A law, even though divine, is potent only so long as the conditions and circumstances of life, to meet which it was enacted, continue; when these change, however, the law also must be abrogated, even though it have God for its author. For God himself has shown indubitably that with the change of the circumstances and conditions of life for which He once gave those laws, the laws themselves cease to be operative, that they shall be observed no longer because can be observed no longer.
Samuel Holdheim, the first rabbi of the Reform congregation in Berlin, 1845
in Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1997) 53.
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