This is a very interesting conundrum for Christians. Leviticus 17:14 says:
For the life of every creature - its blood is its life. Therefore I said to the people of Isra'el, 'You are not to eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it will be cut off.'
Apparently blood is so vile this bears repeating in chapter 19:26 "Do not eat anything with blood."
If Christ is supposed to be the sacrificial lamb, and drinking his blood is salvation, what does this say about the book of Leviticus? What does it say about Christianity? What does it say about Christ's theology? What does it say about the group called "Jews for Jesus?" What does it say about the Eucharist? What does it say about Christ being the "sacrificial lamb?"
17: 4-7 shows how blood is supposed to be used during sacrifices:
the people of Isra'el will bring their sacrifices that they sacrifice out in the field -so that they will bring them to ADONAI, to the entrance of the tent of meeting, to the cohen, and sacrifice them as peace offerings to ADONAI. 6 The cohen will splash the blood against the altar of ADONAI at the entrance to the tent of meeting and make the fat go up in smoke as a pleasing aroma for ADONAI. 7 No longer will they offer sacrifices to the goat-demons, before whom they prostitute themselves! This is a permanent regulation for them through all their generations.
This doesn't sound like what Jesus meant. He was clearly either starting a new tradition or inserting a different cultural practice into his Judaism. If his sacrifice on the cross is supposed to be represented by his blood he should be commanding his followers to splash blood on the altar. His "Last Supper" doesn't sound much like a Passover Seder, either, since blood would be splashed on a doorway... and could not have been eaten as part of the meal.
Where did this cannibalistic ritual come from? In the O.T. people sacrificed their children, but God supposedly condemned that as a foreign practice. And cannibalism was a form of punishment or a way to deal with hunger after being smote by God. So God certainly shouldn't have done it himself. Sacrifice as atonement for sins by offering a burnt animal took place only at the Temple, and the sacrifice was given by sinners to the priests. Jesus didn't offer to have himself burned, or offer burned flesh to the disciples.
It's easy to see why this new cult had trouble convincing Jews to join. This supposed rabbi was teaching something totally unorthodox and repulsive to them.
14 comments:
Your previous post focused on contradictions in the bible. This is certainly a glaring contradiction!
The burnt-offering or splashed-blood examples could easily have led to aome entertaining variants of the Mass, if history had run a bit differently.
It's easy to see why this new cult had trouble convincing Jews to join. This supposed rabbi was teaching something totally unorthodox and repulsive to them.
Which just supports my suspicion that Jesus never existed and the whole story of the origin of Christianity as we now have it was retconned long after the fact
The authors of the gospels were apparently not Jewish. They wrote in Greek, and quoted scripture via the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. There are several other places in the NT where it appears the authors don’t quite understand Judaism.
Many of the mystery cults around at the time had sacred meals of some sort to commemorate their gods. The Christian Eucharist was probably borrowed from the pagan mystery cults.
Interestingly, the Didache, a first century Christian book, describes how to celebrate the Eucharist, but does not associate the meal with the blood and body of Christ.
...which supports Infidel753's theory that Christianity is really Paulism and that the NT is a work of fiction.
"It's easy to see why this new cult had trouble convincing Jews to join. This supposed rabbi was teaching something totally unorthodox and repulsive to them."
Huh?
It's unbelievable how you get everything wrong LA… You always draw the wrong conclusion! No need to actually examine the evidence—just float your own conclusion!
When the FAITH is properly explained…it has no trouble winning people over—and it certainly had no trouble winning 1st century Jews over to New (and final) Covenant, especially those of the Diaspora.
Jews have one advantage. A good grasp of the Scriptures from an early age.
In fact so MANY Jews were won over especially after the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple, THE TEMPLE, which was everything to the Jews! An event Jesus predicted by the way. What if your White House was destroyed. And every time you tried to build it, something, stopped you.
For 2000 years.
God is done with the Old Covenant.
