Relevance of Old Testament in Modern World

[Jon Miller]

Ben, your posts in the past and in other threads reflect on you and how people interact with you. This is a standard part of being in a society.

No one ever said you or PH couldn't post here.

I was responding to a general frustration, which is that atheists rarely can talk about the same sorts of things as believers because their set of assumptions never let them consider such things. This is a common issue with such discussions, it wasn't a direct comment in relation to provost H. It is why I choose to talk about Christianity in other groups.

JM

[MrFun]

One of the blessings of freedom is we can choose to associate with only people we like, or at minimum, get along with.

Only reason I wanted to exclude atheists from this thread discussion, is because past patterns have shown the same predictable outcome - it turns into a meaningless flame-fest.

[MrFun]

Wasn't Christ always telling people not to tell others about His miracles?

I admit some were pretty open. These were meant, in my interpretation, to shock the populace and the religious leaders to make a decision. Which they did.

My argument, Mr Fun, is that the entire OT is relevant. Including Genesis/Job/etc. But stop reading it as a list of instructions and more as a story. It is about a relationship (man with God), and is heavily dependent on man, since it is told from man's point of view.

Even the obvious instructions (in both testaments), like the 10 commandments (in the OT), should be understood in in relation to the whole. This is something that many Christians believe, that the same God was involved in the relationship with man in the whole Bible. If so, it isn't a large number of separate stories or commands, but rather pieces of the whole. And should be understood as such.

JM

Okay, so the instructions cannot be taken out of context or removed from the whole. As I think I understand it then, instructions such as one that commands that children who dishonor their parents be put to death only applied to the early Israelite society, which is the focus of the whole story in much of the Old Testament.

And yet, that whole story is still relevant in some form to Christians. Can we take the whole story and ignore such instructions that modern society no longer accept? Such as putting children to death for dishonoring their parents?

[Elok]

If Christ needed miracles to get people to believe in him, why didn't he perform more and bigger miracles to save more people?

You're assuming it "scales up," ie that bigger miracles would, in fact, produce bigger conversions. The very same gospel accounts that tell us of the miracles describe the many Jewish authority figures who simply discount them as the work of Satan.

Compare the mindset of many modern atheists, which is such that it would be literally impossible for God to prove His existence to them: given that rational modern people always go for the simplest explanation, and the ambiguity and opportunity for bias inherent in the concept of "simple," God can only win if He presents a proof that absolutely cannot be explained by anything else. And that is not possible, due to the power of even the dullest human imagination.

If all the stars in the sky rearranged themselves to form the words "yo, I exist-YHWH," a far simpler explanation than an invisible, omnipotent being would be that some secret organization is messing with the atmosphere and our satellites, or aliens are doing it, or it's energy beams messing up the visual cortex of our brains. Because "simple," in the right hands, can mean anything or nothing, or both.

[Nikolai]

MrFun, for one the OT commandments is in Christian theology divided into at least two categories, 1) the commandments given to the Jews in that time, culture and context and 2) the commandments that has universal relevance.

Further, all punishments are taken and fullfilled in Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, so those are ruled out by default.

[Jon Miller]

Wouldn't it be better to instead of saying 'society doesn't accept this, so it must not be relevant', to instead say 'what did this mean to these people (in their circumstances), what does this say about God and man and their relationship'. For the former you are limiting your understanding of God to what agrees with the society that you are a member of (which could be, and I would argue still is, not perfect/etc), in the latter you are understanding more about God and man and their relationship (and your place in it).

The former is the same thing that people who live in a different society than you (ultra-conservatives/etc) do. This is too pick and choose interpretations based on what agrees with their ethics/etc and often miss out on the message and understanding that can be gained from the story.

JM

[Ben Kenobi]

I was responding to a general frustration, which is that atheists rarely can talk about the same sorts of things as believers because their set of assumptions never let them consider such things. This is a common issue with such discussions, it wasn't a direct comment in relation to provost H. It is why I choose to talk about Christianity in other groups.

I understand the general frustration, which is why I went out of my way to comment on how Provost had been cooperative. We can have more quality threads with that type of response. I was more annoyed by your comment than Fun's usual blather, because no one has been trolling here.

[trev]

The laws that MrFun likes to refer to were the laws of the nation of Israel. They have not been superseded, but God has left it to the governments of the world to make the laws for each nation and those people in government will have to answer to God for the laws they implement.
Christians form a group of people known as the Church of God, not a nation and therefore are required by God to obey the laws of the nation, not enforce laws on the church, nation and others. If a nation chose to enforce laws on rebellious children, adulterous and homosexual relationships, that would not be wrong, in fact it would lead to a happy, peaceful society that would be the best the world can offer this side of Christ's return to earth to rule for a 1000 years.. But a nation is a different entity to the church and has different obligations to God than the church has to God. The lack of good moral laws and their enforcement by the leaders of the worlds government will result on God's judgement on the world's leaders at the end of times.

[MrFun]

MrFun, for one the OT commandments is in Christian theology divided into at least two categories, 1) the commandments given to the Jews in that time, culture and context and 2) the commandments that has universal relevance.

Further, all punishments are taken and fullfilled in Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, so those are ruled out by default.

So then for homosexual intimacy, all punishments are taken and fulfilled along with all other proscriptions in the OT because of Christ's ultimate sacrifice.

Except for the universal rules/laws in the commandments, as you have stated.

[MrFun]

Wouldn't it be better to instead of saying 'society doesn't accept this, so it must not be relevant', to instead say 'what did this mean to these people (in their circumstances), what does this say about God and man and their relationship'. For the former you are limiting your understanding of God to what agrees with the society that you are a member of (which could be, and I would argue still is, not perfect/etc), in the latter you are understanding more about God and man and their relationship (and your place in it).

You're right - that makes more sense the way you put it.

[Theben]

The Bible cannot be the Word of God, b/c God is (supposedly) perfect, and therefore his word is perfection. Man is imperfect, and by definition cannot comprehend perfection. Any translation of the Word of God into written form will thereby be flawed.

[Drake Tungsten]

That's sub-freshman filosophizing.

[SlowwHand]

The Bible cannot be the Word of God, b/c God is (supposedly) perfect, and therefore his word is perfection. Man is imperfect, and by definition cannot comprehend perfection. Any translation of the Word of God into written form will thereby be flawed.

Man is capable of documenting events.

[Nikolai]

So then for homosexual intimacy, all punishments are taken and fulfilled along with all other proscriptions in the OT because of Christ's ultimate sacrifice.

Except for the universal rules/laws in the commandments, as you have stated.

Well, if you sin, the punishment is already taken, as long as you are in Christ(ie believe). If you live in sin, ie live a life without regard to God's commandments, it's another case. To take homosexuality, if you regard it as sin(I do, but there is as you know different views on this), it's okay to feel those feelings, it's okay to fall, but not to live a life practising. But this is getting complicating for me as a layman and non-English to convey properly I'm afraid. However, and this is important, God says that he is the only one who have the power to punish and condemn, we humans have no business doing that.

[fed1943]

"A man had two sons and commanded them to go work...".
Wise words. That's the point. The distinction.
I don't care a man see himself as Christian, Muslin, Buddhist, Hindhuist, just Believer, agnostic, atheist, or whatever. Just how he lives his daily life.