Comparison of Christianity and Judaism

[roger1440]

This passage sounds devilish. Because our freewill is more powerful than the devil. we can have evil thoughts (and people say that it's Satan who tempts us)
but there is a big difference between thinking something and put it into action.
so thinking about killing someone is not the same thing as actually doing it.

"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5:28)​

 

[Estro Felino]

"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5:28)​

you think that the law of men is different than the God's law .
actually it isn't. Thoughts can't hurt anybody. actions can.
In fact nobody is imprisoned for saying "I was thinking to kill him"

 

[sojourner]

you think that the law of men is different than the God's law .
actually it isn't. Thoughts can't hurt anybody. actions can.
In fact nobody is imprisoned for saying "I was thinking to kill him"

If I think anyone with black skin is worthless and inhuman, that thought diminishes the worth of people, which is violence. Violence hurts people. Thoughts are things.

 

[Ingledsva]

"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5:28)​

"In his heart"


This verse is a warning that you have started the process that will lead to the actual sin - so guard your thoughts.



*

 

[roger1440]

you think that the law of men is different than the God's law .
actually it isn't. Thoughts can't hurt anybody. actions can.
In fact nobody is imprisoned for saying "I was thinking to kill him"

The person is imprisoned by there own mind.

 

[roger1440]

"In his heart"


This verse is a warning that you have started the process that will lead to the actual sin - so guard your thoughts.



*

You should not covet your neighbor's ***
Exodus 20:17

 

[Ingledsva]

You should not covet your neighbor's ***
Exodus 20:17

LOL! I've done that a few times.


But I digress -


Same thing. Don't "covet" something (yearn to possess or have,) (what isn't yours,) because eventually you will probably go for it.



*

 

[metis]

Concerning the Torah, Hillel summarized it as, “That which is hateful to you, do not do unto others… All the rest is explanation… Go and study it.” Hillel was not downplaying any of the Torah but expressing the spirit of it. The man who had asked the ‘standing on one leg’ question had previously been run off by Shammai who was much more concerned with the letter of the law.

What Jesus opposed was the obsession with the plethora of ‘man made’ laws. Mark (Mk 7) and Matthew (Mt 15) illustrate this in the confrontation with the Jerusalem Pharisees. They criticize the absence of the hand washing ritual before eating. Rather than a sanitary measure, this was to ensure that tithes given to the priests would not ritually contaminate the priests. It was to be done all the time, not just prior to giving tithes. This is not explicitly in the Torah but was an elaboration of the requirement for bathing before presenting tithes to allow more common tithing. It is this kind of often self-serving obsession with rule making that Jesus opposed.

Jesus then proceeds to lambast the Pharisees over the korban practice. Korban simply means sacrifice. In this context, it referred to the pledging of property to the Temple, e.g., on one’s death. This was interpreted to mean that one could never use that property for any other purpose even if one’s parents desperately needed help. Jesus pointed out that the man-made rule contradicted the God-given command to honor one’s parents. We have already seen that Jesus considered the action commandments of the Decalogue to be of primary importance.



Deuteronomy 24 specifies the rules for divorce, primarily that the husband writes a bill of divorce and gives it to her wife. By the time of Jesus, these rules had become elaborated in legalistic fashion. In Mark (Mk 10) and Matthew (Mt 19) Jesus speaks against not only the elaborations as might be expected but against the idea of divorce itself. He leaves only the wife’s adultery as a legitimate qualification. As justification he cites Genesis (Gen 2) that man and woman are joined as one flesh. Here is a stronger than usual case of Jesus cutting through legalisms and getting back to basics. (Amos would have been proud.) It should be noted that Jesus was not advocating stepping outside any scriptural laws but making them stricter in accordance to what he saw as the original intent of God.

I do not see Jesus defining adultery. He does comment that a man who divorces his wife for reasons other than ‘fooling around’ and marries another commits adultery and that if she remarries it is also adultery. Jesus is noting that sex outside of (legitimate) marriage is adultery but does rely define adultery. What about unmarried people having sex? Is that adultery? Cannot say from these passages.

I also do not see how this relates to internalizing love. Please explain.



Looking at the several stories concerning kosher dietary laws and other practices, it seem to me that Jesus never intended to step outside any legitimate scripture based requirements, only the ‘mad-made’ elaborate elaborations. He saw these as shifting focus away from true righteousness.

Mark (Mk 7) has Jesus declare all foods allowable. We may note that Matthew, champion of ‘every jot and tittle of the Law’, omits that comment. Luke omits the entire section, possibly because the back and forth about Judaic legalism would be too confusingly unfamiliar to Luke’s mainly Gentile audience.

