Seeing as I've posted to the thread I feel I should contribute to the original topic. I will give my understanding of how'd I'd answer the original posts.
Now this appears problematic. First God tells them the Israelites that they are not to kill — period. (no qualifications are specified). Now He orders His people to kill those who commit particular offenses.
At first glance this might seem like a contradiction. It would be ridiculous to think the people, if they thought it sounded like a contradiction, wouldn't say something about it. If they received the 10 commandments audibly they would easily and readily know that was Moses said really was a lie. They could judge Moses by what 2-3 million Jews heard audibly at Sinai for themselves. My defense of this supposed contradiction would be, that for God to command man to do something, is in essence God doing it himself, not the man. This is, through authority, the idea of transferred responsibility. You see this idea vividly when Pilate requests Jesus be released, but then seeks the crowd to audibly take responsibility for the action. one might also argue ideas such as self-defense, if I'm going to die or my attacker is going to die, then why should it be me passively letting myself be killed. Or in wartime, does God mean to say that there should never be any casualities (since Israel was on the verge of war). I don't think a single Israelite in all of Israel would have interpreted the 10 commandments that way, but 4,000 years later when the text offends someone we seek to redefine it in a way that it never would have been understood.
But would Christ, who revealed God to man by His personal life and teachings ever require anyone to kill another? Did He ever do so? hNowhere does Jesus or His apostles ask us to put anyone to death for their wrongdoing. Indeed, Jesus was unwilling to carry out the Mosaic law in stoning to death the adulterous woman. Rather He instructed her to go and sin no more.
I agree that the NT teachings never indicate killing people, of course. So in that sense I see the early OT times as entirely dispensational up until the veil was rent and the temple afterwards destroyed. I, myself, am an extremely non-violent and incredibly gentle person who could probably not even serve in the military, although I don't judge those who do. Were my life or that of someone I loved threatened, I might resort to violence in a desperate, unwilling kind of way. I object to you saying here that Jesus was "unwilling" as if he just couldn't motivate himself to obey the Torah. Jesus had a valid and good reason not to obey the Torah in this instance, and he was not thereby disavowing the inspiration of the Torah. Since Jesus brought in a new dispensation and a true living fulfillment of Torah, both in obedience to it, and judgment for disobeying it, and since Jesus was appointed judge of all human flesh, Jesus had the power to forgive sins or do anything he desired. That fact, though, does not disavow the inspiration of Torah or it's binding authority upon the Jewish nation. This is why they were judged for rejecting Jesus. Jesus was their "Torah-fulfiller."
Then there is an unusual rule, supposedly God's commandment according to Moses, for judging whether or not a murderer should be put to death:
Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place to which he may flee. (Exodus 21:12,13)
So if a would-be killer lies in wait for his victim, that is, if the murder is pre-meditated, he is to be put to death. But if he simply kills him in a fit of rage (God having let the man “fall into his hand”), then God will provide a place for the killer to flee so that no one will kill him.
I think you misinterpet this verse, that it clearly speaks of a accidental manslaughter, not 2nd degree murder as you propose. The ancients used the term "act of God" like that to mean something seemingly beyond human control of the outcome.
If Jesus had recognized as God's these commands for God's people to kill sinners or to wreak vengeance upon them, would He not have quoted at least once the many places in which Moses describes God as ordering such acts as genocide, the cutting off of women's hands, the stoning of disobedient sons, etc.?
This is, I think, a somewhat misleading question because who "God's people" are was transitioning in the life of Christ. Jesus did affirm the Law, the Writings, and the Prophets, up to the very jot and tittle. However Jesus also brought in a new dispensation based entirely upon himself and his fulfillment of the prophesied Messiah, bringing an end to the Old Covenant and God's dispensation of regarding the Jews as his chosen people and nation at his death, opening up God's dealings now with a new and living way of the individual heart's faith in Christ, rather than temple offerings and services. So I would say Jesus had authority to bring a new way of relating to God, even while his life was fulfilling what the Torah respresented and foreshadowed. Once Christ is our "Torah-fulfiller" what matters is how one relates to Christ instead of the Torah directly. And this understanding is something Christ taught and brought to the Jewish people in the understanding of him as the Savior of the world through his life and death, thus fulfilling what the Messiah was actually meant to be.
Would He not have at least once described God as a severe dispenser of vengeance in executing judgment by killing people?
Christ taught God will give a severer punishment than can even be meted out physically, and the NTW letters affirm this idea.
So Jesus taught that the divorce law not only originated with Moses, but that God's law contradicted it.
