Secondly, I have no problem with the council of Jerusalem. Perhaps I did misword my meaning though. I don't mean to imply that all of the practices of the law of moses should be continued as were. Rather, that the laws given to them were based on priciples that do not change.
There were a wide spectrum of laws given to early follwers of God. Some, IMO, clearly state a principle, and therefore survive almost totally intact to this day. (Since principles do not change) Others, we can try to see the principle behind them, but perhaps we are left to guess, and may make errors. However, if we can correctly find the principle, then we can learn from and be benefited by understanding now-defunct laws.
Circumcision, for example, the symbol of almost the entire pre-Christ law, represented something important to the converted Jews at the time. And luckily, we have some sermons in the new testament which shed some light on circumcision, and how to apply it now. "Circumcision of the heart."
In the specific cases I talked about (homosexuality and adultery), I believe that the principle is easily extractable and therefore easily applicable today. I don't think that the punishments for violating these laws are applicable today--but I think we come away with two things. 1) An understanding of some of the behaviors God would have us avoid even now. and 2)from the now defunct penalties an understanding of how much God hates those particular sins.
E.G.- if we can find the principle behind the old food restrictions &c, then we can find out how to apply them today. Perhaps the principle is health; perhaps the principle is setting ourselves apart from the world. Or perhaps it is something I haven't mentioned.
But I maintain, that the principles and laws of the Old Testament were given by the same God who manifested himself in the New--and that He doesn't change how He thinks.
To apply what I've said: since the principle in "thou shalt not kill" is clearly understandable, it should be taken as an authoritative interpretation of the greater law. Since the principle in "thou shalt not commit adultery" is clearly understandable, it should be taken as an authoritative interpretation of the greater law. And since the principle behind animal sacirifice is made know to us (especially mormons) that same principle (not the practice) should be taken as an authoritative interpretation of the higher law.
quote:I hesitate to open another can of worms, but I think that at least part of modern western Christianity’s distaste for the Hebrew Bible is that it is harder to individualize and spiritualize. If we take it seriously then we have to admit that Christianity is not just about a personal relationship with Jesus in our hearts, but also affects our wallets and our politics. It might mean that the Old Testament, and by extension the New Testament, has a lot to say about how we run our nation. And that scares us. Imaging what would happen if we took seriously the idea that the whole nation is judged by how we treat the poorest among us? Or that accumulating land and assets while others are starving is murder? It’s dangerous stuff, to take the Bible seriously. It might actually change your life.
dkw...have you read The Upside Down Kingdom, by Donald Kraybill? (I hope that is the correct author's name; I don't have the book in front of my at the moment.) It was required reading for one of my university classes, and it seemed to say much the same thing as you did here about taking the Bible seriously being a literally life-changing proposition.
It was really interesting to see how the members of the class, who came from a wide variety of Christian backgrounds, reacted to the book, which has traditionally been used as a required text for all students in the university. Most of the students in my class disliked the book intensely, referring to it often as "radical." I think this is because it takes the position that to truly live out a Christian life, there are things one must do beyond attending church on Sunday and dropping a few dollars into the collection plate.
You are so well-read, dkw, that I imagine that you are familiar with this book. If you are not, you might be interested in Kraybill's take on this issue.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
popatr, I'll give it half-credit (note: said credit is only relevant to me and is such is considered essentially worthless by pretty much everyone else). That was a much more interesting post than your first one and I can understand your position now, even if I don't agree with it. However, there is a better and more specific answer to my challenge. Read the actual description of the council in Acts 15 and I think you'll see what I mean.
----
I feel as if I killed this thread. I hope not. This is an issue that I'm very interested in. I looked over my presentation and realized that while it does represent my beliefs pretty well, I don't know if there is anything there for people to respond to. I think a big part of our disagreement here is that we are getting such totally different things from our study. For me, disagreeing with, well, dkw, especially is not so much disagreeing with what she says and not really seeing what she is seeing. I honestly don't think that it's at all clear that the New Testament follows directly from the Old Testament. In my opinion it is just the opposite.
I acknowledge that my view of Christianity's develop is likely much different from everyone else's on this thread (well, maybe Bob kind of agrees with me). For me, being largely outside of the religion, I see it as almost completely the work of men, to be analyzed for it's social and psychological content. As such, I have a grave mistrust for the central authority tradition of Christianity. When something comes to be decided by the authority of Christianity, especially in those times when the authority is doing what I consider very bad things (most of Christianity's history), when canon is decided by force and not by right, I tend to doubt the validity of taking that interpretation over all others. Even when the authority are pretty much nice guys, I see them as human beings making the best decisions they can, not divinely inspired figures, writing the word of God in stone (not that everyone else does, either, but I really don't). Most of the figures that I have a great deal of sympathy for in Christian history were heresiarchs or close to it. I think Pelagius was great - I recommend his Letter to Demetrias to every Christian or really just everyone. I loved the core of St. Francis of Assisi and the Minorites' message. I regard the Schoolmen (as a whole) as they guys who should have become the central tradition of the Church.
Anyway, I think I erred before in talking about a characterization of God. There's no real room for debate there. I'm going to try to state some of my main objections in a more debatable form.
1) In the Old Testament, Jehovah is treated as a henotheistic god, not a monotheistic one, as God is in the New Testament.
2) The entire content of the Old Testament is setting up an in-group/out-group situation. Only the Jews are the elect, and they are made so not by any actions, but because they are intrinsically better than everyone else. As a corrolary, only the Jews deserve justice. Jesus' message was for and about everyone. Even the Samaritans, the lowest of the low were to be treated as anyone else.
2a) The "Golden Rule" being, "Do unto others as you'd have done to yourself." is a perversion of what Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." The first statement makes you the arbiter of what is right and wrong and again sets up an in-group/out-group situation. The second makes a true understanding of the other person the central moral truth.
3) Jehovah is not a good guy. Jehovah takes the traditional form of most of the Indo-European tribal gods. That is, the god does pretty much as he feels like, and it's the right thing, only because he did it. The slaughtering of innocents is no big deal for this type of god. Submission is the only virtue in relation to this type of god. He gives you the rules, without explanation, and you follow them. In the New Testament, Jesus presents a much different picture of God. God is just and God is a teacher. Jesus' main method of spreading his message was not through making dictatorial statements, but rather by telling stories and getting people to think about what they were doing. While the Old Testament was primarily concenred with rewarding or punishing actions, Jesus's teaching centered more around the thinking behind actions. If Jesus had been the one talking to Abraham, he would have been disappointed with his blind obedience.
3a) The Old Testament is a testament to patriarchical authority. Jesus specifically preaches against this idea. It is not position that determines rightness, but rather rightness itself.
Those are my big ones. Well really the last 2; the first one is there because I think it's a really good point. I think that there is a clear delineation between the Old and New Testaments on these two points and that the history of Christianity has shown that the Old Testament side is a bad one to be on.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
.
