continued

In a patriarchal society the power lies with men who have power. Men in a patriarchal society have power over their family but not necessarily outside of it. A woman in a patriarchal society with a powerful husband in effect can have more power than a man without much status.

I don't think King David can be compared to the Pharaoh at the time of Abraham. King David committed a heinous crime and was condemned by the prophet, Nathan, for it. I don't think the Pharaoh at the time of Abraham was bound by the limitations of David. I think he had the right as absolute ruler to take any woman he had a fancy to regardless of the bonds she had. It was a matter of convenience whether he would dispose of a husband and not a matter of morality. A husband might be more likely to seek revenge than a brother.

By the time of David monarchy was in question. Samuel I 10:10 - 19 tells of the evils of monarchy, but the Israelites wanted a king anyway.

Oskar Schindler saved a number of people, and Jägerstätter saved nobody. Schindler was a longtime Nazi Party member, and Jägerstätter would have nothing to do with the Nazis. If we condemn people merely because of the groups they belong to then it is reasonable to condemn Schindler. However, Schindler and Jägerstätter were both men of conscience who probably would not have liked each other. I respect them both and would probably have been uncomfortable with both. I would have been uncomfortable with Jägerstätter because I would not have related to his deep religious faith and uncomfortable with Schindler because I would have found his salesman bonhomie unsettling.

They were alike in both being compassionate human beings. Too bad there were not more people like both of them

quote grim<<Sorry to but in on what appears to have become a private conversation,..but I think on the question of..'God a child'..there does appear to be a progression.

In the early bible,..God seems to me to be portrayed very much as a petulant child,..always taking his bat and storming off when he doesn't get His own way..(and kicking more than a few garbage bins on the way out).

The New Testament God seems a little more mature,although the sacrifice of his Son seems to have made him retreat for good...>>
so many things im wanting to refute...but there is so much truth...im holding my toungue

<<That's a question that I haven't seen addressed by the theist/atheist debate>>please make it a new topic

im sort of enjoying the other topic
but your point holds so much revealation

<<The bible records innumerable events over millennia...Why did it stop?>>>thing is it hasnt...see that our belief rules us...our belief is tainted with fear of failure...[witness simon lack of faith..[re walking on the waters]

<<On the question of the widow,>>>i must read the debait

<<look to Bill Gates>>...and still be a billionaire.
So what did it cost him?>>his soul..his family belief is eugenmics...<<And why did he have so much money to start with?>>..his family has excellent contacts...you heard of him inventing web patenting..[5 bucks a shot]..want to patyent your post?...5 buck please...for what?..

or him getting big time..into vacinating/africans into sterility...now we getting manditory vacinations..[when we all-ready got immunity from their new latest designer/flue...designed to bring in the needles..[of the hourse of sickness]..via gmo...grown vacine....lllol

Dear davidf,

If I am unable to apologise for the tardy reply then allow me to transfer it to my sloppy grammar. Not good at the best of times but anything shot out after midnight shows the result of spending ones formative years in other countries.

My man, the good Rabbi, talks about the relationship between Abraham (along with the Jewish race) and God in these terms. He says you can’t really choose who you fall in love with, it just happens and the old adage holds true - love is blind. Don’t look for the reasons why he fell in love with Abraham who was far from a saint he says, because the answers don‘t lie in reason.

I wonder if perhaps God saw something of himself in Abraham.

Anyway who has decided that God is perfect and good? I’m not sure he ever says that of himself. Perhaps Genesis is attempting to say that humans, with all our imperfections, are truly made in God’s image. A God capable of petulance, jealousy and on occasion great evil.

Don’t we try to rise to a higher standard around our children and expect of them standards we probably never attained in our youth? Why do we do it? Sure pride is part of it but love is the real crux of it. Perhaps the maturing and reciprocal love meant both God and the Jewish people became greater than what they were capable of being apart.

Thank you for your considered reply regarding Franz Jägerstätter, I do not wish to take anything from his sacrifice, which was monumental, but I am keen to tease the notion of moral acts out a little further. How much do you think his actions were the result of his religious convictions as a catholic (sorry for not having researching him myself put hopefully the weekend will afford me the time)? If Schindler was not graced by such a fundamental belief system how are his efforts to be measured?

Sarah still worries me, perhaps a female perspective would be helpful.

