The issue in the Bible is not just "Do you believe in God or not?" Everybody believed in gods of some sort. The question was, "Who is truly the only living God?" And if that God is indeed Yahweh the God of Israel, then there are consequences in real life - as shown in the Torah.
The Bible represents a fundamental guidepost for millions of people on the planet, in much the same way the Koran, Torah, and Pali Canon offer guidance to people of other religions. If you and I could dig up documentation that contradicted the holy stories of Islamic belief, Judaic belief, Buddhist belief, pagan belief, should we do that? Should we wave a flag and tell the Buddhists that the Buddha did not come from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth? Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical.
Its no coincidence that the word holiday suggests a holy day, or that the longest book in the Torah concerns the Sabbath. If you wish to advance in any sphere, the best way is to take a retreat.
The truth is that what the great religions preached, the Yiddish-speaking people of the ghettos practiced day in and day out. They were the people of The Book in the truest sense of the word. They knew of no greater joy than the study of man and human relations, which they called Torah, Talmud, Mussar, Cabala.
I wouldn't even dare read the Torah, let alone attempt a witty observation on the Torah.
Orthodox Jews, or, as they are known in the Talmud, the Really Chosen Ones, are committed to the idea that the entire Torah was dictated by God verbatim to Moses at Mount Sinai... Other forms of Judaism dispute this claim, although it does explain certain passages in the first Torah, such as, I'm sorry, am I boring you? and What do you like better, Moses, Lord Almighty or Big Hoohah?
A man with a camera was always suspected of being a spy. Moreover, the Jews did not want to be photographed, due to a misunderstanding of the prohibition against making graven images (photography had not been invented when the Torah was written!). I was forced to use a hidden camera.
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? But when I am for myself, then what am "I"? And if not now, when?
And you can't make a mistake when you are reading the Torah, so you have men standing around who will correct you if you are reading it incorrectly.
The Koran and Islam is about submission, justice and compassion. All people of the "book" - which means the Torah, Koran and Bible are accorded equal respect under Islam.
I'm sentimental about Jesus on the cross. Jesus was a Jew, and also I believe he was a catalyst, and I think he offended people because his message was to love your neighbour as yourself; in other words, no one is better than somebody else. He embraced all people, whether it was a beggar on the street or a prostitute, and he admonished a group of Jews who were not observing the precepts of the Torah. So he rattled a lot of people's cages.
Nowhere in the Bible, Koran, or Torah does it say, "If you curse, then you're going to hell." But everywhere it says that if you kill, you're going to wherever they send you, depending on the religion.
I assume as a child Jesus had to learn how to do carpentry, learn Torah, learn all the things a human child had to learn. If He was human in all ways except that He did not sin, this must have been the case.
I have also written a book about the Giving of the Torah, and a book on the Days of Awe, and a book on the books of Israel that have been written since the day the Torah was given to Israel.
Confucius is like the Torah, rules to follow. And Lao-Tzu is even more conservative, saying that if you do nothing you won't break any rules. You have to let tradition fall sometime, you have to take action, you have to eat bacon.
The Koran was assembled from a variety of prior Hagarene texts (hence the contradictions re Jesus' death) in order to provide the Moses-like Muhammad with a Torah of his own.
We must stop using the Bible as though it were a potpourri of inerrant proof-texts by which we can bring people into bondage to our religious traditions...We must no longer use the Bible as the Pharisees used the Torah when they gave it absolute and final status. Christian biblicism is no different from Jewish legalism. It is the old way of the letter, not the new way of the Spirit.
I hope to see the two great religions, Islam and Christianity, hand-in-hand, embracing each other. Then the Torah and the Bible and the Qur’an will become books supporting one another being read everywhere, and respected by every nation … [I am] looking forward to seeing Muslims read the Torah and the Bible.
The Torah is the foundational text for Jewish law, but the Haggadah is our book of living memory. We are not merely telling a story here. We are being called to a radical act of empathy. Here we are, embarking on an ancient, perennial attempt to give human lives - our lives - dignity.
It specifically says in the Torah that you can eat shrimp and bacon in a Chinese restaurant.
You've read the Torah, right? So you know the Torah defines marriage as being between one man and one woman.
If I were one of the gods who just wound up supervising humans, I'd want to influence the decision-makers to live according to the morals that Israel would eventually get in the Torah, and to teach those same principles to their people. I'd also want to make sure they worship no other god but the Most High.
I think when people speak about faith, they always get stuck when they're starting to speak about the terrible things that happen in the world, and I always know, even in the Torah, they're always speaking about it, that if there is fifty percent of love, there is fifty percent of hate, they are always in perfect balance.
Just as the Torah and Bible teach concern for those in distress, the Koran instructs all Muslims to make caring for widows, orphans, and refugees a priority.
God did everything necessary to get Herod's attention. He sent messengers from the East and a message from the Torah. He sent wonders from the sky and words from Scripture. He sent the testimony of the heavens and the teaching of the prophets. But Herod refused to listen. He chose his puny dynasty over Christ. He died a miserable old man.
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