Quote from: spacial on February 08, 2011, 09:39:53 AM
For my own part, I started on the basis that Jesus is right and anything he says is paramount.
When I read the Gospels, it seemed to me that Jesus was clarifying and emphasising the Commandments.
He also overturned all the Mosaic and subsequent laws, apart from the commandments when he said we are subject to the judgement of no man, that we must never kill and that worship is a provate and personal matter between ourselves and God.
Jesus never wrote anything! The gospels do not even agree among themselves as the "story of Jesus. Until many hundred of years after Jesus death, there were more than 4 gospels, even its own divinity was not cannon until much later.
The so called "old testament" in Judaism referred as the Tannakh. The Tannakh contains the Torah (first five books). It is only the Torah that is considered the "word of G-d, by Jewish people. The rest of the Tannakh are considered sacred religious books but not cannon. The Torah like most of the Tannakh was written in old Hebrew, which means words without vowels, making interpretation somehow very difficult. Rabbis are very aware of this problem and also with the some how contradictory messages found in the Torah. Their response is: "the Torah is the Torah," which means we have the human limitation to understand G-d. Most current Jewish scholar believe that:
The main sources of the Torah were:
* The J (Yahwist) source, who always used 'YHVH' as the name for God and presents tradition from the point of view of the southern kingdom, Judah, using archaic Hebrew. J was a gifted storyteller who was especially interested in the human side of things and had his own characteristic vocabulary. J referred to Moses' father-in-law as Reuel or Hobab.
* The E (Elohist) source, who always used 'Elohim' as the name for God and presents tradition from the point of view of the northern kingdom, Israel, using archaic Hebrew. E referred to Moses' father-in-law as Jethro, a mistake that Moses himself could not have made.
* At some time around 650 BCE., J and E were combined by Judaean editors, producing a composite known to us as JE.
* The D (Deuteronomist) source, who emphasises centralisation of worship and governance in Jerusalem, as would be expected from political events that followed the defeat of Israel. It uses a more modern form of Hebrew.
* The P (Priestly) source uses both Elohim and El Shaddai as names of God and focuses on the formal relations between God and society. He also uses a late form of Hebrew, with a rather turgid style.
As for the question of this thread, the short answer is that the concept of TS or GID was unknown to the Hebrews. We can suggest that: homosexuals, GID people, inter sexed people, celibates, and castrated man, were all "dump" into the same category and referred as Eunuchs.
Assuming I am write (who I may not be!), se below:
Mathew 19:12
Young's Literal Translation
for there are eunuchs who from the mother's womb were so born; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs who kept themselves eunuchs because of the reign of the heavens: he who is able to receive it -- let him receive.'
I deeply respect the rights of everybody to believe what ever they want, what really makes my blood boil is their "self righteousness" and their insistence in imposing their beliefs and morals into other people. I see people who quote the bible and/or Jesus as their "their final decree" and justification for commending others as the personification of evil ,as bad as the communists or Nazis.
I apologize in advance if my posting offends anybody.
Love,
Kate
