Is cessation an observation or theology?

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
ScooterJackson said:
Now days God refuses to move among His people because He changed somewhere along the way?

He has the power but refuses to use it to help His faithful?

That's accusing the Lord of not following His own Word as in the Book of James as an example where He says if we have what someone in need has need of and we refuse to help them, then how is that walking in love.

Is God no longer walking in love towards His faithful or something in your view?
Click to expand...
Now days God uses simple claims instead of real miracles to move among His people because He changed somewhere along the way?

He has the power but uses claims of miracles and not real miracles to help His faithful?

That's accusing the Lord of uses claims of miracles as a means to bring people to faith but in the Gospel of John 20:24-31 as an example where He says that those who believe without seeing are blessed then how is this walking in love.

Is God no longer walking in love toward His blessed faithful without sight or something in your view?
 
Lamar:
Miracles are in the eye of the beholder. If you are looking for a miracle you are likely to find one or more. There are lots of people out there who will promise you a miracle, given you can afford it.

When Jesus was baptised by John some heard God say, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." While others only heard thunder. Not everyone on the Day of Pentecost who saw the Apostles speaking in languages all could understand about 3,000 were "saved" over time, but that was nowhere near a majority of listeners. Some saw fire on their heads and some did not.

IMHO we continue to look for signs and miracles but the most miraculous event on earth is a person who changes from selfish to servanthood. A person who turns his back on the things of the world and faces toward the kingdom. We seek faith, but that is short sighted. Too few seek servanthood and in that is the greatest miracles of today. God's miracles today are changed lives, changed hearts, changed directions and changed souls. IMHO the greatest miracles we can see in this life are the the power of God in the transforming of lives. Jesus performed miracles but his mission was transformed lives. Sinners brought into relationship with the living God, the proud made humble, the rich made poor, the prodigal returned home, the suffering finding peace that surpasses understanding, hope to the hopeless, rejoicing to the downtrodden, hope for the addicted and the love of God declared by the servant lives of the converted.
 
OMC said:
The category you’re naming
Click to expand...
AI will read your reply.

The key distinction is this:

The NT does not merely say that love is the moral essence hidden underneath a continuing body of commandments. It explicitly presents love as the commandment given to the New Covenant people, and describes love as the fulfillment of the former law.
Click to expand...

1. “Love is the goal of the law” — true, but Romans 13 says more​


The paragraph says:


“love as the goal of the law”
Click to expand...

Paul certainly says this:


“Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
— Romans 13:10
Click to expand...

But notice Paul's wording. He does not say merely:


Love is the principle behind the law.


He says:


Love is the fulfilling of the law.


And the preceding verse is significant:


“Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet...”
— Romans 13:9
Click to expand...

Then:


“and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
— Romans 13:9
Click to expand...

So Paul takes the commandments and says they are “comprehended” in love, and then concludes that love fulfills the law.


That is stronger than simply saying that love is the moral essence behind a permanent collection of Mosaic commands.



2. The New Covenant introduces an actual “new commandment”​


This is where I think the quoted paragraph misses something important.


Jesus doesn't merely say:


“The old commandments were always really about love.”
Click to expand...

He says:


“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”
— John 13:34
Click to expand...

And again:


“This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.”
— John 15:12
Click to expand...

That qualification matters.


The standard is no longer merely:


love your neighbour as yourself
Click to expand...

but:


love one another as I have loved you.
Click to expand...

Jesus calls this new.


And John later describes the Christian commandment in remarkably concentrated language:


“And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.”
— 1 John 3:23
Click to expand...

Notice the singular:


“this is his commandment.”


John doesn't say, “These are some of the commandments.”


He identifies the New Covenant commandment as faith toward Christ and love toward one another.


That fits your “faith and love” emphasis considerably better than the paragraph's formulation.



3. “It was always one moral reality” is more difficult to establish from the NT​


The paragraph says:


“Scripture never teaches that ‘there was only ever one commandment’ in the sense of a solitary precept.”
Click to expand...

That's technically reasonable if we're talking about the Mosaic covenant as a whole. Obviously Israel received many commandments.


But that isn't quite the question.


The more precise question is:


What commandment governs the Christian under the New Covenant?


And the NT repeatedly concentrates it into love.


Jesus:


“This is my commandment, That ye love one another...”
— John 15:12
Click to expand...

