Saturday, April 24, 2010

Shalmo the Dishonest Debater Part 4

It is now time, for Shalmo the Dishonest Debater Part 4. Since this guy can't stop using ad hominems against me, I am going to start to call him Shamo.

So here we go. Shamo the Dishonest Debater Part 4. This is in reference to the comments section of http://thoughtsofasj.blogspot.com/2010/04/delving-into-theology.html

What happened was Shamo thinks he backed me into a corner with his bull shit after I told him to get help. Let us review why the post that Shamo wrote that inspired me to tell him to get help was indeed bull shit.

>> SJ I am sorry but your responses are just too ridiculous. You don't deal with any of the issues, you just post pseudo-responses which I don't think even you take seriously.

Ok here we have Shamo mocking my answers which I do give on a point by point basis. This isn't sticking to the issues, this is just mocking.

>> I suppose I cannot argue with a blind believer. You seem to be as dogmatic as Garnel is with his precious oral Torah, even though you and I both know the Kings 22 argument is irrefutable.

Calling me a blind believer is absurd. I was switching from agnostic to atheist back and forth for a long time and the irony is Shamo called me a blind believer on a thread where I do indeed question a fundamental aspect of mainstream religious thought.

I answered the Kings 22 thing already in the thread Delving into Theology but Shamo steamrolled over it with ad hominem instead of fact.


>> That said you do bring up something interesting. You state that the NT removes the OT law because its impossible to follow. Well why the fuck did your god reveal such a horrible, impossible to follow law in the first place, if he was just going to remove it anyway?

It is important to note that Biblical Judaism was not as strict as present day Judaism. The rules were difficult but they made sense. The problem was the pharisees were trying to make them more difficult. In Acts 15:10-11 Jesus asks the Pharisees "Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" Christianity was the first secularism. It was the first time that Jews revolted against a growing list of chrumas. To paraphrase, the pharisees sought to establish their religiousity via the performance of rituals and with NT it is via faith and good deeds.

As for the Old Law, abstaining from premarital sex protected from STDs, abstaining from pork protected from Trichinellosis, and the Sabbath was vital in maintaining a communal atmosphere (I would question the Sabbath's importance now in 2010 though but that's for another thread). Clearly, the Old Law as it was written was given for the follower's own good.

>> the same goes for the messianic age. if God eventually plans on removing free will, to ensure that in the future nations will not raise sword against nation, then he could just as well never have given us free will to begin with. Why not jsut start the messianic age with Adam and Hawwah?

Whether free will will exist or not in the messianic age is merely speculatory.

>> If the wage of sin is death then I wonder. Why the hell did God make such a system in the first place, where due to the weight of sin he has to come down and committ suicide to save us from himself? Why not just make us in a form where he would not have to do that?

Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." It is a statement on free will.

>> In the parable of the prodigal son Jesus teaches that sincere repentence alone was enough for the father to forgive his son for his sins. Yet with Pauline Christianity, all of sudden we are told without Jesus' suicidal atonement, there can be no forgiveness. In which case did Jesus contradict himself in the parable of the prodigal son, or is the more likely scenario, that Jesus was never even familiar with Paul's ideas on vicarious sacrifice?

Shamo, stop making up imaginary contradictions. We already covered this in previous threads and on Garnel's blog. Also Shamo, get help.

16 comments:

Ahavah said...

I haven't been following your conversation with "Shalmo," but I am curious about how you reconcile a few things in your mind. I know there are several sects of Messianic Jews in addition to straight gentile Christianity. One sect of MJs believes that the Oral and Written Torah applies to everyone, one sect believes the Torah is binding only on ethnic Jews and not on Gentiles (the so-called "Two House" theory), one sect believes only the Written Law is binding and the Oral Law is what Jesus was teaching against, and one sect believes the entire Torah and Oral Law are "done away with."

That last position seems to be the one you are espousing but it just doesn't hold water. First, if you believe that Jesus is the Deity incarnate, then it was Jesus who came down on Mt. Sinai and instructed his followers to stone to death any "false prophet" who told them to stop practicing Torah. That would also mean Jesus was the one who told both Abraham (Gen 17) and Isaiah (56)that anyone who wants to become part of the House of Israel has to be circumcized. That would mean he was also the one who clearly told Isaiah that keeping Shabbat and following the laws of the Written Torah were required in that same chapter.

Yet to say the Written Law is "done away with" means God is a liar. God said the commandments are for "all generations," "everywhere you live," "eternal," "perpetual" and that there is "one law" (referring at least to the Written Torah) for both the native born Israelite and those wishing to join the House of Israel.

Does God tell lies?

While I can't recommend a belief that Jesus is the Deity incarnate, there is a blog with commentaries on all the Torah Portions and every chapter of the NT, including the Pauline Epistles, which shows at the very least that Jesus and Paul were not teaching against the Written Torah, only the Oral Law.

http://simchat.wordpress.com

While belief in Messiah as a Deity incarnate is not something I can espouse, I agree with the prospect put forth by Nehemia Gordon and other scholars that Jesus was a teacher who taught against the Oral Law and strove to have his followers properly implement the Written Torah.

And while I agree with "Simchat's" premise that God allowed the books that are in the NT to be put there for a reason and that there must be a Hebraic and proper way to interpret them, as a person with a secular degree in ancient-medieval philosophy and covers all the formative years of Christianity, I also must warn you that linguistic analysis shows about half the pauline epistles are pseudographical works from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries CE and could not possibly have been written by the real Paul. They are Roman Catholic works written with the intention of castigating their competition - Nazarenes and Ebionites especially - who kept the Written Torah and/or parts of the Oral Law. Yet you are relying on them to say that Jesus taught his followers to abrogate the Written Torah.

The early followers of Jesus has a lot more in common with modern Karaites than with the Roman Catholic Church - except Jesus obviously accepted and taught from Daniel whereas the "Sadducees" rejected the book as a Hellenistic era forgery. Clearly Jesus disagreed. But it's also clear from Jesus' actual teachings that he never taught against the Written Torah, only the Oral Law. There are several books out that also cover this topic.

So if you really want to follow Jesus, you can't pitch Torah observance out the window. What the Church and many Messianic Groups are teaching is simply not what Jesus taught, regardless of whether you believe in the Deity aspect or not, this is an important issue. Why would God lie to people? God wouldn't, but the Roman Church would.

SJ said...

Ahavah, Jeremiah 31:31-34 is your answer. It's not that God lied, it's that the rabbis whitewashed any possibility of God giving people a new edition of Tanach which is exactly what Jeremiah clearly called for.

Ahavah said...

I am very much acquainted with this passage, and putting the Torah in your heart and minds means you have no excuse for not obeying it. If it's in your heart and mind, the Rabbis can't distort it, nor the goyim abrogate it. Your understanding of this passage as eliminating the Written Commandments of the Torah flies in the face of everything else Jeremiah wrote. Having the Torah written in your heart and mind means you won't fall prey to any false interpretation of it - it doesn't mean the commandments disappear. You're basically claiming that Jeremiah is a false prophet, who taught that the Written Torah was not "eternal" and "for all your generations," etc. Your answer doesn't address the issue I raised - in fact, it just makes it worse. Now you're claiming not only God lies to people but the prophets to, too?

If anything, Jeremiah agreed with Jesus that the Rabbis has perverted the Torah with their Oral Law, not upheld it. (2:13, 6:16) He argued clearly in 7:23: But this word I did command them, saying "Obey my voice...and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you..." Jeremiah says of the Rabbis (8:8+) "How do you way 'We are wise and the Torah of Adonai is with us'? But look, the false pen of the scribe has worked falsehood..." It's their interpretation, not the basic Written Torah, that is his complaint. Again, in 9:6 "You live in the midst of deceit, through deceit they have refused to know me, declares Adonai."

And Jeremiah says in 11:2-4 "Cursed in the man who does not obey the words of this covenant which I commanded your fathers...Obey my voice...and you shall do according to all that I command you..." And so on and so forth. You can't just hack four verses out of context and say the entire Tanakh is unmade.

Ahavah said...

An excerpt from an article on circumcision - again, not in favor of a belief in Jesus as a deity, but to illustrate that the Tanakh doesn't support mainstream Christian beliefs:

"Eze 44:6 And thou shalt say to the rebellious, even to the house of Israel, Thus saith Adonai YHWH; O ye house of Israel, let it suffice you of all your abominations, Eze 44:7 In that ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when ye offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant because of all your abominations. Eze 44:8 And ye have not kept the charge of mine holy things: but ye have set keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for yourselves. Eze 44:9 Thus saith Adonai YHWH: No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary, of any stranger that is among the children of Israel.

And again:

Isa 52:1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.

It doesn’t get much plainer than that. Any man who intends to be part of the Millennial Kingdom HAS to be circumcised. It’s not optional.

The last thing one should think about is this: Yeshua, YHWH Elohim incarnate, gave us the “communion” kiddush at a Passover seder with His talmidim. There, the new/renewed covenant was established between Yeshua and His followers.

Now, why did Yeshua choose to do it at the beginning of Nisan 14th, the passover?

Exo 12:43 And YHWH said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof: Exo 12:44 But every man’s servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. Exo 12:45 A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof. Exo 12:46 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. Exo 12:47 All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. Exo 12:48 And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to YHWH, 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. Exo 12:49 One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.

This was not an oversight on Yeshua’s part. Establishing the covenant at a time and place where no uncircumcised person could be was not a mistake or accident – rather it is a deep and inherent issue of theology. We are bought and paid for by the blood of Yeshua, and once accept the fact that we are bought, a man must be circumcised in order to become part of the people of Israel and receive the covenant. There is one law for the native-born and for those who want to be grafted into the House of Israel."

Yet the pauline epistles teach that circumcision is done away with! How can these uncircumcized gentiles become "kings and priests" in the Messianic Kingdom when they won't even be permitted to enter Jerusalem, the seat of government!!! Why would Jesus institute his version of the "new covenant" at Passover when NO uncircumcized person could even be there?

And if he broke the Torah by admitting uncircumcized persons to a passover seder, how was he supposedly the perfectly spotless sacrifice?

You can't have it both ways.

SJ said...

>> I am very much acquainted with this passage, and putting the Torah in your heart and minds means you have no excuse for not obeying it. If it's in your heart and mind, the Rabbis can't distort it, nor the goyim abrogate it. Your understanding of this passage as eliminating the Written Commandments of the Torah flies in the face of everything else Jeremiah wrote. Having the Torah written in your heart and mind means you won't fall prey to any false interpretation of it - it doesn't mean the commandments disappear. You're basically claiming that Jeremiah is a false prophet, who taught that the Written Torah was not "eternal" and "for all your generations," etc. Your answer doesn't address the issue I raised - in fact, it just makes it worse. Now you're claiming not only God lies to people but the prophets to, too?



Or it could mean that the new Torah of hearts and minds would be a Torah of morality instead of a Torah of rituals+morality .....


The Torah of morality does last forever.

I think the point the NT would make is that if your sins are forgiven then there's no need for the Old Law.

SJ said...

By the way Ahavah since you are debating me along the same lines that Shalmo did, it leads me to wonder if you have indeed followed Shamo's conversation with me to one extent or another; but whatever, it has nothing to do with the substantive points.

Ahavah said...

I didn't read his stuff, but you haven't (at least to me) addressed the substantive points. Which part of "forever" was invalid? Which part of "all your generations" is invalid? Is Ezekiel's descriptions of uncircumcized persons being prohibited from entering Jerusalem during the 3rd Temple era "done away with?" There's nothing in the Jeremiah passage that implies the entire rest of the Torah and Prophets is somehow now incorrect. Which part of "Sin is the transgression of the Torah" (I John chapter 3) and "Grace is not license for sin" (Romans 6) are you saying doesn't apply? These are NT teachings and they match what is in the Torah and Prophets, yet you reject them for 4th century Roman Catholic drivel?

It seems to me like you're trying to have your cake and eat it, too - rather like Reform Jews, who want all the benefits of covenant with none of the responsibilities. Jesus and his real disciples simply never taught lawlessness. I can't understand why you think they did.

Ahavah said...

Hebrews 10:26-7 If you continue to sin after coming to the knowledge of truth, then there is no more sacrifice for your sin, but only fearsome expectation of judgement...

Sin is still the transgression of the Torah. If your past sins have been forgiven, that doesn't mean you have a free pass to continue sinning, even in the NT theology. It's "REPENT AND BE SAVED," (repeated numerous times by both John the Baptist and Jesus himself) not "be saved and maybe repent if you feel like it later." Repenting from sin means turning away from it - Teshuvah - and that absolutely did not change in Jesus's teachings. If you continue to live in sin, you are not saved because you have not repented, that's pretty clear.

SJ said...

It's not "Roman Catholic drivel." I am nondenominational, and it is standard NT. Don't even go down the NT = anarchy route Ahava, it's just silly.


The full context of your quote of 1John 3 is


"Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. "

Seems to me John and Paul are saying the same thing.


Romans 6 is the absolute worst passage you can bring up to support your point. Romans 6:14 "For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace."


Noone really knows if one is saved or not. All we can do is our best.

SJ said...

>> I also must warn you that linguistic analysis shows about half the pauline epistles are pseudographical works from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries CE and could not possibly have been written by the real Paul. They are Roman Catholic works written with the intention of castigating their competition - Nazarenes and Ebionites especially - who kept the Written Torah and/or parts of the Oral Law.



From Wikipedia:


Several of the letters are thought by most modern scholars to be pseudepigraphic, that is, not actually written by Paul of Tarsus even if attributed to him within the letters themselves, or, arguably, even forgeries intended to justify certain later beliefs.

Details of the arguments regarding this issue are addressed more specifically in the articles about each epistle.

These are the 7 letters (with consensus dates)[3] considered genuine by most scholars (see main article Authorship of the Pauline epistles: section The undisputed epistles):

Romans (ca. 55-58 AD)
Philippians (ca. 52-54 AD)
Galatians (ca. 55 AD)
Philemon (ca. 52-54 AD)
First Corinthians (ca. 53-54 AD)
Second Corinthians (ca. 55-56 AD)
First Thessalonians (ca. 51 AD)


The letters thought to be pseudepigraphic by the majority of modern scholars include:[4]

Pastoral epistles
First Timothy
Second Timothy
Titus
Ephesians
The letters on which modern scholars are about evenly divided are:[4]

Colossians
Second Thessalonians
An anonymous letter that nearly all modern scholars agree was probably not written by Paul is:

Hebrews

Romans is in fact largely not even in question. Ahava, if we did not have a history of being allies, I'd be flipping cursing you out and making fun of you by now like I did with people who tried arguing with me on my blog in the past and saying stupid things.

Ahavah said...

I never said the book of Romans was one of those considered to be pseudographical.

"Grace" has been in effect since Abraham and never meant lawlessness. You are confusing being under the "Law of Sin and Death" with being under the Torah. The Law of Sin and Death is very simple - you sin, you have earned the death penalty. And every person of age (whatever age you consider that to be, if not 13) falls under the law of sin and death. The point of "Salvation" in NT theology is to be freed from the Law of Sin and Death, not get license to ignore the Torah.

Jesus tells his followers in Matthew that when the Torah Teachers read the Torah from Bimah (the "seat of Moses") then they are to do what was read to them, but not follow the hypocrisies of the Torah Teachers (the Oral Law promoters) of the day.

He told the Pharisees that they needed to tithe properly AND follow the moral teachings.

He says clearly in Matthew 7:23 "Depart from me, I never knew you who work Torahlessness"

Anomia - without law, i.e. Torahless.

Even in the NT the very definition of "loving God" is obeying HIS commandments!

I John 5:3+ "For this is the love for God, that we guard His commandments, and His commandments are not heavy..."

I don't care who you believe is Messiah - Jesus or Shneerson or your best friend. But I am concerned that you believe you have covenant relationship with the God of Abraham when you have rejected everything God and his prophets, even including Jesus, teaches.

How can you claim to follow someone whose teachings you reject? If Paul is your messiah then say so - don't pretend you're following the teachings of Jesus and his original disciples, because you aren't.

I'm sorry if this makes you angry - but repentance means turning from sin and not repeating it. It's NEVER meant anything else and never will - and sin is still, Tanakh or NT, the transgression of the Torah. Jesus taught against the Oral Law, not against God's commandments. There is a plethora of scholarship over the past several years demonstrating this.

I have only your well-being at heart, I'm sure you don't believe that, but it's true.

SJ said...

Whenever Jesus spoke about following the law, he only spoke about moral laws. Tithing is a moral law not a ritual law, or perhaps both but it's not devoid of morality like kasharut and shabbat.

To say that Jesus meant for his followers to practice like pharisees and their present day spinoffs is incorrect. The NT has plenty of instances where Jesus diverged from the pharisees.

