Thursday, 29 September 2016

sexuality - Does the talmud promote pedophilia?



I found a surprising claim from a conservative Christian web site about halacha and relations with children. Is what they say actually true or is this wrong?


From http://truthtellers.org/alerts/Judaisms-Pedophilia-Begins-with-Rabbi-ben-Yohai.html:






The Talmud, highest authority for modern Talmudic Judaism, endorses pedophilia. It calls it "Halachah" or binding Jewish law!


The Talmudic rabbi most instrumental in persuading rabbis today to indulge in pedophilia is 2nd century A.D. Simeon ben Yohai. It's hard to imagine a rabbinic sage more esteemed than ben Yohai. He is credited by Ultra-Orthodox Jews as the author of the Zohar, or Kabbalah. Every year in Meron in Israel (where ben Yohai died), more than 10,000 Hasidic Jews gather for a week of singing, dancing, and praising ben Yohai, who may well be Kabbalist Judaism's most venerated authority.


In Orthodox Judaism, the most ancient first and second A.D. rabbis, the "Tannaim," are considered most authoritative. This is largely because they lived in Palestine closest in time to the Pharisees, who, originating in Babylon, created the Mishnah (oral law), which later became written down as the Babylonian Talmud. Some “Tanna” receive greater respect from Orthodox Jews than does Moses. Jesus accused the oral law of "making the law of God of none effect."


The Talmud is the greatest religious authority for observant Jews today. It teaches that when sages of ben Yohai’s stature pronounced new laws, they did so out of the memory of what God had taught them in heaven. The Talmud says such memory was imparted to ben Yohai's teacher, Rabbi Akiba: when Moses died he went to heaven and beheld Rabbi Akiba “expounding wondrously on the Torah.” Thus, when ben Yohai authorizes pedophilia in the Talmud, such permission becomes law for Orthodox Jews for all time.


In Yebamoth 60b the Talmud says:


It was taught: R. Simeon ben Yohai stated: ‘A proselyte who is under the age of three years and one day is permitted to marry a priest. For it is said, But all the women children that have not known men by lying with them, keep for yourselves; and Phinehas surely was with them.’





Surely this is a misquote...right? Edit: thanks for the answers!





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