Tensions between the Old Testament and Jesus

[dizerner]

Excellent posts defending NT continuity, Steve.

[RICHinCHRIST]

Thanks for all the comments, especially Steve and Matt. I've been just reading the gospels for the last year, trying to just steer clear of anything but Jesus. I have definitely seen and learnt more of Christ, and it is true that it appears he confided much in the Old Testament's authenticity. The tensions sometimes are hard to overcome when I must admit that I don't have as much time as I once did for reflection and study. All of the references Steve gave helped to really give a broad context for the questions, and Matt's simple fatherly example makes sense. This begs the question then: If God progressively deals with humanity in different stages, to the point of changing his disciplinary actions, is it not possible that revelation in this regard can continue beyond the examples of the Scriptures (in time horizon and example)?

[Paidion]

Greetings Steve,

Jesus depicted the Father quite differently from the way some of the Old Testament writers depicted Yahweh.

It seems most disingenuous for Paidion to continue making this false statement, when it has been pointed out to him numerous times that the judgment element found in the Old Testament is found equally in the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament writers. The desperation found in his answers to these challenges (or, in most instances, in ignoring the challenges altogether) is hard to interpret as anything other than unwillingness to allow Jesus to speak differently from the way that Paidion wants Him to speak. It is hard to view this approach to the records as anything less than creating one's own Jesus according to one's own temperament. Jesus never seemed willing to accommodate those who wished to reinvent Him.

Well, I am NOT being disingenuous no matter what it “seems.” I am totally honest and sincere. Though I may not have the ability to dismantle every clever argument against my position, I do believe the position with all my heart, and so do many other people. So I am surprised, and rather dismayed, that you assess me as disingenuous. But I'll say no more about that.

People have attempted to solve, many different ways, the disparity between God's supposed actions, and Jesus' teachings and behaviour. Let's consider the most extreme attempt, that of the gnostics in the second century (or perhaps even in the first, since John, the author of 1John, seems to have referred to them even back then). The gnostics took the view that Yahweh (the demiurge or creator) was a lesser god who, out of his arrogance, imagined himself to be the supreme god. Yahweh, was the creator of all things physical, but the Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah was the actual supreme God, and was the originator of all things spiritual, including our souls or spirits. The goal of the gnostic was to completely transform from a physical to a spiritual being, and thus would be prepared to go to heaven at death. They gnostic believed that there was no resurrection of the physical body, since that was the creation of the lesser physical god. The Christian Church were only physical people, but they, the gnostics were becoming spiritual people. The demiurge was interested only in a phyical relationship with people, but the Father of Jesus with a spiritual relationship. This Father was always kind and good as Jesus depicted Him, but the creator was harsh and punishing. However, there are few gnostics in our day, at least of that type, and I am not one of them.

Whenever I have read Derek Flood in matters of salvation, I have wholeheartedly agreed. Recently, I purchased and read a book of his entitled, “Disarming Scripture,” both a physical copy and a Kindle copy. Part 1 is entitled “Violence and the Old Testament.” Chapter 1 is called, “Confronting Violence in Scripture.” Early in that chapter, Derek asks the question, “Does the Bible describe a God of love or a God of genocide?” He asks how we can reconcile the apparent answer that it describes both? He then says that we need to “face the fact that some parts of our Bible command us to love our enemies, while other parts merciless slaughtering them.”He indicates that it's not just an Old Testament-New Testament contrast, but that “the Hebrew Bible itself contains both passages of compassion and mercy as well as other passages...that promote the polar opposite.” Nowhere in the book did I find that Derek questions whether or not the OT prophets actually received these commands from God, but in my opinion he used techniques in the book that arrive at similar conclusions to which I have arrived. Yet, as I read further, he seemed to go even farther than I am willing to go. You can read part of the book free at Amazon (scroll down to a lower image with the "Look Inside" instructions:

http://www.amazon.com/Disarming-Scriptu ... 0692307265

Steve, below is my answer to your first challenge. I hope to get at the others at some point also. It may take a while since I am presently involved in gardening and other outside work in our rural place in the backwoods of Northern Ontario.

