Questions about Jews, Judaism and so on.

[warpus]

warpus
If reading SIX verses is too long for your Lazyness...
1. Circumcision was first commanded to Abraham, which he did at the age of 99 (!!!) and his son Ishmael at 13, whereas Isaac was born soon after that, and therefore got it on the 8th day, like all Jews afterwards.
2. The commandment was later re-enacted at Mount Sinai, to make it part of Torah specifically.
3. As the Jewish Sages taught:
"We do the circumcision on the 8th day (nowadays, after the Giving of the Torah at Sinai), not because it was commanded to Abraham (as a personal/family commandment), but because it is explicitly commanded in the Torah (and is thus a national covenant)."

Not lazy, busy at work. Besides, it's supposed to be "Jew answers questions about Judaism" not "Website answers questions about Judaism"

K so 2 follow up questions

1. Abraham did it when he was 99? People didn't get to live that long back then, did they? How old was he when he died?

2. Why was it commanded by God in the first place? What was the reason?

 

[civ2]

warpus
That's one of the main things I hate in such threads: "Say it in your words".
Why would I - if the "website" is quoting sources that I'm basing my opinion ANYWAYS and also it says it much clearer and better than I would???
And I didn't bring LONG reading - just few verses, specifically mentioned and to-be-found within few seconds.
ANYWAYS.
1. If you read through the beginning of Genesis - you encounter ages of up to 900+++.
So 100++ isn't such a big deal generally.
Also, who says we CAN'T live for so long, given adequate CONDITIONS???
Ages of people around Abraham's time:
Abraham lived for 175 years.
Ishmael for 137.
Isaac for 180.
Jacob for 147.
Moses for 120 - and that's the "STANDARD AGE" that Jews are wishing each other until this very day.
2. First of all, it's NOT considered "mutilation" (like many antisemites, or other idiots, want to call it).
Why?
Cause there are commentaries that describe ADAM-the-FIRST as being created "circumcised", thus making it a NORMAL state for a human being.
(That doesn't mean that non-Jews have to do it, but that's NOT a mutilation, but rather, perfection.)
Also, many righteous people (including Moses and Noah) were said to be BORN circumcised, thus it being the sign of their perfection.
So, basically, G-d is simply telling Abraham to perfect his body to its natural state.
Also, this becomes a life-long sign of the COVENANT with G-d, later repeated with the entire Jewish nation by giving the Torah.

 

[warpus]

That's one of the main things I hate in such threads: "Say it in your words".
Why would I - if the "website" is quoting sources that I'm basing my opinion ANYWAYS and also it says it much clearer and better than I would???

Because I want you to answer the question. Surely not all of your opinions match what some website says, word for word.

1. If you read through the beginning of Genesis - you encounter ages of up to 900+++.
So 100++ isn't such a big deal generally.
Also, who says we CAN'T live for so long, given adequate CONDITIONS???
Ages of people around Abraham's time:
Abraham lived for 175 years.
Ishmael for 137.
Isaac for 180.
Jacob for 147.
Moses for 120 - and that's the "STANDARD AGE" that Jews are wishing each other until this very day.

Eh.. Really? I'm not sure how to respond to this. You might as well have told me that bacon is made out of soap.

The average human age even 2,000 years ago was in the 30s. So.. if you go further back than that, it all of a sudden jumps to 900?

Cause there are commentaries that describe ADAM-the-FIRST as being created "circumcised", thus making it a NORMAL state for a human being.
(That doesn't mean that non-Jews have to do it, but that's NOT a mutilation, but rather, perfection.)
Also, many righteous people (including Moses and Noah) were said to be BORN circumcised, thus it being the sign of their perfection.
So, basically, G-d is simply telling Abraham to perfect his body to its natural state.

Ahh okay, the answer I was looking for Thanks

Follow up question: Why did god create Abraham with a perfect penis but gave the rest of us imperfect ones?

Is any other part of the human body non-perfect or is it just the penis?

