Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #Devarim

Most recents (7)

107.01/ Week one-hundred and seven, July 30-Aug. 5, 2022, thread begins here.

Week 106 below.
107.02/ The absolute ghoulish glee I'm seeing people directing vitriol & dogpiling violence against @AnaMardoll is frightening. I see what you allow yourself to do to people you think are "acceptable" targets.
Read 24 tweets
In this week's #Torah portion, we are introduced to several supernatural entities, one of which is called "Rephaim".

Keep in mind that "Rephaim" is older than the OT and is an appropriated word from the Canaanites.

So what were they in ANE literature?

#Devarim
#EBAMeme

1/5
In ANE religions lie the OT, death was dreary and undesirable. It is a lonely existence unless you were deserving in life, meaning, a great hero or leader. In such a case you could serve the Gods, interact with the living, making you one of the Rephaim.

#Devarim
#EBAMeme

2/5
We see this from the author of the Divine War story in Genesis 14 or Joshua 9-13, where the Rephaim of the Goddess Ashteroth are participants.

And in Job where the Rephaim are mentioned as being distinct from the other residents of Sheol.

#Devarim
#EBAMeme

3/5
Read 5 tweets
This week begins the Book of Deuteronomy. It's a collection of narratives with views/legends that are distinct from the others, and are often are at odds with Gen-Num.

Deuteronomy also has several anachronisms that could only have been written much later.

#Devarim
#EBAMeme

1/4
The opening verses of Deut. provides us with a list of places that the other books didn't mention,, but where the Hebrews apparently traveled, but the point of view is from someone in the future living in Israel.

#Devarim
#EBAMeme

2/4
Ibn Ezra, one of the more honest classical Jewish commentators, notes that these anachronisms could not have been written by Moses, but won't cross the line into true heresy!

#Devarim
#EBAMeme

3/4
Read 5 tweets
Here is a thread from my Covenant & Conversation essay on #KiTavo called "A Nation of Storytellers". You can read it at bit.ly/2mhK7K2, listen to it at bit.ly/2lWOXfO, or download the accompanying Family Edition at bit.ly/2kIfJbC. #ShabbatShalom Image
#Jews were the first people to find #God in history. They were the first to think in historical terms – of time as an arena of change as opposed to cyclical time in which the seasons rotate, people are born and die, but nothing really changes.
#Jews were the first people to write #history. Yet biblical #Hebrew has no word that means “history” (the closest equivalent is divrei hayamim, “chronicles”). Instead it uses the root zachor, meaning “memory.”
Read 9 tweets
Here is a thread from my Covenant & Conversation essay on #Devarim called "The Teacher as Hero". You can read it in full here: bit.ly/31uNuNk and download the accompanying Family Edition here: bit.ly/2MPEVbM. #ShabbatShalom Image
In Deuteronomy, a new word enters the biblical vocabulary: the verb l-m-d, meaning to learn or teach. The verb does not appear even once in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, or Numbers. In Deuteronomy it appears seventeen times.
There was nothing like this concern for universal education elsewhere in the ancient world. Jews became the people whose heroes were teachers, whose citadels were schools, and whose passion was study and the life of the mind.
Read 8 tweets
Here is a thread from my Covenant & Conversation essay on #Devarim called "Leading a Nation of Individuals". You can read it in full here: bit.ly/2EYj7Wv and download the accompanying Family Edition here: bit.ly/31iQEUK. #ShabbatShalom Image
In Judaism we are not in the business of counting numbers. The Jewish people always was small, and yet achieved great things. Judaism has a profound mistrust of demagogic leaders who manipulate the emotions of crowds.
Moses at the burning bush spoke of his inability to be eloquent. “I am not a man of words.” He thought this was a failing in a leader. In fact it was the opposite. Moses did not sway people by his oratory. Rather, he lifted them by his teaching.
Read 5 tweets

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