And a sign to that effect is the Temple has never been rebuilt. Presently, a Muslim mosque sits on the remnants of the Temple Mount. Good luck with that rebuild~
The Temple was useful only until the Messiah arrived. The new Temple is Jesus, Himself.
Fainthearts can stop right here.
CONTINUED:
"From something I wrote before,
The Jewish rabbis of the first century saw the rapid defection of Jews from Judaism into Christianity. Large amounts of Jews were becoming Christians. Something had to be done.
Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai solved it. At Jamnia. With a selected team of rabbis, he removed from the Septuagint those books, or altered those passages in the Septuagint that supported Christian claims of the divinity of Jesus, and his identity as the Christ, passages that relate to his mother, etc.
MANY OF THE OLDEST Biblical fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls, particularly those in Aramaic, correspond MORE CLOSELY with the THE SEPTUAGINT (the LXX) than with the Masoretic text. This confirms the scholarly consensus that the LXX represents a separate HEBREW-TEXT TRADITION from that which was later standardized as the Masoretic text!
French (Gaul) Bishop Irenaeus, of the second century, noted that Jewish translators (Aquila and Theodotin) removed parthenos—"virgin"— from Isaiah 7:14. The Septuagint clearly writes of a virgin that shall conceive. They inserted, neanis, which is rendered "young woman". And the good bishop wasn't the only one to notice these improvised passages as Jamnian versions of the OT started to become locally accessible.
In the Early Church there were MANY books vying to be in the New Testament. The Catholic Church sorted through them and canonized the 27 you have in your Protestant Bible today. But why did the Protestants decide to change the Old Testament? The Church had, at the same time relatively, decided the final canon of the Old Testament which by the way, was the same version Jesus quoted from! The LXX version of the Old Testament.
Jesus quoted from the LXX, THE SEPTUAGINT, but the Protestant reformers and Jews look to the Masoretic Text. When Jesus said, "search through the Scripture" (Jn 5:39) he meant the Septuagint. When he read prophesy in the synagogue, it was from the Septuagint's Isaiah (Lk4:16-21). The Apostles also quoted from the Septuagint."
Protestants recognize the Jewish Jamnian incomplete, altered, Bible.
CATHOLICS do not.
Nor do CATHOLICS recognize the New World Translation (JW), the Book of Mormon, or the Koran etc.
JESUS absolutely existed.
Jesus set up the Church to replace the synagogue. This 'creation' of Jesus is with us right up to the present day.
And Jews were able to accept the Eucharist, seeing it as a natural fulfilment of their Passover tradition. YOU don't accept it, because you are ignorant of the Scriptures. You can read, but can't put the whole thing together.
Todays Jews are largely an ethical group. They have no Temple, no valid priesthood, and they offer no sacrifices as required by the Law. They live in the shadowlands.
There are only TWO RELIGIONS in the world.
CATHOLICISM and UNBELIEF (in varying degrees).
And there's nothing in the middle—
"CATHOLICISM and UNBELIEF (in varying degrees).
And there's nothing in the middle—"
NWA, Black-or-White thinking is a sign of a neurosis, such as Borderline Personality Disorder, depression, or anxiety.
It's also the basis for "False Dichotomy" because in most things there are indeed more than two possibilites. You have blinded yourself to infinite possibilities, which is faulty thinking and self-destructive.
In psychology it's called "splitting" and I do think that some atheists who are former fundies or Catholics had been guilty of this kind of thinking as believers. Once one little crack appeared in their theology the whole house of cards fell down.
You should really talk to someone about this flaw in your personality. It's self-destructive.
OH! I do enjoy this!
Playing the psychiatrist are we?
Those who think they see faults in others are usually projecting. Themselves. Had a meltdown, lately?
Based on the snippets of objective truth—that we know—people are right or wrong in relation to that. Morally. Theologically. I claim to know nothing else.
The multitude of religious experience and belief seem to trouble atheists. They can't sort it out—so they throw it all away.
I've seen people do the same with advanced science, or advanced mathematics.
