[quote=“ashtkerr, post:15, topic:7840”][quote=“Mephistor, post:10, topic:7840”][quote=“ashtkerr, post:7, topic:7840”]Jesus wasn’t Antinomian actually, the early Church just let non-Jews become Christians without obeying the laws of Torah. But Jesus said this, “‘Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.’”
That doesn’t seem Antinomian to me, and further the gospels were not written 200 years after Jesus’ death. The earliest physical manuscript we have is a small fragment of the Gospel of John, it was dated to have been written around 120-150 AD. We also found it in Egypt, it would have taken a lot of time for the autographs (original copies) to be copied and brought into Egypt. We can safely assume that the Gospel of John was written before the end of the first century. And, since John shows the greatest growth of the Jesus myth, all scholars unanimously agree that it was written last. While debate about whether it was actually John that wrote it is present, I don’t particularly care either way who wrote it. But, we can say with historical certainty that all four of the gospels were written before the end of the first century.
But, I do agree, the teachings of Jesus, have been greatly distorted and are lost to antiquity.[/quote]
I believe that is teaching was Antinomian, since even if he said that he has not come to abolish the Law, most of his teaching was against what was taught by his contemporaries in his time,[/quote]
Not true, literally everything he says is exactly what the other Rabbis and Pharisees were saying. For example, there’s a section of the Gospel of Matthew that’s commonly called the Sermon on the Mount. And it’s commonly seen as “Jesus acting as the new Moses, giving a new law from God.” Here, he says such famous saying as, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment…” and, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (For the record, this is talking about married men and woman, as you can’t commit adultery with someone who isn’t, you know, married.)” I have read countless commentaries that talk about Jesus “Raising the standards of the Law” and, “Showing the Israelites that mere obedience to the Law will not do without a following submission of the heart”.
But, no, these people are ignorant and wrong. Jesus is only saying the exact same thing that other Rabbis and Pharisees are saying at that time. The Talmuds, which is a collection of the Oral Torah, traditionally considered to be maintained pure since God gave it at Mt. Sinai to Moses. In the Talmuds we have quotes such as, “He who publicly shames his neighbour is as though he shed blood”, and “One who gazes lustfully upon the small finger of a married woman, it is as if he has committed adultery with her. (See, I told you it’s only with married women.)” The Jews already got it, Jesus wasn’t teaching them something they already knew, he was, as Rabbis are supposed to do, remind them of ancient teachings. That is, assuming that Jesus wasn’t, in fact, fictitious.
[quote=“Mephistor, post:10, topic:7840”]And I’m not talking about the early Church. Like I said, the possibly true teachings of Christ and the early Church are two different things. Even more, if you look at history, the character of Jesus as portrayed in the Bible is greatly different from the original Jesus, if he even existed, since this website, [url=http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/]http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/[/url] gives a lot of proof that show that He probably never existed.
But if he had, he was probably the son of a Roman officer and a whore, as many historians have pointed, the book, “Jesus the Magician” gives interesting proof of this as do many other books and websites[/quote]
While this is likely, I am pointing out, that Jesus as written in the Gospels was not antinomian in the slightest. Paul, who wrote over half of the New Testament (maybe), was very antinomian. He was also very deceitful around the early Church as we see from Acts and from his epistles. That he most certainly played the “Torah-keeping Paul” in the eyes of the original Christians, which were predominantly Jews, and the “Set-free-from-the-bonds-of-Torah Paul” in his epistles, which were primarily written to Gentiles. Paul was a very sneaky man who, if the written record we have is true, played off the Church for his own benefit.[/quote]
Very interesting. I think you make a very valid argument.