So you believe that God is our collective consciousness? Do you have evidence of this from Scripture, or is Scripture not an authority to you?
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Comparison of Christianity and Judaism
- Thread starter sojourner
- Start date
jtartar
Well-Known Member
Sojourner,
All three of the major religions, had their beginning with Abraham. They are Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. All three count Abraham as their father, and consider themselves descended from him.
The trouble began in the first century, when the Messiah, Jesus came to earth.
Only the small group that had followed Jesus believed that Jesus was the Messiah. There was much evidence, Jesus did healing of all kinds of diseases, even brought back the dead, Luke 7:11-15, John 9:1-7, 32,33. Jesus himself was raised from the dead on the third day, Matt 27:35, 28:1-7, Acts 2:22.
Jesus told his disciples, just before he returned to heaven, that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit would come on them. They were to wait in Jerusalem, after the Festival of Passover. On the fiftieth day after Passover, on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Apostles ant the started speaking in tongues, and received much power in many ways. This extraordinary power was given to this small band, because something very striking was needed to show the Jews that God turned His favor away from the Jewish nation and had given His favor to this small band, that a little later would be called Christians, Acts 2:1-4, 2:32,33, 11:26.
God gave His Holy Spirit only to this small group of followers of Jesus, to show His favor and blessing on them.
None of the Jews that remained in Judaism, who continued to obey The Mosaic Law Covenant, received these powerful gifts of the Spirit, Acts 5:32, 4:8-14.
God did not reject all of the nation of Israel, for some of the Jews believed on Jesus, but the nation, as a whole were lost, just as Jesus warned the Jews earlier, Matt 21:42-45.
On Pentecost, of 33CE, Christianity was started. Both the Jews and later, Islam was rejected because they did not accept Jesus as the true Messiah. There is no other name, under heaven, that has been given to men through which we MUST be saved. The Bible also tells us, if you do not believe in Jesus, you do NOT have The Father either, 1John 2:22-25.
Remember, there is only ONE name under heaven by which we MUST be saved!!!
outhouse
Atheistically
Factually incorrect.
Muslims plagiarized the previous mythology and are not from Abraham.
No one is, Abraham is said to be a literary creation, and at this time, that is all he is.
Monotheism was born after 622 BC, before that Israelites were polytheistic. Afterwards many still continued their polytheism.
Monotheism was not fully orthodox until 200-400 BCE, even though King Josiahs reforms started this belief earlier.
Ingledsva
HEATHEN ALASKAN
1. There is no evidence what so ever for Iesous being the Jewish Messiah, or for any miracles. All there is - a book written long after, - claiming these things.
2. No evidence that he gave his favor to Christians.
3. It is just your belief that the Israelites were lost. YHVH doesn't say this.
4. LOL! Claimed by Christians - "1Jn 2:22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.
1Jn 2:23 Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also."
This is hilarious - a new little group claiming the prophecies of the Israelites, - claiming their Iesous is the Hebrew Messiah - even though the Jews have said he doesn't fulfill their prophecies. What bravado! LOL!
And totally ignoring in the Bible - that YHVH says the Hebrew are his chosen people.
Deut 7:6 "For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
*
Of course he is our collective consciousness. Saint John says it: in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. and the Word was God.
That is, God is born as divinity in the very moment that man has taken the consciousness of being a divine being.
The history of mankind coincides with God's history.
But God has always existed...he needed to be understood. By man
That's not what that verse is saying at all. It is talking about Jesus, Who is the Word of God and Who is God. I have no idea where you're getting your completely wrong interpretation from. God is not our collective consciousness. He exists separately from us and does not rely on us for anything. However, He can dwell within us (the Holy Spirit) and among us.
all right, dear friend. But you have to understand that I have a completely different vision of Jesus than yours.
I think that Jesus was not meant to come. It was Mary who decided to incarnate God in her womb by deciding to believe in the value of human nature.
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I have no idea who that woman is but she's preaching heresy. Is that some cult? Who is that nun that's there? Is she really a nun and has fallen into deep error or is she just playing dress up?
What Mary did is agree to God's plan to bring forth the Messiah. She said "yes" to a plan that was in place before the creation of the universe. It wasn't her plan. Humanity cannot be saved on its own efforts.
Hay, you really need to rethink your heretical beliefs and repent. I'm serious, now. Your beliefs have nothing to do with Catholicism or Biblical truth.