Paul:


“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
— Galatians 5:14
Click to expand...

James:


“If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well.”
— James 2:8
Click to expand...

Paul:


“Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”
— Galatians 6:2
Click to expand...

That last expression is particularly important:


“the law of Christ.”


Paul doesn't call it the law of Moses.



4. “The moral essence behind every command has always been love” isn't necessary to explain Cain​


The paragraph says:


“Cain killed Abel because he lacked love... but that does not mean the Mosaic law never existed or that God gave only one command.”
Click to expand...

That's true as far as it goes, but Cain doesn't actually prove the proposition being asserted.


Cain predates Moses. Therefore, Cain's murder of Abel demonstrates that sin existed before the Mosaic Law.


John uses Cain precisely this way:


“Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother... And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.”
— 1 John 3:12
Click to expand...

Then John draws the Christian application:


“For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.”
— 1 John 3:11
Click to expand...

And:


“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.”
— 1 John 3:14
Click to expand...

Then:


“Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer...”
— 1 John 3:15
Click to expand...

So John's argument is fascinating.


He doesn't need to say:


“Cain violated the Mosaic commandment against murder.”


Cain lived before Moses.


Instead, John takes Cain's hatred/murder and contrasts it with the New Covenant commandment to love the brethren.



5. The biggest issue: “love as fruit” versus “love as commandment”​


The paragraph says:


“love is ... the proof of regeneration ... and the fruit of the Spirit's work”
Click to expand...

That is certainly NT teaching.


But the paragraph seems to set up an unnecessary distinction:


love as commandment
versus
love as fruit of regeneration.


The NT puts those together.


Jesus gives the commandment:


“Love one another, as I have loved you.”
— John 15:12
Click to expand...

Then the Spirit enables that life:


“the fruit of the Spirit is love...”
— Galatians 5:22
Click to expand...

And Paul says:


“the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
— Romans 5:5
Click to expand...

So the New Covenant isn't:


Here is another external law; now obey it.


Nor is it:


There is no commandment; love merely happens automatically.


It is:


Christ gives the commandment, and God's Spirit produces the love by which that commandment is fulfilled.


That is a very important NT pattern.



6. 2 Corinthians 3 gives us an important New Covenant contrast​


Paul describes the old covenant as being:


“written and engraven in stones”
— 2 Corinthians 3:7
Click to expand...

But then contrasts it with the New Covenant:


“written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”
— 2 Corinthians 3:3
Click to expand...

And Jeremiah's New Covenant prophecy, quoted in Hebrews, says:


“This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel... I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts.”
— Hebrews 8:10
Click to expand...

Then Hebrews immediately says:


“In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.”
— Hebrews 8:13
Click to expand...

So the NT itself gives us a covenantal transition.


Stone → heart
Old covenant → New covenant
Moses → Christ
letter → Spirit


And the concrete commandment Jesus gives to His disciples is love one another as I have loved you.



7. This also explains Romans 13:8–10 differently​


Paul says:


“Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.”
— Romans 13:8
Click to expand...

Then:


“Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
— Romans 13:10
Click to expand...

The present tense in verse 8 is important:


“to love one another.”


But the result is:


“hath fulfilled the law.”


That fits very naturally with your question about whether Paul is describing a Christian who is fulfilling the Mosaic law by living under the New Covenant commandment of love, rather than suggesting that Christians remain under the Mosaic covenant and must continue keeping its individual commandments.


Paul can say the believer fulfills the law without saying the believer is under the law.


That's consistent with:


“ye are not under the law, but under grace.”
— Romans 6:14
Click to expand...

And:


“if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.”
— Galatians 5:18
Click to expand...

Yet immediately after saying that, Paul says:


“For all the law is fulfilled in one word... Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
— Galatians 5:14
Click to expand...

That's a remarkable combination:


not under the law → Spirit-led → love → law fulfilled.



8. What I would change in the quoted paragraph​


The statement:


“love is the summation of all God's commands”
Click to expand...

is not necessarily wrong, but it can obscure the New Covenant distinction.
 
Inquisitor said:
AI will read your reply.

The key distinction is this:



1. “Love is the goal of the law” — true, but Romans 13 says more​


The paragraph says:




Paul certainly says this:




But notice Paul's wording. He does not say merely:


Love is the principle behind the law.


