Corpus-Paul

[Lewis Reich <lbr AT sprynet.com>]

Liz Fried wrote:

> 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.

One cannot generalize aboout "modern Jews" anymore than one can about "modern
Christains" or "modern Muslims". However, as a formal matter of religious 
pratice, the
Orthodox and Conservative movements both consider all the commandments of the 
Torah
and the elaborations thereon of traditional halachah to still be binding.  
The Reform
and Reconstructionist movements do not.  Even among the traditional and 
authoritative
decisors, however, there are individual differences.  Apparently Maimonides 
may have
felt that the sacrificial system would never (and need not) be restored.

> > 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."

The role of the Messiah, and specifically the question of whether Jesus was 
the
messiah, is probably the most popularly salient question.  However, the 
question of
the continuing validity of the law and of the Mosaic covenant is, it seems to 
me, was
ultimately a much more important matter, at least in provoking a breach.  (At 
least in
theory you could have had people believing in Jesus in some sense, who 
nevertheless
continued to observe the traditional law.   Since Judaism has generally been 
far more
concerned with praxis than with belief, that would have been far less likely 
to
provoke a breach than the abrogation of the law ultimately preached by Paul's
followers.)

>
> >
> > 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?

I'm not sure that that's the relevant question.  The views held by the 
majority of
self-identified American Catholics, for example, are not the same thing as the
authoritative teaching of the Church.


> 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.

I'm not sure this is quite true, Liz.  I believe I've heard it said that 
Maimonides
felt that the sacrificial system was for its time, but no longer.




> 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.

Orthodox and *some* Conservative Jews - if I recall correctly the siddur Sim 
Shalom
provides alternative readings of those passages.


>
> 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.
>

I'd thought that the story of the flight to Pella had to do with the First 
Revolt.
Was I mistaken?


> > 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.

As Liz noted, the Sabbath, kashrut, circumcision, and niddah (family purity 
and
mikveh) would have been quite enough.
--

Lewis Reich
LBR AT sprynet.com