V'dibarta Bam

2:49 PM

@IsaacMoses thanks; you've made some good and clear points. I, too, am an amateur in the context of that site's target scope, and maybe part of the problem is that almost none of the active users have the desired background. (I can think of two who might.) But I can talk descriptively (not truth-assertively) about what our sources say, while many of the Christians there apparently cannot. Result: unpleasant environment.

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I realize that I was unclear in my post here yesterday. While, yes, I'm interested in discussing BH's site direction (somewhere), what I'd really like feedback on is the stuff I said about shofar and teshuva. Have I been doing harm by participating there? If so, what amends can I make? How do I get back on a right path, if I've strayed off of it?

@IsaacMoses Is not Bible meant to convey the message of God?, all efforts of bible study would involve doctrine , the pertinent problem is not that we can't use doctrine , but which is the correct doctrine? A literalistic approach alone is a way to move ahead

Ideally for BH , the NT should be offtopic

Biblical studies

Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, the Bible. For its theory and methods, the field draws on disciplines ranging from archaeology, literary criticism, history, philology, and social sciences. Many secular as well as religious universities and colleges offer courses in biblical studies, usually in departments of religious studies, theology, Judaic studies, history, or comparative literature. Biblical scholars do not necessarily have a faith commitment to the texts they study, but many do. Defini...

@Islam no. Doctrine belongs on the sites catering to those doctrines -- C.SE, Mi Yodeya, and I.SE.

in the same way Quran was declared offtopic on BH

Q: The future of Linguistics SE

Site with related problem (but without the religious aspect):

9

Recently I've been contacting a user that I thought didn't see that Linguistics entered Beta. To my slight surprise, this person told me that she actually visited Linguistics at first but then lost interest because of the fact that questions got low-level as she felt that instead a place for rese...

discussion

2:53 PM

@Islam the Christians consider their testament part of the bible. I'm not aware of anybody who makes that claim for the Qur'an.

... Many amateur enthusiasts; few professionals

@MonicaCellio More to the point, academic Bible scholarship presumably includes the Christian Bible

@IsaacMoses ah, thanks -- I hadn't been following the linguistics site. Sounds like the same problem, yes.

@IsaacMoses yes.

@MonicaCellio Me neither, except very peripherally

@IsaacMoses Only because the christians call their NT as bible does it mean that it is ? There are other christians sects propping up which call their own scriptures as part of Bible. So do you consider the NT, mormon scriptures and many others as part of Bible?

@MonicaCellio It sounds to me like your chief self-criticism here is for wasting time. It seems to me that the main remedy is to use future allotments of time toward ends that you feel are more worthwhile.

@Islam Don't ask me; I'm not an academic Biblical scholar. As I said above, I'm religiously interested in Tanach and not particularly interested in other religions' interpretations thereof or follow-on literatures

2:57 PM

@Islam I think that discussion would be more appropriate on BH.

The BH site should Ideally be renamed as Christian text hermenuetics

@IsaacMoses wasting time, and wondering if I did harm in the process by helping to educate people who, possibly, will use that education for their own malicious purposes. There's not a lot of that I don't think, but there's some. OTOH, I haven't said anything that can't be easily looked up. OT3rdH, I made it easier for them.

@Islam if they continue in their current direction I agree, but take it there please, not here.

@MonicaCellio I think you bought the topic here , hence I responded here.

@Islam I brought one aspect of it here, about how Jews (or this Jew) should or shouldn't interact with a Christian-biased site. I'm trying to have a Jewish conversation here, and I've already said twice to take the broader scope stuff there. And now you're bringing Muslim stuff into it, which we definitely don't care about here. I will keep deleting your messages if you keep posting them.

@MonicaCellio Ok I respect your decision , you can move the conversation to BH undeleting the deleted messages

3:15 PM

@Islam you should just raise it there (whatever points you want to bring up); there are several places you could do it (meta posts, chat) depending on where you want to go with it. There's too much local context here to just move messages, but you can post them again easily enough. Thanks.

@MonicaCellio I think you are overtly suspicious of me and you are getting very strict on what I post here. I see a lot of conversation going here that is not on topic. So why such a heavy moderation on only my messages which do talk about "Jewish life and learning"? Although I am a suspended user on both J\C sites does it mean I can't constructively participate ? and why my past history is always taken into account negatively ? I still believe that my suspension was unfair though

@Islam I am sorry if I gave the appearance of picking on you. I'm not; I would react to anybody trying to start the whole Christian-versus-Muslim-versus Jewish conversation here. That conversation is almost always long and heated and it drives away our users. Sure, there are other off-topic conversations here sometimes, but they don't have that problem. So I'm trying to shut down this one, not you.

(Remember, I actually agree with you on one point -- I just don't think this is the place for it.)

@MonicaCellio Hmmm... sounds like a your-rabbi question

3:31 PM

@IsaacMoses yeah, I think so -- just figured I'd check with other Yodeyans too, since y'all have lots of knowledge and insight that I can learn from.

@MonicaCellio :) There are probably precedents regarding interfaith dialogue, but, like the story of R' Amnon, they're probably mostly set in contexts that were much more charged, and any guidance you may draw from them may be a bit over-scary. The thing about teshuva/tikkun for a particular issue is that it probably needs to be well-tailored to the individual to be useful

@IsaacMoses that's a good point. Thanks.

Jon Ericson

4:37 PM

@msh210 I would say that's very much a mischaracterization of the site both in design and practice. Perhaps it's a losing battle, but it's one that has been fought (and not just by me) since the proposal. It would be more fair to say that the site has entered the period of Eternal September and it takes more effort than ever from the community to help newcomers catch the vision of the site.

@msh210 I'm becoming convinced that we equivocated on the word "doctrine" (it just means teaching of a particular faith/religion). What we really should avoid is dogma (holding such teaching as true because of religious authorities.

There is a Catholic user on C.SE who I would love to have participate on BH.SE, but he rightly reminds me that his answers will have the force of the Vatican behind them. He is in much the same position as many of the answerers to this question are in.

@JonEricson this is why I have been trying to use the phrases "truth statements" or "assertions of truth" --the word "doctrine" seems to be problematic, but you and I both know what we're really talking about here. So I'm trying for clearer packaging.

Jon Ericson

@IsaacMoses This is excatly how I see things now. We have some solid academics on the site now. (I'm embarrassed to still be the top user by reputation.) Google brings us more, but also brings us Christians (mostly) who are eager to share their half-baked theories. There are several who have fully-baked theories, however.

There are several sites (and many Usenet groups, mailing lists, forums, etc.) that try to check credentials at the door. That's a losing battle. It's better to deal with fringe theories head on rather than trying to deny them a place at the table. (I know many people disagree with me. See controversies on Wikipedia about pseudoscience, etc.)

(But this is getting off topic for this space.)

4:53 PM

@JonEricson (my fault) :)

@IsaacMoses actually, mine. I apologize.

@JonEricson The SE way, and certainly what we practice here at MY, is to enforce rules about POV WRT to each post on its own merits and not worry about the personality of the author (unless problems of persistent patterns of disruptive behavior come up, ofcourse)

Jon Ericson

@IsaacMoses Exactly. Even a Christian might be the right person to answer a question here. ;-)