Are these the words of an Observant Jew?

[Tcg]

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Some claim that Jesus was an observant Jew. In Mark 7 we find these words:

• 17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 “Are you so dull?â€� he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.â€� (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

Are these the words of an observant Jew?


Tcg

[Clownboat]

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Some claim that Jesus was an observant Jew. In Mark 7 we find these words:

• 17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 “Are you so dull?â€� he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.â€� (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

Are these the words of an observant Jew?


Tcg

Obsolutaly!
Jews are known for changing their laws.


Obviously these are not the words of an observant Jew. These would be the words of someone amending a religion for the gentiles IMO.

[1213]

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Some claim that Jesus was an observant Jew. In Mark 7 we find these words:

• 17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 “Are you so dull?â€� he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.â€� (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

Are these the words of an observant Jew?

Yes.

[Mithrae]

Are these the words of an observant Jew?

I think that Jesus was probably an 'observant Jew,' in that for the most part his own actions conformed to the Torah as he interpreted it. He lived and preached in a Jewish culture after all; flagrantly violating the Torah presumably would have made life much more difficult than it needed to be. The statement that "nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them" could reasonably taken as contradicting Moses' pronouncements on foods which make someone 'unclean,' but that doesn't mean that Jesus himself went around chowing down on legs of ham.

It's worth noting that while Jesus definitely contradicted Moses on a number of points, those points can all be interpreted as identifying a supposed underlying principle behind the Torah generally (ie. love for God and others) or in specific instances and on that basis going beyond what was specifically written:

• On the Sabbath - keep all days holy; if something is good to do it is good on any day, whereas his followers should not work for money on the Sabbath nor on the other six days either (Mark 2:23-3:6, Matthew 6:24-34)
  
  On honouring parents - if and when honour is warranted as measured by obedience to God/Jesus, it should be granted to everyone who serves God regardless of familial status, without privileging parents (Mark 3:31-35, Matthew 8:21-22)
  
  On divorce - since marriage is sacred, it remains sacred even if one spouse wants to go chasing after another woman, so divorce is not acceptable (Mark 10:2-12, Matthew 5:31-32)
  
  On eating and drinking - if food is good, it makes no sense to say that some of it makes you 'unclean' (Mark 7:18, Matthew 11:18-19)

While Mark is the earlier/more reliable source, the perspective of 'Matthew' is worth noting as the gospel with the most obvious Jewish orientation and most pro-Torah verses in the NT (Matt 5:17-19) - if Jesus were the traditionalist that some make him out to be, we'd certainly expect to see it reflected here - yet that fifth chapter of Matthew is where this pattern of contradicting the letter of the Law and 'going beyond' it is most clearly established. Whether the author of Matthew was correct in that interpretation of Jesus' intentions is open for debate, but by comparison even Paul, while emphasizing freedom from the Law of Moses, seems to both identify its central principle (Gal. 5:13-14) and invoke a corresponding Law of God/Christ in its place (Rom. 7:25, 8:2, 1 Cor. 9:21).

[otseng]

Yes.

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[Tcg]

Obviously these are not the words of an observant Jew. These would be the words of someone amending a religion for the gentiles IMO.

I agree, these are the words of someone trying to reform Judaism. Whether it was for the gentiles or not is hard to determine.

In John 10:16, Jesus refers to "other sheep" which would clearly point to the gentiles. In Matthew 10:6, Jesus says he was sent for the "lost sheep of Israel." As we see in so many cases, the Bible presents a mixed message.

What is clear is that no observant Jew would suggest that eating unclean food would not defile a person. Jesus felt he had authority to change the laws of the religion he was convinced needed a makeover.


Tcg

[Zzyzx]

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Jesus felt he had authority to change the laws of the religion he was convinced needed a makeover.

Could it be that Jesus said no such things and that the words are those of people writing about him long after he was dead?

Passage of decades or generations allows folklore to add, subtract, and change words attributed to one of the characters in a story. Even after being written the words can be distorted by through copies of copies of copies by hand -- with the earliest available version a couple centuries after the supposed conversations.

[ttruscott]

GOD created the Jews....the Jews did not create HIM.

[Danmark]

GOD created the Jews....the Jews did not create HIM.

The Jews created their version of 'God.' God did not create the Jews.

This statement, the opposite of yours, is just as defensible and logical as yours. It has one advantage, at least. Your statement has to assume a 'god,' a being that we cannot observe. On the other hand, we CAN observe Jews and other humans. And we know they make up fantastic creatures that do not exist. It is likely that 'God' is among those fantastic creations of humankind.

[Mithrae]

Could it be that Jesus said no such things and that the words are those of people writing about him long after he was dead?

Passage of decades or generations allows folklore to add, subtract, and change words attributed to one of the characters in a story. Even after being written the words can be distorted by through copies of copies of copies by hand -- with the earliest available version a couple centuries after the supposed conversations.

If 3rd-5th century manuscripts from Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Greece etc. all agree on the text it's highly probable that they're accurately reflecting the 1st century contents; or looked at from the other angle, once there's a couple of copies of a text, and more copies being made of them over time, changes in any one copy (and its descendents) should be relatively easy to detect and it's highly improbable that a variant reading will make its way into all copies. Which is why quite a few (mostly fairly minor) variations are known to scholars, with some level of confidence in which ones are more likely to be original.

Along the same lines of reasoning, if a broadly similar attitude towards the Torah is portrayed in Mark's presentation of Jesus, 'Matthew' (or Q)'s presentation of Jesus, Luke's presentation of the apostles/early church, John's presentation of Jesus and Paul's presentation of his gospel of Christ, we can either suppose that they all reached similar conclusions more or less independently or that those views stem from an earlier common source. Of course some folk speculate that Paul himself is as the source, but I think that both credits Paul with more influence than is warranted and lacks the evidentiary value and parsimony that such views originated with the felllow they all say it started with.