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I agree with the definition given by wiki: 

Sola scriptura (Latin ablative, "by scripture alone") is the doctrine that the Bible contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness. Consequently, sola scriptura demands only those doctrines are to be admitted or confessed that are found directly within or indirectly by using valid logical deduction or valid deductive reasoning from scripture. However, sola scriptura is not a denial of other authorities governing Christian life and devotion. Rather, it simply demands that all other authorities are subordinate to, and are to be corrected by, the written word of God.

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Concerning the OT church:

1) The whole Law given to Moses was also given to all the Israelites, there was no “oral law” kept hidden by the leadership of the OT church.  And it was sufficient for their salvation and holiness:

Deut 27:2 “When you have crossed the Jordan into the land the LORD your God is giving you, set up some large stones and coat them with plaster. 3 Write on them all the words of this law….8 And you shall write very clearly all the words of this law on these stones you have set up.” ”

Deut 31:24 “Moses finished writing in a book the words of this law from beginning to end.”

Deut 4:1 “Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live”

2) The leadership of the OT was limited in the scope of dogmatic teaching to teach only what was in accordance to the Law, the same Law the people had in its fullness:

Deut 6:1 “These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess…”

3) The leadership of the OT church (the successor of Moses) were NOT infallible in their teachings:

Jeremiah 50:6 “My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and caused them to roam on the mountains.”

Mat 15:14 “Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

While the old covenant was still in effect and before the new covenant was put in place by the death of Christ, Jesus was placed on trial before the Sanhedrin (the official leadership of the OT church, the rightful successors of Moses), and the Sanhedrin rejected Jesus (Mat 26:57-68; Mark 14:53-65; Luke 22:66-71; John 18:19-23)

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Therefore, the OT church meats the definition given above of sola scriptura:
1)   The OT, even just the first 5 books written by Moses, contained all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness.
2)   the leadership of the OT church had absolutely no authority to teach doctrine that went beyond what was written in scripture.
3)   The leadership of the OT church was fallible, and was subordinate to, and was to be corrected by, the scripture.  In fact, there were so fallible, they committed the ultimate doctrinal error by rejecting Jesus as the Messiah.  And those who wanted to follow Jesus, even before Jesus died, were cast out of the OT church.  So, in order to be right with God, you had to be willing to stop follow church leadership when it was in serious error.

I'm pretty surprised no one has responded to this as much as sola scriptura is treated as a red-headed step child.

And yet the Book of Ruth made it into the Scripture, even though it's perspective was in opposition to the Mosaic Law regarding the exclusion of Moabites.

are you referring to Ruth's marriage to a Israelite, even though she was a Moabite?

The exclusion of the Moabites, or any foreigner, was to prevent the mixing of false religions into Israel's religion, not unlike the NT’s command 2 Corinthians 6:14: "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers."

Exo 34:15 “Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. 16 And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.”

But Ruth was a believer, so she didn’t fall into that exclusion:

Ruth 1: 15 “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”  16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

Ruth was also the widow of an Israelite, so Boaz had an additional right to marry her.  

Ruth 4:9 Then Boaz announced to the elders and all the people, “Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelech, Kilion and Mahlon. 10 I have also acquired Ruth the Moabitess, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family or from the town records. Today you are witnesses! ”

This is a pretty open and shut case from scripture, so I’m not sure of your point.

How about contrasting Ezra's and Nehemiah's responses to mixed marriages?  Ezra kicked the offending spouses and offspring out of the community, Nehemiah merely grandfathered in the preexisting mixed marriages and banned new ones.

When Ruth says "Your people will be my people and your God my God," it is in opposition to the exclusion of Moabites from being a part of the assembly of the Lord in Deuteronomy 23:3-6.

But you're purposely fogetting that is was based on their paganism and disloyality to Israel:

Deut 23:3 No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the tenth generation. 4 For they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim to pronounce a curse on you. 5 However, the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loves you. 6 Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them as long as you live.

But Ruth is both loyal to Israel and a believer in Israel's God.  In fact, when Naomi have Ruth the chance to turn her back on Israel and God and to return to the Moabites and to their pagan god, Ruth refused:

Ruth 1: 15 “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”  16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

This is no different than the NT requirement:

2Cor 6:14: "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers."

1Cor 7:39 "A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord."

1Cor 9:7 "Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Peter?"

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Added to that, Ruth was ALREADY a widow of a Israelite, but had no children though her late Jewish husband, which then invoked the law of kindsmen redeemer, which Boaz married her to redeem.

How does the OT church respond to matters like those touched on in the image posted below? I'm a little curious.

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Redalgo: get lost in Brooklyn sometime and you'll quickly find the answers you seek.

lol

I'm not really joking.  You can find tens of thousands of Orthodox Jews who do this s**t every day, from not using electricity and toilet paper on Saturday to not drinking tap water because some of the microbial life in it is vaguely, in some sense, shellfish.

