Our next look at the Jewish AM site we have been addressing has to do with several "mini-essays" they offer about the teachings of Jesus in light of the OT law. We have briefly addressed this subject here and will freely be adapting material from that essay as needed.

We will begin with the issue of the dietary laws. To begin we note from our other essay:

To answer these questions we need to establish some frameworks, and to do this I will draw from some previous and related essays. Our primary framework has to do with the categories of the law.

• First, some laws are universal moral laws. This includes do not steal, do not kill, and others. There is no disagreement that these laws should indeed be continued to be obeyed today, so we need not discuss them further.
• Second, some laws are cultural universals. By this I mean laws geared to Israel's culture that have a universal moral law behind them. As an example, some have suggested the prohibition on trimming your beard [Lev. 19:27] relates to pagan practices that cut facial hair for magical purposes. So the universal behind this cultural would be, don't do the occult. But here is my favorite example, from Deut. 22:8-9:

  When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.

  One skeptic says, "One would be hard-pressed to find home builders" who follow this rule. But actually they do follow the modern equivalent. In ancient Israel, the flat roof of a house would be used for many purposes, such as sleeping, household chores, and entertaining. These chores included drying and storage of produce; even today the roof is used for such things in modern Arab nations. We don't use our roof the same way -- the modern equivalent is a balcony. Our builders certainly do make sure that they follow the point of this rule to the letter! At any rate, it would also be agreed that the universals behind these cultural applications should continue to be followed.

• Finally, there are ceremonial laws. Instructions for building the Ark of the Covenant, for example, are definitely in this, as are sacrificial laws. What else belongs in here? Most likely the dietary laws belong here, as their purpose was to make the Jews "different" and to serve as a testimony to their difference in the most intimate ancient setting, that of meal fellowship.

It is in this light that we consider the AM comments on what Jesus said about dietary laws. It is said:

This negation of the distinction between permitted and prohibited foods is of great significance. With this pronouncement, Mark's Jesus presumptuously demolishes a fundamentalist biblical precept. Moreover, this statement stands in direct contradiction to Jesus' own declarations on the permanent validity of the Torah (Matthew 5:17-19; Luke 16:17).

...By denying the distinction between clean and unclean food, Jesus paved the way for his followers to declare invalid an important feature of G-d's Torah to Israel.

The AM site offers no explanation of the purpose of the food laws, and perhaps if pressed, could do so. However, as we note above, the likeliest reason for the dietary laws was to establish a social distinctive for Israel that would be "painfully obvious" at table fellowship. It is a stricture that would emerge anywhere public and in any association with Gentiles. This purpose it indeed served. The Jews were widely regarded in the Greco-Roman era as unusual because of their dietary restrictions.

Now in that light, what of Jesus essentially negating the dietary laws? "Negating" is not the right word; "superseding" is. When the Kingdom expanded to include all men, the need for such a distinctive was erased. The purpose of that ceremonial law had been fulfilled.

Thus when the AM site goes on to complain that Jesus ate forbidden leavened bread at the Last Supper, they are speaking to the air. But they remain misguided anyway:

The crux of the problem deals with the fact that Jesus did not eat matzah as commanded by G-d in the Exodus. Accommodated in Mark 14:12 and Luke 22:1 we apprehend:

"On the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread."

The Greek word for unleavened (matzah) is used here.

It is indeed, and this is their counter:

However, in Mark 14:22 and Luke 22:19 we view:

"While they were eating, Jesus took bread."

Here the Greek word for normal, leavened bread is used. The Greek word for matzah is absolutely not used (I challenge you to check for yourself and see that I am not lying to you). This was an absolutely crucial point. When Jesus ate bread and matzah, he failed to fulfill his own prophecy: "I have not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them." Not only that, he also failed to fulfill G-d's law which stated that matzah was to be eaten as an institute of all time (Exodus 12:17). Not bread as Jesus ate. Once again, by eating bread in opposition to what G-d proclaimed, Jesus paved the way for his followers to declare invalid an important feature of G-d's Torah to Israel.

As we have shown, this would not be true anyway, but the AM site is only half-reporting matters. Mark and Luke in the Greek do not refer to the "feast of the Unleavened Bread." The literal words used do not use any word for "bread." They refer only to the "first day of the unleavened." For the case to be made it needs to be shown that the Greek word for "bread" here means only leavened bread and not both types. This site is either operating in ignorance here or in being extremely dishonest.

The AM site also includes a section of Jesus and forgiveness, and on Jesus and the Pharisees. In both cases this is once again a case of them not recognizing ancient social values properly in terms of the challenge/riposte paradigm. On this see again here as well as here and also here.

The item on Jesus and the Ten Commandments tries to gig Jesus on violation of as many of these commandments as possible, by any means. Hmm, there is one about bearing false witness as well, is there not? ;-)

The first commandment, found in Exodus 20:3 cites: "Thou shalt have no gods before me." Jesus put himself before God when he proclaimed "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me" (John 14:6; John 6:44).

This of course immensely begs the question of Jesus' identity (see here) but in any event also reads the matter wrong. Jesus here identifies himself as a broker for the Father, and therefore functionally subordinate to Him and under His orders (as he makes clear elsewhere in John, as when he says the Father is greater than he is). He does not put himself "before" God however we read it.

Alleged breaking of the fourth commandment is dealt with here.

On the fifth commandment appeal is made to Luke 14:26. Matthew 5:46 is quoted as, "Loving those who love you is pointless." It actually says, "For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?" This is after Jesus says, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you..." If quoting out of context were criminal, this would earn six death sentences. The same old use of Matthew 10 addressed here is found, as well as John 2:4 and verses like Mark 3:31-5.

On John 8:3-11 see here. It apparently does not occur to the AM site that by their own reasoning the Jewish nation was directly disobeying the laws on adultery by giving in to Roman restrictions on the death penalty.

On commandment 8 the AM site resorts to mind-reading:

The eighth obligation (commandment) is "Thou shall not steal" (Exodus 20:15). Jesus appears to condone stealing when he taught a parable about a man who found a treasure on another individuals field. Rather than alerting the owner of it, Jesus hid it and bought the field (Matthew 13:44; Luke 19:30).

Excuse me? Jesus hid it? The man in the parable hid it, and there is also no indication that the field belonged to any person. A Skeptic I know accuses me of "mind reading" across the ages, but if he wants a real example, here it is!

On commandment 9, see here.

On commandment 10, we have more mind-reading:

The tenth commandment in examination is that of Exodus 20:17 which states that "Thou shalt not covet." Jesus taught a parable about a merchant who saw a pearl and coveted it so much that he sold all he had and bought it (Matthew 13:45-46).

Ex. 20:17 actually says not to covet the property of others. See here.

A final essay is on Jesus and violence. We refer the reader again here -- and we find it interesting that while they make much of the "violence" of Jesus in the NT, and about depriving others of their property (re the swine in the lake), they are notably silent about God's "violence" against sinners in the OT and the depriving of the Canaanites of their "property." We of course also do not see things that way, but would not that anti-missionaries who get in bed with atheists had best think carefully about what arguments they select.