New testament vs old testament

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by Nikolai
I've never seen it as a good idea to tell a higher being, the one who created me, what he should have done. Since he did it that way, there probably was a very good reason. But I see your point. I just don't think we are informed enough to judge God.

Not being a believer, I simply see the law as a somewhat unfortunate result of a patriarchial society that placed little value on a woman as a person, and much value on women as chattel.

It's less from any sort of deity and more from a human society.

But, you're free to believe what you will.

[Nikolai]

I seem to have missed your point then. Sorry for that. I don't know much of the American Evangelicals, but from your description it sounds like they need to freshen up their Gospel 101.

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by Nikolai
I seem to have missed your point then. Sorry for that. I don't know much of the American Evangelicals, but from your description it sounds like they need to freshen up their Gospel 101.

They do.

American Christianity, at least the most visible, outward versions of it, has been hijacked by a rather twisted, knee-jerk form that tends to find less in common with Jesus's radical, liberal messages and more with xenophobic, reactionary thought.

[Heresson]

Of course New one is better than Old. Old Testament is teh jewish one

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Nikolai
I've never seen it as a good idea to tell a higher being, the one who created me, what he should have done.

It makes it easier if you don't believe in this being.

Since he did it that way, there probably was a very good reason.

That is to give up reason, ethics, and even conscience. Your argument is that we lack a sensorium for truth and the good other than a stubborn believe in a word of God that has been passed down on us.
I don't think that this is how the bible should be read, anyway. Since Adam and Eve got the ability to discriminate good from evil, they became responsible for what they did.

But I see your point. I just don't think we are informed enough to judge God.

The point is not to judge God. I'm judging the belief in an omnipotent, good all-loving God who makes cruel laws and acts like a spoilt brat, destroying his toy in anger (deluge), arbitrartily torturing innocents (Ijob), or, more generally, I'm debating an omnipotent, good all-loving God in the face of a world of suffering (theodizee).

If thre is a sole, omnipotent God, and these laws are his, then he's no good.
If there is a sole, omnipotent God, and these laws are deeds of men, we can argue further.

[Arrian]

[LotM] You mean Torah vs. Christian Bible![/LotM]



Given those options and those options alone, the NT every time.

-Arrian

[Spec]

Re: New testament vs old testament

Originally posted by falcon41
new testament is a more "mellow" old testament.
which one is true?
if there are conflicts between, which is true?

None. Both are made up fantasies based on an entertainer born 2000 years ago.

Spec.

[MrFun]

I get a chuckle out of Chrisitans who think the Sodom passages are concerned with homosexual sex acts.

[Ben Kenobi]

The point is not to judge God. I'm judging the belief in an omnipotent, good all-loving God who makes cruel laws and acts like a spoilt brat, destroying his toy in anger (deluge), arbitrartily torturing innocents (Ijob), or, more generally, I'm debating an omnipotent, good all-loving God in the face of a world of suffering (theodizee).

If thre is a sole, omnipotent God, and these laws are his, then he's no good.
If there is a sole, omnipotent God, and these laws are deeds of men, we can argue further.

Why must a sole omnipotent God be good? I thought you didn't believe in him anyways.

It seems to me that you do believe in God, just that you believe the Christian one is an imposter.

[Ben Kenobi]

You'll see that early on, I do make the point that Christian theology, in theory, is supposed to be more heavily reliant on New Testament teachings; it's just when these Evangelicals who thrive off of condemnation instead of redemption use the Bible to support their hateful remarks, it almost invariably comes from Old Testament books.

Why would they need to, when they can use Romans and First Corinthians?

I never understood that dichotomy between the OT and the NT. The NT deals with God's relationship with man for a period of less then a century. The OT deals with at least 20 centuries.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Why must a sole omnipotent God be good? I thought you didn't believe in him anyways.

I don't, but Nicolai, and most Christians, do. So I put this theology to the test. If you read my post carefully, I offer other assumptions under the premise that there is an omnipotent God.

It seems to me that you do believe in God, just that you believe the Christian one is an imposter.

You mean like Catharists? Not at all, I'm a die hard agnostic. Rather than the Christian God, I believe the biblic tradition is in part imposterous - to sanctify social laws, e.g. - or, like other religions, a vane human effort trying to explain something we can't give rational answers to. There's still lots of things we can't answer and where religion is a convenient explanation, but the frontier of knowable things has moved quite a bit since the tales of the bible.