1. Jesus said that David wrote Psalm 110 “by the Holy Spirit” (Mark 12:36). Since you do not believe the whole Old Testament to have been inspired, let’s just take this Psalm, which Jesus specifically certified as being inspired by Holy Spirit. You may think that Jesus (along with all the other witnesses in scripture) made mistakes about such matters, but it cannot be denied that He saw no contradiction between Psalm 110 and what He regarded as consistent with His Father’s character. The Psalm says of God: “He shall judge among the nations, He shall fill the places with dead bodies, He shall execute the heads of many countries” (v.6). Please explain how Jesus could affirm that the Holy Spirit inspired words about God slaying many heads of state, and, yet, how it is that you affirm that such a view of God is contrary to Christ’s teaching.

No. Jesus didn[t say that David wrote Psalm 110 by the Holy Spirit. Rather what Jesus said David wrote by the Holy Spirit are the words He quoted below:

"For David himself said by the Holy Spirit: ‘The LORD said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool." (Mark 12:36 NKJV)

The fact that Jesus stated that Jesus said those words by the Holy Spririt does not imply that he said the whole Psalm by the Holy Spirit.

In verse 5, “The Lord” is not all in capitals in the NKJV. It seems to refer to “my Lord” id est, the “Lord” Jesus Himself. Indeed, Jesus used the verse to be speaking of that Lord as Himself—the Messiah, and He used it to question the belief of the scribes that the Messiah is the son of David, since David calls Him “Lord” in this sentence. Jesus said NOTHING about verse 6. He didn't say that the Messiah would judge among the nations, fill the places with dead bodies, and execute the heads of many countries. Indeed, Messiah Jesus never did any of those things (though it's what the Jews of His day EXPECTED Him to do). Although Jesus never claimed that Yahweh or the Messiah did such violence or ever would do such violence in the future, He didn't speak against those passages. He simply ignored such passages, and taught His disciples NOT to seek vengeance or return evil with even more evil, as was the custom among the ancient Hebrews. This seemed to be Jesus' technique in giving instructions "the polar opposite" to that which God supposedly gave to Moses.

[dizerner]

The fact that Jesus stated that Jesus said those words by the Holy Spririt does not imply that he said the whole Psalm by the Holy Spirit.

The weird irony about trying to see God as loving only without holy judgments, is it will bring far more harm to you than fearing God, the beginning of wisdom. If God were truly like the Paidions and RICHinCHrists want us to believe, I really don't see why we should fear God in any sense. Christ kind of made a big deal about fearing God... not something he would do under their theology. Another reason I think it's very bad to see God as only "pure love" in the human sense, without corresponding holiness—aside from disrespecting Scripture—is because this world just does not bear that out and we will end up offended when we honestly face the mind-boggling evil that God has allowed to exist. Again Christ said not to be "offended because of him," and who would be offended at an all-loving teddy bear hugs Jesus? I don't think anyone would. Paul also talked about the offense (or scandal) of the Gospel.

[TheEditor]

HI Dizerner,

I have kept out of these discussions for the most part as I have mixed feelings. Steve gave a good defense of his viewpoint, but, I will have to say in all fairness when I read it, that this same thought of Paidion's came to my mind, namely, that Jesus didn't say the entire Psalm was said under inspiration. This may not mean anything, but it may. Consider the following:

Paul quotes Eliphaz the Temanite on at least two occasions. Does this mean Paul gave his "holy spirit stamp" of approval to everything that Eliaphaz uttered in the passages he quoted from? Even in the same general part of the text? Or more broadly, Eliaphaz''s totality of words?

There are also prophecies concerning Christ that are peppered throughout the OT text. Are all of these to be contextually considered? Or are they nuggets here and there that needed further revelation to be understood? If the latter be the case (which the vast majority of scholars agree on) then is it sound reasoning or even wise to apply a verse near in proximity to a Messianic stanza as having the same prophetic weight as the stanza that is decidedly Messianic?

Regards, Brenden.

