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I'm not the one who made up Moses. The biblical Moses is a culture hero who was the subject of campfire stories, probably for centuries before a written language existed to carve the stories in stone. The idea of him chiseling two sets of stone tablets with Egyptian hieroglyphics that most of them couldn't read while the tribes camped at the base of the mountain is vastly entertaining. I'm sure it caused a lot of campfire laughter before everyone started taking it so seriously. You have to wonder where he got the tablets. It's not like there were office supply stores in the Sinai.
Written proto-Hebrew was a thing by the 10th century, and the Torah was edited into its final form by the 7th century. Leviticus, in particular, is the work of a literate professional priesthood, with so many tabus it is a life's work to dodge all of them. They just gave author credit to Moses because everybody had heard of him, but a small town shopkeeper would have no idea what that meant. Deuteronomy is an obvious fake.
The whole Torah is woefully short on historic accuracy. Some of it is pure fairy tale, like the creation story and the Exodus. Other parts are translations of other myths, like Utnapishtim's flood, though the part about rainbows is a charming children's story. Archaeologists have pretty well established that the Exodus never happened, at least on the scale described, and Joshua's (Yeshueh's) conquest of Canaan didn't happen. The tribe of Dan was not Hebrew at all, and was more or less native to Canaan, and may have been a faction of Philistines. Solomon's stables didn't belong to him, and were built by another Israelite king.
If you are looking for an historical Moses, you will be looking for a long time, or you have to ramp up your credulity. Culture heroes are prominent artifacts of pre-literate societies. The comparison to Heracles is apt. Each tribe of Greeks had hero stories that were eventually edited into the 10 labors of Heracles, later expanded to 12. Adding a couple more commandments seemed irreligious to the Jews, so they wrote a whole new book of commandments instead. You have to admire their commitment.
No, Mark 7. 19 "Thus he declared all foods clean". This (i recall that I read) is not in the earliest manuscripts
and, if so, Matthew did not 'omit' it. Luke added his similar comment and others added it to mark, perhaps taking Luke as a prompt.
But even if the 'thus he declared all foods clean' gloss was in the earliest manuscripts it still isn't a problem because even it is is original and Mark wrote it, it is a parenthetical addition of Mark's, rather as Luke added to his copy. Thus both had reason to add it by way of clarification.
Though I will conceded that it could suggests that something along those lines could have been original and Matthew did omit it or even if not, that he didn't add his own claification might support you case that, because he was jewish, he had more respect for the Mosaic law.
.......
I just had a look and there was a lot of wrangling about the reading of the parenthetical remark, but nobody said that it wasn't originally there, so I must be misremembering. So Matthew being a converted Jew is at least as valid a claim as a Greco -Roman Christian with an interest in prophecy and the Law.
I have seen a lot of Mesianics ditch Paul saying the same things, but that is not what I am reading. I see Paul speaking to tens of thousands of Gentiles who were so Zealous to keep anything Jewish and from this zeal is where Paul had a problem because they were trying to keep every holy day and tradition Jews kept, and that is very much, they were so zealous to become like Jews that their zeal took it to a fault. Christianity never left Judaism and that is crystal clear to me.
Having said that, If I thought Paul ever taught any Jews against the laws, he deserved death, and if he was decieving tens of thousands of Jews in Acts 21, he deserved to die as a false prophet.......
What I see is people who love to love a lie, liars paid to say thks of Stephen, liars running around telling lies on Paul trying to kill him.
This loving to love a lie is talked about everywhere, in Revelation also speaking about Gentiles saying they are Jews but are not Jews.
The whole idea is an adoption into Israel, and the lawless are not invited.
Again, Gentiles joined the religion of the Jews on order to be grafted and adopted, and this continued 100 years. To try and say that those Gentile converts to Judaism were not converts to Judaism is just false.