[Vesayen]

I wish I got to this thread earlier, well, I have a lot to say.

Originally posted by falcon41
new testament is a more "mellow" old testament.
which one is true?
if there are conflicts between, which is true?

And I think that most christian churches (catholic, protestant even orthodox) are based on new.

I am currently an agnostic Jew, having been a believer in the past. I've waffled back and forth between agnosticism and athiesm for years but kept practicing. I have NO doubt in my mind if G-D is real, that the Torah is not perfectly true and transcribed by him. The hand is man is very clear in some of it. Some of it is also alegory, or written for the understanding of men who did not know as much about the world as we do today.


The Torah("old testament") god gets a bad rap by Christians who want him to be a bad guy and "worse" then the new testament god and is also made by the bad guy by non religious people who just oppose religion in general. The Torah god is not a wrathful angry guy. He never promised to cast you into eternal torment for not listening to him in fact, there is no concept of hell or punishment in death in Judaism. Judaism is a very earth based religion.

Be a good person here and now. Why? Because in no particular order(a) G-D asked you to and he made the universe so you sort of owe him (b)being a good person makes the world a better place and (c)it is simply good to be a good person.

Which is "true"? The Torah or the new testament?

There is a sin in Judaism called tachelu hashem(hard to spell in English) which essentially says if you do something which makes you look bad, you make the god of the Jews look bad by association, so don't be an embarassment.

I'm Jewish. I of course think the Torah is true or more likley to be true or I would not be Jewish. I would point out scriptual inconsistancies and logical problems with the new testament, historical analysis, things of that nature. I could prove the new testament is impossible to be entirley true and perfect, as written. My Christian friend could do the same thing for the Torah. Both documents have major problems which make them nearly impossible to be literally true. Thousands of books and millions of pages and billions of hours of discussion have been devoted to the problems with both documents.

If I had to pick between the two, the Torah is much more plausible then the new testament and stands up better to historical and anthropological analysis. This is not saying a great deal since both the Torah and the new testament fail. If the "truth" scale goes from 10 being perfectly true to -10 being entirley untrue and 0 being unclear, the Torah would be at -3 or so with a handful of beefy issues which make it problematic. The new testament would be at -6 or so, there is no meaningful difference in that regard.

Short answer to the question of "which is more true?" The short answer is "there is no useful answer."


Are there conflicts? Yes, there are many, many, many conflicts between the two. This is one of many reasons why Judaism and Christianity are different religions. One key difference between the two religions is how the religions handle dissent. Judaism encourages Jews to endlessly debate the merits of the rules and tenants of Judaism and even it's plausibility, knowing that a Jew will then get a better understanding of it, ironically, this is where I learned most of my doubts. Christianity mostly discourages this sort of discussion, which is perfectly understandble when we consider the times and societies in which Christianity was made and developed, it was a key feature in keeping large societies stables, a burden Judaism never had to deal with.

Originally posted by CyberShy
The Old Testament is the pact between God and men where men can 'earn' eternal life by living a good life.
The Old Testament shows that man apparantly isn't able to do so.

Therefor the new testament has been given, where man can receive eternal life if he admits his broken being and trusts Jesus to heal him and lead him.

The Old Testament also offers a rich context for the new testament. We can get a better understanding of the new testament through the old testament.

I take issue with this statement because it is not true, it is what Christians like to say about the Torah because it meshes well with the new testament, it has no basis in fact.

Here is the jist of the afterlife in Judaism. There is one. Thats it. Jews get no real information on it. G-D tells us to be good and do what he says and we are expected to do it. He sort of winks and nods and tells us there is some form of existance after life, literally Olam Haba or "the next world". What this is and who goes or does not go is excluded.

The concept of sin is utterly different between Judaism and Christianity which fundamentally changes the view of an afterlife. In Christianity sin almost has a physical property and it can only be "wiped away" by accepting Jesus. In Christianity you are powerless to "wipe away sin", only your god can do it and only by "accepting him".

In Judaism, except for a handful of sins most people never commit, you repent from a sin by making restitution to the victim if there is one and promising to not do it again. Sin never takes on anything resembling a physical property. There is no original sin. If a Christian said to a Jew "Everyone sins, what does your god say about that?" a Jew would be likley to respond "And?" In Judaism, sinning is doing something bad which makes god unhappy and is bad for you and the community, the way to respond to sin is to simply fix it and not do it again. Sinning does not keep you out of the afterlife because no one knows what the rules for the afterlife are, if there are any.

