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Judaism and Christianity
Manning'sEquation
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Hello,
I have an acquaintance who I would call an extreme "back to basics" Christian. He believes that in order to follow Jesus' teachings you must first understand his history, his culture and his religion. Since it is important to him to "fully" understand Jesus' religion he follows a form of the Jewish Law. For instance he does not eat pork, he wears a cloth over his head when he prays, and he follows certain laws on the Sabbath.
My acquaintance’s adherence to Jewish law made me begin to question the different modern dominations within the Jewish faith, since my knowledge of the Jewish faith stems mostly from the Old Testament and the New Testament (pareses, and seduces). I went to Wikipedia and found theses articles describing different Jewish denominations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructionist_Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaite_Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Renewal
To the Practicing Jew: How did you decide which denomination of Judaism to follow? What is the preferred mechanism for change in the doctrine of the Jewish faith?
To the Practicing Christian: How strong of a link do you see between the Judaism and Christianity? Should modern Christian follow the Law of Moses more closely than we currently do today?
To everyone: Discuss the differences in the denominations and please add any personal stories or events that Wikipedia has left out.
I have an acquaintance who I would call an extreme "back to basics" Christian. He believes that in order to follow Jesus' teachings you must first understand his history, his culture and his religion. Since it is important to him to "fully" understand Jesus' religion he follows a form of the Jewish Law. For instance he does not eat pork, he wears a cloth over his head when he prays, and he follows certain laws on the Sabbath.
My acquaintance’s adherence to Jewish law made me begin to question the different modern dominations within the Jewish faith, since my knowledge of the Jewish faith stems mostly from the Old Testament and the New Testament (pareses, and seduces). I went to Wikipedia and found theses articles describing different Jewish denominations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructionist_Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaite_Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Renewal
To the Practicing Jew: How did you decide which denomination of Judaism to follow? What is the preferred mechanism for change in the doctrine of the Jewish faith?
To the Practicing Christian: How strong of a link do you see between the Judaism and Christianity? Should modern Christian follow the Law of Moses more closely than we currently do today?
To everyone: Discuss the differences in the denominations and please add any personal stories or events that Wikipedia has left out.
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Nowadays, the main differences between the Jewish sects is how closely they follow the Mosaic laws (and the commentaries, the Talmud). And of course, which laws they follow determine which traditions they keep, etc.
Paul is clearly against the need for the OT law. He never says that Christians would be wrong to follow the laws of the Old Testament, but his theology is consistent in its view that the laws are no longer necessary if you have a faith in Christ. By becoming a Christian, your obedience to Christ essentially replaces your obedience to the OT law from a salvific standpoint.
However, there were apparently disagreements in the early Christian community and one of Paul's letters, Galatians, bears witness to this. The letter is essentially Paul's reprimand to the Galatians for following a rival Christian sect. This rival sect apparently preached, contrary to Paul, the need for Christians to follow all the OT commandments, in particular circumcision. And Paul is fucking pissed:
And again later in the letter, Paul accuses this rival sect of "bewitching" the Galatians with their claim that following the laws are necessary:
Paul counters this rival sect by, first of all, asserting his own magical authority. He then makes a rather poor argument about Abraham's inheritance. In any case, though, it would seem that Paul's non-law theology won out over this rival sect's, since Paul's letters were preserved in the canon and the rival sect's were not.
However, the gospel of Matthew seems to contain a direct repudiation of Paul's theology.
Most scholars date the gospels to around 70-100 A.D., decades after Paul wrote his letters (around 50 A.D.). So it is entirely possible that the author of Matthew was familiar with Paul's theology and disagreed. Also, the above passage seems to make direct reference to Paul himself: Paul called himself the "least of the apostles" because unlike the other apostles he never met Jesus. I personally view this passage as a smackdown on Paul.
So your friend is not alone. It looks like there was a significant movement of early Christians who believed that Christians really should follow all the NT laws—although this theology only survives in Matthew and obliquely in Paul's letters.
I guess for me, being pragmatically atheist and hopefully agnostic, the whole idea of religion just frightens and irritates me.
If by "good relationship" you mean fed to lions then yes early christians and romans were best friends.
Let's look at a brief overview of the history of Judaism.
