Just stumbled across this verse, and I’m wondering if there is implications for how we read the law books of the Old Testament:
It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied.
Mark 10:5 (NIV) – emphasis mine
I have no opinion (yet), but I wondered if this verse changes some of how we read the law of Moses, with particular reference to more controversial aspects.
i think moses ‘wrote it’ like john wrote john (or whoever it was) and paul wrote the letters, and i don’t think that verse diminishes the value of it or suggests it’s any less from God?
just what i think…
Theologically – that’s what I’d be thinking. But I don’t think that’s how you would immediately interpret this if you were reading it cold.
Interesting. Like Paul, (the comment-er, not the epistl-er) I’d see “Moses and the books of the law” as a bit of a package deal, so I would take it that Jesus emphasis is on why the law was written in the firs place – our hardness of heart.
It implies that Moses (inspired, instructed or otherwise led by God), did what needed to be done at the time. The laws of God have never seemed arbitrary to me; many are sensible to “living in a way that keeps you free” (with apologies to Paul the epistl-er for the rough paraphrase), and those that don’t seem logical now mostly have sound reasoning for the time and place that they were written.
Whatever the reason, I’m glad bacon is on the menu…
Hmm… thinking of ‘what needs to be done at the time’ – maybe bacon should be off the menu again? (Takes much more water and food to produce meat than it does to produce vegetables, and we’re experiencing a food and water crisis.)
It’s a very interesting diagnosis Geoff. The image it brought to mind was a grumbling Moses, complaining bitterly about the Israelites and then wagging his finger telling them it would “do them good” to act this way.
I would tend to agree with Tim & Paul that Moses was inspired by God to write what he wrote. The image above doesn’t really fill the “chosen of God” one I think we need from a patriarch like Moses. I’m very thankful, however, for the reminder of his humanity. He showed it often in his life, and that he was still able to deal with God, just as he was, speaks to me greatly about God’s ability to work with and in any of us.