Jesus spoke plain and simple so you would understand,'' THINK NOT that I come to do away with the law, Jesus told us who the least in the kingdom right there and you contradict Jesus making things up. Not only did he show us who was the least and the greatest by the law, he has much to say about people who disrespect the law, and that aint nothing nice when Jesus tells Christians that he never knew them because they despised tne law. The lawless one has you Nate.
You are making things up, and if Paul contradicts what Jesus said of the law and lawbreakers, then ne is making things up.......
This is something you can't understand Nate, you are always looking at people who love the law as if it has something to do with salvation because you don't know the law and you will never get past your concept of what the law is.......The lawless One who stands against everything called of God or worshipped of God.
Nate do you understand the mentality of lawlessness you have? Do you understand what lawlessness means and what it means to fight against the laws and worship system of God?
First, you are quotemining. The whole passage (sermon on the mount) is this Mt 5 17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
This idea is destroying the Law and prophets but fulfilling them. That doesn't mean fulfilling as in prophecy, because how is the law prophetic? From the gospels you can see the answer. The Law and the Prophets were until John. When Jesus arrived, Faith in Him made Law, prophets (other than attesting to Jesus) and even the temple was obsolete.
This was the idea that paul developed and the Gospels put it retrospectively into Jesus' mouth. Moreover, while the 'jot and tittle' quote is in Luke (in a different form) I couldn't see a similar saying in any other gospel. So until you find one, I'll say this is Matthew's own addition. And it shows Matthew's own take. The law and the prophets were important as a grounding, But Jesus made all that obsolete. Indeed we get this in the sermon on the mount where he quotes the Law and then "But I say to you..." something to replace it. Jesus is the law now. That was matthew's view, especially as those saying do not appear (so far as I recall) in any other gospel.
The other thing is that the Law IS to do with Salvation, according to Paul in Romans. But only for the Jews. But they have to keep it faithfully. Later he seems to say (Galatians) that it isn't necessary even for Jews - Jesusfaith will 'save' them. And that's that view transported in the Gospels and that is what you are saying now - the Christian view of what the law does. But it wasn't Paul's original view and not the Jewish view, if they are the kind of Jew that believes in an End Times and being saved, or not.
If you are righteous, you can be saved. And Righteousness involves keeping the Law.
I have seen a lot of Mesianics ditch Paul saying the same things, but that is not what I am reading. I see Paul speaking to tens of thousands of Gentiles who were so Zealous to keep anything Jewish and from this zeal is where Paul had a problem because they were trying to keep every holy day and tradition Jews kept, and that is very much, they were so zealous to become like Jews that their zeal took it to a fault. Christianity never left Judaism and that is crystal clear to me.
Having said that, If I thought Paul ever taught any Jews against the laws, he deserved death, and if he was decieving tens of thousands of Jews in Acts 21, he deserved to die as a false prophet.......
What I see is people who love to love a lie, liars paid to say thks of Stephen, liars running around telling lies on Paul trying to kill him.
This loving to love a lie is talked about everywhere, in Revelation also speaking about Gentiles saying they are Jews but are not Jews.
The whole idea is an adoption into Israel, and the lawless are not invited.
Again, Gentiles joined the religion of the Jews on order to be grafted and adopted, and this continued 100 years. To try and say that those Gentile converts to Judaism were not converts to Judaism is just false.
Paul was talking to Gentiles. Greeks, Thracians, Ephesians, who knew little of Jewish law and cared less. He certainly had to explain it a bit to give the Christian background, but they probably didn't care too much until Jews turned up telling them that they were doing it all wrong and writing to James in Jerusalem, complaining. Which is why Paul had to go to Jerusalem to present his case.
Nobody is saying that paul ever taught a Jew not to observe the law, though I think he argued later that it wasn't going to save anybody and only Jesus could do that - for Jews, too. Even the gospels don't say (so far as I can remember) that for a jew to observe the Law would damn them. It was rejecting Jesus andOr acting sinfully that would do that. But that was the same for gentiles.
Jesusfaith was the sure way to be saved, also for Jews, is what the gospels say, even if Paul didn't.
