Well, I hate to do it, but to be fair... the "shellfish" thing is a bit more complicated than it first appears.
It's true that the Hebrew Bible forbids eating shellfish:
But anything in the seas or the streams that does not have fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and among all the other living creatures that are in the waters--they are detestable to you and detestable they shall remain. Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall regard as detestable. Everything in the waters that does not have fins and scales is detestable to you. (Leviticus 11:10-12)
However, one of the challenges of the early Christian church was how to deal with gentile converts -- were they to be required to obey the entire body of Jewish law, including all the dietary commands, or not? The book of Acts records possibly the first council of the church, known as the Council of Jerusalem, which debated this question. The conclusion was that:
For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you [i.e., gentiles] no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell. (Acts 15:28-29)
The word translated as "fornication" is the Greek porneia, which is actually a blanket term for any illicit sexual activity. The Council did not specify exactly what they meant by porneia, but first-century Judaism being as it was it's a safe bet that, if it were possible to ask them, they would have said that it included homosexuality. (Or at least male homosexuality. Female homosexuality is another topic.)
The result is that -- according to the Bible -- Christians who were not originally Jews are not bound by the Jewish law... except the parts of it that have to do with meat sacrificed to idols, eating meat with the blood in it, and sexual sin. Which means that, unfortunately, the fundies are not entirely ass-hatted when they pick out the Levitical prohibition against homosexuality but ignore the prohibition of shellfish.
There are much deeper questions about how to read the Bible and what authority it has or doesn't have, and I haven't touched on those yet. But the sad truth is, the "shellfish" argument is not as strong as we would prefer to think it is.
I have an admittedly simple view on Christianity, Christian Faith, and what authority should be looked at for how a Christian should act.
What did the man himself say? Not what Peter, Paul (talk about someone with his own agenda!), or anyone else say after he died. So when the topic of conversation turns to the God hates fags assholes who use Jewish law to justify their hate and hateful actions, I tend to turn to Matthew 7:1 & 12 and Luke 6:31-36. The Golden Rule and its extrapolations, I think if more "Christians" followed it, this would be a more happy world.
The Golden Rule actually came from Jewish law as well, as, verbatim, they are written on a paper that the Jews were to wear on their heads and hands and fix to the lintels of all their doorways. And Jesus was actually well within Jewish Law to say that they were the most important ones of all, as even Jewish law had levels of importance.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-12-03 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-04 04:16 am (UTC)It's true that the Hebrew Bible forbids eating shellfish:
But anything in the seas or the streams that does not have fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and among all the other living creatures that are in the waters--they are detestable to you and detestable they shall remain. Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall regard as detestable. Everything in the waters that does not have fins and scales is detestable to you.
(Leviticus 11:10-12)
However, one of the challenges of the early Christian church was how to deal with gentile converts -- were they to be required to obey the entire body of Jewish law, including all the dietary commands, or not? The book of Acts records possibly the first council of the church, known as the Council of Jerusalem, which debated this question. The conclusion was that:
For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you [i.e., gentiles] no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.
(Acts 15:28-29)
The word translated as "fornication" is the Greek porneia, which is actually a blanket term for any illicit sexual activity. The Council did not specify exactly what they meant by porneia, but first-century Judaism being as it was it's a safe bet that, if it were possible to ask them, they would have said that it included homosexuality. (Or at least male homosexuality. Female homosexuality is another topic.)
The result is that -- according to the Bible -- Christians who were not originally Jews are not bound by the Jewish law... except the parts of it that have to do with meat sacrificed to idols, eating meat with the blood in it, and sexual sin. Which means that, unfortunately, the fundies are not entirely ass-hatted when they pick out the Levitical prohibition against homosexuality but ignore the prohibition of shellfish.
There are much deeper questions about how to read the Bible and what authority it has or doesn't have, and I haven't touched on those yet. But the sad truth is, the "shellfish" argument is not as strong as we would prefer to think it is.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-04 05:24 am (UTC)What did the man himself say? Not what Peter, Paul (talk about someone with his own agenda!), or anyone else say after he died. So when the topic of conversation turns to the God hates fags assholes who use Jewish law to justify their hate and hateful actions, I tend to turn to Matthew 7:1 & 12 and Luke 6:31-36. The Golden Rule and its extrapolations, I think if more "Christians" followed it, this would be a more happy world.
But nonetheless...its still a funny video
no subject
Date: 2008-12-10 06:37 pm (UTC)The Golden Rule actually came from Jewish law as well, as, verbatim, they are written on a paper that the Jews were to wear on their heads and hands and fix to the lintels of all their doorways. And Jesus was actually well within Jewish Law to say that they were the most important ones of all, as even Jewish law had levels of importance.