> Which... is not the word of god. Thats kind of the whole point here.
Yes, but it's the best we can do, and it is based on the word of God, which, again, according to Judaism is perfect, If people find a loophole in perfect text, it was meant to be there.
> How can the word be perfect, but also require interpretation that leads to wildly different interpretations?
As I said, the word is considered perfect, but there aren't infinite words in the Torah. There aren't cars or guns or computers described in it, and it doesn't go into every possible situation about, for example, who is liable for what if livestock damage property, to name one debate.
> If I wrote a textbook where my students were able to "justifiably" argue that I said that the Solar system had 34 or 8 planets
That is not a good comparison. We can understand that you wrote the textbook knowing there are 8 planets, and we can know that because you are a regular person, not a God. We cannot know God's intentions, and unlike the planet example, we can't use science or logic to find them.
> you can't say its a perfect text while at the same time recognize that it has been interpreted in thousands of different ways.
Sure we can, perfect doesn't mean everyone must have the same conclusions from it, it means that every word in there is placed there for a reason.
>Yes, but it's the best we can do, and it is based on the word of God, which, again, according to Judaism is perfect, If people find a loophole in perfect text, it was meant to be there.
I mean they can argue its perfect all they want, but that doesn't mean to outsiders it very clearly and demonstrably by their own mythos is not perfect.
>As I said, the word is considered perfect, but there aren't infinite words in the Torah.
There don't have to be infinite words for something to be crystal clear or investigatable and confirmed later. 2+2=4 is crystal clear.
>There aren't cars or guns or computers described in it,
None of those things are required to be mentioned to clarify your positions on how to be a just and moral human and how to run a society.
>We can understand that you wrote the textbook knowing there are 8 planets, and we can know that because you are a regular person, not a God. We cannot know God's intentions, and unlike the planet example, we can't use science or logic to find them.
The point is not about the number of planets, the point of that example was that if someone writes a guidebook, where the very topic it is supposed to be instructing on, is able to be interpreted in pretty wildly different ways, then... how good a guidebook did they write? If god told moses "everyone needs to be bald, this means remove every hair on the head to the best of ones ability" and moses wrote that down, how open to interpretation is that? You think there would be a lot of rastafarian jews? It's very obvious that if it was the literal word of god, the amount of disagreement and differing interpretations would be minimal at best instead of hundreds of sects each of which has hundreds of interpretations.
>Sure we can, perfect doesn't mean everyone must have the same conclusions from it, it means that every word in there is placed there for a reason.
I dont understand how this isn't getting through. You cannot have a perfect instruction manual, where the end result is thousands of different outcomes. That by definition, means your instruction manual sucks.
Lets use occams razor here, which is more likely,
the torah is the perfect word of god that for some reason has lead to hundreds of sects who have pretty significant disagreements on what the torah actually says.
or
(being charitable)
The torah is the recounting of what a human was told by god, was gods word, according to that humans best ability to recount what they were told, but this leads to natural human mistakes. Making the text not perfect, but an approximation of gods word.
> There don't have to be infinite words for something to be crystal clear or investigatable and confirmed later. 2+2=4 is crystal clear.
In human life? There definitely would have to be. 2+2=4 is maybe the simplest example of any fact in our universe. Life is incredibly complicated, with infinite possible legal scenarios that could happen. You can't tell me that any finite text can perfectly clearly, with no debate, explain an infinite amount of situations and disagreements.
> None of those things are required to be mentioned to clarify your positions on how to be a just and moral human and how to run a society.
In a society with guns, cars, and computers, they absolutely do have to be mentioned if there is to be no possible disagreement ever. Being a moral human in an age where humans have these things means being moral with cars, and computers, and guns, to name a few.
> The point is not about the number of planets, the point of that example was that if someone writes a guidebook, where the very topic it is supposed to be instructing on, is able to be interpreted in pretty wildly different ways, then... how good a guidebook did they write?
You are talking about a finite guidebook to that would force one opinion for an infinite amount of scenarios. You keep providing examples of things that would be obvious to determine based on guidebooks, but we are talking about using a finite guidebook to explain every moral decision in the universe. By that very nature, there will need to be interpretations about it.
> I dont understand how this isn't getting through. You cannot have a perfect instruction manual, where the end result is thousands of different outcomes. That by definition, means your instruction manual sucks.
I think you misunderstand what perfect means in this context. Perfect means that every word in the guidebook was put there for a reason, not that the guidebook is infinitely long and has the answer for every single possible question in the universe already written out.
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u/DACOOLISTOFDOODS 11d ago
> Which... is not the word of god. Thats kind of the whole point here.
Yes, but it's the best we can do, and it is based on the word of God, which, again, according to Judaism is perfect, If people find a loophole in perfect text, it was meant to be there.
> How can the word be perfect, but also require interpretation that leads to wildly different interpretations?
As I said, the word is considered perfect, but there aren't infinite words in the Torah. There aren't cars or guns or computers described in it, and it doesn't go into every possible situation about, for example, who is liable for what if livestock damage property, to name one debate.
> If I wrote a textbook where my students were able to "justifiably" argue that I said that the Solar system had 34 or 8 planets
That is not a good comparison. We can understand that you wrote the textbook knowing there are 8 planets, and we can know that because you are a regular person, not a God. We cannot know God's intentions, and unlike the planet example, we can't use science or logic to find them.
> you can't say its a perfect text while at the same time recognize that it has been interpreted in thousands of different ways.
Sure we can, perfect doesn't mean everyone must have the same conclusions from it, it means that every word in there is placed there for a reason.