It's rather odd. since Paul never seems to have said that the Law could not save Jews. The promise of Abraham did that. The law was an additional burden (he said) imposed to make it harder for them. They had to observe those Laws and act decently. If they did, Paul wouldn't say they were damned. Indeed even for Gentiles who circumcised and became subject to the whole law (he said) they could still be saved by observing the law and being decent people. But how much simple (the argument goes) to stay a gentile hand just have faith (while not being a sinner, of course).
The gospels go further of course. Unless they behave better than the Pharisees (so the Gospels accuse them) they (he is talking to Jews) will never see the Kingdom of heaven; they will not be saved. But it isn't onserving the Law that will exclude them, but not being Righteous enough.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 11-07-2018 at 03:43 PM..
I haver a theory about Moses... ....at first around 10-9th C BC, the Laws making El the go of the Hebrews were laid down and Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers were the first books of the Bible. It is interesting that the earliest knen Bibletext - the silver scroll dated 600 BC is related to these books of the law. Later there were the war -prophets during the wars (lost ) with Babylon and Assyria and then the exile. During that time, the hebrews had to become more separate and distinct from the Babylonians than ever before. They wrote an origin of the world and their history, borrowing Mesopotamian legends. Not only the Creation and Flood of Genesis but their historical appearance out of the hills and occupying Canaan in the time after the 11th collapse, I suggest that they used records of a Canaanite tribe being expelled from Egypt by a certain Amose, and made it a tribe of Hebrews leaving Egypt under a leader, Moses. During that time, the Laws were given and the existing laws and rules were backdated to then. And because of avoiding the Philistines who didn't exist at the time, and some disobedience or other they had to wander around before entering Canaan from the East rather than the west.
Even Moses' origins are borrowed from Mesopotamis - the life of Sargon of Akkad.
We may not agree with the sequence, but generally agree on the antiquity. Most scholars place the composition of Torah between 500 bce and 250 bce. Anything from the monarchic period would predate this by over a century, and Deuteronomy was almost certainly a product of King Josiah's religious reforms. After Josiah, Judaism was pretty monolatrous, but not necessarily monotheistic.
It's hard to say much about the 10th-9th centuries because there are no records, but Hebrews seem to have been generally henotheistic, worshipping various place-gods. Generally the picture of the Hebrews is a bunch of people who didn't really know what their religion was. Moses set up snakes on poles, then snakes on poles were evil. Moses and other prophets talked to god in high places, then altars in high places were evil. Asherah was El's wife, but not Yahweh's. It took them a few centuries to hammer it out.
By contrast, Christianity moved with lightning speed. They adopted the rigid monotheism of the Jews and had managed to deify Jesus in only a few decades after his death. Even the Christians who rejected the divine birth considered the possession by the holy spirit at his baptism as an incarnation.
We may not agree with the sequence, but generally agree on the antiquity. Most scholars place the composition of Torah between 500 bce and 250 bce. Anything from the monarchic period would predate this by over a century, and Deuteronomy was almost certainly a product of King Josiah's religious reforms. After Josiah, Judaism was pretty monolatrous, but not necessarily monotheistic.
It's hard to say much about the 10th-9th centuries because there are no records, but Hebrews seem to have been generally henotheistic, worshipping various place-gods. Generally the picture of the Hebrews is a bunch of people who didn't really know what their religion was. Moses set up snakes on poles, then snakes on poles were evil. Moses and other prophets talked to god in high places, then altars in high places were evil. Asherah was El's wife, but not Yahweh's. It took them a few centuries to hammer it out.
By contrast, Christianity moved with lightning speed. They adopted the rigid monotheism of the Jews and had managed to deify Jesus in only a few decades after his death. Even the Christians who rejected the divine birth considered the possession by the holy spirit at his baptism as an incarnation.
