which passage in the bible says that those kosher laws no longer apply?

we've all heard religious rightists make arguments about how homosexuality or whatever is wrong because it's in the bible.

i often point out that the bible also says to avoid shellfish and so on. they always counter with the statement that jesus said those rules no longer apply.

i've always wondered exactly what the passage was, and which rules exactly did it dismiss. the dietary rules only? all of leviticus? what about other jewish rules other than the dietary ones?

in particular, i'm wondering if any of the things the religious right points to from the torah/old testament were later "repealed" by jesus in the new testament.

I can think of the passage (sermon on the mount?) where Jesus starts going on about "You have heard it said that _____________ ..." (fill in the blank, mostly Old Testament stuff) "...but I say unto you ______________" (fill in the blank with his New Rules.

:)

"What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy."

See also, Romans 8:1,2

"Christ Jesus has set you free from the Law..."

If no, why not (I'm not being combative - I'm trying to figure out an argument to use with your help).

If I recall correctly, Peter has a vision of a spread of animals before him, and is told by God that he can eat any of them. However, he notes that many of the animals are considered unclean. He is reprimanded for considering unclean what God has presented to him as clean or acceptable. Mainstream Christians tend to view this vision as a message that Christianity was meant to be spread to Gentiles as well as Jews, and also that some of the more legalistic aspects of the Old Testament no longer apply.

Wow...sometimes all those years of Bible Trivia before my loss of faith really do come in handy.

so rules about, say, working on sabbath would still apply. although i suppose the jewish rule against turning on or off electric things on the sabbath is a matter of interpretation as to what exactly constitutes "work". still, i'm quite certain these right-wing politicians make speeches and raise funds on sunday. i mean, why else would they go to church?

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

I just don't know. Being Jewish I still don't understand this whole New Testament thingy. It's very foreign to me

either. You're good.

In the extreme Pauline interpretation, there is literally no such thing as a forbidden act ("All things are lawful, but not all are expedient" -- 1 Cor. 10:23) though he undermines his own case by comparing sex to hellfire (though as I read him his point is not that it is "forbidden", but that the nature of the act itself is torment -- what a horrible thing to say about sex, incidentally -- this is the direction St. Thomas ends up taking it: sin is not "forbidden" per se, but is intrinsically repugnant to the soul). Though Paul also was writing to an audience who pretty much all believed Jesus was coming back in their lifetime and it would be irresponsible to bring new children into the world just to have them face the end of it -- I have to wonder how different his attitude towards sex might have been if he had seen himself as organizing a church that would last for hundreds of generations.

Though my mom, a pastor, says that the world could have been saved centuries of hardship if Paul's mother had learned to knock when he was a kid.

Meanwhile, the Petrine tradition holds that there were two different classes of law in the Torah: ritual law, which was rendered moot with the crucifixion, and moral law, which remains in force. So sexual rules still apply but dietary rules do not.

Finally, the Johannine tradition holds that all law is important not as a guide to morally correct behavior but as a method of communing with the Holy Spirit.

So, to summarize and bring into the modern world:
Paul (protestantism): all law is gone, having been removed at the moment of the resurrection
Peter (catholicism): ritual law is gone, having been obviated by the crucifixion; moral law remains
John (orthodoxism): all law remains as a way of communing with God but not as a requirement for salvation

Or something like that.

As a final BTW, these traditions are named after early authors (or their pseudonyms) but they didn't form until the 3rd century or so -- we have very little evidence of what the early church for the most part thought about sex or much of anything else -- all we do know is that there wasn't one set of opinions.

1 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

8 “‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’”

10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”

13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

15 Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”

16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

The Faith of a Canaanite Woman

21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand

29 Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. 30 Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. 31 The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.
32 Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”

33 His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?”

34 “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked.

“Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.”

35 He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. 36 Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. 37 They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 38 The number of those who ate was four thousand men, besides women and children. 39 After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.

'Course, they're proud of it. :puke:

Eye for Eye
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
Love for Enemies
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

inconvenient at times. Paul's their guy. He has that je ne sais quoi to his misogyny and irascibility that makes all the difference. Paulist churches abound.

I'm amazed it made it into the canon.

of a Sunday morning. Oh, they'll give the Beatitudes an occasional reading, but that's all explained neatly with some sort of comment that Jesus was only really talking to the people gathered there, and that that stuff doesn't really apply to people who weren't there.

There's a workaround for everything, depending on the doctrine of your particular sect of Christianity. There are thousands of them, each with its own workarounds.

The Bible is complex enough to support pretty much any doctrine, as long as you're careful about what you read.