If the penis is the only non-natural part of our body, when we're born.. why the penis? Why did god single out this one organ and make it non-natural for all of us, but the rest of our bodies are fine?

 

[civ2]

warpus
Ok, maybe I'm somewhat lazy too.
Or, rather, I consider "website" answers being more authentic cause they QUOTE Scripture and commentaries, rather than "opinions of laymen" like myself.
Might be otherwise for your type of questioners.
1. Scientific prognoses of PAST events do NOT consider the Flood.
But there are some quite clear commentaries that describe it as almost a terraforming event, causing global cataclysms, including both temporary and permanent ones.
Thus, the Nature today and in the days of Noah is totally different, to the extent we have no way to measure or estimate.
Therefore, 2000 years ago isn't the right measure for 5000 years ago.
Just compare Chernobyl before and after...
Only few years and yet such drastic changes.
So, if something of a much greater effect took place...
To make it short - there's NO proof that humans couldn't live for so long before (or maybe right after too) the Flood.
But the 120 years thing is both mentioned directly as a Heavenly decree (and it was actually mentioned even before the Flood, just didn't yet take effect) - and the lifespan of the greatest of the (born) human beings, Moses, who spoke to G-d "face to face", aka the highest degree of prophecy ever achievable.
2. Ahem, could you please be so nice and write Gd with the capital.
a. This is somewhat insulting.
b. Also grammatically incorrect, cause you're talking about "THE" G-d, not just some unnamed "deity". Thus it being a name, not a term.
Answering your question:
The ability to procreate is actually very much akin to being immortal and infinite - technically, it's possible to have infinite number of generations after you.
(We all are the progeny of the same single couple: Adam and Eve.)
Thus, it was chosen to be used as the sign for a covenant with Eternal G-d.
Why exactly this way - I have no idea, you should ask the one Who decided so.
Error correction of what you said:
Either not Abraham but rather Adam (being created perfect), or you meant something else.
Also, the very idea of being created is connected to perfecting this world, so our bodies are just the starting point.

 

[warpus]

Where did you get the 900 years old thing? Is that in the Bible?

I also wonder when you think people stopped living to be a thousand years old? In Jesus' time, for example, the average age at which you died was 30 or so (I think). That's 2,000 years ago.

So...

6,000 years ago = 1,000 years old
5,000 years ago = 500 years old
4,000 years ago = 250 years old
3,000 years ago = 100 years old
2,000 years ago = 30 years old

Is that about right, in terms of how old you think the average human was when he/she died that many years ago?

And can you answer my question regarding penises?

 

[Ajidica]

Yep, in the Bible. Genesis 6:4.
Apparently the Sons of God got a little too 'friendly' with the humans and so God made their life terminate at 120 years.
Of course, like all things, that didn't stop the Sons of God from getting it on with the humans.

 

[warpus]

K so.. what the hell are the sons of God?? I used to be a Christian and I've never heard of this crap

 

[Ajidica]

(I know I am not a Jew, but we covered the early bit of Genesis quite a bit in my Theo class, so I feel I am somewhat qualified to comment here.)

In short, we don't know who are the sons of God. The early part of Genesis drew quite a bit on early Jewish teachings from when it was still polythiestic and moving toward monothiesm. The sons of God are implied in Gen 1:26 where God says "Let us make mankind in our image". The sons of God likely are the leftovers of the lesser gods present in most polythiestic religions. This would make sense, as in 6:4 it says that when the sons of God took mortal wives, they created great heros. Most of the great heros of other polythiestic religions were either half-divine or had some degree of divine influence.

The sons of God were a distinctly Jewish element in the early OT that sort of died out as Judaism shifted from a polythiestic to a monothiestic religion.

