If I read Peter correctly, I think he is talking about the interpretive practices of the Rabbis, who generally make conclusions about what is clean and unclean from principles outlined in the OT. Now, some things are explicitly stated as clean/unclean, but from interpreting “why” they are or aren’t, Rabbis often extended the principle to other areas. This is where differing interpretations come in, and where Jesus is believed to be critiquing the teaching.

Rob Bell, in “Velvet Elvis,” talks about how a Rabbi would take up the “yoke” of his teacher, and preface their teacher’s “interpretations” (or “halakha”) with “you have heard it said that _______”, and their own teaching would ellaborate on that. The radical-ness of Jesus’ teaching (and Paul’s reinforcement), was that they rejected the yoke of many current interpretations and established His own WITHOUT another previous yoke (which, in truth, is what Jesus is referring to when he said “my yoke is easy”).

And this may be getting away some from the original thread, but it is greatly relevant because, as Peter said, Paul never discarded the Torah.

Romans 3: 27-31
“27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one. He will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.”

I cannot convince you that your posts are not in vain, but know that probably half of the readers of this blog are probably Christians, or at least “spiritually-minded” folk. What you post, people read, and if you are confident in your argument, then you will be strengthening yourself as well as others. You are correct in thinking that you probably will not convince the contributors here, at least not overnight – speaking for myself, this stuff is all I think about and my criticisms are buried as deep as your own beliefs. I am an ex-theology major, now a religious studies/philosophy grad who sits around and tries to figure out what this stuff is all about. I am not saying this to trump myself up, but simply that I am only looking for the accuracy of reality – not belief or non belief for their own sakes. I do hope you stick around and “fight it out” with us every now and then, if only to push us and yourself to ideas that maybe we haven’t thought about, or at least articulated before.

pbandj – I’ll get to your comment later, but right off the top of my head, I find this statement a little strange:

so when Jesus critiques the “clean” or “unclean” issue some of the leaders have, he is speaking of an interpretative issue, not the Torah itself.

Are you saying that the clean and unclean issues were not in the Torah?

ANSWER:

1) I do not wish to plagiarize.
2) To show that the internet has already provided a possible answer to your question
3) To provide links to further resources that could potentially answer numerous amounts of your potential questions.

I did not get a chance until now to post a reply to your last question that was addressed to me about how “we are nothing more than god’s playthings?” While I have a “copy and paste” answer prepared, I will not be posting it after having read your most recent comment. Upon reading your comment about glue, though funny as it may be, I have realized that in actuality, posting here is merely in vain. I will probably not be posting here again.

you raise a great question that truly plagues most rational people. i think there is some things that must be considered before concluding upon the seeming dicotomy between Jesus and Paul.

notice, paul doesnt say he WAS a pharisee, but IS a pharisee. next, paul continued to obey the Torah his whole life. in his own defense, he says that he is unfairly being arrested because he has not broken the Torah, but instead he is being persecuted because he believes in resurrection of the dead (ie he is a pharisee and not a saducee).

there are many more instances. but to give a short answer, there are many different “Law” in english that translate to different words in greek and even more words in hebrew. so the understanding the Torah is different that halakha and other words is crucial. paul often and openly (as does Jesus) speak against halakha that disagrees with Torah. basically, halakha is the interpretations of the rabbis. so when Jesus critiques the “clean” or “unclean” issue some of the leaders have, he is speaking of an interpretative issue, not the Torah itself. paul does the same with circumcision, where he says the halakha requires circumcision, but this is wrong. that is because Torah says that circumcision is not necessary for gentiles. so paul is still keeping in line with Torah, but not the halakha of the day.

sure, there are many more issues that must be addressed, and i myself am asking these same questions right now. i am studying everything i can get my hands on about the topic in fact. but in each case (so far) i have found that in context of the passage and in the greek (not english translation) paul doesnt contradict Torah at all.

now, i may find a case, but i havent yet. but i would encourage you to check out some of the stuff i said for yourself.

may we seek the truth
peter

I hope, however, that you don’t think I was saying God is harsh and mean and cruel – I think the Bible says god is harsh and mean and cruel, the author of both good and evil. The Bible changes its positions because humans change their positions, not God.

On one level – being a Christian – it is quite embarrassing that Christians have found ways to explain all this away. Personally – I struggle with how to interpret these texts – are the literal? are they figurative? Is God seeking outlets to expose his own wrath? Is God mean? Quite honestly – I am embarrassed by more than a few texts from the Old Testament.

On another level, I think it is futile to go digging for random texts from the bible and saying “see, God is mean, and harsh, and cannot be pleased.” I mean that is why so many people hate us Christians anyway, because we started that jazz. We went combing through the scriptures and found our “proof texts” to “strike down” the athiests and agnostics. (as if we’re supposed to be winning some war against them)

No – No – No – Let’s be honest Christians, God cannot be explained or defined, and what’s worse, He can be more than difficult to defend!

Biblical literists trap themselves – I am not good at defending God, and not sure I want to.

The second passage is Matthew 23, which is likely the most famous time Jesus condemns the Pharisees. It is here that Jesus calls them “white washed tombs” (v.27). This is a clear condemnation on the basis that the Pharisees held that as long as a list of actions was meet, the law was kept. Jesus contradicts the Pharisees’ understanding and carrying out of the law. Jesus wants people to get at the “spirit of the law.” The OT law may be read today by looking for a general truth that is behind that law. For example, all the dietary laws may be summed up as saying, “be healthy.”

The first and greatest commandment is “love the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)

“And the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:39-40)

They sensed the holiness of God and the strictness of His commandments; they sensed their own unholiness and inability to keep God’s perfect law

A perfect law, such as giving the fleece to the priest? Or to take the four kinds of branches of trees? To make the non-Hebrew slave serve forever?

Or even other commandments, such as whoever curses one’s parent shall be put to death.

Nothing about these laws reveals any sort of holiness or perfection.

And again — where does it say that the Ten Commandments were the absolute “law”?