RE: The Bible: A Moral book?!
August 31, 2009 at 7:54 pm
(This post was last modified: August 31, 2009 at 7:57 pm by Oldandeasilyconfused.)
The Torah is not a moral code per se,it is the mythology of a people. IT DOES however contain a strict legal and moral code.
The teachings ascribed to Jesus are replete with moral instructions.
The biblical code is called "Mosaic Law". (largely lifted from the Sumerians ) The Jews call it simply"The Law" or "The Mitzvot (collective term meaning "the commandments") The Christians have the Readers Digest version they call "The Ten Commandments ". In fact,there are 613 commandments. The church founders found them all a bit much,[notwithstanding Jesus' admonition to keep the law] so have ignored almost all of them since the 1st CE.
The Law was written down around 800BCE.It covers every aspect of Jewish life. It is law and it is morality. It may be argued that this moral/legal code is what kept the Jews together as a people for over 20000 y0ears.
That many (most?) of the rules are irrelevant today changes nothing. Nor is it relevant that many seem stupid or cruel to us .Morality is essentially pragmatic,invented for a range of reasons..
The 613 Mitzvot (Hebrew: תרי"ג מצוות: Taryag Mitzvot, "613 commandments") are statements and principles of law and ethics contained in the Torah or Five Books of Moses. These principles of Biblical law are sometimes called commandments (mitzvot) or collectively as the "Law of Moses" (Torat Moshe, תורת משה), "Mosaic Law", or simply "the Law" (though these terms are ambiguous and also applied to the Torah itself).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot
ALL of the Abrahamic faiths are contradictory (Simple evidence they were invented by men and not gods) YET all of them contain quite profound moral admonitions EG: love,compassion,charity,mercy, justice and compensation. Basic Jewish Law (EG "an eye for an eye") seems to have been pinched from Hammurabi,whose laws emphasised compensation as much as revenge. In context: before Hamurabi, codified law was unheard of,as was equality before the law,which was also an alien concept in our own culture until the 18th CE
The teachings ascribed to Jesus are replete with moral instructions.
The biblical code is called "Mosaic Law". (largely lifted from the Sumerians ) The Jews call it simply"The Law" or "The Mitzvot (collective term meaning "the commandments") The Christians have the Readers Digest version they call "The Ten Commandments ". In fact,there are 613 commandments. The church founders found them all a bit much,[notwithstanding Jesus' admonition to keep the law] so have ignored almost all of them since the 1st CE.
The Law was written down around 800BCE.It covers every aspect of Jewish life. It is law and it is morality. It may be argued that this moral/legal code is what kept the Jews together as a people for over 20000 y0ears.
That many (most?) of the rules are irrelevant today changes nothing. Nor is it relevant that many seem stupid or cruel to us .Morality is essentially pragmatic,invented for a range of reasons..
The 613 Mitzvot (Hebrew: תרי"ג מצוות: Taryag Mitzvot, "613 commandments") are statements and principles of law and ethics contained in the Torah or Five Books of Moses. These principles of Biblical law are sometimes called commandments (mitzvot) or collectively as the "Law of Moses" (Torat Moshe, תורת משה), "Mosaic Law", or simply "the Law" (though these terms are ambiguous and also applied to the Torah itself).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot
ALL of the Abrahamic faiths are contradictory (Simple evidence they were invented by men and not gods) YET all of them contain quite profound moral admonitions EG: love,compassion,charity,mercy, justice and compensation. Basic Jewish Law (EG "an eye for an eye") seems to have been pinched from Hammurabi,whose laws emphasised compensation as much as revenge. In context: before Hamurabi, codified law was unheard of,as was equality before the law,which was also an alien concept in our own culture until the 18th CE