Paul in Galatians (Gal 2) relates his confrontation with Peter (Cephas). When Peter is in Antioch he eats with Gentiles. What he eats is not specified but eating with gentiles alone is against strict kosher law. When representatives from James in Jerusalem arrive, Peter no longer eats with gentiles. Paul calls him out on this.

In Acts 10 Peter states that he has never eaten anything impure but a vision from God tells him it is OK. Likewise when he enters the house of a gentile. In Acts 11 when Peter relates this story the Council of Jerusalem agrees that gentiles can also be Jesus followers. It is not clearly stated but the implication seems to be that gentiles need not follow kosher law to be Jesus followers and that Jews who were Jesus followers were also exempt.

Galatians and Acts both agree that the original core belief of the Jesus movement was that it was a totally Jewish one, following kosher law and excluding gentiles. But how could it be if Jesus said that kosher dietary law was obsolete? It would appear that Mark – which was written after Paul’s epistles – is inserting this remark by Jesus to ex post facto justify gentile inclusion, already an accomplished fact when Mark was written. We are then led to the belief that Jesus never intended the movement he started to be anything other than Jewish.


Hope you got a good rest.

I have very little time so I can only make extremely brief comments on that which I underlined above:

Judaism, as all other religions, always has been "a work in progress", and I would suggest there simply is nothing intrinsically wrong with extending something like hand-washing to the general populace. I certainly do not see it as a "self-service obsession", and as a matter of fact, it makes sense in more ways than just being ritual.

Where is your information on the change dealing with divorce from? The basic directions for the "get" is in Torah, and it's really very simple.

The part on adultery is "kosher" in that the Pharisee approach was to "build a fence around the Torah". However, Jesus seems not to be consistent in that area as some items like adultery he makes tougher and yet he then condemns "laws made by men".

Finally, I can in no way just pooh-pooh away the issue of the kosher Laws as it is something that every observant Jew every day has to deal with. That the apostles are even discussing this at all must tell us something.

But yes, I do believe it's likely that there was no way that the Way could attract gentiles while still keeping circumcision and the careful following of the Law itself. To me, Jesus had to open that door, and I believe he did so by elevating "love" to such a high degree that it made much of the rest of the Law optional.

Yes, I did get some rest, so thanks for that wish, but now we've been extremely busy because we have had three sets of people staying with us up here in the last month and another set coming in two days. Help!

 

[metis]

If you get a chance read some Johnathon Reed. And Chauncey [I believe] on the socioeconomics.

The Hellenist made life a terrile burden and were every bit as hard as their Roman overlords, if not harsher.

Almost all of these Aramiac villages had children with Harris lines due to malnutrition.


The debate of poverty and wealth will not be settled soon, nor the relationship between Helleist and Aramaic Jews, but the archeological evidence, speaks to a more poverty stricken Aramiac society in which the burden of feeding these Hellenistic cities were placed on the peasant class used as a work force withfamilies forced off their land and slavbes taken who could not make their lerase payemets.

Life was hell for these peasants.

The Greeks did not control eretz Israel at the time of Jesus, and that is a point I was trying to make. However, the strong influence still lingered long afterward.

Sorry to be so brief.

 

[Alt Thinker]

Judaism, as all other religions, always has been "a work in progress", and I would suggest there simply is nothing intrinsically wrong with extending something like hand-washing to the general populace. I certainly do not see it as a "self-service obsession", and as a matter of fact, it makes sense in more ways than just being ritual.

I was trying to present the viewpoint of Jesus as I perceive it from reading between the lines in the NT. Yes, hand washing before eating is a good idea. This originated with a Torah requirement for ritual purity before presenting tithes. The extension to frequent hand washing was to Jesus another man-made rule, with a sub-text of frequent gift giving being expected. Note that Jesus goes into condemnation of korban (special sense) immediately after.

A reference: Hand Washing - My Jewish Learning

Where is your information on the change dealing with divorce from? The basic directions for the "get" is in Torah, and it's really very simple.

Here is some commentary on the rules that grew up around the simple concept of a bill of divorce. Not that these were unneeded. Things do evolve, as you said. But Jesus, like Amos, was seeking to purify Judaism to a state of true righteousness.
Judaism 101: Divorce

The part on adultery is "kosher" in that the Pharisee approach was to "build a fence around the Torah". However, Jesus seems not to be consistent in that area as some items like adultery he makes tougher and yet he then condemns "laws made by men".

Jesus saw marriage as unbreakable, except where one party has already implicitly broken it by adultery. Divorce did not sit well with his concept of true righteousness. Instead he invoked the earliest mention of marriage in the Torah, a simple and ‘pure’ one perceived as the original word of God on the subject. To Jesus, divorce was allowed due to the imperfection of men. Righteousness demanded perfection.

