Here is a interesting thought

[max-greece]

I have the quotes a bit confused - where I couldn't sort it out I have bolded my comments:

Abraham's covenant was essentially a rather dodgy real estate deal and a promise. The promise was - follow the rules and your descendants will continue. This is an agreement without end. It is a contract (covenant in biblical speak). Even God cannot unilaterally change its terms (or his word means nothing).

Do you not see the problem with your line of reasoning in this block of text?
Your Right! God can not change the rules of the covenant mid journey for no reason or His word would mean nothing.. So who repersents the other side of the covenant? and you should ask did they keep their end of the deal?

The eivdence suggests they did keep their end of the bargain well enough. Jews are still here for, what, 4500 years since Abraham? Kinda looks like the deal is still running.

So when Jesus comes to offer a new covenant he is saying to the Jews (only the Jews at this stage): Look at this new deal - its better than the existing one (personal salvation and so on) - why not switch?

If you would have read the Gospels one message would have rang out to you eventually. They Weren't Keeping Their End Of The Deal! Look at how Jesus Rips into the Pharisees, scribes and makers of the law over and over and over and over again.
"Woe to you pharisees and makers of the law you Hypocrites!"
Is a phrase Christ Himself said against the religious LEARDERS of Judaism many many different times. These men repersented the cream of that religious crop, and Jesus found fault after fault after fault with them, what they taught, and how they taught it. In short they were not keeping their end of the covenant. Thus the need for a new one.

Nice try but lets remember Jesus is in selling mode - trying to sell the new covenant so its in his interest to make it seem like the old one will end anyway.

Also - I don't think God judges by the behaviour of the leaders only - if that were the case the Catholic Church would be in deep shit right now.

Some do. Some don't. Those that don't, however, have to still be covered by the existing covenant (Abraham's) by definition.

Those who did See and accepted the authority Christ, (Authority weilded, through the miricals He did in the Name of the Father. Meaning they understood God the Father would not bless and support Christ doing things like this in God the Father's name, if He were not sent by the Father.) Accepted what Christ said. Which in short was, The current system/covenant is broken, and He set up a non-works/attonement based covenant.

Those who did not convert, held fast to their works and their own understanding of righteousness, but to do this they had to dismiss Christ and all that He had done. So the said it is by Satan He did those miricals. In turn Christ Identified that whole hard hearted condition that had them deny the works of the Holy Spirit as Blaspheme of the Holy Spirit. (The unforgivable sin.) Which is why it is said that is the only sin that can not be forgiven. (Because one must have a hard heart against God The Holy Spirit, fore He is the personage of God that Speaks and communicates the reality of salvation to us.)

Therefore, once Jesus dies (and establishes the new covenant by doing so) we have 2 valid covenants with God - the Jewish covenant and the brand new one with Christ.

Actually no. As Christ Points out in Mat 5 it is not possiable for any man even a true blood Jew to up hold the complete law as per the old covenant.[/quote[

And therefore it is not required by God - unless you are suggesting that God asked the impossible merely so he could break the deal later. That would be somewhat sneaky for a deity wouldn't it?

Jews follow the old one and Christians, once Christ himself has died, can follow the new one. Both, in the logic of the framework, have to be correct for Christianity to be correct.

Maybe this would be the logical conclusions for works based christianity, but biblical christianity does not work that way.

In Biblical Christianity Christ undergirds the OT, and takes it to it completeion, in that not only it is wrong to murder it is wrong to do so/hate in your mind for as He explains the sin of hate that has a man take another man's life, is the same. He makes another example of adultry, and looking at women lustfully. It is with this in Mind that the bible says we can not keep the Law as God intends for us to Keep, which makes every man a sinner. Which in turn points to the need for attonment. Not the attonement of sheep and blood of other animals, but the pure blood only God can offer...

No - thought crime is sadly not unique to Christianity - Jesus is merely reiterating the coveting commandment.

