32
The KJV may give the general sense of a translation in many cases. However, it has a definite Christian bend and does not always follow the Jewish traditions in translation. I will illustrate this phenomenon with a few examples.
Isaiah 7:14 (see here):
MT:
לָ֠כֵן יִתֵּ֨ן אֲדֹנָ֥י ה֛וּא לָכֶ֖ם א֑וֹת הִנֵּ֣ה הָעַלְמָ֗ה הָרָה֙
וְיֹלֶ֣דֶת בֵּ֔ן וְקָרָ֥את ...
31
Either what was posted on that forum is about half-correct, or your understanding of what was said was about half-correct. Traditional Judaism does believe that "[H]oly texts are the revealed word of the divine and thus cannot ever be contradicted by modern research, philosophy or belief systems." It is not true "[t]hat it is understood that the scripture ...
26
Didn't Moshe Rabbeinu get divorced from Zipporah? See Rashi Bamidar 12:1, על אודות האשה: על אדות גירושיה. Sounds like he divorced her. I don't think this shittah is universal though. Still looking for more sources.
Tosafos in Yevomos 62:a dichsiv says that possibly he wrote her a Get.
Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer (chapter 30) brings down the following story that ...
25
I agree with the answer Daniel gave, but I would clarify things slightly differently.
1) Orthodox Judaism believes that the Torah is the literal Word of G-d. This is one of the Thirteen Principles of Faith as brought down by Maimonides:
"We do not know exactly how the Torah was transmitted to Moses. But
when it was transmitted, Moses merely wrote it ...
21
The only divorce I can find in Tanach al pi peshat is Avraham's divorcing Hagar. The verse (Genesis 21:10) says:
גָּרֵשׁ הָאָמָה הַזֹּאת, וְאֶת-בְּנָהּ
Cast out this bondwoman and her son.
The word used is גרש which is the word used for divorce generally in Tanach (eg. Leviticus 22:13) and it seems to be the peshat here because we never hear of Hagar ...
21
The Sefer Eicha was destroyed by King Yehoyakim who threw it into a fire and rewritten by Yirmiyahu at the command of Hashem.
Yirmiyahu 36:23
23: And it came to pass, when Jehudi read three or four verses, he rent it
with a scribe's razor, and cast [it] onto the fire which was on the
brazier until the entire roll was consumed on the fire that was on ...
21
It turns out the most common name in the Tanach is Zecharayahu:
A Kohen in the time of David (Divrei Hayamim 1:15:24)
A Levite in the time of David (Divrei Hayamim 1:15:18)
A gate-keeper in Ohel Moed (Divrei Hayamim 1:26:2)
Son of Yishiyah (Divrei Hayamim 1:24:25)
Father of Yado (Divrei Hayamim 1:27:21)
Father of Yachziel (Divrei Hayamim 2:20:14)
Son ...
20
I did some calculations and came up with the top 5 for each sefer in Tanach, along with the top twenty overall. I also provided my list of top 10 for Torah and Tehillim for comparison with AvnerMil's. For the Tanach source, i used Mechon Mamre's niqqudless Tanach.
The code is available here on GitHub Gists. Comes with a README explaining how to run it.
Top ...
20
[Gen] The world comes to be.
[Exo] A nation goes free,
[Lev] and learns about service divine.
[Num] They wander and gripe.
[Deu] For Canaan they're ripe;
[Jos] they conquer it and land assign.
[Jug] They sin and repent,
[Sam] a king they are sent,
[Kng] and others follow in his wake.
[Jer] They hear they'll be gone,
[Ezk] but will come back anon,
[Isa] for ...
19
Although many good answers exist here already, I want to provide somewhat of a more comprehensive response (as best as I can) by putting all the answers I know of in one place.
There are three overall ways to answer the question "why do we associate Shavuos with Matan Torah if that is not how it is presented in Tanakh?" One can respond either (I) by saying ...
19
The reason this is confusing is that in Biblical Hebrew, the plural can be used to denote a position of authority. For example, in Exodus 22 the Bible refers to a property owner in the plural even though from context there is only one person. See specifically Exodus 22:10
שְׁבֻעַ֣ת יְהוָ֗ה תִּהְיֶה֙ בֵּ֣ין שְׁנֵיהֶ֔ם אִם־לֹ֥א שָׁלַ֛ח יָד֖וֹ בִּמְלֶ֣אכֶת ...
18
I think the most complete indexing book of that kind is
תורה הכתובה והמסורה
by אהרן הימן.
It's published by דביר in three volumes.
It goes through the whole Bible verse by verse, giving for each verse a list of locations in Talmud and Midrash where the verse is mentioned in some way.
It's available on HebrewBooks:
vol 1 (torah)
vol 2 (nevi'im)
vol 3 (...
18
There is no description in the Torah (and to the best of my knowledge in the rest of TaNa"KH) as to how to correctly slaughter an animal.
In fact, R. Yehuda HaLevi (Kuzari, 3:35) brings this as a proof to the truth of the Oral Law. How can the written Torah demands slaughter without giving any details? It must be that there exists a parallel, oral ...
17
Harry Orlinsky, editor-in-chief of the NJPS, in a 1990 essay pointed to the example of three texts in the KJV as being faulty and showing Christian bias: Genesis 1:1-3, Psalm 2:12, and Isaiah 7:14. The Isaiah 7:14 text has been discussed in the first post above and the one following, so only a discussion of the other two texts needs to be done.
Genesis 1:1-...
16
As mentioned by @WAF, R' David Zvi Hoffman wrote a response to bible criticism in the early 1900's which is available on Daat.co.il.
Umberto Cassuto, while not strictly orthodox, published a book in reply to the DH in 1941. There are some notes on it here, and a new edition is available online here: http://www.shalempress.co.il/download/Products/...
15
The Talmud (Megillah 14a) writes:
הרבה נביאים עמדו להם לישראל, כפלים כיוצאי מצרים, אלא, נבואה שהוצרכה לדורות - נכתבה, ושלא הוצרכה - לא נכתבה.
Many prophets arose for the Jews: more than twice the number of Jews in the Exodus [1200000, but this language is likely meant to be understood as a really, really big number]. However, those prophesies which ...
15
Mishne Berurah (238, Shaar HaTziyun 1) writes that the Midrash (Pirkei d'Rebbi Eliezer 46 and Tanchumah Parsha Ki Sisa 36) writes that Moshe Rabenu was taught the Written Torah during the day and the Oral Torah at night. From this Midrash the Ba'er Hetev (2) (and Arizal [ed]) concludes that one should not learn the written Torah at night.
The Pri Megadim ...
15
The question as currently phrased is asked by, among others, R. Yosef Albo in Sefer HaIkarim 3:23 (which is why I'm unsure as to why it still has a negative score). Since I don't have a better way of doing this, I'm going to just paste here what I wrote to this similar question, with a couple of variations.
1. Idiomatic Expressions
Some differences between ...
15
Scrolls found in Ketef Hinnom contain the priestly blessing (of Numbers ch. 6) as preserved from the First Temple Era (700-650 BCE)
The Isaiah scroll found in Qumran: "has been carbon-14 dated at least four times, giving calibrated date ranges between 335-324 BC and 202-107 BC; there have also been numerous paleographic and scribal dating studies placing ...
15
The Talmud in Ketubot 72a cites Numbers 5:18 as a Scriptural source/derivation:
ראשה פרוע דאורייתא היא דכתיב ופרע את ראש האשה ותנא דבי רבי ישמעאל אזהרה לבנות ישראל שלא יצאו בפרוע ראש
[Is not the prohibition against going out with] an uncovered head Pentateuchal; for it is written, And he shall uncover the woman's head, and this, it was taught at the ...
14
To summarize (and perhaps embellish) Prof. Yaakov Elman's The Rebirth of Omnisignificant Biblical Exegesis in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, which addresses all this at length, Hazal seemed to assume that every word in the Torah was deliberate, meaningful, and not mere stylistic flourish. However, in response to Karaism, Rav Saadya Gaon greatly ...
14
First, I would suggest you read a bit about the history of the biblical text, its redaction, etc. It's important to understand the role played by the Masoretes in the making of the Masoretic texts which are used today, such as the Aleppo Codex.
What is the source (talmudic or otherwise) for this concept?
Traditionally, there were a number of different ...
14
Textual indicators abound for the eternal and immutable nature of the Torah. Besides examples provided in other answers, here are a couple more examples:
Even all that the LORD hath commanded you by the hand of Moses, from the day that the LORD gave commandment, and onward throughout your generations (B'midbar 15:23).
And thou shalt keep His statutes, and ...
14
The source is Gemara Nazir 23b:
אמר ר"נ בר יצחק גדולה עבירה לשמה ממצוה שלא לשמה והאמר רב יהודה אמר רב לעולם יעסוק אדם בתורה ובמצות אפי' שלא לשמן שמתוך שלא לשמן בא לשמן אלא אימא כמצוה שלא לשמה דכתיב (שופטים ה, כד) תבורך מנשים יעל אשת חבר הקני מנשים באהל תבורך מאן נשים שבאהל שרה רבקה רחל ולאה א"ר יוחנן שבע בעילות בעל אותו רשע באותה שעה שנאמר (שופטים ה, כז) ...
14
Brief Summary:
The commentators almost all agree that the four hundred years was not the time spent in Egypt. Rather, the four hundred years is from an earlier time (with some disagreements as to what that time is). Most of the commentators agree that the actual time spent in Egypt was two hundred and ten years. Other possibilities suggested are two hundred ...
14
Based on certain midrashim and assuming they're compatible, Naamah was Noach's wife and was born, at the latest, in 129. Noach was born in 1056. That makes her at least 927 years (+/- rounding errors) older than him.
13
I suggest Ishei Hatanach / Encyclopedia Of Biblical Personalities
Anthologized from the Talmud, Midrash, and Rabbinic writings by Yishai Chasidah. It's an Artscroll product.
13
Well, I'll just treat this as a programming assignment. If we use mechon-mamre's masoretic text without vowels; if we ignore punctuation and paragraph marks; if we use the ksiv and not kri (occasionally there's a note -- "the scroll will say this, but read that out-loud instead), I'm getting 135 such verses. A lot of them you'd expect to find repeated a lot, ...
13
In Melachim (Kings) Chapters 22-23, King Joshiahu discovers a Torah scroll during renovations of the Temple.
13
The Gemara in Gittin 60b says
דברים שבכתב אי אתה רשאי לאומרן על פה
Matters that were written you may not express them orally.
This is codified in Shulchan Aruch O.C. 49:1.
However, this rule only applies to reciting it orally (and even that is subject to much debate. See the commentators there. There's also a nice Wikipedia article as well as numerous ...
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