On the topic of Original Sin I just Googled it and this site popped up supposedly showing all the verses from the Jewish scripture and the 'new testament' supposedly referring to it.

There is really not a single verse that seems to lay out the doctrine that I understood Original Sin to stand for - that I inherited guilt from A&E - in any of the verses.

Indeed, some of the verses seem to oppose that idea:

"The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. "

Lots of stuff about how being flesh and blood leads to sinfulness, but it was supposedly God who is responsible for that state of affairs.

proudfootz wrote:On the topic of Original Sin I just Googled it and this site popped up supposedly showing all the verses from the Jewish scripture and the 'new testament' supposedly referring to it.

There is really not a single verse that seems to lay out the doctrine that I understood Original Sin to stand for - that I inherited guilt from A&E - in any of the verses.

Indeed, some of the verses seem to oppose that idea:

"The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. "

Lots of stuff about how being flesh and blood leads to sinfulness, but it was supposedly God who is responsible for that state of affairs.

Again, the OT doesn't call it a sin but a curse, but the story is the same: God cursed Adam and Eve and all their descendants and had to kill Jesus/himself, to create a loophole out of the curse.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:All xtians cherry pick. They have to. Try living by the bible. Impossible. Is anyone going to take a misbehaved child to the city walls to be stoned? The Free Kirk in Scotland does try to follow Calvin but it cant because it would end up breaking the law.
Which is why the whole bible is a nonsense.

Like Penny, you're conlating interpetation with cherry-picking.
(Re)interpeting a piece of religious text to fit your own worldview, is different from ignoring/dismissing entire texts.
The goal might be the same, but the actions to arrive there aren't.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. Oh, and stop saying I'm "conflating" cherry-picking and "interpretation." ALL cherry pickers, from THEIR perspective, are "interpreting." That is just a fanciful word meaning that they have successfully soothed their delicate sensibilities by justifying their cherry picking. You call it "interpreting to fit their world view" well yeah DUH! That means they have a conscious destination in mind... (They see the cherry they want) Now, with a little creative "interpretation," they justify picking that cherry. Know what that's called? Confirmation Bias. [u]How [/u]they dismiss entire texts means absolutely FUCKALL! They dismissed some part of the so-called "Word of god." That is cherry picking. Call it fernumberfluven if you want. A rose by any other name...

Bottom line, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that can't be interpreted from the bible. There is no rational interpretation of religion or the bible (my opinion). Using one bogus made up scripture to validate or invalidate another and calling it "interpretation" to achieve a desired conclusion is what theologians DO. It is their primary function. Professional cherry-pickers.

PensivePenny wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:All xtians cherry pick. They have to. Try living by the bible. Impossible. Is anyone going to take a misbehaved child to the city walls to be stoned? The Free Kirk in Scotland does try to follow Calvin but it cant because it would end up breaking the law.
Which is why the whole bible is a nonsense.

Like Penny, you're conlating interpetation with cherry-picking.
(Re)interpeting a piece of religious text to fit your own worldview, is different from ignoring/dismissing entire texts.
The goal might be the same, but the actions to arrive there aren't.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.

I'm sure that appeals to emotion like this are not conducive to a rational discussion.

PensivePenny wrote:Oh, and stop saying I'm "conflating" cherry-picking and "interpretation."

As soon as you stop doing so.

PensivePenny wrote: ALL cherry pickers, from THEIR perspective, are "interpreting." That is just a fanciful word meaning that they have successfully soothed their delicate sensibilities by justifying their cherry picking.

You're still missing the point.
Cherry-picking is a very specific form of interpetation. When you cherry-pick you ignore and dismiss out of hand parts of your (religious) text.
IE cherry-picking is a form of interpetation, interpetation =/= cherry-picking.

PensivePenny wrote: You call it "interpreting to fit their world view" well yeah DUH! That means they have a conscious destination in mind... (They see the cherry they want)

That's not what cherry-picking refers to Penny.
It refers to choosing cherries from the three, rather than eating them all.
I.o.w. choosing which bits of the bible you follow, rather than following all of it.

