On Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 8:11:15 AM UTC-7, Madhu wrote:
> * Jerry Friedman <0d305f20-2176-4801-82a1-a02358614851n @googlegroups.com> :
> Wrote on Fri, 10 Nov 2023 06:46:44 -0800 (PST):
> > On Friday, November 10, 2023 at 1:37:45 AM UTC-7, Madhu wrote:
> >> Judaism and Christanity recognise that the patriarchs were not
> >> perfect but fallen men, who depended on the grace and forgivence of
> >> God for everything. (Islam denies that they were lacking)
> >
> > "Fallen" and "grace" are Christian concept, not Jewish ones. Judaism
> > does recognize that the patriarchs weren't perfect, and Lot much less
> > so.
>
> The concepts are present, fallen - because of turning away there is a
> need for repentance (teshuva?) and seeking forgivness. and grace is
> implicit. I understand your need to make a distinction from christian
> doctrine, but the underlying concepts are clear and present.

"Fallen" as you used it implies that the patriarchs were imperfect because
of a fall. But the traditional Jewish belief is that all people, from Adam
and Eve on, have a good impulse and an evil impulse, and Adam's and
Eve's disobedience had no effect on anyone else's moral qualities (though
men did inherit the punishment of needing to work and women did inherit
that of painful childbirth). Probably only a small fraction of modern Jews
even believe in Adam and Eve [*], so the idea that people's evil impulse
results from a fall is even less accepted.

"Grace", though, is sometimes used by Jews for God's forgiveness and
mercy, so I wasn't really right about that. However, it refers only to a
remission from God's anger and punishment. I don't know of anything
in Judaism like the concept that some (most? all?) Christians have of
God's grace, provided by the special mechanism of Jesus' sacrifice,
being needed to give a person a chance to avoid sin.

[*] They don't Adam and Eve in Adam and Eve.

--
Jerry Friedman

On Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 9:21:43 AM UTC-7, Jerry Friedman wrote:
....

> Probably only a small fraction of modern Jews
> even believe in Adam and Eve [*], so the idea that people's evil impulse
> results from a fall is even less accepted.
....

> [*] They don't Adam and Eve in Adam and Eve.

"Don't" was a thinko, not a typo.

--
Jerry Friedman

* Jerry Friedman <05a774a4-5ba6-4f92-9d43-833f0fe023b1n @googlegroups.com> :
Wrote on Sat, 11 Nov 2023 08:21:40 -0800 (PST):
> On Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 8:11:15 AM UTC-7, Madhu wrote:
>> * Jerry Friedman <0d305f20-2176-4801-82a1-a02358614851n @googlegroups.com> :
>> Wrote on Fri, 10 Nov 2023 06:46:44 -0800 (PST):
>> > On Friday, November 10, 2023 at 1:37:45 AM UTC-7, Madhu wrote:
>> >> Judaism and Christanity recognise that the patriarchs were not
>> >> perfect but fallen men, who depended on the grace and forgivence
>> >> of God for everything. (Islam denies that they were lacking)
>> >
>> > "Fallen" and "grace" are Christian concept, not Jewish
>> > ones. Judaism does recognize that the patriarchs weren't perfect,
>> > and Lot much less so.
>>
>> The concepts are present, fallen - because of turning away there is a
>> need for repentance (teshuva?) and seeking forgivness. and grace is
>> implicit. I understand your need to make a distinction from christian
>> doctrine, but the underlying concepts are clear and present.
>
> "Fallen" as you used it implies that the patriarchs were imperfect because
> of a fall. But the traditional Jewish belief is that all people, from Adam
> and Eve on, have a good impulse and an evil impulse, and Adam's and
> Eve's disobedience had no effect on anyone else's moral qualities (though
> men did inherit the punishment of needing to work and women did inherit
> that of painful childbirth).

The doctrine of evil impulse is not relevant and conflating it here only
serves in obscuring my point.

In the case of Adam and Eve there is a separation from God and a need
for reconciliation. Casting this in terms of an evil-impulse and
suppression of this is later Rabbinic doctrine set up in
contradistinction to Christianity, but it doesn't change the basic
nature of God's relation to man, and the God's role in man's redemption.

> Probably only a small fraction of modern Jews even believe in Adam
> and Eve [*], so the idea that people's evil impulse results from a
> fall is even less accepted.

One doed not have to believe in Adam and Eve Adam and Eve to understand
the relationship of God to Man. Reconciliation and redemption is not
through the suppression of the evil impulse. Before the development of
the doctrine of the evil impulse, Judaism understood the convenant as
the means extended by God for reconciliation.