[steve]

Hi Brenden,

We have to be realistic, not opportunistic, in reading Jesus. When Jesus introduced His citation of Paslm 110:1 with the words, "For David himself said by the Spirit..." (according to Mark 12:36) or, according to Matthew's parallel, "How then does David in the Spirit...?" (Matt.22:43), the form of His argument (like that of any good argument) depends upon the assumption that His first premise is already accepted by His audience. The Pharisees believed that Psalm 110 (along with the rest of the scripture) was inspired, and Jesus builds His case on that assumption, confirming that this is so, in the process.

Jesus was not, in this phrase, introducing new information which they had not previously accepted, but was counting on their knowledge of the inspiration of the Psalms to force them to accept the point He was arguing for. In other words, Jesus was not saying, "Here's news for you guys: The Psalms are not inspired in general, but the first verse of Psalm 110 (and only the first verse) can be regarded as spoken by the Holy Spirit." To argue that this was Jesus' meaning is to argue for a point so weak as to require the assigning of entirely unrealistic and counterintuitive meanings to Jesus' rather plain statements.

The only reason to question whether Jesus regarded the whole Psalm as inspired is the opportunistic need to deny that Jesus believed in the inspiration of the 6th verse of the same Psalm! We may reasonably take at face value the fact that Jesus accepted the total biblical view that God, like all good people, displays both compassion (when appropriate) and outrage (when appropriate). There is not one good person, including Jesus, who was incapable of outrage, nor any righteous judge who never punished the criminal brought before him—even if they were not what anyone would call "angry" people. Paul exhorts his readers to "consider the goodness and the severity of God" (Rom.11:22). There are some in this forum that seem determined to defy Paul's exhortation, and to replace the living God with a cardboard cut-out resembling their own temperament.

That Jesus had no difficulty accepting the inspiration of the Hebrew scriptures can hardly be thought questionable when reading the entire corpus of His teaching. When Jesus said that every jot and tittle of the law and prophets must be fulfilled, He could hardly have meant (without so indicating) that this statement excludes the vast bulk of the prophetic books that speak of God's destruction of wicked societies. If anyone treats the scriptures with this degree of disrespect, it is hard to know which parts of Christ's teaching may be regarded as immune to being turned entirely inside-out. While many may do these things in order to create doctrines less offensive to themselves than those plainly taught, I will not be joining them (nor respecting them) in such an enterprise.

As for the words of Elihu being cited by Paul, I do not recall that Paul attributed that man's words to the Holy Spirit, as Jesus did with David's (correct me if I am forgetting something). Ditto with Paul's citation of Greek poets, Jude's citation of 1 Enoch, or Revelation's allusions to Zoroastrian themes. But when Jesus says the Holy Spirit inspired Psalm 110:1, it seems a piece of extreme folly to suggest, without a shred of evidence, that He actually had a different view of the other verses in the same Psalm. I have no respect for any philosophy or theology that is merely sentiment-based, rather than evidence-based.

While I see value in being prepared to re-examine everything by biblical exegesis, I am not in favor of rejecting the scriptures as the authoritative voice by which to make such judgments. It seems that among those who, like myself, have abandoned traditional institutions, there is the danger of becoming addicted to novelty, and gullibly adopting or innovating doctrines from which a greater loyalty to Christ's words (all of them, I mean) would protect us. Christ revered the Hebrew scriptures, affirmed their authority without reservation, and criticized the religious leaders for their having drifted from them in favor of adopting apostate human ideas.

Followers of Christ do not have the luxury of disagreeing with Him on these, or any other, matters. If we abandon His view of the Torah and the Prophets, then we must also abandon, in the process, our confidence in the reliability of the New Testament, which bears consistent witness to Christ's and the apostles' own belief that the judgment passages of the Old Testament possess the divine stamp of authenticity every bit as much as do the other portions of the scripture. Once the scriptural witness—even about Christ—has been discarded, we will no longer have a standard by which to evaluate any doctrine, nor any scriptural claim concerning Christ. How can any Christian not see the danger in this gullible trend?

-----------------------------
Paidion,

While I respect many Christian authors, I have never adopted any doctrine as authoritative simply because an author I liked had presented it. I am more interested in what Jesus and the apostles actually said, and the best exegetical process for extracting their meanings. That is the process I am advocating here. I know that, in order to prove your points, when scripture fails you, it is common for you to cite George MacDonald, Derek Flood, or some other man's sermons or books. Despite my affection for MacDonald, I do not regard his sermons as possessing the status of a final authority. I reserve that status for Christ Himself, which is why I must disagree with anyone's attempt to reconstruct His beliefs by their undermining the records or the rational exegesis of His words.

[dizerner]

HI Dizerner,

I have kept out of these discussions for the most part as I have mixed feelings. Steve gave a good defense of his viewpoint, but, I will have to say in all fairness when I read it, that this same thought of Paidion's came to my mind, namely, that Jesus didn't say the entire Psalm was said under inspiration. This may not mean anything, but it may. Consider the following:

Paul quotes Eliphaz the Temanite on at least two occasions. Does this mean Paul gave his "holy spirit stamp" of approval to everything that Eliaphaz uttered in the passages he quoted from? Even in the same general part of the text? Or more broadly, Eliaphaz''s totality of words?

There are also prophecies concerning Christ that are peppered throughout the OT text. Are all of these to be contextually considered? Or are they nuggets here and there that needed further revelation to be understood? If the latter be the case (which the vast majority of scholars agree on) then is it sound reasoning or even wise to apply a verse near in proximity to a Messianic stanza as having the same prophetic weight as the stanza that is decidedly Messianic?

Regards, Brenden.

Well, that's a fair point Brendon, and I don't think anyone would say that interpretation is an easy thing. I think what frustrates me most is an attitude that seems all too willing to always take the text and make what one wills of it, instead of sincerely trying to find its application. But one can merely look around at all the evil and suffering in the world, and frankly, I find it light-years more offensive than violence in the Old Testament. I know when we get to the character of God, himself, things get very intense, because to any religious person that's a really important topic, and affects all of our attitudes and actions. But I hope perhaps the bluntness of some things that I feel very deeply can be seen as the faithful "wounds of a friend." Nobody can see the genuine care in a person's heart when they say something; but I'll attest that I think some doctrines that are running around in Christian circles are spiritual poison and deception, to the point of even affecting a person's understanding of the Work of the Cross, and thus their very salvation. The fact that the Bible puts fear and holiness above in importance to the idea of love, gives me some warning signs not to be presumptuous about his ways—and I feel a moral obligation to stand by that. When people say the God of the OT is different than the God Jesus revealed, they are attacking the inspiration of Scripture in my eyes, and severely misrepresenting what I read depicted in the Gospel narratives. The command for NT believers to "love our enemies" doesn't mean the OT violence isn't inspired, nor that God is obligated to never be violent. If we're honest, to truly love someone that hates us is not to merely "never harm them," but to always try to prevent them from the more worse harm—and death is not nearly the worst thing that can happen to us.

[TheEditor]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your response and, perhaps, gentle (or not so gentle) correction. I will try to address some of your apparent presumptions based upon what you wrote.

So that I am clear as to my position; I came out of a "novel" sect, and I am in no way tempted to toss my lot in with another one. Most of what I learned growing up I had to unlearn and rethink from scratch as my paradigm was deep and strong. Part of the JW paradigm was apologetics to an excess; Whereas the first WT President CT Russell would say that someone like Samson was perhaps a bit checkered from a Christian standpoint (hanging out with Delilah and all), the WT Organization after his time became apologetic for Biblical characters to a fault; Samson was thought to have merely needed a place to stay, after all, Samson was a man of faith. The list could be multiplied, but my point is, the frame of reference I had for Scripture growing up was that every act by a righteous man in the Bible, unless it was condemned by God directly, usually was justified somehow. Turn the page.

Now I find myself wanting to be very careful when I defend any position so that I do not presume certain things about the text. I don't feel the need to go to the mattresses as they say to defend certain accounts in the Scriptures as to whether or not God authorized them. If another way can be found that does not do manifest violence to the meaning of words, then I will entertain that understanding as a possible interpretation, especially if it fits more totally with God's revelation through Jesus.

