No, Moloch, I was trying to respond to you in a civil fashion, and explain my motivations. Identifying motivations is key to solving problems involving human actors, I was trying to be efficient. My apologies if it came off wrong.
Yes, I dispute your claim that Leviticus is full of laughably silly laws, to use your parlance in summation. The following few sentences are my argument as evidence. The laws in question were a specific covenant with a specific set of God's followers, and have additional historical context. In my opinion (which doesn't really matter) they served multiple purposes: they spelled out rules for hygiene at a time when people that disease was a magical function, they set up rules for the religious caste and property ownership/ community duties (the Levite's and the complicated relationship with the rest of the tribes, being the dedicated priestly tribe), and rules on sexual congress at a time when sister fucking was a meh thing. The rules are blunt, admittedly, but for a reason: they are being dictated to a simpler people, and broadly enough to stand the test of future interpretation. I don't get all of them, to be sure; I have no beef with shellfish (see what I did there?) But just because I don't understand something doesn't invalidate it.
Which leads to my next argument (notice I'm not citing verse, you seem aware of the Book, there is no need). Just because there is a singular undesirable part of a thing, does not mean that the whole is invalidated. Especially with a concept such as elegance, which is purely subjective in the first place. Hell, this whole convo is pretty meaningless given we are arguing opinion; I was surprised you engaged me in this manner, given that I was offering such subjective content initially in our discussion (my opinion of the mop video). Anywho, I'll give one of my favorite books (well, series of books), the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. It's a lot, but suffice it to say there is every form of fuckery known to man (rape, murder, witchcraft, pedophilia, shit, if it's bad, it happened). But, it's part of the story; it helps define the experience through contrast, or simply illustrates the starkness of the situation.
As far as expressing a lineage in writing in a format that would stand future interpretation and translation, how would you have done it?
And my favorite passage at the moment (it changes, but I always come back to this because it is so universal) is this, an example of the elegance I was talking about (at least in my opinion, which isn't the same as your obviously). We will never agree on your argument, we are giving opinions and not facts. So, fittingly:
Ecclesiastes 1
Everything Is Meaningless
1 The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
Wouldn't you agree?