On Sat, 11 Nov 2023 16:06:09 +0100, Athel Cornish-Bowden
<athel.cb@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 2023-11-11 14:08:50 +0000, occam said:
>
>> On 09/11/2023 18:40, lar3ryca wrote:
>>> So incest in Christianity and Islam is OK?, is it?
>>
>> If God thought so, it must be OK.
>>
>> In the beginning there was Adam, Eve, Abel and Cain. Cain killed Adam.
>> Even so, humanity multiplied. Surely some incest, at least at the start,
>> under God's supervision?
>
>Incest must almost certainly have been involved in the separation
>between apes (24+24 chromosomes) and humans (23+23). Chromosomal
>normalities are far from uncommon, and a 23+24 mutant might well be
>able to mate successfully with a 24+24 partner, producing a series of
>23+24 offspring. However, to keep the line going the simplest solution
>would be for two 23+24 siblings to produce some 23+23 offspring, who
>then mate with one another. So it's quite likely that we all descend
>from incestuous unions between siblings.

Jaynes:

"To indicate the evidence that guilt as opposed to shame is a new
emotion at this time, I would cite a single bit of evidence, and one
that is well known. This is the story of Oedipus. It is referred
to in two lines of the Iliad and two lines in the Odyssey which I
think we can take as indicating the true story, as it came down from
bicameral times. The story seems to be about a man who killed
his father and then unwittingly married his mother and so became
King of Thebes, proceeding to have several children-siblings by
his mother, then discovering what he had done, certainly feeling
shame since incest had always been a taboo, but evidently recovering
from that shame, living a happy life thereafter with his wifemother,
and dying with royal honors sometime later. This was
written down around 800 B.C., but the story comes from several
centuries before that."

"Psychologically, this view is best represented by the “horrid
instincts” school of thought—Darwin, Lorenz, Freud,
etc.—which maintains generally that humans are born, to use Freud’s
particular phrasing of it, with three and only three desires: for
incest, cannibalism, and murder. There is the subjective core of
humanity. And it is thus a human’s subjective nature, and not his/her
objective upbringing, that lies at the heart of unfreedom, cruelty,
evil, and inequality. From this precarious angle, the best society and
family can do is start early with the veneer: lay on sheet after sheet
of control, law and order, rationality, and restriction, and hope
somehow to trade innate killers for social conformists. Whereas for
the first group, evil was repressed goodness, for this group, goodness
is repressed evil. That is, for the first group, evil is an objective
twisting of subjective goodness; for the second, goodness is an
objective control of subjective evil. Man is born nasty, and the good
you get out of him is only by suppressing the beast. And if the
repression breaks down, the devil breaks out."

http://originresearch.com/docs/Ken-Wilber-Up-From-Eden.pdf

On 11/11/2023 15:33, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 7:08:56 AM UTC-7, occam wrote:
>> On 09/11/2023 18:40, lar3ryca wrote:
>>> So incest in Christianity and Islam is OK?, is it?
>> If God thought so, it must be OK.
>>
>> In the beginning there was Adam, Eve, Abel and Cain. Cain killed Adam.
>
> (You mean Abel.) Then Adam and Eve had a son named Seth, and other
> children.

Yes, I did mean Abel.

>
>> Even so, humanity multiplied. Surely some incest, at least at the start,
>> under God's supervision?
>
> Certainly. The traditional Jewish view is that it was allowed for that
> generation.
>

Ouch! And what is the limit now? 2nd, 3rd, 4th cousins?

META Observation:
I can see your post in <News.Individual.NET> even if it's made via G2.
Well done. What's your secret?

On Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 12:13:36 PM UTC-7, occam wrote:
> On 11/11/2023 15:33, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > On Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 7:08:56 AM UTC-7, occam wrote:
> >> On 09/11/2023 18:40, lar3ryca wrote:
> >>> So incest in Christianity and Islam is OK?, is it?
> >> If God thought so, it must be OK.
> >>
> >> In the beginning there was Adam, Eve, Abel and Cain. Cain killed Adam.
> >
> > (You mean Abel.) Then Adam and Eve had a son named Seth, and other
> > children.
>
> Yes, I did mean Abel.
> >
> >> Even so, humanity multiplied. Surely some incest, at least at the start,
> >> under God's supervision?
> >
> > Certainly. The traditional Jewish view is that it was allowed for that
> > generation.
> >
>
> Ouch! And what is the limit now? 2nd, 3rd, 4th cousins?
The laws are complicated and there are controversies, of course, especially
with regard to relatives by marriage, but first-cousin marriage is allowed.

https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8100-incest

> META Observation:
> I can see your post in <News.Individual.NET> even if it's made via G2.
> Well done. What's your secret?

No idea. Maybe it's NIN's secret.

--
Jerry Friedman

On 12/11/23 01:08, occam wrote:
> On 09/11/2023 18:40, lar3ryca wrote:

>> So incest in Christianity and Islam is OK?, is it?
>
> If God thought so, it must be OK.
>
> In the beginning there was Adam, Eve, Abel and Cain. Cain killed
> Adam. Even so, humanity multiplied. Surely some incest, at least at
> the start, under God's supervision?

As I recall the story, Cain went to live in the land of Nod. Presumably
he bred with the pre-humans there. Unfortunately, the Bible is unclear
on whether we are descended from the children of Cain, or from the other
children of Adam and Eve. The latter case would also require incest, of
course.

At the time of Adam there were already people living in Australia, in
the Americas, and in other places not known to the Bible writers. Since
they are not descendants of Adam and Eve, they are free of original sin.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On 11/11/23 19:35, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> Peter Moylan wrote:
>
>> My impression is that in those days the distinction between fact
>> and fiction was less important that it is now.
>
> For readers perhaps, but I'm not so sure that all writers share that
> view. Two examples:

[snip]

Those are modern examples, but I was commenting on writings that are
more than a couple of thousand years old.

In Western culture modern fiction takes the form of the novel, a
relatively recent invention. (Although a bit older in East Asia,
apparently.) Today's books can be neatly separated into fact and
fiction, although social media in the post-truth era pose some
difficulty. What about the Latin and Greek fiction that come to us from
classical times? It seems to me that they leave an ambiguity in whether
they claimed to be factual accounts.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On Friday, November 10, 2023 at 1:00:57 PM UTC-7, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> Jerry Friedman <jerry.fr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Thursday, November 9, 2023 at 10:40:37?AM UTC-7, lar3ryca wrote:
> > > On 2023-11-09 11:16, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> >
> > ...
> >
> > > > After the destruction those sodomites were no longer around
> > > > for getting banged by, so Lot's daughters turned on Lot
> > > > to extract an heir,
> > >
> > > So incest in Christianity and Islam is OK?, is it?
> >
> > What gave you that idea? I see nothing in the story of Lot and his
> > daughters suggesting that the incest was OK. Lot is described as
> > unconscious at the time, and I haven't heard that anyone describes the
> > daughters as righteous.
> The excuse given is that they believed
> that they were the last suvivors of all of humanity.
....

Huh. I see the Talmudists and early Christians gave that excuse, according
to Wikip. That strikes me as a strange interpretation of the text, but what
do I know?

--
Jerry Friedman

On Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 10:10:28 AM UTC-7, Madhu wrote:
> * Jerry Friedman <05a774a4-5ba6-4f92-9d43-833f0fe023b1n @googlegroups.com> :
> Wrote on Sat, 11 Nov 2023 08:21:40 -0800 (PST):
> > On Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 8:11:15 AM UTC-7, Madhu wrote:
> >> * Jerry Friedman <0d305f20-2176-4801-82a1-a02358614851n @googlegroups.com> :
> >> Wrote on Fri, 10 Nov 2023 06:46:44 -0800 (PST):
> >> > On Friday, November 10, 2023 at 1:37:45 AM UTC-7, Madhu wrote:
> >> >> Judaism and Christanity recognise that the patriarchs were not
> >> >> perfect but fallen men, who depended on the grace and forgivence
> >> >> of God for everything. (Islam denies that they were lacking)
> >> >
> >> > "Fallen" and "grace" are Christian concept, not Jewish
> >> > ones. Judaism does recognize that the patriarchs weren't perfect,
> >> > and Lot much less so.
> >>
> >> The concepts are present, fallen - because of turning away there is a
> >> need for repentance (teshuva?) and seeking forgivness. and grace is
> >> implicit. I understand your need to make a distinction from christian
> >> doctrine, but the underlying concepts are clear and present.
> >
> > "Fallen" as you used it implies that the patriarchs were imperfect because
> > of a fall. But the traditional Jewish belief is that all people, from Adam
> > and Eve on, have a good impulse and an evil impulse, and Adam's and
> > Eve's disobedience had no effect on anyone else's moral qualities (though
> > men did inherit the punishment of needing to work and women did inherit
> > that of painful childbirth).
>
> The doctrine of evil impulse is not relevant and conflating it here only
> serves in obscuring my point.

You may be obscuring your point yourself. When did the fall or falls
relevant to the patriarchs happen?
> In the case of Adam and Eve there is a separation from God and a need
> for reconciliation. Casting this in terms of an evil-impulse and
> suppression of this is later Rabbinic doctrine set up in
> contradistinction to Christianity, but it doesn't change the basic
> nature of God's relation to man, and the God's role in man's redemption.

I can't argue about the timing of or the reason for the idea of the good
and the evil impulse. But saying people "were not perfect but fallen men"
is not just a statement about God's relation to man and God's role in
man's redemption in Judaism. It's also a statement about how that
relation came about--through an event, a fall from some unfallen state.

> > Probably only a small fraction of modern Jews even believe in Adam
> > and Eve [*], so the idea that people's evil impulse results from a
> > fall is even less accepted.
>
> One doed not have to believe in Adam and Eve Adam and Eve to understand
> the relationship of God to Man. Reconciliation and redemption is not
> through the suppression of the evil impulse. Before the development of
> the doctrine of the evil impulse, Judaism understood the convenant as
> the means extended by God for reconciliation.

Indeed, in Judaism reconciliation and redemption come from repentance
and asking God for forgiveness, but repentance has to include not repeating
one's sin. The Jews' part of the covenant was to obey the commandments,
and suppressing the evil impulse (whenever that idea was developed) would
be very helpful in obeying the commandments and not repeating the sin.
But none of what you're saying justifies saying that Judaism "recognized"
that anyone was "fallen".

--
Jerry Friedman

Peter Moylan wrote:

>>> My impression is that in those days the distinction between fact
>>> and fiction was less important that it is now.
>>
>> For readers perhaps, but I'm not so sure that all writers share that
>> view. Two examples:
>
> [snip]
>
> Those are modern examples, but I was commenting on writings that are
> more than a couple of thousand years old.

Yes, I got that, but you said that there was a difference between now
and then. I think that people have written their own agenda into their
"fact" writings both then and now. I also think that both then and now
there were/are honest people who wouldn't dream of doing that
deliberately. But their stories are less exciting and don't get the same
publicity.

--
Bertel, Denmark

* Jerry Friedman <caaa2f6e-edd4-4880-8552-79c1df61a298n@googlegroups.com> :
Wrote on Sat, 11 Nov 2023 20:39:08 -0800 (PST):
> On Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 10:10:28 AM UTC-7, Madhu wrote:
>> * Jerry Friedman <05a774a4-5ba6-4f92-9d43-833f0fe023b1n @googlegroups.com> :
>> Wrote on Sat, 11 Nov 2023 08:21:40 -0800 (PST):
>> > On Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 8:11:15 AM UTC-7, Madhu wrote:
>> >> * Jerry Friedman <0d305f20-2176-4801-82a1-a02358614851n
>> >> @googlegroups.com> :
>> >> Wrote on Fri, 10 Nov 2023 06:46:44 -0800 (PST):
>> >> > On Friday, November 10, 2023 at 1:37:45 AM UTC-7, Madhu wrote:
>> >> >> Judaism and Christanity recognise that the patriarchs were not
>> >> >> perfect but fallen men, who depended on the grace and forgivence
>> >> >> of God for everything. (Islam denies that they were lacking)
>> >> >
>> >> > "Fallen" and "grace" are Christian concept, not Jewish
>> >> > ones. Judaism does recognize that the patriarchs weren't perfect,
>> >> > and Lot much less so.
>> >>
>> >> The concepts are present, fallen - because of turning away there
>> >> is a need for repentance (teshuva?) and seeking forgivness. and
>> >> grace is implicit. I understand your need to make a distinction
>> >> from christian doctrine, but the underlying concepts are clear and
>> >> present.
>> >
>> > "Fallen" as you used it implies that the patriarchs were imperfect
>> > because of a fall. But the traditional Jewish belief is that all
>> > people, from Adam and Eve on, have a good impulse and an evil
>> > impulse, and Adam's and Eve's disobedience had no effect on anyone
>> > else's moral qualities (though men did inherit the punishment of
>> > needing to work and women did inherit that of painful childbirth).
>>
>> The doctrine of evil impulse is not relevant and conflating it here
>> only serves in obscuring my point.
>
> You may be obscuring your point yourself. When did the fall or falls
> relevant to the patriarchs happen?

I don't understand your question. Why is the "when" relevant. Scripture
indicates the imperfection from the very first chapters.

That the patriarchs are included in the general condition of man, and
God is extending grace towards them in a redemptive gesture is also
indicated in scripture.

