Replies

whatever merit you claim for the rituals and commandments of the "new law" was already there in spades for the original Biblical law.

Okay. Good point: If the merit of rituals and commandments was there already, what then is the point of this outspoken Nazarean?

OTOH, if Judaism is complete in itself why all the fuss in their prophecies about some Messiah or "chosen one"? Or rebuilding the Temple for that matter? Really, when something's complete it's complete, no?

Okay. Good point: If the merit of rituals and commandments was there already, what then is the point of this outspoken Nazarean?

This is precisely my point. I find it most frustrating that Catholics and Orthodox don't understand this.

I grew up in the Bible Belt believing the outspoken Nazarean had died in my place, making all human activity towards "salvation" utterly unnecessary. However, from the Catholic and Orthodox Churches I learned that he didn't die in my place but apparently merely replaced one calendar with another, one legal system with another, and one set of rituals with another. What was the point? If chr*stianity is merely a cheap inauthentic imitation of Torah then it most certainly was never needed.

Because a messiah is coming who will rebuild the Holy Temple and restore the full Temple service. This hardly means the Torah is incomplete; the Torah is eternally valid. He will merely restore the situation where all the mitzvot, including those which can't be observed right now (ie, the qorbanot) will once again be observable.

Honestly, I don't see anything in your questions/arguments that go against a single thing I've said. The Prophets prophesy a restoration of full Torah observance, not Torah's replacement by a "superior" religion (G-d forbid!).