PensivePenny wrote: Now, with a little creative "interpretation," they justify picking that cherry. Know what that's called? Confirmation Bias. [u]How [/u]they dismiss entire texts means absolutely FUCKALL! They dismissed some part of the so-called "Word of god." That is cherry picking. Call it fernumberfluven if you want. A rose by any other name...

Except that you keep calling (re)interpation, rather than dismissing, a part of the text cherry-picking, which it isn't.

PensivePenny wrote:
Bottom line, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that can't be interpreted from the bible. There is no rational interpretation of religion or the bible (my opinion). Using one bogus made up scripture to validate or invalidate another and calling it "interpretation" to achieve a desired conclusion is what theologians DO. It is their primary function. Professional cherry-pickers.

Again, there's such a thing as Occam's razor.
Again, you started this thread with the question of whether the NT mandates believe in the OT.
You have been given examples of text where the prophet, apostle, etc. literally says that all the laws of the OT are still in place.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Again, there's such a thing as Occam's razor.
Again, you started this thread with the question of whether the NT mandates believe in the OT.
You have been given examples of text where the prophet, apostle, etc. literally says that all the laws of the OT are still in place.

Yes, I HAVE been given examples. Thank you. Much appreciated. And "literally" is a moving target, open to (re)interpretation when it comes to the bible. It's a fool's errand to seek objectivity in general... it's especially true in seeking an objective bible interpretation. Or is that (re)interpretation?

If you're unconvinced. That's fine. Your prerogative. Fighting about the meaning of the bible is as silly as arguing who'd win in a comic book hero fight. One of us here accepts that there is no right answer to that imaginary fight, but can find mild amusement in the mental exercise... until the exercise becomes dominated by those certain there is only one possible winner. That's when I walk away.

PensivePenny wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Again, there's such a thing as Occam's razor.
Again, you started this thread with the question of whether the NT mandates believe in the OT.
You have been given examples of text where the prophet, apostle, etc. literally says that all the laws of the OT are still in place.

Yes, I HAVE been given examples. Thank you. Much appreciated. And "literally" is a moving target, open to (re)interpretation when it comes to the bible.

It's not.
The car is red.
The literal interpetation of the above sentence is that a car is red.
Now figuratively it might mean something else, but literally there's only one interpetation.

PensivePenny wrote:
If you're unconvinced. That's fine. Your prerogative. Fighting about the meaning of the bible is as silly as arguing who'd win in a comic book hero fight. One of us here accepts that there is no right answer to that imaginary fight, but can find mild amusement in the mental exercise... until the exercise becomes dominated by those certain there is only one possible winner. That's when I walk away.

The only one manufacturing a fight here is you Penny, by continuously attack straw-men rather than what your interlocutors post.
And when people point this out, you dig in, rather than adapt.

Whatever soothes your sensibilities Thomas. I could say the same about you. Just depends on your perspective. I accept there are many MANY ways to interpret the bible. I don't exclude or invalidate any of them. If that makes me myopic or narrow minded or whatever, so be it. Yeah, I'll "dig in" on that position and be proud of it. Aside from that, I really don't care HOW the interpretation was arrived at anymore than I care how my mechanic fixes my car. While I may find the "how" interesting at times and recognize that one way might be faster than another, it just doesn't matter. So, what am I fighting about? You're the one that has made the "how" into an argument. Not me.

"Interpretation" is OPINION. I don't debate opinion. I've explained WHY, I think ALL christians cherry-pick. You have a differing opinion? Okay. Enjoy.

True Believers will spin it any way they choose. Some of them throw snakes around the chapel, some drink poison, some refuse to see doctors, some have multiple wives, some give up sex entirely (so they say). There's pretty much a verse or verses to justify any bat-shit crazy theology they fancy. The key here is "bat-shit crazy", of course. TANSSAATC (there ain't no such thing as a True Christian).

