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Find any place where Jesus tells his disciples that he has come to refine and improve the Jewish faith and we can discuss that as well. No, His consistent message was that all of mankind, Jews and Gentiles, were to trust in Him for their salvation. That is far, far removed from a Jewish refinement.

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That actually makes sense taken that the fulfillment of messianic prophesy puts an end to the old way of doing things for a new way and the old guard wasn't having it, supposedly since they claim Jesus couldn't meet the requirements for such fulfillment. Can you blame them? The overarching condition of that day was the Roman occupation. By all accounts the Pharisees held power as long as they appeased the Roman rule. The popularity of Jesus among the people was a direct threat to the old guard, from the Romans and the people, so they reacted as any authority would to eliminate that threat.

That's a pretty good description as far as it goes, but the even greater concern for Jesus was the will of God and the introduction of the New Covenant (New Testament) by which lost mankind could be saved. A fascinating description of this could be found in Jer,, 31:31. “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, [h]though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their [i]hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Compare that with Hebrews 8:8 where it is quoted and explained.

I don't doubt the commitment of the Christ to his God or mission, nor any other for that matter, but I read what Jesus was proclaiming as a BETTER deal, rather than a different deal. Now why would the Pharisees be opposed to that?

Because their affections were set upon this present age, but not upon the will of God or upon the love of God. "And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me."

From current events discussion.

There were many bibles and from which whomever had the best sway adopted as the official sanctioned version for the masses. Back (As NOW) then religious leaders were like politicians, always trying to keep ahead of the competition for followers and supporters. Indeed the whole history of religion is more domination and power than divinity.

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

There is some truth in that, but not in the way you think. It largely did not happen that way.

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Could you expand on that please?

There has always been a struggle in the organized church between those (some, but not all) who want to dictate their own ideas to the masses versus those who want individual Christians to read the Bible and follow Jesus on a personal level. You see this clearly in the struggle to propagate an English (as opposed to Latin) version of the Bible. Wycliffe was the first to translate the Latin Bible, which was all he had access to, to English. This was prior to the printing press, so every copy was hand-written. His bones were later dug up and burned by the Catholic Church as reward for that effort, but his efforts started a sequence of events which, despite great opposition, resulted in an explosion of English versions in the sixteenth century. And that is not to mention Luther's German translation in that same century.

The Gospel has always been a minority enterprise and has been resisted by those who want to live in luxury and dominate those in the "church", but God eventually comes out victorious, and that is certainly the case with the Bible.

You can read a pretty good summary of it here. https://www.greatsite.com/timeline-e...bible-history/

That certainly bolsters my position of religion being more like politics than divinity, at least among the learned men, scholars, and leaders of that day. They still do to this day, as they make and define the policies of good behavior for whatever the society is. I believe that to be true of ancient man as well, as one big shot competed with another for followers and monied supporters, and the many conflicts and all out wars a product of that competition. Costs money to raise an army against those other religious faction and clearly every religion has their different factions know as sects. Indeed Christians have squabbled amongst themselves as much as they have with other religions throughout history with the winner claiming converts whether they liked it or not.

It's just historical data that shows the bloody evolution of Christianity as it separated itself from its Judaic roots followed a few centuries later by Islam's rise in bloody conversions, leaving the Jews behind them both. All those religions of the loving single God killing each other over the notion of domination. Like I said pure politics in Gods name.

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It's just historical data that shows the bloody evolution of Christianity as it separated itself from its Judaic roots followed a few centuries later by Islam's rise in bloody conversions, leaving the Jews behind them both.

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Bloody yes, but to refer to a supposed "evolution" of Christianity is not accurate. It would be accurate to describe the absolute resistance of those who defended the truth of the Christian faith in refusing to bow to any change imposed upon it by the organizations of false religions, to remember those who regarded that truth to be of greater value than their own fortunes and lives, and to honor the amazing triumph of the accurate transmission of the New Testament up to our modern age. The perseverance of those brave men and women, many of them to the point of death, is an absolute story of courage bolstered by the presence of God. Their motivation was to PREVENT any "evolution" of the faith.