Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Agreed. Even without your historical background it's obvious he's objecting to the Pharisees as upholding the letter of the law but not the spirit ... not to the law itself. This diatribe of Jesus is often used by fundamentalists as an indictment of legalism over grace, of dead religion and empty observance over a living faith. If there actually WERE a living faith, that would even be a valid point of view IMO.
You guys keep talking about the spirit of the law. Moses had a man stoned to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath. Moses called for the deaths of gays. Moses had 3000 innocent Jews murdered for erecting and worshipping the Golden calf. The spirit of the laws was CLEARLY terrorism and control. Deuteronomy 21:18-21 makes it VERY clear the Pharisees were the ones who fully understood the "spirit" of the laws. You have to read this passage to the very last sentence. The OT is a terrorist manifesto. This is the doctrine of terrorism.....
Deuteronomy 21:18-21
18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.
The "spirit" of the laws is terrorism. Jesus respected the doctrine of terrorism, murder and genocide. For Jesus to be angry with the Pharisees because they didn't understand terrorism like Jesus "understands" them is ridiculous. Jesus wanted to make open, unrepentant murder of innocent people for the purpose of spreading fear (terrorism) into "love God and thy neighbor", it's very strange. It's evil! . I'm sorry, but it's ridiculous to think Jesus had the better perspective of terrorism in the Bible, and to suggest we all need to obey them and teach them, and not steer people away from breaking the laws. It's Ludacris. The Pharisees knew FULL well the "spirit" of the laws. The "spirit" of the laws is to publically murder someone to strike terror in the hearts of the town-folk to control them. To suggest God's love has anything to do with it is INCREDIBLY evil.jmo
He replied, "You must love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole self, your whole mind.' (37)
This is the first and greatest commandment. (38)
The second is like it: "You must love your neighbor as yourself.' (39) The whole law, and all the Prophets, depend on these two commandments." (40)
(Matthew 22:37-40)
The prophets were terrorists who murdered countless innocent people, and jesus is trying to make them look holy. When Jesus was nailed to the cross (as the OT and the Prophets condemned him there) he said "my god my god why have you forsaken me?". That is the truest statement Jesus ever said. YHWH and Moses had it out for him. YHWHW and Moses HATED anyone Christ-like. Kill the one who works on the Sabbath, and kill anyone who preaches of God in a way that contradicts Moses. That's Jesus. For Jesus to even ask that question is puzzling. The OT clearly made it a capitol crime to be like him, and Jesus was trying to make those laws seem holy. And he wonders why YHWH forsaken him, when he was clearly a criminal according to the laws. weird...
Grandstander's post #2 is spot on with regard to historical developments of Jesus. I think he may have read the same book I did, Reza Aslan's Zealot, the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. Aslan is a religious historian and a former Christian.
I read Aslan last year shortly after it was published and what I have been presenting is reflective of his conclusions. However, Aslan's thesis wasn't something new, Jesus as a man concerned primarily with Jewish religious affairs is an idea first promoted by Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the father of Biblical scholarship. Schweitzer was formulating his ideas in an age before the Q concept was developed and it has been Bart Ehrman who has taken Schweitzer's basic thesis and greatly strengthened it by employing the Q thesis to clear away the gospel clutter of agenda fueled additions. When you do that, what you are left with is an account which very much supports the idea of Jesus as man with a regional, not global, agenda.
Along with the authors mentioned above, if I was teaching a class on this subject, the assigned reading would be:
The Lost Gospel of Q: The Book of Q & Christian Origins....Burton L. Mack..1993
Jesus: A Life....A.N. Wilson...1992
Christianizing The Roman Empire: A.D. 100-400...Ramsay MacMullen..1984
The Historical Jesus: The Life of A Mediterranean Jewish Peasant...John Dominic Crossan..1991
What was the intent of Law? What was wrong with the specific incidents that you mention as reprehensible in relation to that "intent?"
