Corpus-Paul

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

Dear Mike,
You wrote:
> Liz wrote:
>
> Then I meant *then,* now I mean now too, since you ask.
> Yes, the whole kit 'n kaboodle, literally, all 613, including the
> temple sacrifice. (Btw, the 613 is a myth. Everytime you get a list,
> you get a different set.)
> *****************************************************************
>
> This is an important question: Is the whole literal law valid now to
> modern Jews, in fact? If you took a poll, I seriously doubt that
> more than a very small minority would say .. Yes, it is. If you
> asked Conservative and Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis and
> scholars as a group that question, I feel pretty sure only a slim
> minority would answer yes, the whole thing is (potentially)
> literally valid today. Certainly not in Israel.
>
> You wrote:
>
> "This is tangential to the issues which divide Christians from Jews
> it seems to me: the eternal validity of the law, and the role of the
> messiah."
>
> I'm far less sure than you just how much ideological separation
> between most Christians and most Jews stems from the doctrine of the
> eternal validity of the Law, at least today. It separates the
> Orthodox, certainly. But what percentage of world Jewry feels
> constrained by their view of Tenach?

Insofar as I understand how Christians feel about the OT there is a major
difference between Jewish and Christian attitudes toward the Law.  My
understanding is that the Christian says that for the Christian the law is
no longer in force. To me that implies that it once was in force, that prior
to Christ it was valid and in force but now no longer is.  The Jew does not
say that. You point out the many Jews who feel the law is not valid.  But
these Jews do not say that it once was valid and now no longer is.  They say
that the law is really nothing but Jewish customs and mores then attributed
to God. These Jews don't believe in the sort of God who stands on Mt. Sinai
and hands out commandments.  To these Jews, the law was never valid in the
way you're talking about.  Those Jews who do say the law was valid then say
the law is valid now.  Jews do not say it was valid then and not now.

This is includes the sacrificial system. Those Jews who say the sacrificial
system was valid then, also say it is valid now. Those who say it was never
valid, ie., never decreed from God on Mt. Sinai, but just custom, say it is
not valid now. Those who say that it was valid then pray for the rebuilding
of the temple.  Orthodox and Conservative Jews pray for the rebuilding of
the temple.


>
> This is certainly not an untimely or unimportant issue. The Beis
> haMikdash had been reinterpreted by Paul, for sure, while it was
> still standing -- or he accepted a reinterpretation handed down to
> him, or "revealed" to him. Without question, throughout his corpus,
> the believers in Christ comprised the temple. Whoever wrote the
> letter to the Hebrews (in the text of which it is certainly implied
> that the Temple was still standing) steeply downsized the Levitical
> cultus, the sacrifices and the Temple, of course. Scattered here and
> there in the gospels, and in the catholic epistles of the NT canon,
> there are indications of this doctrinal metamorphosis of the Temple
> from a building made of stone to one made of men and women.

This is true for the Christian, and marks another difference between
Christian and non-Christian Jews.  Christian Jews did not participate in the
Bar Kochba revolt, but fled to Jordan.  A main goal of the Bar Kochba revolt
was the rebuilding of the temple.

> Within a few years all this was moot. Whatever mode of making
> righteous was in fact in force, it didn't include the Temple cultus
> perforce. So how much COULD the law separate the early Jewish
> Christians from those Jews who were not aligned with that movement,
> after 70CE? Which law, what parts of it? -- close to half of it was
> no longer even relevant.

The rabbis in the talmud criticise the 'am ha'aretz for only following 5
commandments (out of the 613): 1) they circumcise their sons, 2) they tithe,
3) they keep the sabbatical years, 4) they keep the laws of mikveh, 5) they
avoid non-kosher meat.  (I think these are they.)  These are Jews of the 2nd
century. These laws separated the Gentile even from the `am ha'aretz. But
even the 'am ha'aretz accepted the validity of the whole of the law. I think
they simply disagreed with the rabbis on which they were.

This is also true for first century Jews in Egypt. Jews in Egypt suffered
pogroms because they refused to go to court or attend public affairs on the
Sabbath or holy days. They would not eat in the home of a Gentile.




Best,
Liz


>
> Mike Myers
>
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Michael D. A. Myers
> University of California, Irvine
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> <mmyers AT helium.biomol.uci.edu>
> 05/27/1999
> 11:42:49
>
>
Lisbeth S. Fried
Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies
New York University
51 Washington Sq. S.
New York, NY 10012
lqf9256 AT is3.nyu.edu
lizfried AT umich.edu