Mosaic Law

[TomC]

I agree that all things are ultimately god's will.

I was beaten and bullied as a child

Why would God will that you be beaten and bullied as a child?

Honestly, don't think that's true.

However, I do believe that deep within the Bible is the secret to universal love of mankind, and it is only our own limited understanding that leads us astray from that.

I believe that there is no God who gives a damn.
About anything, much less puny individual humans. Bible Believers keep giving me more evidence of that.
It's obvious to me that the God of Moses and Jesus is a fictional character, constantly being recreated in the image of the humans who claim to know important stuff on the subject of God.

It's been going on for all of human history and you're doing the same thing.
Tom

 

[DBT]

It's funny how the Will of God appears to coincide with the values of the time and place it is being expressed.

 

[TomC]

It's funny how the Will of God appears to coincide with the values of the time and place it is being expressed.

Or, more precisely, the values of the humans claim to Speak for God. The ones who write Scripture. The elite.

I've heard Christianity described as "The Religion of Slaves". I thought that a bit over the top, but I understood the meaning. It's all too true.
Tom

 

[steve_bank]

In crime drams somebdy might say a criminal offense is black letter law, meaning it clear written law.

Leviticus is OT black letter law where moral offenses are punishable by a death penalty.

YAWEH as a god of love is not the OT god. It is modern cultural invention.

The 613 Mitzvots, some are quite bizzare evn in an acnt tibal culture.

Mitzvot is the Hebrew word for the plural of mitzvah, which means "commandment" or "duty." Mitzvot are the commandments given in the Torah, the first part of the Bible. There are 613 mitzvot in all, 248 positive commandments and 365 negative commandments.Dec 11, 2022

The 613 Mitzvot

The 613 Mitzvot

www.jmu.edu

 

[Politesse]

Leviticus is OT black letter law where moral offenses are punishable by a death penalty.

What does Jesus teach about this very requirement, in the gospels?

What was the perspective of ancient Jewish scholars on this requirement?

What is the perspective of modern Jewish scholars on this requirement?

 

[steve_bank]

Leviticus is OT black letter law where moral offenses are punishable by a death penalty.

What does Jesus teach about this very requirement, in the gospels?

What was the perspective of ancient Jewish scholars on this requirement?

What is the perspective of modern Jewish scholars on this requirement?

Jews I have known range like Christians from liberal to moderate to extreme conservative. I believe there was a Jewish conference where Jews weeded out the harsh punishments. I'd jse to look up the date.

Jews have always been clannish. Other than a conversion I believe you are Jewish by your mthyers blood line. Some would call that racism.

From reporting there are conservative neighborhoods in Israel where a gay couple would not want to walk around embracing. On the other hand modern Israel led the USA on gay rights and marriage.

But all that is irrelevant.

The issue and question of the OP is modern Christians who claim a moral god mandated moral high ground based in biblcal morality.

Jesus in his day was calling fellow Jews back to that morality. Reading the gospel as saying Jesus was walking around preaching universal love and acceptance is selective reading,

 

[Politesse]

Jesus in his day was calling fellow Jews back to that morality. Reading the gospel as saying Jesus was walking around preaching universal love and acceptance is selective reading

Jesus advocated following Torah, as he understood it. But why do you believe so strongly that he understood the requirements Torah the way that you do, when he himself described his position in very different terms?

 

[Politesse]

Jesus in his day was calling fellow Jews back to that morality. Reading the gospel as saying Jesus was walking around preaching universal love and acceptance is selective reading,

"Selective reading"? Really? When you are positing an entire theology based on one verse that you quote-mined out of a rich and complex corpus of ancient works?

 

[steve_bank]

That is my view for stated reasons.

The gospelss are a disconnected jumble of sound bites. He did reinforce the ban on fornication and marriage as one man and one woman. The text from Sermon On The Mount calls to follow OT law.

He says he did not come to change Mosaic law.

IOW cobservative Jew preaching to Jews about traditional morality, much like conservator Christian preachersr do today. Jesus is their model.

After this pont will just be repeating myself.

 

[No Robots]

I was beaten and bullied as a child

Why would God will that you be beaten and bullied as a child?

It's funny how the Will of God appears to coincide with the values of the time and place it is being expressed.

God is in motion. He is creating himself at all times. Evil and good are essential polarities. One cannot exist without the other. God moves from evil to good and back again in eternal cycle. Humans are directed to move from evil to good. It is a process, a progression.

 

[No Robots]

I was beaten and bullied as a child

Honestly, don't think that's true.

Not sure why this is unbelievable. I grew up in Calgary in the sixties. My parents were known socialists. We listened to the Beatles. I had long hair. I performed well in school. I didn't see a future for myself in sports. I read alot.

 

[TomC]

I was beaten and bullied as a child

Honestly, don't think that's true.

Not sure why this is unbelievable. I grew up in Calgary in the sixties. My parents were known socialists. We listened to the Beatles. I had long hair. I performed well in school. I didn't see a future for myself in sports. I read alot.

Sorry I was unclear.
I meant the part about it being God's will.

I see no reason to think that God is a sentient being, much less has Will.
Tom

 

[No Robots]

I see no reason to think that God is a sentient being, much less has Will.
Tom

The sentience within you, that is God. Its will is to know itself in its infinite expressions. You obey it to the extent that you acknowledge its presence in all its infinite expressions.

 

[TomC]

I see no reason to think that God is a sentient being, much less has Will.
Tom

The sentience within you, that is God. Its will is to know itself in its infinite expressions. You obey it to the extent that you acknowledge its presence in all its infinite expressions.

That sure doesn't sound like Moses, or any version of Abrahamic god image. That sounds a lot more like pantheism, or my vaguely Deistic agnosticism than the "bumbling sky king with superpowers" from Christian Scripture.
Tom

 

[No Robots]

^Moses' meaning has not been discerned by the vast majority. Kabbalism makes Moses clear, but Kabbalism itself has been hidden from the masses until quite recently. Maimonides hints at the true meaning of Moses, but he is careful not to provoke antagonism from the orthodox. Jesus is quite clear. "I and the Father are one." Orthodox Christianity has usually tried to make the case that this is true only of Jesus. There are however even within orthodoxy hints of the truth, such as the doctrine of theosis. It is with Spinoza that the doctrine of the in-dwelling spirit attains its full treatment. But even Spinoza is somewhat coy. It is only with such twentieth century expositors as Constantin Brunner and Harry Waton that the true insight of Moses becomes accessible to one and all.

 

[Politesse]

People raised in the Christian sphere of influence often don't realize the extent to which their understanding of Judaism has been shaped by antique Christian propaganda. It's in Christian interests to portray Jews as violent, blind followers of arcane rules, or of lacking a personal connection to God, as these are the supposed holes that Jesus in meant to fill in Christian narrative theology. But few Jews, ancient or modern, would agree with either point. This idea that "Mosaic faith" would be devoid of mysticism is silly; Moses' life story is shot through with mystical events and happenings. Yes, he negotiated the covenant that put the Jewish people under obligation to YHWH and his laws, but to say that those laws are all there is to the faith is simply not correct, and suggests an inattentive reading of the Hebrew Scriptures, which describe a very active and intimate god, very much tied up in the personal lives of his people, their prophets, and their kings.

 

[bilby]

Evil and good are essential polarities. One cannot exist without the other.

I don't know (or particularly care) what makes something an "essential polarity", but I can inform you that neither evil nor good exist in any real sense. They're just labels we stick on moral choices that we strongly disagree (or respectively, strongly agree) with.

The idea of evil or good as tangible and/or absolute states, is as absurd as the idea of Santa Claus delivering presents to all the little children once a year.

 

[No Robots]

Evil and good are essential polarities. One cannot exist without the other.

I don't know (or particularly care) what makes something an "essential polarity", but I can inform you that neither evil nor good exist in any real sense. They're just labels we stick on moral choices that we strongly disagree (or respectively, strongly agree) with.

The idea of evil or good as tangible and/or absolute states, is as absurd as the idea of Santa Claus delivering presents to all the little children once a year.

By essential polarity I mean nothing more than that good and evil are poles of a continuum which cannot exist without each other, just like hot and cold. And of course they are a matter of relative perception. What we label as evil is merely a particular phenomenon or state of being that appears to us to be inimical to our interests and well-being.

 

[TomC]

By essential polarity I mean nothing more than that good and evil are poles of a continuum which cannot exist without each other, just like hot and cold.

There is no such thing as cold. There just isn't. Nor is there such a thing as dark. Neither exist outside the limited human perspective. Both are the lack of something. Things we humans need, but within extremely limited parameters.

Good and evil are similar, although different in important ways. One really important way is the utterly abstract nature of good. Unlike heat or light, there's no objective standard to measure, much less understand, good. We can objectively measure heat, but there's no objective dimension to good. It's entirely a subjective abstraction.
Tom

 

[No Robots]

Heat/light/thought/motion/good/life are at one end and cold/dark/matter/stasis/evil/death at the other. Movement toward the latter is entropy; movement toward the former is evolution. Complementarity, polarity, reciprocity are essential to all movement.