Superficially there are many types of Judaism and Christianity, often overlapping. For example, there are professedly religious Jews who defy Sabbath and the Christians who observe it. Reformist Judaism follows much of the practices of protestant Christianity. The issue of Jesus’ resurrection is practically insignificant. Suppose for a moment that Jews accepted the resurrection as a historical fact. What next? How does that change our life? Shall we abandon the commandments? No. Jesus told the crowd to do as the Pharisees teach, and that included the Oral Law codified in Talmud. Shall we follow an arbitrary apostolic set of rules? But James only commanded to abstain from blood; he told nothing about murder or stealing. Shall we assume those are not prohibited in Christianity? Shall the rule of positive reciprocity direct us? But how? Good Christians killed good Jews out of love for the fellow Christians. Love everyone is too vague to be practiced. Israel does not live with the Basic Law only, nor does America with the Bill of Rights. People need more detailed instructions. In Judaism, those are the commandments. Small communities of early Christians could abandon the law; their members were close and could love each other, even though Paul’s letters picture discontent communities. After Christianity has expanded, its legists arbitrarily reintroduced some commandments. Christians reject at least one of the Ten Commandments, the Sabbath, but accept the second-tier commandments such as prohibitions on usury and homosexuality.
The real difference between the two religions is practicality. Judaism is practical while Christianity - idealistic. Social teaching of Judaism is based on negative reciprocity, Do not do unto your neighbor what is hateful to you. Christianity enhanced that rule just a bit, and made it impractical. Positive reciprocity, Treat your neighbor as yourself, especially when neighbor means everyone, is unworkable. We cannot feed everyone before sitting down at our meal, nor could we help everyone in dire need before buying non-essential goods for ourselves. Idealism sounds great, but it is not. People who cannot practice rules abandon them. They need to rationalize the failure. The rule of positive reciprocity cannot be imagined wrong, and so they find wrong with it’s the rule’s objects. People not loved become demonized: look, even good Christians are unable to love them. Hatred to aliens is another side of the universal love. Christians cannot love the Jews who reject their teaching; many, therefore, hate the Jews.
Christian idealism caused the Jews many problems. Leftist political idealism of love and good faith settlement with enemies does likewise.
"The issue of Jesus' resurrection is insignificant," you say. Clearly, though, the resurrection of Jesus can only be insignificant if it didn't happen. If it DID happen, then that event vindicates the claims Jesus made about himself, which were also claims about God: "I and the Father are one", John 10:30; "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me", John 14:6, and so on. Jews or anyone else who rejects Christian teaching are therefore rejecting, or at best not fully appreciating, the truth about God, as God himself revealed it. How can that be insignificant? How small indeed is the gap between Christianity and Judaism. And how big!
But what is the practical difference? Suppose for a moment, I accept John's words about Jesus. What do I DO? Jesus said, Do like they [Pharisees] teach; Not one iota of the law will go; I did not come to break the law; and recommended the young man in Matthew to observe the law.What does Jesus' divinity change in practical terms, in daily lives?Note that some Jewish sects regarded Moses divine; that view was a mere curiousity. Whatever one thinks of Moses, the important part is the law.
What is the practical difference in daily lives? I'm sure, since you put the question so well, you know the answer, or rather the answers. But the very short answer is that in Christian teaching, faith in Christ supersedes the operation of the law. That is indeed the Christian understanding of the very passages you cite. In full, one of the key passages reads: "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished" (Matthew 5:17-18). The significance of this passage, in the Christian understanding, is that Christ is the fulfilment of the law for those who believe in him. As regards the operation of the law, the key words are the last four: "until all is accomplished". The Christian teaching is that all was accomplished in Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. That brings us back to where we started. Christ's resurrection can be insignificant only if it did not happen. But if it did happen, as Christians believe, it is the central event in human history."What do I DO?", you ask. Jesus was rather clear about that. "This do in remembrance of me," he said at the Last Supper (Luke 22:19). And then there's Luke 6:27-29, etc, etc. There's really no shortage of responses to make, so long as you believe. Just look at Paul.
