RK, could I make a format suggestion? when you're responding to a single Talk segment (e.g., Palestine, your responses to SKissane), it's easier to follow if you go to the end of what you're responding to and do it in one segment (indented is best! that's really obvious - just start your first line with a colon and it'll indent) or indent a response after each of the other person's paragraphs. I personally practice the former, since it doesn't do as much violence to the flow of that person's written statement. I agree with you about the points of millenial-old variants of Judaism; we can CALL them Judaism, but the one that lasted is it. I have similar problems with people equating Gnostic sects and the Catholic church, myself. --MichaelTinkler
RK, may I request an article on Sunni and Shiite, or whatever the appropriate terms might be? There is already an article on Sunni, but I think it is pretty bad.
Why do you frequently write "Yasir Arafat"? Doing a search on Google, the spelling "Yasser Arafat" gives 186,000 hits, but "Yasir Arafat" only 18,000. I suggest we use the more common spelling. -- SJK
Some of us are interested in this. Can you give more info? And any idea what the Sephardim thought on this issue? Thanks.
Jews believed that the messiah would only be a national leader and liberator. In biblical times, he was seen as a strictly national figure. However, Jews of that era certainly saw their entire people as having religious relevance to the world at large, but this was a national/collective relevance. The role of any one man - even the King - was limited. And the Tanach's (Old Testament) biblical concept of a messiah was that of a king, and probably warriot and scholar. This king would be granted divine authority, but not in the way that Christians see Jesus as having authority. The messiah, quite literally, would be a descendent of King David, and would have precisely the same status as David. Later, post-biblical views of the messiah differed from this. In the Mishnah and Talmud the messiah is said to have more of a humanistic role for the world, and would be able to peform miracles, just as Moses and the early prophets did.-- RK.