Thunderian said:
Among themselves, the Jewish people are considered to be one very large extended family, or at least are supposed to consider themselves that way. Why wouldn't it be reasonable to lend within your own extended family but not to outsiders? If my uncle gave me a no-interest loan, would you find it so strange that he didn't offer the same to you? Is this practice, like so many others, only to be considered offensive when Jews do it?
I think you simplify, and I have no problem with simplification. If anything, I tend to over complicate. It's a good point you make. I think that particular caveat, legal loophole, or exemption has historically caused as much trouble to "the" Jews as the "blood curse," which I expect you will say was at times woefully, lamentably, misunderstood and misapplied, and I will readily agree, of
Matthew 27:25.
"The [Catholic] Church ... declared any extra return upon a loan as against the divine law, and this prevented any mercantile use of capital by pious Christians. As the canon law did not apply to Jews, these were not liable to the ecclesiastical punishments which were placed upon usurers by the popes, Alexander III in 1179 having excommunicated all manifest usurers. Christian rulers gradually saw the advantage of having a class of men like the Jews who could supply capital for their use without being liable to excommunication, and the money trade of western Europe by this means fell into the hands of the Jews ..."
Source
Your proverbial uncle, at this point, has become rather impressive, to say nothing of powerful. He and his fellows will become even more powerful at the point not just of money "trade," but also of money creation, ex nihilo, and "control"
("flow of funds") -that is to say, at the central and money-center bank level.
Thunderian said:
I suppose there are all sorts of deeper levels to economics we could explore, but I am not versed in it, either. On the surface, though, the lending of money at interest does not seem unreasonable or evil to me.
I understand. It's when we -or perhaps I should say Karl Marx and Max Weber and others of their stripe and caliber- examine the relationships between labor, capital and surplus value that we see that usury, its principles and extensions, are practically an accomplished fact of, and basis for, the modern western economies, debt-based Capitalism in particular. On a much larger scale, laws against usury, like those against alcohol in "Prohibition" America, are generally considered antiquated, retrogressive and irrelevant to progressives.
However much one may disagree with his theories, those of Karl Marx, for instance, held such sway as to be practically (ersatz) religious dogma for half of the world when I was growing up in the late-Cold War era. Even now, Marxists and others, when speaking of "rentier capitalism," drawing distinctions between finance and industrial capital, will be usually referring to usury, even if not by outright use of the term.
Thunderian said:
I suspect the Islamic prohibitions against it have more to do with Muhammad's thoughts in regard to contemporary Jewish money-lenders than some greater moral truth that was revealed to him. A great deal of Muhammad's supposed revelations were about his personal desires and prejudices and not about anything spiritual.
I suspect the exact reverse: that the prohibition against usury was originally universal among the Semitic peoples, especially the progeny of Abraham, but that a Levitical priest modified, or redacted, the Torah to make an exemption in favor of tribal particularism. Again, I only suspect.
Thunderian said:
Ezekiel is not condemning the practice, but confirming that the right thing among Jews is to not charge each other interest ...
Thank you for your "private interpretation," now become public
(just having some fun here, to lighten the mood).
Thunderian said:
... and prohibitions against charging interest in medieval Christendom that are not based on actual scripture have no relevance.
Not only the prohibitions, but, in this case, and to me more importantly, the exemptions, or loopholes,
were in large part based upon scripture. After all, it was because of scripture that "the money trade of western Europe fell into the hands of the Jews." Jews, in this case, were allowed to practice their Torah and charge usury to non-Jews and became useful to Christian princes and rulers in the process.
Thunderian said:
Jesus spoke that parable before he drove the money-changers out of the temple, but it would have made no difference. His anger was not at money-changers, but at commerce being conducted within the house of God. Had they set up on the street outside, there would have been no problem.
That is a good answer. Thank you.
Thunderian said:
I think anything can be discussed reasonably, but I do find the Muslim obsession with Jewish bankers to be anything but.
The issue is, or should be, usury. If Jews historically are disproportionately associated with the practice, let's try to better understand how and why that is, without bashing anybody, on any side, in the process. I, for one, am sorry that the tenor and tone of this thread is generally hostile, like many another in this religion sub-forum.
