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Re: Sadducees again
>A
generation ago the scholarly consensus was that Judaism was a religion
without grace and without God (without a personal experience of him,
anyway). (I noted this same position clearly spelled out as the scholarly
consensus in a book published as recently as 1990.)< [Douglas de Lacey]
I was horrified to learn that a 1990 book of purported scholarship persists
in this narrow and archaic view! Could you tell us the name of said book?
In any case "the scholarly consensus" here connotes the scholarly consensus
among GENTILES -- though, thank God, ONLY some and not all gentile scholars.
No Jewish scholar (and few Jewish laypersons) would identify Jews or Judaism
with such a misguided and ill-informed view! It's hard to maintain patience
with the persistent ignorance of those who presume to write about Jews and
Judaism as those though these were some kind of defunct fossils instead of a
real live people and a real live culture. It's amazing that they don't think
of checking the Jewish prayerbook of any branch of Judaism -- that's all it
would take to find God and God's interaction with humanity presented on every
page -- quite the reverse of the nonsensical claim to which you alluded --
that Judaism is a godless religion!
Judith Romney Wegner, Connecticut College