Vorkosigan

Re Mark 7:19 (Thus he declared all foods clean). That is most reasonably explained as a later interpolation/construction. Had Jesus actually done so in his own time with such powerful words, food laws and table fellowship with gentiles would not have been such a contentious issue in early Christianity, and there would have been no need for Luke to create the scene in Acts where Peter has a revelation that the food laws don't apply anymore. In certain later manuscripts of Mark "thus he declared" is changed to "digestion" so that it is digestion that makes food clean, which makes sense in light of 7:19a, where food is held to go to the stomach, not the heart.

The scene in Mark 7 as Mark sets it up is manifestly unhistorical, for the bread that the disciples are eating, which provokes the authorities so, is the magic bread from the previous pericope, created by Jesus in a feeding miracle. This connection is often lost or eliminated in English translations. So the whole discussion is a creation by the author to comment on the issue.

Hope this helps.

Vorkosigan

Rick Sumner

Just to clarify a little, as depending on what you read, further research may simply compound existing misconceptions, it might be helpful to draw an analogy. But first a (very) little background.

Conceptions of first century Judaism are perpetually colored by Paul, and Paul's (frequently misconstrued--though that's no heinous error, Paul lends himself easily to misconstruction) take on the Law. Yet what is perpetually overlooked is context. Even taking the misconstructions (such as that above, that Paul thought one could remain justified entirely without works), we are still left the context of Paul's mission to the Gentiles. Paul cannot give an accurate picture of Judaism while proselytizing to Gentiles.

For our analogy, let us pretend for a moment that I heroized you. In this situation, let us pretend that I had the good fortune to meet my hero, who then requested that I preform several tasks for them. Not only would I do so, I would do so happily. Despite the fact that it required me to go out of my way, I would aspire to preform these tasks well--to exceed expectations.

That is what we're looking at with Rabbinics. Despite their seeming legalism based on fear of the consequences, they are in fact anything but. Preforming the Law was a privillege, not an obligation, and quibbling over details was not borne of fear of the consequences, it was borne of a desire to preform the Law in the best possible manner.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Gawen

Amazing. Everyone who posted after my last post made some interesting comments.
Atheos: Tells us how the Law is viewed as the bible is written.
CJD: Tells us that certain parts may have been omitted/changed and possible interpretations. And that Jesus followed the Law. When He was killed, the Law was fulfilled (done away with) for everyone by having faith that Jesus did so.
Toto: Seems to agree with CJD.
moorezw: Seems to think the Law is never-ending.
Rick: Seems to think that faith and Law is the way to go.
Vork: Gives me another tack I didn't think of. What verses were redactions, translation issues and such.

I have a lot of reading to do. I wonder if there's even a consensus on the issue between scholars.

Thanks everyone.

Rick Sumner

I think there's too much effort being made to reconcile Matthew's apparently contradictory statements. He simply didn't attempt to reconcile the two sentiments.

For an easy example, I could doubtlessly go back through the archives and, for any poster with 500 or more substantiative posts (myself emphatically included), easily find two that express mutually exclusive sentiments. The poster simply never needed to juxtapose the two--both were perceived as true at different times (I can think of several examples where this occurs by the same poster in the same thread, much less simply by the same poster).

Thus, getting back to Biblical stuffs, we find Paul who is "blameless" (Phi.3.6), despite the impossibilty of such a thing (Rom.5.12) (one of the Rabbis made an identical mistake, I'll see if I can track down the reference), and we find Matthew, who is going to change the Law, despite the fact that not a jot is to be changed. It's the type of mistake that's consistent throughout Biblical texts, we just seem to have a hard time getting our heads around how people can genuinely believe two mutually exclusive sentiments--we envision that authors as somehow being meticulously consistent, with everything being reconcilable with everything else. Things didn't work that way. They still don't.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Magdlyn

Nothing intersting about it. These are the Noachide laws. Laws "given" to Noah by YHWH centuries before YHWH "gave" the 10ish commandments to Moshe, as well as the hundreds of Levitical laws. Jews believe these Noachide laws apply to all non-Jews to this day.

And this is "putting a fence around Torah" practiced by Pharisees (and by Jesus) at the time. Going overboard for YHWH, just to make absolutely sure you don't risk breaking the laws. Pharisees, I understand, tried to keep themselves in a state of ritual purity all the time, something only required for the priesthood (and no one else) on high holy days.

Not Christians, Gentiles (Greek god-fearers).

My comments, as well as I understand the issues.

CX

I suspect the answer is not so straightforward. Because the gospel accounts and the pauline and catholic epistles are a product of theological development over a period of time and since none probably reflect exactly the views etc. of an HJ (if such an animal exists) there are multiple points of view within the texts. I think one could probably argue either way and back it up with scriptural quote mining.

