The Forgotten Calendar of Jesus - What Happened to the Biblical Festivals?

Faith & Science Conversation
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Where it says the law made nothing perfect

“For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.”

Hebrews 7.v18-19

Jesus fulfilled the Law, keeping the calendar ect is perfoming the works of the Law. Watch this,

“But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.”

Galatians 3.v23-25

Christianity rests on the Apostolic Church, we don’t inherit the Jewish covenant. You don’t come to such a conclusion with a plain reading of the New Testament, unless you bring up muslim bullet points about Paul. If so, you’re up against the Gospel not me.

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Sorry, but this is not correct.

You are introducing the assumption that when Peter speaks to the crowd about salvation and Jew - gentile relations he’s repeating all that was revealed to him in Acts 10 :17. That doesn’t sound right especially in light of what Paul says. If all the holy days of the Jewish calendar were in force for Xns, Paul couldn’t have said that it’s ok for Xns to regard “all days alike” and that those who don’t observe them should not be criticized by those who do - which is exactly what you’re doing.

The Xn covenant is added to the ones with Abraham & Moses, which is why Paul says the work Christ has made it possible for gentiles to be “grafted onto the tree of Israel.”

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Roy, no. You cannot begin with “this is not correct” and then establish that conclusion by inserting propositions that the texts themselves never state.

The issue here is context. We have to allow the words to say what they actually say, rather than supplying what we think they ought to mean.

You write that I am “introducing the assumption” that Peter’s explanation in Acts 10 concerns Jew-Gentile relations. That is not my assumption. Peter says it.

After receiving the vision, Peter enters the house of Cornelius—a Gentile—and explains what Yah had shown him:

“God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.” — Acts 10:28

That is Peter’s interpretation of the revelation, not mine. Bible Gateway

Notice what Peter does not say. He does not say, “God has shown me that unclean animals are now clean.” He does not say, “God has abolished the dietary commandments.” He does not say, “God has abolished the appointed times.” The text identifies the application: people whom Peter had regarded as common or unclean.

You are certainly free to argue for an additional meaning, but you cannot accuse me of introducing an assumption while simultaneously introducing a meaning that Peter himself never states.

The same problem occurs with Romans 14.

You say Paul taught that Christians may regard “all days alike” and therefore Yah’s appointed times cannot remain binding. But Paul never identifies the days in Romans 14 as Yah’s appointed festivals.

Romans 14:5 describes two positions within a dispute: one person distinguishes between days; another regards the days alike. Paul then instructs the disputants concerning how they are to treat one another.

Where does Paul say:

“By ‘days’ I mean Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Weeks, Trumpets, Atonement and Tabernacles”?

He doesn’t.

That identification is being inserted into the passage and then used to prove the conclusion that was inserted.

Context makes the problem even more obvious. Romans 14 concerns disputes involving eating, abstaining, esteeming particular days, and judging fellow believers over those practices. Nothing in the chapter announces the repeal of Leviticus 23. Nothing identifies the appointed times as the disputed days. And nothing grants an ecclesiastical body authority to replace Yah’s calendar with another one.

If you believe Romans 14 abolishes or makes optional the appointed times, then demonstrate that proposition from Romans 14. Identify the language connecting Paul’s “days” to the appointed festivals. That is the exegetical burden. Merely asserting the connection does not establish it.

And then you appeal to Romans 11 and the Gentiles being grafted into Israel. But that passage moves in precisely the direction my argument has maintained.

Paul addresses Gentiles and describes them as a wild olive shoot grafted into the cultivated tree, sharing in its nourishing root. He immediately warns the Gentile not to boast over the natural branches: “you do not support the root, but the root supports you.” Bible Gateway

The Gentile does not replace the tree. The tree does not become Gentile. The Gentile is grafted into what was already there.

So your appeal to Romans 11 does not answer my question. It makes the question more difficult to avoid:

Where is the apostolic authorization for the grafted-in Gentiles to abolish Yah’s appointed times and replace them with a different ecclesiastical calendar?

Please identify the text.

Not an inference placed into Romans 14.

Not a meaning placed into Peter’s vision that Peter himself does not give.

The text.

If such an apostolic authorization exists, cite it and we can examine it in context. If it does not, then saying “this is not correct” does not resolve the argument.

