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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
 Posted - 04/29/2016 : 19:17:25
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Well, I didn't know:Wolpe... was among the first rabbis to publically address the awkward, but unignorable, corporeality of biblical authenticity against the backdrop of archaeological discoveries when in his now famous 2001 Passover Sermon he told his unsuspecting 2,300 strong congregation at Los Angeles’ Sinai Temple that Moses and the exodus he supposedly led was little more than a work of inventive fiction, and that “the rejection of the Bible as literally true was more or less settled and understood among most Conservative Rabbis.”
Understanding something does not, however, necessarily translate to that same thing being enthusiastically embraced. In a recent conversation Wolpe confirmed to me an eyebrow lifting anecdote in which he recounts a (nameless) Jewish scholar who while scolding him publically in print for his disclosures at the time took him aside over a lunch one day and privately confessed: “Of course what you say is true, but we should not say it publically.” I mean, I've known for some time that Jewish scholars didn't treat their religious texts as history books, but I didn't know that they widely agree that all of the foundational stories of Israel are myths, invented centuries after the alleged events, for political or religious reasons.
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 04/29/2016 : 21:52:50 [Permalink]
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Reminds me of my friendship with John Hagar, a methodist minister who gave me the book, Lucy, The Beginnings of Humankind to read. He lost a very large parish in Malibu when he referred to Genesis, in front of his congregation, as the creation myth. Some (not all) of the congregation were appalled and wrote to the powers that be to remove him. They offered him a small parish in Arizona, but he declined and retired from the ministry and became a high school teacher. When he gave me the book, he was still very much a minister. He even had me come in and talk to a youth group about the foundations of Rock and Roll, which was fun. He told me he envied Jewish people because they were so naturally agnostic in their approach to their religion. I asked him if he is agnostic and his answer was, "I wouldn't say that." A rather cryptic answer, I think. I suspect more than a few christian ministers and priests also think of Genesis as a myth, as well as most of the other stores in the bible, but they don't spill the beans in front of their congregations. They aren't necessarily atheist or agnostic but they do have the same information that the conservative rabbis have. John was a firm believer in evolution, and the catholic church has accepted evolution even as they tell their biblical stories.
I was brought up in a conservative Jewish household. We kept kosher, went to services and I went to hebrew school and was eventually bar mitzvahed. And yet, not from my parents or my hebrew school teachers or my rabbi did I ever sense that I had to believe the stories. We celebrated the holidays, but more than anything else, they were life lessons and not stories that I had to actually believe as literal fact. I don't know how unique this was. But that was my experience with the religion that I was born into. I'm very sure my father was an atheist, though he never outright said so. The very fact that he opted for cremation says so. Religious Jews just don't do that. My mom too, though she was kinda new agey in her old age.
Anyhow, I'm not sure where I'm going with this except to say that I'm not at all surprised that other than orthodox Jews, hardly any jewish person I know actually believes in the god of the bible, or the stories. As a people, there has always been an emphasis on learning and knowledge. And with that might come, as John Hagar noted, an agnostic outlook by the majority of non orthodox jews. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
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Unspoken Rejection
