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Torah in Christianity

Rival

Rival

se Dex me saut.
Staff member
Premium Member
@pearl
There were disagreements between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, but neither forbad divorce at all, as this goes against the Torah (which lets it).
 
W

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
Rival said:
This makes no sense though. The Torah is not some game to be won. It's an eternal theocratic law that claims to be forever. It's for all Israelites at all times, wherever they live. It's not some competition to see who can be the most righteous, it's the social system by which God expects his people to live, as with any other law.
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Well they don't, though. They can't because the sacrificial system outlined in the Torah no longer exists.
 
Rival

Rival

se Dex me saut.
Staff member
Premium Member
Wildswanderer said:
Well they don't, though. They can't because the sacrificial system outlined in the Torah no longer exists.
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This was already dealt with way back in the time of Solomon. It is replaced with prayer.

The sacrificial system isn't the be all and end all of the Torah, but for some reason it's always brought up.
 
W

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
Rival said:
This was already dealt with way back in the time of Solomon. It is replaced with prayer.

The sacrificial system isn't the be all and end all of the Torah, but for some reason it's always brought up.
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Because it's a big part of the law. And it was fulfilled in Christ, by him being the ultimate sacrifice, and fulfilling the whole law.
 
Rival

Rival

se Dex me saut.
Staff member
Premium Member
Wildswanderer said:
Because it's a big part of the law. And it was fulfilled in Christ, by him being the ultimate sacrifice, and fulfilling the whole law.
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Human sacrifice is not allowed.

There's no sacrifice to end all sacrifices; that's not a concept in the Torah, either.
 
P

pearl

Well-Known Member
Redemptionsong said:
And here lies the difficulty. The everlasting covenant, based on faith in Christ, was not available to lsrael at the time of Moses. The law therefore acted as schoolteacher until the time that Christ came [Gal.3:24].
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But God did make an everlasting, absolute, irrevocable, eternal covenant with Abraham.
 
Sand Dancer

Sand Dancer

Crazy Cat Lady
Rival said:
This is in religious debates and so is open to everyone.

In trying to understand Christianity and what underpins it, I keep coming up against essentially the belief that the Torah isn't enough, it's not good enough, it doesn't do this or that.

Psalm 19 says 'The Law of the Lord is perfect', and the Torah in Deut 4 says not to add or take away from it, and in Deut 30 it says it is not far away, hard to do etc.

Can someone please explain to me, if the Torah is perfect, which the Tanakh says it is, why is Jesus or Christianity as a whole necessary? There shouldn't be any need for any 'new' revelation or upgrade, per the Torah itself (it would be adding or taking away).

Can you still have Christianity if you believe the Torah is perfect? I don't believe you can.
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Christianity sees it as perfect, but not finished. The messiah (supposedly) spoken of in the Torah was fulfilled in Jesus.
 
Sand Dancer

Sand Dancer

Crazy Cat Lady
Rival said:
I'm not sure what you mean by 'fulfilled to the letter' - for instance, there are laws for women and priests etc. that Jesus couldn't fulfil. I'm not here to debate you on the messiah point today [:D], but I am thinking of passages such as this,

He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”

Jesus both takes away and adds to the Torah here, thus changing it - an act which is forbidden. How is this justified by Christians?
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When a group thinks they are right, they will go against certain scriptural verses, but not others.
 
W

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
Rival said:
Where?
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Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
 
Rival

Rival

se Dex me saut.
Staff member
Premium Member
Wildswanderer said:
Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
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This isn't the Torah, and Isaiah 53 is speaking about Israel.

Next.
 
exchemist

exchemist

Veteran Member
Rival said:
If Christians don't believe in the whole Tanakh, what then supports their belief in a messiah at all? Or their use of prophecies? How would one discern what to take vs what to leave? It's senseless imo.
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First, I note you offer no evidence to support your claim. I didn't think you would be able to.;)

The thing to get straight, it seems to me, is that Christian belief is defined by the New Testament, which is founded on the Old but, obviously, differs quite a lot in what it says from the Old, since otherwise there would not be such a thing as Christianity. I think you would do better to read the New Testament and see if that helps you understand the respects in which the message of Christ goes on from the messages of the OT. It's an evolution, really.

This whole notion of "believing in" (as opposed, presumably, to "not believing in") the Old Testament has always struck me as a bit naive. It is a huge collection of writings, parts of which are historically inaccurate, or myths with a message, or even poetry. So you have to read it in a literary frame of mind to get at the messages it contains and - if you are a Christian- also through the prism of what Christ taught later in the NT.

To seize on one line, out of one psalm, (which is, after all, a piece of poetry) and expect that all Christianity should subscribe to it literally, is simply not reasonable.
 
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