what being apart from the law means.

[EGross]

In Mat 5 Christ says:

17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

To full fill means two things here, to complete the law (by extending the law to cover thought and intentions, and to be the final sin sacerfice.)

I would suggest that "Law" here is referring to "Torah", sometimes referred to as the Book of the Law, and he is not speaking of Prophets, in the sense of speaking of human beings, but of their words, so as "Do not think that I am hear to destory the Holy Torah, or the words of the Holy prophets, but I am here to fulfill thier words" - meaning the words of the prophets, not the Torah. And since these is a proponderence of messianic references in the words of the prophets he was inferring: "I am not here to violate the holy words, but I am the fulfillment of it's prophetic messengers, for I am the Messiah".

18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

Which not only points to the law itself, but to the part of the law that speaks or provides for attonement.

Again, I would suggest that again, he is speaking of a Messianic prophecy, that once the Messiah comes, only after that things can be changed, which is a radical idea, but not unheard of. Centuries later, a con man, Sabbatai Tzvi, would be seen as a Messiah and would drop and change laws of the Torah, and his followers accepted blindly. They eventually became Muslims.

Now there does seem to be a contradiction between "I am not here to break the Torah" and "nothing in the Torah will change until the Messiah comes", whereas one seems to be more radical than the other, but not contradictory, just expanding the intent.

And since Christianity doesn't hold but the tiniest number of those laws, this is certainly one way to justify that. On the other hand, only if Jesus said "Ok, the following items are no longer true, and the following items we will keep." All of that came from later leadership.

As for the rest of it, there was a lot of political unreast, primarily within the House of Shammai and the zealots who had integrated with them to enforce religious doctrine by the threats, and he was most likely addressing the fact that they were being jerks.