Bruce (from dialogue with Roy Casanova):  On the same note, why it is that Christians and Jews alike do not follow ALL the Commandments from "God" today; commandments that your "loving God" himself would order people to be "stoned to the death" for committing, like working on the Sabbath day, or creating graven images?

AMANDA: I can only speak for Christian's on this one (and you should already know the answer as a "former" Christian).  We are no longer living under the law of Moses, but under the grace of God.  The Jews before Christ were not living under grace.  We have it easy in our time - there is no more sacrificing of doves or lambs every time we sin.  Now it's just "Lord please forgive me".  How easy is that?  Remember, the operative word here is "grace" - without it we would all be condemned to hell.

BRUCE:  You obviously have not read my rebuttal to Richard Abanes (A Wager on Old Testament Atrocities) or you would not be making this "no longer . . . under Moses . . . but under the grace of God" assertion!  The problem, Amanda, is that you are a salad-bar Christian; you just pick-and-choose what you like from the Bible and conveniently ignore all the problems that contradict what you presume to represent with your selective quotations.  Well, I won't allow you to get away with that, my dear!  So, since Richard Abanes never responded to the problem I presented him on this point, perhaps you would like to jump in the saddle in his place?  For clarity, here is what I wrote to Mr. Abanes when he made the "no Moses, but grace" defense:

RICHARD ABANES:
Furthermore, it is a widely accepted and acknowledged tenet of Christianity that the ceremonial laws and punitive laws of the OT are no longer in effect since Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection.

BRUCE:
This is one of the most commonly blurted interpolations you'll hear from the good Christians. On the one hand they WANT THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN OUR SCHOOLS (as if they are some sort of magic charm that will resolve everything), but when pressed about WHY they don't actually FOLLOW ALL THE COMMANDMENTS, they retort that "er... well, the Law was fulfilled in Christ and nailed to the cross, so we are no longer governed by 'those' Laws." There are a host of problems they open themselves up to with such self-serving statements, and one of the biggest is how they attempt to REWRITE HEBREW THEOLOGY to suit their own purposes by IGNORING passages in the Hebrew Bible where "God" instructs the Israelites, in no uncertain terms, that "His Laws" are to last FOREVER!  Nowhere does it say that "one day I, the Lord your God, will send a Messiah to fulfill these Laws." Nowhere is there any indication that God was planning to abolish the law.  In fact, to the contrary, Yahweh set a list of CURSES at the end of his covenant to ENSURE that his law was obeyed FOREVER:

[Deuteronomy 28:45-46] "All these curses shall come upon you ...{if you will not} obey the LORD your God, BY OBSERVING THE COMMANDMENTS AND DECREES that He commanded you.  They shall be among you and your descendants as a sign of portent FOREVER." [NRSV] (My Emphasis)

And the Deuteronomist also closes the Law against change, just as the writer of the Book of Revelation does centuries later (NOTE: this is something Christians are fond of bringing up when issues of whether other "books" should be included in the Canon, books that paint Jesus in a little different light than Christians like to see him in-it suits their needs so they use it, but why should the Jews be any different with their Bible? Such is the double-standard of Christian apologetics):

[Deuteronomy 4:2]  "You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take anything away from it, but KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS of the Lord your God with which I am charging you." [NRSV]  (My emphasis)

There are a multitude of verses I can cite to confirm the point that the Hebrew Bible has its God intending "His Laws" to be in place forever. I will gladly start listing these verses out for anyone who doubts this, but before I do I would like for Mr. Abanes to give us his definition of the following terms:

"will stand FOREVER"
"will be a statute FOREVER"
"EVERLASTING covenant"
"EVERLASTING statute"
"PERPETUAL covenant"
"PERPETUAL ordinance"
"THROUGHOUT your generations"

I look forward to your definitions.

Please remember that quoting from the New Testament DOES NOT help your cause.  We can agree that the New Testament does attempt to absolve the Law, although that is by no means without contradictory problems in the New Testament itself.  The oft-quoted Paul, for example, contradicts himself on multiple occasions (See Bible Review, 12/98, "Pauls Contradictions," by Gager, p.33-39 for an excellent discourse on this).

BRUCE:  So, Amanda, I await your "definitions" to the above terms.  And after that we can proceed with the textual evidence of what "God" actually says in the Hebrew Bible.

Bruce Monson