The rabbinic tradition states that "there are seventy faces to the Torah." In other words, there is no one "right" way to interpret the text (though there are certainly wrong ways!).
This is not to say that closed-mindedness is absent in Judaism, more's the pity, but I do think this teaching helps to restrain the worst examples you cite.
Yes, this is one of the big reasons why Judaism has influenced me so much over the last 20 years. It's like a glass of fresh water after years of thirst.
I understand that the Pope, in the early 1960’s said The Jews didn’t kill Christ. But Mel Gibson didn’t get the memo. And the Baby Jesus as Palestinian thing is kind of ridiculous.
This probably falls under the Idol of Literalism, but I've read books that say Jesus's parables were intended to provoke introspection and discussion, not just be the quotable fables they're usually presented as. These same books often asserted that the simple, blindingly-obvious explanations that Jesus supposedly gave the disciples and ordered kept secret were actually later literary interpolations. Could you touch on these topics?
The rabbinic tradition states that "there are seventy faces to the Torah." In other words, there is no one "right" way to interpret the text (though there are certainly wrong ways!).
In orthodox schools, students routinely study from a Mikraot Gedolot edition of the Torah, in which a few lines of the text are surrounded by over a dozen disagreeing commentators. Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikraot_Gedolot#/media/File:Mikraot_Gedolot.JPG
This is not to say that closed-mindedness is absent in Judaism, more's the pity, but I do think this teaching helps to restrain the worst examples you cite.
Yes, this is one of the big reasons why Judaism has influenced me so much over the last 20 years. It's like a glass of fresh water after years of thirst.
There’s the history of Anti-Semitism.
I understand that the Pope, in the early 1960’s said The Jews didn’t kill Christ. But Mel Gibson didn’t get the memo. And the Baby Jesus as Palestinian thing is kind of ridiculous.
This probably falls under the Idol of Literalism, but I've read books that say Jesus's parables were intended to provoke introspection and discussion, not just be the quotable fables they're usually presented as. These same books often asserted that the simple, blindingly-obvious explanations that Jesus supposedly gave the disciples and ordered kept secret were actually later literary interpolations. Could you touch on these topics?
Sure. Thanks for your interest. Which books/authors are you referring to?
I'll have to do some digging of my own to be sure; it's been years and they were library books. I'm almost sure Bart Ehrman's work was among them.
I'm a big Ehrman fan. Big influence.