Islam critiqued is lost in translation; following the law of God or Jesus?

In answer to the video "Muhammad did it. Therefore it is not sinful."

To reconcile Jesus' and his early followers' stance with Paul's and theirs as regards to Jewish laws, Christians today attempt word acrobatics to equate on one hand, "the Law of the Lord" with the so called "Ten Commandments", and on the other hand, the  "moral laws" or the "Law of Moses" with the now obsolete "ceremonial law" (ie the remaining 603 laws of the Torah). However what these Christians want to classify as "ceremonial law", the obsolete 603 mosaic laws according to Paul, is called "the Law of the Lord" many times Ex13:7-9,1Chron16:40,2Chron31:3-4 as well as in Nehemiah8:1,8,14 -in conjonction with Lev23:33-36-. Not only that but the "Law of Moses" and the "Law of the Lord" are used to refer to the same books.

Even Jesus in Matt12:5 refers to the ceremonial law as "the Law" because he considered the Mosaic Law to be one inseparable unit. He equated what Christians call Moses' "ceremonial law" with "the law of the Lord" numerous times Luke2:22-24,39. When he was asked which of the commandments was the greatest he quoted two commandments neither of which were from the so-called "Ten Commandments" Matt22:34-40 but from what Christians want to differentiate as Moses' "ceremonial law" Deut6:5,Lev19:18. It is obvious that the Bible never even once makes any distinction in terms of the Law between the moral (which Christians want to be so-called 10 commandements) and the ceremonial.

On the contrary the 613 laws are always viewed as one unit. For example Deut4:44-45 speaking of "the law", ie all 613 laws not just the so called 10 commandements. Same thing for Josh8:34-35,1Kings 2:3,Micah4:2,Lev18:5,24:22,Deut4:1,5,8,6:25,31:12-13,2Kings17:3,21:8, 23:25,1Chron16:40,Ezra7:6,Ps78:5,119:1,55,108,137,174,147:20,Prov31:4-5, Isa5:24,Jere18:18,Lam2:9,Ezek7:26,Hosea4:6,Amos2:4,Hab1:4, Zeph3:4,Zech7:12,Mal2:9,Mk15:31,Jn1:17,Acts13:39,Gal3:10,Eph2:14-15,1Tim1:7-8,Titus3:9,Heb10:28,James2:10.

Even the word "law" (Torah in Hebrew and Nomos in the Greek) when applied to the entire corpus of laws of the Torah is always singular even though it contains 613 separate commandments. Finally, Deut27 curses the one who does not live by the divine law. Yet we have Paul in places like Gal3:10 painting it as a curse which Jesus' death now retrospectively freed the world from. But the world in the first place isnt even concerned by this law, only the Jews were, and still are, concerned by it. This negative, completely misconstrued view of the mosaic law is of course in disregards of statements such as Deut30:10-14 where the entire Law is said to be at anyone's reach, of Ps119:1 stating that

"Praiseworthy are those whose way is perfect, who walk with the law of the Lord"

and Job37:23 which does not expect people to be perfectly righteous in Torah observance. In fact even the NT contains similar statements, as in Lk1:6 where John's parents are upright in God's sight, observing all commandements blamelessly.

This is the way of God and is reflected not only in the earlier revelations, but down to the Quran as well

2:220"And had God so willed, He would indeed have imposed on you hardships which you would not have been able to bear, but behold, God is almighty, wise".

The sharia/law of God is and has always been intended to be simple and straightforward, adapted to man's nature, extreme circumstances and exceptions, and above all it is the means by which one is spiritually purified 2:185,5:6,22:78. Whenever the religion became complicated, it was either because of man-made additions to it, or as a punishement.

Today's Christians pick and choose which laws are still aplicable to them while all of them, including the so-called 10 laws, were revealed at Sinai. But being non-Jews, they are not obliged to follow the Law in the first place, yet still declare that Jesus' sacrifice is the only thing that saved them from it (the law that God Himself obliged). Being that God is the source of the very laws they condemn, the "mercy" of Jesus "fulfilling" the law by "breaking" it, came after the generations upon generations of oppression by that very same God's demand that His law be upheld and fulfilled.

