Originally posted by no1marauderPlease find me a stupider one in ancient times.
1. I said the law was stupid, not "bad" (though it surely is that). Please find me a stupider one in ancient times.
2. I stand corrected. But why aren't the Ten Commandments also undone by the "New Covenant"? What makes these particular provisions that much different from the others? Their vagueness?
Have you read the Codex Hammurabi? Rule 2 states:
2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.*
There are quite a few amusing ones if you take the time to peruse all 282 of them.
Try these:
229 If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.
230. If it kill the son of the owner the son of that builder shall be put to death.
231. If it kill a slave of the owner, then he shall pay slave for slave to the owner of the house.
*http://eawc.evansville.edu/anthology/hammurabi.htm
Originally posted by no1marauder2. I stand corrected. But why aren't the Ten Commandments also undone by the "New Covenant"? What makes these particular provisions that much different from the others? Their vagueness?
1. I said the law was stupid, not "bad" (though it surely is that). Please find me a stupider one in ancient times.
2. I stand corrected. But why aren't the Ten Commandments also undone by the "New Covenant"? What makes these particular provisions that much different from the others? Their vagueness?
IIRC Christ said that the entire law can be summed up into two -- love the Lord with all our strength and your neighbour as yourself. So, yes, IMO they have been superseded.
Originally posted by HalitoseThe claim is that "Love the Lord with all our strength and your neighbour as yourself" sums up the entire law of the OT. Could you please derive the rule regarding the appropriate punishment for a slave beater from those two principles.
[b]2. I stand corrected. But why aren't the Ten Commandments also undone by the "New Covenant"? What makes these particular provisions that much different from the others? Their vagueness?
IIRC Christ said that the entire law can be summed up into two -- love the Lord with all our strength and your neighbour as yourself. So, yes, IMO they have been superseded.[/b]
Originally posted by FreakyKBHYou should have written "all that matters."
Matter, in this sense, was referring to importance. In the sense of what matters, the Bible is the final authority. However, there is indirect teaching relative to all of the non-essentials, found in I Cor. 10:31,
"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."
Originally posted by FreakyKBHIt is irrelevant whether one's influence is fleeting or lasting; there is simply no reason to think either that 1) S's being influential is evidence of S's being genius or 2) S's being genius is sufficient for S's claim that P to lend justificatory support for P. Any number of relatively dim wits have had a lasting effect on the world. Any number of brilliant minds have had no substantial effect on the world. Further, as the examples above illustrate, testimony is only a good basis for belief formation if we have good reason to believe that the testifer is an actual authority on the subject matter upon which he testifies. But, if we have good reason to doubt that the subject matter in question describes anything real, then we thereby have reason to doubt that anybody's testimony about that subject matter is accurate.
Bush, Clinton, et al, are temporary players on the scene, affecting a transient influence soon to be relegated to the novelties of the past. While Jesus' moral teachings are rather rudimentary in nature, His revelation of God is something in an altogether different category. Of course counterexamples are available with any moral code which rests on certa ...[text shortened]... Christ? That is the issue in salvation, for every person to answer for themselves.
Alexander the Great was only a genius in his chosen field, and yet he changed the course of history. Hitler wasn't a genius of any sort, and yet he had a similar effect.
And, as I mentioned above, it doesn't matter if Christianity was the "main course", just as it wouldn't matter if paganism was the "main course" in the teachings of some particularly brilliant pagan. Since we have independent reasons to doubt that these subject matters track the truth, we have good reasons to doubt that the testimony of 'experts' on these matters confers justification upon our beliefs. This is why the Bertrand Russell example is relevant; because whether his testimony confers justification on our beliefs is dependent on whether we have independent grounds for thinking both that 1) the subject matter at issue describes something real and 2) he is an authority on the subject matter.
When Jesus declaims on Judaic doctrine we should believe him because he was a devout Jew educated throughout his life in the doctrine, and one considered by his contemporaries to be worthy of the honorific 'rabbi' (as is claimed throughout the NT). He taught in synagogues, didn't he? But regardless of this, his confrontations with the Pahrisees clearly indicate that he had a keen understanding of Judaic doctrine. Anyway, if you don't like the example, then take another one. The point I was making was general. We would have good reason to take Jesus' testimony regarding something mundane, say, life in Jerusalem, as evidence for the truth of these claims because we have good reason to think there are facts of the matter about life in Jerusalem and that Jesus was an authority on these matters.
The rest of your post is irrelevant to the the issue at contention here.
Originally posted by no1marauderHe still hasn't figured out the passage to which you were referring earlier. 🙂
The first question is presented in my post directly above.
The Ten Commandmant question was addressed to those who said the OT laws had been"superceded" by the "New Covenant":
Do the laws superceded include the Ten Commandments? They are presented as part and parcel of the Levitical laws (God speaking directly with no breaks between).
Originally posted by DoctorScribblesSure -- do not have a slave to start with.
The claim is that "Love the Lord with all our strength and your neighbour as yourself" sums up the entire law of the OT. Could you please derive the rule regarding the appropriate punishment for a slave beater from those two principles.
Originally posted by lucifershammerIt is not that the law existed in Hebrew culture that he finds ridiculous, but rather that some one would claim that such a super-duper swell god would command such an asinine law.
1. There are tribes with worse laws even today.
EDIT: Okay, maybe there aren't. But, considering slavery was legal less than two centuries ago in our most developed nations, I don't see why you think it unbelievable that worse laws existed 3,500 years ago!
2. Sorry - it was Dt 5. Read from v.22 on.
Originally posted by FreakyKBHAh there it is!
Just to clarify, No1 is likely referencing Exodus 21:20,21.
"If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property."
Correct me if I am sooooooooooo wrong.