As to this specific point, namely Psalm 110; I was being, I think, very conservative with my suggestion. Sometimes a very conservative suggestion can sound very radical. Jesus specifically stated that David said thus-and-so under inspiration. Leaving out the remainder of the Psalm does not mean that it was said without God-breathed inspiration; however, if only the first part of the Psalm was truly God-breathed, and the remainder was simply an [non-God] inspired poem, would that invalidate Jesus' statement?

I realize the dicey nature of entertaining such thoughts. People naturally gravitate towards a need for certainty and prefer the security in that certainty. I am no exception. At the same time, I have witnessed the "body count" that has mounted over the years due to untenable fundamentalism. Not that you are a fundamentalist, untenable or otherwise. But I prefer to err on the side of what has been attested to specifically. Parts of this are a work in progress for me, anyway.

Regards, Brenden.

[steve]

Understood. We don't want to be fooled by traditional theological agendas. Which is why we need to beware of any features in our theology that have inadequate evidential bases, and only seem to make theology emotionally easier for us. After all has been said (and, probably, at this point, all has been) the facts of this controversy boil down to a simple set of indisputable propositions:

1. The Old Testament was the only Bible Jesus and the apostles ever used, and they used it extensively, continually citing from all parts of it, like a bunch of fundamentalists, as the authoritative foundation for every one of their major theological positions.

2. In doing so, not a single New Testament voice expressed any misgivings, at any level, about any part of the Old Testament (which they should have done, if they had such misgivings, since their policy of continually quoting from it would give people the false impression that they believed, as their Jewish listeners did, that the Law and the Prophets were a bona fide revelation from God).

3. Not only did Jesus cite the Old Testament as authoritative, and neglect to express any misgivings about any part of it, but He also gave it His unqualified endorsement. Jesus said that those who diminish the authority of Moses and the Prophets are rejecting the word of God (Mark 7:9-13), cannot believe in Him (John 5:47), are obstinate (Luke 16:31), and are to be regarded as least in His kingdom (Matt.5:19). He said it would be easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for the slightest detail of the Torah to fail—to say nothing of vast tracts of legal territory that some here would disqualify as illegitimate (Luke 16:17).

4. No doctrine, ethical principle, or characteristic of God, that Jesus taught is absent from the teaching of the Old Testament, which means that there would be no reason to place the Old Testament in some imagined tension with His teaching, unless He specifically chose to identify such a tension, which He did not. In fact, His gospel was "promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures" (Rom.1:2) and was "witnessed by the Law and the Prophets" (Rom.3:21).

5. The apostles of Christ, who spent actual years of their lives under His direct training, and those directly taught by them, wrote the New Testament, in which they never hinted once that Jesus' teachings had led them to question the authenticity of any passage in the Old Testament. In fact, they quoted and alluded to portions of the Old Testament that demonstrated the very judgment actions of God that some Christians seem to find so controversial—e.g., the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the death of the firstborn in Egypt, the earth's swallowing Korah, the killing plague at Baal-Peor, the destruction of Jericho, etc.

Not surprisingly, then, the faithful apostle and martyr of Christ declared, concerning His Christian faith, "so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets"(Acts 24:14). If some teachers today can not honestly say as much, then one must conclude either that they are more-enlightened disciples of Jesus than was Paul, or else that they have embraced a different religion than his. I can think of no third option.

6. Therefore, there is no evidential reason for setting anything about Jesus' teaching in contrast to the character of God as revealed in the Old Testament. Nothing but modern sentimentality can be urged against the reliability of the Old Testament records in their depiction of the character of God. Every aspect of God's character and dealings in the Old Testament, which some find objectionable, can be found confirmed (and paralleled) in the teaching and behavior of Christ and/or the apostles in the New Testament (especially, in the Book of Revelation).

So what is the problem? Some apparently do not wish to allow Jesus to speak His actual convictions, and prefer to ignore or neutralize every comment of His that would set Him at odds with some made-made Jesus-thing that fits more into one's personal sentiments. Is this not simply modern sentimentality standing in judgment of God and of Christ? Please, anyone, help me see any other valid way of assessing this controversy.

