Christians and The Old Testament

[arturis]

I don't know a lot about the Bible and I don't care about it in itself, but I do care about how it and the attendant 2000+ years of scholarship on it affect the behavior of the monkeys I need to share space with

Comments

[tarq]

I feel like we've had this discussion before

[arturis]

Regarding the overarching issues you bring up, I don't have any agenda against Christianity as a whole, if I ever did. While I find the teachings of the Bible repugnant, I recognize there are Christians I'm okay with. A lot of them, actually

[tarq]

It's always been my understanding that the New Testament was a huge ammendment to the Old Testament, per Jesus' teachings. So I guess one place to start is to find out exactly what Jesus taught and said that released Christians from their old testament laws. We also know that no denomination follows the bible correctly, it's up to the individual. There's also the philosophy that when you enter a relationship with God, you find what God has for you specifically, making the entire Christian thing subjective (which is probably pretty frustrating from the outside).

I don't believe you would ever have ill intentions, you're not a jerk. But I do see the debater In you wanting all the facts, when centuries of people have debated this same problem, I just don't see an east or satisfying answer revealing itself. I don't want you to get frustrated by it.

I can't believe I typed all this from my stupid phone.

[arturis]

The subjectivity of it certainly was frustrating at one point, but I don't mind it now. In fact, knowing there is no single authority to which all Christians defer is nice. They aren't a monolith, just a bunch of people trying to find the truth.

WELS Lutherans

[attickah]

The church I was raised in kept the 10 Commandments because Jesus quoted several of them in his sermons of Things People Should Do in the New Testament--along with that whole "love your neighbor as yourself" and "render unto Caesar was is Caesar's and unto God what is God's" thing. Effectively, anything he said was good to do became the 'new law' which we are to obey.

The rest of that Old Testament law stuff (kosher food, no being in the same house as a woman who is having her period because she's "unclean", whether or not it's ok to pull hair out of a mole which is dependent upon both the color of the hair and of the mole, the appropriate animal to sacrifice for accidentally killing a pregnant slave woman, etc.) was all considered to have been fulfilled for us when Christ came down, lived a perfect life, and died an innocent death, went to hell for 3 days in our place, and then rose again. Therefore those books, chapters, and verses all became one great big moot point as soon as Jesus rose from the dead so we can ignore them

Re: WELS Lutherans

[arturis]

So, Jesus quoted some of the ten commandments but not all? Why keep them all and not just the ones he quoted? And I assume your church is fine with homosexuals then, since he never said anything about hating them?

Re: WELS Lutherans

[tarq]

My Lutheran church was always pretty cool about homosexuality. Rather, it never ever seemed to come up.

Come to think of it, my church never really talked about how I should feel or think about much of anything. The sermons were mostly about parables of life and how to handle the rough stuff. Not so much about acceptance or rejection of ideas.

Re: WELS Lutherans

[attickah]

If memory serves, Jesus quoted or summarized about half of the 10, but not all for-sure. The fact that he considered any of them important enough to repeat them is the justification behind why we keep all of those; the rest of the laws were not given at the same time as those, so they're "as important".

As for the church's official position on women and homosexuals, the Apostle Paul effectively said women were one step above the gum you (specifically the male you) scrape off the bottom of your shoe--not that I find this a sticking point which is why I'd rather talk about it than answer your direct question. Paul was also not a big fan of the gays (he calls man-on-man relations 'shameful' and woman-on-woman 'unnatural' in Romans 1:26-28 and that gist may also be in couple of other places in the New Testament--I don't remember that for sure). And clearly, since Paul was one of Jesus' chosen people to spread the message, his word was inspired so it's entirely correct

[arturis]

My understanding of kosher laws is that, while they might help people be healthy in some circumstances, they talk about things being ritually clean or dirty (or abominations) and that's completely distinct from discussions of health or the like. Clean or unclean is a spiritual idea, not a biological idea. Keeping kosher is part of the covenant between God and man, as are a lot of the rules in Leviticus, as are the ten commandments. So if Jesus set that all aside as resolved for his followers, then the commandments are irrelevant, as is Leviticus' discussion of homosexuality as an abomination, no?

[radiks]

Here is the passage from Matthew 15

[arturis]

Throughout John 15, Jesus states that you have to follow the rules that God had given Moses, but remember, God only put 10 of those rules on stone, the rest of them, I believe, were guidelines meant for healthy living and not "law".

I'm fairly sure all the other rules in the Old Testament are still rules God gave Moses. Just because they weren't carved on stone tablets doesn't mean they don't count. I mean, most Jews who refuse to turn on lights on the Sabbath aren't doing it because it was generally a healthy idea. I don't have the knowledge to debate that claim specifically, but it seems like a pretty weak distinction.

[jesseb]

you might consider reading the bible, if you haven't. I haven't read all of it, but what I have read has been pretty interesting. As you're saying, what's really important is the interpretations that have come about since the bible was written, but the book itself is the starting point. I think it is helpful in understanding these things to see where these different quotations are coming from in context.

[arturis]

The problem is I find most of the bible repugnant, like bad outdated marketing and a five-year-old's narrative. "And then this happened, and then this happened, so says our god who is great because he is the lord of everything and all who worship him are awesome, amen. For god is great who dwells in heaven and all who worship him will live forever and ever with him in the kingdom of heaven where everything is good."