Yes. A lot was already done for them. The Pharisees had already developed the idea of a resurrection with the graves opening to become part of the rule of God. Probably through his appointed ruler - they'd had enough of them in the past. There were plenty of failed messiahs and Jesus was (I hypothesise) one of these. It wasn't such a left - field bit of thinking to suppose that as messiah, he would come again. Perhaps the brilliant idea was that it wouldn't be a different messiah but the same one - because they were all the same, back to David (1). So it wasn't too much of a leap to think that Jesus' spirit would come again as messiah.
Handed over to the Greeks they had their Take all ready. To them 'Messiah' translated into 'son of a god'. The transformation of the spirit of the messiah into the spirit of God happened as soon as you got a Greek to write it.
(1) That I believe is the answer to 'Who is David's son' which SEEMS to be saying that if David is talking to a 'Lord' that isn't God, who? The gospels don't answer this because i don't think they understand it. But Paul explains it in Romans. The Messiah is (repentant) Adam coming back in the spirit to help God's people. So David's son is, as messiah, also his lord, because David the man is also powered by the spirit of the messiah, just as Jesus is. Paul has been called 'brilliant'. I won't say that's untrue.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 11-07-2018 at 05:47 PM..
First, you are quotemining. The whole passage (sermon on the mount) is this Mt 5 17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
This idea is destroying the Law and prophets but fulfilling them. That doesn't mean fulfilling as in prophecy, because how is the law prophetic? From the gospels you can see the answer. The Law and the Prophets were until John. When Jesus arrived, Faith in Him made Law, prophets (other than attesting to Jesus) and even the temple was obsolete.
This was the idea that paul developed and the Gospels put it retrospectively into Jesus' mouth. Moreover, while the 'jot and tittle' quote is in Luke (in a different form) I couldn't see a similar saying in any other gospel. So until you find one, I'll say this is Matthew's own addition. And it shows Matthew's own take. The law and the prophets were important as a grounding, But Jesus made all that obsolete. Indeed we get this in the sermon on the mount where he quotes the Law and then "But I say to you..." something to replace it. Jesus is the law now. That was matthew's view, especially as those saying do not appear (so far as I recall) in any other gospel.
The other thing is that the Law IS to do with Salvation, according to Paul in Romans. But only for the Jews. But they have to keep it faithfully. Later he seems to say (Galatians) that it isn't necessary even for Jews - Jesusfaith will 'save' them. And that's that view transported in the Gospels and that is what you are saying now - the Christian view of what the law does. But it wasn't Paul's original view and not the Jewish view, if they are the kind of Jew that believes in an End Times and being saved, or not.
If you are righteous, you can be saved. And Righteousness involves keeping the Law.
How can you quote the whole thing Jesus said and not understand? The Earth is still here, Jesus said that anyone who keeps the laws and teaches others to keep the laws will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, but keep reading, he says we had better keep it better than those priests in charge, and then he starts explaining how the laws are now harder to keep. Where murder was wrong, now you are a murderer for just being angry, where adultery was wrong, now you commit adultery just by looking......Think not that Jesus came to do away with the laws, and if anything Jesus did ended the laws, then he came to destroy the laws, you aren't making common sense.
The law and the prophets ARE PROPHESIES.
Everyone has a 7 year covenant in walking in those 7 feasts, Jesus came walking as a man, and those Sabbaths and feasts are made for man. He didn't insinuate that he fulfilled all the law and the prophets because of the fact that so many prophesies go unfulfilled. If the law and the prophets had been fulfilled, then Rosh Hashanah would have already judged the Gentiles, the Jess would have become immortal and we would be living in the thousand year reign of Messiah after the kingdom had been turned over to Israel, and the whole world would now be one religion.
The law and the prophets are nothing but Prophesy.
Nate do you understand the mentality of lawlessness you have? Do you understand what lawlessness means and what it means to fight against the laws and worship system of God?
More it would seem, Hannibal, than you understand what it means to be unprincipled.
.....
This was the idea that paul developed and the Gospels put it retrospectively into Jesus' mouth......
