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message for you at Priestly source edit

I've left a message for you on the Talk page. Please let us have our discussion there. PiCo (talk) 01:22, 16 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

I've replied to you on that Talk page. PiCo (talk) 03:46, 22 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
A second entry on talk. It's an interesting discussion. PiCo (talk) 00:16, 23 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

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Torah misrepresentation of sources dispute resolution. edit

You can fond details at ths page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#TorahRobot wagner (talk) 06:49, 5 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robot wagner (talkcontribs)


I made clear that Orthodox and Sfardic are not based on that source, but on commonly known fact, in WP terms "attributable", however if you question whether Sfardim believe this that report says that Sfardic Jews never had a reform movement and that they retain traditional Jewish views. The only thing that the source is for is the majority of Israeli Jews, and that many are not observant, as the report states that most traditional Jews in Israel are not observant, that they drive on Shabbat, for example. As for God, that is what on Sinai means, does it mean that Moses found it under a rock up there, this is not what people mean when they refer to "receiving" the Torah on Sinai, that it was "received" from God. I wrote that many readers do not understand what "receiving" on Sinai means, and God is a clarification of that. So i think that its clear that i am not using sources inappropriately. If you still do please write me on my Talk. Learned69 (talk) 20:27, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

You need a RS for your claims about orthodox and sephardic Jews. Ever heard of Orthopraxy? It is not for me to question what Sephardic Jews believe, it is for you to provide a reliable source. You cannot interprete on Sinai to mean from God without WP:OR. It is clear that you do not understand that it is not up to you to interpret sources, just to report them. You should restore my version, which accurately reports the sources.Robot wagner (talk) 20:49, 5 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

The language in poll is "torah given to Moses on Sinai". Who gave it, why didn't the people answering the poll ask "given" by whom. Its obviously clear that all understood that the giver was God, and that this is what given in Sinai means. As for Orthodox, see article on Orthodox Judaism, and from there it is attributable that they accept the Torah as God's word. WP has guidelines in sources that allow for "attributable facts", like Paris is in France. Its like demanding s source that devout Muslims accept Mohammad as God's prophet or that devout Christians accept Christ as the Savior. This is not required. See the guidelines. I may cite the report for Sfardim though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Learned69 (talk • contribs) 20:57, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

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User:Robot wagner edit

Was blocked as a a sockpuppet so you can revert him freely per Wikipedia:Banning_policy#Edits_by_and_on_behalf_of_banned_editors--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 14:43, 10 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

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Definition of the 613 Commandments edit

You are deliberately misrepresenting Jewish sources. As in the definition of the 613 commandments, and in the tzniut article as well. I do not know why you are trying to redate basic tenets of Judaism to talmudic times, but if you continue to do so, I shall raise a proposal to have you banned from Judaism articles. Debresser (talk) 16:55, 27 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

I don't know why you accuse me of misrepresenting sources. Dat Moshe does not mean that its in the Torah. In fact it is not in the Torah. Dat means a custom or practice. You should do some research on this word. If you have the Bar Ilan databse type in the word Dat and you will see this in Rashi all over. It is certainly not in the Torah and nobody says that it is. Can you give me a singe source that says that its in the Torah and where it is.

The article about tzniut brings a source. Did you look up that source? It says in no unclear language "de'oraita" = 'from the Torah'. Debresser (talk) 23:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

As for the 613, see what I wrote in the Talk under NPOV and have a good look at Maimonides Book of Mitzvoht. The reason that many commandments are not counted are because they were not given to Moses at Sinai. And Maimonides clearly says that 613 commandments were given to Moses on Sinai, so this is what the 613 are. The complete written Torah was not given on Sinai but dictated throughout the 40 years. Moses did not know in advance, for example, that sending spies would result in an additional 40 years in the desert. As Maimonides explains in length in his introduction to Commentary on the Mishnah only those commandments that were given to Moses on Sinai came with an oral interpretation. So instead of accusing me of things do some learning of your own.Learned69 (talk) 21:08, 27 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

