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Sister_Amy
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I find this a really fascinating part of the ayah, and the commentary on it, personally. The part about human arrogance, dominating of other cultures, and even global politics today.
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Sister_Amy
Guest
This is problematic for me, actually.
How does he “deal with stoning?” It seems to me, as an outside observer, and I’ll just assume the story is authentic, that the woman is being unjustly accused. If the woman was actually caught in adultery, a sin one cannot commit by oneself, naturally, then where is the man with whom she must’ve been caught?
Without the man too, it’s not fair. So since the entire situation isn’t fair for the woman, the response of Jesus (i.e., to not really respond at all except to call her accusers a bunch of hypocrites) seems appropriate.
What he doesn’t do is abolish the law–not there, nor anywhere. When I hear Christians say “fulfill,” honestly, I think that they actually mean “abolish” though they refuse to say it. Either the law applies to them, or it doesn’t.
And essentially Christians are saying that the law (or a law, like this one about adultery just as an example) doesn’t apply anymore.
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Jesness
Guest
I don’t know much about Islam, and so I can’t give an informed opinion on it one way or the other; however I would like to clarify one thing.
Amercia is not the Church; and in fact has laws that keep the government and said Church very much appart. The governement is the branches of the law that run the country; anyone who lives in the country has to either fallow the laws set by the branches and it’s head (The President) or suffer the consequeces of their actions as mandated by the state. You steal, you go to jail. You kill, you might be opening yourself up to the death penalty.
the Church is the collective body of Christ. (All Christians together). The Church as one unified entity has no leverage over the government or it’s laws except by going through the proper channels. Similarly, the government only has as much power over the Church as far as it pertains to obeying the laws of the country. We can’t just build a church building where ever we want, we have to get a permit, buy the property and go through all other proper channels as US law demands. The Church has zero authority in the US government and what laws it creates and the US government has zero authority in the Church and how we worship. Anyway, sorry if I didn’t explain that well.
I’ve heard that in most Islamic countries that isn’t so; that the government is run by the faith, would anyone happen to know if that’s true?
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FightingFat
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No quick way of answering this, sorry! Jesus always presupposed the validity of the Ten Commandments as a matter of course (see for example Mk 10:19; Lk 16:17). In the Sermon on the Mount he recapitulates and gives added depth to the commandments of the second tablet, but he does not abolish them (cf. Mat 5:21-48). To do so would in any case diametrically contradict the fundamental principle underpinning his discussion of the Ten Commandments (Mt 5:17-18). Jesus understands himself as the Torah—as the Word of God in person.
The concrete juridical and social forms and political arrangements are no longer treated as a sacred law that is set for all times and is so for all peoples. The decisive thing is the underlying communion of will with God given by Jesus. It frees men and nations to discover what aspects of political and social order accord with this communion of will and so to work out their own juridical arrangements. The absence of the whole social dimension in Jesus’ preaching so obvious from a Jewish perspective includes and also conceals an epoch making event in world history that has not occured as such in any other culture: The concrete political and social order is released from the directly sacred realm, from theocratic legislation, and is transferred to the freedom of man, whom Jesus has established in God’s will and taught thereby to see the right and the good.
This is what Ratzinger calls The Torah of the Messiah, in Gal 5:13 we read “you were called to freedom”—not to a blind and arbitrary freedom—a freedom “understood according to the flesh,” as Paul would say, but to a “seeing” freedom, anchored in communion of will with Jesus and so with God himself. It is a freedom that, as a result of this new way of seeing, is able to build the very thing that is at the heart of the Torah—with Jesus, universalising the essential content of the Torah and thus truly “fulfilling” it.
The ceremonial laws expressed a theology of separation appropriate to the Old Covenant as they served through antiquity as the symbol of election, demonstrating Israel’s distinction from the Gentiles. Because the Church is an international community including both Jews and Gentiles, instituted by Christ who came to gather all nations into the fold of the New Covenant, the ceremonial boundaries that divided Israel from everyone else were redundant (Rom 1:5, 16; 3:29-30; Gal 3:28).66 These Mosaic rituals constituted ceremonies which were signs of grace but not sacraments of grace. They point to better things to come in Christ (Col 2:16-17), but they did not, in themselves, confer the benefits they direct us towards (Heb 7:18-19; 10:1-4).
The sacrifices of the Mosaic Law set the stage for the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, which alone effects a true remission of sins (Heb 10:11-18).
Jesus Christ came not to “abolish the old law but to fulfil it” (Mt 5:17); but he also speaks of his blood as being the blood of the “new covenant” (cf. Lk 22:20), and like a new Moses he speaks words which bring the Old Covenant to its ultimate perfection, a perfection which at the same time transcends it. Therefore, while it “gives fulfilment to the law”, it sets us free from the regime of the Mosaic Law.
St. Paul is emphatic that Christ’s victory over sin also brings freedom from the Old Law. The Law was in itself holy, just and good (cf Rom 7:12) but it was in some way an occasion of sin; firstly, because the detailed knowledge it gave if the natural law and of what was sinful meant that sin was something people were more aware of and they could sin more gravely. The Apostle points this out when he says: “If it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet’” (Rom 7:7). Secondly, because once the Law was promulgated, sin became a transgression of a positive law of God. That does not mean that there were no sins before the Law came (the natural law, impressed on men’s hearts, made them responsible for their actions); it means that sin acquired a new dimension, one which only Adam’s sin had before that—transgression of a positive divine law. This explains why St. Paul could say that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law” (Gal 3:13).