• 1000 B.C. The Hebrew tribes split up their civilization into a northern kingdom, Israel, and a southern kingdom, Judah. (The word "Jews" comes from "Judah.")
• 720 B.C. The Assyrian empire conquers the northern kingdom and scatters the Hebrews living there.
• 585 B.C. The Babylonian empire conquers the southern kingdom. They scatter and enslave the Jews living there, and they destroy the Temple of Solomon, believed to be the house where Yahweh lived.
• 538 B.C. The Persian empire conquers the Babylonian empire. The Persians let the Jews come back and rebuild the Temple.
• 331 B.C. Alexander the Great conquers the Persian empire and gains control of the Jews from them.
• 168 B.C. Jews rebel against their Greek overlords and succeed in establishing an independent state for the first time in 700 years....
• 63 B.C. ...but then they get conquered, yet again, this time by the Romans.
• 70. A.D. The Romans, in response to a Jewish revolt, destroy the second Temple and scatter the Jews once again.
It's not hard to see how Jews living in Rome would be disillusioned with their religious text. Yahweh's promises were not being fulfilled. The Jews were conquered by one empire after another. The old laws were often impossible to follow (especially the laws of conquest). And I think many Jews were impressed with these empires, which were much more advanced than any Hebrew civilization.
During Jesus' time, there were a number of different Jewish sects. Some, like the zealots, staged violent revolutions against their Roman rulers and tried to institute a Jewish state. The destruction of the Temple and the battle at Massada are examples of the Roman military response to the zealots' revolution.
Other Jews, like the Pharisees and Saducees, were content to live under Roman rule and pay their taxes to Rome, and in exchange Rome basically left them alone in their little niches and allowed them to have their own mini-societies. Such groups needed to interpret the Old Testament because, by being subservient to Roman rule they were contradicting many literal injuctions in the OT—this is where the rabbinic tradition came from.
Still other Jews, like the Essenes lived in remote enclaves on the edge of society. They practiced ascetic traditions and emphasized spiritual cleanliness.
Other Jews, like Josephus, sought to integrate fully into Roman society. They were proud of the Jewish history and tradition but did not appear to feel strongly about following the religion (much like many Jews living in secular society today).
All Jews were greatly influenced by Greek and Roman thought. Jewish texts at the time of Jesus show a familiarity with Ptolemaic cosmology (seven heavenly spheres, a round earth)—very different from the flat-earth cosmology of the Old Testament. Jews became familiar with Aristotle's unmoved mover argument and applied it to Yahweh, which is where our strict conception of modern monotheism comes from. (The OT version of Yahweh is more polytheistic and the OT refers explicitly to other gods). Roman Jews (and later, Christians) were also familiar with dualism, Plato's forms, spirit vs. matter, and all that philosophical mumbo jumbo, which they happily applied to their own religion (look at all the spirit vs. flesh stuff in the NT).
My point here is that Judaism in late antiquity was incredibly diverse. Paul's railing against "the Jews" is an oversimplification. It is better to look at it as sectarian, as one sect of pseudo-Jews railing against other sects of pseudo-Jews. Paul saw his theology as the rightful continuation of Judaism, not necessarily as a new religion. Paul's theology was really a logical outgrowth of the dissatisfaction many Jews at the time were feeling with the way their religion was headed, and the inefficacy of the OT laws.
I think you are right to point out that Christians were hesitant to attack Romans, but they certainly didn't like the Romans. Revelation is gleeful vicarious experience of God coming down and killing the Romans. "Babylon," the previous evil occupier of the Jews, is a code word for "Rome."
Amen. It's amazing that people can believe any of this shit.
Well, Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. NO ONE comes to the Father except through Me." In Acts, there's a verse that says, "There is NO other name under heaven by which men must be saved."
There are lots of wonderful people who aren't saved. Being great, nice people doesn't get you into heaven. It's only through Jesus. So I don't see a lot of links, beyond the shared history, between Jews and true Christians. Jews will unfortunately go to hell when they die, which is why they really shouldn't be Jews.
Yeah... popular misconception. Typically Christians being fed to lions were for other reasons, not just because they were Christian. Turns out the Romans fed a lot of people to lions. And even then the number of Christians fed to lions was extremely small.
http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-5954907-1552633?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175455004&sr=8-1
The more you know and all that...
Good Point, Christians believe the people who practice the modern Judaism will go to hell. However, the topic I wish to discuss is, as a Christian we are called to "be like Christ." Jesus was a Jew. So, to what extent should Christians follow Jewish law? In the New Testament Jesus speaks on several points of the old law but he does cover all of the old law. I have heard many Christians frame the conflict as the difference between legalism (Judaism) and the spirit of the law (Christianity). I.E. if you lust in your heart for anther man's wife it is the same as committing the act of adultery.
You could believe Paul, who says the law was just a "schoolmaster" and is now obselete.
Or you could believe the author of Matthew, who seems to side with Paul's opponents in saying that following all the laws will make you "greatest" in the kingdom of heaven.
Paul never says following the law is wrong (it's holy, just, and good, according to Romans), just unnecessary. So you could simply follow the laws to play it safe.
Of course, that would entail stoning unbelievers and homosexuals and forcing virgin rape victims to marry their rapists. Good luck with that.
As a result, many Christian believe that to be Jewish is to follow the old Covenant, which God had essentially "retconned".
Basically, Jesus is the cop who you can flash your boobs at to get out of your speeding ticket.
This is why I lean toward “the spirit†of the Old Testament Laws interpretation. Still what relevance does history, race, and religion, play in respect to Jesus' teachings? Obviously these factors do not override his teachings, but I think it is foolish to ignore these factors completely. Where is the balance?
Retconning is a good way of putting it though. It's difficult to really discuss the whole doctrine since it is so fraught with logical contradictions, though.
Where to begin (at least so as I am not sitting here for hours)?
For those who are interested in approaching the formation of both Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism through a more rigorous historical approach there are a couple basic things to get your brain around. The most important is that from 66-73 CE there was a massive war in the Roman province of Judea. The Roman Legions were, of course, victorious and in 70 CE Jerusalem was besieged and essentially leveled. This included the spiritual and physical hub of all forms of the Yahweh faith (including the followers of one Yeshua of Nazareth): The Temple. In its incarnation at the time Herod's temple was probably the largest and most impressive religious structure in the known world. More than that it was the spiritual center of all forms of the Yahweh faith. I cannot in a few sentences here possibly convey just what a shock the destruction of the temple was. It is truly a miracle that any form of the Yahweh faith survived at all, let alone that two different forms would grow and flourish out of The Destruction. In terms of its influence on the development of Christianity the only event which possibly matches The Destruction in its influence is the Resurrection itself. A spiritual universe had come to an end.
But this creates an enormous dilemma for anyone interested in actually trying to figure out what Yeshua of Nazareth believed or taught. With the exception of the letters of Saul (greek version: Paul) which seem to be authentic (only about half of them, the rest being written much later and assigned to Saul) all of the new testament is post 70 CE. Each of the gospels, in its own way, is an attempt to construct a Temple religion in a world in which the Temple no longer exists in a physical sense. The formation of Rabbinic Judaism is a different solution to the same problem.
So, Yeshua lived in one spiritual world, the authors of the gospels in another. In terms of authorship no-one knows who wrote any of the new testament (again, with the exception of the few authentic letters of Saul). The names Mark, Matthew, Luke, John were assigned to the anonymous gospels in the late 2nd century. While it seems possible that whoever wrote Luke may have also been involved in the creation of The Acts of the Apostles it is far from certain and it doesn't tell us anything about who that person was. In terms of which order the gospels were written in, this is also far from certain. The majority of scholars find Mark to have been written first (though it is still definitely post 70) but even among this group there are different theories. While all of the gospels are post 70 CE, there is no hard reason to date any of them to any particular time between 70 CE and probably the revolt which occurred in many Roman cities around 115 CE (as it is exactly the kind of thing they would have mentioned). It is vital to not fall into the trap of assuming that because a given source is about earlier events (or is more detailed) that it is in fact written earlier or based on better data.
The point of this aside is to hammer home two points: 1) The authentic letters of Saul are the only bits of the new testament for whom the author is known and which occur prior to The Destruction and 2) the writers of the gospels (whoever they may be) lived in a very different world than Yeshua of Nazareth. While Saul never met Yeshua himself and had a very different mission he did have ample opportunity to interact with the "pillars" of the Jerusalem community: Yacov, Peter (Cephas) and John son of Zebedee. Yacov (aka: James) in particular, as one of Yeshua's surviving brothers, was the head of the Jerusalem community and pre 70 the single most important figure in the Yeshua faith. Possibly after a falling out with Peter (depends on some uncertain dating of the debate in Antioch) Saul was summoned to Jerusalem and eventually hammered out a deal to allow him to continue his mission (Saul pays them a hefty sum on money and they let him preach to the gentiles). It is important to note that at this meeting Saul's teachings were considered sufficiently valid by the family and surviving disciples of Yeshua. Thus, despite never having met him and only really giving a damn about Yeshua as a post-resurrection cosmic figure, Saul seems to have been considered acceptably knowledgeable by those who were in a position to know.
The point I am hovering around here is that the gospels were written towards a very specific goal: somehow find a way to survive in the new post-destruction era. And towards that end they are works of pure genius. Each melds together various symbols from second-temple Judaism into the figure of Yeshua to create Jesus-The-Christ. But as sources for the historical Yeshua, they need to be read carefully. There was a definite need post 70 to minimize the importance of the now destroyed Jerusalem church and Yeshua's family (all the nonsense about Mary being a perpetual virgin and Yeshua not having any brothers / sisters were a late 6th century addition). There is also a growing anti-jewish (and anti-pharisee) sentiment from one gospel to the next. This is because at the same time that Christianity was starting to form as an entity distinct from the rest of the Yaweh faith Rabbinic Judaism was forming from the remnants of the Pharisees. As Christianity became more distinct it came into more conflict with these groups.
It is vital to recognize that this anti-jewish sentiment was a post destruction phenomenon. Saul was most certainly a devout and halachially strict Judaist. Everything that he said about Yeshua (and what can be gleaned from the gospels) indicates that he too was well within the boundaries of what was acceptable for a second-temple Judaist. On at least one topic (divorce) Saul disagrees with Yeshua's interpretation of the 613 commandments in that he finds Yeshua to be too strict (moreso even than in the laws of Moses). Yeshua himself is never recorded as having preached to gentiles and in fact makes several statements to the effect that his word only matters for other Judaists. This is why, for example, an issue which is a big deal in Saul's mission (circumcision) is never mentioned by Yeshua: he took it for granted that everyone he preached to or cared about already was.
Damn, I've already gone on a lot longer than I intended and I haven't even touched on the incredible diversity of late second temple Judaism. Anyway, I hope that those of you who are interested (especially those who may disagree with any of the above) will check out the books I mentioned. Those are good as a starting point but there is a vast amount of fascinating material on the subject. In the last 60 years or so more new source material (Qumran, Nag Hamadi, Dead Sea Scrolls etc...) has been discovered than in the last 1000 combined. It is very much a living field.
If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are caught in the act, the man who lay with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman’s father, and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives.
The spirit of the law seems, to me, to be that God thinks women are property and that rape is not punishable as a crime.
Are you saying that God's teachings are influenced by history and race? It sounds like you're saying Jesus was a regular person like any other ancient philosopher. How could God be the product of his environment?
In the Old Testament, God brags that the laws are so just and full of wisdom that they will be perfect for all time, and other societies will look upon them with awe and wonder. (Deuteronomy 4:2).
If you look at it historically if a woman was violated it was seen as her fault and she was killed or she did not marry later (see tribal customs). The spirit of the law is to take responsiblity for your actions. Since women were considered property according to tribal custom, you could use the phase "you break it, you buy it for life."
The spirit of that law is take responsiblity for your mistakes.
Unless you're a woman.
The Old Law was not written toward women. You must understand the tribal society though which the law was given.
Christianity does not require you to follow the old law. This brings me back to my original point. Where is the line between the Old Law and Christianity? How much influence does the Law of the Old Convent have on the New Convent?
I believe the concept of the new covenant with Jesus being a retcon of the old covenant is correct. The Jewish laws are only supposed to apply to Jews, so unless you are a Jew through matrilineal descent, you really don't have to bother. And even if your friend is, because of the new covenant, we really don't need to observe the old. I believe Paul and Peter had some debates over this, you may want to look into that.
I do admire your friend though-- a great way to understand where Jesus was coming from is through learning of the beliefs and practices of his day. Since he was a practicing Jew, learning and understanding that religion may make you feel closer to him.
Also, I believe the Catechism says something to the effect that, after the Fall of Man, God wished to save everyone, and decided to start by having a relationship with the Hebrew people, and they would be the "root" by which the other "branches" of the world would attach. In this way, God is not necessarily racist for having a chosen people, and it explains why the preaching to Gentiles came so late. What's more, because the Jews were the first to hear God's call and have such a special relationship with him, it is commonly believed in the post-Vatican II world that Jews may also be saved, though the Church maintains that the only sure way is through itself.
Anyway, this is all very informative stuff guys, keep it up.
You mean Convenant, right?
The problem with this thinking is that if you start making exceptions due to cultural/temporal differences, you open up a can of worms that opens up the ancient texts to all kinds of interpretation.
People anywhere can then say "oh, that doesn't count 'cause things were different back then".
You'll never get anyone to agree on a line in the sand as long a people think they can force their own interpretation on others.
That's why many (like myself) say bollocks to the whole thing and become hopeful agnostics until we get something a little more solid to base our beliefs on.
God doesn't seem to think that the law only applies to the particular tribal society of the Hebrews. He says the law that virgins are supposed to marry their rapist is so impressive that we're supposed to sit here today in our American society and marvel at the justice and wisdom of such a law. I don't see much marveling on your part, just excuses.
Pauline Christianity doesn't. How do you interpret Matthew 5:17? You don't want to be called "least" in heaven, do you?
Christianity without any reference to the law has a name: it's called Gnosticism. It views Jesus as the link between humanity and the real god, who is separate from the evil demiurge who created the world and wrote the Old Testament.
On the other side of the spectrum you have people like the theonomists who interpret Matthew 5:17 as a commandment to follow all the OT laws.
It seems like where you fall on the spectrum depends on how seriously you take the Bible.
It improved over the Code of Hammurabi by forbidding punishing children for their parents' crimes. But the Code of Hammurabi lacks the Bible's cultic obsession with ritual purity and virginity. It also lacks the Bible's capital punishments for unbelievers, homosexuals, astrologers, etc. It also lacks the Bible's commands for genocide.
I think you have poor taste in "traditions."
I was referring moreso to modern Jews, I guess. Those rules aren't really observed nowadays. The kosher rules remind me of the Lenten abstaining from meat (Fish Fridays), and the Mass actually is based on a Passover seder. Methinks you took my comment to seriously.
I think getting to stomp on a glass at a wedding is perhaps the coolest tradition ever conceived. You get to break stuff, right in a place of worship.
A: Everyone was initially orthodox, and
B: Some of the orthodox texts were impossible to follow in America
This is a perfect example of the Old Law given to the Jewish people. Here is a rough explanation of the Christian point of view of the New Covenant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Covenant
Part of the new covenant is a release from obeying the Old Covenant or Old Laws. However, I am interested in the Old Laws in a historical sense. I want to know about the Laws of Moses historically sense they were around when Jesus was also around. Just like someone 2000-3500 years in the future might be interested in our current laws.
I want to better understand the complete history surrounding Jesus to better understand his teachings. The culture Jesus lived in is important to me, but Jesus' culture does not overrule his teachings.
P.S.- If you don't have anything useful to add supabeat then don't post in this thread please.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Christians
The TL;DR effect, I imagine.
The purpose being to show how penis-obsessed they were...?
Frankly, how anyone can take religion seriously is completely beyond me.
They literally voted on which texts to include in it, based on what they wanted to be considered The Truth.
It's not anywhere near a united document, like the Quran. But that's also what allows people to IGNORE the bad parts so easily, which is why you don't have to worry about too many people even in deep woods Alabama say "Well, he raped you, gotta marry him now."
I struggle with this also, though I have not directly investigated it. I will look into this subject next after I have completed this investigation.
The Christian line is the Jesus is the messiah talked about in the Old Testament. He came to fulfill the prophesies and the law. Once Jesus died on the cross we (Christians) are not held to old covenant, but he are held to the new covenant through Jesus Christ.
I can see what you are saying though, Islam, and Mormonism use the same line of "Our book is newer so it must be more right" approach.
I read it. It's really good; I love you, Riemann. For me, it's more the "wow I don't know enough to discuss that intelligently" effect.
Same here please post some more or link me to something I would like to learn more.