Transcription
In this video, I want to, uh, share with you a short clip from Speaker's Corner, uh, with the redoubtable Mansur, as a Muslim brother there, talking about a passage, uh, in the New Testament. And, uh, I'm, I'm doing this not to point score anything like that, because I want to make a, a more serious academic point, uh, about what the Bible actually teaches. And it's all to do with Jesus' attitude towards the Jewish law, the Torah, the divine law given to Moses on Mount Sinai, the 613 commandments. And this was a topic which, uh, caused a bit of disturbance to me many, many years ago when I was a Christian and a, a friend of mine just started studying, uh, the Bible, New Testament theology at King's College here in London. And I hadn't been to uni at that time, and he just shared with me some of the things he was learning, um, about, uh, Jesus' view or attitude towards God's law, which I found rather uncomfortable and difficult to deal with. But we'll come back to that in a minute. And I just want to show you first this very brief clip, uh, from Speaker's Corner where Mansur is talking to, I guess, uh, two, uh, Christians. And then we'll have a look at what that's all about and have a look further. So have a look.
>> You're not thinking with your mind, are you? Any book of God, including the Quran. If a book said, "Go and kill babies and children," would you be happy with that?
>> If the Quran said that, would you be okay with it?
>> Why not? Because it's inhumane.
>> So if a book exactly said that, which is your Bible, it's inhuman because that's your book which says so, not mine.
>> But that's the Old Testament.
>> That's your book. Which God commanded to kill babies? Your God, not mine.
>> Violence in the New Testament.
>> Matthew 15.
>> Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'Honor your father and mother.' Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death."
>> Oh. That's an interesting point.
So this is an absolutely classic moment at Speaker's Corner. Mansur is very much in charge of his brief. He's been going there for, I don't know, decades, literally. So a couple of points, uh, he touched on briefly. One is the disturbing reality that God in the Jewish Bible, or the Old Testament as Christians call it, is actually, uh, does command genocide. And this is not a rhetorical exaggeration. It is literally the case. If you look, for example, at passages like 1 Samuel 15, the first, first verses of that, God clearly commands that the Amalekites, uh, should be exterminated, and specifically their men, women, children, and babies, and animals. This language was picked up by a certain leader in the Middle East quite recently, in the last year, specifically to target another group of people for extermination. This was a very deliberate dog whistle. I made videos about this with Dr. Ali Thai. You can watch those. That's not my concern in this particular video. Um, but it's interesting how Christians kind of feel very uncomfortable about that. And it's understandable. There's nothing like that in the Quran, of course.
And there were some early Christians, quite a large Christian movement in the second century, uh, founded by a guy called Marcion, um, who did actually believe there were two gods. Uh, in their view, the God of the Old Testament, as they would have called it, uh, was a wrathful, genocidal deity, uh, who clearly was not the same God revealed by Jesus, who was a God of love and mercy. And they literally believed in two gods. And obviously, they advocated following Jesus and Paul mainly. And then there were thousands of these churches across Asia Minor, uh, and in Rome, and so on. Um, very widely followed, uh, church, Christian church at that time. Now, I don't think many people today follow that view about there being two gods. But I think many Christians in effect disown the Old Testament God, so to speak, throw the Old Testament under the bus and just focus on Jesus, a, a God of love and mercy. And he would never command such terrible things, they would argue. But of course, the Bible's the Bible, and it's the same God throughout the entire Bible.
But looking at this passage in Matthew 15, uh, that was brought up on the video, is very interesting. And this is one of the passages that disturbed me and doesn't really fit in, really. Because the question can be asked, why don't, uh, Christians today follow what Jesus taught? Why don't they follow the commandments of God? Let's look at the passage in slightly more detail. So Matthew 15 says, "Then the, then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 'Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?' For they do not wash their hands before they eat." He answered them, "And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die." It's a quote from the Torah in Leviticus 20:9. But you say, "Whoever tells father or mother, 'Whatever support you might have for me is given to God,' then that person need not honor their father." So for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. You hypocrites. Isaiah prophesies rightly about you when he said, 'This people honor me with their lips, their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me, for they do, uh, worshiping teaching rather, human precepts as doctrines.'" End quote.
So that's the first nine verses of chapter 15 of Matthew. So what's going on here? Many things, actually. But I'm just going to focus on one slightly discomforting reality which Christians just seem to ignore always. I've never come across a pastor, preacher, priest who ever mentions this. So Jesus is, is chastising the Pharisees and the scribes for following their man-made traditions and basically, uh, breaking the commandments of God. And he mentions two commandments that they should uphold. One, honor your father or mother. This is obviously in the Ten Commandments. Who would object to that? And the other commandment, whoever speaks evil of their parents must surely be executed, literally. This is in Leviticus chapter 20, uh, verse 9, and another passage as well in the Torah. This is ignored, uh, completely. So why do Christians, uh, ignore the commandments of Jesus that when he is affirming, reaffirming the commandments of God, particularly when he, uh, mentions them explicitly and, uh, prioritizes them over the traditions of men? It's very peculiar.
So this disturbed me, but this was just the thin end of the wedge. There were lots of passages like this in the Gospels that said the same kind of thing about the Jewish law. Perhaps most famously, Matthew chapter 5 says, "Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill. But truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one, uh, not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Wow. So that's verses 17, 18, 19, and 20 of the fifth chapter. Wow. So Jesus here is upholding the law. He's intensifying it. He's not saying it's abolished at all. Obey even the smallest elements of the law. So Jesus never ate pork, for example. So we must, uh, as followers of Jesus, must not eat pork as well. It's one of the, the smaller aspects of the smaller commandments of the law, or and the greater commandments. We mustn't ignore them as well. So this commandment in Matthew 15 about executing those who speak ill of their parents is one of those commandments, and Jesus is saying we must uphold them.
And then there are other passages that never seem to get cited by anyone also about the law in Matthew's gospel, which says the same thing. In Matthew 23, at the beginning, it says, "Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples." So in other words, everyone, his personal disciples and to the crowds, this is general teaching for everyone. "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat. Therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it, but don't do as they do, for they do not practice what they preach." Wow. So these Jewish leaders, they sit with, with, they have Moses' authority. They sit in his chair and they teach the Torah. Jesus says, "Well, follow their teaching. Obey it. Follow it." But they're hypocrites. They don't follow it themselves. So don't follow what they do, but follow their teaching. Right? Um, and there's another passage, uh, another verse, uh, 23. This is 23:23 in Matthew. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others." Without neglecting the others. So Jesus is prioritizing things like mercy, faith, justice, for sure. This is his interpretation of the law. This is his fulfillment of the law. But you ought not to neglect the other aspects of the law, like the laws in Matthew 15. So it's a comprehensive Torah observant ethic, but we're supposed to follow the law in the spirit of Jesus, in the way that he taught it, with an emphasis on mercy and faith and justice. You see, it's not abolished at all.
So, why don't Christians follow, uh, the law? Uh, Jesus distinguishes between the traditions of men and the commandments of God. As I say, he rebukes the Pharisees for replacing divine law with their own customs. Jesus cites the Torah. So the problem is, later Christianity, uh, believes that Christians are not obliged to keep the law. Um, how do we know this? Well, let's look at, uh, Ephesians chapter 2. It's a letter that Paul allegedly wrote. I say allegedly, many scholars think it's a forgery, but we'll pass over that at the moment. In chapter 2, verse 15 of Ephesians, he says, "He," meaning Christ, "has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of two." Now, whatever the reason given for the abolition of the law, notice how different it is from the teaching of Jesus that I mentioned. Paul says Christ has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances. Very interesting.
There's another passage which I've not read yet in Matthew's gospel, Matthew chapter 19, which speaks to this issue. Matthew 19, verse 17. Uh, "If you wish to enter into life," Jesus says, "keep the commandments." This is verse, uh, 17. "If you wish to have eternal life, enter, uh, keep the commandments." This is the Jewish law. Again, how different. But he has abolished the law with his commandments, claims Paul. I, how is this possible? And it's one of the, the kind of the mysteries, really, that the church, as it put together the 27 books of the New Testament over the centuries. It wasn't something that happened overnight. A long, drawn-out process. Different Christian groups had different canons, different parts of the Bible, books that we no longer even have access to have disappeared. Um, many, many gospels and other scriptures. But anyway, when they put together this list, this 27 list with the four Gospels and Paul's letters, didn't they notice? Didn't they notice such a fundamental discrepancy and contradiction at the heart of their list of books? Al Matthew, the Jesus of Matthew's gospel contradicts what Paul says on pretty important matters of the law. Didn't they notice this, that what Paul says is quite different? Jesus upholds the Torah commandments in his ministry. Later Christian tradition says you've just got to have faith in Christ rather than obedience, uh, to the law.
So many people would find this, uh, quite surprising and quite shocking. But there were early Christians, to be fair, who did continue to follow the teaching of Jesus. They're known to us as the Ebionites. These are Jewish Christians. Uh, and, and they followed, uh, a man called James, who's actually a brother of Jesus. He became head of the church after Jesus' ascension. He was the bishop of, of Jerusalem, uh, according to our early sources like Eusebius, for example, and Josephus. Uh, he, James was elected or appointed by the senior apostles. And we know a lot about James from Josephus, the Jewish, Jewish historian, from Eusebius, the second, third century Christian father. They write a lot about him. And he was famous for being a Torah observant Jew. And the religion he followed was not Christianity. Yes, he believed in Jesus, but he believed in a renewed, a renewed Judaism in the light of Jesus' teaching, uh, but not Christianity. That is a, a rather different religion than the one he, uh, uh, advocated and taught. What Christians follow today is, uh, I would argue, uh, the teaching of Paul, is a gospel about Jesus rather than the gospel of Jesus. And that's quite a big difference.
