Another short post commenting on “The Return of The Kosher Pig” (TROTKP I)
On page 47 The author of The Return of The Kosher Pig quotes from Nedarim 22b
“R. Adda son of R. Hanina said: Had not Israel sinned, only the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua would have been given them, [the latter] because it records the disposition of Palestine [among the tribes]. Whence is this known? For much wisdom proceedeth from much anger.”
(Just wondering why the author uses the term Palestine to translate the Hebrew that says Eretz Yisrael when on page 36 in note 58 he “strongly disagree(s) with Boyarin’s usage of the term “Palestine” as the land of Israel was never called palestine in the 1st century” !?!)
But, be that as it may, the author of TROTKP goes on to state that “Rashi says in his commentary that the rest of the books in the Tanach were given to Israel not as spiritual books which are filled with the Holy spirit but rather as add-ons to the divine inspiration of the Torah”
Unfortunately, as I will demonstrate over here (and is clear from the numerous mistakes abound in TROTKP), the author of TROTKP was never formally taught how to translate and understand Rashi and therefore completely misunderstands Rashi thus deceiving his readers to believe his slanderous conclusion that “We can clearly state, therefore, that many of the Talmudic sages ….. have elected to go against the words of the Torah itself and the Prophets.”
What Rashi IS saying in his commentary to Nedarim 22b is that the book of Joshua is different to the other books of the Tanach (outside of the Five Books of Moses.)
Rashi explains as follows: Since the records of the division of the land for each tribe are recorded there, therefore the Five books of Moses would not be enough without the book of Joshua and so, in order to preserve these records about the dividing up of the land, the book of Joshua would be needed regardless of whether Israel would have been rebellious or not.
Rashi continues to explain that with regards to the rest of the books of the Tanach, they were added as a result of Israel’s rebelling and sinning against G-d.
Here are Rashi’s words: “Since they sinned and rebelled they were given additional wisdom, the rest of the books of scripture to give them extra labour.” [in studying the books of the Tanach that were subsequently added with each prophet that was sent to rebuke the Jewish people.]
In other words, Rashi is explaining what the Talmud is already saying, namely that these DIVINELY INSPIRED books of the prophets (who were filled with the Holy Spirit as Rashi EXPLICITLY states in Chulin 137a) were given as a result of Israel rebelling against G-d.
Misrepresenting Rashi as saying that “the rest of the books in the Tanach were given to Israel not as spiritual books which are filled with the Holy spirit but rather as add-ons” is simply an embarrassing display of putrid ignorance.
We are left with the question how did Christian/ Messianic scholars put their name behind such a book and offer the book and the author the highest praise in terms of “scholarship” and “careful research” ?? Did they not pick up on the glaring mistakes the author made or did they simply not care?
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