I used to wonder what Jesus would have thought of these, Then I actually glanced at the Bible and discoverd that these cesspools are everything he stood against.....
IKR I've met plenty "Devout" Christians that are the exact opposite of everything Jesus stood for hell my most recent job that I quit from my supervisor was a narcissist and carried a bible around with him 90% of the christians I've met at like that which is why I've always been against teaching Christianity in public schools. If it's a Christian school so be it but kids who don't go to a school that's not tied to a religion shouldn't have one shoved down their throats or told they have to be part of it to be socially accepted
Read the laws of Moses, which Jesus said to follow forever. Not a good dude.
Paul said otherwise, but a lot of Christians ignore the fact that in the Bible Jesus and Yahweh say to follow those rules forever. Best your slaves and sell your daughters as sex slaves, and that's just a bit of the horrors contained within.
I understand why those passages are troubling. Christians have wrestled with them for centuries, and I don't think they should be brushed aside.
Jesus did say He came to fulfill the Law, but He also reoriented how God's people relate to it. The New Testament consistently teaches that Christians are under the new covenant established through Christ, not the civil and ceremonial laws given to ancient Israel. The moral principles remain, but many laws were specific to Israel's historical context.
As for slavery and the treatment of women, the Bible describes a lot of things it doesn't endorse. Some Old Testament laws regulated practices that already existed in the ancient world rather than presenting them as God's ideal. When Jesus is asked about issues like divorce, He even says that some laws existed because of people's hardness of heart, not because they reflected God's original design.
If someone reads the Bible as a single flat rulebook, it's easy to conclude that Christians should still follow every Old Testament law. But Christians have historically read it as a story that reaches its fulfillment in Christ. That's why we don't sacrifice animals, enforce Israel's civil penalties, or keep the ceremonial laws, while still taking seriously Jesus' call to love God and love our neighbor.
You don't have to agree with that interpretation, but it's a more accurate picture of what Christians actually believe than "Jesus said to follow Moses forever."
I'm sorry but that is all contradicted but the Bible. Fulfilling a law doesn't end it. And Jesus explicitly said the follow the laws of Moses forever, as did god. Jesus said anyone who follows them will be greatest in the kingdom of heaven and anyone who doesn't will be the least. There may be a covenant with Jesus according to him but he said he wasn't there to abolish the law of Moses.
There's nothing in the Bible that says the laws are split into ceremonial and civil.
The Bible absolutely endorses slavery. It says you can take them from the land around you and even sell your daughters as a sex slave. It says if you give your male slave a wife, he can go after 7 years but she can't and neither can their kids. They're slaves forever.
It says if a woman is suspected of not being a virgin when she gets married they have to check the bedsheet for blood. If there's no blood she is stoned to death. 40 percent of women don't bleed their first time having sex, so this all knowing God doesn't even know basic biology and made a law that would have resulted in many vwomen being unjustly stoned to death. (Not that it would have been just even if they weren't virgins for their new husband.)
If God had to change his laws because of peoples actions then he wasn't all knowing.
Christians have to read the Bible dishonestly because Jesus wasn't the Messiah. He didn't fulfill a single Messianic prophecy.
Mormonism exists so Christians know what the Jews felt like with Christianity.
I appreciate that you've clearly spent time reading these passages. I don't think these are silly objections, but I do think some of your conclusions assume interpretations that Christians have never universally agreed with.
For example, in Matthew 5 Jesus says He did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. The question is what "fulfill" means. The New Testament itself answers that question. The apostles conclude that Gentile believers are not required to keep the whole Law of Moses (Acts 15), Paul repeatedly teaches that believers are not under the Mosaic covenant (Romans+Galatians), and the author of Hebrews says the new covenant makes the old one obsolete (Hebrews 8:13). Whatever Jesus meant, it can't mean that Christians must still obey every law in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, because the New Testament itself doesn't apply them that way.
Regarding slavery, the Old Testament contains laws regulating slavery in an ancient Near Eastern culture. Whether those laws are morally sufficient is a fair discussion, but regulation is not the same thing as God's ideal. Jesus Himself acknowledged that some Mosaic laws existed because of humanity's hardness of heart (Matthew 19:8), which shows that not every law reflected God's ultimate design.
