" Thou shalt not..." in each case. Later on God gave Moses positive commandments such as thou shall love thy neighbor.

Then Jesus extended the love commandments to include your enemy, the only really new commandment given by Jesus as far as I can tell. He offered at least two others that are more like reinterpetations:
1. Judge not lest ye be judged
2. If you look at a women with lust in your heart, you have committed adultery

Now when I was growing up in the Congregational Church and later the Anglican church, I was told that Christians are only reqiured to keep the Ten Commandments, and that the other 600 or so were fulfilled by Jesus.

But Sam has convinced me that Jesus did not think any of the first ten were of greatest importance.

So I am wondering just where among the 613 commandments of Moses that Christians draw the line. Are Christians required to keep all of them?

For example, the birthday of the world (universe) which god says in the bible is to be kept by all for all time would appear to be an important one for Christians to keep. Yet I see no evidence of it being observed in Christianity.

[I might comment that when God said that this commandment is to be kept by everybody for all time, he apparently understood in his great wisdom that not all of the commandments were going to be followed for all time.]

Then there is the Jesus teaching that you have to keep all the commandments of Moses to get into heaven- delivered on the sermon on the mount. So I am quite confused about what christians think is required of them.

I hope that Sam can elucidate on these apparent paradoxes as he so skillfully did above regarding the ten commandments.

Another troublesome thing about god's commandments is that at first he tells us not to kill, then then some 40 years later he tells Joshua to kill every living thing in Israel and level every city except those that were built on a mound. That is just about the most extensive genocide in the written history of mankind. Was this the same god? How is this contradiction resolved?

Please advise,

Richard

• Birthday? - kc2gwx - May 30, 2002 - 17:52 UTC
  • Yes - yanniru - May 30, 2002 - 21:42 UTC
    • www.hebroots.com - yanniru - May 30, 2002 - 22:16 UTC
    • K - kc2gwx - May 31, 2002 - 00:01 UTC
      • But God himself said that everyone had to keep them - yanniru - May 31, 2002 - 13:33 UTC
        • K - kc2gwx - May 31, 2002 - 16:20 UTC
          • Church State separation - yanniru - June 3, 2002 - 14:08 UTC
            • Ok then... - kc2gwx - June 3, 2002 - 15:11 UTC
              • Right()nt) - yanniru - June 4, 2002 - 01:03 UTC
            • WOW!!! really really wrong... - emperor__alikar - June 3, 2002 - 15:17 UTC
              • I am supposed to be courteous? - harvey1 - June 3, 2002 - 22:38 UTC
            • Religion. - kc2gwx - June 4, 2002 - 01:12 UTC
              • Actually it is a law - stormcrow - June 4, 2002 - 01:26 UTC
                • No no no. - kc2gwx - June 4, 2002 - 01:31 UTC
                  • Certainly. It must be a government sponsored institution - stormcrow - June 4, 2002 - 02:00 UTC