Soul Invictus

I'll try to articulate my sentiments here in a separate thread; hopefully it will get some play.

I was wondering if anyone knew of any sources or cared to discuss the influence of ancient cultures or civilizations on newer ones. My initial focus is the dynamics surrounding the fusion that took place with original Semitic beliefs (Judaism) with newer European beliefs (Christianity)

1) To what effect did early Christian practitioners embrace the OT beliefs,or were they evasive in accepting those laws?

2) Is Judaism comprised of non OT (Tanakh) informationor is it primarily practiced within the confines of the OT?

Peter Kirby

Evasive is the wrong word for those who thought the Mosaic covenant had expired and that God had founded a new agreement with His people built on better promises. There was a big to-do about this in the early church, read all about it in Acts 15. Regardless of whether important OT laws were abandoned which were unacceptable to Gentiles, and whether the church ultimately became anti-Jewish, the New Testament would have been impossible without the themes and theology and ethics of the Old Testament.

Jews from about the time of Ben Sira are constantly referring to the Torah and Prophets and Writings (in descending order) for their theology and ethics and history--but there also developed a body of oral tradition, claiming to stem from Moses just like the written Law, which interprets and expands on the pages of scripture. This eventually became the Talmud after being handed on from rabbi to rabbi. The closest analogies are the ahadith, the chains of tradition about what Muhammad said about this or that, or the church fathers, that body of fallible authorities who were used for doctrines not explicit in the NT and in clarifying NT interpretation.

best,
Peter Kirby

Soul Invictus

A long while back I tried to generate a thread for the basis of God creating a more perfect (no pun intended) covenant with his people.

1) What was the basis for this assumption? Why would the old covenant have expired?
2) What did the old covenant consist of?
3) What did this new covenant provide in reference to the deficiency of the original one?

Soul Invictus

These are inclinations that I was wondering if were the case. Has your studies found that these assumptions were valid for the times? If so how and why for both?

Peter Kirby

Take these answers as guesses as to early Christian theology. They may not be acceptable to the modern man.

The Christian message appealed to Gentiles and semi-Jews from early on. But they didn't want to get circumcised and economically needed to eat food sacrificed to idols, which was cheaper than kosher. So there was a discrepancy between practice and ideal, but the ideal was no longer as important when the group less and less thought of itself as people of Israel and more as though they had been called by God to a new relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. Moreover, the Christian idea of the afterlife, and salvation by faith in a God-man, was entirely foreign to the Old Testament. The old covenant was made with the people of Israel such that God would preserve them if they kept his statutes. The new belief was that God would preserve his people from damnation--a more individualistic than nationalistic concept, though still a people of God--if they were followers of Jesus. This was the new covenant which replaced the fading old one in the primitive church.

See above.

best,
Peter Kirby

Peter Kirby

What assumptions? Valid how?

best,
Peter Kirby

Soul Invictus

I was asking to expound on the ideas that I had quoted, that regardless of whether important OT laws were abandoned which were unacceptable to Gentiles ,and whether the
church ultimately became anti-Jewish

Regards,

Invictus

Peter Kirby

How would this be "valid" or "invalid"? Obviously the rabbis would find this invalid. Many Romans, like Tacitus, found the laws stupid and despised Jews.

best,
Peter Kirby

Soul Invictus

Maybe I'm using the wrong word here. When you stated those situations, I was wanting to know if you were stating them because they occured or that it was your opinion that this was how things happened.

Maybe I should reword it as "were these situations true for the times?"

Peter Kirby

Could Jews fall away from basic Jewish doctrines, in acquiescence to the larger culture? Yes. One is reminded of those Jews who went in for a surgical procedure for hiding the marks of circumcision so that they could frequent the gymnasium.

best,
Peter Kirby