CJD

My point wasn't that these are new; my point was that, so Jesus and Paul, these two great commands sum up all of Torah and the Neve'im. Doing them is tantamount to doing the latter. The same was understood by those devout Israelites before the first century, which leaves us with Torah serving a darker purpose than most would have guessed (to magnify the Adam problem).

If and only if it is ripped from its Passover context.

To begin with, the notion that Jesus broke the Sabbath is more a result of bad reading than anything else. In the pertinent passages, Jesus was claiming the divine prerogative to uphold life any day of the week (including the Sabbath): "Which one of you would not go after his lost sheep and pull him from the ditch on the Sabbath?" (thereby breaking both oral rules not to walk too far and not to work too hard).

No, no, no. This is my point (and Paul's) entirely: Gentiles aren't "breaking" Torah, for Torah was never given to them in the first place — they have nothing to break. As far as Jews (and Gentiles, for that matter) were concerned, Paul would say: "Freedom of conscience." His point being, of course, is that now the conscience (in union with the Christ) will fulfill Torah by fulfilling the two greatest commandments (otherwise known as "the law of Christ").

One would have to go case by case. Homosexuality, again, is a creation issue (so Paul). Abortion is more of a neglect of obligation or duty to nurture life. Only barbarians ignore such duty. This, I would guess, would also be a creation issue. In other words (and I wrote this already in the previous post), these things are not inextricably bound to Torah; they have nothing to do with ancient Jewish custom; rather, they have to do with the very notion of being made in the image of God.


CJD

CJD

That's all good and well for the ignorant modern non-thinking Christian, but this is not at all how it was approached by the ancients, especially since the first-century (and beyond) folks didn't have an "NT" to juxtapose with the "OT."

CJD

cass256

I think that Torah WAS given to gentiles, if they wanted to partake of the Passover or be part of israel. Christians claim jesus was the Passover, and Paul that they are grafted in as israel, but do not follow the laws for those who wanted to partake of the Passover.

You have to be circumcised, first of all. Then, if you partake of the passover there will be one law for Israel, and the same law for the "stranger" or gentile that is with Israel.. so, then it would seem the law against blood would be part of the law that would have to be kept as well.

Peter's vision of food was not about eating laws( if Luke didn't create the story as he did so much else). Peter's realization was that it meant gentiles could recieve the same spirit. Now, I personally wouldn't rely on the person Jesus called Satan, and who denied knowing him, even after he recieved the spirit as shown in Matthew. Luke disagrees with matthew on too many points to be believed, IMO. Not that I believe any, necessarily. I'm just looking at evidence. 8) There is Evidence that the leader of the church after Jesus left was Jacob (James) and he was law abiding, and it suggests expected gentiles to be law abiding as well. Unfortunatly we do not have the real story of the controversy, from a reliable source. Constantine did not seem to want much evidence from the real leaders of the "church", or we would be able to see "James" side of the argument in Acts, that seems to have led to everyone abandoning Paul.

All just my opinion, of course.

Zeichman

http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?...ontext=context

I'm not sure why this conversation is taking place. This is more or less the mainline view of the Law.

Rather, it appears that James did not deal with gentiles at all, that is, assuming the Pillars constituted a relatively unified church. (Galatians 2:7-9)

Black Feather

I just find it odd that God wants one people to follow one thing (the OT followed by the Jews), and something else entirely by everyone else. God changed her mind?

lpetrich

(Loving your neighbor...)

That's in Leviticus 19:18
I've never seen even the tiniest bit of evidence for that, and assertion doesn't count.

And I wonder why "Love your neighbor as yourself" or the Golden Rule are not in the Ten Commandments, despite the allegedly supreme importance of these teachings.
One is not supposed to work on the Sabbath, and that's that.
So one is supposed to be a breeder, no matter what?
What life? Do we have a duty to nurture the lives of pathogenic microbes?
God looks exactly like us -- what a fun conceit.

CJD

Ipetrich, your post reveals more about yourself than you might've anticipated.

That's because you probably haven't looked for it. Suffice to say a thread can be followed throughout the TNK, one which does accentuate the primacy of loving YHWH and one's neighbor.

If you understood even the basics of Torah and its relationship to the Mosaic covenant, you'd know that the so-called "Ten Commandments" cannot be excised from Torah (indeed, they cannot even be made distinct).

Sorry, this too shows that you have no idea what the text in question is saying. You don't strike me as the type worth spending time showing you how to read it, either.

A penis (often neatly) fits into a vagina not just because it feels good (which it does, at least from my end; THIS IS NOT A REFERENCE TO SIZE!!! ), but because it just so happens to be the 'natural' way babies are made. Whether or not one chooses to procreate is another matter entirely. If sex were an end in itself, why would need to employ vaseline? (Just joking, sort of.)

You have the duty to not act like a barbarian by treating the process of life in so flippant a fashion (and we think we're the 'enlightened' ones. ).

Imago Dei has nothing to do with looking 'exactly' like god. Unless you were just joking, you're a bit under-equipped to continue posting with such an antagonistic tone. Good day.

CJD

CJD

Because, Zeichman, while some skeptics are genuinely interested in how a thinking Christian deals with such tensions, others would rather continue babbling on so as to keep their view of the world in balance. These are the kind of folks who think they've rejected Christianity, when all they've really rejected is the modern, anti-intellectualistic, relgious-right stuff that goes on by the same name.

gregor

. . . or we're interested to see how people cherry-pick those portions of the bible they want to follow and then bash others under either ad hominum arguments, "no true xian" arguments, or appeal to "self-authority" arguments.

CJD

I, for one, would only accept the label if it came from someone who knows more about the pertinent texts than I do. This is only fair, after all.

"Ignorant" (which we all are to some degree) does not mean the same thing as "questionable character." No ad homs here.

I think we can all agree that today's baptized, American Christianity bears little resemblance to Christianity even two hundred and fifty years ago, much less 1,500 years ago (and Christians living 300 years ago had more in common with those Christians who lived 1500 years ago than they do with those of us living today).

Huh? One either shows they've grappled with the text in question and have come up with a reasonable understanding, that they've grappled with the text and have not come up with a reasonable understanding, or that they have no idea what they're speaking of. Authority can never be a claim made in isolation. A number of societal factors go into calling one "an authority." Knowing this, we ought to be mindful of who the 'experts' are, and thus be respectful accordingly.

CJD