Then why did the Jewish Christians continue to follow many of them. Then compare Jewish ritual, costumes etc with Roman Catholic ritual, clothing, and some Anglican ritual. The eating of shell fish and pork was recognised as a source of disease. So not only the Jews avoided it, so did many other nations. Leviticus actually says that no-one with these defects can be a priest - 'approach the Altar'. Ordinary Jews were not allowed in the court of the Priests where the main altar was. Working on the Sabbath. Define work. The Priests worked on the Sabbath. Shepherds worked on the Sabbath. Animals had to be watered and fed on the Sabbath. The Tanakh actually says that you cannot wear cotton and linen held together by means of stitching or any other means. You can wear cotton garments over or under linen garments, as long as they are not attached. Cotton/polyester would be OK. Linen/polyester OK Mingled seed? No-one surely would mingle seed 3500 years ago. Fancy trying to seperate the two after harvest - seed by seed I know Fugazi's post was light hearted but here are some answers. Christianity has used much of Judaism for its own purposes. Jesus came to the Jews, ministered to the Jews, spoke Jewish scriptures to the Jews, told his disciples to ignore the Gentiles when he sent them out and followed many Jewish customs. Christians will tell you that he hated the Pharisaic ways. But he followed much of them. He was against the hypocritical Pharisees. He went for meals with Pharisees. He went for meals with sinners. But not, as far as I can remember, Gentiles. The Jews themselves admit there were this type of Pharisee. They divide the Pharisees into 7 groupings, which I'm not going into now. They vary from the Pharisee I've mentioned to the genuine god-fearing and god-loving Pharisee.
So then you are saying that the OT is not relevant to Christians? Can I also point you in the direction of Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. - - - Updated - - - LOL you chastise me for spelling and then spell humour incorrectly .. oh hang on I forgot you are American and really cannot spell correctly anyway.
You can indeed. To whom was the Law given? To whom were the Prophets sent? Where did Rabbi Jesus preach to the Gentiles?
So the OT is not relevant to Christians then? It is considered polite to answer questions prior to asking them.
In John 10:16 Jesus says (ESV quoted): And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
That sounds like Jesus was fibbing again. He claimed to have been sent to just the Jews. Then in another version he's flapping his jaws about other flocks of sheep. He never could keep his story straight.
fine, in that case the next time a Christian tries to throw the ten commandments or ANYTHING from the OT into a debate we can just say, well it's not relevant to Christians and as such moot. Thank you for clearing that up.
You're welcome. The Jews had a way of testing whether their 'students', that is those who, at the age of 13, showed promise in the scriptures and were selected to train further by a teacher, sometimes years of training to allow them to become teachers. The student was asked a question about a point in the Tanakh. Rather than answer the question directly the student would then put a question to the teacher about the same subject indicating that he understood the answer to the question. Simple example. Teacher 'Who do you think created the world?' Student 'Why did God create the world?' One question answered by another question. In more complicated cases it shows the student questioned has thought the question through by the question he asks. That's the problem with religion. Christians on here come up with trite, stock answers which, if they about their subject they would not post. In a way you have just proved my point. You mention the 10 commandments from the Tanakh (OT). These are nothing new. Moses took them from more ancient codes. If you study those codes and the equivalent regulations in health etc as in Leviticus, Numbers etc you can see most come from surrounding and earlier civilisations. Only most Christians aren't told this and don't know it. So they think Circumcision sets the Jews apart. That means there are many Egyptian Jews, Assyrian/Babylonian Jews before Moses as they used circumcision for certain purposes.
Does Jesus claim to do away with the OT law ? I think not. This is what Jesus says about OT law in his most famous of Sermons (Matt 5) Last I checked heaven and earth has not yet disappeared ? After this opening statement the Sermon on the mount continues for 3 chapters Matt 5-7. In this sermon Jesus talks about not only obeying OT law but expands on it. There are some places where Jesus appears to contradict some of the OT law such as the law about divorce. From the way that Jesus puts things it appears as though this was perhaps never a law intended by God to begin with according to Jesus. This is perhaps why he states [QUOTE]It has been said, Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce[/QUOTE] Matt 5:31 Notice Jesus does not state that God said this ... he says it more like ... "Some people have said this" Compare to similar statements Matt 5:43 This passage is not in the Torah as far as I can tell. Jesus appears to be weeding out that which came into the Torah or was associated with the Torah through the hand or mouth of man. Regardless .... Nowhere does Jesus claim to have gotten rid of "OT Law". The reverse is true. Jesus claims that the path into heaven is through doing what is of the law ... doing what God commands. After talking about doing what God commands for 3 chapters in the Sermon on the mount Jesus says this: Matt 7 "Only the one who does the will of my Father". The will of the Father is what Jesus has been talking in his continuous sermon that goes on for 3 chapters. What Jesus talks about is following God's laws and commands from the OT and the additional commands given by Jesus. To me this passage has always been the nail in the coffin to the "Sola Fide - Salvation by Faith alone" ideology held by Protestants. It makes sense that Catholics and Orthodox who make up the majority of Christianity did not adopt this ideology. This idea was concocted by Martin Luther some 1500 years after Jesus and was never official