Atheos

Again, I no longer buy into any of the BS otherwise known as the Bible, but my understanding of this was as follows:

The OT law was in its most basic sense a means by which God and mankind could theoretically be reconciled. Ostensibly the communion between God and mankind had been severed in the Garden of Eden with the original sin, i.e., eating the forbidden fruit. This sin, as well as each sin committed by each individual who had lived since that time, separated the individual from God. Theologically this view explains God's promise that "in the day that ye eat thereof ye shall surely die". "Death" in this context referred to separation from God (spiritual death) instead of physical death. This is the only way I've ever heard of that you could reconcile the promise (threat) made by God with the claim that Adam and Eve both lived for hundreds of years after eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So things kind of languish for several hundred (or thousand) years while mankind gets increasingly more wicked. God smites the world in a great flood in an attempt to remove the wickedness of man from the earth but of course all that does is to choke things back down to one single family from which it all started over. Later, God finds favor for his own unknown reasons with a cat named Abraham and next thing you know we have circumcision and a covenant between the descendents of Abraham and God. Roughly four hundred more years go by and the descendents of Jacob now number nearly 2 million, give or take a woman and child or two.

At this point God sets up his "Mosaic Law". It was a system of sacrifices, worship prescriptions, commandments, ritual cleansings and moral codes ostensibly designed to do the following:

• Provide for general health and hygiene
• Provide a sort of criminal code. Note that the punishment for most crimes was death.
• Let people know what kind of behavior God expected from them.
• Cleanse mankind so that he could once again approach God.

The prescription for cleansing mankind involved the offering of blood sacrifices to God for sins as well as ceremonial and ritual purifications. And each year there was a "Day of atonement" where the high priest would enter the most holy place in the temple and sprinkle lamb's blood on the ark of the covenant. This would be the "rememberance made each year" of the sins. But as the writer of Hebrews pointed out, "It was impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin."

So essentially, what the High Priest was doing each year was "rolling the sins forward" for another year. Think of the sins of everyone as a snowball. He'd roll all the snow from this year into a ball and place it into next year. The ball would get bigger each year, but the sin was still there.

Along comes Jesus to "fulfill" that. His perfect human sacrifice did what the "blood of bulls and goats" could not do -- take away sin. This was for many years my understanding of how Jesus had come to fulfill the law.

Please bear in mind I'm not saying I was right. There are many differing opinions on this subject, accounting for many of the disagreements between various denominations all claiming to follow Jesus today. This is just one of them.

-Atheos

CJD

Atheos, there is no doubt your assessment (or rather, your recollection of what you were taught when you bought into the "BS otherwise known as the Bible") is taught in many circles; however, there are a few significant problems with it, which I will discuss in brief:

Not at all. The Mosaic law, if followed, rewarded long life and prosperity in the land. It did not offer 'salvation' in a metaphysical sense. Nowhere in the OT texts is it suggested that YHWH gives the Law in order to challenge people to 'earn' reconciliation. Consider what Sumner (reiterating Sanders, no doubt) brought up in an earlier post: Paul was 'blameless' insofar as his keeping the Law was concerned. All this meant that as a zealot he was doing his part in keeping covenantally faithful so that when YHWH came, he would find a faithful nation and thus that nation would reap the covenantal blessings (namely, long life and prosperity in the land and that all the nations would submit to the rule of YHWH). But when Paul found that Messiah had come (and in a way entirely unexpected), he found that the righteousness that was rightfully his as a result of his law-keeping was rubbish compared to the righteousness affected by the Spirit for those found 'in' the Christ. The new had begun, the old was passing away . . .

Again, this is wrong. Replace it with something like: "Draw all the nations to Israel and thus to YHWH, thereby ushering in the kingdom of God." YHWH did not give the Law to dare people to try to be perfect enough so that they might approach him.

Now, this "fulfill" bit: Systematic theology does indeed attempt to reconcile those things to which Sumner alluded. It serves its purpose. The problem is, however, the ancient texts are far more messy than systematicians admit. All that should be stated firmly on the subject is that according to the NT texts (yes, I think they all largely agree in this matter), Jesus filled up ("fulfilled") the purpose, which simply showed after the fact (i.e., after he was gone) that people could be a part of God's covenant by faith alone (not by works of Torah). Consider Peter's experience in Acts with the Roman commander as an example of how a concerned Torah-observing Israelite came to terms with this new covenant fact.

Atheos

I thought I'd throw one more tidbit into this conversation, which I just remembered a few minutes ago. Hebrews 10 is essentially the main portion of the New Testament which (to me) presented an argument that the "Law" was fulfilled by Christ and that christians were under a new covenant, no longer amenable to the OT law. Pretty much the entire chapter encapsulates this idea, but Heb 10:28-29 stand out in particular:

HTH

-Atheos