scriptures early Christians appropriated and the Nicene Council decreed to be part of the "Bible" (there are other scriptures, both Jewish and Christian, that did not make the Nicene cut) were essentially a rough draft, an outdated contract, which was meant to be taken as literally as the particular brand of Christianity takes the Gospels or more so, generally not subject to interpretation. Then, they say, Jesus came and fixed everything--liberated everyone from the mean, unnecessary, petty, and cruel bits.
(We will not stop to ponder why some people think the instruction not to eat pigs and to abstain from mixing milk and meat is more mean, unnecessary, petty and cruel than instructions to the effect that G-d might kill people who have sex in a way that G-d doesn't like, because that's messed up, yo. There's also considerable controversy over what the original Hebrew in that bit even means--it doesn't say that you shouldn't be a lesbian, it doesn't say that men like David and Jonathan shouldn't love each other, it simply instructs men to refrain from a practise which may have been male rape or may have been Teh Buttsecks as a specific act, forbidden we don't know why, but possibly for health/hygiene reasons. In any case, the death penalty as described in the original text is not something that people are supposed to enforce, it's a description of the spiritual penalty for engaging in these activities.)
My point is that this very phrase "Old Testament" is why the phrase "Judeo-Christian" is such an insulting canard--the values Christians ascribe to Jewish scripture are generally atrocious. In point of fact debate and interpretation of Torah law is not just acceptable, it is required, which is why there are zillions of volumes of Talmud, multiple religious movements and traditions within Judaism, and rabbinical courts that are still active today for resolving questions of religious law. Most of the bits that sound particularly cruel when viewed through the Christian lens are mitigated by thousands of years of Talmudic jurisprudence and tradition that maintains that they can only be enforced under very exceptional circumstances, if at all.
When Christians refer to "Old Testament justice", they generally mean justice without compassion--Gevurah (righteous anger) without Chesed (lovingkindness) or Tiferet (balance, beauty, measure, temperance).
And if you cannot see why I and others might find that an insulting characterisation of our scriptures, traditions and people, I really don't know what else to say, except STOP SAYING THAT--AT LEAST WHERE I CAN HEAR IT.
I'm quite sure that authentic Jewish justice would be pretty hard on ol'Mittens, and if you know what it actually is, feel free to invoke it upon him. But please don't give strength to the notion that our G-d is the bad cop and Jesus is the good cop and we're all stuck in the brutal past the Christians have all superseded.
This entry was originally posted at http://tiferet.dreamwidth.org/78465.html on Dreamwidth, and you won't be able to comment anywhere else. In order to comment in my journal on Dreamwidth, you will need to register your OpenID before commenting. Sign into Dreamwidth using your LJ or IJ OpenID; you will be asked if you'd like to register your OpenID. Please do so, and then subscribe and grant/request access to my Dreamwidth journal. Once I've approved you, you'll be able to comment.