PensivePenny wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:All xtians cherry pick. They have to. Try living by the bible. Impossible. Is anyone going to take a misbehaved child to the city walls to be stoned? The Free Kirk in Scotland does try to follow Calvin but it cant because it would end up breaking the law.
Which is why the whole bible is a nonsense.

Like Penny, you're conlating interpetation with cherry-picking.
(Re)interpeting a piece of religious text to fit your own worldview, is different from ignoring/dismissing entire texts.
The goal might be the same, but the actions to arrive there aren't.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. Oh, and stop saying I'm "conflating" cherry-picking and "interpretation." ALL cherry pickers, from THEIR perspective, are "interpreting." That is just a fanciful word meaning that they have successfully soothed their delicate sensibilities by justifying their cherry picking. You call it "interpreting to fit their world view" well yeah DUH! That means they have a conscious destination in mind... (They see the cherry they want) Now, with a little creative "interpretation," they justify picking that cherry. Know what that's called? Confirmation Bias. [u]How [/u]they dismiss entire texts means absolutely FUCKALL! They dismissed some part of the so-called "Word of god." That is cherry picking. Call it fernumberfluven if you want. A rose by any other name...

Bottom line, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that can't be interpreted from the bible. There is no rational interpretation of religion or the bible (my opinion). Using one bogus made up scripture to validate or invalidate another and calling it "interpretation" to achieve a desired conclusion is what theologians DO. It is their primary function. Professional cherry-pickers.

There is nothing irrational in my interpretation of the Bible. It's rather simple. People searched for explanations for their experiences and came up with some that to them seemed to fit. i.e. they had explanatory value. The Bible is a compilation of many of these explanations. Some explanations were better than others. In additions to that it contains a bit of history here and there that was communicated by a long chain of telephone tag and misunderstandings. One can gain a great insight into human behavior, the good, the bad, and the ugly through the stories in the Bible. The story of JC is a treasure trove of how humans interact with each other and interpret their experience in the world. If one pays attention you can watch the dynamics of that story play out today in ones own life. One can also learn a lot about human behavior by how various people think about a book.

As for cherry picking - of course everybody cherry picks it - you'd be locked up if you didn't. And yes, interpretation is a more preferred word to admitting to cherry picking but as you point out it obviously amounts to the same thing.

John Platko wrote:

PensivePenny wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:All xtians cherry pick. They have to. Try living by the bible. Impossible. Is anyone going to take a misbehaved child to the city walls to be stoned? The Free Kirk in Scotland does try to follow Calvin but it cant because it would end up breaking the law.
Which is why the whole bible is a nonsense.

Like Penny, you're conlating interpetation with cherry-picking.
(Re)interpeting a piece of religious text to fit your own worldview, is different from ignoring/dismissing entire texts.
The goal might be the same, but the actions to arrive there aren't.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. Oh, and stop saying I'm "conflating" cherry-picking and "interpretation." ALL cherry pickers, from THEIR perspective, are "interpreting." That is just a fanciful word meaning that they have successfully soothed their delicate sensibilities by justifying their cherry picking. You call it "interpreting to fit their world view" well yeah DUH! That means they have a conscious destination in mind... (They see the cherry they want) Now, with a little creative "interpretation," they justify picking that cherry. Know what that's called? Confirmation Bias. [u]How [/u]they dismiss entire texts means absolutely FUCKALL! They dismissed some part of the so-called "Word of god." That is cherry picking. Call it fernumberfluven if you want. A rose by any other name...

Bottom line, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that can't be interpreted from the bible. There is no rational interpretation of religion or the bible (my opinion). Using one bogus made up scripture to validate or invalidate another and calling it "interpretation" to achieve a desired conclusion is what theologians DO. It is their primary function. Professional cherry-pickers.

