Jesus makes the Old Testament old hat?

[Vicki Q]

In the very first book of the New Testament Jesus says this:

"17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them...20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

I didn't see where he abolishes all the barbarism. Maybe it's my poor ability to contort a believable alternative interpretation, but he seems to be endorsing all the crazy shit from the first part of the book.

This is a very important question, and I'll attempt a too brief answer.

For the Early Church, Christianity was Judaism. The story within which they were living was the Jewish story, which had reached a climax and a new phase through the events around Jesus. They were simultaneously loyal to Israel's traditions, but clear that a substantial change had occurred.

Most Jews of Paul's day saw themselves as living on a story in search of an ending. God was going to act, sort out the pagans, and establish His Kingdom. The Christian analysis was that this happened in and through Jesus, but in a different way to what was conventionally expected.

Thus, the OT was never overridden, because these are the early chapters in The Story. So they were endorsed in a real sense. Torah was not abolished, but became redundant (“until everything is accomplished”), because its purpose as a boundary marker was over ('fulfilled').

The Torah intensification highlighted in the OP was Jesus' explanation that the new life requirements went beyond the sort of oral extension worked by the Pharisees. They were also trying to bring about the Kingdom of God, through adherence to Torah, and Jesus is saying “You're barking up the wrong tree. The Kingdom of God doesn't work like that, and won't come like that”.

He then continues to outline this deeper analysis in the rest of the section by giving examples of how this plays out in practice.