Dear Grim,

Welcome to the conversation. As davidf has indicated the important thing is a civilised dialogue, no battlelines drawn just throwing some questions around.

I feel I have erred saying I thought God acted like a child in Genesis, it is not really indicative of my true thoughts but perhaps I was swayed a little by my quote from Karen Armstrong.

I am more inclined to think of his as an artist, initially caring more about the creation than the created if you gather my drift. Any perceived taints or imperfections meant throwing it away and starting again with scant thought about beings that had come to life under his brush.

Only one (Noah) comes to his attention and a dialogue is commenced preventing total annihilation.

A modern day example might be the Howard government’s locking up of asylum seekers behind razor wire in desert camps where they remained ‘the other’, ‘off the radar’, ‘faceless’.

It is only now that they are living in our communities and we are hearing their stories that the proper repugnance for what was done to them is being felt.

There are many reasons why the bible has not been added to. The Roman destruction of the second temple and the ensuing Diaspora possibly meant there was not a critical mass of Jewry with the authority to add to the Torah while the power of tradition would have been another limiting factor. Davidf is the one to ask though.

For a layman like me the thought of an addition detailing the Holocaust seems appropriate but one senses that it might take centuries before it is distilled sufficiently.

Dear csteele,

The God of the Bible is an imperfect being subject to irrational behaviour, unreasoning anger and arbitrary loves. The protagonist of the New Testament presumably never even masturbated. I am an imperfect being with a useless appendix as a relict of ancestors with a different diet and subject also to lusts, anger and love. I can relate to the God of the Bible whether or not he exists. I can't relate to the protagonist of the New Testament.

There is no need for Jews to add to the Bible. Unlike Christianity which continues to go back to the Bible Judaism has produced and is producing commentaries, midrashim, responsa and other literature. Rabbis are discussing whether battery hens or other animals raised in miserable conditions should be considered kosher. Some advocate vegetarianism as suitable for living on a crowded planet. The record of discussions including both majority and minority views are kept. There is no human authority like a pope to say which is right. Midrashim are stories which comment on the Bible and other topics.

The Talmud includes midrashim (plural of midrash). These stories are not regarded as true but are told to make a point.

There is a story that God surrounded by his angels saw the waters of the Red Sea close over the Egyptians. The angels cheered. The Lord told them not to cheer but wept, "They are also my children."

One of the names of God in the original Hebrew is Elohim. That is a plural indicating possibly that he contains many Gods or like my appendix is a relict.

There are many versions of the haggadah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggadah_of_Pesach). It is a the service read at Passover which celebrates the Exodus. In general the Orthodox object to changes in it. However, some non-Orthodox versions incorporate references to the Holocaust.

Dear davidf,

After a hard day on the tools yesterday it is good to write without rushing.

During the Passover celebrations it is my understanding that a little wine is intentionally spilt in remembrance of the blood of the Egyptian firstborns who perished that night. This is a human driven act not God ordained and one I find poignant.

Regarding the Midrashim, I tend to look at the process as a healthy remodelling of God to suit the times, kicking the hard edges off when required. Is it an honest process, not strictly, but it is certainly a human one. Christianity and Islam can be viewed as radical remodelling necessary for the non-Jewish world to drink from the same ‘god-well’. The racial nature of the original narrative meant the process for them had to be one of revolution rather than evolution.

Might the story of God through the Hebrew then Christian bible be viewed with a Buddhist eye? His withdrawing and leaving the load to his son (at least in the Christian version) signals a movement away. Perhaps he has sat alone under a tree in the garden in Eden (hopefully not playing with himself thanks davidf, whew, have to work to keep that vision out of my brain) and decided he needed to liberate himself of the pain of human existence, a pain he obviously feels differently but strongly. Knowing now the answer doesn’t lie in destruction he instead has left his prophets to attempt to enlighten us about the causes of suffering and show a way forward alone. Should we be allowed to hope for Nirvana for the God of the Hebrew bible?

I probably would.

On a more personal note I am glad to hear that lust still is a part of your life as an octogenarian. I had felt by then I might have been looking for other ways of keeping amused and had seriously thought about commencing experimentation with various illicit substances in my eighties. They tell me LSD can produce visions and enlightenment without three decades in a monastery. Quite looking forward to it.