He says:
Click to expand...
The AI’s “refutation” sounds convincing only because it blurs the distinction Paul refuses to blur: love as a commandment and love as covenant fulfillment are not the same, and the NT never merges them into one ontological “commandment from the beginning.”
Jesus gives a new commandment (John 13:34), but “new” doesn’t mean it’s the only one ever given, nor does it erase the reality of the Mosaic law as a true covenant with actual commands.
Instead, Christ gives His disciples the eschatological form of the law’s moral core, and the Spirit writes that core on the heart so believers fulfill the law without being under it (Rom 6:14; Gal 5:18).
Romans 13 doesn’t teach that love replaces the commandments, but that it summarizes them — “briefly comprehended” — and Spirit‑produced love meets the law’s moral intent, not that the law dissolves into a single precept.
John’s phrasing (“this is His commandment…”) is covenantal shorthand, not ontological reduction; he’s naming the New Covenant’s guiding principle, not denying the historical variety of God’s commands.
Cain shows moral accountability existed before Sinai, not that “only one command ever existed.”
The NT pattern is clear: Christ commands love, the Spirit produces love, and that love fulfills the law’s telos — but fulfillment isn’t abolition, and fruit isn’t the same as the command itself. Machines don’t have souls and can’t discern spiritual truths, and you are mistaken to assume the tool knows better than the wielder.
 
OMC said:
The AI’s “refutation” sounds convincing only because it blurs the distinction Paul refuses to blur: love as a commandment and love as covenant fulfillment are not the same, and the NT never merges them into one ontological “commandment from the beginning.”
Jesus gives a new commandment (John 13:34), but “new” doesn’t mean it’s the only one ever given, nor does it erase the reality of the Mosaic law as a true covenant with actual commands.
Instead, Christ gives His disciples the eschatological form of the law’s moral core, and the Spirit writes that core on the heart so believers fulfill the law without being under it (Rom 6:14; Gal 5:18).
Romans 13 doesn’t teach that love replaces the commandments, but that it summarizes them — “briefly comprehended” — and Spirit‑produced love meets the law’s moral intent, not that the law dissolves into a single precept.
John’s phrasing (“this is His commandment…”) is covenantal shorthand, not ontological reduction; he’s naming the New Covenant’s guiding principle, not denying the historical variety of God’s commands.
Cain shows moral accountability existed before Sinai, not that “only one command ever existed.”
The NT pattern is clear: Christ commands love, the Spirit produces love, and that love fulfills the law’s telos — but fulfillment isn’t abolition, and fruit isn’t the same as the command itself. Machines don’t have souls and can’t discern spiritual truths, and you are mistaken to assume the tool knows better than the wielder.
Click to expand...
OMC
Well said, as usual and factual. However, sometimes in our scripture diving we lose sight of the Big Picture. Jesus acted in sacrificial love of the lost enough to give up his life in agonizing suffering as a human. His life is all the "theology" needed. "By this shall all men know you are my disciples, if you love one another.

We have determined that "only certain" dogma-driven and creed bound" people are Jesus disciples. IMHO the single greatest failure of 21st Christianity is that it now exists in 450,000 competing versions and this is close to absolute zero love for any disciple who does not think like me, dress like me, is of my race, my financial strata, political identity and believes like me and accepts all the dogmas i accept. Even then we are doubtful that the people within our cloistered groups are scriptural "enough."
 
  • Like
Reactions: Inquisitor
OMC
Perhaps the saddest thing we can say is that all Christians will never come to the same theological conclusions, we care more about that intellectual warfare than living and walking with Jesus in His sacrificial loving manner which comes so naturally to the redeemed.
 
  • Like
Reactions: OMC
OMC said:
The AI’s “refutation” sounds convincing only because it blurs the distinction Paul refuses to blur: love as a commandment and love as covenant fulfillment are not the same, and the NT never merges them into one ontological “commandment from the beginning.”
Jesus gives a new commandment (John 13:34), but “new” doesn’t mean it’s the only one ever given, nor does it erase the reality of the Mosaic law as a true covenant with actual commands.
Instead, Christ gives His disciples the eschatological form of the law’s moral core, and the Spirit writes that core on the heart so believers fulfill the law without being under it (Rom 6:14; Gal 5:18).
Romans 13 doesn’t teach that love replaces the commandments, but that it summarizes them — “briefly comprehended” — and Spirit‑produced love meets the law’s moral intent, not that the law dissolves into a single precept.
John’s phrasing (“this is His commandment…”) is covenantal shorthand, not ontological reduction; he’s naming the New Covenant’s guiding principle, not denying the historical variety of God’s commands.
Cain shows moral accountability existed before Sinai, not that “only one command ever existed.”
The NT pattern is clear: Christ commands love, the Spirit produces love, and that love fulfills the law’s telos — but fulfillment isn’t abolition, and fruit isn’t the same as the command itself. Machines don’t have souls and can’t discern spiritual truths, and you are mistaken to assume the tool knows better than the wielder.
Click to expand...
The Gentile nations were never under the Mosaic law.
 
I might make the observation that the Jews did not come under the Law of Moses until approximately 250 BC.

Prior to that, there is not only no evidence that the Jewish people and their Jewish culture had any knowledge much less practice of the Jewish law. They are non-kosher, they regularly violated the no graven images law. They worshipped YHWH as the chief God in the Divine Council but they continued to honor other "gods" as well. They used earthen vessels to cook which only very later were changed to stone cooking ware when they discovered the Law of Moses required them to destroy a earthen vessel if a bug walked across it. The movement to stoneware happened around the same time, 250 BC. When the Jewish Temple was built at Elephantine in the 400's BC the Temple in Jerusalem was in full support of the Jewish soldiers working in Egypt to have their own temple. Obviously, nobody knew of any prohibition against a Jewish Temple anywhere but Jerusalem. There is no written or cultural evidence that anybody had any knowledge of or paracted the 10 Commandment as there are large troves of documents taken from the Jewish Temple in Elephantine.

By about 250 BC with the rise of the Hasmonean Dynasty in Israel, the Synagog system started then and for the first time the largely illiterate population could hear the Torah, Prophets and the writings. Prior to about 250 BC there was little or no use of theophoric names. (Using some version of YHWH in name so children. There was no ritual use of bathing/cleansing as required in the Torah. Their coins had graven images on them including the images of foreign gods and images of the High Priest. Until around 250 BC the Jews failed totally to observe Mezuzah. Which was a command in Deuteronomy to put a sign on the right doorpost of your house with a small rolled up version of the Schema. After that time they were found everywhere that archeologists looked at those ancient houses.

The idea that Moses wrote the Torah is strictly a claim made in two limited places in the Torah and by tradition, but no matter when a historic Moses may have existed it was long before any literary Hebrew written texts existed or could have been used for a Torah.

Thus, IMHO, the proper claim is Gentiles were never under the Hebrew laws, though many read the same prophets and writings. By the time of Jesus, Jewish law instructs that people outside the Land of Israel should face toward the Holy Land and Jerusalem during the Amidah (the central silent prayer). In the Torah it clearly states that only in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem could God be worshipped. However, with the rapid spread of the Synagog system, those living outside of Judah worshipped in their Synagogues instead. This formed the bedrock of Christianity as Paul and other evangelists started their mission by preaching in the various Synagogues around the Mediterranean.
 
biblestudent78 said:
I might make the observation that the Jews did not come under the Law of Moses until approximately 250 BC.

Prior to that, there is not only no evidence that the Jewish people and their Jewish culture had any knowledge much less practice of the Jewish law. They are non-kosher, they regularly violated the no graven images law. They worshipped YHWH as the chief God in the Divine Council but they continued to honor other "gods" as well. They used earthen vessels to cook which only very later were changed to stone cooking ware when they discovered the Law of Moses required them to destroy a earthen vessel if a bug walked across it. The movement to stoneware happened around the same time, 250 BC. When the Jewish Temple was built at Elephantine in the 400's BC the Temple in Jerusalem was in full support of the Jewish soldiers working in Egypt to have their own temple. Obviously, nobody knew of any prohibition against a Jewish Temple anywhere but Jerusalem. There is no written or cultural evidence that anybody had any knowledge of or paracted the 10 Commandment as there are large troves of documents taken from the Jewish Temple in Elephantine.

