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You have answered incorrectly and thus have not won the ("oooh, aaaah" says the studio audience) new patio furniture, as displayed by Vanna White, behind curtain number three. Regretfully, Serv

Thank you, Ben. I didn't realize that. I assumed the campaign, or, depending upon one's point of view, holy war, against the Canaanites was complete and that not only their men but also their women, children, cattle, pit-bulls, poodles and gold fish had been decimated in the process. Maybe I was...

Cheers, Ben. To continue my cute and almost funny theme, it occurred to me that, if we use the so-called Old Testament to refute the New, it becomes evident, to me, that the whole story is –"oh me of little faith"- at best implausible and at worst a crock. I mean, after all, isn’t the woman...

Hi Ben, As I read it, and I only did it briefly at that, I think that, in this case, Jesus’ biographer captured a still shot, a moment in time, in which, developmentally speaking, Jesus himself might have been trying to decide whether to become a Talmudist or a Christian. "In Christ," it was...

Radiohead -House of Cards, because the "infrastructure" is collapsing "with voltage spikes" (but, for the most part, I feel fine).

divine encounters "fiat lux" was said by God lux shines upon Puget Sound

Hi mojobadshah, It has been a long time since I sat for religious studies, but I think it is those children of Israel who had returned from Babylonian captivity (at the time of Cyrus the Great). Serv

I, for my part, was amused by Spinoza's statement, not by his plight. I am sure, to put it in Yankee parlance, that it did suck for him to be excommunicated from the Jewish community. I can think of a few others who, in times past, suffered that unenviable fate as well. But yes, in some...

Hi bananabrain, I plan to get back to you in more detail, but, for now: Please think of this as the off season at Wimbledon. At times, and it is usually when I am acting in response to some provocative statement, I volley tennis balls back across the net with (and, in this case, to) Ben...

We are only expected to observe seven laws? Before giving my final consent, I would have my solicitor, or lawyer, read and approve the contract, naturally, but I might be able to agree to that. By way of contrast, and though I haven’t read Spinoza enough to see it myself, Hegel, who had read...

:D Good one, Ben!

Correction. That would be elucidating, or enlightening, or some such thing, but never eludicating.

Although its well-intentioned universalism at times seems to border preachy, especially the talking parts which the 1 Giant Leap project interspersed throughout, this, to my ear, is a superb song in which an unusually contemplative Michael Stipe (of REM) joins India’s Ahsa Bhosle in a joint...

Thank you for clarifying. I see your point. I understand. I read Maimonides’ Epistle as being in the nature of what St. Paul, another notorious writer of epistles, called “edifying.” It was largely an instructive letter of support addressed to a beleaguered community; it was not necessarily...

I once read Richard Elliott Friedman’s book, “Who Wrote the Bible,” which is a sort of academic field report concerning the “documentary hypothesis.” It is generally assumed, according to that hypothesis (as I only sketchily recall), that Ezra and Nehemiah extensively redacted the Torah and that...

My guess is that it is a reference to the "book of the law of Moses" which [Ezra] had brought with him from Babylon," a further description of which can be found here: EZRA THE SCRIBE - JewishEncyclopedia.com Serv

Thank you, Dream. Your search engines are evidently more finely tuned than mine.

I appreciate your thorough, informative and considerate reply, bananabrain. Until now, my inquiries into some of these subjects, especially the more recondite aspects of Maimonides and Spinoza, have been largely solo affairs, done in libraries and with dead though accomplished authors. Until I...

Hello Bananabrain, You quoted Etu Malku but meant me when you said this: I may not be entirely clear, but I do own a copy of Jacob Minkin's book and he wrote an adequate introduction to the Epistle. That is one reason why I alluded to Maimonides having written under duress. Thank you...

Ben, you are fantastic. Thank you for your characteristically unique, insightful and of course arguable commentary. I might point out, though, that the assertion to which you refer in your opening paragraph is not mine, but, rather, that of the great Heinrich Heine, whom I had quoted. I say...