Here is a very small real-life example: imagine someone who committed a grievous sin, I mean a really pretty bad one. This person has shown no repentance before the Lord and they don't believe in Him anyway. Such a person wants to re-establish a relationship with me. What should I do?
According to the New Testament I should forgive and befriend them.
According to the Old Testament, I should STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM THEM.
The Old Testament displays a theory of evil, that evil is like a contagion. This contagion should be given zero quarter. Destroy It. Deuteronomy 17 says it twice: purge the evil from among you. In that context, the command was to kill the one who commits it. Elsewhere in the Tanakh, it says that the righteous man should physically stay away from the unrighteous.
Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way (path) that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
~Psalm 1:1-2
Rather unchristian of them, isn't it? ;) Jesus overtly sat with sinners. Of course even if you assume Jesus could not be corrupted, that would still be a bad example according to the OT. His disciples, who are presumably not as incorruptible, are there with him.
Is the Old Testament, the Tanakh, right in saying that evil is contagious? I am sure that each of us could supply examples from their own life. It is not for nothing that careful parents tell their children, "stay away from that one, he is a bad influence." Even if we intend no evil, the unrighteous who we are hanging out with will want to do unrighteous things, and will want to involve us in those things. Evil is contagious, we will tend to want to do what our friends do and ultimately may think as our friends think.
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Okay, another example of contradiction. Jesus says to "love your enemies." Indeed the Tanakh is not totally a stranger to this idea: Jonah reluctantly goes to Nineveh to preach to them about their evildoing. Jonah doesn't want to save them, but G-d does. Note the context of this however:
1. Jonah is going to THEM, they are not living among the Israelites.
2. Jonah is a prophet and protected by G-d and indeed on a mission from G-d, so he is unlikely to be corrupted by the Ninevites. Indeed he hates the Ninevites, but G-d has compassion for them.
G-d does want to save all people from their sin, but He also performs emergency surgery to remove corrupting people from the presence of His own so that His people will not be corrupted. You may indeed experience this in your own life, as I have. You can see that in spades in the book of Joshua where the action commanded by G-d is complete destruction. Not because G-d enjoys killing sinners, but to keep the Israelites from being contaminated by the Canaanites. As it happens, that plan does ultimately fail (because it depends on human decision and human will) and the Israelites wind up living with and being corrupted by the Canaanites.
You can see an explicit command to that kind of removal of the wicked in Deuteronomy 20:
However, in the cities of the nations that the
LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance,
you must not leave alive anything that breathes.
For you must devote them to complete destruction —
the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites,
and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has
commanded you, so that they cannot teach you
to do all the detestable things they do for their
gods and cause you to sin against the LORD your God.
~Deuteronomy 20:16-18
This is severe surgery indeed, and one should not think that the Lord was unmindful of the hurt and death that He was commanding, nor was He without care for these condemned people. This was surgery, cut off the arm to save the patient. G-d knew that His people the Israelites were weak and would be tempted into sinful Canaanite ways, as indeed ultimately happened anyway.
So, love your enemies? That is an expression that can lead to confusion. You can certainly find the command not to be wrathful or obsessed with your enemies, Psalm 37 expresses that especially beautifully. But usually people think of loving your enemies as inconsistent with destroying your enemies. The Israelites are not commanded to love the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. They are commanded to wipe them out totally.
But also, punishing your own enemies doesn't matter. Punishing who G-d commands you to, IF he commands you to, matters. The good king Josiah learned the consequences of going against G-d's will by attacking the Egyptians who he was not commanded to kill. The Egyptians killed him. They were his enemy, but they were not G-d's enemy. Heed the words of Psalm 37:
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him;
fret not when men prosper in their ways,
when they carry out wicked schemes.
Refrain from anger and abandon wrath;
do not fret—it can only bring harm.
For the evildoers will be cut off,
but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.
Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look for them, they will not be found.
But the meek will inherit the land
and delight in abundant prosperity.
~Psalm 37:7-11
I could mention many other examples where the teaching of Jesus contradicts the teaching of G-d in the Tanakh. The Sabbath for one: the Torah and the Prophets teach us to respect the Sabbath. Jesus never says one good word about the Sabbath or observing it. It is possible that technically he never broke the Sabbath either, but he certainly never said anything good about observing it. This is one of the Ten Commandments, it is not a small matter.
Jesus ignored the ritual requirement to wash hands, which in addition to just being poor hygiene, was a ritual significant to many Jews. Does the command to wash hands before eating exist in the Tanakh? Not to my knowledge, but certainly washing your hands does good and not doing so does no good and might make you sick.
While the Gospels present no situation where Jesus was munching on bacon, he dissed Jewish dietary laws. While I am pretty sure that eating pork in the present day is perfectly safe, this was not true until relatively recent times. When Jesus was alive, eating pork could have had unhealthy effects. It was an invitation to trichinosis. The pigs could easily have eaten human corpses which would have potentially transmitted diseases. Jewish dietary laws existed for very good reasons: human health. Shellfish, can you imagine eating a clam out of the hot waters of the Red Sea? That would be an invitation to death by shellfish poisoning. Only eat fish with scales? Most fish without scales, like catfish, are garbage-eating fish. That is not at all the healthiest thing you can put in your mouth. G-d gave the dietary laws to help us, to keep us healthy. Jesus dissed them and never said anything good about them.
