Why do Gentiles assume they should follow the ten commandments?

[Harmonious]

Shermana, you wanted a list. I have a list.

Jesus did indeed trangress Shabbat when he had his students pick grain. I mentioned it before. This story starts in Matthew 12, Mark 2:23, and Luke 6.

Jesus told a man to forsake giving his final honor. The man said he wanted to bury his father. Jesus callously told him that the dead will bury the dead. Matthew 8:21

Jesus disrespected his own mother when she and his brothers approached. A disciple informed him they were there, and he was rude about it. Matthew 12:47

The travesty with the Canaanite woman starts in Matthew 15:22.

While trees don't have feelings, destroying the fruit tree was a sin. It was a temper tantrum, and Jesus ignored the fact that he sinned and told a parable. This can be found in Matthw 21:19 and Mark 11:13.

Jesus was obnoxious to his disciples. I decided to forego pointing out when they were legitimately frightened and he chides them for having little faith before miraculously calming the sea. Instead, I'll point out when his parables weren't as obvious as Jesus thought. In Matthew 15:16, he calls them dull. In Matthew 16:6-11, he goes on about not accepting yeast from Pharisees and whatnot, Jesus chides them for not getting that the point of the parable was not talking about bread.

Jesus had a thing for insulting Rabbis gratuitously. He was baptizing someone, and when people show up, he called them vipers. Matthew 3:7

There is no social redeeming value to the whole chapter of Matthew 23. From start to finish, it is an insult fest. The proper way to have delivered rebuke is pulling the offenders aside and privately pointing out their sins. Instead, he unleashes invectives against all Pharisees as if every last one is a hypocrite, with more gratuitous insult, rather than any constructive criticism.

In Deuteronomy, it says that if a person claims to be a prophet, it is appropriate to ask him to show signs and wonders as partial proof. Jesus was approached in Matt 12:38 and 16:1 by Jewish authorities, asking for a sign. Instead, Jesus goes on and on about it being a wicked generation. Thst alone would have made him suspicious as a false prophet.

And Jesus decries the concept of kosher in Matthew 15:11.

If you are not predisposed to believe the best of Jesus, and you read the text from the perspective of a Torah observant Jew, Jesus sins quite a lot and appears to be a highly unpleasant person.

 

[Harmonious]

You did? I thought I was quite clear that Jesus did not break Shabbat whatsoever, where did you prove me wrong when I pointed out that even Rabbis today allow life saving surgery on Sabbath?

No. I agreed with you. I wasn't discussing Jesus' healing of disfiguring diseases which could have waited until after Shabbat, but he could have. Lots of his Shabbat healing escapades involve what would be classified as elective surgery. He usually did his life saving healing during the week.

I wasn't focused on that. This is what I WAS focused on.

Do you think picking grain and eating it on the spot on Sabbath is prohibited?

Yes! It is. That is harvesting, and I believe I explained that Jesus and his buddies should have made arrangements before Shabbat. And if they didn't, Jesus could have been polite about it and answered the Rabbi's question usefully. It was a legitimate question.

Instead, Jesus spews forth nonsense about David eating Showbread, which had nothing to do with the topic at hand.

It's not exactly chopping wood and carrying a heavy load.

True. But there are 39 categories of forbidden labor on Shabbat. Just because you see one as strenuous and the other not so much doesn't make it any less forbidden.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Do you think picking grain and eating it on the spot on Sabbath is prohibited?

Yes! It is. That is harvesting, ...

lechem mishneh

 

[Harmonious]

lechem mishneh

Kotzer?

 

[Pegg]

True. But there are 39 categories of forbidden labor on Shabbat. Just because you see one as strenuous and the other not so much doesn't make it any less forbidden.

Im interested, could you point our where in the mosaic law the 39 categories listed?

 

[Harmonious]

Im interested, could you point our where in the mosaic law the 39 categories listed?

It was given to Moses but written in the Talmud.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The 39 categories of activity that are forbidden on Shabbat, are all labors that have something in common - they are creative activities that exercise control over one's environment.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Specifically, the Talmud derives these 39 categories from the fact that the Torah juxtaposes the commandment to cease work on Shabbat in Shmot Parshat Vayakheil, with its detailed instructions on how to build the Mishkan*[SIZE=-1], [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]and the preparation of its components, as described in Shmot / Exodus 31 and 35.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] *[SIZE=-1][Mishkan - Tabernacle; the portable, temporary version of the Holy Temple that the Jews carried throughout the forty years in the desert into Eretz Yisroel (the land of Israel), until they built the Beit HaMikdash][/SIZE][/FONT] (Temple in Jerusalem)

[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]This is to teach us, explains the Talmud (Shabbat 49b), which activities constitute melacha: any creative act that was part of the mishkan's construction represents a category of work forbidden on Shabbat. These categories are forbidden by the Torah.

Source

*****

The source explains that there are three basic categories of laws regarding the list.

Melachot is creative work that was done to create the Tabernacle. Toldot is creative work that differs from what was done to create the Tabernacle, but has the same result.

