When it comes to the Jewish books of the "bible," we Jews insist that none of it's really relevant to all y'all -- whatever our bullshit is, we keep it in the tribe. So, if a Jew asks, hey, what the hell happened with the bear and those little kids?, we not only have immediate access to the original but also have our own thousands of years of understanding of what is, after all, our texts. Doesn't make it any the less bullshit. But at least we don't foist it on others.

For us, it's fundamentally silly that a Christian would assert that some Jewish text is mistranslated from the original because that same Christian also asserts that everything originally biblically Jewish supports Jesus the Christ, Son, God, Savior, King, etc, i.e., necessarily the whole kit and kabooble of Christianity (er, at least their version, which -- of course! -- is the right one!).

But for the Christian insistence that Jesus matters for every living human soul, what the flipping fuck would anybody but a Yid even remotely care a fig about this obscure little tiny Jewish tale of a bear and little kids and bald taunts?

Jesus (if he existed at all) was a Jew, talking to other Jews

***

Well, Jesus' words -- I mean, the very words of the One and Only Living God and Creator of the Entire Universe!... gone! Poof!  Forever! Jesus, GOD HIMSELF, was on earth, for 30 plus years, and nobody -- not even Jesus! -- thought it worthwhile to preserve his actual teachings verbatim?! Instead, everything but for a tiny few stray pieces of Aramaic was translated into patently subpar vernacular then-contemporary Greek, and the original... gone! Poof! Forever!

Oh well...!

I always chuckle at those who think that the Bible says that marriage is supposed to be between one man and one woman. I was raised Jewish. I read the Old Testament (Torah). King Solomon had 700 (ha!) wives. Clearly, marriage is supposed to be between one man and many, many women!

What I find interesting about Paul is from the evidence of the New Testament, despite his transformation from a homicidal religious maniac to a hallucinating religious maniac being treated as a straightforward redemption narrative, he was clearly mentally ill by our contemporary standards.

Even considering Paul's violence occurred in a culture which allowed and encouraged it, Acts of the Apostles and Paul himself in his letters insist Paul was considered a outlying asshole even in the context of his time. This is something that's been commented on for 2000 years (here's Billy Graham comparing St. Paul to a serial killer), but I find it more sinister than the apologists do.

The Pharisees might have stoned blasphemers like Stephen at the drop of a hat if they start preaching Christ right up in the authorities' faces at the Temple, but Paul made persecution a vocation.

(Paul's Christian missions were clearly modeled on his anti-Christian mission, but instead of leveraging the Judean religious establishment to impose violence on Jewish Christians, he leveraged the Roman colonial establishment to impose Paulism and Gentiles on Jewish Christians.)

It's unsettling. And then he had a seizure and spent later years raving about meeting a dead rabbi, which doesn't exactly settle lingering questions about his sanity.

Assuming any of it happened, of course...