By about 250 BC with the rise of the Hasmonean Dynasty in Israel, the Synagog system started then and for the first time the largely illiterate population could hear the Torah, Prophets and the writings. Prior to about 250 BC there was little or no use of theophoric names. (Using some version of YHWH in name so children. There was no ritual use of bathing/cleansing as required in the Torah. Their coins had graven images on them including the images of foreign gods and images of the High Priest. Until around 250 BC the Jews failed totally to observe Mezuzah. Which was a command in Deuteronomy to put a sign on the right doorpost of your house with a small rolled up version of the Schema. After that time they were found everywhere that archeologists looked at those ancient houses.

The idea that Moses wrote the Torah is strictly a claim made in two limited places in the Torah and by tradition, but no matter when a historic Moses may have existed it was long before any literary Hebrew written texts existed or could have been used for a Torah.

Thus, IMHO, the proper claim is Gentiles were never under the Hebrew laws, though many read the same prophets and writings. By the time of Jesus, Jewish law instructs that people outside the Land of Israel should face toward the Holy Land and Jerusalem during the Amidah (the central silent prayer). In the Torah it clearly states that only in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem could God be worshipped. However, with the rapid spread of the Synagog system, those living outside of Judah worshipped in their Synagogues instead. This formed the bedrock of Christianity as Paul and other evangelists started their mission by preaching in the various Synagogues around the Mediterranean.
Click to expand...
Your reconstruction falls apart because it assumes Israel had no Torah, covenant identity, knowledge of YHWH’s commands, or Mosaic tradition for over a thousand years, yet somehow produced the Deuteronomistic history, the prophetic writings, the exile‑era reforms, and the Ezra–Nehemiah covenant renewal — all of which presuppose long‑standing Torah awareness.
Elephantine doesn’t prove “no Torah,” it shows diaspora syncretism, exactly what the prophets condemn in Israel itself.
The absence of mezuzot, stone vessels, or strict icon‑avoidance in early layers reflects repeated disobedience, not the law’s nonexistence.
Claiming Hebrew writing didn’t exist for Moses ignores early Semitic scripts and the Torah’s own claim that Moses wrote covenant documents. The idea that Jews “only discovered the Law under the Hasmoneans” contradicts every textual witness from Judges to Kings to Jeremiah to Ezra, all describing Israel receiving, forgetting, recovering, and reforming around the Torah.
Gentiles were never under Mosaic law — that’s correct — They were never “lawless” or “condemned by default” because Paul explains they lived under the law of nature written on the heart — “the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness” (Rom 2:14–15). This means Gentiles followed natural law, not the Torah, and were judged by their internal moral compass rather than Israel’s covenant code. They were accountable to God through creation (Rom 1:19–20), conscience (Rom 2:15), and general revelation. That’s why Paul says they are “without excuse” — not for lacking the Torah, but for violating the moral knowledge they already had. But your conclusion fails because it confuses late Second‑Temple standardization with early covenant origins, treats archaeological silence as theological absence, and overlooks the biblical record of Israel’s long, uneven, but genuine history of Torah knowledge and covenant accountability.
 
biblestudent78 said:
I might make the observation that the Jews did not come under the Law of Moses until approximately 250 BC.

Prior to that, there is not only no evidence that the Jewish people and their Jewish culture had any knowledge much less practice of the Jewish law. They are non-kosher, they regularly violated the no graven images law. They worshipped YHWH as the chief God in the Divine Council but they continued to honor other "gods" as well. They used earthen vessels to cook which only very later were changed to stone cooking ware when they discovered the Law of Moses required them to destroy a earthen vessel if a bug walked across it. The movement to stoneware happened around the same time, 250 BC. When the Jewish Temple was built at Elephantine in the 400's BC the Temple in Jerusalem was in full support of the Jewish soldiers working in Egypt to have their own temple. Obviously, nobody knew of any prohibition against a Jewish Temple anywhere but Jerusalem. There is no written or cultural evidence that anybody had any knowledge of or paracted the 10 Commandment as there are large troves of documents taken from the Jewish Temple in Elephantine.

By about 250 BC with the rise of the Hasmonean Dynasty in Israel, the Synagog system started then and for the first time the largely illiterate population could hear the Torah, Prophets and the writings. Prior to about 250 BC there was little or no use of theophoric names. (Using some version of YHWH in name so children. There was no ritual use of bathing/cleansing as required in the Torah. Their coins had graven images on them including the images of foreign gods and images of the High Priest. Until around 250 BC the Jews failed totally to observe Mezuzah. Which was a command in Deuteronomy to put a sign on the right doorpost of your house with a small rolled up version of the Schema. After that time they were found everywhere that archeologists looked at those ancient houses.

