Old Testament Validity

Agent J

Ok this has probably been done to death so if anyone wants to point me in the direct of a previous thread by all means.

Although i would like to have a thread where i can reply without continuing to be off topic.

I've been trying for years to wrap my head about this one so any useful pointers by all means.

What Validity has the old testament in a Christian context?

Anytime im engaged with a Chrisitian about a topic and they quote new testament to me.i dont have an issue with it.. well not much. If the old testament rears its head then i start with the standard "Dr Laura" arguments aganist it. Not much arguements in fairness, more like statements and see what their reaction is and take it from there.

My thoughts are pretty much

Basically if you use one part of the old testament to backup your position then you must accept this other part of the old testament.
Here is X example of something bad in the old testament. Defend it.

Is that too black and white?

Why do some people accept some parts of the OT but not others?

Now before anyone thinks i'm just looking to point fingers at the silly christians. I'm not. Nor am trying to belittle the OT.

From a debating point of view i want to know how its supposed to work, What is still acceptable and what is not from the Old testament and most importantly why?

Or is it all justifiyable on a case by case basis? (If that is the case then someone point me to the justifiacations..)

As far as i understand it.. and i can't think of the verse off the top of my head. So correct me if i am wrong.

Jesus basically said that he fulfilled the old law and it was now no longer vaild. The ten commandents and the New Testaments where the path to follow.

Excelsior

Agent J wrote:

Ok this has probably been done to death so if anyone wants to point me in the direct of a previous thread by all means.

We don't mind actually resurrecting things round here.

Agent J wrote:

Although i would like to have a thread where i can reply without continuing to be off topic.

Totally cool. We'd all be happy to have an on topic conversation about the OT.

Agent J wrote:

What Validity has the old testament in a Christian context?

Let me try and short circuit this conversation with a quick answer. It might not make sense to you and if it doesn't then I will go into depth but the sharp answer to this is to tell you a story about Jesus. He has died. Many of his followers expected him to be the Messiah who would crush the Roman pagans under foot and make the Jewish people the Kings of the Earth. Instead he hung on a tree by the very god-haters they thought they would get revenge on. So far, so simple. Most all of us have a vague idea of what it's like to live in a colonised culture and the kind of opposition that rises up.

At the end of Luke's Gospel there are two followers of Jesus who are heading home to their hometown. Cleopas and we presume, his wife. They are totally dejected. They had left everything to follow this Kingdom of God movement and now it was all in ruins. They were returning to their home in poverty and in shame, certain to be ridiculed on the street everywhere they go as the idiots who got caught up in another cult and despised by the cultural elite, the Jewish Pharisees.

Then a man joins them on the road and counsels them. "Why are you so downcast?" he asks. They say, "How can you not know. Are you the only one in the million visitors to Jerusalem this Passover who was unaware of the rebellion that was averted and the carpenter who was killed?" Then the man, who is Jesus, began to preach to them from Moses through all the Prophets concerning the Messiah.

Now for Jews, "Moses" means the first five books of the OT. "The Prophets" means everything else. In an effort to finally get through to them about what Jesus' mission had been, Jesus took them to the Old Testament because the message he had come to proclaim and live out is there, all over it.

So the reason we read the Hebrew Scriptures and consider them authoritative is that they preach Christ and his Gospel on practically every page. We follow Jesus basically, who obviously considered them to be in some very high sense, sacred.

I hope this explains it. If you need anymore info, then I'm happy to help. As usual, your post is understandably filled with assumptions that are so profoundly off the target that correcting them properly would be a long winded and thoroughly boring process (for both of us). Imagine what misconceptions an unschooled student brings to biology? Now why would your view of theology be any more wrong headed than a kid who thinks evolution is another word for progress?

AgentJ wrote:

Jesus basically said that he fulfilled the old law and it was now no longer vaild. The ten commandents and the New Testaments where the path to follow.

This is a classic misconception. The exact words of Jesus are totally opposite to the meaning you have somehow gathered. What Jesus actually said is:

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them"

Agent J

Excelsior wrote:

We don't mind actually resurrecting things round here.

Nice

I appraicate the effort and directness. However i'm still not getting it.
Oh i get the concept that they are sacred texts and do hold authoritive value
but i'm still trying to make the links between the two testaments.

Ok, I have not read the OT from start to finish(Obviously says you...). Hell i havent read the New Testament from start to finish either. I have dipped in and out to get examples and occasion read through the whole book to try and gain a context (Levitiucus would be an example) and well ...artillery to use as well in cases where quotes are thrown around the place out of context.

I bought a Bible a month or so ago and have been slowly working my way through it. I swore i would try to keep an open a mind as possible and go from start to finish.I'm also trying not to speed read through it in order and not hop around the place. It going very slowly... I'm barely in exodus at the moment. I gave up actually trying to read the book itself all the time and just reading it on www.biblegateway.com

I guess my main issue with the OT isnt nesscarily the OT but how its used. Its not so much with the NT since

The open letter to DR laura is an example.

She was using it to blast gays.
Homosexuality is wrong because of Lev 18.22. End of story.

Someone countered her and listed out various questionable passages in the OT which given the context she used to make her point in the 1st place is a very fair rebuttal.

If someone makes the "love the sinner not the sin" point or "We are sinners anyway..." and then expands on it with examples from the OT thats a different context to the Dr Laura example.

Perhaps i'm not explaining the difference as i see it well there....

Anyway back to the topic at hand.

I wasnt suggesting the OT not be bothered with but its the links i dont exactly get. I do understand more with the explanation you gave but its still not clear to me.

PDN

There are some posters who come on this board and try to play Jesus off against Paul. You know the kind of thing: "Jesus was a fun-loving free spirit who said all you need is love and he wouldn't have had any problem with any kind of contemporary behaviour or sexual mores today. Paul, on the other hand, was a narrow-minded bigoted Pharisee who hated women & was obsessed with sex. Institutional Christianity is composed of disciples of Paul, not Jesus etc. etc. ad nauseam."

What such a peurile approach fails to appreciate is that Paul's writings (and, indeed, those of Peter, James, John, Jude & the author of Hebrews) are basically a working out of just how Christ's life, death, & resurrection, as recorded in the Gospels, interact with the Old Testament. Much of the Book of Acts also records in a historical narrative how that process developed.

Please understand that I'm trying to sum up a complex issue in a few lines, but the following is a summary of how Christian theology understands the Old Testament.

1. The Old Testament is Scripture & part of the Word of God.

2. The Old Testament, however, was incomplete. The New Testament is the completion of God's Word. This means that the Old Testament should be read & interpreted in the light of the New Testament.

3. Much of the Old Testament was a preparation for the most important and climactic event in history - the Incarnation, and particularly the Crucifixion & Resurrection, of Jesus Christ. This means that certain parts of the Old Testament (including a host of ceremonial laws) were fulfilled at the coming of Jesus Christ and so no longer are binding on mankind today (Colossians 2:13-23). Paul uses the illustration of the law as a tutor or schoolmaster, having supervision over a child until they reach maturity, at which point the tutor no longer has such supervision (Galatians 3:23-25).

4. The moral teaching of the Old Testament (as opposed to ceremonial regulations) still stands today. This is because the basis for the Old Testament's moral instruction was God's own holiness. Since God's holiness has not changed in the New Testament, we find many of the Old Testament commands and prohibitions endorsed in the New (eg murder, theft, adultery, dishonesty, oppression of the poor are expressly forbidden in both Old and New Testaments - other practices, such as homosexuality, while not expressly prohibited by direct command, are still spoken of in a uniformly negative way). Nowhere in the New Testament do I see any Old Testament commandment on a moral (rather than ceremonial) issue being abolished, dismissed or watered down.

5. The penalties prescribed for moral infractions in the Old Testament are no longer seen as applying in the New Testament. For example, children are encouraged to obey their parents in the New Testament, but they are not to be taken out & stoned if they fail to do so!

So, how does this work in practice? The Dr Laura example about homosexuality and shellfish both being an abomination is an obvious nonsense. Eating shellfish was a ceremonial requirement teaching the principle that God's people needed to be holy, or separate, from the surrounding nations. As such it is fulfilled in Christ. Most Christians agree, however, that homosexual behaviour is a moral issue and is incompatible with New Testament Christianity on the basis of Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6. Incidentally, I have never met any Christian who based their view on homosexuality solely on Leviticus. Such an idiot may exist somewhere in the world (probably in Mississippi or Alabama) but for the most part this is one big fat stupid straw man.

Christians do sometimes disagree as to whether some practices are moral or ceremonial. Observing the Sabbath Day is an example. However, the above principles are a good rule of thumb for interpreting the Old Testament.

I should point out that Dr Laura is Jewish, not Christian, so her interpretations of Leviticus are obviously going to differ from mine. Using Dr Laura as an example for criticising Christians in their use of the Old Testament is not, therefore, a very good idea.

Excelsior

note: I began this entry, then went for lunch and got into a great conversation about medicine and in the meantime PDN wrote the kind of entry I would have wanted to write. Maybe mine will complement his well.

Agent J wrote:

Ok, I have not read the OT from start to finish(Obviously says you...). Hell i havent read the New Testament from start to finish either... I bought a Bible a month or so ago and have been slowly working my way through it. I swore i would try to keep an open a mind as possible and go from start to finish.I'm also trying not to speed read through it in order and not hop around the place. It going very slowly... I'm barely in exodus at the moment. I gave up actually trying to read the book itself all the time and just reading it on www.biblegateway.com

So I'll probably lose my Evangelical ID card for saying this but I am not sure that reading the Bible the way you are trying to do it is that good an idea. I know its very common now but I mean, think about it this way, for the first 1500 years no one really had a Bible sitting round at home. The Jewish tradition of reading it (aloud) communely and therefore being able to discuss it and wrestle with it and even act it seems much more helpful. There is a book though, that might help you called Reading The Bible For All Its Worth by a really great scholar called Gordon Fee. It's a really good help.

AgentJ wrote:

I have dipped in and out to get examples and occasion read through the whole book to try and gain a context (Levitiucus would be an example) and well ...artillery to use as well in cases where quotes are thrown around the place out of context.

Well I should let you know you are in good company, cos I was the same. But beware, I was an atheist when I picked up Leviticus to prove my stupid Christian friends wrong. Now I am a committed Christian (but still a socialist ) who preaches about Leviticus any chance he can get. (Next time is first week in October talking about global trade injustice!).


So on the Dr. Laura thing, it's important to remember first of all, that you are literally, dealing with a witty email that still quotes the Bible out of context. You can't beat the fundamentalists and their out of context quoting by using their weapons.

AgentJ wrote:

I wasnt suggesting the OT not be bothered with but its the links i dont exactly get. I do understand more with the explanation you gave but its still not clear to me.

So the over-arching reason I read the Hebrew Scriptures is because Jesus read them and thought they were the authority. Now secondary to that, there is the fact that I believe the Old Testament is constantly pointing forwards like signpost to the coming of Jesus but I think if we were to draw these two reasons in a Venn diagram, the second one would be entirely inside the first one. Does that make sense?

In the OT, there is a book of law, which confusingly is spread over three books really. So Deuteronomy, some parts of Exodus and Leviticus consist of many different vision documents on what the nation of Israel is meant to be and lots of that takes the form of law. These laws are in various ways broken up into three categories:

1. moral - eg: have no other god before YHWH
2. ceremonial - eg: wash intricately before attending Passover festivals
3. civil - eg: God says Israel shouldn't have a King

Now this breakdown of the law is a way of understanding it, the Pentateuch itself doesn't offer us this division. But it is useful because all the laws can pretty much be neatly summed up in this division and typically Christians hold to the moral law. (When I saw it is artificial, an example of what I mean is that of course a Jew in 800BC would consider avoiding pork a "moral" issue. But because of what happens in the New Covenant, Christians see it as ceremonial).

The New Covenant that Jesus establishes expressly does away with all ceremonial law. Anything at all to do with ritual cleanliness is no longer needed. Not, as Jesus says, because it has been discarded, but because it has been fulfilled. You don't discard your youth when you mature, but your youth is fulfilled in your adulthood.

In the same way, Jesus and then the early disciples obviously saw Christian political involvement in terms that weren't narrowly prescribed by the Old Covenant. This is not because Christians are somehow no different from the rest of the world, but because of Jesus Christians don't have to be fearful or hostile to the rest of the world in the way that the Jewish people were.

So what you are left with is moral law. Where you get disputes about things you inevitably find someone trying to describe a clause typically categorised as "ceremonial" or "civil" as moral or vice versa.

Does this help?

Agent J

Right i have read both of your posts and have a few more issues/points to throw up but that will have to wait.

In short though, the explainations provided do help. Thanks.

Why do i get the feeling if i really want to get my head around this its going to involve more homework for me... *grumbles*

Oh one more thing Excelsior.
Turns out we know each other (ADF clued me in)and we've done a similar dance on mikadosoc.ie before over a slightly different area. .

JC

( I dont use JC on boards so not to be confused with another JC fond of the eveloution thread...)

philologos

Agent J wrote:

Nice

I appraicate the effort and directness. However i'm still not getting it.
Oh i get the concept that they are sacred texts and do hold authoritive value
but i'm still trying to make the links between the two testaments.

Biblical prophesy is the place to look for the links between Old and New. The prophets from Isaiah to Malachi all contain prophesies of the forthcoming Messiah and His role in God's plan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_prophecy_in_Christianity

Agent J

Right i do intend to reply at some point.

I recind earlier comments on Leviticus en masse.

Currently starting Deutronomy..

Scofflaw

Excelsior wrote:

Well I should let you know you are in good company, cos I was the same. But beware, I was an atheist when I picked up Leviticus to prove my stupid Christian friends wrong. Now I am a committed Christian (but still a socialist ) who preaches about Leviticus any chance he can get. (Next time is first week in October talking about global trade injustice!).

Out of interest, what persuaded you? I have never found anything persuasive about Leviticus, myself.

cordially,
Scofflaw

bus77

Well personally I was wondering why people kept on mentioning Leviticus as the baddest of the bad, so I sat down one day to tear into it. The first chapter is about priestly rules and offerings for sin. I noticed that the rich and the priests were required to pay more for mistakes than others. This type of idealistic balance satisfied me as an Anarchist.

It still apeals to me. Imagine how many countries you'd get kicked out of if you tried to bring that in as policy.

Scofflaw

bus77 wrote:

Well personally I was wondering why people kept on mentioning Leviticus as the baddest of the bad, so I sat down one day to tear into it. The first chapter is about priestly rules and offerings for sin. I noticed that the rich and the priests were required to pay more for mistakes than others. This type of idealistic balance satisfied me as an Anarchist.

It still apeals to me. Imagine how many countries you'd get kicked out of if you tried to bring that in as policy.

Sure - it would be almost as much fun as watching people putting into practice Christ's exhortation to give up everything you own.

Seriously, though, that kind of thing can persuade me that the Biblical writers sometimes had the right idea about things, but I hardly find that a persuasive argument for God. After all, even I have sensible ideas from time to time...

cordially,
Scofflaw

bus77

Scofflaw wrote:

Sure - it would be almost as much fun as watching people putting into practice Christ's exhortation to give up everything you own.

Well, this would be assuming Christ actually wanted rich lads in his crew.

Scofflaw wrote:

Seriously, though, that kind of thing can persuade me that the Biblical writers sometimes had the right idea about things, but I hardly find that a persuasive argument for God. After all, even I have sensible ideas from time to time...

cordially,
Scofflaw

Ofcourse

BrianCalgary

Scofflaw wrote:

After all, even I have sensible ideas from time to time...

cordially,
Scofflaw

mhmm, he says amusingly.

robindch

Scofflaw wrote:

almost as much fun as watching people putting into practice Christ's exhortation to give up everything you own.

Not so much a general exhortation, but a direct command from god that everybody who feels that Jesus is/was a teacher should abandon all their assets, as per Luke 14:33:

Luke wrote:

In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple

(the greek word 'μαθητης' is translated as 'disciple', when perhaps 'student' would be equally appropriate.)

Anyhow, I'd certainly be interested to hear how this verse is viewed today by people who believe that the verse is appropriate and relevant (and if not, why not?)

Zombrex

Well Jesus was supposed to be coming back soon. Not sure if they would have viewed it as such a good idea idea if they knew he wasn't coming back.

PDN

robindch wrote:

Not so much a general exhortation, but a direct command from god that everybody who feels that Jesus is/was a teacher should abandon all their assets, as per Luke 14:33:(the greek word 'μαθητης' is translated as 'disciple', when perhaps 'student' would be equally appropriate.)

Anyhow, I'd certainly be interested to hear how this verse is viewed today by people who believe that the verse is appropriate and relevant (and if not, why not?)

I certainly believe that the verse in question is both appropriate and relevant.

The word translated as 'abandon' or 'give away' is αποτασσεται - a form of apostasso which carries the primary meaning of 'to separate' or 'set apart'. In Luke 14:33 it is in the Middle Voice and so means 'to set apart from oneself' or 'to say Goodbye to'.

My interpretation (which I suspect you might object to) is that this is entirely consistent with the Christian teaching on stewardship. 'My' money and possessions are not actually mine, they now belong to God. My responsibility is to be a good steward of those resources, using them in ways that will bring glory to God. This concept of stewardship, when rightly understood, means that a follower of Jesus should avoid excessive or conspicuous consumption, materialistic consumerism, exploitive capitalism and misuse of the environment.

Of course it goes without saying that many (most?) professed followers of Jesus throughout history have failed to be good stewards.