If anyone is of a contrary opinion, let me ask that they take my six points, one-by-one, and show that any of them is faulty. Paidion wrote:

I may not have the ability to dismantle every clever argument against my position...

But no one is asking Paidion, or anyone else, for answers to clever arguments—only a rational treatment of evidence. My posts contain bold-faced facts that can be observed by any reader, proving what has seldom been questioned by any Christian—namely, that Jesus Christ, who was the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, believed and taught that the Old Testament scriptures (as Paul would later phrase it), "are God-breathed, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim.3:16), and that the Torah itself (in essentially the same form as we have it today) is "holy" (Rom.7:12). There needs no clever arguments to present the plainest of biblical statements without modification.

Assuming that a "clever" argument is one that requires special, counterintuitive ingenuity to frame, and intended to produce a "gotcha" effect upon an opponent in debate, such arguments have all come from the side that challenges the obvious and universal view of historic Christianity on these matters. That position, which challenges all historic orthodoxy, necessarily bears the burden of proof—which it apparently cannot hope to meet. I am requesting that anyone espousing a contrary view not only answer my six, very-unclever facts above, but also provide the positive case that the Father Jesus preached and revealed is different in any particular from the God revealed in the Law and the Prophets (despite Christ's explicit statement that His Father is the same that the Jews referred to as their God—John 8:54). When I request a positive case, we can eliminate, from the outset, any of the following vacuous arguments:

1) "Jesus never killed anybody."
As has been said previously, Jesus only lived 33 years on earth. In that time, there was no reason for Him to kill anybody. There were uninterrupted centuries in the Old Testament wherein God did not kill anybody, so what is the difference? The Apocalypse definitely depicts Christ (the Lamb) killing people with divine judgments. Please try to keep the argument relevant to the point.

2) "Jesus said God is kind to the evil as well as the good."
As has been said previously, this is true of God in the Old Testament as well. There is nothing in this statement that conflicts with the Old Testament picture of God as righteous judge. In fact, when God declared "His Name" to Moses on Sinai, He affirmed that He was both a God of astonishing mercy and of severe judgment (Ex.34:6-7). It apparently did not occur to God, nor to Jesus, that these two things contradict each other, or cannot reasonably reside in one character. Are we not allowed to see consistency where they saw it?

3) "Jesus forgave certain people whom the Law would have condemned."
So did God in the Old Testament (e.g., David). What does this prove?

4) "Jesus never endorsed Old Testament stories that represented God as killing people."
Three of the four Gospels directly contradict this claim. Both the destruction of Sodom and Noah's flood were endorsed (without modification) as judgment acts comparable to His own coming in judgment. If we say that Jesus dod not specifically name God as the source, I say this is irrelevant. He also did not say anything about animals entering two-by-two, nor that it rained forty days and forty nights. What of it. These details were assumed without mention, since they are clearly part of the story He referenced, in the only source anyone has on them. In tha source, there is nothing more prominent in the narrative than that these were judgment events from the hand of God. The animals and the forty days are less emphasized than this feature. Why would Jesus mention the story if He did not wish for people to believe the central lesson of the story as related?

5) "Jesus never endorsed laws about capital punishment."
Wrong again! This has been decisively refuted by our previous discussion of Matthew 15:4 (see above). There is no rational argument in favor of this false claim.

Having addressed all the nonsense and disingenuous arguments, I am now requesting real, biblical arguments to be presented favorable to the idea that Jesus presented a different character of God than that which was revealed to and through Moses and the Prophets. I am genuinely open to valid biblical arguments. However, if no such arguments can be found, then the position is self-evidently false, and those incapable of defending it should no longer post such a position at this forum. It is simply dishonest to do so.