That woman is Angela Volpini, a seer who saw Mary, God's mother, when she was seven years old. And Mary told her the things she says in the video.
At least you see that I am not alone in my beliefs.
Angela and I share the same vision of God, Jesus and Mary.
Mary is the living proof that we all can erase original sin and become like Jesus.
Or like Mary.
By the way, she's Catholic as I am. In fact you can see that Catholic nun agreeing with her.
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Alt Thinker
Older than the hills
Part 1
Jesus was not looking to change any law. He was trying to restore what he saw as true righteousness. He did not want to change the law on divorce. He wanted people not to divorce for any but the most overwhelming reasons and so exhibit righteousness. Doing anything with laws would have contradicted his opposition to the legalistically charged atmosphere of the House of Shammai era. And recall that when Shammai headed the Sanhedrin, commentary was not just commentary. It was effectively law. Mark tells us that when Jesus opposed rules not explicit in the Torah, the Pharisees started to seek a way to kill him.
Paul faced opposition from Judaizers and superapostles and originally from Jerusalem. Paul tells about his visit to Jerusalem in Galatians.
This tells us about a deal Paul made with the powers that be in Jerusalem: Paul preaches to the gentles they preach to the Jews. But the details about the deal are not clear. Paul has been writing letters to Jews in the Diaspora to convince them to accept gentiles and saing unkind things about the Law.. Is that preaching o Jews? Is Paul to stop these letters? Paul is to preach to gentiles but are they to be exempt from the requirement to become Jewish? One suspects these things but
Paul confronts Cephas (Peter) because he unlawfully eats with gentiles until people arrive from James. Then Cephas draws away from them. This would seem to be in accordance with the apparent deal Jews follow Jewish laws. Paul calls not just Cephas a hypocrite (technically true but hardly kind), He also calls the Jews who want to maintain Jewish law hypocrites. Why does Paul claim they are forcing gentiles to follow Jewish customs? What was the real deal and who is really following it? I suspect Paul is not really telling the whole story here. Was there in fact more rancor involved than he lets on?
In Acts 11 (already referenced some place upstream) Peter is accused by the apostles of entering gentile homes and eating with them. He says that God told him in a vision that this was now allowed and that the Holy Spirit descended on the gentiles confirming that they could be baptized. It then gets decided that gentiles are acceptable.
Luke, the author of Acts, not only has gentiles become acceptable but that Jewish Jesus followers are now exempt from Jewish law. Does Luke the gifted storyteller, the champion of Paul as superstar, weave a story having Paul convince the apostles that gentiles are Okey-Dokey? No, according to Luke it takes a miracle to pull it off. According to Luke the apostles were gentile-rejecting, law-following Jews until well after the death of Jesus.
I see no indication that Jesus ever intended his audience to include gentiles.
Jesus was not looking to change any law. He was trying to restore what he saw as true righteousness. He did not want to change the law on divorce. He wanted people not to divorce for any but the most overwhelming reasons and so exhibit righteousness. Doing anything with laws would have contradicted his opposition to the legalistically charged atmosphere of the House of Shammai era. And recall that when Shammai headed the Sanhedrin, commentary was not just commentary. It was effectively law. Mark tells us that when Jesus opposed rules not explicit in the Torah, the Pharisees started to seek a way to kill him.
Paul faced opposition from Judaizers and superapostles and originally from Jerusalem. Paul tells about his visit to Jerusalem in Galatians.
This tells us about a deal Paul made with the powers that be in Jerusalem: Paul preaches to the gentles they preach to the Jews. But the details about the deal are not clear. Paul has been writing letters to Jews in the Diaspora to convince them to accept gentiles and saing unkind things about the Law.. Is that preaching o Jews? Is Paul to stop these letters? Paul is to preach to gentiles but are they to be exempt from the requirement to become Jewish? One suspects these things but
Paul confronts Cephas (Peter) because he unlawfully eats with gentiles until people arrive from James. Then Cephas draws away from them. This would seem to be in accordance with the apparent deal Jews follow Jewish laws. Paul calls not just Cephas a hypocrite (technically true but hardly kind), He also calls the Jews who want to maintain Jewish law hypocrites. Why does Paul claim they are forcing gentiles to follow Jewish customs? What was the real deal and who is really following it? I suspect Paul is not really telling the whole story here. Was there in fact more rancor involved than he lets on?
In Acts 11 (already referenced some place upstream) Peter is accused by the apostles of entering gentile homes and eating with them. He says that God told him in a vision that this was now allowed and that the Holy Spirit descended on the gentiles confirming that they could be baptized. It then gets decided that gentiles are acceptable.
Luke, the author of Acts, not only has gentiles become acceptable but that Jewish Jesus followers are now exempt from Jewish law. Does Luke the gifted storyteller, the champion of Paul as superstar, weave a story having Paul convince the apostles that gentiles are Okey-Dokey? No, according to Luke it takes a miracle to pull it off. According to Luke the apostles were gentile-rejecting, law-following Jews until well after the death of Jesus.
I see no indication that Jesus ever intended his audience to include gentiles.
Alt Thinker
Older than the hills
Part 2
***
These are from the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew is the most Jewish of the Gospel writers, insisting that the Law will never go away, and giving no indication of any gentile involvement. . He has Jesus stressing the spirit of the law and not just the letter. As we have seen elsewhere upstream Jesus had no intention of abandoning the Torah, only the man-made accretions that he saw as obstructing true righteousness.
The above quotes are from a long section where Jesus stresses righteousness of attitude over just following the letter of the law. He prefixes this section with:
It is the Pharisees and teachers the Jesus frequently accuses of hypocrisy, practicing the letter of the law and not its spirit.
***
The dead bury the dead passage is one of numerous points where Jesus stresses the importance of completely shedding all attachments to ones former life to join Jesus band of disciples and follow him on the road. People today love to lend a metaphorical air to follow me but it is clear from the context of the various instances that Jesus meant it literally.
***
Was this supposed to be about Jews losing the kingdom and gentiles gaining it? Not. Matthew makes that very clear.
***
This is Luke, he of the gentile audience. He is changing what Matthew said for his own purposes. Luke does that a lot. Here is what Matthew said.
Matthew has Jesus be the messiah, a point he goes to extraordinary lengths to make. Jesus is therefore the culmination of Jewish history, the harbinger of the end of oppression and the imminent arrival of the messianic age. John as Elijah figure was the announcement of that.
***
John was way after the time of Jesus and very different from the other Gospels.
Rabbinic Judaism had filled the organizational vacuum following the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem. Going forward, differences about what constitutes Judaism would be dealt with by internal dialogue within a common environment. Sectarianism was not a problem as long as the Temple served as the center of Jewish religious life. But unchecked sectarianism without that anchor could tear Judaism apart.
Christianity claimed to be the true successor of historic Judaism. But the absence of a traditionally Jewish oriented center due to the Jewish War and the heavy gentile influence, it had become highly alienated from mainstream Judaism. Christianity saw Judaism as the wrong headed opposition and vice versa. This is the spirit I which John was written. Trying to attribute anything in John to an historic Jesus is simply not justified.
***
Yes, Paul wanted to include gentiles. (Was he maybe thinking of Isaiahs prophecy about all nations? If so he might have thought that the messianic age, which was taking its time arriving, might be waiting for that prophecy to be accomplished.) But for whatever reason he wanted gentiles. He argued most vociferously for them to be included in the Jesus movement. The fact that he had to argue with a Jewish audience strongly suggests that this was a new and difficult idea for them. Also refer to my comments above about Paul and Jerusalem.
***
Other points to consider.
Mark and Matthew both have Jesus refer to gentiles as dogs and does not want to preach to them.
Also:
Luke of course never has Jesus say any of those things.
I still stand by my original contention that Jesus thought only in terms of purifying Judaism and never proposed going to the gentiles.
***
These are from the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew is the most Jewish of the Gospel writers, insisting that the Law will never go away, and giving no indication of any gentile involvement. . He has Jesus stressing the spirit of the law and not just the letter. As we have seen elsewhere upstream Jesus had no intention of abandoning the Torah, only the man-made accretions that he saw as obstructing true righteousness.
The above quotes are from a long section where Jesus stresses righteousness of attitude over just following the letter of the law. He prefixes this section with:
It is the Pharisees and teachers the Jesus frequently accuses of hypocrisy, practicing the letter of the law and not its spirit.
***
The dead bury the dead passage is one of numerous points where Jesus stresses the importance of completely shedding all attachments to ones former life to join Jesus band of disciples and follow him on the road. People today love to lend a metaphorical air to follow me but it is clear from the context of the various instances that Jesus meant it literally.
