Christianity and the Old Testament

Rhetorical question. Jesus asked his disciples "Who do you say I am"? The Messiah is God in the flesh.

 

That's a forced interpretation. The context of the passage clearly shows that Jesus negated divinity for himself.

The rich man who initially referred to Jesus as "good teacher", then dropped the word Agathon "intrinsically good" because he understood the meaning of Jesus's statement "Why are you calling me good? Only God is good"

&#8220;Teacher,&#8221; he declared, &#8220;all these I have kept since I was a boy.&#8221; (Mark 10:20) <<Rich man doesn't say "Good teacher" after Jesus told him not to, only says "teacher"

Jesus looked at him and loved him (Mark 10:21) <<Jesus approved of how the rich man understood his statement in verse 18 contrary to how Maxwell and other fundamentalist Christians claim it is only a rhetorical statement

 

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and was God. John 1:1. Move down a few verses to 14 and John says the Word became flesh.

 

Who cares what "John" says

 

Christians.

 

An excellent response

I have only recently become interested in a more detailed look at the OT
particularly from an academic perspective
And, I gotta say, it is a whole lot more complicated than the view from a purely
Religious (primarily Christian) perspective

 

I agree with you to some extent. Your idea of them being linked is dependent on your reading of the Gospels. I entirely agree that Jesus was a Jewish Teacher - I believe the term 'Rabbi' in Hebrew terms came a little later. His preaching and actions, even his reported temptation and baptism are in line with Judaism. Personally I believe if you include the period of the Maccabean/Hasmonean kingdom, the Tanakh is complete in itself. It has to be read as a whole, as you say, though Christianity has taken verses out of context and meaning to establish its beliefs. I see nothing in the Tanakh that actually points to a Christian style Messiah. The Tanakh does not need the NT, but the NT needs the Tanakh. So many of the words put into the mouth of Jesus by the Gospel writers have no validity in the Tanakh. Jesus is made to say that he is The Son of God while the Shema prayer - Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.

I agree with your way of reading of the Tanakh. People often do not realise the Hebrew way of poetry and 'storytelling' to illustrate their points. Jesus used these in parable taken from the Tanakh. The Shepherd, etc.

The historical background is interesting and knowing it often helps to distinguish truth from fiction.

Enjoyed your post. I was a Christian - until I studied the REAL Bible, not the one I was taught. I'm also agnostic.

 

I would suggest studying the background, cultures and history on which it is written. It helps no end. Just knowing that the population of Palestine in the days of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel was probably around 1m, and then to read that Judah 500,000 soldiers faced Israel with 800,000 soldier raises the question where did they all come from? Particularly when even the mighty Assyrian and Babylonian empires could not raise a fraction of that number. And the mythical story of the Exodus where 2.5m+ Hebrews are supposed to have exited Egypt - with an estimated population of 5m - and no mention is made anywhere in Egyptian history?

The background puts things into perspective.

Good Luck. It's really interesting , Oh, and time consuming. You're lucky to have the internet. When I started it was with books - before the internet.

 

You might like this book for an example of OT exegesis. As a disclosure of my bias, I'm a fan of William Safire's writings, especially on language, though his politics are on 'the other side' of mine, so your opinions may vary. I like this book a lot.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/414311.The_First_Dissident

Job is an interesting 'book' to analyze for a number of reasons.

 

Thank you. And I also think the Maccabean/Hasmonean eras are by far the most interesting as well, and the rise of the Pharisees as a power even more so.

It doesn't matter to me whether or not Jesus was literally a real person or not; the 'reformist' nature of his teachings are the important points, as is the movement to a 'catholic' expansion of the theology and philosophy to 'gentile' peoples and cultures. It's one of the most important and influential paradigm shifts, certainly for the western cultures if not as dramatic for eastern ones, and is therefore a worthy area of study for that alone. Considering the state of 'paganism' and its relatively reprehensible cultural influences before, and after for that matter, Christianity rose and partially supplanted it, we should all be grateful it came along when it did.

We'll have to disagree on what is taken 'out of context' and the like, as that would take more time than I have to go over, and several books in itself, already is. I don't consider it's rise to be accidental, and the rise of other schools, like Hillel's and Gamaliel's to name two, there were others, points to a building disruption against the social and intellectual stagnation caused by the orthodoxy and corruption of the priest castes that was going to happen whether or not the destruction of the Temple by the Romans came along, that merely sped up the various changes.

I can't say whether or not the term 'Rabbi' was in use or not; the priest castes were not necessarily also teachers, many has their status by being born into it, genealogy was a major concern for Jews, and many posts were inherited. I would think the term meant 'teacher' all along and would have been used, but I'm just guessing here.

 

Jesus lived two thousand years ago. That's a long time. Stuff happens. The world turns. The Judaism of today is very different from the Judaism of Jesus's time... and even more different from the Judaism of Abraham. Maimonedes!

"Christianity" as it was codified by the Roman Empire -- think about that phrase for at least ten minutes -- contains quite a few items that never appear in any of Christ's own teachings. They were added after His death. And these are not minor details. Christ never mentioned the Trinity, but it has become an essential tenet of "Christianity". The ceremonies recalling His death, like Communion, were obviously invented after His death. He broke bread with His disciples, but He was not at all precise about the "realism" or "symbolism" of that act.

The Bible was "codified" many decades after Christ's death... and it seems very likely that there some "wicked" debates about what to include or exclude.

The Catholic Church makes no pretense: the Church's teachings carry as much weight as the Bible. Most Protestant churches do not say the same thing overtly, but they behave exactly the same.

It would not be an error to call the religion that exists today "Paulism", because St Paul added as much as, or more than, Christ did.


So... to go back to the original question, "Is Christianity dependent upon it roots in the Old Testament?"... I think the answer is "Yes, but only a little." It is useful to know the OT in order to understand the events of the NT. But Jesus's message is radically different from that of the OT.

The OT was a great novelty in the world: a religion of law. Before the God of Abraham, the universe was run by a myriad of gods and spirits and sprites, each acting randomly. The universe was orderly only in the measure that the "god of the seasons" was happy, and therefore followed the usual schedule... and so on for all natural phenomena. Abraham declared that everything was the will of one single God, who made a compact with His people. They would worship only Him, and He would take care of them. A deal!

Gradually, "worship of God" was codified, including respect for God's Laws, and ultimately, the Ten Commandments. But fundamentally, this was still a deal: "You people follow my rules and I'll make the world good for you; you break my rules and I'll punish you!"

It's important to understand this, in order to see just how radical Jesus's message was: "Love one another!" One Commandment only, without punishment, and with itself for reward.

It should also be clear that knowing the OT is totally unnecessary for following Jesus. "Love one another" is all you need.

 

Beginning with the fall of the Temple in A.D. 70, the practice of Judaism did indeed change; that's no secret. The competition of Christianity played a big role as well; before that competition came along, few Jews were able to study Judaism, as it was an orally transmitted body, and in a language not Many Jews even spoke, so yes, you're stating the obvious here; Jewish rabbis began writing and disseminating written texts in response, in an attempt to stem the flow of converts and maintain their own teachings, for instance, instead of relying on being some sort of 'elite' with special authority to rule over the Jewish peoples and culture, 'Adapt and change or die', basically; existential realities are a (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) for those who refuse to recognize them ... it's practice evolved into a much more egalitarian trend in education.

Like what?

No reason to think that just because they failed to throw in the kitchen sink with thousands of pages of exegesis and deconstruction that later scholars are always wrong when they examine some aspect of the books later on. Jesus isn't noted as saying anything about abortion or drunk driving, either.

Well, that's to be expected, and in case the 'orthodoxy' generally prevailed, as it was well established long before Constantine came along, and 'Rome' had little to do with it; it wasn't but just another church at that time, and didn't have the authority to dictate anything to the others, despite all the conspiracy theories and rubbish thrown around these days. Even much of the criticisms of Da Evul Catlicks' are complete rubbish, and comes from old, self-serving anti-Catholic propaganda from the Reformation and 'Enlightenment' days, not facts; the 'Enlightenment' wasn't really all that 'enlightening', really, in any case, and the scholars of the Catholic Church weren't robots in agreement on everything, any more than Protestants are ever in agreement on many aspects.

How so?

Read all the 'Paulism wuz Evul' stuff; it's mostly conspiracy nonsense as well, and also a big fave of the antisemite propagandists, assorted cranks, and their weird inventions of their 'New Improved Gentile Aryan Jesus' and the Bauer school of 'Gnostiks R Us' and their rather juvenile attempts at inventing their 'New Improved Hippie Jesus' and the like. The orthodox books and beliefs prevailed from the very beginning, and that's why they were chosen as the core texts and theology, and those who are unhappy with that will just have to suffer, or convert to The Church Of The Sub-Genius' or Scientology or whatever, doesn't matter to me what they do. Whatever some Catholics did later is irrelevant; many extant texts were not included because they were thought to be false, they were just redundant, didn't do as good a job at exposition, or were just passion literature, and of course many were rejected because they were false, or outright forgeries, in the case of the Arian and other 'Gnostic' fraudsters.