Scripture cannot be overturned by an interpretation that first requires Scripture to say something it never actually says.

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@mjeter212

When Paul started teaching that circumcision was not just optional, but actually heretical,
the Passover became lost to the non-Jewish Christians.

G.Brooks

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George,

You made two specific claims: that Paul taught circumcision was “heretical,” and that as a consequence “Passover became lost to the non-Jewish Christians.”

Then establish those claims from the text.

Where does Paul call circumcision heretical? Quote his words.

Where does Paul say that Passover was abolished, ended, replaced, or was no longer to be observed? Quote his words.

Paul certainly opposed requiring Gentiles to be circumcised in the controversy addressed in his writings. But that does not establish your much broader claim that Paul declared circumcision itself heretical. Acts 16:3 records Paul personally circumcising Timothy. If circumcision itself was heretical, explain that act without changing the proposition.

Likewise, Paul writes:

“For Messiah our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast…” — 1 Corinthians 5:7–8

So if your claim is that Paul is responsible for Passover disappearing from non-Jewish believers, establish it from Paul.

And to be clear about my method: “I think Paul meant,” “Paul must have meant,” “I interpret this as,” “if we look at it this way,” or “I believe Paul was saying” are not textual evidence.

I am interested first in what Paul said.

If the word is heretical, show where Paul says heretical. If the proposition is abolished, show where Paul says abolished. If the claim is that Yah’s appointed Passover ceased to apply, show where Paul says that.

Interpretation comes after establishing the textual evidence; it cannot substitute for it.

This is especially important when an interpretation would place Paul in apparent conflict with the apostolic record itself. We do not resolve that problem by supplying Paul with words he never used.

My original question therefore remains unanswered:

Where does Scripture give anyone the authority to abolish or replace an observance that Yah appointed?

If Paul is your answer, cite Paul.

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First, what Paul said is that Christians are the passover bread, and the Festival is fulfilled in uncorrupted Christian living. The interpretation for this verse is explicitly laid out.

Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

You have been making the case that Christians should observe the Passover, but do you? I mean, do you sacrifice a lamb or buy lamb chops?

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rsewell,

You have done precisely what I said I am not interested in doing: putting words into Paul’s mouth and then calling those words “what Paul said.”

You wrote:

“the Festival is fulfilled in uncorrupted Christian living.”

Paul does not say that. Those are your words. Paul says:

“Messiah our Passover has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival…”

He then uses leaven metaphorically for malice and wickedness, and unleavened bread for sincerity and truth. That is what the text says.

If you want to argue that this metaphor means the appointed Festival was abolished, replaced, or fulfilled away, then show me where Paul says so. Do not insert that conclusion into the passage and then tell me it is “what Paul said.”

And yes, I keep Yah’s appointed feasts. I do not sacrifice a lamb, nor have I argued anywhere that believers should do so. Yahshua is our Passover sacrifice—the very statement Paul makes in the passage you quoted. The apostles continued observing Yah’s appointed times after Yahshua’s sacrifice; they did not establish an unauthorized sacrificial system.

So please do not construct a position for me and then challenge the position you constructed.

My question remains extremely simple:

Where does Paul say that Yah’s appointed Festival was abolished or replaced?

Quote the text.

“I think,” “I believe,” “Paul must mean,” “the passage should be understood as,” and “if we look at it this way” do not answer that question.

What did Paul actually say?

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The whole context is metaphical, the Festival, the leaven and unleavened. I do not split up the sentence and take the first clause literally, and the rest of the sentence symbolically. So that is the conclusion and I think it clear that is what Paul said. Actually said. Really actually said from his own mouth.

But whatever if you read it differently. Go ahead and do whatever it is you do with passover if it means that much to you; I just think it is kind of silly to observe and not observe. The point was always the symbolism, so I do not care about the calendar.

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rsewell,

You have now made the distinction I have been asking you to make.

You wrote that this is “the conclusion” and that you think this is what Paul said. You then stated, “I do not care about the calendar” and that observing it is “kind of silly.”

And that is precisely the issue.

Your conclusion is not Paul’s statement. Your indifference to the calendar is not Paul’s statement. And your opinion concerning Yah’s appointed times is not Scripture.

Paul says:

“Messiah our Passover has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival.”

