The Imperfect Mosaic Law

If the Torah is from God why does it contain some pretty bad teachings? Shouldn't God have taught a better system than what we find in the Torah? Thank you to scholars Mark Chavalas and John Walton for helping with this video.

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Sources:

Exploring the Composition of the Pentateuch - Baker Jr., Kenneth Bergland, Felipe A. Masotti, and A. Rahel Wells.

Psalms: Volume 1 - John Goldingay

A Commentary on the Psalms - Allen Ross

Daniel J. Hays - Applying the Old Testament Law Today:

Paul and the Faithfulness of God - N. T. Wright

John Walton and Brent Sandy - The Lost World of Scripture

John Walton - Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament (2nd Ed.)

Craig Keener - The Gospel of Matthew: A Soci-Rhetorical Commentary

John Walton & J. Harvey Walton - The Lost World of the Torah

[TestifyApologetics]

I've been studying the Sermon on the Mount lately and this was super helpful. It is fascinating how many times Jesus says the Law said but now I say...

[xwyl]

Whoa! This reminds me that if God enforces the perfect law, all humanity would have died instantly at the moment the law was given. Instead, God didn't do that. Unimaginable to man, God has prepared something far better!

[MatthewChenault]

Huh. It’s almost as if human beings are imperfect and God understood this. So, He gave concessions to His people.

[jonathandoe]

"Skeptics use these verse to show that horrible things are permitted in the Bible."

Of course they are. These horrible things are called human beings, and not only does He permit them, but He even saves them time and time again, even laying down His own life to do so. No matter how much wrong they've done, he's always waiting with open arms, ready to forgive them. What a monster.

[HarujiSubayama]

That was the most reasonable, down-to-earth approach to the issue I've ever seen. Whenever my skeptic friends bring up the Torah, I'm going to kindly point them to this series. I can't wait for part 3 now!

[Sam-ewkt]

If Moses didn't allow his people to divorce, I can imagine what harm husbands could cause their wives because of their stoneheartedness.

[xrpgambler]

After learning all of this, my biggest question is, how did modern Christianity get so far removed from the original understanding of the Bible? At this point, almost everything we are taught regarding the overall knowledge of the Bible is corrupt. It's heartbreaking because I genuinely think that if the people of this world knew the real God of the Bible, they would love him the way I know we do. But it just seems like an insurmountable task to wake them up.

[eniolaelisery]

Exodus 21:16 and Deuteronomy 23:15-16 shows God in fact hates slavery.

[steve]

Same as divorce: for the hardness of their hearts. He let's man discover that owning other humans is wrong.

[PatrickHutton]

A Facebook friend of mine has commented on the video:

"It certainly is a different approach to the Law!
Lots of good, thought provoking ideas from the Bible itself.
However, I m not totally comfortable with imagining the modern world is morally superior to the ancient world - we are more materialistic, godless, and celebrate violence in games & films more than ever. We abuse women & men and enslave people on a more industrial, brutal scale than ever. We sacrifice infants on a scale that ancient empires would have found morally repulsive. I think the modern world is just clever at selling a few moral idols of, for example, "freedom" whilst remain more immoral than ever before.
The speech by Prof Walton really disturbed me.
I agree that the Law was dealing with (not humanity in general) the multi national Hebrew community and was like a wisdom literature. It was for the ancient Church, and was like a school teacher. The Bible handles the Law like that. Further examples are David eating the shewbread or the priests working on the Sabbath.
However, I am not really happy with the tone of moral superiority from the modern world in the video. I worry that instead of climbing inside the Law to see how every detail gloriously speaks of Jesus and Church, this approach seems to look down on the Law.
On a further detail, the new covenant is older than the old covenant.
Thanks for sharing the video Patrick Hutton .
Really interesting and thought provoking"

[stevetherush]

One interesting thing about God is how much faith He puts in us, His children...one could say even too much

He is dealing with imperfect people, and always makes a way no matter how far into the dark we go.

We are the reason for these imperfect laws, after all, we wholeheartedly shy from real perfection...Him

He deals with us at our current level, progressively leading us to betterment, and rather than perfection, He gives us grace
If He dealt with us at His level, we'd be annihilated already

[martinecheverria]

Exellent video, like always IP. You should make a video exclusevely on the Sermon on the Mount and another one about how great was Jesus impact in this world until this day. God bless you, your family and your ministry. Blessings from Argentina 🇦🇷

[isaacmarshmallow]

I bet John Walton is pleased with the increased publicity of his ideas 😂😂

[jaxmarsh]

Dude you are the best channel for these topics, I can’t profess enough just how much you’ve helped my knowledge grow . Thank you so much

[TheSmackerman]

This is a great video that explores some of the implications of Jesus' words in Matthew 19:8 alongside those of the other verses that IP raised in the video. I have had similar thoughts about this verse and its implications for a while. However, I think where this video ends opens a number of questions along the lines of: "Well if the Mosaic Law is imperfect, then how can Christians know more specifically what is right and what is wrong?"; "What determines which bits of the Mosaic Law stil stand and which don't?"; "Does this mean that Christian Ethics are therefore always open to be re-written as long as they sit under the general auspices of 'loving God and loving other people'?" and so on. I guess that there might just be a third part coming our way to clear up these questions as they seem to loom too large for someone such as IP to just leave open.
Thank you IP for all your hard work and thoughts on this topic and all your other videos.

[carlosbalazs]

I like to call the law a beautiful mess: a mess in the sense that I think we all know why, and its beautiful in the sense that the Messiah and the new covenant would come to raise the bar higher, and this was the first step.

[thecloudtherapist]

God bless you, IP. May the Lord always give you wisdom and reveal more of His truth to you.

[cyrillarweh]

AS MANY AS POSSIBLE CHRISTIANS NEED TO HEAR AND WATCH THIS!... AWESOME ✨🔥

[AnimeOtakuDrew]

Great video! I agree 100%! I hope you'll do a part three to this Torah series and cover the laws of kashrut or the "dietary laws." I really want to learn what the original purpose was for such laws. Why were certain animals like shellfish or pigs deemed unfit for consumption? Was it something about the food preparation methods of the day that those types of meat had a high chance of causing illness? Were the "unclean" animals named subject to some kind of illness or disease of the time that might pass to humans? Additionally, I feel compelled to ask a related question; if "clean" and "unclean" animals were not defined until the covenant established with Moshe, then why was Noach commanded in Bereshit 7:2, "Of every clean animal you are to take seven couples, and of the animals that are not clean, one couple, " and how would Noach even know what that was supposed to mean without the definitions given many generations later? I mean, not to be glib, but if I was told that without knowing of the laws of kashrut, I would literally think it was saying I needed to gather seven pairs of any animals that had been recently bathed or washed and only one pair of any that hadn't been. I really hope you'll address this aspect of Torah in another video soon as it's one I've been asked and never had an answer for, and since I'll be starting my own Messianic channel soon, I'd like to have an answer ready to give.

[debarghapaul]

This line of reasoning is dangerous, as many atheists, who understand the historical contributions of Christianity, can extend it to say that even the New Testament ethic is superceded via secular ethics, as equality of souls before gods means just basic human rights, a d also God and bible was just a noble lie to get at the humanistic atheism.