Jealousy and wrath are not emotions

a reply to: DISRAELI

The standard practice of the church since the earliest days has been to re-understand the Old Testament ("the written code") in the light of the Spirit. That covers everything from the meaning of individual prophecies to the application of the law, and even the identity of God's people. Paul's last word in Galatians is that those who live by belief in the "new creation" are "the Israel of God".

The Israel of God. Right those who wrestle with gods. And each person's concept of God is unique to that person. Therefore when two or more are gathered, there are the gods. They may not all agree on things, therefore, the re-understanding should be considered as a constant tension with respect to Epistemology(nature of knowledge) and Pneumatology(the spiritual aspect of human beings and the interactions between humans and God). Ideally there should be no point at which all has been decided, written down, and stuck with. All creeds and confessions should be open for modification. Furthermore, not all groups of believers should be held to the same creed or confession. Sounds kind of like congregationalism.

And then throw in different people's approaches like radical, conservative, and liberal and then it's all fairly dynamic rather than static.

Where the modern American fundamentalism is going wrong is that their enthusiasm for scripture leads them into a devotion to literalism which is then applied even to the Old Testament. Thus they ignore Paul's teaching and two thousand years of church practice to begin taking everything in the Old Testament literally. Including, crucially, "I will give a stretch of land to the descendants of Abraham". THAT is where Christian Zionism comes from

This may sound like a horrible thing, just my opinion, anybody can disagree, but:

I suspect that the Zionist Dispensationalists have the very same Worldly Spirit that I do. As I look at the OT promises of earthly glory to the exclusive few I reject it. I don't have to be one of "the winners", the cost to others is too great, more than what I am willing to do at the expense of others. The Zionist Dispensationalist on the other hand wants to be on "the winning side" and no cost to others is too great.

Sounds quite terrible, almost as if I were claiming they have not the Spirit they claim to have, but that is my opinion. But I too read the OT literally as do they. I am as damned as they are. We will, most likely, perish together.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
What exactly is he claiming to be? Can you define this objectively so we can determine once and for all that you are correct?

The Creator.

Proposed Definition

originally posted by: DISRAELI

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
What exactly is he claiming to be? Can you define this objectively so we can determine once and for all that you are correct?

The Creator.

Proposed Definition

That isn't an objective definition of god. It's just your opinion. Something that cannot be measured.

a reply to: Krazysh0t
That's all you're going to get from me. Take it or leave it.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Oh I know. That's why your god will continually lose followers in the years to come. Believing someone's opinion is a lot harder to do than cold hard data and facts. Emotion and your feelings aren't good enough to be used as evidence anymore. It may have worked in Jesus' day, but we are trying to move away from superstition not reinforce it.

If your god is all knowing, he should realize this and adapt to stay with the times. There is never any feedback from the guy. Well except falsely attributed natural disasters in the OT days to god's doing.

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: DISRAELI

Well said, but i must ask, how can we be discharged from "the law" when Jesus promoted that law, or at least thats how Christians view that ideal...

I submit again, as i've said before... Jesus was not talking about "the law" of moses... in which no one can fully keep, but he was talking about what is called "the royal law" which remains untouched...

Not a Jot or tittle

By comparison to the teachings of Christianity I conclude Jesus was no Christian and was a part of the Pesher movement. He was not about to let the foundation of his teachings be destroyed but was against the ridiculous notion of blood atonement and simply reinterpreted the scriptures which was what led to so much confusion in Judea. He was all about logic and his logic was all based in religious philosophy. Not all of his teachings came from Torah as he spent time with other cultures in Egypt like the Therapeutae and other ascetics who were healers and ascetics where as his Nazarene compatriots were very militant.

I believe his goal was not to start a new religion just inject a pacifism that would keep the Romans from descending upon Jerusalem and destroying it. He would have been aware of the rebellion against Rome that was being planned and wanted to stop it but the Herodians were pro Roman and not Semites so had no loyalty to the Judahites.

Long story short Jesus was pro Torah but anti violence and the only way to rectify this was by a reinterpretation of the Law and the Prophets.

Enter: The Pesher or commentary approach to interpretation of the Tanakh, which is what most of the Apocryphal DSS are.

The tradition went in a different direction with the Gemara but is making a comeback.