To Keith: Sure, I know the exegesis. But how is it possible to read Matt5 thus? There's not a word about faith in the phrase. Jesus clearly adminishes to keep the law fully until the end of days.There are numerous other remarks of Jesus about the law. That his disciples violate Sabbath only while he is with them. Admonition to the young man to observe the law in full. Many.Ok, let's imagine for a moment that I accept the faith in divinity of Christ or resurrection of Jesus. That, in the traditional Christian thought , abrogates the law. How do I live? Yes, the traditional answer - emulate Jesus, but I'm not aware of any textual (the NT) support for that answer. John's Eucharist lacks the communion sense present in Lk. Breaking the bread, anyway, is not really a law, but merely a ritual. Note how did Paul struggle with the absence of law which he had just abrogated. He invented all sorts of prohibitions out of thin air, didn't he? Paul recognized that society needs a law, and did not see law in Jesus' sayings. What was Jesus' teaching besides the repeated urging to observe the law?Why abrogation of law is more central to history than the law's promulgation?
One thing I could never accept is the 'oral torah' of the rabbis [or christians]or anyone who adds and takes from what is written. Here is is main reason, I think, there are so many Jews who avoid what they think of as Torah.I am not Karaite, but you have obviously not read 'The Hebrew Yeshua vs. The Greek Jesus' by Nechemia Gordon. Well worth the read for thoses wondering if Yeshua taught the oral torah. He would have never taught against the Written Torah.
To Yochanan: Obadiah is critical of many excesses of the Talmudic legislation. He asserts general infallibility of Torah, but says that Talmudic rules and especially Shulhan Aruh were not intended for eternity. You can read Obadiah's views at http://samsonblinded.org/politically_incorrect_articles.htmWe expect to publish soon Obadiah's monumental book on the Judaic roots of Christianity.
The christian view is that Christ was sacrificed for our sins, the Lamb of God and resurrected. And by faith we recieve forgiveness of sins and the indwelling Holy Spirit by which we do good deeds from motives which are pure thus fulfilling the law.
Catholic Church, for example, denies that the faith alone atone but insists that the sinner change his ways. Without firm resolve to stop sinning, repentance itself is sinful.
Gospel faith is not mere intellectual accent, but truly leaning upon God and trusting Him as Abraham did when told to sacrifice His son Isaac. You cannot have gospel faith without having obedience at the same time. If you continue sinning you'd better examine yourself to see if you are in the faith as paul suggested in 2 Corinthians 13:5. Many people must be calling themselves Christians who are not yet circumcised in heart, but only believe intellectually. When things get rouph they will fall away.
THIS IS BIBLICAL JUDAISM:
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself." – Leviticus 19:18
positive and negative statements of the same
were discussed in Talmud (by schools of Hillel and Shammai)
nothing new from Christianity
Gentiles are supposed to follow NOAH Laws according to Bible, those who do should feel utmost respect to a person who told them so, otherwise, why would they listen?
difficult not to slip into worshipping that person, though understandable
If you understand the christianity (from the greek word "xristos" or anointed) is actually a faith begot by jews: Yeshua was a jew, Kefas (Peter), Shaul (Paul), Miriam (Mary), James (Yaakov), etc. Around a million jews who kept the Torah became believers in Yeshua as the Mashiach of Israel. On the second century were the greeks who took over the Messianic Kehila, and started calling it the Church. When emperor Constantine proclaimed his edict in 325 A.D. the roman misthraists (Mithraism was the empire religion: worship of the sun, rosaries, nuns, monks, prayers for the dead, the waffle, etc) mixed with the greek and roman "christians" funding the Roman Catholic Church, the sameone that killed millions of jews in the crusades, Holy Inquisition in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy, and lately the killing of 6 million jews thanks to the nazi troops blessed by the catholic cardinals in Germany and Europe. Just remember that christianity, and I mean real christianity is the daughter of jews who accepted Yeshua, not the european version of Jesus, as their Mashiach. The Brit Hadashach or New Testament is entirely a jewish sacred writing. Baruch Hashem!
