User:Mathsci/example

NOTICE This page is part of ArbCom evidence. Please do not edit the content. Please place your comments on ArbCom case pages.

Source text from Perry & Schweitzer
Perry, Marvin and Schweitzer, Frederick M. Antisemitism: Myth and Hate from Antiquity to the Present. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 165:

More fundamental than language and other customs in shaping Jewish attitudes and practice was the Talmud. It takes a positive stance with regard to economic activity, in sharp contrast with the New Testament and Patristic theologians who were vigilant against, as they thought it to be, filthy lucre and serving Mammon, and thus incorporated a strong, mystical, antiworldly, antieconomic strain in Christian theology and ethics. The Talmud by contrast was written, compiled and edited, taught and interpreted for centuries by rabbis who were merchants, artisans and professional men, knowledgeable and accepting of business and finance, in theory and practice. They were family men, and some of them earned their living as merchants and the like, so as to serve the community without pay. It may be that Judaism's affirmative outlook on the world—Weltbejabung, what Weber called being "accomodated to the world"—made Jews more rational, less mystical, and more focused on life, and thus more likely to engage and be successful in economic activities in some degree. Also the Talmud, intricate in structure and intellectually demanding as it is, may have taught Jews to be logical, analytical, and rational in some degree. More significantly, however, in Talmud and Bible alike, getting and spending are far from being the primary or ideal purpose of life. Learning and wisdom were the jewels without price, which meant that Jews were literate and educated in civilizations where historically these assets for economic doings were rare.

In placing excessive emphasis on biblical inspiration and talmudic direction, Sombart leaves out of account the far more important factor in explaining Jewish economic performance, that the Jews were a small minority of strangers, tolerated by subject to prejudice and persecution.

Context
Perry and Schweitzer's paragraph is part of a refutation (see pp. 158–168) of the writings of Werner Sombart (1863–1941), a German economic historian, who became what they call "an enthusiastic Nazi" (p. 158). As stated on Perry and Schweitzer, p. 162:

"Antisemites, most notable among them Marx and Sombart, often have asserted that Judaism is a capitalist's religion, a creed that consecrates greed, that instills a capacity for rational calculation to gain profit and avoid loss, and so on. In Chapter ii Sombart features a vignette of 'old Amschel Rothschild', who, having ''earned' a million on the Stock Exchange', that Friday turns for reflection to scripture; he finds much for smug satisfaction and very little to disquiet him, for wordly success is the Lord's blessing for the righteous, expecially, according to Sombart, in Proverbs and Deuteronomy. Expectedly, Sombart simplifies matters terribly, reducing the Bible and Talmud to philistine justifications for money-grubbing. God and man are linked by a 'businesslike connection' in which each person's deeds of good and evil are reckoned up in 'a complicate system of bookkeeping,' the one rewarded as profit, the other punished as loss. Many historians have demonstrated that such expositions as Sombart indulges in here are more stereotype and caricature than analysis; according to the modern scholar Ellis Rivkin, 'The notion that Jews let loose capitalism is one of those persistent myths that grow with exposure."

Noleander's sentence
Based on Perry and Schweitzer, p. 165 (see above), Noleander wrote on March 25, 2011 in an article he called Jews and money (now moved to another title):

"'Marvin Perry states that the Talmud deviates widely from the early Christian approach to money: whereas the New Testament viewed money and profit as 'filthy lucre', the Talmud took a positive view of money and profit because the Talmud 'was written, compiled and edited, taught and interpreted for centuries by rabbis who were merchants, artisans, and professional men, knowledgeable and accepting of business and finance, in theory and practice.'"

Noleander has taken two sentences out of context, adding his own WP:OR by omitting the reference to the early church leaders. He has written his text so that it conveys exactly the opposite meaning to that intended—a refutation by Perry and Schweitzer of Werner Sombart's antisemitic interpretation of the message of the Old Testament and Talmud, which Perry and Schweitzer analyse over several pages. This seems like a complete misrepresentation of a source; it was a randomly chosen example.