Jeremy Rosen
Making Sense of the Bible: Can its Ancient Text be Relevant Today? Numbers 21:4, Preparing for War
Summary
Study the text of the Bible weekly with Jeremy Rosen through a combination of traditional, critical, and personal perspectives. No knowledge of Hebrew or the Bible is necessary. You may use any Bible text you may have or you can go to sefaria.org. This week will begin with Numbers 21:4, preparing for war.
Jeremy Rosen
Manchester-born Jeremy Rosen was educated at Cambridge University England and Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He has practiced as an orthodox rabbi, as principal of Carmel College in the UK, and as professor at the Faculty for Comparative Religion in Antwerp, Belgium. He has written and lectured extensively in the UK and the US, where he now resides and was the rabbi of the Persian-Jewish community in Manhattan.
Well Shelly, that’s a brilliant idea. I never thought of that connection whatsoever because that was an unusual speaking snake, so to speak, in the case of Genesis at the beginning, whereas here we are talking about the natural phenomena of snakes, but I think you are right in the sense that the punishment to the snake in Genesis was that there would be constant tension between snakes and human beings. Snakes would constantly be biting human beings and human beings were constantly trying to crush the head of the snake and and turn it in the heel, and so yes, in that sense I suppose there definitely is a connection.
Well I’m told that the, in the medical symbol, it’s comes from Greece, but I don’t know if Greece got it originally from Israel, which it might have done. So I don’t know the answer to that. Perhaps you can do a little bit of research and let me know.