Torah Observance and Righteousness

The following quotes are from the Complete Jewish Bible translated by David H. Stern

Acts 24:14 But this I do admit to you: I worship the God of our fathers (Ex 3:15) in accordance with the Way (which they call a sect). I continue to believe everything that accords with the Torah and everything written in the Prophets. And I continue to have a hope in God. . .

Romans 10:3 For since they are unaware of God’s way of making people righteous and instead seek to set up their own, they have not submitted themselves to God’s way of making people righteous. For the goal at which the Torah aims is the Messiah, who offers righteousness to everyone who trusts.

Romans 2:11-15 For God does not show favoritism. All who have sinned outside the framework of Torah will die outside the framework of Torah; For it is not merely the hearers of Torah whom God considers righteous; rather, it is the doers of what Torah says who will be made righteous in God’s sight. For whenever Gentiles, who have no Torah, do naturally what Torah requires, then these, even though they don’t have Torah, for themselves are Torah! For their lives show that the conduct of Torah dictates is written in their hearts.

Romans 3:20 For in his sight no one alive will be considered righteous on the ground of legalistic observance of Torah commands, because what Torah really does is show people how sinful they are.

Stern’s notes on Matt.5:17 (xli) Did Yeshua “Fill or “Fulfill” the Torah? The common Greek word plerosai means “to fill.” At Mattiyahu 5:17 most translations render it “to fulfill.” The theological implication often drawn is that Yeshua fulfilled the prophecies of the Tanakh, so that none remain today for the Jews, and that he obeyed every relevant Torah command, so that no one needs to observe Torah today. But these conclusions do not follow logically, and in fact they contradict Yeshua’s immediately preceding statement that he did not come to abolish (or destroy) the Torah. More fundamental however, is the translation issue of whether plerosai ought to be rendered “to fulfill” at all. My view is that Yeshua came not to fulfill, but to fill the Torah and the ethical pronouncements of the Prophets full with their complete meaning, so that everyone can know all that obedience entails.

“Works of the Law” and “Under the Law”: Is the Torah Legalistic? (xlii) The Greek phrases erga nomou and upo nomon were coined by Sha’ul and used by him in three of his letters-Romans, Galatians and I Corinthians; each appears ten times in the New Testa ment. They are usually translated “works of the law” and “under the law,” respectively. This often causes the reader to infer that keeping the Torah is bad, and that being within the framework of Torah-observance is bad. The CJB’s B’rit Hadashah, following the lead of Cranfield, takes these phrases as referring not to the Torah itself but to man’s legalistic perversion of it.. Therefore erga nomou is rendered, “legalistic observance of Torah commands” and upo nomon, “in subjection of the system which results from the perverting of Torah into legalism. The reader can infer, correctly to the New Testament teaching of Sha’ul, legalism-whether Jewish, Christian or other- is bad, but living according to God’s Torah is good.