There is nothing irrational in my interpretation of the Bible. It's rather simple. People searched for explanations for their experiences and came up with some that to them seemed to fit. i.e. they had explanatory value. The Bible is a compilation of many of these explanations. Some explanations were better than others. In additions to that it contains a bit of history here and there that was communicated by a long chain of telephone tag and misunderstandings. One can gain a great insight into human behavior, the good, the bad, and the ugly through the stories in the Bible. The story of JC is a treasure trove of how humans interact with each other and interpret their experience in the world. If one pays attention you can watch the dynamics of that story play out today in ones own life. One can also learn a lot about human behavior by how various people think about a book.

As for cherry picking - of course everybody cherry picks it - you'd be locked up if you didn't. And yes, interpretation is a more preferred word to admitting to cherry picking but as you point out it obviously amounts to the same thing.

It shouldn't surprise you that I agree with everything you said BUT with the exception of your first sentence. While you may have drawn a series of logical, rational conclusions in interpreting the bible, all "facts" MUST assume that what was written (at least in part) was non-fiction. While your decision making process might have had elements of rational thought, perhaps brilliant even, relying on a specious text to be informative about ANYTHING IS, in my opinion, the very definition of irrational. One cannot possibly believe in any god without accepting a certain amount of irrational thinking. Everything you've said about the bible being a source of "insight" into human behavior is highly debatable. One could make exactly the same claim with regard to Hamlet and would be just as flimsy an argument. Couldn't we say the same about Chaucer's Canterbury Tales? There is much to learn by reading something written by a man so many years ago. It tells us of his opinion and perception of the world. It hardly tells us anything about how humans interacted unless we ASSUME the stories are ACCURATE. By that same definition of "insight into human behavior" JK Rawling's Harry Potter can be equally valuable. If one elevates the false notion that Harry Potter's wand actually does possess supernatural power then one may glean an entirely different set of "insights" from the books... all would of course be irrational.

I don't intend insult. I hope, if you are a believer, that you might see how the rational person would question the credibility of a compilation of books all making super-incredulous claims. Projecting ones own desires and non-supernatural experiences onto any text, especially ancient ones, and somehow finding meaningful value in it makes the bible no more or less non-fictional than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. You are right, the one thing we CAN gain insight into is "how various people think about a book." That sword cuts in both directions. If a person actually did think the Sorcerer's Stone was a work of non-fiction, I'm willing to bet the insight you gleaned from how they think about the Rawling book would be identical to the insight I glean from the bible, rather how christians think about the ancient text.

PensivePenny wrote:

John Platko wrote:

PensivePenny wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Like Penny, you're conlating interpetation with cherry-picking.
(Re)interpeting a piece of religious text to fit your own worldview, is different from ignoring/dismissing entire texts.
The goal might be the same, but the actions to arrive there aren't.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. Oh, and stop saying I'm "conflating" cherry-picking and "interpretation." ALL cherry pickers, from THEIR perspective, are "interpreting." That is just a fanciful word meaning that they have successfully soothed their delicate sensibilities by justifying their cherry picking. You call it "interpreting to fit their world view" well yeah DUH! That means they have a conscious destination in mind... (They see the cherry they want) Now, with a little creative "interpretation," they justify picking that cherry. Know what that's called? Confirmation Bias. [u]How [/u]they dismiss entire texts means absolutely FUCKALL! They dismissed some part of the so-called "Word of god." That is cherry picking. Call it fernumberfluven if you want. A rose by any other name...

Bottom line, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that can't be interpreted from the bible. There is no rational interpretation of religion or the bible (my opinion). Using one bogus made up scripture to validate or invalidate another and calling it "interpretation" to achieve a desired conclusion is what theologians DO. It is their primary function. Professional cherry-pickers.

There is nothing irrational in my interpretation of the Bible. It's rather simple. People searched for explanations for their experiences and came up with some that to them seemed to fit. i.e. they had explanatory value. The Bible is a compilation of many of these explanations. Some explanations were better than others. In additions to that it contains a bit of history here and there that was communicated by a long chain of telephone tag and misunderstandings. One can gain a great insight into human behavior, the good, the bad, and the ugly through the stories in the Bible. The story of JC is a treasure trove of how humans interact with each other and interpret their experience in the world. If one pays attention you can watch the dynamics of that story play out today in ones own life. One can also learn a lot about human behavior by how various people think about a book.

