Hey Path. Enjoyed the comradarie with you and yours and me and mine.
Likewise!
Jesus may have originally come for the Jews, but knew before hand he would be rejected. But everytime in the NT, his message was gladly received by non Jews, who were astounded at the fact that God loved them as well as the chosen.
I thought some Jews and some non-Jews accepted Him, and lots of Jews and non-Jews didn't. Basically, the disciples were Jews and they accepted Him, and a bunch of folks in those massive crowds accepted Him and were Jewish. Then some Gentile folks also accepted Him, but a slew of Romans (no doubt, given the "end" of the Gospel story) did not, which continued on with the persecution of Christians until Constantine decided to make Christianity the state religion.
In reality, it seems as if the Jews are mind knowledgeable of God, while gentiles are "heart" knowledgeable.
I don't think this is the case. I see some Jews today that are mind-knowledgable and others who are heart-knowledgable. Same goes for Christians. That's just been my observation. I honestly have not seen much difference in actual practice across a great variety of religions- it seems you get a lot of folks just along for the ride, some folks that are concerned about rules and doctrines all the time, some folks that are all about personal experience and connection with Divine, etc. no matter which faith you pick. I guess that is probably due to personality differences more than anything else.
Like so many of us, the heart and the head don't always have a clear connection, so both miss something important from the other.
I wholeheartedly agree with that!
Why they were able to maintain their collective identity for 2000 years, with no country is a mystery, but with it came a certain arrogance and pride, that can be irksome to enraging.
I haven't personally dealt with much arrogance (any more than any group) with Jewish people I know, but we each have our own experiences. I find most people in life are, to some degree, arrogant and prideful- of their religion, their nationality, their ethnicity, their occupation- something. It's that troublesome self-centeredness that occurs in all humans and is at the root of our problems... I'm not that surprised they were able to maintain a collective identity though. Frequently they have been isolated or segregated in other societies, they have often had enclaves, and they have a variety of cultural traits that give them solidarity.
Countries/nations are a recent human innovation. Ethnic/tribal/group solidarity is much older. Everyone used to maintain cultural continuity without the benefit of an associated nation-state, so it's more ordinary than it seems.
But the commandments (Noahidic), are meant to be for all, including Jews. The Hebrew commandments, were written on tablets of stone, as an addition (I guess because the Noahidic commandments written in every man's heart just wasn't enough for some people)...
As I understood it, the Noahid laws were a smaller subset of the 10 commandments but very similar. The Jews have 613 mitzvot, not just the 10 commandments. From what I pieced together, the story is that God tried to give the mitzvot to all variety of peoples on earth but no one wanted it but the Jews, so they became "chosen" as a special people to show the world a right way of living given to them by God. I wish bananabrain or dauer would answer this... But that is what I'd read so far. It wasn't a matter of "we are so special" but "we were willing to do this."
If Jesus was concerned about a western flavor, then why did He reach out to the west? Maybe because we had no bad habits concerning laws, rituals, and the like (which and plug up the channel between Head and Heart)?
I don't think Jesus was concerned with flavors, but I also don't think it was meant to take on many of the meanings and practices it did. All we have to do is look at things like the Inquisition and Crusades to see the extreme of Jesus' message being misintepreted and misapplied. Personally, I think Jesus' message is pretty flexible in terms of how it integrates with religion. I find that it integrates with lots of traditions (including my Druidic one) just fine. However, one must always be alert to twisting the message, no matter what one's religious/ethnic/ancestral background. I think understanding some of the Jewish roots help in that regard.
As for having bad habits, I think all human societies (more or less) had bad habits. Most of the Gentile world that took up Christianity early on certainly had the trappings of law, ritual, and so forth and in most cases the priests were tied firmly to the governmental powers in some way by the time of Christ. The peoples that were most free from law, ritual, etc. were probably your tribal and band level animists with their shamans. But those people didn't get much of Christianity for hundreds or even thousands of years in many/most cases. By that time, Christianity had reinvented the trappings (law, ritual, etc.) and tied itself to government powers, thereby twisting the original practice (in some cases, I think, beyond recognition).
Did Christ's message still shine through? In many cases, yes. But that doesn't excuse poor or misleading doctrine and practice. It's kind of a making lemonade out of lemons scenario to me. God's will always triumphs, but we sure could help out and make it easier on everyone by uniting a sincerity of seeking (heart-attitude) with study and contemplation (mind-discipline).