Finally, I can in no way just pooh-pooh away the issue of the kosher Laws as it is something that every observant Jew every day has to deal with. That the apostles are even discussing this at all must tell us something.

It tells us that Paul was gaining lots of converts for the Jesus movement. Allowing them to call themselves Jesus followers without first becoming Jews was one thing. But we have only the word of Luke in Acts (Luke the Storyteller) that that the Council of Jerusalem decided Jews could become not Jews. As I mentioned earlier, even Acts has Peter fully observant until he has a ‘vision’ where God tells him otherwise. Combining this with Paul’s strenuous arguments against gentiles being required to be kosher observant, I must conclude that Jesus never had any such notions.

But yes, I do believe it's likely that there was no way that the Way could attract gentiles while still keeping circumcision and the careful following of the Law itself. To me, Jesus had to open that door, and I believe he did so by elevating "love" to such a high degree that it made much of the rest of the Law optional.

As I have argued above, I do not believe the idea of gentiles participating came along until Paul years after Jesus was dead. When Jesus was asked how to obtain eternal life he emphasized following the commandments. Matthew is alone in adding the business about loving your neighbor. But Matthew 25 puts that in a very Jewish perspective, the obligation for charitable efforts.

 

[outhouse]

The Greeks did not control eretz Israel at the time of Jesus, and that is a point I was trying to make. However, the strong influence still lingered long afterward.

Sorry to be so brief.

Hellenist factually did control Galilee for the Romans, client kings.

 

[roger1440]

But yes, I do believe it's likely that there was no way that the Way could attract gentiles while still keeping circumcision and the careful following of the Law itself. To me, Jesus had to open that door, and I believe he did so by elevating "love" to such a high degree that it made much of the rest of the Law optional.

He may have “elevated love” because it’s so easily overlooked. It’s much easier to keep Kosher or to do this, that and the other thing on the Sabbath then it is to “love your neighbor as yourself”. Most of the Jewish commandments are easy to see because they are observed by others. It is only God that can see the heart. Jesus had no problem with the law. What he had a problem with is the abuse of the law. An outward profession without an inward conviction would make one a hypocrite. The word hypocrite is used many times in the Gospels.

If Jews during Hillel’s life were already living by the so called “golden rule” he wouldn’t be known for his famous quote. It would make little sense to mention something the Jews were already doing.

 

[metis]

Here is some commentary on the rules that grew up around the simple concept of a bill of divorce. Not that these were unneeded. Things do evolve, as you said. But Jesus, like Amos, was seeking to purify Judaism to a state of true righteousness.
Judaism 101: Divorce

Commentary is commentary and is highly variable depending on who's writing it. The basic Law on divorce is very simple, and that cannot be changed, nor can a sage mandate that it be changed.

Jesus saw marriage as unbreakable, except where one party has already implicitly broken it by adultery. Divorce did not sit well with his concept of true righteousness. Instead he invoked the earliest mention of marriage in the Torah, a simple and ‘pure’ one perceived as the original word of God on the subject. To Jesus, divorce was allowed due to the imperfection of men. Righteousness demanded perfection.

More commentary, which is fine as far as it goes.

It tells us that Paul was gaining lots of converts for the Jesus movement. Allowing them to call themselves Jesus followers without first becoming Jews was one thing. But we have only the word of Luke in Acts (Luke the Storyteller) that that the Council of Jerusalem decided Jews could become not Jews. As I mentioned earlier, even Acts has Peter fully observant until he has a ‘vision’ where God tells him otherwise. Combining this with Paul’s strenuous arguments against gentiles being required to be kosher observant, I must conclude that Jesus never had any such notions.

I cannot agree with this. So many today want to throw Paul under the bus, but Paul was doing his "thing" while most of the apostles were still alive, and also whereas they had already had taught and began to appoint others, so we cannot view Paul as if he was talking and writing in some sort of vacuum. If he was so far off-base, the apostles would have undoubtedly disowned him and not even given him the time of day, and the word would have gone out that he was just a sheep in wolve's clothing. But that's not what appears to have happened.

As I have argued above, I do not believe the idea of gentiles participating came along until Paul years after Jesus was dead. When Jesus was asked how to obtain eternal life he emphasized following the commandments. Matthew is alone in adding the business about loving your neighbor. But Matthew 25 puts that in a very Jewish perspective, the obligation for charitable efforts.

Let me post these, along with the understanding that we are reading the authors' takes on what Jesus, Paul, or whomever taught:

Matthew 5:31-32: “everyone who divorces his wife… forces her to commit adultery.”

