Figuring Jesus Out

THE BIBLICAL JUDEO-CHRISTIAN GOD, in both the Old and New Testaments,is, to sy the least, harsh. More so in the Old Testament,but still harsh in the new covenent. To say the most, the Judeo-Christian biblical god is a psychotic demonic mass murderous creature,as Thomas Paine elucidates in his seminal essay of 1794 "The Age of Reason". In the Old Testament, there is a long list of transgressions against the laws of Moses,who himself is arguably quite a harsh human being, which are explicitly described as punishable by death. These include such seemingly minor offenses as working on the Sabbath, to more serious misbehaviors as committing adultry and disrespecting one's parents. It is easly to conclude, using our modern sensitivities, that none of the transgressins of the law listed as punishable by death in the Bible should be listed, and of course are not,in our contemporary secular world. Likewise Josua ben Joseph, whose name became translated into "Jesus" by the Latin language, is somewhat complicated. So complicaed, with teachings subject to such a wide variety of possible interpretations that the modern Christian church is hopelessly divided into hundreds,indeed thousands of sects, each with its own view of Jesus Christ, his message, and the proper way of worship and conducting dogmatic rituals. The Christian world seemingly cannot even decide whether the New Testament message of Jesus Christ was and is intended to supplant and replace the Mosaic law ofthe Old, or to merely augment it. The consensus view seems to be what is called "supercessionism",meaning that the law of the New Testament supplants the law of the Old Testament, even to the extent that Christians who have achieved salvation through the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ are, and became upon the advent of Christ, the new "chosen people of God", replacing the Hebrew people in that capacity. This, despite the fact that Jesus clearly stated that he camne ot to abolish the Mosaic law of the prophets, but to fulfill them. Soome smartass Cristian scholar wannabe said that all the harsh death penalty transgressions listed under ancient Judaic law were invalidated, superceded when Christ brought his new covenant to the Earth. The message of forgivenesss preached by Christ gave humanity a new, updated version of religious principles. I respondedmerely by naming a scriptural passage:mathew 15:4. In this passage Jesus says "honor thy mmother and thy father", and he quotes the ancient law, saying" God commands that whosoever curses the mother and the father shall be given the death." It seems eivdent here that Christ is in fact upholding the ancient law, rather than superceding it. This is where the alleged biblical scholar became a smartass. He accused me of taking the Mathew 15;4 "out of context", that Jesus was making a point that his detractors were being hypocrites by chastising him and his desciples for not washing their hands before eating, thereby breaking the ancient law, when they themselves were twisting scriputure in order to allow themsleves to disobey much more important law. He then verbally jabbed at me with "is that the best you can do"? I answered that I could probably do better, but didn'tthink of it as a competition. He responed by saying "you could have fooled me", and I rejoined "that isn't difficult". (He wasn't the only smartass in the fray). I left the room,feeling a sense of futility. I still say: what does "context" have to do with it? When Jesus is directly quoting a commandment of God, what does "context" matter?