The third category involves Rabbinic decrees that involve forbidding activities that might lead a Jew to do any of the Melachot or Toldot.


[/FONT]

 

[Harmonious]

Here is the list of the 39 Melachot (main activities) prohibited on the Shabbat as listed in the Mishna Shabbat 73a:
1. Zoreah - Sowing (seeding)
2. Choresh - Plowing
3. Kotzair - Reaping (cutting)
4. M'amair - Gathering (bundling sheaves)
5. Dush - Threshing
6. Zoreh - Winnowing
7. Borer - Sorting (selecting, separating)
8. Tochain - Grinding
9. Miraked - Sifting
10. Lush - Kneading
11. Ofeh / (Bishul) - Baking/cooking
12. Gozez - Shearing
13. Melabain - Whitening (bleaching)
14. Menafetz - Disentangling, Combing
15. Tzovayah - Dyeing
16. Toveh - Spinning
17. Maisach - Mounting the warp (stretching threads onto loom)
18. Oseh Beit Batai Neirin - Setting two heddles (preparing to weave)
19. Oraig - Weaving
20. Potzai'ah - Separating (removing) threads (Unweaving)
21. Koshair - Tying a knot
22. Matir - Untying a knot
23. Tofair - Sewing
24. Ko'reah - Tearing (unsewing - ripping)
25. Tzud - Trapping
26. Shochet - Slaughtering (Killing)
27. Maf**** - Skinning
28. M'abaid - Salting/tanning process [1]
29. Mesharteit - Tracing (scratching) lines
30. Memacheik - Smoothing / scraping
31. Mechateich - Cutting (to shape)
32. Kotaiv - Writing two or more letters
33. Mochaik - Erasing two or more letters
34. Boneh - Building
35. Soiser - Demolishing
36. Mechabeh - Extinguishing (putting out a flame)
37. Ma'avir - Kindling (making a fire)
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]38. [/FONT]Makeh B'Patish [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]- Striking the final blow (Finishing an object) [/FONT] 39. Hotza'ah - Transferring (transporting) from domain to domain (carrying)
[1] The list of Melachot in the Talmud (Tractate Shabbat 7:2) includes salting hides and tanning as separate Melachot. The Talmud (Tractate Shabbat 75b) states that these two are really the same Melacha, and amends the Mishna by inserting tracing lines, as the twenty-ninth Melacha.


Source


This is just a simple introduction to the concept.

 

[Harmonious]

And if my sources aren't "good enough" for you, in Mark 12, Jesus KNEW that what he was doing was unlawful according to the Torah. He just found a creative excuse, misapplying the logic for why it is permitted for the Melacha that God explicitly commanded to happen in the Temple - even on Shabbat, and declaring that he was greater than the Temple.

 

[Harmonious]

Another list that is in English (and appears to be in order of the things people outside of an agrarian society would think of as important) is here:

1. Carrying
2. Burning
3. Extinguishing
4. Finishing
5. Writing
6. Erasing
7. Cooking
8. Washing
9. Sewing
10. Tearing
11. Knotting
12. Untying
13. Shaping
14. Plowing
15. Planting
16. Reaping
17. Harvesting
18. Threshing
19. Winnowing
20. Selecting
21. Sifting
22. Grinding
23. Kneading
24. Combing
25. Spinning
26. Dyeing
27. Chain-stitching
28. Warping
29. Weaving
30. Unraveling
31. Building
32. Demolishing
33. Trapping
34. Shearing
35. Slaughtering
36. Skinning
37. Tanning
38. Smoothing
39. Marking

Source

It's not in the same order as in Masechet Shabbat, but there you are.

 

[Shermana]

According to this, there are some manuscript issues about the whole Sabbath and plucking grain affair, along with the issue of Divorce. It may even be an anti-Judaizer's interpolation that made its way to the final versions.

Plucking Grain on the Sabbath

I will look into this further.

It should be noted however that his disciples did keep the Sabbath. Often times 'Christians" say that Sabbath obedience is not mentioned in the NT. Which would be a lie:

Luke 23:54
55 The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56 Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.

So his disciples still obeyed the Sabbath, much to the chagrin of those who think he did away with it.


As for the divorced-defiled thing, that would be Jeremiah 3:1. It actually says "Would not the land be completely defiled" (I did remember it incorrectly) which is not to say the woman is defiled, but the very idea of the 'Land being defiled" is a statement about what happens when sexual abominations occur upon it. Thus, Jeremiah is de facto saying that it's the same category of "Sexual abomination" which defiles the land as those listed in Leviticus 18.

"If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again? Would not the land be completely defiled? But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers--would you now return to me?" declares the LORD.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

According to this, there are some manuscript issues about the whole Sabbath and plucking grain affair, ...

So, have you moved from saying the plucking grain on Shabbat is permiited to saying that the reference to the "plucking grain affair" is an interpolation?

 

[Shermana]

So, have you moved from saying the plucking grain on Shabbat is permiited to saying that the reference to the "plucking grain affair" is an interpolation?