Jesus was not trying to pit God against Moses in this passage. Moses ministry represented God's desires, and as judge of Israel he would reflect God's decisions. You could use this to argue that many laws were due to the hardness of people's hearts. I don't find any objection in that idea.
Perhaps the commandment, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy” is one of the laws which the elders devised. This commandment is not found in the law of Moses.
You're right on this. Proverbs instructs one to feed one's enemies, and that will be rewarded.
For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’
But either way, Jesus did not ascribe any of the laws to God.
I don't know what semantic game you're playing to try to get out of this one, but anyone can clearly see Jesus attributed those laws to God.
But Jesus showed that even the primary laws of God were not actually followed if one only keeps them outwardly:
One may refrain from killing, but if he hates someone, his heart condition is similar or identical to that of a murderer.
One may refrain from adultery, but if he looks at a wife with desire, his heart condition is similar to that of a person who actually carries out the act.
This is a good and important point. I do think the Torah commands were symbolic of spiritual realities.
For he who has entered His rest has also rested from his works even as God did from His own.
Some in our day think this refers from ceasing from self-effort and allowing God to empower us. But Justin Martyr and other early Christians understood it as ceasing from our evil works. Justin affirmed that Christians keep “perpetual sabbath” in that they have permanently ceased from their evil works.
I don't think this interpretation is at all tenable. God never did anything
negative that he ceased from. Grace teachers get the idea of rest from works in the exact same book of Hebrews which contrasts religious activities with the sufficiency of the work of Christ. The only other argument you could convincingly make is this speaks of death, as there is the corollary of the saints ceasing from their works in Rev. 14. But saying that we cease from evil works as God did from his work seems preposterous. The text is describing entering the so-called "Promised Land" and equating that to sharing God's continuing Sabbath rest.
Other symbolic laws included the command to keep the feasts: Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, etc. All of these picture some Christian practice or stage of development.
I completely agree with this.
To ascribe them all to God is to denigrate the loving character of God, who through kindness, attempts to bring people to repentance, and if this result is not obtained, then to discipline them as a loving father would his children. But to ascribe to God acts of revenge such as killing people out of a fit of anger, or cutting off women's hands, etc. is not to do justice to His character, the One who is not willing that any should perish, but that all come to repentance. God who is fully cognizant of the minds of people, whom He created in His image, knows what steps to take to bring people to repentance, steps which may be kind and gentle, severe, or somewhere on the spectrum between these two extremes.
I disagree with the logical conclusion that even though the OT law doesn't reflect God's desire for human morality or kindness that it therefore does not refelct the character of God in any way or was not from God and therefore was in error. God can use symbolism, for one, if he so desires; GOd can also work in dispensations. Evil and the fall, are serious problems when mixed with the holiness of God, and a big theme of Scripture is that the Seraphim do not all cry "Love! Love! Love!" around God's throne nor did God's love allow Adam and Eve immediate entrance back to the tree of life or his loving embrace. That is not to say God is cruel, but God allowing the entrance of evil and that evil resulting in more judgments from God might seem cruel many times. This is important to a true Biblical understanding of the character of God, and in keeping with the reverence, fear and humility taught in both OT and NT. God's love is clearly conditional in both testaments, no matter how extraordinary.
Jesus, the Son of God, revealed the true character of God both in His teachings and by His life of righteousness. When people understand God's loving character, they will cease blaming Him for all the unspeakable misery which some must endure, and which perhaps most endure in some period of their lives.
Jesus, however, did come into this world to kill one specific person: Himself. In Christ's passion, where he suffered the wrath of God upon sin, we learn that God's love is costly and not to the exclusion of God's holiness. Also, you seem to indicate solving the moral dilemma of God's harsh OT commands somehow solves the entire problem of evil and suffering, and I can't follow that logically at all. Evil and suffering is, even according to the Bible, an unsolvable paradox.
It is difficult to imagine Jesus carrying out the atrocities often ascribed to God. If people truly understood God's love which manifests itself sometimes in a gentle way, sometimes as tough and severe, but all for the purpose of bringing people to repentance and righteousness, they would be more likely to serve the only God who exists — the God of LOVE and GRACE.
However, this is not how the Scripture describes the ability for humans to change their hearts, repent and turn to righteousness. It is not merely pondering a loving Supreme Being that delivers us from sin or infuses us with resurrection life. It is deliberately and solely focusing on faith in the Work of Christ's life, death and resurrection on our behalf that accomplishes justification and sanctification in the human heart.