Define God

hankarin wrote:

You're the midrash expert, not me. Now, please give me an example. I would be pleased to consider one.

well for instance, when you interpret "whore of babylon" as the catholic church, and mormons interpret it as all non-mormon churches, and others consider him/her to be the antichrist, and others interpret it to be israel/judea, specifically the nation of people who rejected jesus as the savior.

i would say that this isn't the best example i could possibly think of, but it's the first one that comes to mind. ordinarily when people talk about midrash, they're referring to the old testament.

but midrash isn't possible if you think there is only one true meaning. the difference between your stand and my stand is that you think "one true meaning" confirms your point of view, where i think your point of view necessitates, depends on midrash being legitimate- without midrash, your point of view simply would not exist in the first place. but it opens up the bible to many other interpretations as well.

most importantly, midrash is interpretation. you think midrash is wrong by default, but there isn't a default. midrash can be right or wrong, but there can be more than one "right" interpretation, so long as the bible is worded on more than one level.

the point of midrash is to read on each level, with the knowledge that we don't know how many levels there are. to reject it is to reject the meaning of scripture, and keep only the words.

you participate in midrash all the time, but you insist it's false, and that you don't do it yourself. you can call it what you want to, and you can tell me you don't do it, but it's there for anyone to see.

Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.

And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. 37 And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets full.

first example that comes to mind- working on the sabbath. one interpretation is that you shouldn't "heal" (let's say if you're a doctor) on the sabbath. if you are a doctor, this is a perfectly reasonable interpretation.

another interpretation was offered by jesus, when people tried to corner him after he healed someone on the sabbath.

then there was the "thou shalt not commit adultury." the most basic interpretation already existed. jesus expanded it, saying "whoever looks on a woman with lust has commited adultury in his heart."

no where does it say that jesus is the only person capable of midrash, in fact he seems rather annoyed with people for trying to use the letter of the law to corner just practices. are we not to also use similar good judgement when it comes to the letter of the law? wouldn't that require midrash?

wouldn't it also be possible for example, to allow others room under such midrash, to not corner them with the letter as they attempted to corner jesus, and wouldn't it be possible to hold ourselves to stricter interpretations? for starters, wouldn't this be two correct interpretations of the same law?

sure, you could call it more than one "application" - but once the application is towards other people, like in the case with jesus, it is the interpretation that has to be more open- otherwise you risk being a hypocrite (as they did,) something jesus never smiled on, and went on about rather bitterly and emotionally.

God's a sadistic little child sitting in a fancy chair in the sky.

I have seen this video before, and have seen and read a lot of the other material produced by this person, but I find that he attacks the most fundamental parts of Christianity, and mistranslates much of Christian belief (he attacks Jesus' request for people to eat his flesh and drink his blood, which obviously refers to communion, and is metaphorical). Although he speaks calmly, he is rather provcative (he once said "God is a homocidal maniac").

Not a good person to learn from.

aperson wrote:

God's a sadistic little child sitting in a fancy chair in the sky.

How does this opinion differ from the one you expressed HERE?

aperson wrote:

I have seen this video before, and have seen and read a lot of the other material produced by this person, but I find that he attacks the most fundamental parts of Christianity, and mistranslates much of Christian belief (he attacks Jesus' request for people to eat his flesh and drink his blood, which obviously refers to communion, and is metaphorical). Although he speaks calmly, he is rather provcative (he once said "God is a homocidal maniac").

Not a good person to learn from.