 

[civ2]

Ajidica
Hi and thanks.

warpus
"Bnei elokim" could have several meanings:
1. The literal "sons of G-d" - then they were angels that went down to live as humans, only to FAIL miserably.
There's a Midrash (kinda story-type commentary, yet containing very deep thoughts) on this.
Angels were unhappy that G-d created the Human to serve Him.
So He gave them the chance to prove being superior to humans - by living a "human" life.
Which they failed by falling into even worse sins than actual humans.
Their descendants were also Sichon and Og - the real giants, yet very evil persons.
They were killed by Moses much, much, muuuch later.
The original "human-angels" were drowned together with the rest of humanity in the Flood.
The moral of this story is that great power should bring responsibility, otherwise you're risking to get drowned.
2. Sons of JUDGES, aka nobles and politicians.
(The Hebrew word could be used both ways, cause this Name of G-d refers to Him as being THE Strict Judge.)
This meaning fits very well with such known ancient/medieval/feudal things as the "right of the first night" and simply oppression by the "powerful" aka wealthy/noble towards the poor.

About 900+ years.
When was the last time you opened Genesis???
It states there explicitly...
And no, your progression is wrong.
It wasn't so much of a gradual decrease - rather, each generation was rapidly getting shorter.
Technically, that allowed for Noah and Abraham (also Noah's son Shem and Abraham's grandson Jacob) to meet, though there was a 9 generation span between them.

About penises.
HUH???
I wrote quite an answer...
PROCREATE..?!?

EDIT:
Ajidica
Just when I started liking you...
Why are some people so stubborn to make Judaism a "monotheism-from-polytheism" upgrade???
1. According to Torah, ADAM already knew G-d, worshiped Him and definitely taught his children to do so.
Except, humanity went the "idiot" way and started serving the servants instead of the Master...
2. REAL polytheism is a failed attempt of "bureaucracifying" monotheism.
Commentaries explain, how people already just few generations after ADAM started to worship, no not yet idols, but "natural forces", that later on degraded into actual mindless polytheism.
The idea is that there are "natural forces" that rule the universe (any scientist knows that).
The problem starts when people forget that even these forces are nothing but servants to the One G-d, Who actually created them this way, for us to have a world like we do now.
Idolatry was based on the wrong assumption that you can "bribe" these forces to do good to you.
The mistake was to forget that NOTHING happens without G-d's FULL consent, without ANY advisers or so.
Later on, even these technicalities were forgotten - and this gave birth to the actual worshiping of STONES and WOOD, rather than the previous natural forces.
But to be honest - both are the same: a bureaucracy mistake, leading to big disasters...

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The name Elohim refers to judges? I thought that El literally meant "mighty one." I suppose judge in the sense used in the book of judges would fit (as they were also military leaders), but not in the normal English sense of the word.

 

[civ2]

Magister
Technically, there isn't so much of a difference in those meanings anyways.
And the idea was that people instead of using their (physical, social or political) powers for GOOD, did the opposite.

 

[warpus]

About 900+ years.
When was the last time you opened Genesis???
It states there explicitly...
And no, your progression is wrong.
It wasn't so much of a gradual decrease - rather, each generation was rapidly getting shorter.
Technically, that allowed for Noah and Abraham (also Noah's son Shem and Abraham's grandson Jacob) to meet, though there was a 9 generation span between them.

I probably haven't looked at Genesis in over 20 years. I haven't been a Christian for about 10.

Can you give me the proper progression then? 6,000 years ago - 1,000 years old, 5,000 years ago - ? years, etc.

About penises.
HUH???
I wrote quite an answer...
PROCREATE..?!?

I meant these questions:

Follow up question: Why did god create Abraham with a perfect penis but gave the rest of us imperfect ones?

Is any other part of the human body non-perfect or is it just the penis?

If the penis is the only non-natural part of our body, when we're born.. why the penis? Why did god single out this one organ and make it non-natural for all of us, but the rest of our bodies are fine?