The argument here, on this topic, has gone in circles long enough, and anyone wishing to hear the same arguments repeated endlessly can read the previous threads as often as they like. However, unsupportable bombshells maligning the Old Testament scriptures, asserted by parties unwilling to present anything like a rational case for their views, are not necessary, nor helpful. Therefore, as the primary administrator of this forum, I haver made the following rare, executive decision:

Any further presentation of unorthodox claims against the value of the Old Testament will be tolerated only if accompanied by genuine, non-evasive discussion and rebuttal of the contrary evidences presented, and/or the presentation of positive evidence suitable for reverent, thinking adults. Once we have gotten that far, new ground on the topic can be explored. Further dialogue on this topic is not permitted to take the form of unsupportive missives against the scriptures that Jesus regarded as holy. I would no sooner tolerate gratuitous insults against my wife or my parents than to continue tolerating unsupportable charges against the integrity and competence of the "holy prophets" (Luke 1:70; Acts 3:21; Eph.3:5; 2 Pet.3:2) whom God appointed and whom Christ endorsed.

[Paidion]

But no one is asking Paidion, or anyone else, for answers to clever arguments—only a rational treatment of evidence. My posts contain bold-faced facts that can be observed by any reader, proving what has seldom been questioned by any Christian—namely, that Jesus Christ, who was the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, believed and taught that the Old Testament scriptures (as Paul would later phrase it), "are God-breathed, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim.3:16), and that the Torah itself (in essentially the same form as we have it today) is "holy" (Rom.7:12). There needs no clever arguments to present the plainest of biblical statements without modification.

Steve, I have been a seeker after truth and reality for many years. Yet in one of your posts, you indicated that my statements seem ingenuous.
I have been supporting my stance by using Jesus' silence about God wreaking violence and that of His omitting the parts of Scripture that indicate God's doing so (though, of course, and argument from silence is not a proof). But you refuse to recognize my stance as a possibility, and refer to Matthew 15:4 as evidence that my thesis is incorrect.

5) "Jesus never endorsed laws about capital punishment."

Wrong again! This has been decisively refuted by our previous discussion of Matthew 15:4 (see above). There is no rational argument in favor of this false claim.

You indicate that my stance is an emotional one and false, while yours is a rational one, and presumably true. You believe that mine lacks in evidence (though I believed I had given plenty of evidence in that Jesus never killed anyone or was even violent toward anyone, and instructed his disciples NOT to take vengeance, but do return good for evil—also that He always omitted statements in the Old Testament which affirmed that God was violent toward people).

Decisively refuted? Let's now examine what seems to be your main trump card—Matthew 15:4

For God said, ‘HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER,’ and, ‘HE WHO SPEAKS EVIL OF FATHER OR MOTHER IS TO BE PUT TO DEATH.’(Matt 15:4 NASB)

For you, this proves that Jesus claimed that God had said, "He who speaks evil of father and mother is to be put to death." But how can you be so sure that Jesus said this? Is it simply the fact that Matthew wrote it? Why do you believe Matthew's record over Mark's? Did you forget about Mark's? Or did you just negect to mention it?

Mark wrote about the same event, but recorded Jesus as having said these words with one significant change:

For Moses said, ‘HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER’; and, ‘HE WHO SPEAKS EVIL OF FATHER OR MOTHER, IS TO BE PUT TO DEATH.’ (Mark 7:10 NASB)

Whom did Jesus say uttered these words? God? Or Moses? He couldn't have said both, since it was the same occasion.

I'm sure you will come back at me with verse 13 where Jesus indicated that the Pharisees invalidated the word of God by their tradition, so I suspect you want to say that both commands were the word of God. But the Pharisees didn't invalidate the second command; they invalidated the first. Also, these commands are found in two different places. The first is one of the ten commandments, "Honour your father and mother." Elsewhere this is called "the first commandment with promise." I believe this is the commandment which Jesus recognized as the word of God that the Pharisees invalidated by their tradition, and that the command that he who speaks evil of father and mother is to be put to death is that of Moses, one of his many commands that he needed in order to control Israel. I think Moses thought that when such commands as death sentences for such offences came to his mind, that its source was God, and thus he wrote that it was, in fact God, who gave these death sentences. Then why did Jesus include the second command? I suggest that since the Pharisees were gung ho on the law of Moses, Jesus wanted to show them what would have happened to them under the law, if they had spoken evil of their parents and tried to evade taking care of them.

By the way, Matthew 15:4 and Mark 7:10 are indentical in Greek (as they are in the NASB) except for who it was that said the words.