You conclude from Paul’s metaphorical use of leaven that the literal appointed Festival has been abolished or rendered irrelevant. But Paul never says that. You have supplied that conclusion.

This is why my method insists upon distinguishing what Scripture says from what we conclude Scripture must mean. If every reader is permitted to replace the words of the text with his own theological conclusion, then Scripture ceases to be the controlling authority and the interpreter becomes the authority. The proliferation of contradictory doctrines should demonstrate where that method leads.

As for calling the observance “silly,” these are not festivals that I invented. Scripture identifies them as Yah’s appointed times. So I will not defend Yah’s appointments against someone’s personal assessment of whether they are worth observing.

If you believe Yah’s appointed times are silly or irrelevant, that is a conclusion you will have to reconcile with Yah, not with me.

I will stand before the Most High, not before you. Therefore my concern remains what He said, what Yahshua said, and what the apostolic record actually says—not what either of us would prefer the text to mean.

If Scripture says the appointed Festival was abolished, cite it.

If it does not, I will remain with the Scripture and the apostolic record.

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That is not what I stated though, is it? I said your observance is silly, not the central historical significance to Israel, which is not silly or irrelevant at all.

The Festival in this passage is to be kept as literally as we are literally leavened bread, no more and no less literal or metaphorical. It is all one coherent figure of speech.

In any event, this does not matter to me enough to continue the discussion further, as there is not much more that can be said.

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Very good. I think we have now identified precisely where our disagreement lies.

You conclude that because Paul employs the Festival, leaven, and unleavened bread figuratively in this passage, the appointed Festival itself is therefore no longer literally observed.

But that conclusion is not stated in Paul’s words. Paul identifies the leaven metaphor explicitly—“malice and wickedness” and “sincerity and truth.” He never says that Yah’s appointed Festival was abolished, replaced, or is no longer to be observed.

That has been my point throughout this exchange. I have repeatedly asked for the text establishing that proposition. What has ultimately been offered is an inference from the metaphor, not a statement from Paul abolishing the appointed time.

You are entitled to your conclusion. I am accountable for mine. My obedience, however, will remain grounded in what the Most High established and in the testimony of Yahshua and the apostles—not in an inference that I cannot find stated in the text.

So on one point we agree: there is nothing further to discuss unless something further can be established from the text rather than inferred into it.

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@mjeter212

Galatians 5:2–4 (The Ultimatum on Grace): Paul warns that relying on circumcision for salvation entirely nullifies the work of Christ.

“Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.” Galatians 5:2–4

G.Brooks

P.S. King James Version (KJV) of Exodus 12:43–48 reads as follows:

43 And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof:

44 But every man’s servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof.

45 A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof.

46 In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof.

47 All the congregation of Israel shall keep it.

48 And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.

The unintended consequence of this rule was to cut off Gentile contact with the one
group who could model the practice of Jewish holidays to non-Jews. G.Brooks

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Galatians 5:2–4 does not say circumcision was abolished. Paul identifies the issue explicitly: “you who would be justified by the law.” His condemnation is justification by circumcision, not circumcision itself.

That distinction is confirmed by Paul circumcising Timothy in Acts 16:3. Paul did not abolish circumcision and then circumcise Timothy.

Your Exodus 12 citation also defeats your conclusion. You call the circumcision requirement an “unintended consequence,” yet the passage explicitly says Yah commanded it and specifically provided for the stranger to join Israel in keeping Passover through circumcision.

So we are back where we started:

Where does Paul say circumcision was abolished?

Galatians 5:2–4 does not say it.

If there is no text, there is no claim left to answer.

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I have repeatedly asked everyone in this discussion to stop reading conclusions into the text. At this point, I am beginning to wonder whether the distinction is understood.

When I ask, “Where does Paul say X?”, citing a passage that does not say X and then explaining why you believe it means X is not citing Paul for the proposition. That is interpretation.

If Paul says circumcision was abolished, quote where Paul says it. If Paul says the Sabbath was abolished, quote where Paul says it. If Paul says the Torah was abolished, quote where Paul says it.

The text must establish the claim before your interpretation of the text can establish anything.

This entire discussion keeps returning to the same problem: I ask for the text, and I receive an interpretation presented as though it were the text.

Those are not the same thing.

Continuing this never-ending loop of what you think, feel, or believe the text means is something I am not interested in, nor do I intend to continue arguing about.

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But you do keep arguing about it. And my guess is that if someone responds with a new text, you will argue about that as well.

You were the one who began this thread. I was interested at first, but I’ve reached the conclusion that your whole challenge is based on a false premise. You say:

  • The text must establish the claim before your interpretation of the text can establish anything.

But that’s an impossible request. To be honest I would say it’s a nonsense request. No text in the world can say anything apart from interpretation. The moment Paul opens his mouth and says in one of his letters, Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ, we have words that we need to interpret in order to understand them correctly.

I have wondered why you have run this thread in a science and creation forum. But there’s an interesting parallel here, because your concept of text and interpretation resonates quite closely with certain YEC folk who think that the text of Genesis has a clear and literal meaning completely divorced from the need for interpretation.

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You are right about one thing, Peter: I said I did not intend to continue arguing, and here I am responding again.

I was hoping, perhaps against hope, that greater clarity would finally communicate the point. I did not anticipate having to explain the distinction between interpreting the words actually present in a text and attributing to the text a proposition it never states.

Of course language requires interpretation. That was never my argument.

My argument is much simpler: you cannot claim “Paul says X,” cite a passage in which Paul does not say X, and then use your interpretation to supply the missing proposition.

If the conclusion is inferential, call it an inference and demonstrate it from the text. Do not present the inference as though it were Paul’s explicit statement.

That distinction should not be controversial.

And on your first point, you are correct. I have continued responding. So I will take my own advice and stop here.

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  • @peterkp:

  • After following several discussions I think a recurring methodological issue deserves examination in its own right.

  • Michael has repeatedly insisted upon a distinction with which I’m inclined to agree with:

    • An inference drawn from a biblical text is not the same thing as what the biblical text actually says.

  • In the festival discussion, for example, he repeatedly asks for the text that actually says Yah’s appointed festivals were abolished, abandoned, or replaced. When someone argues from Colossians 2, Romans 14, or another passage that their covenantal status has changed, he objects that the conclusion has been inferred rather than explicitly stated. He recently put the principle this way: “The conclusion must be established by the text, not supplied by the interpreter.”

  • Fair enough. But what happens when that same standard is applied to his own conclusions?

  • Consider “The Great Sleep.” He argues that the dead are unconscious until resurrection: “death is described as sleep; resurrection is the awakening.” Yet the New Testament presents Moses at the Transfiguration. Moses is not an Elijah-type case in which Scripture never records his death. Deuteronomy explicitly says:

    • “So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab.” (Deut. 34:5)

  • Nevertheless, Luke describes what happens at the Transfiguration: “And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:30–31)

  • Michael has publicly recognized the difficulty. He wrote that if the Transfiguration genuinely teaches a conscious intermediate state, it “has to be accounted for rather than ignored.” His answer is that Matthew subsequently calls the event a horama, a “vision,” and therefore Moses’ appearance does not establish that Moses had remained consciously alive during the centuries since his death. The BioLogos Forum

  • But notice what that establishes—and what it does not. It may establish that the Transfiguration does not “prove continuous consciousness throughout all the centuries since Moses died”. But where does Matthew say that the Moses who appeared was unconscious? Where does Luke say that Moses was only a representation of Moses? Where does any Transfiguration account say that Moses was temporarily reconstructed, resurrected for the occasion, or otherwise made capable of speaking despite having been unconscious in death?

  • The text says “Moses appeared, Moses spoke, and Moses discussed Jesus’ coming departure with him.”

  • Any mechanism by which this is reconciled with “The Great Sleep” must therefore be supplied by interpretation unless Scripture states that mechanism somewhere.

  • Now consider 1 Samuel 28. In a private discussion Michael maintained that the being encountered by the medium at Endor was demonic rather than the deceased Samuel.

  • Why? because a living Samuel who by previous acounts had died, would poke a hole in “The Great Sleep”. And that just cannot happen. So??? The Samuel who appeared to the Witch of Endor and to Saul must have been a demon.

  • I am not disclosing anything personal about Michael by mentioning that theological position; it is relevant because it provides an unusually clean test of the interpretive principle at issue. What’s good for the goose is not good for the gander, as the saying goes.

  • What does the biblical narrator actually call the figure? Samuel.

  • The woman sees Samuel. Saul understands that it is Samuel. Samuel speaks to Saul. The narrator continues calling the speaker Samuel.

  • Yet where does 1 Samuel 28 say: “This was a demon impersonating Samuel” It doesn’t.

  • Perhaps someone can construct a theological argument that it must have been a demon because genuine communication with the dead is impossible. But that conclusion is precisely an “inference supplied by the interpreter”. It is not what 1 Samuel 28 says.

  • And that brings me back to the festivals. The recurring demand there is essentially: “Show me the text explicitly abolishing the command.”

  • But that demand already presupposes another proposition: A command given under the Sinai covenant remains obligatory upon New-Covenant believers unless Scripture explicitly repeals it.

  • Where does Scripture state that proposition?

  • An appeal is made to Matthew 5:17–19, Jeremiah 31:33, and Hebrews 8:10. Those are certainly texts relevant to the question. But none says: “Every command given under Sinai remains legally binding upon New-Covenant believers unless explicitly abolished.”

  • That conclusion is reached by interpreting those texts. The BioLogos Forum

  • So I see a recurring pattern: “When a conclusion conflicts with someone’s theological framework, he asks where the conclusion is explicitly stated in the text and rejects inference as insufficient. But when his own theological framework requires a conclusion not explicitly stated in the text, e.g. the continuing obligation of Sinaitic commands, “an unconscious Moses despite Moses appearing and speaking, or a demon rather than Samuel” interpretation supplies the necessary bridge.”

  • That doesn’t demonstrate that Michael’s conclusions are false. An inference can be perfectly sound. Indeed, biblical interpretation would be impossible without inference.

  • The problem is treating inference as illegitimate when someone else’s theology requires it while treating one’s own inferences as simply “what Scripture says.”

  • So I think several questions remain on the table:

    1. Where does Scripture say that Sinaitic commands remain binding upon New-Covenant believers unless explicitly abolished?
    2. Where does Scripture say that the Moses who appeared and conversed with Jesus at the Transfiguration was unconscious in death?
    3. Where does 1 Samuel 28 say that the figure repeatedly identified by the narrator as Samuel was actually a demon?
    4. What principle distinguishes a legitimate inference from an illegitimate inference and is that principle being applied equally to one’s own interpretation and everybody else’s?

  • Those questions are not ultimately about festivals, soul sleep, or the medium of Endor separately. They concern something more fundamental: Are we distinguishing consistently between what Scripture says and what we infer Scripture means?

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  • There is another problem with appealing to Matthew’s description of the Transfiguration as a horama (“vision”): Whose vision was it, and what exactly was being seen? The text does not say that Jesus had a vision in which he saw Moses and Elijah. Matthew says that Moses and Elijah “appeared to them” and were “talking with him” (Matt. 17:3). Luke is even more explicit: “two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah,” and tells us what they were discussing (Luke 9:30–31). Peter, James, and John are therefore presented as witnesses to the event; Jesus is presented as a participant in it.
  • That leaves an important question unanswered by simply pointing to the word horama: Were the disciples seeing Jesus actually conversing with Moses and Elijah, or was Jesus himself merely part of a vision in which the disciples perceived a conversation that never occurred? The text certainly does not say the latter.
  • Indeed, Jesus himself demonstrates the problem with treating “vision” as though it determines the ontological status of the persons seen. Jesus was one of the persons the disciples saw, and Jesus was unquestionably a real, conscious participant. If appearing within what Matthew calls a horama does not make Jesus merely a visionary representation, on what textual basis does it make Moses one?
  • Consequently, calling the Transfiguration a horama may categorize the disciples’ experience, but it does not by itself tell us the ontological status of Moses. The further conclusion that the Moses who appeared and spoke was not actually the conscious Moses is an interpretation, precisely the sort of inference that Michael elsewhere insists must not be substituted for what the text says.
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@mjeter212

I have to wonder what all this passion is about? Do you come from a forum
where Doctrine was a big topic?

I think Paul’s overall discussion about circumcision points to his insistence
that all the old Jewish holy days were no longer necessary if you had faith
in Jesus’ work of atonement.

Other than that, what bearing does Paul have on accommodatting EVOLUTION?

G.Brooks

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Where does Jesus say “I am God, worship me”?

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