Summary of New Testament From Jewish Point of View Class - 7/11/2022

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Of course we had a wonderful and fun class on Monday, July 11, 2022!   I think we all missed studying together on last Monday, July 4.  That was the first time since we started studying together in October of 2021 that we’d skipped a week.

Jo Ann, Dan, Steve, Karen, Dave, David, Robin, Norky, and Merrill attended.  We missed Odette, Jessica, and Jenny.

After some visiting, Dan led us in our usual “Give Us That Old Time Religion” opening song and then we began our study.  

Below is a short summary of what Dan wrote about our time together:  

New Testament study from a Jewish point of view July 11, 2022

We studied chapters 4 and 5 of the letter of Paul to the Galatians. In this passage Paul criticizes the Galatians’ adopting traditional Jewish practices. A puzzling idea is Paul’s use of the term “the curse of the law” which made “the law” sound like a bad thing, at least for gentiles.

He compares observing Jewish tradition to slavery, using the illustration of Sarah the free wife of Abraham symbolizing living by faith and not the law and Hagar, Sarah’s s slave, symbolizing observing Jewish law.

Paul insisted that gentiles may not observe Jewish traditions lest they be under the “curse” of the law.  It was an important step in the development of Christianity as a separate religion from Judaism.

Addition from Jo Ann:

We talked again about Paul contradicts himself.  Merrill asked again about Messianic Judaism.  We even talked about kosher toilet paper since we talked about the rules that evangelicals might think Jews follow when thinking of the Law.

Below is an old video from the 1980s about Messianic Judaism that Jo Ann said she’d share with the group.

We ended our time together with by singing the Jewish healing prayer, the Misheberach.



Again, if anything is forgotten in this summary, please comment.



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