Freethought & Rationalism Archive

WILLOWTREE · 05-28-2004, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pervy Hobbit Fancier

{snip OP to save bandwidth}

Jesus lived a life that NEVER even once violated any O.T. law. This is fulfillment of the Law. Testified to when the Temple veil was torn - the sacrifice was judged by God to be perfect, which the Law required/without spot or wrinkle/firstborn. Type of sinlessness.

This is what God wanted so He could crucify His Son and kill the Law and its unattainable demands.

In the O.T. the law said a man could not marry another wife until the first wife died.

When Jesus expired on the cross the first wife (law) died. NOW God can pursue the apple of His eye (mankind) without the old bag in the way. The Gospel (the way of faith to relate to God) is now the only way to God through Christ.

That is the good news/gospel: How you get God/Jesus (faith) and not via allegiance to a code of conduct. (Romans 3:21,22)

The law of Moses is abrogate in connecting you to God or gaining or maintaining standing.

God likened Mosaic Law to a wife that He killed (crucified) in order to get it out of the way so He could marry another (the church/bride of Christ).

Do you understand ?

Edit: Source of theology Dr. Gene Scott Ph.D. Stanford University

Javaman · 05-28-2004, 03:51 PM

I'm of the opinion that "everlasting" means lasting for ever. Which means that we're left with two options:

1) God changes his mind (which he says he doesn't)
-or-
2) Although he can see the future, he had Moses write down words that he knew were untrue

Either way it's senseless.

Toto · 05-28-2004, 03:56 PM

Please do not drive this thread to ~Elsewhere~ since I think there are some legitimate issues here.

Dr. Gene Scott is a TV evangelist with a, uh, unique ability to raise money. More info here. He is not a recognized authority, his doctorate is not in NT studies or anything remotely connected to it.

Please stay on topic. The issue is how to interpret "filfillment" in the context of Matt 5:17. Do you (or Dr. Scott) have any indication that "fulfillment" meant the end of the law? Are the 613 commands of the Jewish law that hard to keep, compared to Jesus' commands to sell all that you own and give it to the poor, or to never even lust after another woman in your heart? I think that orthodox Jews worked out ways to live by their law, but Christians claim that all are sinners and need forgiveness by Jesus, which would indicate that it is Jesus' law that is impossible, not the Torah.

Mageth · 05-28-2004, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WILLOWevcTREE

Jesus lived a life that NEVER even once violated any O.T. law.

How do you know this? Oh, that's right. The NT - written for the very purpose of establishing the claim of Jesus' perfection - says so. So at BEST you can say that the men who wrote the NT claimed that Jesus never violated any OT law. You do not know that Jesus never violated any OT law.

Quote:

This is fulfillment of the Law. Testified to when the Temple veil was torn - the sacrifice was judged by God to be perfect, which the Law required/without spot or wrinkle/firstborn. Type of sinlessness.

This is what God wanted so He could crucify His Son and kill the Law and its unattainable demands.

So let me get this straight. God establishes a law that makes "unattainable demands", then comes down himself (in the form of his "Son") to attain those unattainable demands (if he could attain them, then they were not unattainable), just so he could kill himself and thus the very unattainable law that he established? Why the hell did he establish the law in the first place, then?

Quote:

God likened Mosaic Law to a wife that He killed (crucified) in order to get it out of the way so He could marry another (the church/bride of Christ).

Do you understand ?

Yeah - your God is warped. And I think I saw him on an episode of "Columbo" once, actually.

gregor · 05-28-2004, 04:01 PM

I can't read Matthew as anything other than an anti-Paulian propoganda piece arguing that the true followers of Jesus still must accept all of the Levitical laws.

Toto · 05-28-2004, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dado

i suspect the only way to answer this is to reconstruct what he would have said in Aramaic and go from there. which is, of course, impossible to do with any certainty. it's a damn shame we don't have the original words. the best i can offer is in rabbinic usage "destroy" often means "misinterpret" and "fulfill" means "interpret correctly". if this even applies - Jesus was apparently a rabbi but that isn't enough to go on - it suggests Jesus was defending observance, not suggesting dis-observance.

This source agrees with you:

Matthew 5:17: "Destroy" the Law

Quote:

The translators of the King James Version rendered the Greek phrase katalusai ton nomon as "to destroy the law." However, the Hebrew levatel, (literally, "to cancel"), the probable Hebrew equivalent of the Greek verb translated "to destroy," was used in scholarly rabbinic discussions of Jesus' day as a technical term for violating a biblical commandment.[1]

When a sage felt that a colleague had misinterpreted a passage of Scripture, he would say, "You are canceling (or, uprooting) the Torah!"[2] In other words, "You are so misinterpreting Scripture that you are negating or canceling part of it." Needless to say, in most cases, his colleague strongly disagreed. What was "canceling" the Torah for one teacher was "fulfilling" it for another.

What one encounters in Matthew 5:17-19 is a rabbinic controversy. Someone had apparently accused Jesus of "canceling" the Torah. He was being charged with so misinterpreting the Scriptures as to nullify their intent.

Jesus strongly denied the allegation, using the usual technical terminology for such situations (the Hebrew verbs levatel and lekayem). In the next verse, Matthew 5:18, he used hyperbole to show just how strongly he felt about the importance of Torah. Not a yod, the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet, nor even a kots, the tiny decorative spur sometimes added to the yod, would ever be removed from the Torah, he said.[3]

. . .