No. I have not moved to any position. I am presenting a new side to the story. That's partly why I said "I will look into it further". I still don't think that the prohibition on carrying manna on Sabbath day had to do with eating it on the spot necessarily. But since it all vanished on Sabbath day, it wouldn't be possible to do so to begin with. The issue nonetheless is about "Gathering".

I fully admit however that if it is a likely interpolation, I would reevaluate the entire issue.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

No. I have not moved to any position. I am presenting a new side to the story.

But you claim that harvesting on Shabbat is permitted. I just wanted to be clear.

 

[Shermana]

But you claim that harvesting on Shabbat is permitted. I just wanted to be clear.

Was I not clear about my stance that picking and eating on the spot is not the same as harvesting and gathering?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

The issue nonetheless is about "Gathering".

So we move from plucking to gathering! Clearly someone so adept at interpolating their own positions should have no trouble analyzing the NT text.

 

[Shermana]

So we move from plucking to gathering! Clearly someone so adept at interpolating their own positions should have no trouble analyzing the NT text.

I don't think I understand, I thought I made clear that plucking and eating on the spot, and gathering/carrying are two different issues earlier, maybe it was on a different thread? That was the basis of my point to begin with why I said it was allowable. Carrying and gathering is clearly off limits, of that I don't disagree.

 

[Harmonious]

I don't think I understand, I thought I made clear that plucking and eating on the spot, and gathering/carrying are two different issues earlier, maybe it was on a different thread? That was the basis of my point to begin with why I said it was allowable. Carrying and gathering is clearly off limits, of that I don't disagree.

You are confusing the laws of Shabbat and the laws of the Sabatical Year.

As far as the Sabatical year is concerned, you are right: it is permitted to pluck and eat on the spot.

On Shabbat, however, such activity is forbidden, and should have been done before Shabbat.

 

[Shermana]

You are confusing the laws of Shabbat and the laws of the Sabatical Year.

As far as the Sabatical year is concerned, you are right: it is permitted to pluck and eat on the spot.

On Shabbat, however, such activity is forbidden, and should have been done before Shabbat.

Says where? In the written Torah, all I see is an example of a guy chopping wood and gathering it and carrying it. The Manna didn't even remain on Sabbath so there's no way of saying either way whether they were allowed to pick and eat it or not. That they were however told not to attempt to try to bring (carry) any back home is not being disputed. I don't see why it would matter on a Sabbatical year either way, wouldn't you be still required to finish your gathering before Sabbath nonetheless?

Let me remind again that the purpose of this originally was to argue that the later Talmudic ideas were not necessarily the same as the original Israelite beliefs.

 

[Harmonious]

Says where? In the written Torah, all I see is an example of a guy chopping wood and gathering it and carrying it. The Manna didn't even remain on Sabbath so there's no way of saying either way whether they were allowed to pick and eat it or not. That they were however told not to attempt to try to bring (carry) any back home is not being disputed.

Let me remind again that the purpose of this originally was to argue that the later Talmudic ideas were not necessarily the same as the original Israelite beliefs.

The 39 Melachot ARE a part of the original beliefs, or did you miss the part where I mentioned the passage in Exodus?

I specifically pointed out the difference between the Tabernacle activities, the fact that activities like that which produce similar results were the same. The only Rabbinical add-ins... I didn't actually mention what they were, but I did explain that they were a different category.

Or, you just don't actually read what I write, and my posting to you is a waste of time. I wouldn't be surprised...

 

[Shermana]

The 39 Melachot ARE a part of the original beliefs, or did you miss the part where I mentioned the passage in Exodus?

That's an interpretation issue of which the text does NOT specify anything close to what you are saying here. I'm well aware that the Rabbinical concept of what work is allowed and not is based on the work involved with the Tabernacle. This however is not necessarily scripturally supported. We have no idea whether the ancient Israelites held this same standard, and the written Torah does not indicate such. Hence what I said: Such "Oral Torah" does not necessarily have a scriptural basis, you have to "Read into it" something that's simply not there to support the preconceived notion.

I specifically pointed out the difference between the Tabernacle activities, the fact that activities like that which produce similar results were the same. The only Rabbinical add-ins... I didn't actually mention what they were, but I did explain that they were a different category.

But the text itself doesn't explicitly say what is and isn't work as you are saying it does. I understand that this is the traditional Rabbinical opinion, and that's exactly what I'm saying: The traditional Rabbinical position is not necessarily supported by the text. It's a circular presumption. The only examples the text lists are buying and selling and gathering and carrying and general workday duties. Picking an apple off a tree and eating it on the spot I don't see anything close to being referenced to as work in the written Torah itself. Gathering apples in a basket to bring back home, I can see a comparison to the guy who was chopping and gathering firewood.

Or, you just don't actually read what I write, and my posting to you is a waste of time. I wouldn't be surprised...

It's a waste of time when you post things that are disputable and controversial and then say that your interpretation is correct as if matter of fact as if there's no debate needed, especially when the text is ambiguous or doesn't actually contain anything that directly says this is so, which is borderline prosletyzing. You have in no way demonstrated that this traditional view is supported by the text itself. You have merely insisted it is so, even though the text is not as clear as you're making it out to be.