The intent of the law is just straight-up terrorism. To control people through the use of terror. Openly, unrepentantly Murder someone in the town square where everyone was ordered to watch. That's how "sacrifice" rids of "sin". People stay in line after watching someone get torchured to death. It's the end to people sinning against the law-maker (even though EVERYBODY is guilty in the eyes of the law-maker) So you better stay in line! That is the spirit and intent of the laws.
The intent of the law is just straight-up terrorism. To control people through the use of terror. Openly, unrepentantly Murder someone in the town square where everyone was ordered to watch. That's how "sacrifice" rids of "sin". People stay in line after watching someone get torchured to death. It's the end to people sinning against the law-maker (even though EVERYBODY is guilty in the eyes of the law-maker) So you better stay in line! That is the spirit and intent of the laws.
Obviously not everyone sees that in the OT or in Jesus' teaching. Would you call Mother Theresa a terrorist, or someone who tried to make people stay in line?
If not, Jesus didn't succeed in the effort you describe as an attempt to control people through terror.
The real question, for which we will never have an answer, is whether he intended to see the Kingdom of Heaven ushered in through revolt, or if it was really the message of peace that He taught. I prefer to think He was an early example of Gandhi or Martin Luther King, promising new freedom from non-violent action.
I agree that the probability of an absolute understanding of the intentions of Jesus is low. Interesting speculation has included Nikos Kazantzakis' "Last Temptation of Christ" which advances the idea of a Jesus who began as a religious reformer/revolutionary, and was transformed by his own fame as it grew, ultimately planting the idea in his head that he enjoyed divine backing for his pronouncements and that he would enjoy divine intervention on his behalf if he went to Jerusalem and directly challenged the High Priests. He believed that this confrontation would be the trigger for the overthrow of the existing order, replaced by the Kingdom of Heaven/God where those Jesus had identified as hypocrites and traitors to the faith would be removed from their luxurious lives, and those who suffered poverty and indignities while remaining pure of heart, would be raised up to the most exalted positions.
Kazantzakis was clearly the inspiration for the narrative presented in Weber and Rice's "Jesus Christ Superstar" musical where we see the formerly devoted Judas becoming concerned with what he perceives as Jesus getting carried away with his own success:
"I remember when this whole thing began,
No talk of God then we called you a man"
It is a seductive explanation, but not one which I would describe as well backed by evidence.
Obviously not everyone sees that in the OT or in Jesus' teaching. Would you call Mother Theresa a terrorist, or someone who tried to make people stay in line?
If not, Jesus didn't succeed in the effort you describe as an attempt to control people through terror.
I'm talking about the spirit of the laws. The spirit of the OT laws is straight-up terrorism. I illustrated that pretty clearly. For Jesus to put a spin on that and somehow make the oppressive, murderous laws a metaphor for striving to love God and others is really strange, to say the least. Moses laws had innocent people put to death. Jesus is just another victim of Moses's laws. For Jesus to deem them holy in any way is evil. It's just terrorism.
You're making a generalization about the entire Hebrew Bible that just isn't plausible. There are multiple strands of tradition in the HB - even in the Torah itself in the Law sections. There are multiple, dissenting voices arguing against each other in the HB. Deuteronomy, for example, undid many of the more harsh laws of the previous law codes and was a great proponent of the people, for the most part. Of course there are oppressive laws as well - this IS the ancient near east we're talking about, and was pretty typical of all law codes back then. And yes- perhaps later tradents are putting a spin on things. This is good -not bad. Thinking otherwise is to think that those things actually happened, which is highly unlikely! Moses? Hmm... not so historical.
Not all the prophets were "terrorists" or "murderers", but many were proponents of social change AGAINST these things. In fact, the prophets were less about "prophecy" as we know it now, and more focused on social change. I already gave one example in which a prophet objects to the stringent law, and I could mention others - but I'm off to bed.
I think you're seeing the Hebrew Bible from a very narrow viewpoint, one that is not backed up by a closer reading, but is very biased towards taking a few examples and applying it as an overall theology that the HB does not have. And again - multiple strands of authorship paint a very different picture. I'm not trying to apologize for the Bible, but I will disagree with hasty and biased generalizations.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
