Thank you again, Amichai, for undertaking this labor of love. I am enlightened day by day with the readings and your daily deep dives Below the Bible Belt!
I love this part of today's email: "Reading Torah at face value means we must appreciate this ancient text for what it is - man-made, perhaps divine inspired, not without its historical-political flaws that still contain the kernel of something bigger than us all. So do we turn to these text with what philosophers called ‘the hermeneutics of suspicion’ or with what other thinkers named “hermeneutics of trust” - or some kind of combination of both?". For me its definitely a combo and the more I learn about the historical and political context, as well as the origins of much of what is in the bible in older Canaanite/Sumerian/Egyptian faiths, the more it draws me to the text (the opposite of what I suppose many traditionalists fear).
Thank you again, Amichai, for undertaking this labor of love. I am enlightened day by day with the readings and your daily deep dives Below the Bible Belt!
Shabbat shalom.
I love this part of today's email: "Reading Torah at face value means we must appreciate this ancient text for what it is - man-made, perhaps divine inspired, not without its historical-political flaws that still contain the kernel of something bigger than us all. So do we turn to these text with what philosophers called ‘the hermeneutics of suspicion’ or with what other thinkers named “hermeneutics of trust” - or some kind of combination of both?". For me its definitely a combo and the more I learn about the historical and political context, as well as the origins of much of what is in the bible in older Canaanite/Sumerian/Egyptian faiths, the more it draws me to the text (the opposite of what I suppose many traditionalists fear).