Hasa Diga Eebowai wrote:Since the identities aren't conflated because they don't share the same name it isn't such an obvious issue but I view a statement like:
Look at the Jews they killed the prophets and God how abhorent.
To be on par with a statement like:
Look at the polynesians they were a blood-thirsty, idolatrous, ferocious, idle, lazy, and filthy people if only they'd accepted God.
Like I said though I probably am over sensitive to the issue, and I don't think Frank meant it in a way that was anti-semitic, he was probably just repeating what he views as a history of the Jews rejecting God and then it punishing them and making life difficult for them until they accept it again.
Well, I don't know exactly what Franktalk meant, but he wrote about the "Jews at Jerusalem," when he might have simply written "the Jews." From a historical standpoint, the Jews in Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, and Babylon were also "Jews," but they were not "at Jerusalem." So his statement, to my reading, sounds like someone discussing the "Carthaginians at Rome," or the "Syrians at Athens." If I were to speak of some negative thing one of those groups did, it would not necessarily be "anti-Punicism" or "anti-Syrianism."
Hasa Diga Eebowai wrote:I don't think Christians are the only ones who need to change their religious texts to remove or modify discriminatory language about other groups. Nuanced readings are important, but sometimes I wonder how much of a difference they actually have when I see the way religious texts are being understood and applied in the world. While Paul may not have been an anti-semite the majority of christians probably aren't reading his texts the way he intended them to be read.
I really balk at the idea of changing the text to suit whatever ideological purposes a particular group has. Joseph Smith changed some language in the Book of Mormon regarding ethnicity issues--"white and delightsome" became "pure and delightsome"--but he was the translator and the prophet. I think the key is responsible interpretation--the ability to see that the scriptures are good to think with, but not necessarily providing ideal models for personal or community behavior. I say leave it in and have the discussion.
Sure, one can chuck the whole notion of sacred texts, I suppose. But editing them willy-nilly to make them less offensive according to current standards is to do violence to history. It is a kind of lie.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist