I must admit that I laughed at that juxtaposition of quotes, as well. I certainly agree that context is extremely important. However, statements --- and parts of statements --- contain information that can be analyzed, even out of context. The language and the imagery that is chosen (especially in works like the Talmud, Mishnah and Gemarah) are worthy of discussion, in & of themselves.
2 Kings 9:10 "The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the portion of Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her." Yes, I've taken this out of context as well. So, the casual reader doesn't know what Jezebel did to deserve her fate. The question (as trivial as it might seem) that comes to my mind is : when did dogs ever eat human flesh? I've certainly never seen dogs do that, though I've heard of pit bulls brutally attacking and biting strangers. As I said in my post, it wasn't just the suggestion of not teaching women Torah (which can be understood better with context) that I had a problem with. Eliezer could have chosen any other phrase to complete "it would be better to ...", in order to emphasize how much he didn't want it done. However, he chose to use the phrase "it would be better to burn the words of the Torah" and the idea of destroying the written word doesn't sit well with me. B'shalom, Steve Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the AJL =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: Hasafran @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