No connection between what you say and your rewrite of a consensus version (which was recently discussed without your participation). Debresser (talk) 23:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

You also think that "redate basic tenets of Judaism to talmudic times" is diminishing a tenet. In Judaism the earlier a thing comes from the greater authority it has. So citing the Talmud gives something more authority, as opposed to something that is merely a later custom. I don't know why you have a problem with this.Learned69 (talk) 21:08, 27 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

You redate them to the Talmud instead of to the Sinaic revelation (or subsequent primary Divine revelation as reflected in the Written Torah). Debresser (talk) 23:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

I was not aware of this consensus, as the editor who reverted it did not note this consensus which is the usual way of doing it so that other editors are aware of this consensus. So my edit was not "blatantly ignoring the consensus" because I was not aware of it. Had I been aware of it I certainly would not have ignored it. As for citing the Talmud and not the Torah, according to Maimonides the 613 are not a numbering of the laws of the written Torah, that was dictated after Sinai, but a numbering of commandments that were given to Moses on Sinai, and that those commandments were given along with an oral interpretation as opposed to the written Torah that was dictated without an interpretation, and that this is the significance of the 613 (he says this). So according to this, that in addition to the written Torah that was dictated to Moses throughout the 40 years, Moses also received 613 commandments on Sinai, the source is only the Talmud, that the Talmud says that he received these 613 on Sinai, and not the Torah, which is referring to what was dictated after Sinai. In any case I had no intention of diminishing Jewish tenets and this is against my world view. I trust that this will clear up what I believe is a misunderstanding. Also the Talmud says that Dat Moshe is not a reference to Dioryata, the Talmud asks that if its from the Torah then it would not be called a Dat Moshe, but that dat moshe is referring to a case where the act is not included in the prohibition of the Torah, so the wording in that article should be changed to reflect this. It currently says that Dat Moshe is a way of saying that its from the Torah and this is not correct.Learned69 (talk) 11:34, 28 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

Okay, I accept that you might not have noticed the consensus edit on 613 commandments. Although the discussion was there for all to read. As far as Das Moshe is concerned, I'll have a look at that gemorre again. But I still fail to see your point about Maimonides and the 613 commandments. Your world view is hereby properly acknowledged. :) Debresser (talk) 17:40, 28 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

Genesis 1:1 edit

Hello L69. I've reverted your reversion of my edits on Genesis 1:1. My reason is, essentially, that I believe this can be a useful article if it's very tightly focused on the grammar of the verse that's the original Hebrew, the problems with translating that into English, and the meaning the verse had in ancient times (because concepts change - our understanding of what "create" means is different to that of the ancients, for example). If we get into the rbbis, then we have to keep going - what did Wellhausen say, what did Rad say, what do Van Seters and contemporary scholars say. There'd be no end to it.

This should really be discussed on the Talk page of course, and you might like to copy this there. PiCo (talk) 23:49, 22 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

Sourcing edit

Hi, About this edit: [1]. You need to provide a secondary source, such as a history book which has that quotation. See WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT and WP:PRIMARY. Zerotalk 11:16, 3 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Done.

March 2013 edit

  Thank you for your contributions. Please remember to mark your edits, such as your recent edits to Burning bush, as "minor" only if they truly are minor edits. In accordance with Help:Minor edit, a minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. Minor edits consist of things such as typographical corrections, formatting changes or rearrangement of text without modification of content. Additionally, the reversion of clear-cut vandalism and test edits may be labeled "minor". Thank you. And at Torah - deleting (or adding) content is not a minor edit. Dougweller (talk) 09:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Mosaic authorship edit

I've raised your edits of Mosaic authorship at WP:NPOVN#Mosaic authorship.Dougweller (talk) 10:05, 19 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Hello Dougweller, I did not write that last paragraph, its from a source. I thought that it was more logical reasoning in explaining the view that Mosaic authorship has earlier roots, than simply a POV.