I read over your previous post and I *think* you are saying "I don't know, only God does", but I'm not sure

 

[civ2]

warpus
1. You should look it up now anyways.
It'll answer you both the age question and the change question - just use a notebook and some math skills.
2. Okkk...
a. It was Adam who was CREATED perfect, Abraham was the one COMMANDED to perfect himself.
b. Nothing is perfect but G-d Himself.
But as in "require improvement" - nothing else, I think.
Except our ENTIRE personality traits, for most people at least.
(But that's a different question - about moral itself.)
c. We make children with it, DUDE!!!
And I wrote quite an answer on how we stay immortal in our children, so why not use it to reach out for Eternal G-d?
d. G-d knows better, sure.
Also, would you prefer every poor baby to go through a full plastic surgery???

 

[Ajidica]

EDIT:
Ajidica
Just when I started liking you...
Why are some people so stubborn to make Judaism a "monotheism-from-polytheism" upgrade???

Because the evidence we have supports that idea?

1. According to Torah, ADAM already knew G-d, worshiped Him and definitely taught his children to do so.

Adam worshiped God, but that does not imply there were no other Gods. Even looking at the most famous monothiesm verse in Exodus: "I am the LORD thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me."
Nowhere there does God say there are no other Gods, simply that he is their God. That would fit with what we know of other near east religions that are better documented, such as Egyptian Polythiesm. Despite having a very strong polythiestic bent, they went through a pseudo-monothiestic period with the worship of the one sun god (can't recall the name right now). Just about every religion that was exposed to 'western' though went through this, with the idea of the one god, Sol Invicti, becoming very popular in the Roman Empire.

Commentaries explain, how people already just few generations after ADAM started to worship, no not yet idols, but "natural forces", that later on degraded into actual mindless polytheism.

You have it the wrong way around. Polythiesm emerged from animistic beliefs, which then tended toward monothiesm.

Idolatry was based on the wrong assumption that you can "bribe" these forces to do good to you.
The mistake was to forget that NOTHING happens without G-d's FULL consent, without ANY advisers or so.

If pleading to your conception of God works, why wouldn't pleading to their conception of God works?

Later on, even these technicalities were forgotten - and this gave birth to the actual worshiping of STONES and WOOD, rather than the previous natural forces.

No, not really. I would advise you to read up on this area as you are badly wrong, or relying on terribly outdated scholarship.

 

[warpus]

c. We make children with it, DUDE!!!

1. We make children with our penises
2. God therefore must make us imperfect by giving us imperfect penises
3. To make ourselves more perfect we have to chop off our foreskins

So I understand how you got from 2. to 3., but how about from 1. to 2.?

I also will definitely not re-read Genesis and do all that math. You're the guy I'm asking! You're supposed to know this stuff

And can you PLEASE use the quote function? It makes everything a LOT easier to understand. Half the time I don't know what you're responding to.

 

[GamezRule]

And can you PLEASE use the quote function? It makes everything a LOT easier to understand. Half the time I don't know what you're responding to.

Wait... So we cut off our foreskins to perfect out penises?

 

[civ2]

Ajidica
Dude, that's exactly the difference between me (as a religious Jew who considers Torah to be accurate and also contain actual history when applicable; we're talking about a book that survived through millennia while never abandoned) and you (as a science follower, for whom scientific theories are more appealing, regardless how vague or unprovable their sources be).
What I mean is:
From my point of view, the first concept that humanity (aka the first human) was exposed to, was One G-d, and the experience was also on a personal level.
All later stupidities were the result of human limited brains simply malfunctioning (as always).
In other words, I start from the beginning and see how history unwraps itself.
From your point of view, the humans are just evolved apes, thus they MUST have started as primitive nature-worshipers (like some of those even today).
Your mistake is - you're looking backwards!
You take the situation TODAY and extrapolate it to "fit" the PAST.
This way, sure you get exactly those results you do - perfectly logical.
The error is the first assumption, not the latter theories.
Just thought of a funny example:
(Sorry, USA guys, it's just for a funny example that flashed in my mind.)
Nowadays, a huge part of Americans are FAT and feeding on fast-food.
So, by using your logic, I can end up stating THIS theory:
Some decades ago, everyone was fat and fast-fed.
Then, some bright mind "invented" the home-made food.
Therefore SOME Americans today actually eat healthy(ier) home-made food instead of fast-food.
The way to prove that fast-food appeared first - it's faster to make, tastier and just look how many people eat it today.
(I know the example might be quite stupid, but my point was to show how people tend to extrapolate today into yesterday...)

