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A Biblical Commentary for Rationalists
Posted on 01/02/2019 by Rivkah Lambert Adler in Beliefs and Practices

"an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot" - Shemot (Exodus) 21:24

 
Along with co-author Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, Dennis Prager, author and syndicated radio talk show host wrote The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism. Published in the 1980s, it was one of the very first books I ever read about Judaism.
 
More recently, Prager founded PragerU, which uses a brief video format to offer an intelligent, conservative perspective on cultural and philosophical topics.

Last spring, Prager released The Rational Bible, a commentary on the Book of Exodus. He started with the Book of Exodus because the giving of the Ten Commandments appears in its pages.
 
In this 5-minute Prager U video, Prager argues that the Bible has been underappreciated for its contributions to Western civilization. Without moralizing or sounding like a Bible-thumping preacher, he introduces two Biblical laws that at first sound outrageous to the modern ear. Then he explains why these very laws each represented a stunning move forward in morality.
 
 
 
 
 
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How can I politely, yet firmly, explain to Christians that their faith does not supercede mine; the Hebrew Bible is not merely the "Old Testament" and that Jews are not simply Christians without Jesus? See answers from Orthodox, Conservative and Reform rabbis here.
 
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