Jewish tradition holds that a righteous non Jew will have the same fate in the afterlife as a righteous Jew. This is human interpretation, not any mandate from G-D.

Jewish tradition also holds that it is easier for non Jews to make G-D happy since they do not have to follow as many rules. Jewish tradition also holds that a non Jew who follows Jewish law or acts especially good makes G-D happier then a non Jew, since they do not have to follow the rules, again, human interpretation, not anything said by G-D.

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
The old testament doesn't talk much about life after death at all. It mostly talks about God blessing you the Jews or not blessing you the Jews.

So? G-D gives non Jews a pass. Be nice to each other, don't rob, steal, bear false witness(different then lying) or murder. There is also a prohibition on worshiping idols but to be honest, I think that rule was proboably written in by men, not G-D, for reasons I am not going to bother explaining here.

Originally posted by Mrs Snuggles
There's always the one that's been used to justify slavery:
"However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way."
Leviticus 25:44-46

Every society of the time accepted slavery. Jews were not allowed to own Jews as slaves, which was better then most of the neighboring societies, where any member could be a slave. Also keep in mind that Jews of the time were supposed to be living in a country with very few non Jews, the effect of this rule being, less slaves. If G-D is real and wrote the rule, if he abolished slavery then the Jews would of ignored the rule, so he gave a less restrictive rule. Slaves are people. This was not the 18th century south. If a Jew decided to rape a non Jewish slave or tie him to a tree and shoot him, unlike the 18th century south, G-D would be pissed and that would be murder. A Jew who murders a slave is a murderer, period. Slaves got off on the Saturday and participated in the most important Jewish holiday, Passover. A Jewish master had to provide for his slaves. Slaves had to be treated humanley and this was not some secular(state) law where you can get away with ignoring them, the Torah are the rules from G-D and if you ignore them, you can bet he'll come down on you hard. G-D says in the Torah that he keeps a special eye on those in society in a weak position, such as orphans, widows, the poor and slaves and the like if you mess around with them, he is going to give it to you and give it to you hard. There are not really many places in the Torah where G-D says clearly "If you do this, I am going to beat the crap out of you", it usually comes in the form of "Do this" or "Don't do this" or "If you do this I will bless you" or "If you do this, I will not bless you", it rarley comes in the form of "If you do this I am going to smack the daylights out of you". He says if you mistreat the defenseless, he is going to smack the hell out of you. This includes slaves.

Originally posted by Mrs Snuggles
"If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death."

For as long as Jewish history has been recorded in placed other then the Torah, i.e. the first temple, the requirment for the death penalty has gotten steadily higher to the point that no one is executed. As it stands as of the last iteration, you need 2 witnesses to the crime where the witnesses even warn the person that they are about to commit a crime punishable by death. The death penalty has been out of the Jewish religion, for WELL over millenia and a half. FURTHERMORE, to get back to the rule itself, is against adultery. Many, many, many, many societies and religions punish adultery with death, even till modern times. The rule is against adultery, not RAPE. If the woman was raped and she was married, she is not going to be put to death, she is blameless.

Originally posted by Mrs Snuggles
Rapists marrying their victims, instead of imprisonment or the death penalty:
"If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her."
Deuteronomy 22:28-29

In the society and ALL neighboring societies and all the societies neighboring those, if a woman was raped she would have no marriage prospects and would be unable to get a husband. Essentially she was left with no economic means to support herself. This is a resolution to that problem. I will not say the rule is perfect but it is better then leaving the woman and her familly with nothing.

Originally posted by Mrs Snuggles
"When you go out to war against your enemies and the LORD, your God, delivers them into your hand, so that you take captives, if you see a comely woman among the captives and become so enamored of her that you wish to have her as wife, you may take her home to your house. But before she may live there, she must shave her head and pare her nails and lay aside her captive's garb. After she has mourned her father and mother for a full month, you may have relations with her, and you shall be her husband and she shall be your wife. However, if later on you lose your liking for her, you shall give her her freedom, if she wishes it; but you shall not sell her or enslave her, since she was married to you under compulsion."
Deuteronomy 21:10-14

Whats the problem? I see none. Consider the context. Taking war brides has been in countless human societies for millenia, hell it happened in Europe not that long ago. Judaism says if you take a war bride 1. You have to give her time to morn her husband. Captives garb = sack cloth, the same thing Jews of the time wore to... *gasp* mourn loved ones. 2. If you get divorced you cannot sell her as a slave, but instead she goes free and becomes a member of Jewish society or leaves it. What would you prefer, if they did not want to be married anymore, the husband could sell her? In rough economic times men would then sell their war wives into slavery. It is also a form of social protection for the woman, so she can be integrated into the society and not made a second class citizen and a slave, she need not fear if she displeases her husband she'll be sold into slavery.

All of the rules you quoted are moot in modern society and have been for a long time since the Temple no longer stands.

Understanding the society and world these rules were written in and understanding the rules takes most, if not all of the sting out of them.

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
If thre is a sole, omnipotent God, and these laws are his, then he's no good.
If there is a sole, omnipotent God, and these laws are deeds of men, we can argue further.

No good according to who? .

You would be hard pressed to find a single rule in the Torah which has no explination or justification. Most of it really does make sense when explained and put in the right context.

[Wernazuma III]

No good according to who? .

Of course you can "decree" that since God (always arguing within the system, so let's take him for real) is the source of everything in the world. Apparently, God introduced a discrimination between something "good" and something "evil" (and is the source of both, which would lead us to the other fine contradiction that God himself created his supposed opposite, which, then, would rather be a part of him...), and - by planting an apple tree, creating a snake, and a secretly coding us with a temptation gene, blaming us afterwards - made us capable to discriminate good from evil. While our sensorium might not be perfect and still subject to "satanic" influences, we should have a general understanding of "good" with our conscience within this system of thinking.

Abandoning the thought that we can tell between good and evil through our conscience is, I say it again, leaving reason and ethics behind.
And then, we agnostics and atheists are accused of an anti-ethic relativism, while many religions try to tell us that the search for the good is over because it's already been written down and we cannot reason with God...

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
Of course you can "decree" that since God (always arguing within the system, so let's take him for real) is the source of everything in the world. Apparently, God introduced a discrimination between something "good" and something "evil" (and is the source of both, which would lead us to the other fine contradiction that God himself created his supposed opposite, which, then, would rather be a part of him...), and - by planting an apple tree, creating a snake, and a secretly coding us with a temptation gene, blaming us afterwards - made us capable to discriminate good from evil. While our sensorium might not be perfect and still subject to "satanic" influences, we should have a general understanding of "good" with our conscience within this system of thinking.

Abandoning the thought that we can tell between good and evil through our conscience is, I say it again, leaving reason and ethics behind.
And then, we agnostics and atheists are accused of an anti-ethic relativism, while many religions try to tell us that the search for the good is over because it's already been written down and we cannot reason with God...

It is not an apple tree in Judaism, one of many mistranslation by illterate monks who never thought to just copy Hebrew texts , there is no concept of original sin in Judaism either.... and there are certainly no satantic influences.

Anyway back on track, all I meant was if there is a god he must by defintion be "good" since he is god, he defines morality. If the rules are unclear to us and appear to make him seem bad, this must by definition be some failing in our comprehension of them.

That is not the real argument I would make, the Torah stands on it's own merits and the god of the Torah is not the wrathtful lunatic some Christians or some unreligious people try to make him out to be.

[Elok]

Re: Re: New testament vs old testament

Originally posted by Spec
None. Both are made up fantasies based on an entertainer born 2000 years ago.

Spec.

Psst...if you're referring to Jesus, he's in the NT only. If he were in the OT Jews wouldn't be Jews.

MrFun, what are the Sodom and Gomorrah passages about if not homosexual sex? Mind you, I don't think the fact that they want to have sex with men is quite so significant in context as the oft-overlooked facts that the men in question are A. guests of Lot's and B. angels, but "bring out the young men with you, that we might lie with them" (from memory, possibly not 100% accurate) seems unambiguously gay.

Vesayen, I'd be careful about saying "the Jewish view of this is" or "the Christian view of this is." There is a fair diversity of opinion in both, no? Much of the CyberShy quote you responded to is alien to the Orthodox Xian understanding, for example. But generally I give your posts the (if that's worth anything to you)