Christians help me with this...

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And if you want more modern speech you can have it in Lol Cat

NIV is my personal preference for modern translations, however it is copyrighted so I'll just provide a link:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... ersion=NIV

I know the Talmud Bavli (Babylonian Talmud) better than you. When I was younger I used to study it with qualified rabbis dof yomi --- a page a day and sometimes more. Generations of rabbis sought to understand the contents of TNKH and the oral tradition and place restrictions around the commandments so that they would not be transgressed. TNKH by itself is problematical. One needs the oral tradition to comprehend it more fully.

ruveyn

I mean no disrespect here. It seems to me that the oral tradition complicated things more so than solved problems. Speaking purely from a Christian perspective here, the TNKH seems fairly cut-and-dry, though not really less difficult. My understanding was that all the law was summed in the statement "Love the Lord... etc." Though I'm sure rabbinical tradition since the destruction of the temple has gotten a lot kinder since those days, it's easy for one to imagine that trying to hold to a massive set of strict rules from both oral and written traditions would have been quite a heavy burden on those seeking to uphold it, not to mention a few questionable details in different versions of the Talmud. But in all fairness, I'm not familiar with the Talmud beyond a few bits and pieces, so I'm not in a position to debate about it.

ruveyn, perhaps you CAN clarify something for me, though, since this seems to be within your realm of knowledge. As I've already mentioned, I don't recall ever reading about ritual hand-washing in the TNKH. Did I miss something, or would that be something more likely under the authority of the Talmud? If the Talmud, exactly what does it have to say about hand-washing before meals?

Which is precisely why you do not know what you are talking about. TNKH was written by Jews for Jews. When the Christians co-opted it to misinterpret the prophets they completely missed the point of the Commandments. The essence of Christianity is to deny Torah and substitute good feelings in the intestines. You buddy Paul/Saul started this perverse line of thinking which has evolved into the essential Protestant doctrines. All based on a misunderstand of TNKH and terribly bad for the Jews.

ruveyn

In regard to the responses about arranged marriage:
Arranged marriage and platonic decision to get married are the only two scenarios in which someone could become married without lust, and was a response to zer0netgain's "It is wrong to lust upon a woman in your heart because the heart is where sin begins.". It was a response to that post directly, his interpretation, and not that held by either the Bible or other Christians. Read it over.

I may be underinformed here but as it stands in my mind so far the Jewish religion has Orthodox jews, and as far as I am aware they follow the Torah consider it's laws are Divine, were transmitted by God to Moses, are eternal, and are unalterable, so they don't fall under the catergories I described earlier. I could try pulling apart the Torah, but it'd likely involve a combination of ruveyn's mentioned schooling and personal study, which for the sake of time and a thread here it's really not worth starting.

Note what I placed in bold. If that is so, and I agree with that statement in principle, then help me out with this:

Exodus 6:1-6--But the Lord replied to Moses, "Now you are going to see what I will do to Pharaoh: he will let them go because of My strong hand; he will drive them out of his land because of My strong hand." Then God spoke to Moses, telling him, "I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but I did not make My name Yahweh known to them. I also established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land they lived in as foreigners. Furthermore, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are forcing to work as slaves, and I have remembered My covenant. Therefore tell the Israelites: I am Yahweh, and I will deliver you from the forced labor of the Egyptians and free you from the slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment."

This suggests to me that one purpose that God had for Israel was to declare the glory of God to all people.

Exodus 12:48-49--If a foreigner resides with you and wants to celebrate the Lord's Passover, every male in his household must be circumcised, and then he may participate; he will become like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person may eat it. The same law will apply to both the native and the foreigner who resides among you.

According to this, foreigners may take part in the Passover and it is not reserved solely for Jews.

2 Chronicles 30:25--Then the whole assembly of Judah with the priests and Levites, the whole assembly that came from Israel, the foreigners who came from the land of Israel, and those who were living in Judah, rejoiced.

This passage is long removed from the Exodus period, but also demonstrates that non-Jews DID take part in the Passover. It stands to reason that foreigners would have had a place in other aspects of law and tradition and certainly that God intended that foreigners be affected by what the Jews did--that is, that foreigners would come to worship Yahweh as well as the Jews.

I'm very sorry you feel that we Christians have "co-opted" it, but there are a few of us (maybe even more than a few) that really do desire to understand. In my own observance of Christian teaching (that is, New Testament teaching), I recognize that Paul advocated for an assimilation of Christ's teachings into one's own culture while avoiding the sins of those cultures--most notably idolatrous practices, but certainly not limited to those. I interpret the Torah as an outline of Israelite cultural customs and traditions as well as moral codes, the latter of which ought to remain relevant to anyone and any system of law and justice, not just Jews and Christians.

If I don't know what I'm talking about, I can accept that because one regret I do have is not having taken any Biblical study very seriously. I've always held on tightly to my faith, but I've never tried to understand fully what all that means (that is, what the Bible actually says). If I've grossly misinterpreted something, I'd greatly appreciate enlightenment from someone who knows these things intimately well. You seem to have a deep intellectual insight into the TNKH, and any point of view from someone so knowledgeable would be respectfully appreciated.