re: #70 Obdicut

No, he hasn’t. You’re misreading him. It is very clear, from the ancient text, that there are misogynistic aspects in there, and other unsavory things. Far, far, far, far, far less than other religions and cultures at the time, far less than many religions and cultures have now, and in practice this may have been even further mitigated. But you can’t simply say that because the burden of proof was so high that it was ‘moot’— that would be to say that the text itself has no meaning.

Actually I can say that the burden of proof was so high that the law was unenforceable. All those rules of evidence come from somewhere (specifically the Oral Law which is as old if not older, if you are not observant than the Written Law). I didn’t make them up. As to the meaning of laws which can not be enforced. You should not be surprised that there are entire discussions about that very issue in the Oral Law.

If it is really your opinion that the Torah contains no verses that are in any way misogynistic,

No. I am not saying that there aren’t things that are unpleasant in the texts at all. I personally have issues with many things. If you want a real Jewish Law issue that sucks, in modern practice and has its share of misogyny involved (in terms of how it is handled today, ironically it was better in the old days) look into agunot. However, the things that people tend to bring up in these conversations are not the things that are so problematic, because they have no concept of the Oral Law. Most non-Jews and many Jews have never heard of agunot.

that it was all obviated at the time by the oral tradition, and there was equality even then,

There was vastly, vastly more equality than you are giving credit to however.

then I don’t really know what to say. I’ve never met anyone who believed that before.

Welll I don’t believe that. I do however ask for a lot more accuracy in these discussions than is usually present.