The Abrahamic Covenant is a restricted Covenant. It alienates all other nations from the economy of Israel.

Posted by Shaw-n above...

One thing I think we have to acknowledge though and that is that there is indeed a Covenant where God promises Abraham:

And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee.

That Covenant in my view is not restricted to Israel because there were other children of Abraham by three wives Sarah, Hagar and Keturah..

When Abraham passes on His sons Isaac and Ishmael are there

And Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre;

and mention is made of other offspring from Keturah (Genesis 25:1-4) that go to the lands of the east...

But unto the sons of the concubines, that Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts; and he sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country

So since this is an everlasting Covenant mentioned above that would seem to me to apply to all the children of Abraham even though there is a primacy implied in the Bible for Isaac and his line which would be eventually known as Israel.

- Art

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"it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."
- Johannes Kepler

And that was always a problem for me. Could the god of all really choose favourites? If so, it's not the god of all. If not, then there's at least one error in scripture. The other, implied above, is that an "everlasting covenant" couldn't possibly be replaced by a New one, which the New Testament implies. That cheapens "everlasting" into a few centuries at best.

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

Scriptures of ancient times were based on oral traditions passed down..eventually set to writing years and sometimes centuries later so the possibility of a lot of extraneous material being included is greater...material say that supports a more ethnocentric bias...

Also I don't think it follows that an "Everlasting Covenant" is necessarily replaced... rather the case seems to be covenants that are more directed at more defined goals within the larger Covenant. So you would have say regulations and laws that are time limited and specifically directed to circumstances. So there can be greater and lesser covenants subsumed within them.

- Art

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"it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."
- Johannes Kepler

The real problem, not just for religion, but any institution, is when upward development is thwarted by artificial barriers. For religion/spirituality, especially in the West, that barrier is mythic ideas about intermediaries between the divine and one's self. Can't do it without the institution and the institution doesn't want to let go of its power. So the institution, and by extension it's adherents, "fall in love" with the mythic ideas. Unfortunately, many of those ideas have been eclipsed as modes of thought resulting in obvious conflict that people either criticize or make exception for. This creates a "battleground" not on the development of religion and spirituality, but on the less evolved conceptualizations.

That doesn't mean they don't have their place and function. Some people really need that type of conception to help pull themselves out of a more violent and chaotic mindset, which I think too often gets overlooked. But, without any real development on where to go after this mythic explanation, one is either forced to bunker down and rationalize it, or completely abandon it. The idea that self transcendence replaces the need for an intermediary is not something the Western institutions want to promote because they don't know how to effectively incorporate such a program while maintaining a relevancy in people who begin to identify with their own "Christ Consciousness".

Judaism does this better than either Christianity and Islam. At least there are some "ideas" out there for Christians (ACIM, Contemplative Christianity, etc.), but Islam is now lagging far behind. The problems for the Christian religion shouldn't be in rationalizing quandaries of conflicts between rational and mythic conceptions. The problem ought to be developing a path of self-transcendence within their tradition so that people wanting to branch out can, and people who are comfortable where they are at can remain there. Eastern approaches often have language they use conveying the double meaning for the masses and for the learned, Western approaches need to begin dissolving their own artificial boundaries.

-TC

I would agree with Travis regarding the need for western religions to adopt a more eastern modality.
They are inherently flawed and need to be reworked.
But they served at least some purpose while they were in place, some good, lots of not so good and some really horrid works.
In my thinking I see it as having been a "necessary idolatry".
Idolatry, in that it promotes the worship of someone lower than God, therefore a created being, a part of creation.
And necessary in that without it the gentiles would have no knowledge of the traditions.
Being a part of the Bnai Noach way of thinking is why I say this.

The reason for the long post about covenants is that the entire christian world thinks that they have replaced Israel due to their ideas about the work of Jesus.
Thus the idea of the "OLD" testament and "NEW" testament.
There is no "NEW" covenant.
There is the original covenant as explained in the previous post.
Christians need to realize this.
Then we can stop all the nonsense chatter about new archeological evidence about Jesus and what it means.

Believe what you will but the Old Testament is an external teaching and the New Testament is an internal teaching. That is why one needs new wineskins for new wine.

There is nothing Old about it.
All the inspiration for the New came from the so-called OLD.
The NT is a commentary on the Torah/Tenach and has some value, but it is convoluted and distorted through the lens of emanation theology.
Look at the teachings of Jesus and Paul, all they read was the Tenach and they came up with some good ideas as they saw the inner meaning contained within the Torah/Tenach.
Christians only see the outer meaning of the book and that is the problem.
You pointed out the cause in the thread about the cave idea.

You can believe this but Christianity is far more ancient than you know.


The New Testament is an expression of this great perennial path

and what proof of this is there past the dictation and the carried over stories and your saying it is so because it seems to you to be believable...you seem to me to be like the elder who do what i call bible thumping...(i like reading your posts) just expressing how they sound to me...and past digging up book after book what life experience do you speak from that makes what you feel to be true come alive to feel like truth to you..or to know as truth to you..

Actually the religion you speak of is solar worship
Check out the movie "zeitgeist" on google.
Horus of the Egyptians was said to have been born of a virgin and died on the cross for the sins of man and was resurrected 3 days later as were 16 or so other christ figures.
Jesus is only the newest christ on the block.
The religion is ancient and I am fairly aware of that.