Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That hermeneutic - texts are collections of independent logical propositions - was essentially unknown in the ancient world, and cedes immense epistemological ground to the project of the enlightenment that is diametrically opposed to a Christian reading of the Scriptures, which emphasizes their unity and their role in liturgical worship. I just had to quote that sentence construction without comment. But to reply…
> Christians are what Christians do. This is generally not true. Try to replace "Christian" with "Atheist" or "Gnostic" and see how far this travels. While there are, I suppose, some distinctive practices that characterize various systems of belief (or disbelief), what distinguishes Christianity from, say, Judaism, is a set of irreconcilable beliefs (e.g., that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah). It is true that pract…
This is an excellent example of how Christians take one or a few verses out of context and let them tell a story. If you would read the full passage about Peter, you’d find that the meaning of it was that whatever Gd has made clean shouldn’t be declared unclean by man. He goes on to explain it by saying that the Jews in his time weren’t allowed to go to a gentile, but, because Gd never said (when you study the Pentateuch) that any man was either clean or unclean (except certain circumstances), Peter shouldn’t consider gentile unclean by them being non-Jew.
Much of this reasoning applies to Christians when explaining that Jesus freed them from the law (eating pork, keeping Shabbat, etc), by which they basically support the questioning of Him being the Messiah. Anyone who proclaims to not follow the law, cannot be the Messiah (Deuteronomy 18:20).
However, if you’d read the NT carefully, combined with the scriptures of the scholars of that time (Hillel, Shammai, Gamaliel and more), you’d find that he’s a law obeying person, and encourages everyone to do so. Even stronger; He has much of the same understandings that the rabbis of his time have.
An example is Talmud (Shabbat 31a) where Hillel is asked to tell the Torah when the listener is standing on one foot. He answered by saying: What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this—go and study it!
This is remarkably similar to what Jesus said when someone asked Him, and Jesus responded with something that was in his time spirit, but also written in Leviticus 19:18 (Matthew 22) 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy Gd with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Also this very passage explains that Jesus didn't get rid of the law, even more so, He said that Love for Gd (in the ways mentioned and taken from the Sh'ma (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)) and love of your neighbour are the base on which you execute every law (and prophets) that's given. Without this base, everything you do is worthless, it's merely a disguise than being a righteous (Tsaddik)