I did not write about those 6 verses, that was there from a previous editor who was trying to show that there are only 6 references to some "vague" laws of Moses. I thought that it was appropriate to cite Miller in his general critique of that whole body of work that repeatedly points out that there is no mention of Moses writing a Torah, only laws, that the Hebrew Torah uses the term Torah and not laws. It is he who writes that the fact that they did not read or understand Hebrew was a reason for their insistence that there is no mention anywhere in the Torah of Moses writing the Torah. This point is very important as it provides a strong basis for Mosaic authorship. This is neither original research or POV.

Since the previous editor saw fit to cite 6 verses and point out that there is never a reference to a specific law, I thought that this mistake should be corrected. Again I wasn't the editor that started citing those verses.

As to pointing out that all bibles have Nehemia reading only in the book and not the complete book, I do not think that this qualifies as research. McEntire stated a fact that is verifiable as not true. This is no different than if a source would misstate any other verifiable fact. Also if you look at what the article was like before I made my edits it was not at all neutral either. It was completely dismissive of Mosaic authorship, and the whole article consisted exclusively of proof upon proof that Moses did not write the Torah, with the conclusion that it has no basis in fact.

I am not sure what you are referring to when I copied and pasted from another WP article. If you are referring to the copy and paste from the verses in Torah I cited that on Torah from a source and also cited the source on Mosaic authorship.

I did however defer to your opinion about that last paragraph and removed it, even though as I explained that source presented it as logical reasoning and not as a POV. L69 (talk) 06:30, 20 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

I started to reply last night to say I'd reply today as I was tired, and never finished. Could you read WP:NOR and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch as well as WP:NPOV. I doubt that the article conformed to our policies and guidelines before you edited it, such articles rarely do. Also WP:VERIFY. An example of original research that was in the article before is "The Torah has five mentions of Moses writing passages" - who says? You obviously think it is six. Such material needs a reliable source (sorry, another link, WP:RS). "It is not clear what body of writing this refers to." is also original research as well as dubious. So is "
However the actual verse does not say that he "read the Law of Moses", as in the complete law. The actual verse says that he read "in it" (Hebrew bible),"from it" (King James bible)"therein" (American Standard Version)." - as editors, we can't debate our sources, we need to find other sources for that. And for religious articles, there's another problem - usually we can't use religious texts as references in the way this article does. They have to be handled very carefully. Also, you wrote "It is thus clear that the Talmud holds that every verse in the Torah was dictated to Moses by God." That whole paragraph is original research and would need a reliable source (again, reliable by our criteria). I appreciate your edit on my talk page and your willingness to listen. I think this article has been ignored and needs more editors, even if they disagree.
I don't know of any complaints about you, I got here via some other article - over the years I've managed to get thousands of articles on my Watchlist. Dougweller (talk) 15:34, 20 March 2013 (UTC)Reply
The source was Behold a People a Didactic History of Biblical Times, a book by Avigdor Miller, who is not an expert on ancient history. What's more, its assertions were presented as undisputed fact, not as Miller's opinion. This would only be valid if Miller's opinion were shared by all experts, a group that does not include Miller. The views presented by Miller are his POV. He may consider his reasoning to be "logical", but other scholars with a great deal more expertise do not. At the most his POV can be presented as a POV, if his views are notable or representative of a particular position within Judaism. Paul B (talk) 00:52, 24 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

This is in regard to what you wrote to me about Miller’s “logic”. You wrote that “he may consider his reasoning to be "logical", but other scholars with a great deal more expertise do not. At the most his POV can be presented as a POV, if his views are notable or representative of a particular position within Judaism.”

You say that other scholars with a great deal more expertise do not agree with the “logic” “that It is almost inconceivable that a complete nation should without a basis come to believe this about any book, let alone a book that was published only two or three centuries earlier and whose authorship at the time was known to all. It has never been contemplated about any other book whose author/s were known at the time of publication that it has been falsely held by the nation in which that book was published that the author was somebody completely different, let alone that that author wrote it 1500 years earlier. This in addition to that nation holding a clear belief that it was dictated to that earlier author by God.”

I have a PHD in Talmudic Law (civil jurisprudence) and as a result of this area of expertise i also have a very through knowledge of ancient Israelite history and have also thoroughly read the literature on biblical criticism.

The scholars “with a great deal more expertise” who theorize that the Torah has no basis in truth and was a product of later authors, do not base this theory on any evidence of ancient Israelite history, as you say, but only in all sorts of hypotheses, and do not at all address this logic that you claim they disagree with. They completely ignore this very serious question, and none of them address this issue of how did a nation come to base their complete religion, their very identity, on a book that should have had no significance at all. So your statement that “other scholars with a great deal more expertise do not” agree with this logic” should have some citation of a single scholar that address this issue at all. Because they do not.

And that is if there were still “scholars with a great deal more expertise” that have some view as to the origins of the Torah. The article on the Documentary hypothesis ends with this; "The verities enshrined in older introductions [to the subject of the origins of the Pentateuch] have disappeared, and in their place scholars are confronted by competing theories which are discouragingly numerous, exceedingly complex, and often couched in an expository style that is (to quote John van Seter's description of one seminal work) 'not for the faint-hearted.'"

That is that not only are there no scholars who claim to know the origins of the Torah, there doesn’t even exist a common theory about this issue. In short the only thing that they all agree upon is that they seek alternative theories to the one accepted by the Jewish faith.

The reason that these theories are accepted by all is because if Moses wrote the Torah then it is true, because Moses was writing to his readers about what they themselves experienced. If the Torah is true this creates a big problem in that important issues that people feel they should have the freedom to decide for themselves, such as, is there a God, and does this God demand anything of humanity etc. has an answer. As a result society must have an alternative explanation for the origins of the Torah, which understandably most people choose to believe, despite the fact that it is merely a hypothesis and should not be taken to be the factual truth. And this is all that these theories offer, an alternative explanation.

As to whether this POV is “representative of a particular position within Judaism”, there is not a single position in Judaism that agrees with the possibility that all of Judaism is based on a tradition that began to grow in the era of the 2nd Temple, and by extension that this is a logical possibility. The view that the Jewish religion is based on a book that has nothing to do with either Moses or God, and that this idea is based on a tradition that somehow grew in the 4th century BCE, and that this is a valid and logical explanation as to how the Jews came to believe this, is not a view of Miller, but is representative of every single position within Judaism. So who are the scholars that address the issue Miller’s logic and disagree with it.

As to Miller himself and his knowledge on this issue, it seems that your assessment of him is based exclusively on the article about him on WP. It is apparent that the article was written from a parishioner’s point of view in what he saw in him as a Rabbi talking to the folk in his congregation. This is not a basis to draw conclusions about his level of knowledge and to determine that there are “other scholars with a great deal more expertise”. L69 (talk) 08:56, 25 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps if Miller’s logic was put in this context it would be obvious that no normal mind would disagree with it; Today scholars believe that the Magna Carta was not written in 1215 and has no connection to King John of England, but was written by several unknown authors beginning in the early 15th century and published some time in the 16th century. The tradition that it was written in 1215 and that it was issued by the authority of the king began to grow in the middle of the 18th century.

However it is very implausible that the whole of the English people, including its great scholars would 1. not have known of this tradition and 2. would have taken some insignificant paper that some person had published and somehow all come to believe that this document is the bedrock of English laws and rights, and that the Magna Carta was authorized by the king of England and signed in 1215, and that the rights enshrined in that document are sacred.

The centuries in regard to the theory about the Torah are considerable less than those in regard to the Magna Carta, in when the Torah is documented in the Mishnah 100 BCE-100CE, as being dictated to Moses. L69 (talk) 02:37, 27 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

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