christianity is, and must be, the continuation of the Jewish faith. Yeshua did not come to creat His own form of religion. That is the reason that you can see in the book of acts of the apostles the following 15:21: "For the Law of Moses has been read for a very long time in the synagogues every Sabbath (no Sundays), and his words are preached in every town (of the world). For gentiles who accepted Yeshua, it was like converting to Judaism. This is what the texts says. So every christian is expected to go back to the hebraic roots of christianity and understand that being a Jew or Yehudim (those who praise Adonay) is for everyone. So, next time you discriminate against Jews, remember that you are discriminating against your faith roots.
Christianity is Not a continuation of the Jewish faith. It is based on a totally different theological premise.
According to Rambam, our greatest Jewish theological leader God is "a Unity unlike any other unity" and is incorporeal, indivisible and unknowable and omnipotent. This belief is the core of our religion and has been the main point of agreement and common belief of All factions of Judaism, and all Israelites including Samaritans, Karaites, Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Hasidic, etc., etc., etc. Christianity denies this core non-negotiable belief of all Jews and Israelites. Therefore Christianity is Not a continuation of Judaism, but a totally different religion.
But Trinity is no central to Christianity. It was doctrinized in the fifth century, at which points its Christian opponents were massacred.
Danny, you have a good point. The Trinity was not central to Christianity originally. However, from the fifth century it has become central to Christianity.
Therefore that is why I say that Christianity is Not a continuation of Judaism, but a totally different religion.
Dave, Let me explain to you something: Judaism had no problem with understanding that Adonay could manifest Himself as a human being. If you read from the Bible Genesis 18, there are three men who appeared to Abraham and he calls one Adonay Elohim. And the man who was worshipped by Joshua 5:14-15, how come Joshua worshipped a man? Unless this man is Hashem himself? So, if Yashuah is God Himself, who are you to say that God can't become a man and give His body to die for all mankind? In Dany'el 9:26, you can read that the Temple was going to be destroyed, but before this happened the MOSHIACH was going to be cut off! Who is the Moshiach? and is a man who dies for Israel in Yeshayahu 53 for the sins of mankind, not the people of Israel. That is the reason Hashem did not want any more sacrifices at the Temple, since Yeshuah was the last Korban!
Sorry, Roger, I cannot agree with you.
Judaism does not accept God manifesting God's self as a man. This is totally contrary to any form of Judaism. If any individual Jews said this, they were heretics. You can interpret the Tanach in any way you want. However your interpretation is totally inconsistent with Judaism. Your interpretation is a Christian interpretation. Be happy in your Christian faith. Leave me alone in my Jewish faith.
We, the Jews believe that God will never deign to lower God's divine self to our finite human level. God does not do so because God maintains God's Divinity, which is far above all human finite considerations.
Once again, please again enjoy your Christian faith. We are Jews and we love worshipping the One God, a Unity Unlike all Other Unities, and far above your or my puny human understanding. We Jews shall never ever change, so you are frankly wasting your time to try to change our minds. Ask any rabbi or any believing Jew- they will all tell you- Judaism believes that God is beyond human understanding- a Unity unlike any other Unity. We do not believe in a God-Man, which you obviously do. "My ways are not thy ways, saith the Eternal". From a Jewish perspective, your interpretation of the Tanach is heretical and not acceptable. From a Christian perspective you are perfectly right. However, we are Jews, we are not Christian, and we shall never ever become Christian. Believing that God manifests God's self in human form is totally contrary to all Reform/ Conservative/ Orthodox/ Karaite Jewish teaching, and is also contrary to Samaritan Israelite teaching.
So enjoy your own religion. You, as a Christian, are part of a huge religion- more than 1 billion people worldwide. Why do you care about us Jews, who are only 13 million people worldwide?