http://brotherinlaw.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] brotherinlaw.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] nedosionist 2013-01-28 05:15 am (UTC)

There is a simple fact that you refuse to heed, with a persistence deserving a better cause. Scripture and the Talmud are different texts with different intended audiences.

Scripture is for everyone, hence, of necessity, intended ambiguities. Examples are abundant; one of the most famous, and self-explaining at that, is Exod.3:14. As well as most others, it has of course nothing to do with the kindergarten verbal or syntax games. Sense A: God reveals to Moses the fact of His Being and presents the expression's shortened version as His name. Note, sense A is not misleading or intended for fools but is utterly correct as usual; it is, however, not the whole spectrum of meanings. Sense X: God reveals to Moses His historical (Rashi) and metaphysical (Avicenna) attribute of existence, and then implies that this is too much for the contemporary people to grasp: "give them, rather, a hint of it, ostensibly just conveying My name to them." Or, with Cain: sense A - Cain murdered Abel unprovoked out of malice; sense X: certainly he killed, and certainly malice was there, but not so unprovoked after all (with more drawing on the context, PP). Sense X was concealed from a wider audience lest they should think it was OK for Cain to kill.

The intended audience of the Talmud is students of the Talmud, those who already have a curriculum of elementary education behind them. With these gentlemen, intended ambiguities are not used as a rule: a university student of physics is not taught popular adaptations but is taught the same science as that developed by Einstein, Schroedinger etc. That is why an intended ambiguity is not likely in the Talmud, though possible in principle. Examples, if they exist, can be provided by those who have a Talmudic education, which credit is not yours or mine. For an amateur, it is simply arrogant to attempt establishing such examples on his/her own authority. Unless it is self-evident, which yours are evidently not: e.g. I disagree and still not in a mental asylum, where disagreement with self-evident things usually leads.

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