Christian doctrine until then. This is not to say that Luther did not have evidence. Paul seems to suggest this ideology. The problem here however is that Paul contradicts Jesus. There seems to have been an early form of "Sola Fide" ideology among early Pauline Christians. The Church of Jerusalem of course rejected this idea outright and that is well recorded in Acts. James 2 (possibly one of the oldest texts and one of the only ones that may have been written by an actual disciple - James Brother of Jesus and head of the Jerusalem Church) vigorously goes after the teaching of "Sola Fide" going so far as to call people that believe in this "Foolish" James says no less than 3 times "Faith without works is Dead/useless" and explains that even "Demons have faith" intimating that this does them no good This is another big nail in the "Salvation by faith alone" coffin. The Church of Jerusalem - and after all these were the original disciples- maintained Jewish law. It was the Pauline "Hellenists Gentiles" that sought to do away with the law. The question is who is right ? Pauline Hellenists or the Church of Jerusalem. What did Jesus really think about "Sola Fide" ? and what is the true path to heaven according to Jesus. 1) We know what Jesus thought if Matthew taken to be true. Salvation is based on works- Doing what God commands and what is of the law. 2) We know what the disciples thought ... if what is recorded in acts and James is taken to be true. There is one passage from Jesus that folks on the Sola Fide side like to quote. John 3:16 This passage could just as easily mean believe in the message of Jesus rather than "Just believe Jesus existed and salvation is yours". The former reading would then be in keeping with the previous claims of Jesus. The latter reading would have Jesus contradicting himself. One needs to keep in mind that the John is a Pauline fusion work written after the destruction of the temple when Pauline Christians were distancing themselves from Jews and the Church of Jerusalem. The Author of the Gospel of John is writing much later ( 90-120 AD) than the previous Gospels and writes in a completely different style than the previous. The Author incorporates Pauline and almost Gnostic ideas. One gets the idea that this passage was an attempt at bolstering the Pauline ideology that was predominant among the Hellenist sect at the time yet was ambiguous enough not to come right out and trash OT Law - which is what Pauline Christians were doing at the time. The tone of the Gospel of John is far more anti Jewish than Luke which also reflects the growing split between the Hellenists and the Church of Jerusalem. This article discusses the growing split between the synagogue and Pauline Christians in the first century. http://followingtheancientpaths.fil...ing-split-between-syna-church-1st-century.pdf John 3:16 is ambiguous enough such that it can be read to mean - belief in the message of Jesus. My take is that given the author was writing for a Hellenistic audience he wanted the passage to be ambiguous enough to not directly trash the OT law and contradict the Jesus of Matt which would have been known by this time but he definitely support the Pauline ideology of Sola Fide and was desperate to have Jesus say "something" that supported this ideology. Either way ... this passage hardly qualifies Jesus rejecting OT law and contradicting himself as it can be read to mean different things. We do have the problem of Paul and why he seemed to favor this ideology to begin with. Paul of course never knew Jesus while he was alive. Paul never knew of the miracles of Jesus - or at least he never said anything about them even though his writings comprise almost half the NT. Paul did not have close contact with the disciples either and so did not know much of Jesus through them and at least some of what the disciples believed Paul rejected. http://aejt.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/395186/AEJT_6.4_Elmer_Between_Jerusalem.pdf Paul's writings were some of the earliest so Paul did not have the benefit of Mark as a source document like the writers of Matt Luke and John. So on one side we have the claims of a fellow who never met Jesus and seems to have no knowledge of any miracles an such. In addition we have passage from the Author of the Gospel of John which is so ambiguous that it might actually support the other side "belief in the message of Jesus" which of course is that works is required for salvation and faith alone wont do it written. Further John is written by an Author during a period when the Church is becoming more and more anti Jewish/ Jewish law and there have been numerous decades for oral tradition to make up such claims by Jesus that might support Pauline ideology. On the other side we have direct claims from Jesus that works is required, that only those who follow Gods commands get into heaven and so on. On the other side we also have the beliefs of the disciples which were at odds with Paul's beliefs in relation to the law. We James (brother of Jesus and head of the Jerusalem church) direct and vigorously assaulting the "Sola Fide" ideology. The problem here, and this has been a dividing factor in Christianity for centuries, is that to say "Sola Fide" is correct is to contradict the Jesus of Matthew and to reject the beliefs of the disciples. The majority of Christianity has been unwilling to accept Sola Fide on this basis. For you to outright claim defacto that Jesus got rid of OT law (like there is no debate over the issue) is probably more a function of ignorance than arrogance. This is a step even beyond claiming "Sola Fide" . Not even most Protestants claim what you are claiming. The original "protestants" the denomination that bears the name of the founder of Protestantism - The Lutheran Church has this to say: In short ... there is no salvation without "Faith in Jesus" but you still must make some attempt (even though you will fail) to obey the law. This reduces your claim as applying to a miniscule percentage of extremist Christians. A claim for which you have presented no support.
Ref. Post #112: Even the Bible says that the Law is BS to mess with stupid people's minds. Besides, the idea of the Law goes against one of the basic ideas of the Bible.
