Friday, August 9, 2013

Fact-Checking

SNOPES is safe.  I'm not going to try to compete.  What I am going to do is post the results of 15 years of intensive research based on urban legends about the Jewish Bible, starting October 3.

Starting in 1998, I got involved with an Internet discussion group and one of the things that happened on that group was that people would bring us questions about the Jewish Bible.  Well, not questions, urban legends.  What they had been hearing about what the Bible said didn't satisfy them.  So we would answer their questions.

Over and over and ....

I started saving the posts with the answers and the next time the same question came up, I would copy and paste this answer. 

Took a lot of research, and I kept track of all the information I turned up and where I found it.

I was going to submit it as an equivalent for some credits when I was getting my legal studies degrees (see Mendel Beilis posting), because the classes I was taking gave me a new perspective.

Since 1998 I've put together a 400 page plus book about the urban legends on the Pentateuch, which is usually called Torah in the Jewish Bible.  I have a 25 page bibliography, 10 page table of citations and 5 page index for it.  I call it Fact-Checking the Torah.  It's part of a trilogy. 

I will be posting an informal version of what's in the book.  If you want the actual book, contact me and we'll work something out.

In the meantime, here are links to free information on the subject.  A lot of what I say will only mean something to you if you can read the Torah in Hebrew, and there are reasons for that which I will discuss in the Fact-Checking postings.

Hebrew language: (two parts)
            http://www.archive.org/details/hebrewgrammarwi01kaligoog
            http://www.archive.org/details/hebrewgrammarwi00kaligoog

Jewish Bible read in Hebrew  http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/ptmp3prq.htm

Babylonian Talmud             http://www.dafyomi.org/        audio and text

Jerusalem Talmud             http://www.yerushalmionline.org/     audio

Texts:   http://www.mechon-mamre.org/index.htm  Tannakh, Talmuds, Midrash Halakhah
             http://www.tsel.org/torah/midrashraba/index.html   Midrash Aggadah
             http://www.hebrewbooks.com/                     Talmud in PDF

I am going to bust a lot of fallacies in these postings.  This is one of the best sites I know about fallacies.  Get familiar with it and you may find out on your own that what you think you know about the Torah is full of logical problems.

www.fallacyfiles.org
 
There are audio lectures at the following sites which use a medieval commentary, famous among Jews, by Rabbi Shelomo ben Yitschaq, AKA Rashi.

Beta.chabad.org – find Rabbi Yehoshua Gordon’s Torah video lessons
www.dafyomi.org – find R. David Grossman’s Torah audio lessons

If you don't have a Bible and don't read Hebrew, all is not lost.  You can go here and get a copy.
www.sacred-texts.com

© Patricia Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

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