Tag Archives: Judaism

Commentary

How should Christians understand the Old Testament laws?

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I found this post by Aaron Brake at Apologetics Junkie.

Excerpt:

Perhaps no area of the Old Testament is more foreign and confusing to modern-day Christians than the Mosaic Law. When reading through the Pentateuch, many believers breeze through the narrative of Genesis only to hit a roadblock when confronted with the overwhelming number of commandments, statutes, and ordinances in the last half of Exodus (not to mention the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).

Yes, this is why you have to be careful when telling people to read the Bible, because not all parts of the Bible are good for new Christians! Not only are some parts pretty difficult to read, but the new reader has no framework to interpret what they are reading! I had a non-Christian guy in my office who was starting to read the Bible and he got bogged down in the Old Testament and had no idea whether these laws applied today. It’s a major problem, which is why I recommend everybody start with John instead, then maybe Luke and Acts.

There are two ways of solving this problem that are pretty popular. One way is the covenant model and the other is the dispensation model. I think that Aaron is presenting the covenant model. In the covenant model, the Old Testament laws were part of a covenant made between God and the people of Israel.

Aaron writes:

The Law in ancient Israel served three distinct purposes: relational, instructional, and structural. The Law was given to Israel in order to form a covenant or relational agreement between Yahweh and His people… the Law functioned as a constitution which provided internal structure for the nation as a whole. It provided objective standards by which the Israelites could maintain appropriate boundaries with one another as well as neighboring nations.

Jesus formed a new covenant with a new group of people who believed in his identity as the Messiah and that his death was an atonement for sin. So only the parts of the old covenant that are explicitly carried over to the new covenant still apply to our conduct as Christians.

Aaron writes:

Therefore, the primary interpretive question readers should approach the text with is this: “What does this passage tell us about God and His holiness, about Israel and her sin, and about how Israel needed to obey in order to maintain her covenant relationship with God?” Also ask, “What specific areas of life does God expect holiness and transformation within His people?”

I recommend reading the whole post. I think this is something that should be communicated to people who are coming at the Bible from a non-Christian perspective. Maybe we should have some scholars created an optimal ordering of the books of the Bible so as not to scare people away?

Note: I haven’t really looked into this problem in detail, but the covenant model makes more sense to me.

Videos

Christians debate Jewish rabbis on the Trinity and the identity of Jesus

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Is God three persons and one being?

This debate on the Trinity was noted in a comment by Woody Lordless.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Cool. I am pleased to see a Jewish teacher get up there and slug it out with our guys.

Was Jesus the Messiah?

Here’s a debate on the question of whether Jesus was the Messiah. I recognize both of these names and have heard them both speak. These are the top guys, unless you go and get Jewish historians like Geza Vermes or Paula Fredriksen.

Part 1:

Part 2:

I want to see a full-length formal debate on the identity of Jesus with some Jewish scholars and some Christian scholars. We should organize a conference and let each side pick their best guys and have it out so everyone else will learn what the arguments are on either side. We should hold the conference at a university, and broadcast it n the Internet, then make the videos available for download after the event.

Commentary

UK’s Chief Rabbi blames atheism and Darwinism for falling birth rates

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The article is in the UK Telegraph. (H/T MercatorNet via ECM, Big Blue Wave)

Excerpt:

The leader of Britain’s Jewish community claimed the continent’s population is in decline because people care more about shopping than the sacrifice involved in parenthood.

He blamed atheist “neo-Darwinians” for Europe’s low birth rate and said religious people of all denominations are more likely to have large families.

[…]The Chief Rabbi warned that secular Europe is at risk, however, because its moral relativism can easily be defeated by fundamentalists.

And he claimed that its population is also in decline, compared with every other part of the world, because non-believers lack shared values of family and community that religions have.

Lord Sacks said: “Parenthood involves massive sacrifice of money, attention, time and emotional energy.

“Where today in European culture with its consumerism and instant gratification – because you’re worth it – where will you find space for the concept of sacrifice for the sake of generations not yet born?

“Europe, at least the indigenous population of Europe, is dying.”

“That is one of the unsayable truths of our time. We are undergoing the moral equivalent of climate change and no one is talking about it.

I blogged about the UK’s looming demographic crisis previously.

So the Chief Rabbi seems to be in agreement with my views on atheism and morality. Logically speaking, atheism simply doesn’t meet any of the minimum requirements for rational morality. The problem for atheism is that the decision to commit to a marriage for life and to have children involves massive self-sacrifice. But on atheism, life is just about having happy feelings before you die – so they cannot rationally ground the decision to marry and procreate.