This post is about religion. You've been warned.
Leviticus 11:12 says, "Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination to you." Some people, on both sides of the believer aisle, interpret this to mean that you could go to Hell for eating shrimp. Actually, the Jews don't believe in Hell and never did. Their closest concept of Hell is a kind of spiritual washing machine where sinners go to get their souls cleaned in preparation for the coming of the Messiah and the resurrection. The Torah, or the Law, is more intended as a set of rules for living your life, here and now. Violating them risks irritating God, which is a big no-no for Jews, as He might neglect to wake you up when the resurrection comes. Remember that concept of Hell. It's important later.
Leviticus 15, verses19 through 33 contain an entire set of rules surrounding menstruation. Menstruating women were considered unclean. Obviously, sex was not allowed, but it went further, you weren't allowed to sit in a chair, or lie on a bed which a menstruating woman had occupied. If you did, you were unclean until evening. It's not clear what is exactly meant by evening. Eight days after her period, a woman is supposed to bring two birds to the temple for the priest to sacrifice. Leviticus is full of weird shit like this.
So, how is it that Christians come to believe that we are bound and not bound, as we see fit, by Jewish law? Step deep into the Bible Belt, and you definitely won't find preachers sacrificing birds to cleanse a woman after her period. In a congregation of any size, the preacher would be sacrificing several birds a day, all month, every month. Christians do certainly believe that we are bound by what are called The Ten Commandments, but those are a very small part of the Law. It is filled with things like how to deal with someone who sells you sick livestock all the way to what you should do if you find out your wife wasn't a virgin when you married her. Christians tend to cherry-pick the Law, especially for things like its prohibitions on certain types of sexuality.
In breathtaking feats of twisted logic, Paul comes up with several reasons why Christians are no longer bound by the Law. The very early Christians were Messianic Jews. They tended to still try to keep the Law. As more and more Gentiles were converted, there was a problem with making them follow the Law. In Acts, Luke specifically mentions circumcision, saying that the uncircumcised cannot be saved. Paul then tries to solve the dispute by asking why the early Christians would test God by putting the burden of the Law on the Gentiles when their forebears couldn't keep it. (Testing God is one of those warning flags when you are reading Paul. You know something tricky is headed your way when you read it.) So, in other words, the Law is too hard, so let's not make the Gentiles live with it. Besides, your grandpop couldn't manage it anyway. Later, Paul says that being a Christian is hard, but stop whining about it. The Law is too hard, so let's not do that, but being Christian, which arguably entails at least some of the Law, is hard, and we need to suck it up. See what I mean about twisted logic? In his letter to the Galatians, Paul further explains that the Law was just a tutor for righteousness, and now that Jesus was here and we were saved by his death and God's grace, we don't need the tutor any more. At various times, Paul assures his readers that he will let them know how to be good Christians. Apparently he nominated himself tutor in place of the Law. In his first letter to Timothy, he goes on to say that the Law doesn't apply to the good guys, only to the bad guys, and that the righteous are welcome to beat the unrighteous over the head with it.
Ah hah! Official sanction for Christians to wield the Law as they see fit to beat heathens into submission, without actually having to live it themselves. At this point, it is worthwhile to mention that throughout the Gospels, one of the things that irritated Jesus most was hypocrisy. There is a whole chapter in Matthew devoted to it. I think the irony was probably lost on Paul.
You may have figured out by now that I'm not a fan of Paul. Aside from the arrogance of summarily assuming the mantle of arbiter of everything Christian, he is directly responsible for creating the twisted swamp that Christianity became. He was an angry, misogynistic, ascetic zealot. It's doubtful that Jesus saw him as a suitable successor. But, that's for another post if I decide to hazard the third rail again.
In Matthew 5, verses 17 through 20, Jesus says, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am come not to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, until Heaven and Earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, until all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven." (Jesus really didn't like the scribes or the Pharisees). There's a lot going on there. Some Evangelicals will use the first two sentences to explain that Jesus did indeed fulfill the law and the prophets, so it's OK not to worry about them any more. A sterling example of cherry-picking. It's the third sentence that gets interesting, which is probably one of the reasons some Christians avoid it. First of all, it's unconditional. Whoever violates even the tiniest bit of the law is in deep yoghurt. But, and here's the interesting part, breaking the Law won't keep you out of heaven, you just have to go live on the South side of town. The fourth sentence really rounds the whole thing up. The scribes and Pharisees were lawyers. That chapter on hypocrisy in Matthew that I mentioned is full of what Jesus thought of them. So, part of what he's saying here is that if you are intent on enforcing the Law without actually holding yourself to it, no heaven for you. Oops. But even more to the point, if you try and fail to keep the Law, you're still better off than the lawyers who point at it and say, do as I say and not as I do.
So, what are we to do if we want to be Christians without passing up the shrimp cocktail or buying new furniture every month? Well, on one level, if all you're worried about is staying out of Hell, then relax, the worst thing that can happen is that you'll have to take a bath and live in the poorer section of Heaven (remember that Jewish concept of Hell and the stuff about being the least in the kingdom of heaven?). Sounds snarky, but it's hard to avoid. The totality of rules and regulations for being a literal Christian at all, let alone a good one, would make a lawyer weep. It is the big problem with being a Bible literalist. It can't be done by anyone with a sane, rational mind. The Bible isn't an instruction manual for how to be a Christian. It's full of extraneous material. What theological purpose is served by the "begats?" As beautiful as it is, how is the Song of Solomon relevant to Christianity? And, who knows what the deal is with the Apocalypse of John, a.k.a. "Revelations," other than that it could mean just about anything and the author had been reading waaay too much Daniel.
In John 13, Jesus says, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this all men shall know ye are my disciples, if ye have love one for another." That seems pretty clearcut. In Matthew 22, he is asked what is the greatest commandment of the law, to which he responds that "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all they soul, and with all thy mind" is the greatest, but second "and like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." He said that upon those two commandments hung the Law and the prophets. If you can't keep those two, then the whole rest of the Law is meaningless. The first time (in my example, not chronologically) he said it was right before Judas turned him over to the Romans. The second time was in answer to a lawyer of the Pharisees who was trying to trick him into saying something blasphemous. In both cases, it seems that this was important for him to say. He didn't say it was important to avoid eating shrimp, or sitting on random chairs, or taking your neighbor to court over the sick oxen he sold you, or taking the proof that your new wife wasn't a virgin to the priests so they could decide whether she needed to be stoned to death. No. He said love God first, closely followed by loving one another. The Law is still in effect, and will be until stars burn out, but if nothing else, live up to those two commandments.
So, can we be good Christians when we don't adhere to "every jot or every tittle" of the Law? My opinion? Yes. To be Christian is to be Christ-like. He loved all of us, publicans and sinners too. He wanted us to love each other as he loved us. Loving one another is proof that we are his disciples. He wouldn't suffer the prostitute to be stoned, neither should we. "Judge not, that ye be not judged." It's not our job to interpret the Law especially when we can't live up to it ourselves. Don't point at the guy with the shrimp cocktail in front of him when you've got seafood sauce on your napkin. Got it? Motes and beams, right? Live the two great commandments, you must; live as much of the Law as you can. I refuse to believe that the man who taught love and forbearance would set us up to fail so spectacularly. And, by understanding the totality of what the Gospels have to say, I don't have to.
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