Eventually, the sectarianism of Christianity will evolve to the "every man his own church" stage.

I was thought he was an arrogant, sexist(even for his time), power-hungry person. His hatred of woman disgusted me. He was arrogant to the extreme, in his letters he boasted about opposing Peter and the "Jews" who were clearly wrong. I can't even remember what they were arguing over, but knowing Paul it was something stupid. It just seemed strange to me that the man who never saw Jesus and persecuted his followers for a long time had such a large influence on the church. The fact that he opposed Peter on so many issues seems odd to me since, Jesus said Peter was the rock on which he would build his church. I'll be honest a lot of my issues with Christianity could have been resolved if the early church leaders had told Paul to keep his damn mouth shut.

Each is featured in some aspects of the RCC, but not in all. It's all part of the mix. When you need a doctrine, you can pick and choose from a wide array of options, depending on which book you look in. Paul's letters are in the canon for a reason. Some of what he wrote is very convenient for a patriarchal organization. Some is less convenient, but you just flip a few pages, and you can find what you need. Because....sometimes you feel like a nut; sometimes you don't.

Grist for every mill can be found in scripture. Truly.

other people to stone the hapless for not conforming to his religious beliefs. Yeah, Paul was a heckuva guy.

Peter sees a vision of a sheet being lowered from heaven filled with all manner of animal kosher and non-kosher, and is commanded to kill and eat. He protests that as an observant Jew, he has kept kosher all his life. The voice then admonishes him not to call unclean what God has pronounced clean. From this passage the nullification of the Hebrew dietary code was on its way in Christianity.

Curiously, the book of Acts has many such ground-breaking expansions of the vision of the Realm of God. The Judaizer controversy is kind of glossed over (in which the debate whether someone converting to Christianity had to become a Jew first, and submit to circumcision), but there are several other incidents designed to show a wider understanding of how God relates to creation. One often overlooked story is that of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in chapter 8. If one views the eunuch as an archetype of sexual minorities, the lesson of the story is quite plain that non-heterosexuals are to be as welcomed into the Way as any Greek, any slave, or anyone else. For some reason, the episode doesn't get nearly as much play as the preceding story of the stoning of Stephen, the subsequent story of Paul's conversion on the Damascus Road or other passages from the book of Acts.

be the words of Jesus. The Acts passage merely repeats the same concept at a much later time, chronologically.

King James Bible
Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

http://bible.cc/matthew/15-11.htm

Truer words were never spoken.

http://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-law.html

It explains how the Old Testament was really aimed at the Nation of Israel and is not pertinent to modern Christians. It also gives several passages from the New Testament to back up these claims.

jews do not believe that non-jews need to abide by the laws of kashrut; the laws are for jews only, which is why i describe judaism as a religion of identity not of faith. the important thing is to identify yourself as a jew and to know what it means to be a jew, NOT to believe in god or anything else in particular. so there's no judgment about shellfish or eating pork, it simply means that jews are the people who don't eat that stuff; it's perfectly ok to eat it if you're not a jew.

back to the political question, this suggests that all the laws of leviticus are out the window, and in fact the entire torah, including the ten commandments, are completely replaced with the new testament in christian thought. so if they then want to use the bible to object to homosexuality or anything else, they need to be finding their reference in the new testament, not the old.

all very interesting.

"Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you." That's going to be kind of awkward for the all the Calvinists to explain away if Jesus does actually return.

your denomination. You seldom hear sermons preached on the contents of James. There's a reason for that. Why is it in the canon? That's a really, really good question.

I really do wish Christians would preach more sermons on it, but it is a very inconvenient book. In regards to the question of why it is cannon, I actually heard that Luther considered having it removed from his version of the Bible, because it so strongly contradicted his belief that salvation comes through faith alone and works aren't needed.

I was raised Catholic, and remember James being used a fair amount. Of course, the same reason Luther didn't like it is part of why the Catholic Church does ...

One rich Calvinist, coming up:

-----------
The money isn't "mine". It's all God's. He has appointed me steward of it, because I'm so good at accumulating and managing it.

That passage is about people who accumulate wealth for themselves. I do it for the glory of God, just like everything else in my life.

That's what makes me so freaking awesome!

...are still required. Looking at all the examples thus far:

1. When Peter has the dream concerning "kill and eat"...you could make the case it was referring to accepting gentiles which is a little bit later.

2. As for "what goes in the mouth doesn't defile" if you read several verses before that, the Pharisees were complaining about the Disciples not washing their hands.