***
Was this supposed to be about Jews losing the kingdom and gentiles gaining it? Not. Matthew makes that very clear.
***
This is Luke, he of the gentile audience. He is changing what Matthew said for his own purposes. Luke does that a lot. Here is what Matthew said.
Matthew has Jesus be the messiah, a point he goes to extraordinary lengths to make. Jesus is therefore the culmination of Jewish history, the harbinger of the end of oppression and the imminent arrival of the messianic age. John as Elijah figure was the announcement of that.
***
John was way after the time of Jesus and very different from the other Gospels.
Rabbinic Judaism had filled the organizational vacuum following the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem. Going forward, differences about what constitutes Judaism would be dealt with by internal dialogue within a common environment. Sectarianism was not a problem as long as the Temple served as the center of Jewish religious life. But unchecked sectarianism without that anchor could tear Judaism apart.
Christianity claimed to be the true successor of historic Judaism. But the absence of a traditionally Jewish oriented center due to the Jewish War and the heavy gentile influence, it had become highly alienated from mainstream Judaism. Christianity saw Judaism as the wrong headed opposition and vice versa. This is the spirit I which John was written. Trying to attribute anything in John to an historic Jesus is simply not justified.
***
Yes, Paul wanted to include gentiles. (Was he maybe thinking of Isaiahs prophecy about all nations? If so he might have thought that the messianic age, which was taking its time arriving, might be waiting for that prophecy to be accomplished.) But for whatever reason he wanted gentiles. He argued most vociferously for them to be included in the Jesus movement. The fact that he had to argue with a Jewish audience strongly suggests that this was a new and difficult idea for them. Also refer to my comments above about Paul and Jerusalem.
***
Other points to consider.
Mark and Matthew both have Jesus refer to gentiles as dogs and does not want to preach to them.
Also:
Luke of course never has Jesus say any of those things.
I still stand by my original contention that Jesus thought only in terms of purifying Judaism and never proposed going to the gentiles.
She is a heretic and whatever appeared to her or whatever she thought she saw, it wasn't Mary. Mary will not teach errors and directs all praise, honor, glory and worship to God. If that is really a nun in that video, then the poor sister has fallen into heresy, too. You and the rest of them all will be in my prayers.
I really appreciate it, dear friend. But you don't have to. I already know that my beliefs (well ours...hers and mine) are heretic. well.. I think we don't say anything that can offend Christianity.
We don't want division. If I did, I would found my own Church. And still I feel I am Catholic and I belong to the Catholic Church
You are a Catholic as far as your Baptism and Confirmation goes, but your beliefs are heretical and place you outside of communion with the Church. Your soul is in danger, honestly. This is some mighty nasty stuff that woman is teaching and I beg you to reconsider.
well...now you amaze me. what danger are you taking about?
I don't think that those beliefs will get me to Hell
Yes, they can, especially if you once held to orthodox Catholic beliefs. That woman's views lead to a very wrong view of God, human ability and salvation. Honestly, it sounds like a bunch of New Age crap.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Alt Thinker, I appreciate the time you took to write this all, but it's way too lengthy for me to spend an adequate amount of time in response. I have company coming in today, plus I simply cannot write lengthy responses like you have because I have paralysis in my left hand that makes typing very difficult and slow. In any future conversation, please keep that in mind and try to be significant less wordy.
Take care.
Take care.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Alt Thinker, I had a chance to go over what you wrote, and you and I may not be as far off as it may appear even though we are looking at this from at least somewhat different perspectives.
First of all, we both have to be careful when it comes to how certain we are in regards to scriptural accuracy. For example, here's what you said at one point: "Jesus was not looking to change any law. He was trying to restore what he saw as true righteousness. He did not want to change the law on divorce. He wanted people not to divorce for any but the most overwhelming reasons and so exhibit righteousness. Doing anything with laws would have contradicted his opposition to the legalistically charged atmosphere of the House of Shammai era. And recall that when Shammai headed the Sanhedrin, commentary was not just commentary. It was effectively law. Mark tells us that when Jesus opposed rules not explicit in the Torah, the Pharisees started to seek a way to kill him."
To me, that is overstated. Even though there is a possibility you could be correct, we simply cannot be certain of that.
In regards to Jesus and the Law, there are what theologians call "variations" in the gospels and epistles, so then the challenge is to try and figure out which of them, if any, may be correct. One rule I use that often helps is what happened next? Like a good murder mystery, we can sometimes see the "plot" gradually unfolding and even anticipate who the "villain" is as we go along through the novel.