As for cherry picking - of course everybody cherry picks it - you'd be locked up if you didn't. And yes, interpretation is a more preferred word to admitting to cherry picking but as you point out it obviously amounts to the same thing.

It shouldn't surprise you that I agree with everything you said BUT with the exception of your first sentence. While you may have drawn a series of logical, rational conclusions in interpreting the bible, all "facts" MUST assume that what was written (at least in part) was non-fiction. While your decision making process might have had elements of rational thought, perhaps brilliant even, relying on a specious text to be informative about ANYTHING IS, in my opinion, the very definition of irrational.

One can learn about the thought processes of humans by studying some of the obviously specious interpretations of the Bible. For example, we know that bread and fish can't be made to materialize out of think air. That's a fact. Yet some interpret the Bible in a way where they believe that actually happened. That tells you something about the mental processes of those people. One might also think of how that story could have actually happened and compare that with the more prevalent interpretation. Why the difference? What does that say about people? One could develop a theory of human behavior form that, make predictions of behavior with this theory, and then test it. In short, I'm saying it's not irrational to use irrational text to study the behavior of irrational people.

One cannot possibly believe in any god without accepting a certain amount of irrational thinking. Everything you've said about the bible being a source of "insight" into human behavior is highly debatable. One could make exactly the same claim with regard to Hamlet and would be just as flimsy an argument.

Why do you think that would be a flimsy argument. The fact that people have been drawn to the story of Hamlet for so long suggests something in the story is of interest to people. What is irrational about studying what that is?

Couldn't we say the same about Chaucer's Canterbury Tales?

I don't see why not. I think much of the appeal of he Canterbury Tales is that people recognize the behavior of the characters in the stories. But given the power the Bible has had over vast numbers of people for so long it seems reasonable to me to think that it resonates more strongly with humans than either Shakespeare or Chaucer. I would also say that both Shakespeare and Chaucer were strongly influenced by the Bible and that is reflected in their stories.

There is much to learn by reading something written by a man so many years ago. It tells us of his opinion and perception of the world. It hardly tells us anything about how humans interacted unless we ASSUME the stories are ACCURATE.

Obviously the Bible stories lack accuracy, But we can learn how humans interacted by the inaccuracy in the stories. If someone tells a story about a virgin birth and that story is accepted as true by vast numbers of people there is something to be learned from that. If people tell a story about people who are actually dead coming back to life and believing that story is true then there is something to be learned from that. And there are more basic things to be learned too - how people betray each other, etc. etc.

By that same definition of "insight into human behavior" JK Rawling's Harry Potter can be equally valuable. If one elevates the false notion that Harry Potter's wand actually does possess supernatural power then one may glean an entirely different set of "insights" from the books... all would of course be irrational.

I wouldn't say equal. Although lot of human energy has been put into those stories it's nothing like what has been put into the Bible. But how people interact with the stories could be interesting. I'm thinking most people who read them know they are fiction though. That makes a difference.

I don't intend insult. I hope, if you are a believer, that you might see how the rational person would question the credibility of a compilation of books all making super-incredulous claims.

Super-incredulous claims aren't credible. I would never make such a claim.

Projecting ones own desires and non-supernatural experiences onto any text, especially ancient ones, and somehow finding meaningful value in it makes the bible no more or less non-fictional than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

It's not about finding historical truth. I agree that can't be done. It's about learning what one can from the stories we have, how people respond to those stories and error correcting with what we know about physical reality and other observations of human behavior. In the end you can't be sure of exactly what happened but you can separate the more probable from the impossible.

You are right, the one thing we CAN gain insight into is "how various people think about a book." That sword cuts in both directions. If a person actually did think the Sorcerer's Stone was a work of non-fiction, I'm willing to bet the insight you gleaned from how they think about the Rawling book would be identical to the insight I glean from the bible, rather how christians think about the ancient text.

