Don't you love Jesus?

[schmosef]

You don't know that really, we have too little records from that times. "Jews were the only ones doing it" is favoured by the fact that they were mostly the only ones practicizing written world to such extent.

http://forums.murc.ws/showpost.php?p=562945&postcount=3

[Nowhere]

Don't turn this other way around You're saying that uniqueness of kosher, etc. is a good hint that Jews were contacted by God. However you would have to prove that kosher is truly unique, and you can't use lack of our knowledge about ancient times as proof...

[Gurm]

*sigh* ... and we had kept this thread civil for so long

At least Mormonism wasn't started by a guy who got drunk, hiked a mountain, talked to a bush and claimed it was God

No, it was started by a known drunk and serial womanizer who refused to do an honest day's work... wandered off into the woods and came back a week later saying "Angels showed me hidden golden tablets, and those tablets told me to take 8 wives and start a new religion!"

(Poke! Prod!)

[SpiralDragon]

Kosher laws predate Halal but almost 2000 years. In fact, the Koran defines Halal by explaining how it is similar and how it is different to Kosher laws.

The point I made was that Umf had said that there wasn't anything in Kosher law that could not have been figured out by mankind through observation. My response was that if that were true, why did no one else figure out those laws.

I'm not denying that others may have learned from the Jews and later adopted similar rules for their food, I'm saying that at the time the Kosher laws were handed down, no one else was doing them.

hence my link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision

and will add to it the folowing,

i personaly regard the folowing of Kosher and Halal labeling on whatever to be realy silly in our times.. i belive they are nothhing more than badly tranfered dogma.....

[schmosef]

Don't turn this other way around You're saying that uniqueness of kosher, etc. is a good hint that Jews were contacted by God. However you would have to prove that kosher is truly unique, and you can't use lack of our knowledge about ancient times as proof...

A Dutch archeologist went digging and found - nothing. He concluded that the ancient Dutch had a cell phone network...

Nowhere, now you just sound lazy to do the research.

You're asking me to disprove a negative proposition.

Do you have a reason to believe that another culture was practicing Kosher-like laws? For example, is there a culture that exists today that practices Kosher-like laws and can trace the beginnings of those laws to the same or earlier time period that the Jews adopted those laws? I don't know of one.

You can't prove that general Xeno didn't crash space ships filled with aliens into our volcanoes and trap the souls of those aliens in our bodies. That doesn't mean it's true.

[schmosef]

hence my link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision

and will add to it the folowing,

i personaly regard the folowing of Kosher and Halal labeling on whatever to be realy silly in our times.. i belive they are nothhing more than badly tranfered dogma.....

Circumcision is a separate issue from Kosher laws for food.

I don't see the connection.

I didn't claim circumcision as unique to biblical revelation. I claimed Kosher laws unique to biblical revelation.

As far as Kosher laws being silly... I don't think it's silly to not eat sick animals.

[schmosef]

No, it was started by a known drunk and serial womanizer who refused to do an honest day's work... wandered off into the woods and came back a week later saying "Angels showed me hidden golden tablets, and those tablets told me to take 8 wives and start a new religion!"

(Poke! Prod!)

It was a nice thread wasn't it?

[Nowhere]

Nowhere, now you just sound lazy to do the research.

You're asking me to disprove a negative proposition.

Do you have a reason to believe that another culture was practicing Kosher-like laws? For example, is there a culture that exists today that practices Kosher-like laws and can trace the beginnings of those laws to the same or earlier time period that the Jews adopted those laws? I don't know of one.

You can't prove that general Xeno didn't crash space ships filled with aliens into our volcanoes and trap the souls of those aliens in our bodies. That doesn't mean it's true.

But that also doesn't validate the thing that general Xeno crashed space ships filled with aliens only into Etna (OK, assume for te sake of logical argument that there are some gravings on Etna saying that )

Basically, I don't see a compelling reason that might not be the case (about another culture). So many cultures perished...if they didn't left written word, or used paper, we can't possibly know. But such things happen. For example, in Polish legends there is no trace of slavery at all. But archeological findings dating to times just before missionares get here suggest it was quite widely practiced.

[Nowhere]

Circumcision is a separate issue from Kosher laws for food.

I don't see the connection.

I didn't claim circumcision as unique to biblical revelation. I claimed Kosher laws unique to biblical revelation.

As far as Kosher laws being silly... I don't think it's silly to not eat sick animals.

Why you don't mix chicken with milk? (sorry, I watched this movie recently )

[schmosef]

Why you don't mix chicken with milk? (sorry, I watched this movie recently )

The Kosher laws as written in the OT have no problem with mixing fowl with dairy.

I spoke to a Rabbi who specialized in Koshering kitchens (a Mishgiach) about this on a long drive once. He admitted the same to me. He said that at some point in time the Rabbi's decided that fowl could be too easily confused with meat in various common preparations and they decided to rule out the combination as a safe guard. They didn't want people to be eating it and suddenly get worried because they weren't sure what they were eating.

I don't keep Kosher, but if I did, I'd have no problem mixing the two. And I'd go toe to toe with any Rabbi who told me otherwise.

[Nowhere]

The Kosher laws as written in the OT have no problem with mixing fowl with dairy.

I spoke to a Rabbi who specialized in Koshering kitchens (a Mishgiach) about this on a long drive once. He admitted the same to me. He said that at some point in time the Rabbi's decided that fowl could be too easily confused with meat in various common preparations and they decided to rule out the combination as a safe guard. They didn't want people to be eating it and suddenly get worried because they weren't sure what they were eating.

I don't keep Kosher, but if I did, I'd have no problem mixing the two. And I'd go toe to toe with any Rabbi who told me otherwise.

I just had a thought...couldn't it be the case that laws of Kosher were initially much more precise (so quite commonplace...), but they were in time generalised by Jews as to avoid confusion?

[schmosef]

I think that you meant to write "general" where you wrote "precise"...

(otherwise I can't make sense of what you're trying to say. please clarify, then I'll respnod.)

[Nowhere]

Probably problem with translation...by using Polish meanings of those terms everything is OK...

So, an example:
initially some ancestors of Jews noticed that at that time/place some pigs were usually ill/had parasites, so they wouldn't want to eat those who are visibly sick. Other people would do that also. But in time, to avoid the risk of consuming sick pig, even if it looks healthy, pre-Jews abolished eating of them completelly. Or this could happen between (and because) one of transitions from "settled" to "nomadic" - when they did that transition, not eating pigs was practised by everyone nearby, because of some disease. Jews remembered this, even though for some time they lived nomadic lifes. And so...that's how it remained.

[schmosef]

The pig thing is really overblown. It's one small aspect of a really complicated system.

Kosher laws focus on what type of animal can be eaten (species/health), how it was raised/fed, how it can be killed, what parts can be eaten,... There are a lot of details.

Furthermore, it's likely that they didn't eat pigs in Egypt either because, according to one site I found, ancient Egyptians believed that pigs carried leprosy.

Lastly, I don't buy Umf's idea of "genetic memory" between living as farmers (turned slaves) and nomads. There were hundreds of years (the number 600 is in my head but I don't feel like looking it up) between Joseph and Moses. What were your people doing 600 years ago? Could you go back to their way of life in one generation?

[Jammrock]

(Poke! Prod!)

Yes, because you say that so jokingly.