Although Jesus spoke hyperbolically about letters and strokes being removed from the Torah, one should not think that he or any of his disputants believed that the Torah would not endure forever. From English versions of the New Testament one might get the impression that Jesus was being accused of intending to abolish or replace the Torah. However, when Matthew 5:17-19 is placed in its Hebraic and Jewish context, one understands that Jesus and his interlocutors were engaged in a typical rabbinic debate.

. . .

As often, it is helpful to put the Greek text into Hebrew. Once we set this passage in its Hebraic and Jewish context, we can understand "fulfill" in the sense of "interpret correctly." The probable Hebrew equivalent of the Greek verb plerosai, translated "fulfill" in Matthew 5:17, is lekayem. In Jesus' time lekayem was usually the antonym of levatel (cancel, nullify) and used in the sense of "preserve or sustain." Here, as a rabbinic technical term, it means, "to sustain by properly interpreting."

WILLOWTREE · 05-29-2004, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Dr. Gene Scott is a TV evangelist with a, uh, unique ability to raise money. He is not a recognized authority

Quote:

Please stay on topic. The issue is how to interpret "filfillment" in the context of Matt 5:17

Please do not grossly misrepresent me. The content of my post that you responded to was dead center on topic. After stating my argument I provided the source of my theology. Failure to cite the source is plagarism. This was my only intent.

OTOH you went off topic and grossly interpreted the citing of source to be some type of advertisement. Your anti - Dr. Scott bias is way off topic - so are the links you provided - links which reflect lies and hatred.

You used a response to the OP as a pretext to launch a Dr. Scott censorship tyrade.

I cited him as my source and no amount of twisting and contortions can change this fact. Your opinions about Dr. Scott are way off topic and it would be appreciated if you would stay on topic and not ruin the topic with your gross distortions.

I will ignore the remainder of the rest of your post (on topic) until this other issue is resolved.

BTW, Dr. Scott is the greatest authority on the Bible. This is my opinion as it is YOUR opinion that he is not.

Toto · 05-29-2004, 02:38 PM

WILLOW: complaints about moderation should be taken to the bugs forum.

You posted a theological interpretation of the passage. You did not comment on the linguistic or textual matter at hand.

This forum is not for theology.

Feel free to start a thread on Dr. Scott in the appropriate forum - I suggest General Religious Discussions.

Toto
moderator

dado · 05-30-2004, 10:10 AM

Toto - nice link! there is a great deal of speculation that Matthew - or at least the core that has since been redacted into the current Matthew - was originally written in Hebrew. i can think of about as many reasons why this might be true as why it might not be - but if it is true, what a find that scroll would be...

Toto · 05-30-2004, 12:43 PM

I cannot judge the validity of the information in that link, which has a point of view - trying to show a connection between Jesus and rabbinic thinking. It does seem to make sense of what would otherwise be rather cryptic.

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05-28-2004, 03:51 PM	#12
Javaman Veteran Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Nebraska Posts: 1,708	I'm of the opinion that "everlasting" means lasting for ever. Which means that we're left with two options: 1) God changes his mind (which he says he doesn't) -or- 2) Although he can see the future, he had Moses write down words that he knew were untrue Either way it's senseless.

05-28-2004, 03:56 PM	#13
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Please do not drive this thread to ~Elsewhere~ since I think there are some legitimate issues here. Dr. Gene Scott is a TV evangelist with a, uh, unique ability to raise money. More info here. He is not a recognized authority, his doctorate is not in NT studies or anything remotely connected to it. Please stay on topic. The issue is how to interpret "filfillment" in the context of Matt 5:17. Do you (or Dr. Scott) have any indication that "fulfillment" meant the end of the law? Are the 613 commands of the Jewish law that hard to keep, compared to Jesus' commands to sell all that you own and give it to the poor, or to never even lust after another woman in your heart? I think that orthodox Jews worked out ways to live by their law, but Christians claim that all are sinners and need forgiveness by Jesus, which would indicate that it is Jesus' law that is impossible, not the Torah.

05-28-2004, 04:01 PM	#15
gregor Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Texas Posts: 932	I can't read Matthew as anything other than an anti-Paulian propoganda piece arguing that the true followers of Jesus still must accept all of the Levitical laws.

05-29-2004, 02:38 PM	#18
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	WILLOW: complaints about moderation should be taken to the bugs forum. You posted a theological interpretation of the passage. You did not comment on the linguistic or textual matter at hand. This forum is not for theology. Feel free to start a thread on Dr. Scott in the appropriate forum - I suggest General Religious Discussions. Toto moderator

05-30-2004, 10:10 AM	#19
dado Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Vancouver, Canada Posts: 839	Toto - nice link! there is a great deal of speculation that Matthew - or at least the core that has since been redacted into the current Matthew - was originally written in Hebrew. i can think of about as many reasons why this might be true as why it might not be - but if it is true, what a find that scroll would be...

05-30-2004, 12:43 PM	#20
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	I cannot judge the validity of the information in that link, which has a point of view - trying to show a connection between Jesus and rabbinic thinking. It does seem to make sense of what would otherwise be rather cryptic.

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