[Avodah] Fables and Lies

[Zev Sero]

> Hmm... Maybe that's the whole point that RCN is making... Maybe they
> did go like sheep, but it was NOT a fiction. Maybe that's the point
> of the virtuous myth, that it does not fictionalize, only poeticize.
> Could it be that the Ten Martyrs did go willingly, and that the only
> distortion of the truth was that they each made this decision
> individually, rather than collectively? If that is indeed the case,
> then I can see the distortions as minor and benign.

Or maybe the R Yishmael incident did take place, but didn't involve all
ten - maybe only R Yishmael and R Shimon were involved in that incident.
It's also possible that the other 8, a generation later, knew that story
and applied it to themselves, accepting their fates just as R Yishmael
and R Shimon had done, because of R Yishmael's vision.

The shoe story may also have happened, but with only a subset of the
named Ten, or with an overlapping minyan (the Romans certainly killed
more than ten important leaders, over the course of their rule!)

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas