"On the other hand, he says, the Book of Genesis is true 'from the first word to the last.'"

By we, I mean Orthodox Jews.

We also hold by the Big Bang. How can that be? Well, there's a companion to the Written Torah called the Oral Tradition (a.k.a, then Oral Torah), which explains and elucidates the Written Torah.

The Written Torah can also be thought of as a memory aid for the Oral Tradition. We hold that they are two sides of the same coin, inseparable. It's clear from there that B'reishis (Genesis) fits in perfectly with the Big Bang.

Why are people who don't know the Hebrew alphabet, who couldn't tell the 10 Commandments from instructions on how to change a tire in Hebrew, who never even have heard of the Oral Tradition, why are they taken seriously?

Remember, if you read the Bible from left to right, you are reading it backwards.

Nailed it.

Common cliche, but it's really a non-sequitor (sp?). Laws require people to enforce them.

Good article, though. Small quibble.

These "future" images never showed people making money, or getting the budget to build these fantasies, or anything prosaic. Of course not, because they were stories.

Funny how the Bible is absent from this discussion. While I can't speak for the Greek Bible, Torah is very clear: while abortion is forbidden, when there is a conflict between the fetus's life and the mother's, there is no choice: you much abort.

This abortion can take place up to the time the fetus takes its first breath.

This is from Exodus 21:22-3, right before Ayin tachas Ayin (which is usually mistranslated as "Eye for an Eye"). If you're looking for an English translation, check out R'Aryeh Kaplan's "The Living Torah", the finest translation of Torah into English ever. Accept no substitutes.

By not allowing the mother's life exception, they are preventing Jewish doctors from following Torah.

(according to Jewish Law) when he was 38. He hasn't been the same since.

I recognize the type. Major, major closet case. The man doth protest too much.

Actually, I was thinking that you could train publishers to do their typesetting automatically, using LaTeX. VisualTex offers a compiler that directly creates camera ready PDF and PostScript from a LaTeX script.

There are several MS Word to LaTeX conversion routines out there. Heck, authors could do their own typesetting, forget the publishers and/or printers. It's a markup language like HTML, but not an SGML language like HTML. It's easier to learn than HTML.

I used it as an intermediate language for my software to create FDA reports from SAS datasets. It's open source, free, and one of the best pieces of software ever written.

There's a software program that does all the layout automatically. Why not compete with the low-cost people that way?

While the obituary of Yiddish has been written many times, those isolated pockets of Observant Jews are growing at a rate similar to French Canadians after 1763; we might yet see a Yiddish speaking land in the southern foothills of the Catskills yet.

Besides, an American version of "Yiddish" has developed, called Yeshivish. Based on American English instead of German, it's kind of a Yeshivah boy Ebonics, barely comprehensible to outsiders.

Mamish!

Congress can get rid of this guy, even if Bush wants to keep him.

I'd agree that the effort to repeal the Second Amendment would be worth it, if it would be at all effective in practical terms. There are just too many guns in this country. Besides, no background check would have detected the shooter; at best, you'd stop a few. You'd probably slow down the rate that these massacres occur, but that'd be hard to prove, and the political carnage would be terrible. After all, even Canada had a lunatic killing spree a few years ago with a hunting rifle; where's there's a will, there seems to be a way.

These massacres are horribly just part of the American environment; these politicians are making the correct calculation in our imperfect country.

I've been developing software professionally for about 25 years now, and it's about as macho a field as being an auto mechanic. Not quite sure why that is, but it is the reality.

Does anyone worry about women not going into muffler replacement?

Not me said the pig.

Not me said the cat. And so on.

Didn't Bill Keane do a Family Circus cartoon on the devilish ghost, "Not Me"?

You were right, I was talking about the quote from Exodus. It's right after where the Torah conclusively states that a fetus does not have the status of a human being. I purposely ignored the different contexts where the phrase Ayin tachas Ayin appears. Yasher Ko'ach!

I'm also impressed that you knew to use R'Kaplan's excellent translation of Torah. Accept no substitute!

OK then, Vuss sagt d'Rashi? According to the wonderful Artscroll, D'vorim 19:21, Rashi says Ayin b'Ayin - EYE FOR EYE. This means Mammon - payment of money.

The comments below indicate that eidem zomemim, false witnesses, are given similar penalties to what they would have given their victims through the court. However, they are not blinded, nor are they killed if they falsely accuse someone of murder.

For a fuller explanation, explore Tractate Makkos in the Talmud.

"LeftWingPharisee, apparently you've never checked out Deuteronomy 19, verse 21: 'Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.'"

Actually, without going into detail, it's "ayin tachas ayin"; eye under eye. The Rambam, writing before English existed, explained very clearly that it was an expression.

But just 2 points. It's not the "Old Testament" (at least not to us Pharisees, like Roseanne, Jerry Seinfeld, Rabbi Shmuely Boteach, Michael Lerner, et. al.) and Tanakh (its real name) doesn't say "eye for an eye" anywhere. No Jewish court ever poked anyone's eye out, it was a purposeful mistranslation by the guys who produced the King James Version monstrosity.