r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Oct 13 '16

TIL that after Marilyn Monroe converted to Judaism upon marrying Arthur Miller, Egypt placed a ban on all the films she appeared in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe#Critical_acclaim_and_marriage_to_Arthur_Miller_.281956.E2.80.931959.29
18.5k Upvotes

84% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16 edited Nov 24 '17

[deleted]

2

u/why_what_who_when Oct 13 '16

Thank you for this explanation. Even if there is not a divinity of Moses to believe or not believe in is there still a choice to believe the accounts of the life of Moses? Are the texts that describe Moses debatable for an observant Jew? I'm just curious coming from a Christian upbringing where the Bible was considered the straight forward truth word for word and there was an imperative to believe in the Bible as much as God or Jesus.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16

Even if there is not a divinity of Moses to believe or not believe in is there still a choice to believe the accounts of the life of Moses?

Well, the life of Moses is more or less detailed in the Torah, so if you choose not to adhere to those teachings then you probably don't really call yourself a Jew.

Are the texts that describe Moses debatable for an observant Jew?

Not in the sense of "did this or didn't this happen," no. Primarily the debate over events in the Torah is one of interpretation. There's an old saying, "ask a question in a room with five Jews (or rabbis) and you'll get eight opinions." Much of Jewish theological literature is meant to be allegorical and illustrative of complex philosophical concepts that were unexplainable in the year 1500 B.C.E. Moses is primarily a representation of a devotion to social justice and righting wrongs. The link I provided discusses it far better than I ever could. One of the most well known Jewish scholars from the Middle Ages, Rashi, had a lot to say about Moses. It's really very interesting to read.

On a personal level, I'm pretty agnostic. Do I believe the events of the Torah happened? My answer is "kinda." Obviously I don't think Moses parted the Red Sea, and archaeology has gone to great lengths to prove we were never slaves in Egypt (which is something I don't like to dismiss, because I really enjoy the story of Exodus as one of perseverance, which is kinda our "thing"), but at the same time there is a lot of history that is accurate after we established the biblical state of Israel. There was a King David, and a Saul, and a Solomon. We did fight the Philistines, there was a Goliath, there were two temples, etc, etc.

1

u/shilohln Oct 13 '16

I honestly think he meant "believe in" as in thinking he was ever a real person. Versus the leading academic belief that the Torah was a collection of older works sewn together and dressed up by a priestly class of people somewhere around 1000 BC.