I am a practicing, confirmed Christian, but I do not believe or take advice from what I read in the old testament.

Although some of the prophets may have preached the word of god it was often specific to the Israelites and was said a long time ago and may have been mistranslated or misunderstood. Morover the old testament also contains a lot of things that are clearly not the word of God. There are myths such as Genesis 1,2 and 3 as well as things which look like laws but are clearly not. The old testament says that you can sell your daughter into slavery if you are short on money or kill your neighbour if they work on the sabath. According to the old testament if you walked into your office on a Saturday and murdered everyone there, it would be perfectly acceptable.

I believe that the old testament is included in the bible so that we can understand the signifcance on the coming of Jesus Christ and the background to the society in which he preaches so that we can better interpret his message. Thus I would be and the background to the society in which he preaches so that we can better interpret his message. Thus I would be very unwilling to do anything just because the old testament tells me that it is right.

Is it normal that I am a Christian yet I hold this view?

Yes, God would tell people to do horrible things first, and then correct them later in the New testament.

No.

It's just that the old testament was written a group of people who were a lot different that we are, plus, as Christians don't read or study the Oral Torah, some of them have no idea what these verses really mean.

One such example is slavery.

#1

The salve that it's talking about is a lot different from the one that goes through everyone's mind.

#2

There are many different kinds of slaves out there. Some were prisoners of war, other had committed crimes. I would argue that soldiers of enemy armies deserve to become slaves for trying to kill your people- same for certain kinds of crimes.

#3

After seven years, you had to let Hebrew slaves go. (Unless they were female, I'll explain why below, although this seems to have changed in the book of Isaiah, or I missed something.not sure, never looked into that.)

#4

The term "slave" is a really bad one for the girl that was sold by her parents to another man.

The Talmud (oral Torah/ first five books of the old testament) is ten times the thickness of the Bible and was passed down by the Jewish sages via word of mouth from the time of Moses. It includes LOTs of commentary on the Torah. The Talmud states that the parents could only sell their daughter if it was for their daughters benefit. Once sold, the daughter had to be treated as one of the family by her master. Usually the master bought the daughter so that he could marry the daughter himself, or give her to his son in marriage. If the master, or his son married someone else, then he still had to take care of daughter, and not give her less food etc. The daughter would be released from the bounds if her fiance didn't find her pleasing- free of charge.

I just recently found out that apparently, the Father could only sell his daughter as a last resort so that he didn't have to sell himself- as some people in Jewish society could sell themselves as a slave- sometimes to pay off debt.

The reason you won't find some of the stuff in the Old testament, is because the Torah was completed by the Talmud, and all this was just common knowledge.

I don't know everything that stated in the Oral Torah, but there are lots of different reasons that someone could be a slave, and lots of different "slaves" with lots of different rights.

a-sassy-black-lady :

You are a Christian if you believe in the Holy trinity. That is the father, son and the holy ghost.

As for the Old testament versus the New Testament. New testaments holds the true version of theology and morality that makes us actually Christians. Both are sacred and canonical texts, though. You might want to think about it as what was before and what was after the crucifixion of Christ.