Though it’s posted to r/judaism in the context of “I’m sure these are fake but I don’t know how”, this helps ensure discussion stays safely within bounds
Here is one of the top responses:
Soferim does not exist. This is a completely fabricated book and quote.
He then goes on to use word-magic to muddy the waters on a few of the other quotes. Is he correct? Only by adopting some excruciating twists of logic. Will (most) everyone who googles “talmud quotes” walk away thinking the whole thing is much ado about nothing? A large amount will, unfortunately.
But yeah, what I mean by “fake” quotes are the ones taken from sources other than the talmud, being presented as “talmud quotes”. Often you’ll see stuff from, e.g. the toledat yeshu added in. Heinous filth of course, but there’s no reason to muddy the waters of our own arguments (when we uncritically share selections with these subverted/smuggled in verses). I’m not talking about the pilpul often used to try and weasel out of the plain meanings of the translations, just the conflation of sources, which happens surprisingly often.
I’ll illustrate with a scenario since everyone has seen different images/posts/articles/etc:
Open gewgle - search for “talmud quotes”, go to images
First result looks exactly like the kind of post we’re talking about (damning talmud quotes)
https://i.redd.it/rrjqxm9eqx9d1.jpeg
Though it’s posted to r/judaism in the context of “I’m sure these are fake but I don’t know how”, this helps ensure discussion stays safely within bounds
Here is one of the top responses:
He then goes on to use word-magic to muddy the waters on a few of the other quotes. Is he correct? Only by adopting some excruciating twists of logic. Will (most) everyone who googles “talmud quotes” walk away thinking the whole thing is much ado about nothing? A large amount will, unfortunately.
But yeah, what I mean by “fake” quotes are the ones taken from sources other than the talmud, being presented as “talmud quotes”. Often you’ll see stuff from, e.g. the toledat yeshu added in. Heinous filth of course, but there’s no reason to muddy the waters of our own arguments (when we uncritically share selections with these subverted/smuggled in verses). I’m not talking about the pilpul often used to try and weasel out of the plain meanings of the translations, just the conflation of sources, which happens surprisingly often.