The PRINCIPLES of the OT Law were not wrong.

Originally posted by CalJust
I must say that I have sort of lost my appetite for discussions with you, but because i said that i would be prepared to defend that statement of mine, here i am.

At the outset I have to again point out that you have (and are!) completely misrepresenting my statement. You mention the fact that I said PRINCIPLES and then immediately go over to attacking th ...[text shortened]... en in the cultural contexts of the day. But into this discussion I will not let myself be drawn.

all your explanations involve jesus.

how he changed (discarded) most of the OT law. you cannot argue for the merits of a system by looking only at a VERY revised version of it, different enough so as to talk about two entirely different concepts.


in essence, you are supporting the principles of NT law. not OT

Originally posted by SwissGambit
But what good is a principle without enforcement? It becomes a guideline, a suggestion, something that receives lip-service only.

As I see it, Principle and Enforcement are two totally different issues, and must be separated.

One could also call the Principle the Spirit of the law vs the Letter of the Law.

Let's take for example Stop signs at an intersection. The Principle (or Spirit) behind this law is that cars using the same intersection don't crash, and that pedestrians are protected. The principle is laudable and just.

Now there is not far from my house a Stop sign at a T-junction where all accesses to this crossing are visible for 100 metres, and the road is anyway fairly quiet. I almost never stop there, because I can obey the Spirit of the law without stopping, by just keeping a good lookout. So whilst i in my mind give mental assent that the law is a good law, in this particular case I personally feel that it is unnecessary, and a yield sign would have been as effective. I chose not to obey that law, literally.

However, i have a friend who is a 100% law abiding citizen. He ALWAYS stops there, not because it is necessary, but because THE LAW SAYS SO! He clearly obeys the Letter of the Law. Good for him!

True, laws without consequences are merely advice, and lawgivers generally do not have much sympathy with this interpretation of mine.

Of course, if I were caught not stopping, the Law would punish me, because it makes no allowance for my judgement of its "applicability" or not.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
yes, the principle itself is incredibly unfair. never mind that an underage girl is sentenced to death, there were far more gruesome occurrences then.

we have here a "guilty until proven innocent" legal system, and furthermore, the burden lies on the accused to prove innocent instead of the accuser like we have today.

What if the girl were proven not to be a virgin. Should she receive any punishment? Our current legal system, to my knowledge, does not criminalise loss of virginity - but does criminalize (in some countries) under age marriage placing the blame on the older party or the parents (if they were involved).

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
i believe what you are saying has more to do with crime/punishment.

as i understand this thread, i think we are talking about law principles, how trials are conducted (or not) to determine if someone

I can see how you would interpret the word PRINCIPLES as being the system of justice altogether, with the examples you mention.

That could certainly be one definition of PRINCIPLES, but that is not what i had in mind. As I said above, I meant it really as a difference between the SPIRIT OF THE LAW, i.e. what was most probably in the lawmakers mind when the law was formulated, and what effect the law was intended to achieve, vs the LETTER OF THE LAW, which is the final expression of that objective into words.

My point is basically that the INTENTION of the lawmaker can be sometimes achieved by means other than a rigid adherence to the actual words in the law as it is written.

In the context of this thread, I suppose what I meant was that the PRINCIPLES were the original intentions of the lawmaker, which are good. The way they were expressed in words of implementation, were often less so.

Originally posted by CalJust
In the context of this thread, I suppose what I meant was that the PRINCIPLES were the original intentions of the lawmaker, which are good. The way they were expressed in words of implementation, were often less so.

Is there any way we can actually know the original intentions of the law makers? It seems to me you are saying that you would believe their intentions were good regardless of what laws they came up with. Is this what you are saying?

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
in essence, you are supporting the principles of NT law. not OT

You may well be right here. I am indeed interpreting the OT laws by the way that Jesus applied them.

Quite frankly, I have forgotten what this thread was actually supposed to be about, or what the premise is that I am supposed to be defending.

Seems to me that I responded merely to humour twhitehead. As far as I'm concerned, the steam has run out of this argument....

Originally posted by CalJust
You may well be right here. I am indeed interpreting the OT laws by the way that Jesus applied them.

So would you concede that the principles of many of the OT laws were wrong and still are?

Quite frankly, I have forgotten what this thread was actually supposed to be about, or what the premise is that I am supposed to be defending.
The premise is the thread title.

Originally posted by twhitehead
So would you concede that the principles of many of the OT laws were wrong and still are?

