12:15 – 12:30 pm Lunch
12:30 – 1:30 pm Study
The Talmud considers suppressing some passages in the Bible that should be kept from too wide an audience: the stories of David and Bathsheba, the rape of Tamar, the golden calf, the curses and the blessings and many others. Should they only be read publicly in Hebrew but not translated? Should they not be read at all? Is translation too dangerous? Entire books were considered for exclusion, i.e. The Song of Songs and Ezekiel. This course, taught by Norman Shore, will discuss some of these dangerous or problematic passages: are there sections of the Bible that need to be downplayed today, kept from children, or are they too great a challenge to our beliefs?