i will get to the point eventually, but darn this is a great thread
sorry if this is a bit of a hijack, but some of the things you mention on the "jesus and hell" page are a leetle controversial. for a start, the story of the 'good samaritan' is, from our PoV, an attack on the human consequences of the system of ritual purity - at least at first glance. as we know, kohanim and levi'im are prohibited from coming in contact with a corpse (the injured guy could have died) apart from that of a close relative by leviticus 21:1-3. however, a small amount of research - if you know how jewish law works - reveals that the Oral Law that goes with the Written Law of the Torah states that quite apart from the fact that a kohen can become tamei (usually mistranslated as 'ritually impure', but properly understood as making him ineligible for Temple service for a period of time) for *anyone who has no relatives or friends to help* (tractate Sukkah 25b) - such a corpse is known as a "met mitzvah" and it is incumbent on anyone - even a kohen or levi if there is noone else - to help to bury it. from this we can understand that the kohen and levi mentioned in the parable did not observe this law of "met mitzvah" so they were in fact wrong to behave as they did - which jesus points out. alternatively, it is also possible that jesus is making a point about the great disputes between those referred to in the NT as 'sadducees and pharisees', where the Temple "establishment" (ie kohanim and levi'im) rejected the more complex rulings of the rabbis and making the point that the Oral Law is required for the Written Law to function as an integrated, complete human system. in the long run, of course, the "sadducee" tendency lost out. similarly, there are plenty of accounts contemporary with jesus that make the point that the jews are behaving improperly and will be punished for it by G!D. but i digress..
now, back to the "adversary". please see my post in
http://www.comparative-religion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=338 for the comparatively minor role played by "ha-Satan" in judaism.
Identification with the serpent in the Garden of Eden came MUCH later.
correct. there is a certain conflation that happens in talmudic times (2nd-5th century) between the angelic figure of ha-Satan and the 'yetzer ha-ra' or 'evil inclination', who is a figure rather like that little guy that appears hovering by your shoulder in cartoons. anyway, according to us, the YH-R is responsible not only for selfishness, but also for competititiveness, our desire to reproduce and build houses - in other words, all the stuff that wouldn't happen if we were all perfect, saintly angelic creatures with no free-will - hence it is said "the evil inclination is 'very good'" - because without it we would not be humans, capable of making the right choices. it is only at the point that H-S and YH-R get rolled in together - as well as with the other angelic figure of Sama'El - that we start finding stuff in there about the serpent. similarly, as is correctly pointed out bu WHKeith, evil also comes from G!D, because everything, by definition, comes from G!D.
ladyphlegethon is also correct to point out that the jews were exposed to a considerable amount of external influences following the babylonian exile in 586 BCE and more zoroastrian and mithraic stuff during the talmudic period. some of these ideas did indeed get coopted into a jewish framework, but how much is debatable. as for the documentary hypothesis, it is not compatible with our traditional understanding of the Torah - but more of that anon.
now, on to the Shechinah. although the Shechinah is female, we must not confuse her with "Mrs G!D". the Divine Is a Unity and transcends gender. gender is only used to explain stuff, because the only way the mystical tradition can explain just how stuff really fundamentally happens is in terms of sexuality, the most mysterious and complicated process known to humans. it's a way of describing the deepest mysteries through symbolic analogy. and the supernal triad of KeTeR-ChoKhMaH-BINaH is one of the most complicated bits and the most hedged about with qualification, because of the danger of misinterpreting it in dualistic terms that are incompatible with monotheism. remember - the sefirot are not G!D, not even keter. they can only be described as a conceptual model of the interface between the Infinite Divine and the universe. and the Shechinah is not the only female-flavoured interface of the Divine - sometimes in the more traditional liturgy G!D is addressed in the feminine and there is at least one Divine Name - "El-ShaDaY" - that shares the three letter root Shin-Dalet-Yod for "breasts". G!D Is *not* male. the Big Beard In The Sky is a creation of freud, not jewish tradition.
in reference to skeptic44's point about "how do we know this message is from G!D", this is an extremely important point and well made. it is addressed at several points, but the prevailing opinion is based upon that of the RaMBa"M (maimonides, C11th) who states in the 'YaD, his monumental codification of halacha, that although a prophet (ie someone who is receiving messages directly from G!D) outranks a sage, "1001 sages outweigh 1000 prophets" because all jewish law is human-interpreted and majority-rule and cannot even be overruled by a heavenly voice (viz. the talmudic episode of the 'oven of achnai', bava metzia 59b). we don't consider the mind the 'enemy of G!D'. ramba"m presents a number of tests which a prophet has to pass before being accepted as such - which are punishable by death if the prophet is proven to be a fake. and once you're a prophet, you are subject to continual assessment. anyway, we also consider that there has been no prophecy since the destruction of the Temple and there won't be until the Moshiakh (messiah) shows up. this means no new sacred texts - the books are closed and all we can do is interpret what we already have.
to address skeptic44's other points, i can only say that judaism does not believe in "original sin". humans have free will. obviously if you do not have the freedom to make the wrong choice as well as the right one, you are not truly free. there is always a subsidiarity of choice operating. essentially, since we left eden, a different set of rules have applied - but it is hard to argue that the adam and eve of the garden were truly human - in fact one midrash says that they were 600 feet tall and covered with scales! more importantly, the RaMBa"N (nachmanides) suggests that eve did not experience sexual pleasure until she left the garden - sex being previously an entirely mechanical, routine process rather like, say, going to the toilet. mindfulness and delight in the things that make us human are no less part of the expulsion from eden as all the stuff like having to work for a living. you can't have one without the other.
incidentally, as a one-time scholar of early french literature (among other things) i've always had a soft spot for baigent & leigh, but they do tend to show off a bit in an attempt to sell more books - "THE BOOK THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO READ!!!! THE STUFF THEY TRY TO HIDE!!!" and so on. their scholarly credentials are not universally respected, i'm afraid. deary me.
b'shalom
bananabrain
