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From: mstein@access5.digex.net (Michael P. Stein)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Why I Believe In Jewish Ritual Murder [cockroach]
Date: 29 Jan 1997 10:58:08 -0500
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Lines: 61
Message-ID: <5cns2g$7r9@access5.digex.net>
References: <199701271921.LAA04547@mailmasher.com>
Reply-To: mstein@access.digex.net
NNTP-Posting-Host: access5.digex.net

In article <199701271921.LAA04547@mailmasher.com>,
Huge Cajones Remailer  wrote:
>From:  bs-org@c2.net
>Oh boy Annie, your are lost to this world. I feel sorry for you. Race I would
>have accepted, religion never.  How can you accept a religion which is
>the most hateful ever made with NO respect for other human lives and things.
>How can you accept such a sick and perverted Talmud teaching like
>sex is allowed with littler Girls as long as she is 3 Yeras and one Day old.

    Not even the Talmud accepts such a sick and perverted teaching.  What
was sick and perverted was the person who took some words out of context
in order to try to fool people into thinking that the Talmud says such a
thing.  It doesn't - not really.

    The words, "When a grown man has intercourse with a girl less than
three years and a day, it is nothing" really do appear in the Talmud.
However, there are two very important things you have to know about those
words.  First, the phrase "it is nothing" is the literal translation of an
idiom that means "it has no bearing on the case under discussion."  It
does not mean "it is morally acceptable."  Second, the case under
discussion is the property rights of a bride - a virgin has greater
entitlement than a non-virgin.  The specific question is: if a girl is
raped when she is less than three years old, for the purpose of fixing her
property rights at marriage, is she still considered a virgin or not?  The
law is that she is entitled to the property rights of a virgin.  "It is
nothing" here means that it has no effect on her rights.

    Later on in tractate Kiddushin it is made clear that the grown man who
does such a thing owes monetary damages on five separate counts. 
(Personal injuries were considered first as civil matters requiring
compensation to the victim; rape was simply another personal injury.)

>I am really disappointed in you Annie.  But I guess, nobody told you the
>truth.

    Whoever told you about the Talmud did not tell you the truth - not the
_whole_ truth. 

    I will very candidly admit that there are some statements in the
Talmud which _are_ hateful.  However, you must keep in mind that there are
many views of many different rabbis reflected there, and many of the
hateful statements are not accepted as the definitive law.  They should be
considered in the same light as dissenting opinions from the Supreme Court
- they are the views of the individual, and not the official position of
the court.  Others require some knowledge of the person and times, such as
Shimon bar-Yochai's "Even the best of the Gentiles should be killed."
Given that this statement contradicts other statements in the Talmud, and
has no support elsewhere in the document, it seems pretty clear that he
was talking specifically about the Romans against whom he was leading a
revolt.  But you have to know both his life story in order to know this -
that information is _not_ found in the Talmud itself.

    Do you deny that some Christian leaders have also made hateful
statements?  Do you consider them representative of Christianity as a
whole? 

    Posted/emailed.
-- 
Mike Stein                      The above represents the Absolute Truth.
POB 10420                       Therefore it cannot possibly be the official
Arlington, VA  22210            position of my employer.

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