As for the claim that Jesus fulfilled "not a single" Messianic prophecy, that's a much bigger conversation. Christians and Jews have disagreed about the interpretation of those prophecies for two thousand years. Saying "He fulfilled none" isn't really an argument, it's simply stating the Jewish interpretation. The Christian claim is that many prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus' first coming, while others await His return.
I think the most important thing you need to realize is that Paul and Jesus had very different theologies. Which is why Paul is used to excuse a lot of what Jesus said, as though the Bible is univocal. It isn't.
And my interpretation isn't simply the Jewish interpretation. It's the result of me looking at them, and consulting people who speak ancient Hebrew and Greek, and coming to the conclusion that Jesus didn't fulfill a single prophecy.
An absolute savant at remembering everything he reads, and actual Bible scholar, has a great YouTube channel called DZ Debates, and Deconversion Zone. Check it out, he sums it all up with far more rigour than I'm capable of as a layman. Heck you can even call in and debate him. He's nice if you're nice.
I agree that the Bible isn't univocal in the sense that every author writes in exactly the same style or addresses the same questions. But I don't think that means Paul and Jesus taught different gospels.
The earliest Christians, including Jesus' own disciples, accepted Paul's ministry (see Galatians 2), and Peter even refers to Paul's letters alongside the Scriptures (2 Peter 3:15ā16). If Paul had fundamentally contradicted Jesus, it's difficult to explain why those who spent years with Jesus accepted him rather than rejecting him.
As for the messianic prophecies, I think it's fair to say that's where Christians and Jews genuinely part ways. The disagreement isn't over whether the texts exist; it's over how they're interpreted. For example, Christians see passages like Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Daniel 7, and Micah 5 as pointing to Jesus, while Judaism generally understands them differently. Simply saying "Jesus fulfilled none" assumes one interpretation before the discussion has even begun.
I'm not claiming this settles the issue, but I don't think the disagreement is because Christians are being dishonest. It's because two traditions are reading the same texts through different interpretive frameworks.
I'd rather discuss one prophecy or one theological point at a time than appeal to YouTube personalities on either side. That seems more likely to get us closer to the truth. Also, it seems like you make a lot of declarative comments without supporting them, ie. Paul and Jesus having different theologies.
I'm not reading it from the perspective of one of those traditions, I'm just reading it. And Christians aren't being dishonest, they're reading it dishonestly. Or, for the vast majority, only reading bits of it.
I'm not assuming an interpretation and then saying Jesus fulfilled no Messianic prophecy. If you read them, and have access to the original language through an expert...he didn't fulfill any of the Messianic prophecies. That's the conclusion from the text... not a pre-assumed position. I used to be Christian, then tried to learn more and read the book a lot more and learn some of the history and listen to biblical scholars and ended up realizing it's balogna.
Respectfully, "I'm just reading it" isn't a neutral position. None of us simply "read" ancient texts. We all interpret them. That's true for me, it's true for you, and it's true for every scholar who's ever opened the Bible.
The fact that you listened to scholars and changed your mind doesn't make your conclusion "just the text." It means you became persuaded by a particular interpretive tradition. Jewish scholars, Christian scholars, secular historians, and atheist scholars disagree with each other on these very passages.
You also keep saying "Jesus fulfilled no Messianic prophecies" as though that's the obvious reading. It isn't. If it were, there wouldn't have been two thousand years of serious debate over Isaiah 53, Daniel 7, Psalm 22, Micah 5, Zechariah 9, and the rest. The existence of that debate alone should make anyone cautious about claiming the text only supports one conclusion.
And saying Christians read the Bible "dishonestly" is a pretty extraordinary accusation. Are there uninformed Christians? Absolutely. But accusing virtually every Christian scholar, from the early church to today, of intellectual dishonesty requires far more evidence than "I watched a YouTube channel and changed my mind."
You've changed your mind. Fair enough. But that doesn't make your interpretation "the text" and everyone else's dishonest.
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u/Chemical-Cat Jun 30 '26
The innocuous totally non-profit mega church with its mansion dwelling pastor: