That’s pretty funny. Good response.
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Scholars have looked carefully at the teachings of Jesus (and tho’ I am not a scholar have book all about His teaching coming out this weekend).
- Jesus was a Torah absolutist. He is only shown once as disagreeing with others over a Torah stipulation. And in this one case, His interpretation was that His interlocutors were too liberal in their application of the Torah (this issue was divorce).
- In His sermon on the mount Jesus teaches a stricter version of the Torah that other teachers, including the Pharisees.
- He disagreed only once about a stipulation of the oral Torah, i.e., how the Pharisees taught the Qorban.
- The vast majority of disputes between the Pharisees and Jesus were over what is called (in the New Testament) the Tradition of the Elders. These are Pharisaic, not biblical, stipulations and Jesus had no patience with them. For example, the Torah requires only priests to wash their hands as a ritual of purity. The Pharisees made the hand-washing ritual universal. It’s these instances of human-made stipulations (that made obedience easier) that He objected to.
On the whole, Jesus stood firmly within the Pharisaic tradition, sharing its
devotion to Torah and its ethical rigor. However, He remained
an independent voice, loyal to God and Torah above all party
affiliations. Nor were his critiques the attacks of an outsider.
They were full-throated corrections by a teacher/Sage who revered the
covenant and its teachings because they were the key to Israel’s
flourishing.
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The thesis of my OT teacher (a Jewish rabbi) is that Jesus was the first Zaddik of what eventually became Hassidic Judaism. i.e. his teachings and ideas were more in line with what became this branch of Judaism.
I think the one departure from the Pharisees (i.e. Rabbinic Judaism) he pointed out was a rejection of their tradition of maintaining purity by separation from sinners.
I would suggest a parallel with Christian divisions: temple Judaism with Catholicism, rabbinic Judaism with Protestantism, and Hassidic Judaism with the evangelicals.
Maybe there are common tendencies in the way how humans respond to religious questions and challenges. From that viewpoint, your suggestion is interesting.
Categories and labels help to organize the seemingly chaotic reality around us to a more coherent picture and are in that sense helpful. At the same time, they are dangerous traps to our thinking.
When you assign a label (belongs within this category), you assign a heavy load of assumptions at the same time. When someone gets a label of being, for example, a Calvinist, an evangelical or a Pentecostal, we assume that the person shares a relatively wide set of beliefs common within that category and probably acts in ways we associate to the persons we know to have that label. In reality, the person may have some beliefs that fit within that category and many beliefs that do not fit within the borders of what we assume that label represents.
Putting Jesus to some ‘common’ category may be more misleading than helpful. I do not know much about Hasidic Judaism but what little I have read, I guess Jesus would be as controversial person within Hasidic Judaism than within the company of the Pharisees. There would be some points of agreement but also questions where there are disagreements.
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I am sorry Adam but you are a broken record. The only reason you do not see a dichotomy is because you slam them together and forcibly combine them
If you could step back, just for once you might see and understand why your views are being ridiculed rather than argued.
I respect anyone who believes in Scripture but I stop when they try and force their understanding onto others. It is one thing to argue, but another to claim the higher ground and therefore dismiss opposition. I accuse scientists of the same thing, so I am not singling you out.
How we rationalise the clear differences between what Science sees and what the Bible claims will depend on our own personal faith. As such that is fine, but when it becomes dogma it can damage others. To be blunt, you set yourself and God against scientists. The idea is to draw in not push away…
This is not about compromise or diplomacy. You do not have to change your beliefs, but you do have to accept the possibility that such things are not set in stone and that you might be seeing the same truths from a different perspective. Someone approaching God via science will not understand Scripture as you do.
Does God care about the precise belief? Or the fruits of that belief.
(Rhetorical)
Richard
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That would be a misrepresentation, of Scripture.
Jesus acknowledged the diligence and faith of the Pharisees but stood in opposition of their application and self-righteousness. His doctrine on coming to God through Him down played all the Law following and legalism that the Pharisees lived by.