Yes- Christianity does go back to the old idea of human sacrifice, revolting as that is.

If we can have 2.......we could have more.

Not if you understand the nature of the two. Not to mention Only God Himself can offer a covenant.

And it is not for you nor I to say whether God himself did or did not offer a covenant to Mohammed.

Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that Islam was a third, valid, covenant.

Again does not match the criteria of the first two, covenants. For 'Mo-Ham' himself does not claim to be God, but just a prophet, who received a revelation from an 'angel.' Of which I have no doubt. the only thing that I question, was the angel was from God? Because He is not the only one with angels.
Same for joey smith.

Were this the case then one would expect the second covenant to mention the possibility, although in an abstract way.

That's the thing, Mo-Hams 'covenant' does not continue anything Christ did. It userps it. Mo-Ham basically takes back all of the freedom Christianity offers and puts the believers of Mo-Ham in the same type of self righteous bondage Christ railed against the Pharisees for. To believe in Islam is to outright deny what Christ Lived and died for. In essence Mo-Ham tried to set up a gentile version of Judaism.

For me the story of the Prodigal Son is that mention:

The father is God.
The father's servants are probably the Jews.
The elder Son is Jesus.
The younger son - the Johny come lately to the party, is Mohamed.

Islam supposedly descend from Ishmael. That puts them "in da house"
Ishmael's descendants wander off only to come back later.

When the younger son returns he does so expecting that he can only do it through becoming a servant in the house (rejoining the Jews). When he returns, however, the father (God) rushes out to greet and welcome him. Note how he bypasses the older son, Jesus. Jesus is actually rather pissed off about the whole thing. When he complains to the father it is explained to him that the younger son's inheritance in no way diminishes his own. Everyone can get a place in heaven if they are on one of the 3 paths.

Neat, but you run into the same problem the traditional interpertation has. It does not jive with the other two parables of 'lost things/people.' All three must work together or the point of telling three stories with interlocking points is lost. All three point to repentance and How Heaven is effected when what was lost is found. Where your interpertation can not work is all three point to the necessity of a sinner repenting. Islam is not about attonement for sin it is about a works based righteousness and thus would conflict with the other two parable Christ taught.

Never the less it was a 'neat' take on the story.

The above explanation, for me, was the best I could come up with that could actually stand. It does mean, however, that there are several paths to God and one is not necessarily better than the other.

But again Christ says, that the only path through to the Father is through Him. Does that mean a specific brand of Christianity? No of course not, Does it mean Christianity in General? Not Necessarily. Can it mean one can worship another God in another religion? Absolutly not. What did Christ Mean?
I mean He alone will judge who is and is not worthy based on our lives and intentions. It really does not make a difference on what you call yourself for Christ in the end will judge who is worthy and who is not, who has taken advantage of all that has been offered and who has buried their gifts into the ground.

It makes the idea of one group attacking another ludicrous - which means a whole lot of history is the story of how wrong man gets it sometimes.

Agreed. Because not wish to worship the God of the bible.
Those who do will and those who do not will create something suitable, that is why I do not try and 'convert' muslims.

I would be interested in your reaction but please note - this is not actually my belief - merely an academic exercise to try to make sense of any of it, starting from the premise of God.

Noted.

Remember that I don't really have a horse in this race. I think we can get away with Mohammed not being the son of God - it is within the limits of a parable. If you want to see that further demonstrated remember that for either of the sons to inherit the father must die. Obviously most interpretations make God the father - you are not suggesting he died and Jesus took over are you?

Mohammed offers an alternative pathway from Jesus - that is why it denies the Christian route just as Christianity claims itself to be the only way. For followers of either they are right. This is not unlike the first commandment - You shall have no other God but/before me. Note that this is not saying there are no other Gods - merely that if you are going to follow this book then as far as you are concerned you have only one God.

PS - assuming no to the did God die bit - does Jesus do the judging? I thought God did it. Jesus seems to take the role of the advocate for Christians more than judge to me.