I think that's a bit unfair. The majority of scholars accept that Jesus was a historical figure. I have no reason to believe the story is pure fiction, the complete product of someone's imagination. Given that, I assume something like the basic sequence given happened, nothing supernatural mind you, just intense human behavior starting with a difficult birth scenario and ending with a horrific death -A lot of misunderstanding and perhaps a fair amount of psychosis along the way. I see it kind of like a mystery to be puzzled out.

John, the itemized response is appreciated. I think you've given me a fair grasp of your position. I won't respond in like kind for brevity and only because I accept most everything you've written. Nothing unreasonable.

I will however respond to a few of the points. If I fail to respond to something in you're particularly interested in hearing, let me know.

Alright, so we can agree that "something" can be learned from human behavior based on how people react to a story. For that matter, we can add to a "story", a sneeze, a crying infant, a Mormon evangelist knocking on the door, or the pizza delivery arriving late. All those are opportunities to learn about human behavior. Personally, I don't see much to be learned from it that can't be learned in about a minute. That is an exaggeration. Some might find it more interesting topic than others, but I seriously doubt there is much value to be gained. But, say I'm wrong. For example, tell me what you think the lesson is that people believe in a virgin birth?

"Flimsy" was a poor word choice. My comparison of Hamlet and the bible was merely to suggest that any value gained in learning human behavior would be more or less equal, of only modest value, and in the end so subjective as to further reduce it's value. The "flimsy" was just meant to say that if one wants to learn about human behavior there are far better ways that are more scientifically valuable and more objective.

I don't understand why you'd think anything I said in the post you referenced was "unfair." I think I was perfectly fair and reasonable, but will entertain your opposition. Is it because I (paraphrased) said the bible is fiction? I'm not one of those people who think the bible must be ALL true or ALL false. Whether Jesus lived or not is of little relevance, imo. However, the evidence is equally compelling that Jesus didn't live as it is that he did. That being said, one of my favorite shows on TV right now is Black Sails. If you aren't familiar with it, it's a period piece from the 17th century about the waning years of the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean and Bahama region. It is chock full of historical figures. A fair accounting of them is done. BUT, there are also several fictional characters stolen from other works of fiction like Treasure Island. Once these elements are introduced into a story, it becomes fiction. When a fictional character and a non-fiction character interact, what exactly is that supposed to achieve? Besides entertainment? This kind of fiction is commonplace and has been probably since the beginning of the written alphabet... it is a genre all unto itself, known as "Historical Fiction." The bible falls into that genre. I do hope you agree with that. Whether this or that character actually existed is irrelevant. We already agree that at least some parts are fictional (supernatural stuff, you said), so the source (the bible) is a discredited witness. That doesn't mean that it is all fabricated, but enough is known to be fabricated that it ALL must be suspect.

<ETA: So much for "brevity." Sorry about that.>

Seeing that Christianity is based on the idea of God the creator, and that Jesus is his son, of course the Old Testament is relevant.

However, as has been pointed out, Jesus fulfilled the law, therefore the old laws no longer apply, and only his laws of the Golden Rule, are all that are applicable.

Yet Christians use the neatly-packaged set of laws contained in the "Ten Commandments" as the basis of their "morality", thus making the Old Testament definitely relevant.

It is confusing for people who aren't raised as Christians, why they choose those particular rules, and not the rest of them contained in the laws of the Jewish people..

In my study of the Bible, and having not paid much attention to the little bit of Christianity I learnt in my mother's search for a sect that suited her, I was confused about the worship of Jesus "thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Ex 20:2). Then I learnt about the Trinity of gods in one, and became even more confused. Especially about other aspects of Christianity, given that for example, Jewish people have maintained the holiness of Saturday as the Sabbath, but Christians worship on Sunday.