warpus

1. We make children with our penises
2. God therefore must make us imperfect by giving us imperfect penises
3. To make ourselves more perfect we have to chop off our foreskins

So I understand how you got from 2. to 3., but how about from 1. to 2.?

OK...
Again, maybe this time in will be more clear:
The ABILITY to procreate "ad infinitum" is THE (most) "G-dly" SKILL we have.
Thus it was chosen to serve as a connection/reminder of G-d Himself.
In other words, the only reason to make a body part "upgradeable", is for it to be a sign of something, in this case, the connection between G-d and the most "G-dly" part of human.
But, yeah, He knows the best.

I also will definitely not re-read Genesis and do all that math. You're the guy I'm asking! You're supposed to know this stuff

About doing/not math - the age stuff.
You're asking questions of "2+2=4" type, except without wanting to look at the maths book.
If you just look there - you don't even need me or anyone else.
And I can't tell you anything more than you'd see yourself by plain reading of the ages explicitly mentioned there.
This doesn't make you "religious" - and neither reading of the school maths book makes anyone a professor.

GamezRule
The only ones who HAVE to do so, are Jews.
All others have it optional (including Arabs, btw, they just chose to do so).

 

[warpus]

OK...
Again, maybe this time in will be more clear:
The ABILITY to procreate "ad infinitum" is THE (most) "G-dly" SKILL we have.
Thus it was chosen to serve as a connection/reminder of G-d Himself.
In other words, the only reason to make a body part "upgradeable", is for it to be a sign of something, in this case, the connection between G-d and the most "G-dly" part of human.

Yeah that's a bit of a better answer, thanks

And yeah, I can spell God with a capital G if that offends you, I'm not here to annoy anyone, except maybe the people on my blacklist (what blacklist??)

Anyway, I wanted to know why God made the first couple people with perfect penises, but then changed his mind later? And why do vaginas get made perfect, why don't women have to upgrade them?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

To again quote the Jewish Sages:
"Who is truly rich - the one who is happy with his lot."

So, none of 'em?

 

[civ2]

Ziggy
Ahem???
What I mean, is stop counting money of others - and make better use of those YOU have.
Not to mention that such a question (Jew=rich) has a high stench of you-know-what.
And you know why.
Whatever.

warpus
Not so much offending, rather it's a grammatical mistake to begin with.
Like, there's "a Roman ceasar" and "Julius Ceasar" - a term and a name.

Anyway, I wanted to know why God made the first couple people with perfect penises, but then changed his mind later? And why do vaginas get made perfect, why don't women have to upgrade them?

1. Only the very first one, Adam, was created this way, others just "happened" to be born this way.
Who says, no one is being born such even today???
Have you checked???
2. Again, this has double meaning:
a. A sign of connection, which is being made by HUMANS, not "forced" on them by G-d Himself.
b. The task of the HUMAN(ity) is to perfect our world - so G-d made us to start with our own body, the closest thing anyways.
c. Why He decided exactly so - only He Himself knows anyways.
3. In Judaism, women are considered being more closer to being perfect than men (unlike the way Arabs treat women, Jews have always showed respect to them, regardless of what some idiots imagine about it).
Also, the "typical" role of the "conqueror" is definitely more male than female.
Women thus have other ways to refine the world, less actively maybe or something.
Therefore their bodies don't need to be perfected.
OH!
If you look at it from the point of the way CONVERSION (to Judaism) takes place, males have an obligation to be circumcised, whereas women "are considered circumcised" already.
So this all means that men have more problems they are told to fix, than women.
4. Again, G-d knows better.