The fallen state is indicated and internalised in scripture, it is
evident, yet you seem to be at pains to pretend to see and wave it away,
it would be better to understand your (false) doctrinal motivation
behind this, rather than the logic you want to put forth

>> In the case of Adam and Eve there is a separation from God and a need
>> for reconciliation. Casting this in terms of an evil-impulse and
>> suppression of this is later Rabbinic doctrine set up in
>> contradistinction to Christianity, but it doesn't change the basic
>> nature of God's relation to man, and the God's role in man's
>> redemption.
>
> I can't argue about the timing of or the reason for the idea of the
> good and the evil impulse. But saying people "were not perfect but
> fallen men" is not just a statement about God's relation to man and
> God's role in man's redemption in Judaism. It's also a statement
> about how that relation came about--through an event, a fall from some
> unfallen state.

Why? If I indicate some event which indicates a fall, you will only to
go back to the Judaism cachet that there is no fall because christians
believe in a fall and jews are not christians.

The unfallen (perfect) state is inferred from the fallen (imperfect)
state which is the nature of man.

>> > Probably only a small fraction of modern Jews even believe in Adam
>> > and Eve [*], so the idea that people's evil impulse results from a
>> > fall is even less accepted.
>>
>> One doed not have to believe in Adam and Eve Adam and Eve to understand
>> the relationship of God to Man. Reconciliation and redemption is not
>> through the suppression of the evil impulse. Before the development of
>> the doctrine of the evil impulse, Judaism understood the convenant as
>> the means extended by God for reconciliation.
>
> Indeed, in Judaism reconciliation and redemption come from repentance
> and asking God for forgiveness, but repentance has to include not repeating
> one's sin. The Jews' part of the covenant was to obey the commandments,
> and suppressing the evil impulse (whenever that idea was developed) would
> be very helpful in obeying the commandments and not repeating the sin.
> But none of what you're saying justifies saying that Judaism "recognized"
> that anyone was "fallen".

The point is the imperfect fallen
state of Man and Gods works of redemption are indicated throughout
scripture from the first book.

This is not something that can be denied without being untterly
intellectually dishonest.

On 11/11/2023 23:24, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 12/11/23 01:08, occam wrote:
>> On 09/11/2023 18:40, lar3ryca wrote:
>
>>> So incest in Christianity and Islam is OK?, is it?
>>
>> If God thought so, it must be OK.
>>
>> In the beginning there was Adam, Eve, Abel and Cain. Cain killed
>> Abel [correction]. Even so, humanity multiplied. Surely some incest, at least at
>> the start, under God's supervision?
>
> As I recall the story, Cain went to live in the land of Nod. Presumably
> he bred with the pre-humans there. Unfortunately, the Bible is unclear
> on whether we are descended from the children of Cain, or from the other
> children of Adam and Eve. The latter case would also require incest, of
> course.
>
> At the time of Adam there were already people living in Australia, in
> the Americas, and in other places not known to the Bible writers. Since
> they are not descendants of Adam and Eve, they are free of original sin.
>

Well, we soon showed them!

Christian sin is contagious. It is spread by missionaries and other well
meaning soldiers of Christ.

On 11/11/2023 23:44, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 11/11/23 19:35, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>> Peter Moylan wrote:
>>
>>> My impression is that in those days the distinction between fact
>>> and fiction was less important that it is now.
>>
>> For readers perhaps, but I'm not so sure that all writers share that
>> view. Two examples:
>
> [snip]
>
> Those are modern examples, but I was commenting on writings that are
> more than a couple of thousand years old.

Well, that is still true of Trump. He does not make a distinction
between his facts and his fiction. The tradition of telling tall
stories continues, despite our best efforts.

God help America.

<snip>

> What about the Latin and Greek fiction that come to us from
> classical times? It seems to me that they leave an ambiguity in whether
> they claimed to be factual accounts.
>

Well the Greeks (or at least the historians of the time) realised at
that their stories of gods and goddesses on Olympus were just that.
'Myth' is an ancient Greek word and it's the closest the language had
for 'fiction'. (Modern Greek word for novels ('fiction') is
'μυθιστόρημα' which is literally 'a myth story'.)

occam wrote:

>> As I recall the story, Cain went to live in the land of Nod. Presumably
>> he bred with the pre-humans there. Unfortunately, the Bible is unclear
>> on whether we are descended from the children of Cain, or from the other
>> children of Adam and Eve. The latter case would also require incest, of
>> course.
>>
>> At the time of Adam there were already people living in Australia, in
>> the Americas, and in other places not known to the Bible writers. Since
>> they are not descendants of Adam and Eve, they are free of original sin.
>>
>
> Well, we soon showed them!
>
> Christian sin is contagious. It is spread by missionaries and other well
> meaning soldiers of Christ.

along with a lot of bacteria.

--
Bertel, Denmark

On Sun, 12 Nov 2023 13:34:43 +0100, occam <occam@nowhere.nix> wrote:

>On 11/11/2023 23:24, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 12/11/23 01:08, occam wrote:
>>> On 09/11/2023 18:40, lar3ryca wrote:
>>
>>>> So incest in Christianity and Islam is OK?, is it?
>>>
>>> If God thought so, it must be OK.
>>>
>>> In the beginning there was Adam, Eve, Abel and Cain. Cain killed
>>> Abel [correction]. Even so, humanity multiplied. Surely some incest, at least at
>>> the start, under God's supervision?
>>
>> As I recall the story, Cain went to live in the land of Nod. Presumably
>> he bred with the pre-humans there. Unfortunately, the Bible is unclear
>> on whether we are descended from the children of Cain, or from the other
>> children of Adam and Eve. The latter case would also require incest, of
>> course.
>>
>> At the time of Adam there were already people living in Australia, in
>> the Americas, and in other places not known to the Bible writers. Since
>> they are not descendants of Adam and Eve, they are free of original sin.
>>
>
>Well, we soon showed them!
>
>Christian sin is contagious. It is spread by missionaries and other well
>meaning soldiers of Christ.

Not "well meaning". All about control and money.

Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

> On 11/11/23 19:35, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> > Peter Moylan wrote:
> >
> >> My impression is that in those days the distinction between fact
> >> and fiction was less important that it is now.
> >
> > For readers perhaps, but I'm not so sure that all writers share that
> > view. Two examples:
>
> [snip]
>
> Those are modern examples, but I was commenting on writings that are
> more than a couple of thousand years old.
>
> In Western culture modern fiction takes the form of the novel, a
> relatively recent invention. (Although a bit older in East Asia,
> apparently.) Today's books can be neatly separated into fact and
> fiction, although social media in the post-truth era pose some
> difficulty. What about the Latin and Greek fiction that come to us from
> classical times? It seems to me that they leave an ambiguity in whether
> they claimed to be factual accounts.

The novel as a literary form is generally supposed to have originated in
Japan, around the year 1000.
'The Tale of Genji' meets most of the criteria for being one.
Europeans had to invent their own,

Jan

On Sunday, November 12, 2023 at 1:35:50 PM UTC-7, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>
> > On 11/11/23 19:35, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> > > Peter Moylan wrote:
> > >
> > >> My impression is that in those days the distinction between fact
> > >> and fiction was less important that it is now.
> > >
> > > For readers perhaps, but I'm not so sure that all writers share that
> > > view. Two examples:
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > Those are modern examples, but I was commenting on writings that are
> > more than a couple of thousand years old.
> >
> > In Western culture modern fiction takes the form of the novel, a
> > relatively recent invention. (Although a bit older in East Asia,
> > apparently.) Today's books can be neatly separated into fact and
> > fiction, although social media in the post-truth era pose some
> > difficulty. What about the Latin and Greek fiction that come to us from
> > classical times? It seems to me that they leave an ambiguity in whether
> > they claimed to be factual accounts.
>
> The novel as a literary form is generally supposed to have originated in
> Japan, around the year 1000.
> 'The Tale of Genji' meets most of the criteria for being one.
> Europeans had to invent their own,

What are the criteria, other than being a book-length prose fictional
narrative? (Usually mostly prose.)

--
Jerry Friedman

Jerry Friedman <jerry.friedman99@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sunday, November 12, 2023 at 1:35:50?PM UTC-7, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
> >
> > > On 11/11/23 19:35, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> > > > Peter Moylan wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> My impression is that in those days the distinction between fact
> > > >> and fiction was less important that it is now.
> > > >
> > > > For readers perhaps, but I'm not so sure that all writers share that
> > > > view. Two examples:
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > Those are modern examples, but I was commenting on writings that are
> > > more than a couple of thousand years old.
> > >
> > > In Western culture modern fiction takes the form of the novel, a
> > > relatively recent invention. (Although a bit older in East Asia,
> > > apparently.) Today's books can be neatly separated into fact and
> > > fiction, although social media in the post-truth era pose some
> > > difficulty. What about the Latin and Greek fiction that come to us from
> > > classical times? It seems to me that they leave an ambiguity in whether
> > > they claimed to be factual accounts.
> >
> > The novel as a literary form is generally supposed to have originated in
> > Japan, around the year 1000.
> > 'The Tale of Genji' meets most of the criteria for being one.
> > Europeans had to invent their own,
>
> What are the criteria, other than being a book-length prose fictional
> narrative? (Usually mostly prose.)

By Wikipedia about 'The Tale of Genji':
===
It has many elements found in a modern novel: a central character and a
very large number of major and minor characters, well-developed
characterization of all the major players, a sequence of events covering
the central character's lifetime and beyond. There is no specified plot,
but events happen and characters simply grow older. Despite a dramatis
personæ of some four hundred characters, it maintains internal
consistency; for instance, all characters age in step, and both family
and feudal relationships stay intact throughout.
===

Jan

On Sunday, November 5, 2023 at 12:30:28 PM UTC-5, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Sunday, November 5, 2023 at 9:54:29 AM UTC-7, Janet wrote:
> > In article <kqpn3u...@mid.individual.net>,
> > oc...@nowhere.nix says...

[written on November 5]
> > > This made me wonder about another re-telling. The Quran is famously the
> > > transcript of God's words to Muhammad. These words were heard by
> > > Muhammad, and written down by someone who knew how to spell. Does it
> > > make the Quran word-of-mouth or hearsay?
> > Are you saying it's pretty much a first- edition?
> > Maybe it's more accurate than the Bible, which is a lot
> > of tall stories passed on by hear say across many
> > countries, translated in and out of multiple languages
> > long before paper, permanent markers, dictionaries and
> > spellcheckers were invented.
>
> Paper, dictionaries, and spellcheckers, yes, but there was permanent
> writing on rocks, walls, clay, and papyrus in the Middle East long before
> when the story of Abraham supposedly took place. I'm not clear on
> the date of the oldest surviving writing in what is now Israel, but there
> was certainly writing by the time of the later events of the Hebrew Bible..
>
> PTD will be along soon.

An AUEist tells me in email that GG is now functioning again (its use of
Captcha to foil spammers misfired, like the other one involving the
names). This is what I wrote to answer occam's original query yesterday:

[occam]
> This made me wonder about another re-telling. The Quran is famously the
> transcript of God's words to Muhammad. These words were heard by
> Muhammad, and written down by someone who knew how to spell. Does it
> make the Quran word-of-mouth or hearsay?

Divine revelation. Inerrant, unalterable, inimitable

Actually, the text was established within the first generatin of Islam, and
there are astonishingly few "scribal errors" in Qur'an mss., early or late.

> > How many of those revered old men passing on the faith,
> > were slightly deaf, had Attention Deficit Disorder or a
> > political agenda? We'll never know.
> And maybe they just had ideas about how to improve the stories, or got
> confused occasionally, or forgot things and improvised to fill in.

On Monday, November 6, 2023 at 10:08:34 AM UTC-5, occam wrote:
> On 06/11/2023 14:02, Paul Wolff wrote:
> > On Mon, 6 Nov 2023, at 13:04:53, occam posted:
> >> On 05/11/2023 23:28, lar3ryca wrote:
> >>> On 2023-11-05 11:30, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> >>>> On Sunday, November 5, 2023 at 9:54:290 >>>> In article
> >>>> <kqpn3u...@mid.individual.net>,
> >>>>> oc...@nowhere.nix says...
> >>>>>> On 05/11/2023 13:27, Janet wrote:
> >>>>>>> oc...@nowhere.nix says...
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> In substance, the two phrases ('hearsay' and 'word of mouth')
> >>>>>>>> should
> >>>>>>>> convey the same meaning. Semantically, when you hear something and
> >>>>>>>> repeat it, that is the definition 'word of mouth'.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> However, when you hear 'hearsay' the implication is invariably
> >>>>>>>> negative
> >>>>>>>> i.e. gossip or wilful propagation of negative information. Yet,
> >>>>>>>> 'word of
> >>>>>>>> mouth' is more benign. Homer's tales were 'word of mouth' - as
> >>>>>>>> were a
> >>>>>>>> lot of ancient myths - until such time as someone transcribed
> >>>>>>>> them to
> >>>>>>>> the written word.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> When did word of mouth become hearsay?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> When it got repeated by third parties?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Hearsay is unverified information, passed around from
> >>>>>>> third parties.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Word of mouth is information told direct by the source
> >>>>>>> to their audience
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> <Ahem!> Do you think those Greek myths got passed on down, directly
> >>>>>> from
> >>>>>> Zeus' mouth? There must've been some third party re-
> >>>>> tellings.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> This made me wonder about another re-telling. The Quran is
> >>>>>> famously the
> >>>>>> transcript of God's words to Muhammad. These words were heard by
> >>>>>> Muhammad, and written down by someone who knew how to spell. Does it
> >>>>>> make the Quran word-of-mouth or hearsay?
> >>>>> Are you saying it's pretty much a first- edition?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Maybe it's more accurate than the Bible, which is a lot
> >>>>> of tall stories passed on by hear say across many
> >>>>> countries, translated in and out of multiple languages
> >>>>> long before paper, permanent markers, dictionaries and
> >>>>> spellcheckers were invented.
> >>>>
> >>>> Paper, dictionaries, and spellcheckers, yes, but there was permanent
> >>>> writing on rocks, walls, clay, and papyrus in the Middle East long
> >>>> before
> >>>> when the story of Abraham supposedly took place. I'm not clear on
> >>>> the date of the oldest surviving writing in what is now Israel, but
> >>>> there
> >>>> was certainly writing by the time of the later events of the Hebrew
> >>>> Bible.
> >>>> PTD will be along soon.
> >>>>
> >>>>> How many of those revered old men passing on the faith,
> >>>>> were slightly deaf, had Attention Deficit Disorder or a
> >>>>> political agenda? We'll never know.
> >>>>
> >>>> And maybe they just had ideas about how to improve the stories, or got
> >>>> confused occasionally, or forgot things and improvised to fill in.
> >>>
> >>> And maybe it was all just made up.
> >>>
> >>
> >> If it was just made up, would it have hurt them to inject a bit of
> >> humour into the narrative? The Bible is famously one of the most
> >> humourless books of all time.
> >
> > I'm sorry, Mr Occam, but unless you can give chapter and verse on that,
> > we must dismiss it as mere hearsay.
> That is the problem.There are *no* chapters *nor* verse that I find
> vaguely humourous.
>
> I raised this topic some time back. The few examples of 'humour'
> produced by Jerry F were laughable, in the sense that they were were not
> funny at all.
>
> Tell me one passage in the Bible that has made you crack a smile.

