Savonarola wrote:I recently came upon the following in a discussion regarding the guidelines set down in Leviticus.
There were three legal structures in ancient Israel: Civil law (the laws governing day to day life including criminal law and business law); Ritual or Ceremonial (Cultic) law (the laws governing religious practice); and Moral law (those laws that stand forever and are not governed by the other two, such as the Ten Commandments). The Civil law passed away when Isreal ceased to be a nation. It has little or no bearing on us today. The Ritual Law was fulfilled in the death of Jesus. The Moral Law stands forever. Homosexuality is dealt with in both the civil law and the moral law. The moral law regarding homosexuality being an abomination to God still stands.
I have these questions:
Is this the common scholarly understanding of these chapters of Leviticus?
DOUG
No. Just look at the standard Ten Commandments (Exodus 20). One is about having no other god before God. Another is about observing the Sabbath. Yet another is about not killing. There is no distinction between ritual and "morality." It is true that some rules only applied to the priestly class, such as not trimming their beards, but divisions between "kinds" of laws like this are later interpretations. ALL God's laws were to be obeyed for the same reason: they were divine.
"The Ritual Law was fulfilled in the death of Jesus."
Matthew 5:17
"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.
That doesn't make any sense. A law cannot be "fulfilled." It can be followed or disregarded, but not "fulfilled." There is some evidence that Jesus had actually said that he HAD come to abolish Jewish law, and that this was later changed to state that he had NOT come to abolish the law but to "fulfill" it. But that's another topic. Interestingly, how could Jesus have said that he was not getting rid of the "law" when he was constantly saying that people should NOT do what the Laws of Moses say but instead what Jesus says? Eg. Mark 10, Matthew 19 on divorce; John 8 on the stoning of an adulterous woman; Matt. 15 on ignoring the law about washing hands; etc.
Now, if you are asking whether contemporary Jews view some laws as still in effect and others as defunct, the answer is "yes." They would say the civil laws were made obsolete when the Jewish states of the past ceased to exist, but Jews would
not say that other laws are obsolete because of Jesus. Some laws, such as stoning disobedient children, are obsolete because they are barbaric and you don't find contemporary Jews respecting those laws.
You asked:
How does one tell them apart?
Theologians who make these kinds of distinctions are doing so largely arbitrarily. After all, ritualistic practice is in the Ten Commandments and the author of the letter you cite seems to (mistakenly) think that the Ten Commandments are all "moral" laws.
You asked:
Can statements in the Bible be used to support the idea that the "Civil" laws became defunct at a certain point in time or certain event?
The anonymous letter to the Hebrews (New Testament--it was eventually attributed to Paul, falsely) says that the entire old "covenant" is obsolete, but the selection of some laws over others in the Old Testament is not found in the Old Testament.
Speaking of homosexuality, you do know that King David seems to have had a gay lover, Jonathan, in the Bible?
And depending on whether one accepts the document "Secret Mark" as genuine (some scholars don't), Jesus may have initiated followers (men) into his little group by having sex with them.
"Secret Mark" was apparently a document intended for "advanced" Christians. One passage mentions a guy who wanted to join Jesus' group.
The young man looked at Jesus, loved him, and began to beg him to be with him....Six days later. Jesus gave him an order; and when evening had come, the young man went to him, dressed only in a linen cloth. He spent the night with him, because Jesus taught him the mystery of God's domain.
The Bible scholar Morton Smith discovered a letter that had fragments of Secret Mark and spent most of his later career defending it as genuine.
