Do you really think we should love our enemies? Is that realistic. And when I say “enemies” I don’t mean the guy who lives down the block from you and causes you occasional trouble about your lawn decoration. I’m talking about the “I want to kill you and your family” type of enemy. Do you really want to love them?
Sigh
Firstly, Judaism is not a race. It’s many things, but a race is not among them.
Secondly, anyone who wants to can become Jewish. No one is restricted from being one of the “Chosen People” if they wish.
Thirdly, being “Chosen” doesn’t mean that the Jews are racially or morally superior to anyone else. What it means it that they’ve been chosen to follow God’s commandments, to have a Covenant with Him and to be a Light unto the Nations. It means that they have a responsibility to live up to His commands that other people don’t have. Jews have to follow all 613 of God’s commandments; non-Jews only have to follow seven. It is not a method of saying that the Jews are better because of “their race.”
I wasn’t necessarily looking to compare and contrast. You held Jesus to be the ideal of human behavior and kindness. I simply pointed out that he cursed a poor fig tree for not having fruit when it wasn’t even in season.
I don’t know why you are so hung up on “turn the other cheek.” If someone were to mug you and take your wallet, will you also give him access to your bank account? If someone (God forbid) were to murder a relative of yours, would you parade others from your family in front of him too? Heck, if someone were to simply spit in your face, would you hold out your chin to him so he could do it again? “Turning the other cheek” is an open invitation for abuse, not a practical way to run one’s life.
I did not claim that it had a “legalistic” meaning.
As to whether or not Jesus was being figurative about “turn the other cheek”, it’s hard to be sure one way or the other, but the related thing he said:
“do good to those who hate you”
is pretty clearly not figurative, nor internal.
I never said that.
It’s possible to think that Jesus said something like:
“Those of you who have reached the highest levels of consciousness will not want or need to have legal recourse to recover damages. However, the option to do so should be there in the civil code for the benefit of the majority of the people who have not reached this level yet. If you have not reached this level of consciousness, this is something you should strive for.”
Well, I personally don’t like my enemies, and I do strike back when they strike.
But, I’m not a very religious or practicing Christian.
The OP was referring to Christians and whether *they * should reject the Old Testament or not.
I was assuming that Christians do agree with the “love your enemies” ideal, at least in theory.
Look, if this world is just a “video game”, and some people attain a level of consciousness that enables them to see that this world is fake, then to some degree, if someone steals your car in this video game it is not that important. It is nothing to get angry about. It’s just a video game.
For people who have not attained this level, of course they get angry when someone steals their car.
Now, it’s possible that Jesus, like the Buddha and others, had attained this level, and it was from that point of view that he was saying these things. Or maybe, he knew that if you practised this philosophy it helped you on the path to enlightenment. What do I know?
All I’m saying is that Christianity (at least what I get from Jesus’ teachings) is not an “urban survival guide”, full of practical advice on how to mow your lawn or how to cut your hair. It is a religion that tries to uplift humans and make them get closer to God (or help them achieve enlightenment, which may be the same thing).
And I believe “turn the other cheek” is an integral part of that philosophy.
Then you can’t claim it contradicts “eye for an eye.”
“Do good to those who hate you” is not the same as withholding legal justice. In fact, “those who hate you” haven’t necessarily even committed a crime. They just hate you.
So now you do think it was legalistic? Make up your mind.
Sure it’s possible to think that, but it would not have anything much to do with what Christians think.
Look. there’s two ways you can go on this. You can read Jesus’ words as being non-legalistic (and I’ve never met a Christian who didn’t), in which case they do not contradict with Levitical standards of justice, or you can say he meant them literally, in which case you have created your own sect of Christian interpretation for which perceptions of contradiction with Jewish legalism (and not just Jewish, but the rest of the human race) are a problem only for you and not for the other 2 billion Christians who have never interpreted those words legalistically.
If someone *were * actually able to reach such levels of forgiveness that enabled him to let the burlgar go, I would admire that (because I couldn’t do it).
BTW, I searched the web to find the exact text where it says “an eye for an eye”, just to see the context, but I couldn’t find it.
All I found were websites that repeated your interpretation above.
Do you have a cite where the actual words occur, so we can see whether it was meant literally or not?
To me, the text is pretty clear. It talks about maiming, and the same shall be done to him. The fact that this was “interpreted” in the Oral Law to refer to monetary payment is irrelevant.
Come on, it’s pretty clear that, at least originally, what they meant was literal. Maybe it later got interpreted into a financial issue, but the actual text is pretty clear.
The “oral law” referred to is the Talmud. In Judaism The written law (the Bible) cannot be interpreted without the Talmud. They are parallel transmissions from God. The Torah, by itself, is an incomplete repository of the law.
Even if we forget the “eye for an eye” issue for now, what about the stoning passages I showed in the post before yours? Don’t they demonstrate a complete antithesis between the two beliefs?
Even if this is the case, Christianity does not use the Oral Law of Judaism, it just uses the written text. So, even if Jewish Oral Law has “interpreted” “eye for an eye” as figurative, that interpretation is not there in Christianity, only the raw text is.
So:
“eye for an eye” in Judaism may not contradict Jesus’ message due to the phrase’s interpretation in Jewish Oral Law
but
“eye for an eye” in the Old Testament does contradict Jesus’ message because it appears without the “figurative” interpretation.
OK, couple of things, based on comments I’ve made on similar threads recently.
(1) “eye for an eye” – the Mosaic/Hammurabian injunction was one of proportionality. Because before the rule of law was in place, the tendency was that if Ichar poked out Hagael’s eye, then Hagael’s relatives would come to the tent of Ichar’s family and poke out both Ichar’s eyes, plus rape, maim and murder the women, children and old folk, and carry away all the cattle. It was to stop single assaults from escalating into blood feuds: to temper the natural desire for vengeance.
(2) “turn the other cheek” – Jesus is proposing that his True Believers aspire to set the bar high in their moral decisions. It’s part of a longer passage containing teachings against being quick to use even verbal violence: it tells Christians to go beyond tempering the desire for vengeance, to suppressing it. HOWEVER as mentioned in this thread, the majority of brands of Christianity see this as not interferring in any way with the administration of justice against the wrongdoer. No (sane) mainstream Christian would say that this means that after 9/11 we should have just sat to wait for the next massacre, or that the Israeli Transit Authority should issue a special cut-price book of bus tokens for suicide bombers.
Hey, the Sermon of the Mount concludes with “be perfect, just as The Father is perfect” – an obvious impossibility. Jesus (or the evangelist) is presumably aware that any mere human will fall short of the standard, but is apparently using that unreasonable goal in order to motivate the Christian to do more than is expected and never be satisfied that he’s already doing “good enough” (just before the “cheek” example, the Sermon literally tell Christians to “go the extra mile”).
The whole “let he who is without sin…” story presents a similar problem. So, only people who are perfect are authorized to punish others? IOW, we have to allow all the thieves, murderers, etc. in our midst to go because we ourselves aren’t perfect?
She was caught in the act and (assuming the story was true-- I have a concern or two with that story as well) should have paid the price for her crime. Keep in mind that in order to apply the death penalty under Jewish law, the witnesses have to warn the perpetrator that what they are doing is punishable by death - and then the perpetrator must state words to the effect of “I understand but am going to do so anyway.” If that’s the case - that she knew her act was illegal and capital and was forwarned right before committing the act and purposely chose to act anyway, then she should pay the penalty for the crime.
No matter how you look at it, legalisticly or not, the basic fact is that “turn the other cheek” is not consistent with what is said in the Old Testament.
Take for example zev_steinhardt’s comments on “turn the other cheek”. Do his comments indicate to you that it could be consistent with Judaism?
In one case, God tells people to stone someone to death.
In the other case God (Jesus) tells people that they should not stone anyone to death (since only those without sin can do so, and no one is without sin, at least according to Christians)
The two cases show God advocating two exact opposites.