Differences Between Judaism And Christianity

Religion is one of the hardest words to define in any language. The word itself holds a completely different meaning for each individual person. There is also an infinite number of different religious traditions and beliefs in the world. Because of this it becomes easy to lump certain religions together based on similar belief systems. The problem with this type of grouping is that these religions are so very, very different. One example is that of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam being grouped together as the Western religions. Perhaps Islam doesn’t fit into this statement so well but for Christianity and Judaism people tend to think that these religions are very similar. Furthermore, many people know that there are differences between the
two religions but cannot actually state what these difference are. Christianity and Judaism do share common traits and beliefs, but the greatest conflict and disagreement stems from the question of who and what is Jesus Christ. I have decided to begin this paper a bit different than normal. Starting with the fact that I am using the pronoun “I”. I wanted explain why I chose this specific topic, and share some preliminary feelings before diving into the content and research. Then, at the end share a commentary after I have better educated myself on the content. I am included in the group of people that never knew the difference between Christianity and Judaism. Quite frankly before this class I knew pretty much nothing about Judaism. All I knew about the Jewish people is that they were slaughtered in mass numbers during the holocaust, have stringent traditions, and for some reason a lot of people are anti-Semitic. In fact I didn’t even know what Semitic meant. Which is actually an interesting topic in and of itself. Anti-Semitic specifically means a prejudice against, or hatred against Jews as an ethnic, religious, or racial group. Yet Semitic refers to a group of languages including Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Hebrew, and Phoenician. So to get to the point, I chose the religion of Judaism because I knew absolutely nothing about it and wanted to expand my knowledge. I chose Christianity because like any other white, born and raised American I identify as a Christian. My first step in writing a paper about these religions was to find out about their similarities and differences. So, I did a good old-fashioned google search and clicked on one of the first results. The similarities were everything I would have expected but I was shocked, yes, shocked when I found out the major point of contingency between the two religions. Judaism is an extremely old religion that can be dated back four thousand years and has roots in the ancient region of Canaan. Modern or Classical Judaism traces back to the covenant God made with Abraham. Abraham is considered to be a “father” to the Jewish people and an example of behavior and holiness. God promised to Abraham that he would make the Jews a sacred people and give them a holy land. The sacred text of Judaism is the Torah which is comprised of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. History and tradition are extremely important in Judaism. Jewish holidays and traditions are intended to mimic historical events in order to connect modern Jews to their historical ancestors. Christianity developed after Judaism and is considered to be a “daughter” religion of Judaism. Christianity stemmed from Judaism in an actually fascinating way, “Jesus was a Jew and taught Judaism, and Judaism and Christianity once were one, but now have been torn asunder” (Neusner 276). Christianity is founded on the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This took place about 2,000 years ago in Judea. The sacred text of Christianity is the Bible, including the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and the New Testament. Christianity is now the world’s largest religion representing more than a third of all humanity. Christianity and Judaism share a historical background as well as many core beliefs. They are both monotheistic religions that believe in a single, all holy God. The two religions also share the Old Testament as a sacred text and believe that this reflects the words of God. Prayer, although ritualistically is different, shares a special place in both religions. They both also share an idea of an afterlife and a place known as heaven and hell. The belief in the afterlife is emphasized more in Christianity and holds not as much relevance in Judaism. The Old Testament is a book of Hebrew Scriptures that were written before the coming of Christ. It contains 39 books which are then divided into broad categories. These are as follows, the Torah, the historical books, the wisdom books, and the prophets. The first five books of the Old Testament are the Torah. The history books are the next twelve books and which are the telling of the history of the Israelites. This includes their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon. These books, although historically accurate, focus more individual’s stories, rather than historical events. The wisdom books are the next five books and answer questions about the good and evil in the world in the form of poetry. The last seventeen books are the books of the biblical prophets. There are five books of Major Prophets. All of these books deal with the blessings of being obedient towards God as well as the consequences associated with turning away from God.
The first five books are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, are also known as the Torah.
The Torah is the Jewish sacred text. Moses is considered to be the prophet who received the word of God and then wrote it down into what is now considered to be the books of the Torah. The word Torah itself means teaching or doctrine. Therefore in the Jewish traditions the Torah is considered to be the written Law of Moses. Genesis contains the world’s origin story followed by the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is also here in Genesis that God promises these three men the land of Canaan. Exodus tells the story of Moses leading the people of Israel out of Egypt as well as Gods covenant to them. They will be God’s chosen people if they abide by his law. Leviticus contains many of God’s laws for the Israelites. Examples are rules about what is clean and unclean, what animals are okay to eat, atonement, and various other moral and ritual laws. Numbers includes the disobedience and lack of faith of the Israelites and then them being condemned to walk in the desert for forty years. Deuteronomy contains a set of new laws laid down by Moses as well as Moses’s
death.