Oh, yeah, and as to the "not approaching the altar of the Lord if you have physical defects" thing, a nice demonstration of that in practice is given by Josephus, who tells of how Herod the Great had the heirs of the Hasmonean family blinded and had their ears cut off in order to make them physically deformed and permanently ineligible for the priesthood so they wouldn't be able to threaten his rule any more. 

Wow, that's actually pretty sad. D:

But, yeah, Judaism (and Christianity, though the answers are mostly different) has answers to a lot of the silly stuff like that old chain email.  I'm not a believer, but I find it a bit frustrating when people who clearly don't even really understand the basics of how Judaism/Christianity work string together a bunch of Bible verses and go, "What do you think about this?" 

For example, that mention of a bull sacrifice.  Judaism firmly established the doctrine that animals can only be sacrificed at the Temple at Jerusalem.  Said Temple no longer exists.  Rabbinical Judaism dictates that the prayer liturgy takes the place of the sacrifice in the Atonement and worship cycle (at least until/unless the Temple is ever rebuilt).  Similarly, this is the same reason why Judaism abandoned priests: they're intimately connected with the Temple ritual: should the Temple be reestablished, the Jews will bring back the kohanim.  Christianity never did animal sacrifice because Jesus took the place of the sacrifices: his body is the scapegoat, there is no need for animal sacrifices.

I can see how that sort of thing could get frustrating pretty quickly. I suppose one of the hard parts for me is having contradicting interests to: (a.) stay well clear of these sorts of threads since I'm unwilling to devote hundreds of hours to combing over and scrutinizing the contents and potential interpretations of sacred texts so I can go toe to toe in discussions with people who revere them and (b.) say something due to how incredibly mind-numbing it is to watch people deliberate (if not argue in a heated tone on occasion) the fine details of what strikes me as a complex, at times offensive set of myths. Perhaps it'd just be better for me to ignore it all, stop making a fool of myself, and show more tact so as to avoid being a jerk about it?

Redalgo, if you want a "fun" introduction to some of these issues, I'd recommend A. J. Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible.  Jacobs, a lapsed Jew, is a secular guy and more than a bit irreverent (especially towards the beginning of the book), but by the end of his project he ends up finding worth in a lot of the ritual of the OT and ends up continuing to keep the Sabbath, saying prayers of thanksgiving before meals, etc.  

Amusingly enough, Jacobs, being a germophobe, adores the rule that he can't touch menstruating women.  He celebrates having an excuse not to have to shake hands or hug half of the human race and wishes he could find a similar Biblical excuse not to touch men either.

EDIT:  At various points, Jacobs does experiment with stuff that's reminiscent of that email up there.  He goes a week without mentioning the days of the week or the names of the planets due to the Biblical injunction not to let the names of false gods pass your lips.  He gives that one up, of course.  But there's plenty of more serious passages where he really does end up getting something out of what he's doing...mostly in passages where he's joining movements in their rituals.  Like the bit where he gets rip-roaringly drunk with a bunch of elderly Lubavitchers on Purim (Purim is basically Judaism's answer to Mardi Gras).  He argues pretty persuasively that a lot of people have the incredibly false opinion that all religion is anti-booze, and that partying with a bunch of ultra-Orthodox Jews will disavow you of that pretty quickly.

Oh, yes, that's one of my favorite recent nonfiction books.

I can attest to partying with ultra-Orthodox Jews, since one of my friends invited me to Purim at our campus's Chabad House this year...

your post is so full of ignorance, I'm sure I'm wasting my time responding, but here is an effort:  homosexuality is condemned in the bible prior to the Law of Moses, during the Law of Moses, and after the Law of Moses was superceeded for it is condemned in the New Testament.

Homosexuality is not a Law of Moses argument, rather the verses from the Law of Moses are quoted simply to show uniformity with the rest of scripture.  It would be just like arguing about adultery: I would show that prior to the Law, during the Law, and after the Law (New Testament), adultery was condemned.

In a nutshell:  1) the bible only allows for sex within the context of marriage, 2) and marriage is defined in the bible as a heterosexual union.  Which is why fornication, adultery, lust, homosexuality, and bestiality...are not allowed.

It's pretty cut and dry.

I'm not sure how this thread got derailed with homosexuality and religion bashing, but I just want to remind everyone that the purpose of this thread was to show that the bible clearly states that OT Israel was given the entire Law of Moses, just as Moses himself was given it by God.

this is NOT a discussing of belief, rather it is a observation of facts concerning what the bible states pertaining to the giving of the Law of Moses to the OT church prior to the appearance of the different Jewish sects (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots, etc).

In this thread, I have stated 3 points:
1)   The OT, even just the first 5 books written by Moses, contained all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness.
2)   the leadership of the OT church had absolutely no authority to teach doctrine that went beyond what was written in scripture.
3)   The leadership of the OT church was fallible, and was subordinate to, and was to be corrected by, the scripture.

If none of those three points can be refuted, then sola scriptura has a biblical precedent within the OT church, regardless of the opinions of the OT sects that came after Moses.

