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[Kay12]

I've usually considered the OT a National Epic of the Jewish people, featuring their heroes (Moses, Solomon, Samson...), laws, legends (escaping Egypt, wandering in the desert, Promised land...) and so on. Binding it all together with a God makes sense, in a way. At least it's helped their culture survive for thousands of years...

[Neonivek]

The way I see it, the Bible is a version of events deliberately dumbed-down for an iron-age people, that uses allegory to explain concepts that the ancient Hebrews didn't have the foundation to understand.

You are aware that the first drafts of the bible weren't made for mass consumption right? 

Some parts have practical information that works even outside the religious context, such as quarantining lepers

It is one of the toughest debates within a religion is seperating what laws were passed down because they were good ideas at the time, and given justification through text, and what is actual moral principle.

[Lord Shonus]

The way I see it, the Bible is a version of events deliberately dumbed-down for an iron-age people, that uses allegory to explain concepts that the ancient Hebrews didn't have the foundation to understand.

You are aware that the first drafts of the bible weren't made for mass consumption right? 

Even the wises, most educated priest or king was still an ignorant iron age resident.

[Kay12]

Some parts have practical information that works even outside the religious context, such as quarantining lepers

It is one of the toughest debates within a religion is seperating what laws were passed down because they were good ideas at the time, and given justification through text, and what is actual moral principle.

The laws concerning leprosy (or rather, various other severe skin conditions) are very practical because they gave information that is helpful in diagnosis and ordered quarantine. I'm fairly sure this law originated for a very clear reason instead of just morality. The Jews understood how dangerous contagious diseases were.

You can find the leprosy bit in Leviticus 13 onwards.

[Pnx]

I am something of a pseudointellectual.
I'd say that I'm a subjectivist, I believe that whatever solid truths exist in reality we view them through the rainbow tinted lenses through which we view the world.
As an example of my pseudointellectualism, I tend to puff up my intellectual statements by using poetic phrases like "rainbow tinted lenses."

I lack a lot of academic knowledge, I'm generally don't study philosophy or rhetoric very much. There are a lot of times when I read about these things that I ask the question "what's the point of asking that question?" I find people found a lot of beliefs and views, based on facts that are in fact, uncertain. And then go on to pursue avenues of thought based on those views, it gets irritating to me, people keep asking the wrong questions.
Of course, because I'm pseudintellectual, I don't have anything with which to back this up.

I think my pseudointellectualism comes from spending a lot of time around people that are smarter than me, while at the same time I have a lot of people around me that say that I'm extremely intellectual. It's been going on since I went to a special elementary school, where there were a few kids who were well beyond me. One of them had an understanding of mathematics and physics that no 8 year old should ever have.
So I've kind of learned to puff up my intelligence, to kind of make myself feel I fit in up there. It made me feel insecure after constantly being top of the class. It made me feel really uncomfortable.

But I dunno, after a while I discovered I really like having someone to learn from. But I still kinda retain those pseudointellectual habits.

[ChairmanPoo]

Some parts have practical information that works even outside the religious context, such as quarantining lepers

It is one of the toughest debates within a religion is seperating what laws were passed down because they were good ideas at the time, and given justification through text, and what is actual moral principle.

The laws concerning leprosy (or rather, various other severe skin conditions) are very practical because they gave information that is helpful in diagnosis and ordered quarantine. I'm fairly sure this law originated for a very clear reason instead of just morality. The Jews understood how dangerous contagious diseases were.

You can find the leprosy bit in Leviticus 13 onwards.

Too bad leprosy is not that contagious. They likely lashed against them just because they looked ugly.

[Kay12]

Some parts have practical information that works even outside the religious context, such as quarantining lepers

It is one of the toughest debates within a religion is seperating what laws were passed down because they were good ideas at the time, and given justification through text, and what is actual moral principle.

The laws concerning leprosy (or rather, various other severe skin conditions) are very practical because they gave information that is helpful in diagnosis and ordered quarantine. I'm fairly sure this law originated for a very clear reason instead of just morality. The Jews understood how dangerous contagious diseases were.

You can find the leprosy bit in Leviticus 13 onwards.

Too bad leprosy is not that contagious. They likely lashed against them just because they looked ugly.

Note that the "leprosy" in Bible doesn't mean leprosy in modern sense, but rather a collection of diverse skin diseases, (including the quite contagious smallpox, scholars say) and that the Bible specifically mentions that only superficial pale spots and such don't yet warrant outcasting.

[ChairmanPoo]

I think it's giving semicivilized peoples from the bronce age too much credit. It's more likely that, like their Mesopotamian neighbours (who started to think this about the same thing) regarded sick people as accursed by the gods. The reasoning was as follows: diseases are caused by demons. Which ultimatedly are subservient to gods and such, and hence you must go to a priest to pray over your disease and get cured. If after doing this you remain sick, then obviously the gods want you to be sick, and thus are accursed. QED.

[Kay12]

Yeah, the Jews too thought that lepers were cursed, and lacking real means to cure the disease, they couldn't really do better than send them away. However, even some animals (especially social ones, like ants) understand the dangers of contagious diseases, so I can't see what's so implausible about bronze age people understanding why people who spent time with Larry the Leper got similar symptoms.

[Africa]

A fair bit of the Old Testament laws are obviously based on somewhat of an understanding of how disease works. As much as you could expect from the Iron Age, at any rate. Stay away from dead bodies, temporarily quarantine anybody who looks sick, burn their clothes, clean all the mildew out of their house, that type of thing.

That said, it was still written 3000 years ago by priests of a more or less backwater middle eastern kingdom, so there's no rational reason to expect there to be hidden codes in there explaining the modern world. Plenty of Christians and, I assume, Reform Jews, would hold this view.

[ChairmanPoo]

Dead bodies are not that contagious themselves, either. But yeah' staying away from the sick doesnt take much knowledge, and might even be partly instinctive.  Its not like our own society is spared. Look at the social stigma that people with aids suffer.

[RedKing]

Discussion of intellectualism < discussion of ancient Jewish lepers.

[lordnincompoop]

My (admittedly rather uneducated) opinion tells me that a pseudointellectual is either one that claims to have large amounts of knowledge in a field when in reality they do not; a person that lacks sufficient knowledge in a topic and thus often holds clearly fallacious, impractical or silly opinions about said topic (such as, say, literature or philosophy) from the perspective of a more competent person, but is nevertheless very loud, very aware and very much unwilling to remedy their faults.

Conversely, an intellectual would have the necessary knowledge to make a valid claim of expertise/competence, and would know enough to be able to form rational, reasoned and well-informed opinions and theories on a topic.

It's held up well so far (even though I wrote the "formal" definition on the spot), and it seems to stick pretty faithfully to the dictionary definitions.

[Grakelin]

Get with the program. We're not talking about that anymore. We are talking about leprosy.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

I'm a terrible pseudointellectual and I hate it. I hate knowing just enough to talk a bit about things, but not really understanding. I am a thin skin of general knowledge against a gaping vaccum of ignorance and talk. I try not to let on that I know things because then people talk about it and I just can't satisfy their curiosity, but people somehow think I'm clever because I know a lot of stupid junk.