Those who can't cope with information overload are saying more about themselves than they are about the disciplines they have failed to understand, and master.
Always.
Jesus told people to sift.
Those who refuse to sift, by default, must arrive at unbelief.
Welcome to the world of religious experience.
Please cite the passage that refers to "sifting."
It's also the basis for "False Dichotomy" because in most things there are indeed more than two possibilites. You have blinded yourself to infinite possibilities, which is faulty thinking and self-destructive.
LOL! That's about the most ironic thing I've read on the blogosphere today. This is EXACTLY what you did in the Judas thread. Surely you can see that, right?
Sort of 'tripped' upon this post in the blogosphere.Jesus was at a minimum the ultimate psychologist, a paradigm shift in the face of humanity, a paradox to the barbaric of old. In one way, the symbolism of the bread and the wine is a comedy of errors turned upside down and inside out. No wonder the rulers hated him. He threatened their egos, as He still does today. Instead of eating bodies to survive insane conditions the body of him, is recognized as the Staff of Life, representing the brokenness of Humanity and our own conditions. It was also prophetic in that He knew what was coming, and that he would be 'sacrificed' like they did children, only the joke was on them. "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do". Double whammy, they thought they knew what they were doing, but it was He who LET them do it, because that's specifically one of the multitude of reasons He came to face them in the first place. Someone else noted that many many of the Jewish culture did change there ways, and likely that changed (a speculation only) when the time around 313AD rolled around, and like everything else on the planet, it gets into the wrong hands. Eashoa M'sheekhah (Jesus Messiah, the Life GIVER!), ironically enough, did not even come to create a religion (although he knew it was to come, hence, a new phase for humanity)..It was simply called "The Way". I was asked by a non-believer friend once why he spoke in parables. Pull out a book on the parables and you might find as many different answers as writers. The sower and the seeds, a word play of a parable within a parables. The Prodigal Son (really the Father)..describes nearly every person's relationship with God, or even "no-God", there's no way around it. Realize, "God" is just a word, we have to communicate somehow. Trying searching Miltha. Jesus, Eashoa, is and was and always will be the Miltha (actually Milta), but you won't find the fullest definition on line anywhere. It's been lost in the annuls of time. My lack of belief escalated to new heights to now, I do not comprehend at all what the problem is? Stop believing or trying to believing or denying there is anything to believe, and start Knowing. And YES, You can KNOW God in the YADA sense. Only by the Realization that He Will Let You Know Him, and it's nothing like I thought it would be. Yeah, sitting on the porch at 4AM smoking a cigarette, I "Saw" God, that is to say, He revealed himself to me. Think outside the box, and then the box is so big you can see it anymore, think some more. I did not find God in a book or in a church. He's "out there", and inside yourself. Totally mind blowing. This atheist thing?...locked in the mind is all it is. I prison of delusion.
"Think outside the box" There was never a box to begin with!
"Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai solved it. At Jamnia. With a selected team of rabbis, he removed from the Septuagint those books, or altered those passages in the Septuagint that supported Christian claims of the divinity of Jesus, and his identity as the Christ, passages that relate to his mother, etc." muslims make similar claim over Muhammad. that jews and christians altered passages supported muslim claims of Muhammad's prophet-hood. Muslims learn this nonsense from Christians it seems.
Dead Sea Scrolls nor Samaritan torah supports "Christian claims of the divinity of Jesus" so it is a dead lock either way.
Lady Athiest, your blog was extremely interesting. Your reply to Arrow II was amusing and very intelligent. Arrow Ii did not appreciate it, but accused you of pretending to be a psychotherapist.
ArrowIi's comments on how Jesus was a kind of Phoenix burnt temple rising from the ashes was very interesting.
However, so were yours, especially in so far as they seemed to relate to sacrifice.
The upshot may be this: there was a paradigm shift. How one interprets that is key.
Please don't patronise Lady Athiest, Arrow Ii. You owe her more than that.
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