The Book of Jonah.

It's astonishing that in more than a week no one mentioned it.

Read the three pages. God tells Jonah to preach in Nineveh. Jonah
doesn't want to preach to pagans. God tells him to. He continues to
refuse and tries sailing to the other end of the world (Tarshish is
probably in Spain). So God sends a storm and he admits to the crew
that it was his fault, so they toss him overboard. The great fish swallows
him and eventually dumps him on a deserted beach.

Finally he gives in and goes to Nineveh and converts the whole city/.
But he's not happy about it!

On Sunday, November 12, 2023 at 5:25:30 PM UTC-5, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> Jerry Friedman <jerry.fr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sunday, November 12, 2023 at 1:35:50?PM UTC-7, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > > Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
> > > > On 11/11/23 19:35, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> > > > > Peter Moylan wrote:

> > > > >> My impression is that in those days the distinction between fact
> > > > >> and fiction was less important that it is now.
> > > > > For readers perhaps, but I'm not so sure that all writers share that
> > > > > view. Two examples:
> > > >
> > > > [snip]
> > > >
> > > > Those are modern examples, but I was commenting on writings that are
> > > > more than a couple of thousand years old.
> > > >
> > > > In Western culture modern fiction takes the form of the novel, a
> > > > relatively recent invention. (Although a bit older in East Asia,
> > > > apparently.) Today's books can be neatly separated into fact and
> > > > fiction, although social media in the post-truth era pose some
> > > > difficulty. What about the Latin and Greek fiction that come to us from
> > > > classical times? It seems to me that they leave an ambiguity in whether
> > > > they claimed to be factual accounts.

All the context has been removed, unfortunately.

> > > The novel as a literary form is generally supposed to have originated in
> > > Japan, around the year 1000.

That would work if later novels followed in / were inspired by that
tradition.

> > > 'The Tale of Genji' meets most of the criteria for being one.
> > > Europeans had to invent their own,
> > What are the criteria, other than being a book-length prose fictional
> > narrative? (Usually mostly prose.)
>
> By Wikipedia about 'The Tale of Genji':
> ===
> It has many elements found in a modern novel: a central character and a
> very large number of major and minor characters, well-developed
> characterization of all the major players, a sequence of events covering
> the central character's lifetime and beyond. There is no specified plot,
> but events happen and characters simply grow older. Despite a dramatis
> personæ of some four hundred characters, it maintains internal
> consistency; for instance, all characters age in step, and both family
> and feudal relationships stay intact throughout.

However, it isn't part of the literary ancestry of "the novel." Which begins
perhaps with *Robinson Crusoe* and *Gulliver's Travels*. Or maybe *Don
Quixote* or even *Gargantua and Pantagruel*./