5:38: “’an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’… offer no resistance.”

8:22: “Jesus told him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury the dead.”

21:43: “The kingdom of God taken away from you and given to another.”


Luke 16:16: “The Law and the prophets were in force until John.”


John 8:44: “The father you spring from is the devil… The Jews answered… .”


Romans 6:14: “Sin will no longer have power over you; you are under grace, not under the Law.”

7:6: “Now we are released from the Law.”

10:4: “Christ is the end of the Law.”

11:20: They were cut off because of their unbelief and you are there because of faith.”

14:20: “All foods are clean.”


I Corinthians 7:19: “Circumcision counts for nothing.”


Galatians 3:10: “All who depend on the observance of the Law… are under a curse.”

5:2: “If you have yourself circumcised, Christ will be of no use to you.”

5:4 “Any of you who seek your justification in the Law have severed yourself from Christ and fallen from God’s favor.”

6:15: “It means nothing whether you are circumcised or not.”


Ephesians 2:15: “In his own flesh he abolished the Law with its commands and precepts.”


Hebrews 7:18: “The former Commandment (I.e. priests according to the order of Melchizedek) has been annulled because of its weakness and uselessness.”

8:7: “If that first Covenant had been faultless, there would have been no place for a second one.”

8:13: “When he says ‘a new covenant’, he declares the first one obsolete. And what has become obsolete and has grown old is close to disappearing.”

10:9: “In other words, he takes away the first Covenant to establish the second.”

Now, it is entirely possible that all of the above was contrived in contrary to what Jesus taught, but that's very hard for me to believe. I certainly am not claiming it's all entirely accurate, but neither can I just ignore them, especially since there were those alive at these writings that actually either met Jesus and/or were taught by the apostles.

 

[outhouse]

So many today want to throw Paul under the bus,
.

Agreed.

but Paul was doing his "thing" while most of the apostles were still alive, and also whereas they had already had taught and began to appoint others,

I don't buy that at all.


The movement did not start from a small amount of real Galilean apostles who appointed others who spread the word. In my opinion.

The movement was all through the Empire early on, and the only explanation, is that the people who witnessed the martyrdom at Passover, took home the mythology and legends they heard at the event, and years to follow, building on the martyrdom layering mythology.

so we cannot view Paul as if he was talking and writing in some sort of vacuum.

Great point. He wasn't.

When he started the movement was spread all over the Empire, he tells us there were other teachers and scripture already in existence.

He started nothing, he was just part of a few houses. Pater Familias.

If he was so far off-base, the apostles would have undoubtedly disowned him and not even given him the time of day

Galileans would have probably killed him in sight. If they had knowledge of what was happening in the Diaspora.

Paul had the reputation as a cold blooded killer of Hellenist sect members.

Who knows if he ever was involved in Jerusalem at all.

and the word would have gone out that he was just a sheep in wolve's clothing. But that's not what appears to have happened.

The only reason was that in Pauls time, the movement was so wide spread and in so many places, not many may have even known what he had done.

 

[John Martin]

For Judaism God is the creator and human beings are creatures of God.
For Jesus God is not a creator but God manifests this creation. Human beings are manifestations of God and are ultimately one with God.
For Judaism God is only their God.They are the chosen people of God.
For Jesus God is the God of all. All are chosen people of God. There is only one God, one creation and one humanity.
For Judaism the will of God is manifested in the Torah,
For Jesus the will of God is written in the heart.
For Judaism it is the collective love of God and collective love of neighbour
For Jesus it is the universal love of God and the universal love of neighbour
For Judaism religion, the Torah is the way,the truth and the life,
For Jesus, the Law written in the heart(New Covenant) is the way,the truth and the life(This is what it means to say, 'I am the way, the truth and the life').
For Judaism it is giving continuity to the God of Abraham,Isaac and Jacob.
For Jesus it is giving birth to the God of eternity, 'I am what I am'.
For Judaism it is the way of 'becoming'
For Jesus it is the way of 'unfolding'.
For Judaism it is living from our the 'soul'.
For Jesus it is living from the image and likeness of God.

Christianity does not represent the way of Christ. In practice it is almost like Judaism,except that it believes that Jesus Christ is the only son of God and he is one with God. Jesus opened the God experience that Jesus had as a possibility to everyone but Christianity closed the door and limited that possibility only to Christ. Thus it created a spiritual apartheid between Christ and Christians.
Another concept that distinguishes Christianity from Judaism is the concept of Trinity. Trinity is not the teaching of Christ but formulation of Christianity based on the statements made by Jesus. it needs to be understood in its original context.