[b]Quite frankly, I have forgotten what this thread was actually supposed to be about, or what the premise is that I am supposed to be defending.
The premise is the thread title.[/b]

Why is there the need to decide whether or not the principles of OT laws are wrong or otherwise? Is that of some benefit to you or anyone?

Originally posted by twhitehead
CalJust made this claim in another thread. This is not an attack on CalJust, just an invitation to others for discussion of the idea.

What are the worst laws (morally) of the OT ?
If we ignore for a moment the exact prescribed punishments, can we say that all OT laws were morally correct?
Does anyone believe that the punishments themselves were reasonable for that day and age and thus were also morally 'not wrong'?

I believe all the Old Testament laws were morally correct. The punishments were to fit the seriousness of the crime and I believe they were reasonable punishments for that time and circumstance.

Even today, we have punishment guidelines just like those of the Old Testament. Many times the judge gives less than the maximum or recommended punishments to the convicted. Perhaps we live in a much too forgiving society, today.

Originally posted by RJHinds
I believe all the Old Testament laws were morally correct. The punishments were to fit the seriousness of the crime and I believe they were reasonable punishments for that time and circumstance.

Even today, we have punishment guidelines just like those of the Old Testament. Many times the judge gives less than the maximum or recommended punishments to the convicted. Perhaps we live in a much too forgiving society, today.

Yeah, that must be a TERRIBLE thing, living in a forgiving society. SHAMEFUL.
We need to bring back the death penalty for dissing your parents or leaving your religion. We are SO sick today.

Originally posted by twhitehead
What if the girl were proven not to be a virgin. Should she receive any punishment? Our current legal system, to my knowledge, does not criminalise loss of virginity - but does criminalize (in some countries) under age marriage placing the blame on the older party or the parents (if they were involved).

in the old testament, the blame is placed on the victim.


i do not argue the (incredibly unfair) law that a nonvirgin wife is to be stoned. there are many unfair laws. in that society, that was criminalized. to us it may seem unbelievable. so "should" is not useful here. we cannot judge them savages by todays standards.



the title of the thread is about the principles of the ot. i argued that to assume someone is guilty until proven innocent is one of these principles and utterly unfair and impractical even by those standards. we do not carry with us proof we are innocent of every conceivable accusation, how could we? as such, anyone could make any accusation they wanted and it would fall and the accused to produce proof of innocence.


incidentally, the law to which i am referring to provided that should the accuser (usually the husband) be proven wrong after all, he would have had to pay a fine to the parents of the girl and never be allowed to divorce her.
which is another "principle" of OT law: discrimination towards women. one would be stoned to death, the other was to pay a fine if proven wrong.

Originally posted by CalJust
The punishments were a totally different matter altogether, and they must be seen in the cultural contexts of the day. But into this discussion I will not let myself be drawn.

So the Jews didn't take their laws from god?

God gave his laws to fit in with the culture of the day.

It's all clear now.

Almost as if Man created god in his own image.

Originally posted by Rajk999
Why is there the need to decide whether or not the principles of OT laws are wrong or otherwise? Is that of some benefit to you or anyone?

If it helps understand the attitude towards things like justice, morality and authority of the person you're having the discussion with, then it could be of benefit, sure, in terms of people communicating clearly about such matters.

Originally posted by Rajk999
Why is there the need to decide whether or not the principles of OT laws are wrong or otherwise? Is that of some benefit to you or anyone?

It seems obvious to me that some of them are morally wrong. I find it interesting that many Christians will try to defend them - apparently simply because they are in the Bible.
But the issue originally came up because Jesus never once stated that the OT laws were morally wrong. If the OT laws are in fact obviously morally wrong, then this suggests Jesus was either not a particularly moral person, or he deliberately chose not to speak about them for political reasons.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Is there any way we can actually know the original intentions of the law makers? It seems to me you are saying that you would believe their intentions were good regardless of what laws they came up with. Is this what you are saying?

Of course, the original intention of ANY law should always be obvious.

Just pick any law, say the limitation of fishing catches. The INTENTION, (what I called Principle, or Spirit, but see now that that word could be misunderstood) in this case would be the protection of fishing resources, or job creation, or whatever. But it is that INTENTION that is then worded into actions that are either prohibited or enforced.

It was and is my opinion that the Intention of the Mosaic law was to protect individual rights and to regulate interaction between a very close nit community in a hostile world. That is why some laws even seek to regulate behaviour relating to strangers and slaves, and these were also often merciful and compassionate.