You shall not marry your wife's sister...

re: You shall not marry your wife's sister...

propecia — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:22:34 GMT

I want to say - thank you for this!

re: You shall not marry your wife's sister...

Tony Kim — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:37:06 GMT

Teresa and Bear, great insightts. Thanks for the thoroughness of your feedback. I admire his willingness to immerse himself in another world before passing judgement. One thing I lliked was his discovery that being good and lovig others really did change him. Goes to show you that love matters regardless of your faith. I don't know many Christians that would have gone to his great lengths to experience another religion or culture.

re: You shall not marry your wife's sister...

Bear — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:25:40 GMT

I highly admire and respect his project and his conclusions (for the most part). However... 1. It seems he only focused on the Old Testament rules and not the New Testament which is significant. 2. He didn't mention any reasons why those rules were in place. Many of them are for cleanliness (e.g., dietary) or to apart from pagan beliefs (e.g., mixed fabric). I think he wd gain a lot from that based on the way he thinks. 3. Picking and choosing beliefs is dangerous - can't choose the gov't laws we follow or what words mean (grammar rules) or laws of physics. B/c we're not the source of truth/laws/etc. Well, we can, but a) that's certainly not following the given system and b) there are consequences (e.g., criminal acts, not being understood, etc.). Again, I really enjoyed his talk and so very much admire what he did and most of his findings. It's just that *doing* something w/o *believing* it is somewhat empty and, I believe, what Jesus accused so many of in the Bible - lip service.

re: You shall not marry your wife's sister...

Teresa — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:35:00 GMT

AJ Jacob’s recount of his year long journey of living biblically was interesting and humorous but sadly, he seems to have completely missed Jesus. I have to say, I’m a little disappointed that he didn't give the bible full representation. He said he was living out the bible but it seemed to be limited to the Old Testament, although I have not read the book. What about the New Testament? If he’s going to live biblically, shouldn’t both parts be included? Did he not realize that that the terms Old and New Testament didn’t imply two separate books but rather a part 1 and a part 2 of the same bible. It’s like only reading the first chapter of a book and claiming to know what the whole book is about. Christian faith extracts most of its ideas of “living” from the New Testament. AJ equates his biblical living to Christianity or Fundamental Christianity, but what he really lived out was Judaism. Had AJ given as much effort into reading and learning the New Testament as he did to “living out” the Old Testament, he could have enjoyed the good news about Jesus’ extraordinary birth and life. He may not necessarily believe Jesus is the actual son of God, which is okay, but he would have learned that to some degree the New Testament was a revision of the Old Testament because those laws the he so poignantly points out as absurd are unattainable by Man, as he discovered. That is why Jesus came; to abolish the laws; leaving only one law to obey…Love; love God and love others. In essence, this is the whole conclusion of the Bible. Basically, AJ lived as a Pharisee. He lived the letter of the law, obviously to his best efforts, without understanding the heart of the law. What a tragedy.