re: #354 Sergey Romanov

I never wrote or implied that you should.

You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that. I tried to qualify it as quickly as I could by…requesting that you not lump me in with anyone else with which you’ve had this discussion.

The translators knew Hebrew very well.

There’s an interesting story about this. Evidently the Greek ruler wanted, oh, about 70 rabbis to translate the Torah into Greek. He locked them in separate rooms, and they began. This is discussed as one of those invisible miracles, not a headline grabber. The problem for the Rabbis was that translating the Torah was, not a sin, but a thing that will have very bad consequences and shouldn’t be done. So, they were in a quandary since not doing so would kick in option 2—death. They began their work, trying to mistranslate several key words. And here’s the little miracle—they all mistranslated the same words, and so no death penalty.

You have not addressed my points about slaves in Leviticus and Exodus being just that - slaves, property that can be sold, punished, etc. You only said that I’m wrong about punishment.

You might really dig Talmud. Start that section by inferring—if the slave owner is an asshole…

There is no commandment, thou must not be an asshole—it’s just sort of understood. Again, because there is really no money, many discussions revolve around assessing value and monetary compensation. So, how do you assess damages and compensation when there isn’t any actionable damages? And how do you define an actionable damage? And if the damage is actionable, who do you pay it to? The state? Don’t think so. There is more analysis of the passage, again, it would take a while.

Regarding the timetable. The tradition is that the Oral Torah was also given with the written Torah. And many people could remember it all, and cross-reference like a computer. However, when it became obvious that our mental faculties were in serious decline, these things were written down.

One of the reasons that modern Judaism is against slavery is because we have money, and a central bank, and transportation and all sorts of things that make the whole enterprise completely unnecessary. Cruelty was never a part of the deal, so it was never a factor in getting rid of it.

If you look at the history of slavery, and apply the perspective of the Torah, you will ask ‘what are these insane people doing?’ Because it’s wrong.

Remember, we left that kind of insane slavery. We know it’s wrong. That’s why we have Passover.