rhutchin

I am not sure what your point is. I think you are saying that only Jews could be saved under the covenants and gentiles were excluded.

Any gentile could become a "Jew" by forsaking his gods and joining with Israel:

And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof. (Exodus 12:48)

I some cases, the gentile living within the land was treated as the Jew.

Numbers 15
22 And if ye have erred, and not observed all these commandments, which the LORD hath spoken unto Moses,
23 Even all that the LORD hath commanded you by the hand of Moses, from the day that the LORD commanded Moses, and henceforward among your generations;
24 Then it shall be, if ought be committed by ignorance without the knowledge of the congregation, that all the congregation shall offer one young bullock for a burnt offering, for a sweet savour unto the LORD, with his meat offering, and his drink offering, according to the manner, and one kid of the goats for a sin offering.
25 And the priest shall make an atonement for all the congregation of the children of Israel, and it shall be forgiven them; for it is ignorance: and they shall bring their offering, a sacrifice made by fire unto the LORD, and their sin offering before the LORD, for their ignorance:
26 And it shall be forgiven all the congregation of the children of Israel, and the stranger that sojourneth among them; seeing all the people were in ignorance.
27 And if any soul sin through ignorance, then he shall bring a she goat of the first year for a sin offering.


In the NT, it is through Paul that we are told that gentiles were included in God's plan:

Ephesians 3
2 If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward:
3 How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,
4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)
5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;
6 That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:
7 Whereof I was made a minister,

This was confirmed by Peter.

Acts 15
7 And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe.
8 And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us;
9 And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.

rhutchin

It would encompass all sins, past and future.

The instruction not to sin any more is given so that the person would not come under the condemnation of men. The forgiveness of God covers all sin, including future sin, made possible by Christ's death, and the person was instructed to repent (turn away from the sinful life) and believe the gospel (live a sin free life as Christ instructed). In so doing, the person would not be subject to men. However, if the person did sin, they would be liable to judgment by man (e.g., if they stole, they could be put into jail).

darstec

In order for your proposition to be true you would also have to believe that from the point of Joshua's death until the end of times, nobody is going to hell because all they have to do is say sorry, and all is forgiven. so go out and murder somebody and say you are sorry and god forgets everything. Where does Joshua explicitly say to sin no more so your fellow man will be happy?

But then according to Joshua, that is not all it takes. One must keep the commandments, sell all their possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and then follow him as he traipses around the Mideast. Those born in the last 2000 years need not apply. Just examples of cafeteria style Christianity at its finest. Pick and choose whatever bible verse one likes.

The only definitive thing one can say about Judaism and Christianity is that there is no definitive answer. Far too many contradictions even within the same author.

Petergdi

Someone might take the view that it was practically a sure fire sign that you were misreading a text. While I ain't Mr. No Robots, I do think Spinoza's rules of interpretation will keep you out of some trouble.

I do have Spinoza somewhat to thank for pointing me in the right direction on the Pauline Epistles. While I don't give Spinoza the quasi-godlike status that Mr Robots accords him, he is still worth reading and very helpful.

Peter.

darstec

Spinoza was far too early to have had any real Greek manuscripts to work from. His only source was modern (to him) Greek translations from Latin that came originally from Greek all brought to you by the Roman Catholic Church. He had almost nothing to work with and was unaware of any of the editing done to the Pauline epistles. Whatever he said could hardly be relevant in today's world where he have tens of thousands of different manuscripts, some with scribal errors and others with major theological changes.

Petergdi

It doesn't matter, it wouldn't make any difference if he read it in Latin, it is about how to read, and the minutiae are not important for the purpose. He probably did have the Stephanus text, or perhaps Beza's.

There are some passages translated from Latin to Greek in some of the older editions. But they hardly make up any great portion of the text. The vast majority of the text was from a haphazard collection of late Byzantine Greek manuscripts. There was some monkey business with the Comma Johanneum, if you have evidence of anything else, give it.

Try reading:

The Princeton Seminary Bulletin Vol. 8 No. 3 (1987)History of Editing the Greek New Testament by Bruce M. Metzger (especially around page 39-41)

http://digital.library.ptsem.edu/def...PSB1987083.xml

He doesn't discuss the NT in depth at all, he isn't concerned with the details of the text of the NT. His reading method assumes that texts have been monkeyed with and makes it largely irrelevant. There is quite a bit more on the OT, and he is clearly aware that the Torah was both written and edited well after the traditional date.

Peter.

darstec

It ALWAYS matters if texts have been monkied with especially in religion and even more particularly is said text of a omniscient, omnipotent god.

Spinoza might have been a clever person, but if he denies that, then plain and simply he is wrong. It does not take a genius to come to that conclusion.

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/emcurley/...pinozadbi.html
And in Spinoza's time, there was not much real history as the Dead Sea Scrolls had not been found. So my earlier statement stands. Spinoza had no material with which to work and neither did any of his contemporaries. To compound the problem all of the modern archaeological discoveries which show the bible to be fiction and not history were not available to him. Compared to what we have now, Spinoza's views are inconsequential. He cannot judge the history from works of fiction when archeology proves the history is false, inaccurate and fiction.

And of course we can see in that link that Spinoza's conclusion was that we cannot determine the accuracy of the bible because he do not have the history.

Petergdi

Nonsense. Those are precisely the conditions under which it can't matter. While there are some who seem to hold the notion that faith consists in giving mental assent to the correct set of propositions, I consider that idea a travesty. Having a good set of propositions to believe is rather helpful to faith, but the idea that someone who gets a proposition wrong is somehow doomed seems to be a deranged notion.

Peter.

darstec

I don't think I have encountered a more bizarre determination of faith since Martin Luther stated (paraphrased) that faith cannot be derived though reason, logic nor scripture. Are you Lutheran by any chance?

If the bible is not accurate and is nothing but fiction (i.e. lacking any historic value) then you have nothing to pin your faith on other than your own imagination. Of course this is exactly what the authors of the Pauline epistles and all other biblical writers were doing.

Petergdi

If he said that, he was absolutely right. Luther was a fascinating combination, at times he had a level of insight which he managed to put into words in an astonishing way, and at other times he was incredibly stubborn and ill-tempered. We are all mixed bags, but Luther went so far in both extremes.


Not by profession or membership, but I went to a Lutheran church this morning as I often do.

Maybe you could benefit by reading Aldous Huxley's essay "Knowledge and Understanding."
http://danliterature.wordpress.com/a...understanding/

Peter.