I learnt about Constantine and his purported conversion, and his naming of Sunday as the day of worship within his army, which then became the law at the various Councils of the early church, so that was explained.

Still to answer the question, yes, Christianity does cherry-pick what parts of the Old Testament are relevant, but the basic belief system is based more on the Epistles and what the writers dictated in those, and less on the laws of the Old Testament, while devout Christians believe the history of the Jews is contained in the "history" of the Old Testament, and fundamentalist Christians believe the creation story in Genesis 1 & 2 are the "truth" about where humans came from.

In short.

Agrippina wrote:Seeing that Christianity is based on the idea of God the creator, and that Jesus is his son, of course the Old Testament is relevant.

However, as has been pointed out, Jesus fulfilled the law, therefore the old laws no longer apply, and only his laws of the Golden Rule, are all that are applicable.

Yet Christians use the neatly-packaged set of laws contained in the "Ten Commandments" as the basis of their "morality", thus making the Old Testament definitely relevant.

It is confusing for people who aren't raised as Christians, why they choose those particular rules, and not the rest of them contained in the laws of the Jewish people..

In my study of the Bible, and having not paid much attention to the little bit of Christianity I learnt in my mother's search for a sect that suited her, I was confused about the worship of Jesus "thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Ex 20:2). Then I learnt about the Trinity of gods in one, and became even more confused. Especially about other aspects of Christianity, given that for example, Jewish people have maintained the holiness of Saturday as the Sabbath, but Christians worship on Sunday.

I learnt about Constantine and his purported conversion, and his naming of Sunday as the day of worship within his army, which then became the law at the various Councils of the early church, so that was explained.

Still to answer the question, yes, Christianity does cherry-pick what parts of the Old Testament are relevant, but the basic belief system is based more on the Epistles and what the writers dictated in those, and less on the laws of the Old Testament, while devout Christians believe the history of the Jews is contained in the "history" of the Old Testament, and fundamentalist Christians believe the creation story in Genesis 1 & 2 are the "truth" about where humans came from.

In short.

How does one fulfill a law?

If the law says 'chop off the heads of all unbelievers' and then you chop off the head of an unbeliever, you have fulfilled the law...

To 'fulfil' a law is surely to enact it.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

proudfootz wrote:On the topic of Original Sin I just Googled it and this site popped up supposedly showing all the verses from the Jewish scripture and the 'new testament' supposedly referring to it.

There is really not a single verse that seems to lay out the doctrine that I understood Original Sin to stand for - that I inherited guilt from A&E - in any of the verses.

Indeed, some of the verses seem to oppose that idea:

"The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. "

Lots of stuff about how being flesh and blood leads to sinfulness, but it was supposedly God who is responsible for that state of affairs.

Again, the OT doesn't call it a sin but a curse, but the story is the same: God cursed Adam and Eve and all their descendants and had to kill Jesus/himself, to create a loophole out of the curse.

I see. A curse is a horse of a different color. Not what they taught at the christian school I attended.

Doing a little more digging, it would appear this 'curse' idea isn't supported by the OT the way Jews understand it:

The founders of Christianity understood that if man, through his devotion and obedience to God, can save himself from eternal damnation, the Church would very little to offer their parishioners. Moreover, if righteousness can be achieved through submission to the commandments outlined in the Torah, what possible benefit could Jesus’ death provide for mankind? Such selfprobing thoughts, however, were unimaginable to those who shaped Christian theology.

Despite the zealous position missionaries take as they defend this creed, the Christian doctrine of original sin is profoundly hostile to the central teachings of the Jewish Scriptures. The Torah loudly condemns the alien teaching that man is unable to freely choose good over evil, life over death. This is not a hidden or ambiguous message in the Jewish Scriptures. On the contrary, it is proclaimed in Moses’ famed teachings to the children of Israel.

