From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Sat Feb 22 2003 - 08:08:34 EST
RFaussette@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 2/21/03 7:53:28 PM Eastern Standard Time, gmurphy@raex.com
> writes:
>
> > We seem to some extent to be speaking at cross purposes. The only points I
> > have wanted to make here are:
> > 1) The Hebrew scriptures do not support the view that strict
> > prohibition of
> > intermarriage was an important feature of Israelite faith prior to the
> > exile. (A fuller
> > discussion would have to take into account the likelihood that some of the
> > pentateuchal
> > texts supporting such prohibition are from considerably later than the
> > Mosaic period,
> > but my case can be made without considering this.)
>
> I gave you the story of Jacob and his flocks and Rebecca's unhappiness that
> Esau had married a Canaanite woman. Regardless of when portions of the Torah
> were written I pointed to the centrality of the Torah to the Jewish
> religionists themselves and the relative unimportance of the book of Ruth
> (proto-canonical). The abominable practices prohibited in Leviticus 18 are
> specifically said to be the practices of the Canaanites and the Egyptians........................................
Again I simply cite the examples of Joseph & Moses from torah which show that,
however significant endogamy may have been in the pre-exilic period, it was not
considered something absolutely binding upon Israelites. (The priestly status
of Joseph's father in law is irrelevant to the point under discussion here.) Moreover,
the children of an Israelite father & a non-Israelite mother were considered Israelites,
as the examples of Ephraim & Manasseh show.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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