Jesus and his disciples weren't as strict the Sabbath as the pharisees were. Jesus got rid of kasharut when he said that no food can defile a person (Matthew 15:1-20, Mark 71-23).

The revolt against legalism was in fact begun by Jesus and his direct disciples.


Matthew 7:15-27 is talking about false prophets, not about ritualistic torah laws.


Next, in 1 John let us take a look at the end of 1 John 4 and the beginning of 1 John 5.

1 John 4: 21 is "And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."

1 John 5:1-2 "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. 2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments."

No ritual laws are mentioned.



Maybe it sounds more conspiratorial than anything but Ahavah what if one were to suggest that instead of looking out for "my best interest," that you are just trying to keep your religion from falling apart by trying to sell what you knooow is not a mainstream sect of an individual's current belief? In other words acting in your best interest?


I decide what my best interest is.

SJ said...

* cough * Romans is a Pauline Epistle.

Ahavah said...

Yes, he diverged from the PHARISEES, but not from the Written Torah.

His problem was clearly with the Oral law, not the written Torah.

Why would God supposedly come down to earth and say to people, "Hey, you know all that stuff I commanded you to do before and told you to stone people to death who told you not to? Well, I was just kidding. Never mind, it doesn't work. I lied to you when I said it was forever, for all your generations, everywhere you live."

Really? You really think that?

If God changes the rules on people, then what makes you think Mohammed isn't God's latest word to mankind? Or Jim Jones? Or Jerry Falwell?

I can't believe in a "messiah" who claims that God tells lies, sorry. God said to stone such people, not follow them.

SJ said...

Jesus got rid of kasharut.

Perhaps the Old Law is still in effect for jews who don't believe in Jesus, but the prophets clearly point to Jesus.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 is a clear foreshadow of the Gospel. The Jews couldn't deal with the Mosaic Law, so God is gonna give the Jews a new religion of belief (instead of ritual) and forgive sin.

Ahavah said...

Jesus did not get rid of kashrut. Where in the world do you get that out of the NT? Every even halfway competent NT scholar knows that verse about "making all foods clean" is a later addition - it absolutely was NOT in the earliest greek manuscripts, and wasn't in the original Hebrew Matthew at all.

The topic of that discussion is very plainly eating without washing hands. What he invalidated was the Rabbis Netilot Nadayim before eating bread, which is not a Torah commandment and which is even useless hygenically, since they refuse to use soap.

Eating with dirty hands doesn't make you ritually unclean, he taught. That is part of the Oral Law which he opposed. This entire episode has nothing whatsoever to do with claiming unclean carcasses are now food.

Even the pseudo-paul passages on that subject have to do with 1) vegetarianism vs. eating [clean] meats and 2) whether or not [clean] meat sacrificed to imaginary idols can be eatern. Neither provides absolutely any basis for claiming that "paul" is referring to unclean carcasses as acceptable to eat.

The real paul, as it says clearly in Acts, took a Vow at the Temple to prove he was NOT teaching Torahlessness. Peter says clearly that uneducated dolts FALSELY interprets Paul as Teaching Torahlessness. In Acts 15 and 21 followers of Jesus are told to go and hear Moses read in the Synagogue (the SAME THING that Jesus himself told them in Matthew) in order to restore David's fallen tent and bring back the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

It's only a very unhebraic, un-first century Roman POV of interpretation that leads people astray into Torahlessness. As I said earlier, there are numerous books disproving Jesus and his real apostles were teaching lawlessness.

I recommend to you a commentary on the book of Galatians written by Avi ben Mordechai. You can google and find it. It shows clearly both from Talmudic, NT manuscripts, the early church fathers and other 1st century historical sources that Jesus simply never taught Torahlessness - lawlessness was a Roman corruption, not authentic teaching.

And if you're not even willing to read it (or others like it), then you can't say that you have researched thoroughly and found such scholarship to be wrong. If you REALLY want to follow Jesus, then you ought to at least follow his actual teachings. As it is, you are just looking for justification for chucking the written Torah commandments and don't appear to be interested in the truth.

Again you are claiming that God LIED to everyone in the Torah and in the Prophets, when He said the written Torah was eternal. You continually refuse to address this point. Why would you follow a teacher that claims God tells lies to people? And if he lied to the Jews, what makes you think he isn't lying to the gentiles? A God who lies lies to everyone, not just Israel.