In fact, in an extraordinary sermon delivered by Moses in the last days of his life, the prophet stands before the entire nation and condemns the notion that man’s condition is utterly hopeless. Throughout this uplifting exhortation, Moses declared that it is man alone who can and must merit his own salvation.

https://outreachjudaism.org/original-sin/

Looking for more than one source for this notion, I came across this also:

Question: Do Jews believe in the doctrine of original sin?

Answer: Jews do not believe in the doctrine of original sin. This is a Christian belief based on Paul’s statement, “Therefore just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). The doctrine was fully developed by the church father, Augustine of Hippo (354-430).

According to this doctrine, hereditary sinfulness is inescapably transmitted to human beings by their parents, starting with Adam and Eve. It is alleged that only acceptance of Jesus as savior from sin can redeem a person from sin. All those who do not accept Jesus as their savior from sin are condemned to eternal suffering in hell.

Whether man is a sinner by nature or not is immaterial. Judaism teaches the biblical way to repentance and reconciliation with God. Sincere repentance in which the sinner pledges to rectify his sinful ways and lead a righteous life is one means that is open at all times to all of humanity (Jonah 3:5-10, Daniel 4:27).


http://jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/art ... ginal-sin/

This would appear to in part explain why Jews largely seem to have rejected the notion that a Jesus was wanted or needed. The Covenant was not in need of replacement.

The more I look into it, the more it looks to me like this notion of the inherent depravity of humans is a doctrine that developed at a later time in the development of christianity.

Agrippina wrote:Still to answer the question, yes, Christianity does cherry-pick what parts of the Old Testament are relevant, but the basic belief system is based more on the Epistles and what the writers dictated in those, and less on the laws of the Old Testament, while devout Christians believe the history of the Jews is contained in the "history" of the Old Testament, and fundamentalist Christians believe the creation story in Genesis 1 & 2 are the "truth" about where humans came from.

And all this because this Jesus fellow said (Matt. 5:18 REB) "Truly I tell you: so long as heaven and earth endure, not a letter, not a dot, shall disappear from the law until all that must happen has happened." in order to placate the synagogue Elders who were getting upset at the support he was getting from the local populace.

I suspect that if he had not said that or that it wasn't 'reported' in the NT, Christians would not have included the Torah as part of their holy book. The whole of the Christian world (as we know it) would perhaps now not exist...

Alan B wrote:If the law says 'chop off the heads of all unbelievers' and then you chop off the head of an unbeliever, you have fulfilled the law...

To 'fulfil' a law is surely to enact it.

Looking at the full verse, it would appear that the character in the story is saying that the hundreds of laws from the Covenant are still relevant for everyone even after Jesus does his Jesus thing:

"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."

Because, obviously, Earth hasn't passed away because we're here.

It doesn't look like it is the Law that needs 'fulfilling', but God's plans having to do with Heaven and Earth. Only then will the Laws become irrelevant.

Alan B wrote:

Agrippina wrote:Still to answer the question, yes, Christianity does cherry-pick what parts of the Old Testament are relevant, but the basic belief system is based more on the Epistles and what the writers dictated in those, and less on the laws of the Old Testament, while devout Christians believe the history of the Jews is contained in the "history" of the Old Testament, and fundamentalist Christians believe the creation story in Genesis 1 & 2 are the "truth" about where humans came from.

And all this because this Jesus fellow said (Matt. 5:18 REB) "Truly I tell you: so long as heaven and earth endure, not a letter, not a dot, shall disappear from the law until all that must happen has happened." in order to placate the synagogue Elders who were getting upset at the support he was getting from the local populace.

I suspect that if he had not said that or that it wasn't 'reported' in the NT, Christians would not have included the Torah as part of their holy book. The whole of the Christian world (as we know it) would perhaps now not exist...

I suspect that the Jewish scriptures would still be included, because the letter writers constantly referred to them and the stories in them as doctrinal supports.

proudfootz wrote: I suspect that the Jewish scriptures would still be included, because the letter writers constantly referred to them and the stories in them as doctrinal supports.

The letter writers were at a much later period after Jesus' death and had to include references to the Torah because Jesus said so...

Circular.