Through a concise statement, the Quran explains the mutual relationship between the Torah and the Gospel; they complete one another by centering the attention on the wisdom and spirit of every aspect of God's Laws so that they do not end up as something lifeless and burdensome for the people

3:48-50"And He will teach him the Book and the wisdom and the Tawrat and the Injeel..And a verifier of that which is before me of the Taurat and that I may allow you part of that which has been forbidden to you, and I have come to you with a sign from your Lord therefore be careful of (your duty to) Allah and obey me".

By the beginning of the 1st century Judaism was a sterile, lifeless organism, waiting to be infused with a spirituality that only Jesus could provide.

Jesus repeatedly condemned those traditions in the NT, denounced the Jews and their leaders as "hypocrites" and told the people to beware of these "teachers of law" for their soulless traditions, and "children of the Devil" because of their claim of inherited righteousness through their affiliation to Abraham Jn8:37-44.

Not in one single instance within the whole NT is it reported that Jesus said that the law of Moses needs to be abandoned, contrary to Paul who besides stating it was a curse Gal3:13 given not by God but by angels Gal3:19-25,Heb2:2 declared it obsolete Rom3:20,7:4,10:4,Heb8:13,Gal2:21,3:23-25,4:21-31,5:1,Eph2:15 even describing his former Jewish beliefs as worthless, rejecting his former Jewishness by warning of Jewish dogs saying in the original Greek

Phil3:2-8"I consider them excrement".

He told people he was seeking to convert, that they were now under the vague 'law of Christ'. Jesus himself never alludes to such law, hence it being unknown to any of those who met and followed him and respected all Jewish laws to the letter as per his actual instructions. That law of christ, tailored so as to apeal to Paul's mainly pagan audience, has removed the old burden from mankind 1Corin9:21,Gal6:2. He sometimes paid lip service to the Law if the situation or audience required a show of obedience to the law Acts21:20-26 but immidiately denounced the likes of James and Peter for telling the Gentiles to follow the law Gal2, evidently because it attracted less converts.

As regards Matt26:28 and elsewhere where it is believed Jesus declared the ushering of a "new" covenant

"This is my blood of the new covenant",

some manuscripts have "new" others dont and even if we go with the former translations, there is still the problem of Jesus allegedly ushering in a new covenant yet he specifically told his followers to abide by the Law or what Paul refered to as the Old covenant, which Jesus called "the way" and upheld to the letter. Where did Jesus say the Law of Moses would become "old" and needed to be abandonned subsequently to his alleged sacrifice? In fact, we find in the Gospels Jesus invoking the Torah when arguing with the religious elite because Jesus' mission was exposing the Pharisees for their hypocritical and rigid application of the Torah, not to abolish it. He gives the example of David who worked on the Sabbath, driven by necessity to eat food Matt12:1-8,1Sam21:1-6. He was this way upholding the spirit of the Law because saving a life is lawful on the Sabbath per the Torah Mk3:4 hence his quoting from

Hosea6:6"For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice".

The Rabbis knew and understood this, that is why they couldn't answer as there was no violation of the Law. Similarly when he was accused of breaking the Sabbath because he healed the sick, what he was actually doing once again is exposing their rigid and soulless outlook of the religion. He took advantage of that situation to infuse the law with its lost wisdom. He showed them the Torah itself allowed circumsising or caring for an animal on a sabbath, then what to say of helping a suffering human being Matt12:9-13,Jn7:23-4,Lk13:10-17,Mk3:1-6.

By breaking it he was doing what he "sees" the Father doing, sustaining His creation at all times. Jesus, the most knowledgeable person among his contemporaries in religious law further told his Jewish audience that he was in this way working together with God. As correctly understood by the faithfull blind man who was cured on Sabbath, this action did not make Jesus a sinner nor a blasphemer as his enemies among the Jews accused him, but rather a true prophet Jn11:11-33. Yet even to this day, the Talmudic "sages" whose legalistic deductions are viewed as God-given still hold that “one does not assist a gentile woman in childbirth on the Sabbath” (Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 330:2).

The Quran accurately sums up Jesus' mission as such

3:50"And a verifier of that which is before me of the Torah and that I may allow you part of that which has been forbidden to you".

Jesus verified the truth remaining in the past scriptures, relieved the bani Israel of some of the things forbidden to them through the soulless and far fetched conjectures of their rabbis. That is what Jesus meant when he told his disciples that they must practice and teach these laws to the letter while surpassing the "righteousness" of the Pharisees, meaning they must practice the body and soul of the law not only the body as they did

"whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven".