Comments to "What does this say about God?"

Stanley said...

Interesting translation question: Plotz quotes 2:17 as "as soon as you eat of it, you shall die." but my New English is "the day you eat from that, you are surely doomed to die." The difference is enough to weaken Plotz' point. What does the Hebrew say?
July 23, 2009 5:20 PM


Mark said...

Stan,
I am not a Hebrew scholar. In reviewing Bibleworks tool both the Hebrew and Greek translations have the word day. It appears to me and other commentators that Plotz’s actually stands on solid scholarship. I could find no one who responds or even notices his challenge. I assume mostly because it is a passage which has been understood as carrying larger truth than being interpreted literally.
I did find one interesting bit of commentary on the passage. It too seems to ignore the “on that day” but I still find it interesting. It comes from a work called: ETZ HAYIM: Torah and Commentary put out by The Rabbinical Assembly The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. In that commentary they make the following statement about that verse: "Perhaps this should be understood as, "you shall realize that you are mortal. You will have to live with the knowledge that one day you will die, a burden of awareness that no other creature bears" (Ramban)."
Peace,
Mark
July 28, 2009 9:22 AM


Stanley said...

"Remember it really is the same God..." Is it, really? OK, same God, but don't our limited human perceptions of God differ substantially among Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all of which claim it is the same God? We could go further, Antiochus' insistance that Zeus was the same God as the Jewish God was one spark for the Macabee's rebellion. I've heard Hindus argue that they see the same God, and that Christ is another avatar of Vishnu. I think in particular the differences between the Jewish and Christian view of God are worth discussing.
July 29, 2009 6:23 PM


Anonymous said...

I'm no scholar. And I'm only a quarter through the book.

Could it be that Judaism, newer than the polytheists, older than Christian and Islam religions, was the first to introduce the concept of the single, unique, all-powerful God? My God can beat up your gods.

I believe that most Christians understand God to be multi-dimensional; that is, complete enough to be experienced as a dichotomy (art and science, peace and war, bounty and famine, etc,), but not simple enough to be analyzed.

But Plotz is cynical about the God's fallable nature. Do we really believe God experiments, tinkers, changes mind, makes mistakes? Is this something that is a Jewish faith perspective? It's certainly not something that modern Christians talk much about. Or not, at least, Presbyterians.

And, yet, it's so clear in the Hebrew Testament. I guess I've never quite questioned the meaning of God's actions favoring certain people or of violence and permissiveness with the human condition. (Although I've been suspicious of the literary license.) But Plotz is all over it.

Maybe it works it way out in later chapters.
August 17, 2009 8:09 PM