Of course, then the question becomes which version of the Pentateuch?  The Septuagint that the NT writers largely used?  The Masoretic that many Protestant denominations use because it is seen as more authentic?  The Samaritan?

Granted, the textual differences between the versions are largely minor save for where the Samaritan version calls for the temple to be located.  However, while the Samaritans are an example of a sola scriptura OT church, I doubt you'd find the Five Books of Moses of the Samaritans to be accurate, jmf.  Still, the fact that Jesus and his ministry in ancient Palestine is inclusive of the Samaritans is an example of how these minor quibbles over doctrinal issues were not something he was much concerned with, just as he refused to get drawn into the petty squabbles of the day of the Pharisees, Sadducees, etc.

The choice between these two does NOT impact any of the following 3 points:
 
1)   The OT, even just the first 5 books written by Moses, contained all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness.
2)   the leadership of the OT church had absolutely no authority to teach doctrine that went beyond what was written in scripture.
3)   The leadership of the OT church was fallible, and was subordinate to, and was to be corrected by, the scripture.

So, your attempt to muddy the waters is irrelevant.

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Christ already rejected the Samaritan version of events:

John 4: 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”  21 Jesus declared, …You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.”

But the reason why Jesus didn’t harp on the Samaritan differences was that the OT church age was about to come to a close:

John 4:19 “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem …Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

So, Jesus basically said:  “You Samaritans don’t know what you are talking about, but the Jews do.  However, none of that matters anymore because a new era is dawning that will see the old covenant superseded; therefore, the point of disagreement concerning where to worship is no longer going to be an issue.”

The traditional translation and interpretation of John 4:22 has two major problems.

The first is while the verb "εἴδω" can be translated as "to know", it can also be translated as "to perceive".  Translating that verb as perceive makes the meaning of the first part of the verse clearer, for the Samaritan temple upon Mount Gezrim had been destroyed in the 2nd century BC.  "You Samaritans worship a temple that has been destroyed, we worship one that still stands."

The remainder of John 4:22 is asserting that salvation comes not from any particular place but comes from the line of Judah (the literal meaning of from the Jews).  That is, salvation comes from Jesus himself.  You'll need to come up with some other quote to convince me that the NT shows that Jesus treated the Samaritan version of the Five Books as inferior to the other versions.

if you can't see that Jesus took the Temple in Jerusalem as the legitimate historical temple site of the OT, as opposed to Samaritan version of scripture/history, then quoting scripture to you wont do any good.

as ALWAYS, you have issues with the scripture that force you to apologize for scripture all the time.  Unlike Jesus and the Apostles, who NEVER saw the need to diminish scripture, you simply can’t “roll with it”.

The fact that you feel the need to confront scripture each and every time you talk about it, shows that you are not on the same page with Jesus and the Apostles; for they NEVER did such a thing.  There’s really no difference between Derek’s view of scripture and yours.

Why shouldn't one confront scripture with the same tools of logic and reasoning that would be appropriate for any other text written by men?

are you accusing Jesus and Apostles of not using logic and reasoning in their approach to scripture?

No.  I'm accusing you of that.

Just to be clear, what I find illogical about your approach to scripture is that you begin with axioms concerning it and never consider whether those axioms are correct or even if they are important.

Ernest, I don't see how Jesus' rejection of the teachings of the Samaritans can even be called into doubt, given Jesus' visitation to the Temple of Jerusalem and making it clear that he thought the Temple was his Father's house, not Mt. Gezrim.  If he bought the Samaritan message, wouldn't he have tried to purify and cleanse his Father's house up on top of the mountain?

Furthermore, the Samaritans, while sola scriptura, only believed in a Bible that contained the Pentateuch alone, while Jesus etc. refer to the Prophets and the Writings extensively.

I see the ministry of Jesus as being a bit more universalist than the traditionalists view it Mikado.  The only significant difference between the Samaritans and the Jews was over where the temple was to be placed and who was to be the head priest.  They both worshiped God and both followed the Five Books.  Given that God seems to have done reasonably well these past twenty centuries without a house of his own, one has to wonder if the institution of a singular temple was established for God's purposes or for man's.

In the time of Jesus there was no temple atop Mt. Gerizim.  There was one in Jerusalem.  That Jesus accepted it as his father's house, need not imply that it was his father's only house.  Incidentally, the word usually translated as "high" in Luke 4:5 (and the other synoptic accounts of the devil tempting Jesus) is also translated as "exalted" or "esteemed" in Luke 16:15 (and other NT verses).  While it is highly speculative, might the "high" mountain to which the devil led Jesus been intended to be Mt. Gerizim?

have you come to torture Ernest with logic before the appointed time?

I answered Mikado's points.  If you have a stronger case to make, please make it.  At this time, that Jesus' living ministry was more inclusive of the Samaritans than is generally presumed is an impression rather than a firmly held position of mine.

No one agrees with your logic except Derek - Derek stated he was in near total agreement with you...and everyone thought Derek's logical skills SUCKED!

Ad hominem instead of logic.  I was hoping for better from you.