I could go on, but just about every verse nullifying the dietary laws in the New Testament could interpreted to mean something completely different in retrospect. Much of the current Christian Doctrines can be argued against using the very same Bible....but such dissent was eliminated due Christianity becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire...dissent then became breaking the law. That's what scares me about theses "America is a Christian nation" types...you put that into the US Constitution and yikes.

that he did not come to change or do away with the law. This would mean that the rules about diet and other things in Leviticus still apply. I would think that for Christians (and I am not one), that Jesus words would trump Paul's. Apparently not though. I mentioned this to a former co-worker who is a fundie and she smiled sweetly and said that Jesus was "speaking to the Jewish people" in Matthew. I asked her where it said that Matthew only applied to Jews and she had no answer. So much for taking the entire Bible literally.

because my experience at DU is when I post from
a progressive,feminist christian perspective,
I usually get flamed, as if I'm responsible for all the fundies.
I get enough crap from them in my personal/profession life,
give me a break..

Anyway,there are many passages in the NT that completely turn the OT on its head.
That was point of Jesus.. and of the early church; to completely unhinge
the terror of the Law (the levitical law handed down to Moses, and Israel)-
this Law is usually the basis for all fundie angst-
they love to beat others over the head with what 'the bible says.'
In fact, Jesus was executed (crucified) because he wouldn't play the
righteousness games with the religious authorities. Some things don't change.

I am no fundie, nor a literalist, nor do I adhere to infallibility of scripture.
I've read the OT in Hebrew, the NT in Greek, and am familiar with all the styles of
textual criticism. I tend to be cynical of scripture, and any way of using
the bible to abuse others.

When and where were the 'rules' dismissed?
There weren't dismissed in the early congregations that had Jewish converts;
they tried to juggle both the Jewish traditions, and the new notions ushered in
after the resurrection. However, Paul got into some trouble when he tried to
introduce gentiles into the tradition, and initiate believers without the
necessary circumcision;
it began with Abraham, a ritual sign of covenant with Jahweh,
all jewish males must submit (Genesis 17: 9-14).
In Romans 4:4-12 and Galatians 5:1-13 Paul
claims the ritual act is no longer necessary for righteousness.
There was hell to pay.

In fact that Christ had women disciples, women who were leaders in the church ruffled
feathers.. and once Jesus was gone, the church leaders attempted to get rid of the women.
I know.. fundies will say I'm making that up, but a close reading of scripture reveals
Jesus had close relationships with women (hell, he spoke with them openly in public,
and that was verboten).

But.. Acts 8: 26- 40 is the baptism of the ethiopian eununch by the disciple Philip;
this bespeaks not only a racial inclusivity (he was not a jew) but the concept
of being welcoming to someone once forbidden ("No one who has been emasculated
by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord"(Deut. 23:1).
People with "damaged testicles" (Levit. 21:20).
This opens the door to welcoming people who do not follow the narrow one man/one women
sexual preference.But people tend to ignore scripture that disagrees with their
narrow point of view.

Peter's dream (Acts 10: 9-16) which states: "What God has made clean,
you must not call profane," regarding food...
BUT the very next story is Peter being summoned to the home of a Roman,
and his baptising the whole family. A Roman! Israel's enemy..and those who killed Jesus.
WE teach there is no limit to baptism or welcoming others into community of faith.

In Matthew 5, Jesus says: "Don't think I come to abolish the law or the prophets..
but to fulfill.." and he did. As a pastor in the ELCA (the liberal wing),
we profess that Jesus fulfilled the law for us.. because we are incapable
of fulfilling the levitcal law. We must conform to the law to protect the innocent
and keep evil from destroying us.. but we are incapable of perfectly
following the law. That's why the fundies hate us ELCA- we know we can't do it.
They think, like the ancient Jews, that we should keep the law for purity and righteousness.

right...

...for actually knowing scripture and the surrounding context. I think that makes you a heretic like me.

i had a keffluffle going with someone silly over in GD and when i decide i am done i just come on DU and read. its what i like about it most anyway,the late breaking news aspect,and when you do that for 2 days all the myDU is gone so i cant find the posts involved with stupidness.
i read your reply above and i am so freaking impressed. i have never seen this so beautifully put together before. i am a member of the quiet christians here on DU and what you have laid out above is my christianity. i am ashamed of what has been done to it sometimes and wish the fundies had less sway.the fundie movement in america is about making money through media and that seems to be about all it is about.
you are my new hero in matters of faith and i am bookmarking this for the next time i need it
bless you all over




P.S.the fundies are way wrong about jesus and women jesus loved the women and the women loved him.

instead of Levittown closet hedonists