General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: About four-in-ten U.S. adults believe humanity is 'living in the end times' (Pew) [View all]wnylib
(22,036 posts)Whom was he controlling when he said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath"?
Or, when asked which was the most important law and he said to love God and your neighbor as yourself because that's the principle that all the laws and prophets are based on? He was emphasizing the spirit of laws over the letter of laws. When asked after that "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus told the Good Samaritan story, which emphasizes that helping someone in need was more important than following the purity laws of the priests. Mosaic law required priests to maintain physical purity after going through a ritual bath. So in the story, a priest walks to the other side of the road rather than stop to help an injured man. The point of saying that a Samaritan stopped to help was that Judean Jews considered themselves better than Samaritans, who followed the Torah but not the post exile prophets. Yet a Samaritan helped an injured man while a priest did not.
And, he taught that people are obligated to give food, clothing, and companionship to others in need.
Yes, people do choose to emphasize some parts of the Bible over others. And different people interpret various passages differently. The Gospels themselves do not report things the same. In some cases they contradict each other, like the genealogies in Matthew and Luke. They were written decades after the time of Jesus, based on oral stories. They are written from different perspectives and in different times, reflecting early changes in views.
Not all Judeans believed in an afterlife, but Jesus did and told parables about what we call heaven and hell to illustrate points about how to live life.
The Old Testament has some horrific stories from our modern perspective, and reflect attitudes and thinking from when they were written. But it also has stories of love and forgiveness.
How people interpret the Bible, or what they choose to emphasize, reflects on themselves, what they know of its origins and context, and how literal they are. To some, the Bible is very literal, and written as if dictated directly by the God they believe in to the people who wrote it. To others, it is a collection of stories written by flawed human beings who wrote what they believed about the nature of life. To still others, it is a collection of fairy tales written by and for delusional people.
Evangelicals ignore some of the best teachings ascribed to Jesus in the book that they claim to literally believe in.