How so?

Okay ... whatever ... Are we going to write up a script for a short cartoon or something here?

I would say there is more to it than that, but okay ...

...

Yes, it works great at many levels, from the most basic to the most intellectual; that's why one shouldn't conflate 'literalism' with 'fundamentalism'. I'm happy that you found the levels which work for you. It's deliberately designed to do just that, after all.

Shotgunned a lot of issues into that post.

 

Jesus' message was just recycled stuff and hardly original. The big thing is that he made himself the center of attention. One thing is for sure and that is that he didn't love everyone. He told his disciples to stay away from Samaritans and Gentiles. He never preached to the Gentiles. He spoke in parables so that outsiders wouldn't understand his message. He called Gentiles dogs and swine. He said that he had been sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

His message about loving your neighbor was lifted from Leviticus 19:18 (NLT) = &#8220;Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord."

 

Since Jesus said nothing about these subjects, anyone who pretends that they know His opinion is either crazy, or in conversation with God, or (as John put it so neatly) a "liar". Which doesn't prevent a zillion preachers from telling us what Jesus wants us to believe.

That's what I meant by putting church doctrine at the same level as the Bible.

 

lol ... as usual the Dawkins cult trolls appear and post spam. Run out of rooms you can crash and fling poo on the walls in, have you?

 

The Golden Rule has been expressed in many ways over the ages. Do you suppose that makes it less valid?

 

Yes, I get that you prefer your own re-inventions and imaginings. Many do.

 

I do have opinions... but I express them as mine. I don't pretend to know God's thoughts on, for example, abortion.

 

So, you think the lack of commentary on abortion by Jesus means it must be fine with him and Christians? How about bestiality?

 

Wow! I just said, "I do have opinions... but I express them as mine. I don't pretend to know God's thoughts on, for example, abortion."

Did you read that? What part of "I don't pretend to know God's thoughts" is unclear?

 

The Golden Rule doesn't apply to everyone.

Sirach 12:7 (CEB) = &#8220;Give to good people, and don&#8217;t assist sinners."

 

Obscure clobbertexts really, really, really do not interest me.

 

The Jewish Babylonian Talmud says that a woman who commits bestiality can marry a priest.


Yebamoth 59b = "R. Shimi b. Hiyya stated: A woman who had intercourse with a beast is eligible to marry a priest.17 Likewise it was taught: A woman who had intercourse with that which is no human being,18 though she is in consequence subject to the penalty of stoning,19 is nevertheless permitted to marry a priest.20 When R. Dimi came21 he related: It once happened at Haitalu22 that while a young woman was sweeping the floor23 a village dog24 covered her from the rear,25 and Rabbi permitted her to marry a priest. Samuel said: Even a High Priest. But was there a High Priest in the days of Rabbi?26 &#8212; Rather, [Samuel meant]: Fit for a High Priest."

Footnotes 17-26 =

(17) "Even a High Priest. The result of such intercourse being regarded as a mere wound, and the opinion that does not regard an accidentally injured hymen as a disqualification does not so regard such an intercourse either.
(1 A beast.
(19) If the offence was committed in the presence of witnesses after due warning.
(20) In the absence of witnesses and warning.
(21) From Palestine to Babylon.
(22) [Babylonian form for Aitalu, modern Aiterun N.W. of Kadesh, v, S. Klein, Beitrage p. 47].
(23) Lit., 'house'.
(24) Or 'big hunting dog' (Rashi), 'ferocious dog' (Jast.), 'small wild dog' (Aruk).
(25) A case of unnatural intercourse."
(26) Judah ha-nasi (the Prince or Patriarch) I, who flourished 170-217 C.E., above a hundred years after the destruction of the second Temple.
http://halakhah.com/yebamoth/yebamoth_59.html

When reading the Talmud the numbers in the verbiage are footnotes and do not indicate verses. You have to refer to the footnotes when reading the verbiage for a proper understanding of what's being discussed.

BTW, the Talmud also says that Adam and Jesus committed bestiality. It also says that Gentiles prefer sex with cows.

 

That passage is directly out of the Bible. It's repeated a couple of times. Even Jesus and Paul restated it in some of their rants. It actually has its roots in the First Commandment in Exodus chapter 34:12.

 

Ah, you're moving on to lie and babble bull(*)(*)(*)(*) about the Talmud and what it says now? This must impress the halfwits at Stormfront no end.