From: RFaussette@aol.com
Date: Sat Oct 25 2003 - 14:32:12 EDT
In a message dated 10/25/03 1:00:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
gmurphy@raex.com writes:
Please note what I said. Biological kinship is important for Judaism but
its significance "should not be overstated." You do nothing to disprove this
by citing
evidence that it is important.
rich:
I did everything to disprove it when I quoted a yeshiva university scholar on
his own religion to the effect that the purity of a kohen's blood determines
the purity of his heritage to this day.
george:
The biblical examples I gave above for intermarriage with non-Israelites,
with
no explicit or implied criticism, are what you failed to respond to. Here I
will take
the opportunity to give a more detailed listing.
Gen.38. The matriarch of the tribe of Judah is Tamar, whose ancestry is
unspecified. But from the context it is likely that she was a Canaanite.
(What else
would she have been. & note also that Judah's wife Shua is explicitly said
to have been
a Canaanite, so he clearly had no scruples about this.) Of course the liason
between
Judah and Tamar was irregular, to say the least, but that doesn't affect the
point here.
There is no suggestion that her sons are defectively Israelite.
Gen.41:50-52. Joseph's wife, the mother of Ephraim and Manasseh, was
Egyptian.
Again there is no suggestion that there was anything problematic about this.
Or to put
it more bluntly, nobody _cared_. There's no suggestion that when Jacob came
to Egypt
he said to Joseph, "I'm sure glad to see you, but I really wish you'd waited
to marry a
nice Hebrew girl."
rich:
You are busy quoting exceptions when I am quoting the rule. It is the rule
we are discussing, not the exceptions. Abraham set the tradition. Jacob
continued it. There were constant exceptions (what you cite are exceptions,
especially the SLAVE Joseph and the high priest's daughter) but the prophets and the
priests continually exhort the people back to purity of blood. It accelerates
with ezra because it was the higher classes that were spirited to babylon. the
lower classes remained and intermarried and the returning exiles would not
intermarry with them because they had intermarried with the people round about.
Do you remember also, Rebecca arranges for Jacob to leave for Harran to find
a wife among the daughters of Laban because she cannot bear for one of her
sons to marry another Canaanite woman and because she fears Esau’s anger toward
Jacob. And Judah leaves his brothers before marrying a canaanite woman,
something esau also did which upset his mother and father. Read genesis 27:46 &
28:1-10.
Tamar is not treated well by her husband, his brother or her father-in-law
and has to go through hoops to bear a child. If it weren't for her own
initiative, she would have been childless, a black mark against any woman.
It is ridiculous for you to suggest that the marriage of Joseph to the
daughter of the high priest of Egypt, member of the egyptian ruling class can be
likened to a marriage to a Canaanite. You've also failed to address whether or
not Joseph could refuse the gift of his master's daughter as he was a slave.
Look at how the Canaanites are portrayed in the Bible.
“The land which you are entering and will possess is a polluted land,
polluted by the foreign population with their abominable practices, which have made
it unclean from end to end. Therefore do not give your daughters in marriage
to their sons, and do not marry your sons to their daughters, and never seek
their welfare or prosperity. Thus you will be strong and enjoy the good things
of the land, and pass it on to your children as an everlasting possession.”
Your comment about Jacob saying I wish you'd have married a canaanite woman
is silly. Joseph ruled egypt. His father was most likely just happy Jospeh had
any family feeling left in him, never mind critiquing the situation, Jacob
should have been grateful to be alive.
You are stretching your logic to win an argument you've lost.
You wrote: Biological kinship is important for Judaism but its significance
"should not be overstated."
You should have written: Biological kinship is important for Judaism. Its
significance "should not be understated."
rich faussette
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