I'll give you one final example of the big difference. So according to, uh, Mark, another early gospel, Jesus was asked in Mark chapter 12, "What is the greatest commandment? What's the first commandment of all?" And this is, uh, verse 28 of chapter 12. And Jesus answered. And by the way, Christians, when I ask them this question, it's not a trick question. I say, "What's the greatest commandment according to Jesus?" And they nearly always say, "To love your neighbor as yourself." Actually, a quote from the law, by the way, the Jewish Torah. It's actually not the right answer. Jesus says, "The first and greatest commandment is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.'" So this is, uh, a statement of monotheism, and it's actually a quote, of course, from Deuteronomy. Um, it's not meant to be a new teaching at all. Um, and what's interesting is that this very teaching, uh, found in the law of Moses, is affirmed by Jesus, but it's repeated in the Quran in Surah 112, where the very same word is used. So the word in Hebrew, "one," is very like "one," which is the word used that God is one, uh, in Surah 112.
Now, why does this matter? Well, it's interesting, isn't it, that the teaching of Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, peace be upon them all, on matters of Aqidah, matters of theology, is the same. Each of them affirms Tawhid, the unity and oneness of God, explicitly. So it's there in Deuteronomy, it's there in, in Mark, and it's there in the Quran. The same teaching, the same language is used. All three languages are cognate. Their Semitic languages are very similar, like cousins to each other. Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic are very similar to each other. And so often, they, the syntax and the grammar and the vocabulary sound the same. So because we have the same teaching about God in all three religions, then we, this affirms in some ways what the Quran says about itself. It's not a new religion. It is affirming what the Torah teaches on these matters. That's very interesting.
But if then someone later then comes along and says, "But actually, there are three divine beings. There is the Father who's fully God, the Son who is fully God, and the Holy Spirit is fully God. But hey, no, no, they are one God, even though each of them has a distinct consciousness, a distinct will." They argue. Is this what the three prophets I've cited and their scriptures state? Is this what Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, upon whom be peace, actually said? No, it's not. None of them mention three. And the Quran itself, interestingly, says, "Do not say three. That God is one." So it's interesting, isn't it? The Quran is actually affirming, uh, the teaching of Jesus in Mark 12 and the teaching of Moses in Deuteronomy in the Torah. It's the same Tawhid, the same belief in the oneness of God, monotheism, not tritheism or Trinitarian thought. Or like some early Christians in the second century believed there were two gods, because the God in the Old Testament, in their view, who ordered genocide, could not be the God that Jesus preached. And there's some truth in that. Nowhere in the Quran does God advocate the killing of women and children. It's something that is explicitly prohibited in Islamic law, as it is, uh, uh, in, in law, general law today, although we still, we're still seeing it unfortunately, uh, playing out on our TV screens.
So to the question, why don't Christians uphold the commandments of God as taught by Matthew, is a very interesting one. And there's no getting around that what we have in the New Testament, particularly in the Gospel of Matthew, is a teaching that Christians don't follow today. Christianity, as it grew after Jesus, developed an interpretation primarily through Paul and later Gentile church fathers that the law of God was set aside. It was fulfilled, but basically no longer followed. All you need to do was, uh, put your faith in, uh, in Christ, as they put it, rather than obedience, uh, to the law. But that's not what Jesus taught. "What must I do to have eternal life?" Matthew 19. "To have eternal life, you must follow the commandments." And I quoted Matthew 23 and Matthew 5. They're all saying similar things.
So this is the disturbing reality that my friend introduced me to, telling me about his course, his degree course at King's. Um, and that was my introduction to it. And how did I cope? How did I react at that time? And I, I do, do remember feeling uneasy. And what I did was I pointed to the teaching of Paul, of course. And because there are many, many letters purporting to be by Paul, some of them are perhaps, and some of them are considered to be forgeries these days by the vast majority of scholars. But I said, "Look, the preponderance of teaching of the New Testament was that we don't follow the law. Uh, Paul says that in Ephesians and in other places." So that's what I believed. But it was, I couldn't quite, you know, get away from the fact that Matthew said what Matthew said. Um, and so it's this question of overwhelming Matthew with all the other bits of the New Testament and kind of marginalizing Matthew. But it didn't quite work because that gospel stubbornly remains.
And today, the vast majority of New Testament scholars believe that the historical Jesus was a Torah observant Jew who did uphold the law, who did teach his disciples to continue to obey the law. And indeed, as I say, James, his brother, when he became head of the church, was very much a Torah observant Jew. He was famous for being that. He was cited by a contemporary Jewish historian, Josephus, and mentioned by others later, like Eusebius and Hegesippus and others, for being a Torah observant Jew. But that form of Christianity, it wasn't really Christianity, but it was a, a, a Judaism, a Jewish sect that followed the Jewish Messiah and the Jewish prophet Jesus, uh, ultimately died out, overwhelmed, overwhelmed by Gentile Christianity having its roots in Paul, which was wildly popular amongst the pagans. They loved it. They didn't have to follow God's commandments. They could just put your faith in Jesus and you had an automatic ticket to heaven. It seemed too good to be true, but they believed it was the case. But that wasn't the teaching of Jesus, it seems, uh, from our earlier sources. Um, anyway, so hope you found that of interest. Till next time.