The idea that Moses wrote the Torah is strictly a claim made in two limited places in the Torah and by tradition, but no matter when a historic Moses may have existed it was long before any literary Hebrew written texts existed or could have been used for a Torah.

Thus, IMHO, the proper claim is Gentiles were never under the Hebrew laws, though many read the same prophets and writings. By the time of Jesus, Jewish law instructs that people outside the Land of Israel should face toward the Holy Land and Jerusalem during the Amidah (the central silent prayer). In the Torah it clearly states that only in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem could God be worshipped. However, with the rapid spread of the Synagog system, those living outside of Judah worshipped in their Synagogues instead. This formed the bedrock of Christianity as Paul and other evangelists started their mission by preaching in the various Synagogues around the Mediterranean.
Click to expand...

The book of Kings relates how a "law of Moses" was discovered in the Temple during the reign of king Josiah (r. 641–609 BCE).

Another mention of the "Book of the Law of Moses" is found in Joshua 8:30-31.

Scholars generally place the final composition of Kings after 561 BC, during the Babylonian exile.

Please note, the book of Kings was rewritten many times and the final composition is after 561 BC. Much earlier copies of
the book of Kings existed before 561 BC.

To suggest a date of 250 BC for the Mosaic law is outrageous.
 
Inquisitor said:
The book of Kings relates how a "law of Moses" was discovered in the Temple during the reign of king Josiah (r. 641–609 BCE).

Another mention of the "Book of the Law of Moses" is found in Joshua 8:30-31.

Scholars generally place the final composition of Kings after 561 BC, during the Babylonian exile.

Please note, the book of Kings was rewritten many times and the final composition is after 561 BC. Much earlier copies of
the book of Kings existed before 561 BC.

To suggest a date of 250 BC for the Mosaic law is outrageous.
Click to expand...
Inquisitor:
You miss my point. I am not making any claim about when any part of the Hebrew Bible was WRITTEN. We do know it was under regular changes and merges after the original was written. Using the book of Joshua to prove anything is a big stretch.

My point is not when something might have been written, but when the population and the culture started observing anything that was written. The vast majority of Judeans were farmers, vintners and herders. They were illiterate. They didn't even have standard weights and measurements till the Assyrians who ran Israel for 100 years brought those standards. Because the population could not read or write the Assyrians taught them how to bullae which were a carved image unique to a town or a person with large wine production. Knowing that these people were illiterate, they could use their bullae to stamp the handles of unfired clay jars before being filled with wine. There were sizes of 38 and 42 liters. This reality on the ground is just one reality of why there was a huge gap in the literacy of the Judean population. As the book of Jeremiah says only 4,600 elites were taken into Babylonian captivity. The workers and illiterate farmers, herders and vintners were not needed. While in Babylon the Hebrews learned the Babylonian stories of a great flood and God selecting one family to save the world. In Babylon they learned the story of Sargon the Great whose mother had to hide him by putting him in a reed constructed basket with pitch to seal it and it was sent on the Euphrates river to be found by a gardner of the king. He was raised as part of that kings family and eventually Sargon became ruler of the Kingdom and the conqueror of the age. The book of Chronicles written after the exile retells the book of Kings story but completely changes the story of David and Solomon.
 
biblestudent78 said:
Inquisitor:
You miss my point. I am not making any claim about when any part of the Hebrew Bible was WRITTEN. We do know it was under regular changes and merges after the original was written. Using the book of Joshua to prove anything is a big stretch.

My point is not when something might have been written, but when the population and the culture started observing anything that was written. The vast majority of Judeans were farmers, vintners and herders. They were illiterate. They didn't even have standard weights and measurements till the Assyrians who ran Israel for 100 years brought those standards. Because the population could not read or write the Assyrians taught them how to bullae which were a carved image unique to a town or a person with large wine production. Knowing that these people were illiterate, they could use their bullae to stamp the handles of unfired clay jars before being filled with wine. There were sizes of 38 and 42 liters. This reality on the ground is just one reality of why there was a huge gap in the literacy of the Judean population. As the book of Jeremiah says only 4,600 elites were taken into Babylonian captivity. The workers and illiterate farmers, herders and vintners were not needed. While in Babylon the Hebrews learned the Babylonian stories of a great flood and God selecting one family to save the world. In Babylon they learned the story of Sargon the Great whose mother had to hide him by putting him in a reed constructed basket with pitch to seal it and it was sent on the Euphrates river to be found by a gardner of the king. He was raised as part of that kings family and eventually Sargon became ruler of the Kingdom and the conqueror of the age. The book of Chronicles written after the exile retells the book of Kings story but completely changes the story of David and Solomon.
Click to expand...
Im sorry brother but I have to jump in on a couple things, Your argument treats popular literacy as the measure of whether Israel had a functioning covenant, but the Hebrew Bible never grounds Israel’s identity in universal literacy; it grounds it in priestly teaching, prophetic proclamation, communal memory, and public reading (Deut 31:10–13; 2 Kgs 23; Neh 8), which means an agrarian, largely illiterate population does not imply “no Torah” or “no tradition.”
The Assyrian administrative reforms you cite standardized commerce, not religion, and bullae prove bureaucratic organization, not theological ignorance.
Your Babylonian‑influence claims are also overstated: ANE parallels to the flood or Sargon’s birth do not imply Israel “learned” its stories in exile, because Israel’s narratives carry distinct theological structures—creation, covenant, election—that Babylonian myths do not share.
And your claim that Chronicles “completely changes” Kings misunderstands its genre:
Chronicles is a post‑exilic theological retelling emphasizing temple, repentance, and Davidic hope, not a rewrite invented because Israel supposedly lacked its own history.
In short, illiteracy does not erase covenant identity, ANE parallels do not prove late invention, and administrative reforms do not explain away Israel’s long‑standing priestly and prophetic tradition.
 
OMC said:
Im sorry brother but I have to jump in on a couple things, Your argument treats popular literacy as the measure of whether Israel had a functioning covenant, but the Hebrew Bible never grounds Israel’s identity in universal literacy; it grounds it in priestly teaching, prophetic proclamation, communal memory, and public reading (Deut 31:10–13; 2 Kgs 23; Neh 8), which means an agrarian, largely illiterate population does not imply “no Torah” or “no tradition.”
The Assyrian administrative reforms you cite standardized commerce, not religion, and bullae prove bureaucratic organization, not theological ignorance.
Your Babylonian‑influence claims are also overstated: ANE parallels to the flood or Sargon’s birth do not imply Israel “learned” its stories in exile, because Israel’s narratives carry distinct theological structures—creation, covenant, election—that Babylonian myths do not share.
And your claim that Chronicles “completely changes” Kings misunderstands its genre:
Chronicles is a post‑exilic theological retelling emphasizing temple, repentance, and Davidic hope, not a rewrite invented because Israel supposedly lacked its own history.
In short, illiteracy does not erase covenant identity, ANE parallels do not prove late invention, and administrative reforms do not explain away Israel’s long‑standing priestly and prophetic tradition.
Click to expand...
Perhaps I not being clear....I hear that alot. My point is no matter what the few elite and literary knew, there is no evidence that any of that was known by the masses, pre or post exilic. Elephante was post exilic yet these Jews named their kids after all kinds gods. Yet they had a liturgy that united them and connected them to the Temple in Jerusalem with whom they communicated and we have some of those documents. They knew nothing about the 10 commandments. There was a fair amount of literature starting around 700 BC will writing by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk and Zephaniah were probably in existence pre-exile.

These and other Hebrew Bible relied on a host of source materials all or which are named in the HB but none exist today. This indicates a cloistered elite writers doing research to craft their work using other writings including: the Book of Jasher, Book of the Wars of the Lord, Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, (both mentioned over 30 times), Book of Shemaiah, Story of the Prophet Iddo, Book of Statutes, Acts of Solomon, Annals of King David, Book of Samuel the Seer, Book of Nathan the Prophet, Book of Nathan the Prophet, Book of Gad the Seer, Book of Anijah, Book of Jehu, Acts of Uzziah, Vision of Isaiah, Sayings of the Seers, Laments of Josiah and Chronicles of King Ahasuerus. As reference books were part of the composition of the early writers it is not a stretch they knew of the ancient legends of Sumeria (Home of Abraham) and Akkad.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back