You have made a fascinating post and some very interesting speculation, which I would credit more if Jesus had come up in one of the other lines of thought, as Pharisee or Sadducee, but He and His cousin, John, seem to have been much closer to the Essenes, who had three main centers at the Dead Sea, Egypt and Mt Carmel. Note the geographical references in the narrative
How can you quote the whole thing Jesus said and not understand? The Earth is still here, Jesus said that anyone who keeps the laws and teaches others to keep the laws will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, but keep reading, he says we had better keep it better than those priests in charge, and then he starts explaining how the laws are now harder to keep. Where murder was wrong, now you are a murderer for just being angry, where adultery was wrong, now you commit adultery just by looking......Think not that Jesus came to do away with the laws, and if anything Jesus did ended the laws, then he came to destroy the laws, you aren't making common sense.
The law and the prophets ARE PROPHESIES.
Everyone has a 7 year covenant in walking in those 7 feasts, Jesus came walking as a man, and those Sabbaths and feasts are made for man. He didn't insinuate that he fulfilled all the law and the prophets because of the fact that so many prophesies go unfulfilled. If the law and the prophets had been fulfilled, then Rosh Hashanah would have already judged the Gentiles, the Jess would have become immortal and we would be living in the thousand year reign of Messiah after the kingdom had been turned over to Israel, and the whole world would now be one religion.
The law and the prophets are nothing but Prophesy.
Until you understand the Gospels, Hannibal old canniibal, you will never understand any passage from it.
Matthew's saying is also found in Luke 16. 16 “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it. 17 And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one [g]tittle of the law to fail.
The passage here is preached on the way to Jerusalem whereas Matthew has it in the Sermon on the mount. It does not appear in Mark.
This means that it (like the Lord's prayer )is taken from Q document, the contents of which can be identified by not being in Mark and appearing in different places in Matthew and Luke.
However, the question is, whose is the original form?
Luke - it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one [g]tittle of the law to fail.
Matthew - Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Note that both refer to the law and the prophets, But overall the sense is the same in both
(i) (Sue me ) the law and the prophets; heaven and earth shall pass away before any part of the law. I think that was the sense of the "Q" original
(j) Matthew and Luke cannot endorse that as Christianity has made the law 'pass away'. So they alter it. Luke says that it is hard for it to pass away but since John appeared (heralding Jesus) we had the Kingdom of God.
Matthew says the Same Thing in a different way. It cannot pass away - until all is fulfilled. But that Isn't the end of heaven and earth, it is the arrival or perhaps rather the death and resurrection, of Jesus.
This entirely fits with Paul who did not dismiss the Law as not given by God (they were, but as a punishment rather than a guide) but supplanted (for gentiles) by Jesus, and Later effectively sidelining the Law for everyone. Including himself.
The Christians also took the point of the law as a burden (or at least Luke reading Paul's letters, did, in Acts (1). But they were rather more concerned to show their legitimising Links to Judaism and the transfer of God's covenant from the Jews to the Gentiles. Thus the Law and the prophets were vitally important, but Jesus supplanted them.
This is the message of the gospels all the way through.
(1) Acts 15. 6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question. 7 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. 8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9 He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. 10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 11-08-2018 at 09:59 AM..
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....at first around 10-9th C BC, the Laws making El the go of the Hebrews were laid down and Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers were the first books of the Bible. It is interesting that the earliest knen Bibletext - the silver scroll dated 600 BC is related to these books of the law. Later there were the war -prophets during the wars (lost 
) with Babylon and Assyria and then the exile. During that time, the hebrews had to become more separate and distinct from the Babylonians than ever before. They wrote an origin of the world and their history, borrowing Mesopotamian legends. Not only the Creation and Flood of Genesis but their historical appearance out of the hills and occupying Canaan in the time after the 11th collapse, I suggest that they used records of a Canaanite tribe being expelled from Egypt by a certain Amose, and made it a tribe of Hebrews leaving Egypt under a leader, Moses. During that time, the Laws were given and the existing laws and rules were backdated to then. And because of avoiding the Philistines who didn't exist at the time, and some disobedience or other they had to wander around before entering Canaan from the East rather than the west.