Jesus in fact said very little about the Ten Commandments. You never see Jesus warning his disciples about lying, for example. According to John I think it was, Judas stole from the money bag which Jesus did not take him to task for. You never see Jesus telling his disciples to honor their parents, actually the opposite.
Jesus in fact sometimes seems almost exactly like a Greek sophist or perhaps a Socrates: he subverts peoples' understanding of the Tanakh and rarely supports it. The statement, "what goes into your mouth does not contaminate you but what comes out if it" is almost textbook Greek sophistry. It totally ignores the purpose of the dietary laws: to keep you healthy. He only points out inconsistencies or loopholes in Sabbath observance, never supports the observance of it. G-d in the Tanakh promises prosperity to those He loves: Jesus says to give it all away to beggars. Which, we are commanded to charity for the less fortunate: Jesus subverts that into a command to totally impoverish ourselves.
Jesus cannot be understood except as a critic and rebel against Judaism. He doesn't complete the law. He subverts the law. Now, many of these criticisms are very clever, and no doubt many of his criticisms against the religious people of that day were spot on. The Jewish priesthood and authorities were likely often corrupt, as were many who supported them. That the infamously evil King Herod financially supported the rebuilding of the Temple speaks volumes on the toxic combination of temporal power and religion. The fact remains though that you cannot resolve the differences between what Jesus teaches and what the Tanakh teaches. Jesus uses the Tanakh to subvert the Tanakh. The Tanakh is consistent within itself, with very minor deviations. The New Testament is not entirely consistent with the Tanakh (though the highly excellent James, brother of Jesus, might be seen as the exemplar of what Christianity might have been without Paul.)
However, be that as it may, we are all in debt to that renegade Jew because without his Gentile followers, the Tanakh would not have spread throughout the world and to non-Jews as it has. Christianity is like a virus but for a good cause: it spreads throughout the world with an outer shell of falsehood (a triune god, god who became a human, cheap grace, no harsh rules like circumcision or dietary laws,) but within is the genetic code of the truth, like a package of DNA. Because the world hates truth and would not accept it if it were expressed plainly, it would not have spread on its own. Jews are terrible at proselytizing, and in fact generally don't do it at all. Instead, because the Tanakh is wrapped in the more palatable coating of the New Testament it can spread. It is thanks to it that someone like me could have discovered the Tanakh at all. No doubt that is exactly what G-d intended. That Greek sophist of a heretic made the Bible the most popular book of all time, and in it is the Tanakh, which teaches us an alien code to the teaching of Jesus. It is amazing that Christians do not see the contradiction between the New Testament and the Tanakh, but also thank G-d for it because they keep the Tanakh spreading throughout the world, like a cuckoo in the robin's nest.
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To my Christian brothers and sisters I say this: contrary to popular opinion, G-d expects us to think and to think hard. He expects us to question the questionable. We must think and question with a godly mind, a mind of faith, but we must do so. We must not fear the traditions of men but only fear G-d.
Answer me this: can G-d die?
Who then died on the Cross? Jesus did. Not G-d. Jesus was not G-d. If you say that Jesus did not die on the cross, then your plan of faith fails because then Jesus did not die for anyone's sins. If you say Jesus DID die on the cross, then he was a man and his death is no more effective than any other mans' death.
Moreover, since when was sacrifice ever required for the forgiveness of sins? Since when was Jesus required for the forgiveness of sins? G-d forgave all kinds of people in the Tanakh. When David was forgiven, what was required of him to be given that forgiveness? Repentance. Not sacrifice.
When I kept silent,
my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night
your hand was heavy on me;
my strength was sapped
as in the heat of summer.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess
my transgressions to the Lord.”
And you forgave the guilt of my sin.
~Psalm 32:3-5
Jesus hadn't been born yet when David was forgiven! So much for the idea that the cross is needed for forgiveness!
Indeed Isaiah 1 states exactly this most eloquently: what G-d requires is a repentant heart. Blood sacrifice does not get sins forgiven: G-d will be merciful to those who truly repent.
Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood!
Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.
“Come now, let us settle the matter,”
says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow...
~Isaiah 1:13-18
So reason with me, Christian brothers and sisters. How is the man Jesus OR his death necessary to the forgiveness of sins? The Father forgave David directly.
Moreover, is not the idea of G-d being a man directly in conflict with the Second Commandment? It says, do not represent G-d as a created being! A man is a created being! Moreover, in the book of Exodus who was G-d rescuing the Israelites from? A man who called himself god (Pharaoh.) Did G-d in the Tanakh ever say that he was coming as a man? That seems like an important thing for Him to have mentioned. A passage from Isaiah is quoted, but that quote in fact refers to Israel as the suffering servant, not a particular man. Indeed the Jewish people have suffered beyond all reason for thousands of years. There is nothing in Isaiah 53 to indicate that the suffering servant is G-d. Indeed, the suffering servant is afflicted by G-d.
Think. Think righteously, think with faith, but think clearly. The triune god is not clear and not true. G-d as a man is not clear, indeed it is against the Torah. The doctrine of salvation through the blood sacrifice of a man-god and only through that, is contrary to the Tanakh and indeed deeply wrong. There are clear counterexamples everywhere. G-d did not want us to live in a spirit of confusion and contradiction but clarity. There is no G-d but G-d, and he is One and not in any way three. Only G-d is G-d, only the Father is G-d.
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