Again that is an exaggeration and misrepresentation.
Jesus acknowledged the Torah and Scripture as a whole for what it was but he was not a slave to it. The sermon on the Mount contradicts several basic precepts of the Law. He was not going to dismiss it wholesale but He tried to show the difference between legalism and principle. The Law had swelled out of use due to the clarification of clarification of clarifications. Laws are absolutes and life very rarely is so black and white.
If your book is based on your summary then it may get more criticism than you wish
Richard
I agree with your observation there…we see that in the humanity of his parables and ministry. I think a fabulous example was Christs statement in response to the disciples attempting to “shoo” the little ones away. He rebuked them saying, suffer the little children to come unto me.
That demonstrably false…i did not create an entire forum trying to forward ANE views! Im not the one slamming them together here…thats your side…its what you lot teach and preach incessently…this forums founder even goes do far as to write songs about it.
What i do is show that theologically, your claims are inconsistent and untrustworthy…no one would engage a builder to construct a house based on the tattered incomplete plans you have drawn up…thats the entire problem here. Selling a supposed Christian view thats a complete mess of inconsistent and usually unsupported biblically.
You still hold dear to a worldview incapable of logically and consistently explaining how it is that the Messiah dies physically, is raised physically, ascends to heaven physically for an allegorical/metaphorical sin!
It gets worse…His prophesied Second Coming is foretold by numerous bible writers as a physical + global event!
So forgive me for making the criticism that if Christ is God, and His first and Second Coming are for global physical reasons, then it goes without saying that other bible references about Creation and the fall are consistent with Moses claim that they were originally physical global events!
Even just pure logic proves the consistency in my world view there…its a slam dunk argument when i add other supporting references to it (Genesis 1-11, Exodus 20:8-11, Matt 24, 2 Peter 2, Rev 21). Given these references are decades even millenia apart and in different languages infouenced by different cultures…the genre argument is a stupid one and just plain wrong.
Id suggestyou spend time on trying to resolve the huge theological problems biblically…first and foremost how a physical saviour and physical salvation becomes necessary for allegorical/metaphorical cockups?
Mythical fairytales need mythical solutions…not real ones. So is your Christianity allegorical, metaphorical… mythical? Mine certainly isnt. I take it seriously…it not some Socratean story of morality. A man really died for my sin so that I may consciously and physically live. He did that hecause 1 man, made a real life cockup about 6000 years ago in the Garden of Eden that brought hell down on us all.
You haven’t done so.
Attack may be the best defence but it is also a diversionary tactic.
What has that to do with the price of fish?
Whether the sin is allegorical or actual does not affect the reality of the solution or even the reality of sin itself.
You do not seem to be able to distinguish reality from theology. “All or nothing” as usual. We cannot “pick and choose?”
it is such a binary view that it cannot sit in a multicoloured Universe or a complicated God beyond any of our comprehension.
Scripture is not binary. It is not all the same. and it doesn’t understand everything from word one! (well technically word five:" In the beginning God" would seem to be on the nose)
Richard
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Oh butthat is exactly what it does…you know why…because we are the ones who demand physical solutions to physical problems…we are the ones who start physical punchups in bars over words that form jokes/jibes at others that are fictional…we demand these things. Human nature always wants proof!
Again. If Adams sin wasnt a real life event:
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why the killing of millions of sheep and goats throughout the Old Testament Sanctuary services period…it went on for more than a thousand years
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Why the physical incarnation, physical death and physical resrrection of the Messiah…God could have simply got Socratees to click his fingers and voila…“it is finished”
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Why the literal, physical Second coming…we could just die peacefully and our spirits float up to cloud 9 with a harp…our road to enlightenment…thats the allegorical/metaphorical consistency right there!
Clearly you dont have a decent biblical answer to these dilemmas…perhaps read Socratees (Plato actually) and see what he suggests?
That is your view. It is not something you can insist on.
Speaking for humanity are we?
We do not demand anything about sin. Some, however, are so obsessed with it that god had to provide them with a solution. Do you think that Christ died for man’s sake or for God’s? Why does God need any excuse to forgive?
You have it all backwards.
Grace is God’s way of showing He wants us as we are and not some artificially souped-up Saint
All the demands for perfection come from humans, not God. And if you wish to cite Scriptural backing for perfection than remember who wrote it.
God did everything He could to overturn this need for perfection but we humans cannot accept that God would allow anything but it. He even sent His son to die and still we don’t get it!
GOD FORGIVES SIN!
What more good news do you want?
Richard
Ah, yes, like when Jesus said, “You have heard it said, ‘Do not commit murder,’ but I tell you that you may commit murder…”
Cynicism is the lowest form of wit.
The point Jesus was always making is that it is not about the letter of the Law. It is about the motivation behind the actions. If you are only doing it to obey the Law then you have not internalised what that law means.
People here talk about actions and faith as if they are not related. Sin is looked at in black & white. Jesus made it clear that the sin occurs before the action, by the very thought that sparks the action.
We talk about only being forgiven if we accept it, but that is not the point. The point is that some people do not see the need for forgiveness. They think their actions are both valid and justified. it is those people who God despises. The ones so evil that they cannot see that they are doing evil. However, the vast majority, who know what is good or evil and try their hardest, He forgives, (Whether they acknowledge it or not) Not because He needs them to be pure, but because He acknowledges their intent. That intent goes outside religion.
In theory, we praise God because we mean it, not to appease Him. Religious people feel a need to give back but God does not demand that response. That is the human notion of
“There is no such thing as a free lunch”
Sorry, there is. God’s Grace is completely free. No strings, no demands.
If there is a Hell it will be full of evil people, not unreligious ones.
Richard
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It occurred to me that our various postures regarding truth might roughly correspond to this comparison. Some people have a more open view of truth that could be compared to a large, mostly undeveloped foundation on which there is room for a lot of new, as yet unlearned things that can be built. Others see truth more as a received container or box with rigid sides. Only a limited number of things and only of certain shapes can fit into their set box. If things like the possible existence of intelligent aliens don’t fit into their box, then any such things would be highly disturbing to their faith.
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Maybe I should elaborate the similarities I see, because of course the difference are greater than the similarities.
With temple Judaism and Catholicism the emphasis was on ritual. With rabbinic Judaism and Protestantism the emphasis was on studying scripture. With Hassidic Judaism and the evangelicals (at least in the beginning with Finney) the emphasis was more on experiential aspects and a relationship with God.
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Either way, us atheists will be holding an ice cream social wherever we end up. You are all gladly invited if you happen to end up in the same place. 
I am sorry but I object to your flippancy…You don’t have to believe but you can kindly show more respect.
Richard
Then you’re saying the sermon on the mount does not actually contradict the basic precepts of the law?
Why object?
Sounds like progress to me.
I will certainly accept the invitation. LOL
Why see this as a lack of respect? Sounds like respect to me, frankly.
Then you’re saying you are going to be legalistic no matter what Jesus taught?
…sigh…
The point here is that the legalist takes the law as permission to do the things which the letter of the law does not prohibit. Jesus contradicts this to say we must do better than that, and so yes He contradicts the law in that sense, to say no, it is not enough that you obey the letter of the law as they are written. And so to the legalist the sermon on the mount sounds like He is rewriting all the laws.
Contradiction?
When Jesus said “You’ve heard it said don’t commit murder…” but then goes on to say that we must do more than this (but not less than this), I respectfully think this is stretching the definition of “contradiction” beyond all recognition.
If my wife asked me to get milk at the store, and then texted me later to ask me to also get orange juice… I don’t see myself accusing her of contradicting her earlier request…