 

[Estro Felino]

Again, how does this disprove the notion that G-d is omniscient? It's your decision to not react in a violent way, not G-d's. In fact, G-d gives us the capacity to response anyway we'd like, I would argue.

He doesn't give any capacity. God is an impotent God, because he can't help men, even if he wanted to. We have freewill. All our life depends on us, not on God.

If by omniscient you meant that he can read minds...all right. we agree on that

 

[sojourner]

He doesn't give any capacity. God is an impotent God, because he can't help men, even if he wanted to. We have freewill. All our life depends on us, not on God.

How do you arrive at this conclusion?

 

[Shiranui117]

so my question stands firm: what would it have happened, if Caiaphas hadn't crucified Jesus?

Then as I said, Jesus would have had other plans since the beginning.

I guess that Jesus would have realized that his crystal ball needed to be fixed
NOBODY can predict the future. Not even God. Not even Jesus
This is witchcraft and magic doesn't exist-

So God doesn't know any more than we do? Alright, so I guess I can outsmart God, then.

God's knowledge of the future is based on what happens in the future, not vice-versa. Jesus knew of Judas' betrayal because Judas was going to betray Jesus. Judas didn't betray Jesus because Jesus already knew it was going to happen. So yes, God does know everything we are going to do, but we are the ones who have already decided that.

He doesn't give any capacity. God is an impotent God, because he can't help men, even if he wanted to. We have freewill. All our life depends on us, not on God.

If by omniscient you meant that he can read minds...all right. we agree on that

God bestowed upon us His image, which means that He gave us our free will.

 

[metis]

He may have “elevated love” because it’s so easily overlooked. It’s much easier to keep Kosher or to do this, that and the other thing on the Sabbath then it is to “love your neighbor as yourself”. Most of the Jewish commandments are easy to see because they are observed by others. It is only God that can see the heart. Jesus had no problem with the law. What he had a problem with is the abuse of the law. An outward profession without an inward conviction would make one a hypocrite. The word hypocrite is used many times in the Gospels.

If Jews during Hillel’s life were already living by the so called “golden rule” he wouldn’t be known for his famous quote. It would make little sense to mention something the Jews were already doing.

The Law itself is very much about "love", and it establishes how at least some of it is to be carried out. Secondly, the prophets over and over again warned of a rote following of the Law, so operating on "love" was the norm that we were told to operate under. Thirdly, Hillel's quote is a commentary, not a criticism, and it was his camp who won out in the long run.

As far as Jesus, the apostles, and the Law (again):

Matthew 5:31-32: “everyone who divorces his wife… forces her to commit adultery.”

5:38: “’an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’… offer no resistance.”

8:22: “Jesus told him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury the dead.”

21:43: “The kingdom of God taken away from you and given to another.”


Luke 16:16: “The Law and the prophets were in force until John.”


John 8:44: “The father you spring from is the devil… The Jews answered… .”


Romans 6:14: “Sin will no longer have power over you; you are under grace, not under the Law.”

7:6: “Now we are released from the Law.”

10:4: “Christ is the end of the Law.”

11:20: They were cut off because of their unbelief and you are there because of faith.”

14:20: “All foods are clean.”


I Corinthians 7:19: “Circumcision counts for nothing.”


Galatians 3:10: “All who depend on the observance of the Law… are under a curse.”

5:2: “If you have yourself circumcised, Christ will be of no use to you.”

5:4 “Any of you who seek your justification in the Law have severed yourself from Christ and fallen from God’s favor.”

6:15: “It means nothing whether you are circumcised or not.”


Ephesians 2:15: “In his own flesh he abolished the Law with its commands and precepts.”


Hebrews 7:18: “The former Commandment (I.e. priests according to the order of Melchizedek) has been annulled because of its weakness and uselessness.”

8:7: “If that first Covenant had been faultless, there would have been no place for a second one.”

8:13: “When he says ‘a new covenant’, he declares the first one obsolete. And what has become obsolete and has grown old is close to disappearing.”

10:9: “In other words, he takes away the first Covenant to establish the second.”

 

[Estro Felino]

So God doesn't know any more than we do? Alright, so I guess I can outsmart God, then.

Of course you can. If you want to figure out what God really is, think of the knowledge accumulated by all the people of the world, since the beginning of times: that's God. Or try to think of the expectations and dreams of all the people of the world.
that's God
Maybe you believe in an external God, that is powerful and can save us out of mercy.
I'm sorry, dear friend, but that God has never existed and never will. It's just an illusion. God is not separated from us; if we think of a God divided from us, we justify divisions. Divisions among men, wars, envies, conflicts

The power we think belongs to God is our power. Not only his.