[Avodah] (Neviim & Possible Mistakes); Akeidah & Yizchak

[David Riceman]

RDR wrote:
> So the nevuah can't be the mareh alone; it has to include the
> pitaron, and the prophet does not invariably understand it correctly.
>  
> CM responds:
> I do not agree with these assertions you make.
> Why not; why; absolutely not.
I thought I explained this, but I will do it again in excruciating 
detail.  God told Avraham to "ha'aleihu sham l'olah".  Avraham tries to 
slaughter his son.  God says "don't do that".  Rashi's narrative 
continues: Avraham says "but you told me to do this".  God replies "No, 
I told you only to put him on the altar, not to slaughter him".

Your claim is that Avraham fully understood his first nevuah; and the 
part he didn't understand had no pitaron (no precise meaning).  How, 
then, could God have replied as he did? Surely God should have said, no, 
that initial nevuah was just a mashal without a pitaron, and it didn't 
have any meaning.  Instead God ascribed it meaning ("I never told you to 
slaughter him").

How, according to you, can this Rashi make sense?
>  RDR wrote:
> We can test only some nevuot - - how would Yeshayahu's
> contemporaries have tested nevuot about the Messianic era?
> CM responds:
> I think you misunderstand RYZ's point. If mistake is admissible in 
> nevuoh, then you could NEVER punish a novi sheker, so why would the 
> Torah provide such a punishment. But in the instance of your query, 
> perhaps not every nevuoh (from a novi muchzok) must be subject to test 
> and punishable.
Some nevuot are falsifiable and some aren't.  RYZ implied that every 
nevuah has to be falsifiable.
>  
> RDR wrote:
> Rambam rules (Mamrim 2:1) that Sanhedrin may overrule a
> previous Sanhedrin's deductions from the Torah.  Similarly the
> authenticity of prophecy can be distinguished from the authenticity of
> its interpretation.
> CM responds:
> You are mixing apples and oranges. One does not follow from the other.
The pattern of logic is the same.  I criticised RYZ's proof, not his 
conclusion, in this paragraph.

David Riceman