When I apply this to Jesus and the Law, what we see is a gradual walking away from the Law in the infant church, which continued and probably accelerated during the post-Temple period. Is Paul the cause of this? I'm quite certain he helped it along, but it is virtually impossible for me to see him going against the apostles on such an important matter such as this, although there is at least some evidence that he and James had some "issues" dealing with the Law. The Law is paramount in Judaism, so there is simply no way I can see the apostles letting Paul get away with much of anything unless what he said made sense to them, and I think there's evidence to suggest that it was an evolutionary process than a revolutionary process.
Finally, I'm going to just briefly just mention this, and that is there's no need for you to go into specifics on Christian theology, nor is it necessary for you to spend time looking for N.T. quotes, as I know both well. I don't get into my background here at this website, so let me just say that so far there isn't any item you've posted in response to me that I haven't seen many times before. Therefore, this should save both of us some time.
Also, as I mentioned to SF, there's limits as to how far I'm willing to go on some discussions.
First of all, we both have to be careful when it comes to how certain we are in regards to scriptural accuracy. For example, here's what you said at one point: "Jesus was not looking to change any law. He was trying to restore what he saw as true righteousness. He did not want to change the law on divorce. He wanted people not to divorce for any but the most overwhelming reasons and so exhibit righteousness. Doing anything with laws would have contradicted his opposition to the legalistically charged atmosphere of the House of Shammai era. And recall that when Shammai headed the Sanhedrin, commentary was not just commentary. It was effectively law. Mark tells us that when Jesus opposed rules not explicit in the Torah, the Pharisees started to seek a way to kill him."
To me, that is overstated. Even though there is a possibility you could be correct, we simply cannot be certain of that.
In regards to Jesus and the Law, there are what theologians call "variations" in the gospels and epistles, so then the challenge is to try and figure out which of them, if any, may be correct. One rule I use that often helps is what happened next? Like a good murder mystery, we can sometimes see the "plot" gradually unfolding and even anticipate who the "villain" is as we go along through the novel.
When I apply this to Jesus and the Law, what we see is a gradual walking away from the Law in the infant church, which continued and probably accelerated during the post-Temple period. Is Paul the cause of this? I'm quite certain he helped it along, but it is virtually impossible for me to see him going against the apostles on such an important matter such as this, although there is at least some evidence that he and James had some "issues" dealing with the Law. The Law is paramount in Judaism, so there is simply no way I can see the apostles letting Paul get away with much of anything unless what he said made sense to them, and I think there's evidence to suggest that it was an evolutionary process than a revolutionary process.
Finally, I'm going to just briefly just mention this, and that is there's no need for you to go into specifics on Christian theology, nor is it necessary for you to spend time looking for N.T. quotes, as I know both well. I don't get into my background here at this website, so let me just say that so far there isn't any item you've posted in response to me that I haven't seen many times before. Therefore, this should save both of us some time.
Also, as I mentioned to SF, there's limits as to how far I'm willing to go on some discussions.
outhouse
Atheistically
Pauls Judaismn has always been debated.
He is in perfect line with a Hellenistic Proselyte who was well studied in Judaism, but would never fully convert. Again fitting under the umbrella of Judaism, but acting exactly like a Proselyte.
His claims of being Pharisaic, is probably the same rhetoric he uised in describing the apostles as Jesus genuine apsotles.
We also have later apochrypha describing just that.
Even Hellenistic Proselytes who had worshipped Judaism for centuries would not have been accepting to abandoning laws and customs they had followed themselves. And this changed from one geographic location to te next.
Proselytes factually had different adherance to the laws and customs.
Ths was simply a Hellenistic sect that wanted to adhere more to the laws then Paul.
Not only that, Gentiles had been following this new movement in the Diaspora long before Paul. This was not started by Paul, Paul even tells us there were other teachers.
The whole movement reflects the divorce from Judaism from the get go. On one side you had Hellenistic Proselytes who were well versed and studied in Judaism. And the other, Born and raised Jews who were not free and oppressed by Romans and Hellenist. Helleist in fact did permeate all through Judaism, but Hellenist were culturally divided from true Israelites. Places like Sepphoris and Tiberius which were Hellenistic centers who had long followed Judaism, but not what I would call real Jews