One of the most important and significantly meaningful things included in the Old Testament are the multiple prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. In Ezekiel 37:26-28 it is prophesied that the messiah will build the third temple. In Isaiah 43:5-6, the messiah will gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel. Isaiah 2:4 says that the coming of the messiah will usher in an era of world peace, end all hatred, opposition, suffering, and disease. Lastly in Zechariah 14:9 that messiah will spread the universal knowledge of the God of Israel and unite humanity. There are also many other passages in the Old Testament that state other requirements for the messiah. Such as the messiah will be a great prophet, a descendent of David. The messiah shall also embrace the Torah, the word of God, and must not describe God different than he appears in scripture. Who is Jesus Christ? This a question that Christianity as a whole addresses. This is done in part by the writings in the New Testament. Contained in the New Testament are the stories that almost all people are familiar with and considered to be the “historical Jesus” or real, plausible events. The New Testament was written at various times, by various people, and can be considered a type of anthology. The New Testament is comprised of 27 books which include the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Epistles, and the Apocalypse. The four books that describe the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus are known as the Gospels. These books are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each of these books is conventionally believed to have been authored by their respective titles. It is also believed that these men were early Jewish disciples of Jesus. Wolf establishes that the New Testament is used only in Christianity and holds no meaning in the Jewish religious tradition.
The books of Luke and Matthew contain the story of Jesus’s mother, The Virgin Mary, Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem, in Judea.
Jesus is believed to be the fulfillment of the Old Testament promise of a Messiah and the writer, Mathew makes direct quotes to the Old Testament and works to prove that Jesus is indeed a Jew and connect his heritage to that of the Jews. In the book of Matthew there is also the story of the wise men following a star to Bethlehem and bringing gifts to Jesus, considered to the King of the Jews. King Herod attempts to kill Jesus by ordering the massacre of all male children under two years of age in Bethlehem. Jesus and his family fled to Egypt, to safety. Mathew also contains the almost all important of Jesus’s speeches known as the Sermon on the Mount. In the book of Luke much of Jesus’s childhood is depicted, including his visit to the temple at the age of 12. The book of Mark introduces John the Baptist as the one that proclaims Jesus to be the Messiah. In this book Mark records twenty of Jesus’s miracles in detail as well as four parables Jesus told that were used to demonstrate moral and spiritual lessons. Mark also contains the story of Jesus’s burial. The book of John contains much talk about the beginning of creation and equates Jesus to God. The book of John also includes much of Jesus death
story.
Jesus Christ is an important element to the Christian Belief. He is considered to be part of the holy trinity, the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. He is believed to not only be God’s son but also God in the flesh. It is believed in Christianity that by being crucified and then resurrected that humans can be reconciled to God and offered eternal salvation in heaven. This is because Jesus scarified himself in order to atone for the sin that entered humanity through the original sin of Adam and Eve. In fulfilling the prophecies of the Old Testament Jesus is at the right hand of God, his father and will return to earth again to give last judgment and then to establish the Kingdom of God. Christianity establishes certain creeds about Jesus Christ that are all accepted as the truth and agreed upon for all those of the Christian faith. Skarsaune states them as follows: “…and I believe in Christos Iesous His only Son, our Lord, (1) Who was born from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, (2a) Who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried, (2b) on the third day rose again from the dead, ascended to heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, whence He will come to judge the living and the dead” (227). To expand even further Christians believe that Jesus was born to a Virgin through the Holy Spirit, making him fully human, and fully divine. Christians believe that Jesus was martyred by Pilate on the cross and then buried in a tomb. Then, on the third day he came back to life to show that he is a divine being. Lastly, Christians believe that Jesus ascended back to heaven to be with God and that he will come back to earth.
The biggest divide in Christianity and Judaism is the Jewish stance on Jesus Christ. Wolf writes “the ‘standard’ view of Jesus in Judaism is, I should think, that there is no view” (368-369). He goes on to add, “… Jesus is neither our problem nor our glory… he is not at the center of our consciousness” (Wolf 369). This statement, even without much knowledge on the subject it clearly a different feeling than that of Christians. Even when just opening the bible to the New Testament it reads “the new testament of our lord and savior Jesus Christ”. Clearly to the Christians Jesus Christ is not only a significant religious figure but also “The” religious figure. This could perhaps a significant reason why people of the Jewish faith state that “Judaism, and Judaism alone… adequately represents ethical monotheism” (Wolf 369). People of the Jewish faith reject Jesus Christ as the messiah and think of him as nothing more than a man who proclaimed to be a false messiah and in turn damaged the religious traditions that Judaism stood for.
It is important to next examine why Judaism does not recognize Jesus as the messiah like the Christians do. As earlier mentioned the Old Testament tells of a messiah that will fulfill specific prophecies, including ones that favored the Israelites. According to Skarsaune “Jesus never was the Messiah because he did not accomplish the messianic task, which was to liberate Israel from oppression, redeem the world and reestablish the full observance of the Torah” (224). The Jewish people felt that because Jesus did not fulfill all of the prophesied tasks that he was certainly not their messiah.
It can be believed though that Jesus did however have another role “instead of being the Redeemer of the nation of Israel, he was… the divine Savior of the individual souls of Gentile Christians” (Skarsaune 224-225). In this sense Jesus went against many core values of Judaism. Many Jewish followers believe that by worshiping or recognizing Jesus as God one is no longer truly practicing monotheism. Wolf writes “Jesus was a good Jew whose ethical ideas were transmuted by Paul into a kind of vaguely Hellenistic mystical polytheism” (369). Jewish theology is very clear that there is only one god and he is indivisible. Meaning, the trinity or duality of God is completely incompatible with core beliefs. Wolf adds, quoting another writer that “…no Jew could really believe that another Jew was God” (371). It is for these reasons that in the practice of Judaism there is no mention of Jesus.