Less than 100% incorrect. It was not called the Old Testament until the Christians said it was.

Did you notice where Josephus called them divine?

"but it is become natural to all Jews immediately, and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain Divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be willingly to die for them."

Not in the same sense that I would use the term "divine" to apply to God.

You can play the dictionary definition game and take "divine" to be "from/of God," which then leads you to claiming that the OT is "from God" and hence "divine" (but then you have that the OT doesn't itself claim to be divine as a singular body of text). This word game also leads you to equivocate and say that God is "from God" which doesn't make a lot of sense.

The word "divine" when applied to God directly has the meaning "is God." Claiming that "God is divine" is essentially a declaration of God's uniqueness as an entity that is distinct from the things that were created.

If [edit: "of God"] MB's usage, then his claim is still wrong (because the OT never refers to itself as a singular body of text and hence cannot claim itself to be "of God" in its entirety).

It would be useful for you to consider the actual usage of "divine" in the Bible. For example, in the NIV:

https://www.biblegateway.com/quickse...qs_version=NIV

You can see that it's very rarely used in the Bible. And I think a lot of the argumentation that you're going to be able to generate is still mostly going to be noise, especially if you can't reword your phrasing to avoid the word completely.

Interesting. Was Josephus playing the dictionary definition game?

"but it is become natural to all Jews immediately, and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain Divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be willingly to die for them."

Now you're playing silly word-games. Sure, the Jews had their own word for it, but it was virtually identical to what Christians called the OT, your point is?

Nope. He just meant that they believed it was "from God." Notice that he doesn't need to himself believe that it's divine for him to make the statement.

You're playing word games because you're desperately trying to make a secondary point using the word divine to do the work for you. I'll quote myself again, to see if maybe you can see why what you're doing is a word game:

Your game is to try to get me to defend anyone saying anything is from God. Notice that your game loses all of its power as soon as I say it that way. Once I take away the power of the word "divine" the whole conversation is obviously nonsense, as is any sense that I need to defend everything that anyone has said.

We all come from different backgrounds and have different ideas of what is silly and nonsense. To me, silly will always include a talking serpent and a talking donkey, both found in the "Old Testament".

I have no doubt this is true of you. But notice how this statement stands alone, completely independent of all the other noise you've made in this thread.

When the student is willing, the teacher will appear.

http://fakebuddhaquotes.com/when-the...r-will-appear/

FYassumption.

Former (modern) Orthodox Jew here. Forgive me if this is old news but as a factual matter many sects of Judaism' official theology/philosophy dismiss the idea that the main text was literally written by God.

As a practical matter, even many orthodox Jews do as well. Generally speaking Judaism is much more focused on what you do than what you believe. For many Jews, of all sects, following cultural/social/political/societal norms is what makes you an Jew and not what you believe in. See, for example, this article discussing the not-so-hidden secret that many (most?) orthodox/religious Jews don't literally believe that god wrote or inspired the Torah


The two main arguments I have heard for the divinity of the Torah are (and feel free to rip away lol):

1. the Kuzari argument ; and

2. Following a "torah-lifestyle" increases happiness, joy, family stability, personal discipline and all those other good stuff. For example, keeping shabbat by, for example, forbidding electronics use or the use of a car, increases family face time and "unplugged-time". The blueprint for a good and happy life for the individual and for the family are laid out in the torah, and therefore the torah is divine. Whether the blueprint was literally laid out by god or inspired by god was secondary to the idea that a torah-lifestyle was healthier, happier, more stable etc...

See above for my take.

Feel free to rip away!

Buckethead22

Did they ever really as an unofficial position though? Is it not that the percepts/mythological ideas in the OT were things that Orthodox Jews needed to validate humanity's moral standard? Perhaps just not in scholarship, but day to day life. I wonder though, because they were part of the Roman Empire after all.

Bah. There have been tens of tens of thousands of hours on the subject and yeah, probably.

My MD for the past near-decade is Orthodox. I've rarely seen placidity like such in middle-aged males, more often see it in people in nursing homes.

And of course, I'm a fan of these pair of videos (I think it bookends a timeline of discovery neatly...)


(I left Nagasaki to the Nipponese btw. Why be greedy. )