Guest Brett Caudill Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 As a christian, I often have to come to terms with the inclusion of both the Old Testament and New Testament as a complete, comprehensive testament of God's revelation to humanity. I was thinking about this and wondered what you all thought of these two passages from the bible. This is purely for discussion that I might benefit from your viewpoints. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst, they said to him, 'Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?' This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, 'Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.' And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, 'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?' She said, 'No one, Lord.' And Jesus said, 'Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.' This story of Jesus can be found in the New Testament, specifically John 8:1-11, compared to this passage in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 22:22, the book of the law: If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dB-Paradox Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 My grandma used to say, "The old testament is history and the new testament is salvation". I suppose you could see it two ways. The OT is history, as in it's finished...no longer valid. Or it's history, in that it gives a background for the NT. Either way, it seems that the OT is no longer valid. But most Christians would argue that Jesus came not to change the law, but to fulfill it. A long time ago, my pastor once said Jesus came to give the law more power. It would imply that the old law has not changed, but rather that Jesus is giving it new meaning. It might also be argued that since Jesus was going to pay for everyone's sins, there was no need for the woman to be stoned...Jesus would eventually pay for her crime. However, since he hadn't yet paid for the sins of mankind, she should have been held accountable. Tithing was still in effect, as I recall, while Jesus was ministering on earth. It wasn't until after his death that the old law of tithing had no power (or so it seems). The same should have been true for the woman in question. If you're asking why there seems to be such a discrepancy between God's law to Moses, and God's law to Jesus, it's most likely that Jesus is portrayed as a radical extremist. That's how he's meant to be in the gospels. But if God never changes, then why would any deviating from the law be acceptable? Either God changes and the word of God is wrong, or God doesn't change and Jesus is wrong. Personally, I believe both are wrong and are conceived in the minds of men. Not that Jesus was not a real person, but he is like a good fishing story...get's better each time it's told! His story is most likely made up by someone who never actually met him many years after his death. He went from good person to superhuman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 And Jesus said, 'Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.' Well, "jesus" was the one banging her which is why they only brought the woman and no man to him. But the rest of the group was banging her too and really didn't want her dead so they left. She was easy but really fun so she got to live. "Jesus" was drawing dirty pictures on the ground. However, after "jesus" told her to sin no more she was on her way home and met up with Saul who told her that everyone sins all the time simply by being alive and breathing. There's no escape from it. She was shocked since "jesus" had just told her something different. So she killed herself. Saul was pleased when he found this out since sex is nasty (and the bitch wouldn't do him since he had a thorn in his side which she said made him look "weird"). mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chefranden Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 And Jesus said, 'Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.' Well, "jesus" was the one banging her which is why they only brought the woman and no man to him. But the rest of the group was banging her too and really didn't want her dead so they left. She was easy but really fun so she got to live. "Jesus" was drawing dirty pictures on the ground. However, after "jesus" told her to sin no more she was on her way home and met up with Saul who told her that everyone sins all the time simply by being alive and breathing. There's no escape from it. She was shocked since "jesus" had just told her something different. So she killed herself. Saul was pleased when he found this out since sex is nasty (and the bitch wouldn't do him since he had a thorn in his side which she said made him look "weird"). mwc You should write a commentary on John. It makes as much sense as anything I've ever read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chefranden Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 As a christian, I often have to come to terms with the inclusion of both the Old Testament and New Testament as a complete, comprehensive testament of God's revelation to humanity. I was thinking about this and wondered what you all thought of these two passages from the bible. This is purely for discussion that I might benefit from your viewpoints. Hi Brett welcome to the board. Just a friendly warning, trying to come to terms like this is likely to lead you to atheism. You should maybe take up chess. It occupies the mind but does not raise faith busting questions. This warning is from experience, and I think that many here would second it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 Welcome to the forums! The answer I was given as a Christian was that Jesus' death supersedes the Jewish law and Gentile Christians are no longer required to follow it because Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice and this is usually backed up by lots of quoting from Paul. At the same time, it ignores where Jesus says in Matthew chapter five that the old law still applies until the end of time and that Jesus' followers are supposed to be even more righteous than the Pharisees yet in other places, Jesus deliberately disobeys the old law. The answer to your question is that contrary to what biblical literalists claim, the bible is not an inerrant divinely inspired book with no errors and contradictions. Rather, the bible is a collection of human made mythology written by different authors over many centuries and each of the authors have radically different views about God and salvation from each other. It should also be noted that the story of Jesus and the adulteress woman is a later story that was added into the bible long after John was written and it does not appear in any of the earliest manuscripts of the bible and most scholars don't consider the story to be historical fact. If your bible has footnotes in it, it should have a footnote that says this story doesn't appear in early manuscripts of John. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike D Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 I don't see anything wrong or inconsistent with these two passages. Jesus was obviously speaking in parables, so what he said should not be taken literally. The lesson Jesus was trying to teach was that even though the woman was a slut and would be stoned, the Pharisees should keep in mind that nobody is without sin. It's a beautiful story that illustrates that no matter who we are, God still regards all of us equally as vile, putrid wretched sinners who deserve nothing short of being tortured, brutalized and burned alive for all eternity. Once again, the Bible proves itself to be the inerrant, infallible word of god. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
★ Citsonga ★ Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 The supposedly loving God who was bloodthirsty in the old testament and liked to even have little children killed lightened up a bit in the new testament and became more passive. Perhaps he just mellowed out after finally getting laid with Mary! (OK, I stole that line from DeistPaladin in a YouTube comment. ) But, in all seriousness, the Bible says that God never changes, yet a literal reading of the Bible shows that its God does in fact change character. Also, just for reference, the story of the woman caught in adultery is not in the oldest copies of John, but rather appears as a forgery in much later copies. Yep, those damned Christians, screwing with the texts to get their own ideologies across. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnight-mindwanderings Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 I don't remember whether I heard about this idea or came up with it myself, but as a child I thought of god in the OT as being more wrathful than in the NT because he had not experienced the human condition until he came in the form of Jesus. Of course this way of thinking makes god no longer omniscient and apparently lacking in empathy pre-Jesus. But that is sort of how it seems. Jesus is the intermediary between humanity and God the Father. Of course I also thought that the trinity didn't exist until Jesus was born and before then they were solidly one being so I had a lot of heretical ideas while still a Christian. There are many ways to look at it. In regards the the trinity idea in the OT vs NT, I never really understood the place or the use of the Holy Spirit. Again, my ideas about the current workings of God was there was the Father who created, judges and destroys and remains separate from human beings. The Holy spirit is how he interacts with the real world and Jesus is how human beings interact with him (just as animal sacrifices were before). Trinity is a different topic all together, but I found it a bit related since a lot of the difference in character of god between OT and NT is that the NT introduces the trinity idea (sort of - it has to be extrapolated out of the text still). There are also at least 2 different characters of god in the OT, Yahweh and Elohim as well as Shaddai. Since they are all translated the same way as either "God" or "Jehovah" its harder to tell in English, but each of these persons (Shaddai is plural by the way) has different characteristics and exist at different historical periods. Yahweh and Elohim especially have conflicting characteristics. I do not have the source material handy (my bookmarked pages got erased recently) but doing some research into Yahweh and Elohim and the different Jewish and early Christian sects surrounding the varying god descriptions should lead to some interesting results. Perhaps some members know more about the Hebrew understanding of these words and can shed some light on this. If I remember correctly, Yahweh is the god Moses introduced and so is the more warlike god. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts