March 23, 2021 - Nisan 10, 5781
How Does The Torah Define Blasphemy?
A short while ago I was having a discussion with a Christian about whether it is forbidden in the Torah for a person to say that he is God. The point of view of the person I was speaking with was that the rabbis of Jesus' time considered him to have committed blasphemy, for which they sought to kill him.
When I asked him where the Torah says that a person is prohibited from claiming to be God, he pointed me to Leviticus 24:10-16:
Now, the son of an Israelite woman and he was the son of an Egyptian man went out among the children of Israel, and they quarreled in the camp this son of the Israelite woman, and an Israelite man.
And the son of the Israelite woman pronounced the [Divine] Name and cursed. So they brought him to Moses. His mother's name was Shelomith the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.
They placed him in the guardhouse, [until his sentence would] be specified to them by the word of the Lord. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
Take the blasphemer outside the camp, and all who heard [his blasphemy] shall lean their hands on his head. And the entire community shall stone him.
And to the children of Israel, you shall speak, saying: Any man who blasphemes his God shall bear his sin.
And one who blasphemously pronounces the Name of the Lord, shall be put to death; the entire community shall stone him; convert and resident alike if he pronounces the [Divine] Name, he shall be put to death.
However, the verses above explain blasphemy as pronouncing God's Name (יְקַלֵּ֥ל), not claiming to be God.
Secondly, the Christian Scriptures accuse the rabbis of plotting to kill Jesus. This is unlikely because the rabbis carefully followed the rule of law according to Halacha, which requires a proper sentencing before a person can be put to death. Of the different things that the Christian Scriptures accuse the rabbis of, being lax in their application of the Law was not one of them. To the contrary, they are accused of being legalistic; if they wanted to find a legally-justified approach to putting Jesus to death, they would have found and used it.
A better support for the error of claiming to be divine is found in Ezekiel 28:2:
Just as Nebuchadnezzar said that he has "a seat of God," so did Jesus say that he sat on God's throne. In Revelation 3:21, Jesus says, "The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne."
The reproach that God has for those who claim to be divine seems familiar:
Into the Pit they will lower you, and you will die the deaths of those who are slain, in the heart of the seas.
Will you say, "I am a god" before your slayer? Indeed, you are a man and not a god in the hand of your slayer.
The deaths of the uncircumcised you shall die at the hand of foreigners, for I have spoken," says the Lord God. (Ezekiel 28:8-10)
The Arbabanel explains dying "at the hands of foreigners" as someone who "is slain, but who does not die immediately, but only after repeated stabs until succumbing to death, just as a man who drowns doesn't die immediately."
The full text is below:
And Rabbi David Kimchi interpreted "the death of those who are slain" as a person who is slain, but who does not die immediately, but only after repeated stabs until succumbing to death, just as a man who drowns doesn't die immediately, but gradually, which is the meaning of "in the heart of the seas,"
If you say before your slayer, "I (Nebuchadnezzar or Alexander) am a god," if you were a god then they would not have been able to kill you. However, because "Indeed, you are a man and not a god in the hand of your slayer, the deaths of the uncircumcised you shall die at the hand of foreigners," as to be uncircumcised in your heart and your flesh: an evil person dies like his slayers, at the hand of foreigners, the Greeks, who occupied Tyre, "for I have spoken" which means to have decreed upon you an unquestionable decree.
והרב רבי דוד קמחי פירש ומתה ממותי חלל שכמו שהחלל אינו מת בבת אחת אלא בדקירות רבות שידקור עד שימות כן הנטבע לא ימות בבת אחת כי אם במיתות הרבה והוא אומרו בלב ימים,
(ט) האם אמור תאמר לפני הורגך נבוכדנצר או אלכסנדרוס אלהים אני ואם היית אלקים לא יוכלו להרגך, אבל לפי שאתה אדם ולא אל ביד מחלליך והורגיך (י) לכן מותי ערלים תמות ביד זרים, כי להיות הערלים ערלי לב וערלי בשר רשעים אמר שימות כמוהם על ידי זרים והם היונים שיבאו על צור, כי אני דברתי רוצה לומר גזרה היא מלפני אין להרהר אחריה:
What this teaches us is that the penalty for claiming to be divine is an unruly, unpleasant, and degrading death, different from a controlled death penalty applied through a court. It seemed that while Jesus did not commit blasphemy, but that he made the same egotistical grievous mistake made by Nebuchadnezzar. He also died painfully and brutally by essentially being stabbed to death at the hands of foreigners who were not moved by his claim to divinity.
2 comments:
See the Divine Code, Second Edition, page 57: "if one convinces others to serve him as an idol, then he is the idol himself, and both he and they are guilty of a capital sin."
Causing the public to sin is the epitome of evil.
That's pretty straightforward.
See this, too: Withdraw yourselves from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for in what merit is he to be esteemed? (Isaiah 2:22)
Rashi explains "whose breath is in his nostrils" to mean "Whose entire life and strength are dependent upon the breath of his nostrils, which is a fleeting spirit, in him today and leaving him tomorrow."
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