a big part of the Christian tradition is carrying forward (in a modified way) the mythology of Judaism - a fact that should be considered anytime one is talking about Christian ideas.
that's as may be - but where these christian ideas treat judaism as a straw man, as a draft which needs christian redrafting, or as anything less than a self-sufficient, well-integrated system of thought, then i take issue with it. the very phrase "old testament" implies a new one; needless to say it is not a jewish name.
I'm having trouble seeing where I said that Judaism is "christianty minus jesus."
sorry - no, you didn't say that exactly, but most often when people say "judeo-christian" they have no idea about the judeo bit of it and consequently ascribe ideas and opinions to judaism which are at best misleading and at worst highly prejudicial.
quahom1 said:
The original concept of "Christianity" was conceived of and brought to fruition by Jews. Christianity was preached inside Jewish Synogogues for almost 250 years before the eventual split between the two "systems" of faith. The split was not due to a difference in belief concerning God, but rather interpetations of law. Proto-Christians who became "Gnostics" shunned the old testament, wherein the Jews relied heavily upon it. The Gnostics' arrogance enraged the Jews, and the Jewish stubborness bred contempt within the Gnostics.
actually, the problem was that the proto-christians said jesus was the messiah and the majority jewish community decided that he wasn't. furthermore, the proto-christians insisted that the authority of jesus could overrule the Torah. neither of these things are issues you can gloss over. when you bring the gnostics into it, the problem of the Unity of the Divine arises; again, not something judaism can relinquish.
Basically they agreed to take "the ball" and go to their respect homes, because they couldn't agree on the rules of the game.
actually, from the Talmudic PoV, it was more a case of "we're playing football, you're insisting the ball can be carried and be a different shape and that means it isn't football any more", the result being that the christians had to go off and build their own stadium for playing rugby in.
Judaic-Christianity is in fact the correct way of describing the following of Jesus the Christ (the Jewish Carpenter and Rabbi, of extraordinary knowledge and insight).
nobody is saying he wasn't a rabbi, or a carpenter, or a man of extraordinary knowledge and insight. in fact, many of the things he said are entirely compatible with rabbinic judaism (the sermon on the mount being a good example) - but what we are saying is that he wasn't the messiah, for the good reason that the messianic age didn't come about, the Temple was destroyed and the jews went into a 2000-year exile. it just doesn't make sense.
Jesus WAS Jewish. He was a priest.
actually, according to the genealogy that has him directly descending in the male line from king david (whether or not you place credence in that) and that would make him a member of the tribe of judah. the priests or kohanim are members of the tribe of levi, male-line descendants of the family of aaron. he can't be both. you cannot inherit both the
keter malkhut and the
keter kehuna.
The core of Christian faith is based on the life and teachings of a Jewish Rabbi. Can't have one without the other.
you can if he teaches something which contradicts the Torah as interpreted by normative jewish opinion. if you understand how jewish law and legal authority works, it makes perfect sense to respect jesus as a reformer but not as an authoritative interpreter of the halakha, as the debate over his desecration of the sabbath ought to show.
Judaism is the root of the tree of which I am a branch.
i'd say it's more like the tree that your seed came from, but your tree is a separate tree nowadays, although in the beginning they were one.
b'shalom
bananabrain
