In my last article I talked about why the writings of Paul were a load of garbage and why they have steered the religion away from Jesus's teachings. In this one, I will do the same for the Old Testament. If you ever wonder why the Father that Jesus talks about sounds so different than the one in the Old Testament, it's because they are different. The God of the Old Testament is, by his own admission, unchanging.
For I, the Lord, do not change
Malachi 3:6
The god of the old testament didn't just have a change of heart, and Jesus didn't spread the messages of that god either. This may seem hard to grasp, especially for Christians, but I hope to prove that to you in this article. Jesus used the Old Testament to keep things in perspective, but when you actually look at the specific wording in the gospels, it becomes clear that his intention wasn't for people to go on using them.
The most popular argument against this would be the quote right here:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
Matthew 5:17
Sounds pretty cut and dry, right? But this is the best evidence that Jesus is actually here to continue whatever nonsense the Old Testament taught, and all it says is he is here to make the Law and the Prophets full. The fact that Jesus never gives us explicit instructions to fall back on the OT when in doubt is important to keep in mind. He doesn't, because by the time Jesus came around, the Old Testament was worthless. They even talk about that fact, IN the Old Testament.
"’How can you say, "We are wise, for we have the law of the LORD," when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?
Jeremiah 8:8
So even the people who have written parts of the Old Testament are claiming you can't trust it to be God's word anymore. So the fact that Jesus comes, and only tells us that he is here to fulfill the Law, should not be used as evidence that Jesus thinks the OT is anything more than fan fiction at this point. It tells me that what he is actually hear to do is to teach the Law. To cement this point even more, let's take a look just a few passages down.
"You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
Matthew 5:38
This is Jesus, explicitly abolishing a "Law" from the Old Testament supposedly told to us by an unchanging God that later decided to change its mind. The fact that this happens only a couple lines down from him claiming he isn't going to abolish anything should have got people thinking about what the prior message actually meant.
The Six Commandments
To go further into this point, did you know that Jesus never actually tells us to follow all 10 commandments? Mr. "Not here to abolish any Laws" goes a head and abolishes a couple commandments. He goes around in multiple passages denying the sabbath, and when a rich young man comes to ask him how to get into heaven, Jesus doesn't tell him to follow the 10 commandments. He tells him to follow 6.
If you want to enter life, keep the commandments." "Which ones?" he inquired. Jesus replied, " ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’"
Matthew 19:16-30
Just 6. Nothing about worshiping God, or false idols, or obeying the sabbath, or taking God's name in vein, or even coveting your neighbor's wife. And you may have noticed something even more interesting in those commandments. I told you he gave us 6, and also gave you the 5 commandments he omitted. The reason that doesn't add up to ten is that Jesus not only abolished these commandments, but he also inserted one of his own into them.
"Love your neighbor as you love yourself" is not a commandment, it's just one of the many rules from Leviticus. Yet here is Mr. "Not here to abolish the law" leaving out multiple commandments (also the dumbest commandments) and even inserting his own. He never once tells anyone to follow the missing commandments. The closest he gets is when pressured by blasphemy authorities to say the first commandment, and even then he explicitly does not tell you to follow the commandment.
Jesus replied: "‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. "
"Love the Lord your God" is not the first commandment. The first commandment is about not having any other gods above the OT god. Again, Jesus takes one of the many laws in the Bible and presents it to us as a commandment, at the expense of leaving out something that is actually a commandment. This should make it clear as day that Jesus's message was never a sequel to the Old Testament. These rules are not equivalent. Jesus's message here leaves open the possibility that Hindus, Muslims, or any other religion would be accepted by the Father.
Jesus could have given the actual commandment; it was what everyone was expecting, and it would have calmed the people challenging him. Instead, he said something that sounded vaguely similar yet didn't have the same meaning as the original. And then again, he inserts his own commandment after it as the second greatest.
If there was ever any value in following the Old Testament, it's been lost in over a thousand years of being copied and added to. The continuing reliance on it by Christians is destroying the message that Jesus laid out. Using his life, and his sacrifice to assist in their spread of hate and judgement instead of peace and love. If you own a bible, you may as well tear out anything that isn't the four gospels. They have been leading the masses astray from Jesus's true message, which I will go into in final article of this series.
Concluding Thoughts
I do not care if you believe Jesus was something special, an ordinary man, or even non existent. But, people are waking up to just how dumb traditional religion is. Becoming aware of just how corrupted it has turned people. While I do hope that what we know as Christianity vanishes to the world of history books, it saddens me that the words of Jesus may go with it.
Whether he actually said them or not, the words we attribute to him are some of the most beautiful ever written. And we have non religious evidence that the man not only existed, but was also crucified for blasphemy. Even if the teachings of the real man weren't exactly the same, I imagine his teachings on love absolutely were.
If this man truly preached what was in the bible, and I see no more reason to doubt him then I do Socrates, it truly saddens me to see his words and actions forgotten. If Jesus is just some ordinary man, then it makes his sacrifice no less amazing. In fact, it makes it so much more so.