Once God sent His Son “to redeem those who were under the law” (Gal 4:5), the Christian is no longer under the letter of the Law. The old legal precepts are no longer in force, and the rites of that Law have no longer any meaning (as signalled by the rending of the veil of the Temple when Christ died on the Cross: cf. Mt 27:51). However, the moral precepts of the Law remain in force, not because they are part of the Mosaic Law, but because all that law did was to spell out the natural law. By virtue of the Passion of Christ, the New Law confers the grace needed to keep its commandments. And so St. Paul can write that we are “not under the law but under grace” (Rom 6:14). Grace always brings with it charity, whereby we share in the Holy Spirit who is infinite love, and since the new Law is summed up in the precepts of charity, the obligatory nature of this Law does not force our freedom, because one cannot love unless one is free. The New Law then is “the perfect law of liberty” (Jas 1:25). According to Pauline teaching, the Old Law "disappears naturally with the coming of Christ, who is its end, when it has no more reason for existence, and when the promises which are irreconcilable with it are realised. But even though it should retain its validity in principle, the Christian, by the fact of Baptism, is released from its empire.
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Reuben_J
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The Quran doesn’t say so and this is agreed by most Muslims based of the Quran ayah. I don’t dispute your explanation, being a non-Muslims I won’t be able to do that. But considering that your stance is quite different – no stoning, equal witnessing, would not you be a heretic?
If I appeared to be annoyed, it means that I am not a good teacher, therefore the shortcoming is mine rather than yours. Had the role is reversed, and I am asking question on Islam, you’d probably do a better job than mine.
it’s a pleasure and the fact that I could continue this discussion this far means that it’s beneficial for me too. Sometimes even in a virtual discussion we can rediscover ourselves and kill the ‘ghost that very often haunts us’.
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Reuben_J
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But wasn’t that so even during the Golden Era of the Caliphs of Islam? Nothing has changed much in term of human action and inclination thought times may be different.
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Reuben_J
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There are countries with Muslims majority that adopt Islamic Law (Sharia) but there are others that don’t and run the country with the law of the country (secular). Good example of the latter are Turkey and Indonesia. As for the former I think (though some Muslims may disagree) Saudi Arabia is one of them.
Sharia is not exactly ‘faith’ as we understand it; they don’t carry out those law blindly. Sharia is a set of law that’s well documented and precise and does work well given an ideal conducive situation.
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Sister_Amy
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Sister_Amy
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Even the countries which claim to have adopted Shari’ah as their Law do so only partially, and then mixed with cultural biases, and on top of that is implemented by an extremely corrupt judiciary. Which defeats the point, really.
Saudi Arabia is a monarchy, run by kings and princes and such. How could it possibly be both based on Shari’ah and the implementation of a system which is definitely not Shari’ah?
It’s more correct to say that there are exactly zero nations which operate under Shari’ah. They all violate it.
And I’d like to point out that Shari’ah is uniquely suited to work in non-ideal situations. The ideals are phenomenal, but the point of a law is because things aren’t usually ideal.
The Muslim world is still trying to figure out how to govern itself, as it’s been almost 100 years since it was able to do so, unfortunately.
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Reuben_J
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And what happened before that 100 years specifically?
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Reuben_J
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I am saying the heretic part in the context of Sharia. If you were not then the others are, for Muslims are in thorough disagreement what makes Sharia Law.
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Sister_Amy
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خلافة
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Sister_Amy
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So how many years did you spend studying Shari’ah? That you feel qualified to make such judgments?
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Reuben_J
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It is not so much of a judgment Amy. I thought I had qualified myself quite clearly in some of my posts. If anything, it is just an observation. If you are talking about qualification then I would not be able to talk at all on this subject, and so you are, I suppose.
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Reuben_J
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You said this:
Sister Amy:
Sister Amy:
Now you can bring this issue with the Saudi government. Either one of you must be right or wrong, so who is it?
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Sister_Amy
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And the answer to my question is __________ ?
I ask because I get the impression that you’re actually trying to pass a fatwa. But your scholarship on this issue (not every issue, certainly, but this one) seems insufficient to buttress your claims.
Shari’ah is a pretty intricate thing, and folks don’t get to be considered well-educated in it until they’ve spent at least 4 years studying it in Arabic. I haven’t done that, and I don’t think you have either. But I can refer to my teachers who have done that, and I’m led to assume, prehaps unjustly arrogantly, that I know more about Shari’ah than you do.
And at least about these particular issues. The evangelicals like to promote fantasy about Islam, and they base the bulk of it on pretty weak orientalist scholarship, and not on actual Muslim scholarship. And that’s why so many myths are being spread about Islam. You’ve brought up a few yourself. And then you’re taking this immensely weak scholarship which makes really bizarre and nonsensical claims about Islam, then saying because I don’t believe the craziness I’m a heretic.
So we can be honest about where we’re coming from.
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Sister_Amy
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Obviously, I’m right.
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Reuben_J
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I don’t think this issue arises at all but you are free to feel that way.
I am not a Muslim and it is for you to correct me.
I have dealt with hard questions from Muslims and I don’t ask for their credential/resume. I did what I can to clarify things though and sometimes might not be very successful at that.
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Sister_Amy
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Then you can trust me, I guess. Instead of calling me a heretic.
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Reuben_J
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And that prove my point.Obviously, I’m right.
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