"H. T." wrote: > > *sigh* *smile* *sigh* > > Note: Snipping from two messages under same ‘topic’. > > >"Alex Nixon" wrote: > >First, I believe the part of the Bible you're thinking of is the Old > >Testament, which largely becomes useless in Christian thinking after the > >arrival of the New Testament. I'm also not convinced that ALL religions > >calls for the harm of others. So your point, IMHO, is ignorant, prejudiced, > >and slightly offensive. > > > > > >Caliann the Elf wrote: As for the rest, there are certainly lots of > >examples from the OT of a vengeful, bloodthirsty God. I suspect most people > >with a Christian bent prefer to ignore the OT. > >> > >> > >>David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > >>Hard to do, since the identification of Jesus as the Messiah depends > >> >>entirely on OT prophecies.A number of the specific dietary rules from > >> >>the OT, Christians are specifically exempted from in the NT; but > >> >>then, the presence of that exemption shows that the authors of the NT > >> >>believed that OT applied. So the *rest* of the OT, the parts not > >> >>specifically voided by the NT, should still apply. Besides, the OT > >> >>was included when the bible was put together. Clearly those people > >> >>thought it still applied. > > What books of the Christian NT are you people reading? David is the only one > that appears to have any sense or knowledge on this issue, and you people > are Christians and he’s an Atheist (shame, shame) *holding out a ruler to > slap some Christian knuckles*. With many years of Sunday school and Catholic > mass, having a boyfriend that is an entirely different “type” of Christian > than Catholicism, and one stupid theology course to complete some general > education requirements even I know that Christians generally follow the OT. > In fact, if I recall correctly (it has been several years since I have been > to any Christian “event” other than holidays at my family’s house and then > that is not because of religion at all) in Catholic mass at least, various > parts of the OT are read. However, because my opinion means little to null > here, I offer the following: > The first reading is OT, except in Eastertide. The minor propers (Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Offertory, and Communion) are usually drawn >from the Psalms. > “The authoritative sources of Christian ethics are essentially the Ten > Commandments, which Moses is said to have received from God on Mount Saini > (Exodus 20.2-17; Deuteronomy 5.6-21 [OT stuff])....The Ten Commandments, or > Decalogue (“Ten Words,” or “Sayings”), articulate fundamental religious and > social obligations and in the Bible are explicitly the word of God...The > so-called “Sermon of the Mount” (Matthew 5-7 [NT stuff]) is crucial to *the > entire foundation of Christianity*. Jesus begins by telling the crowd that > *he has not come to abolish the Jewish law of Moses but to fulfill it*, and > warns them that anyone who breaks the commandments or teaches others to do > so will be “least in the kingdom of heaven”(Matthew 5.17-20)” > [“Christianity” by Rosemary Drage Hale – The Illustrated Guide to World > Religions – Michael D. Coogan, general editor (consequently the more > interesting, though not as concise book out of the theology course I took)]. > > Clearly, the OT is considered in the NT, and since (in my opinion at least), > if you are going to believe some of it, you have to (or at least should) > believe all of it, you cannot consider the NT without considering the OT. > Agreed. It's simply wrong, as a generalization, to say that the OT "largely becomes useless in Christian thinking"; the sheer importance of typological interpretation for over 1500 years should be proof in itself of that error. _But_ the relationship between the two is complex. First, the OT is of most importance as a record of the continuing historical action of God in history, from a Christian perspective, and of human response to it. Secondly, the OT is important because of the specific interpretative context it creates for the NT. Somewhere way down the list is the importance of the precepts of the Old Covenant law. This is largely because (except for the early Jewish-Christian Church, which lasted down to about the fourth century as a rather small group) Christians, not being part of the old covenant, aren't subject to it. This would have been true even for the most orthodox of orthodox Jews at the time; if you aren't circumcised/a member of Israel, the Mosaic law doesn't apply to you (the Noachian covenant would still be held to apply, but it's a pretty general moral principle). The Ten Commandments have _never_ been held to consistently, except perhaps by the iconoclasts in the Eastern Church, because the commandment about graven images has been dropped (mainly on account of the effect of the doctrine of the incarnation). It gets even more complex when you start looking at different subgroups. The Marcionites (C2 heretics) really did reject the OT as a whole). Various protestant groups, although not all, have increased the distinction between the two dispensations so that there sometimes really does not seem to be a great deal of connection between the two. Catholics use typological forms of interpretation -- allegorical, anagogical, moral -- to enrich but also to qualify the text. So there's probably no simple, blanket statement that will cover general Christianity's view of the relationship between the OT and the NT. One thing that is clear is that virtually all Christians feel some liberty to pick and choose in terms of the OT. Most modern, mainstream, interpreters would see it as a history of the development of a better perception of God, with the earlier, more insular, and more bloodthirsty bits being superseded by later, more universalist bits. In addition -- and this is independent of its status as _Christian_ OT as opposed to its simple status as a text, so the terminology changes -- the _compositional_ history of the Tanach is one with a very high degree of variation between the different layers, frequently reaching the level of contradictions. This is not surprising in a set of texts with roots going back centuries before assembly, and actual composition over a period of about seven hundred years, but it also means that focussing on just one text or book is almost always to take things seriously out of context. AS far as the sermon on the Mount goes: Matthew is clearly interested in presenting Jesus as the second Moses, and the structure and contents of the SotM reflect that. But they also have to be set against the Pauline reevaluation not of the law in itself but of the law as it affects _Gentile_ Christianity, and the emphasis in various other places (John, for example) on more general principles superseding the specific dictates of the law. All of those influences fed into Christianity and shaped its moral and ethical content and regulation. -- James Burbidge jamesandmary.burbidge at sympatico.ca