Ask me anything (almost) about Judaism

[meltzerboy2]

I suppose there are some Orthodox Jews, in particular, who would like to do so; but I don’t have any first-hand information on this.

 

[ratio1]

I suppose there are some Orthodox Jews, in particular, who would like to do s

Thanks.
But let’s say the Temple is rebuilt, is there still a priestly family to run it?

 

[meltzerboy2]

Thanks for all this information concerning The Waltons and comic-book lore. For some unknown reason (to me), I was not particularly interested in comic books as a kid. I have heard of Stan Lee, however. It’s never too late to learn!

 

[meltzerboy2]

I believe Moses613 addressed that issue, and the answer appears to be no. But maybe the Messiah can figure out a way since the Third Temple is thought to be part of the Messianic era.

 

[meltzerboy2]

Christianity is not Judaism, however. As Kaninchen has stated several times, Christianity is more than Judaism plus Jesus, and Judaism is more than Christianity minus Jesus.

 

[meltzerboy2]

Thanks for the information.

 

[meltzerboy2]

Mixing of fish and meat is prohibited according to Talmud regulations. Is this particular prohibition due mainly to health reasons or otherwise? Yet I remember many a Pesach in which gefilte fish is followed by a meat dish. So long as they are not cooked together, perhaps?

 

[thephilosopher6]

This depends on your idea of Judaism though. If we’re talking Second Temple Judaism, Christianity can fit in as a Wisdom-Apocalyptic sect among exclusively Jewish sections of the Church. If we’re talking Rabbinic Judaism, then you’re right, Christianity and Judaism have become very distinct religions.

It should be recognized that Judaism and Christianity do have a lot to do with each other. As I already pointed out above, Christianity began as, and in many ways continued as until the mid 2nd century, a sect of Second Temple Judaism that did not adopt the Rabbinic ideals of the surviving Pharisaic groups who transformed into Rabbinic Judaism.

Scholar of ancient religion, Alan Segal, puts it like this,

“…one can speak of a ‘twin birth’ of two new Judaisms, both markedly different from the religious systems that preceded them. Not only were rabbinic Judaism and Christianity religious twins, but, like Jacob and Esau, the twin sons of Isaac and Rebecca, they fought in the womb, setting the stage for life after the womb.” - Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World

Professor of religious history, Daniel Boyarin, gives a similar image,

"for at least the first three centuries of their common lives, Judaism in all of its forms and Christianity in all of its forms were part of one complex religious family, twins in a womb, contending with each other for identity and precedence, but sharing with each other the same spiritual food. - Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism

 

[meltzerboy2]

Yes, I believe you are correct to a certain extent. Christianity at its inception and for quite a few decades was still regarded as a sect of Judaism. There were even those who referred to themselves as Jewish Christians, who believed in the Messiahship of Jesus but still celebrated the Jewish holidays and retained the religion’s practices and customs, for example, the dietary laws and the mourning rituals. Eventually, however, Christianity broke away from Judaism and became its own religion with its own doctrine, customs, and practices. This does not mean that all moral values and ethical teachings of Judaism disappeared from Christianity. Far from it. Nonetheless, there are certain essential assumptions within Judaism–common to both antiquity and the modern age–that are not found in Christianity, and the reverse is also true. Apart from Jesus Himself as a Savior-Messiah and the dogma of a Trinitarian G-d, such notions as original sin, the conflict between G-d and HaSatan, the belief in the free will of angels, the ultimate focus of salvation in the afterlife while this life is regarded, at least in part, as a “vale of tears,” plus the relinquishing of all expressions of Judaizing including practicing rituals and celebrating Jewish holidays, form the core of Christianity and not of Judaism. While there are remnants of Jewish practices to be found, albeit transformed, in Christianity, we cannot say that the latter still shares many of the core beliefs and practices of the former.

 

[thephilosopher6]

Again, it’s not as simple as you think.

To address at least one of your points, scholars have recognized that the Christian Trinity has roots in Judaism, particularly in the Jewish Wisdom traditions. The earliest Christian community in Palestine seemed to have regarded Jesus as a manifestation of divine Wisdom, and this can clearly be seen within multiple layers of Q logia that found their ways into Matthew and Luke. Not only that, but Paul himself demonstrates an understanding of identifying Jesus as divine Wisdom, and the author of John does as well by identifying Jesus as the Logos, something Hellenistic Jews, such as Philo of Alexandria, identified with divine Wisdom. (The Gospel of John is very remarkable of Jewish Wisdom and apocalyptic traditions similar to that found in the Essenes, and the discovery of the dead sea scrolls has shed much more light on this; the dualism between light and darkness in John, for example, parallels heavily the Essene dualism between sons of light and sons of darkness.) Christians were also heavily influenced by the “Messianic” Psalms, particularity Psalm 2 and Psalm 110, which are quoted numerous times in the New Testament, and which heightened early Christian Christology. Combine all of this with absolute conviction in a resurrected Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father, transcending time and space, along certain claims Jesus made about himself - such as the “Son of Man” sayings, something which falls squarely into Jewish apocalyptism - and you already have a divine Jesus by the end of the 1st century. It is true that the worship of Christ by the earliest Christians did go beyond the bounds of mainstream Judaism, but it must be understood as a unique culmination of already existing Jewish traditions, mainly Wisdom and apocalyptic, in a very unique time in Jewish history, that gave birth to the Christian Trinity; all influenced by already existing Jewish traditions and wholly Jewish in nature.

This goes for many of the other “doctrinal differences” you sited. You see, you’re approaching this from the perspective of post-Temple Rabbinic Judaism, as well as a modern mindset attempting to neatly categorize certain groups. Unfortunately (maybe for you at least) it’s much more complex.

 

[meltzerboy2]

I am arguing that there is no such thing as post-Temple Rabbinic Judaism in that the Judaism of today can trace all of its core beliefs to antiquity. Just as Catholics (or most of them) argue that the Church has not changed in her essence since her inception, so too Jewish beliefs have not despite the destruction of the Temple on two occasions. The Oral Law of Judaism, codified in the Mishna and Talmud, has ensured that Judaism’s core beliefs remain intact worldwide, although customs may differ. The Dead Sea Scrolls confirm in large measure the accuracy of the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible followed by Pharasaic ancestors and which includes the Law, practiced by Orthodox Jews to this very day. The apocalyptic literature and the beliefs of the Essenes, although extremely interesting and worthy of study, were, as you correctly state, embraced by early Christians, but are not regarded as authoritative according to ancient Pharasaic tradition.

 

[thephilosopher6]

This you perspective as a modern Jew influenced by Rabbinism, but you must realize that Second Temple Judaism was not a single entity; there were Pharisees, Saducees, Essenes, Zealots, Herodians, followers of John the Baptist, and of course, the Christians, and even some other smaller groups. The early Christians in Jerusalem would not have seen themselves as distinct, they would have viewed themselves as Jews following Messiah.

You didn’t really address any of my main points though. I invite you re-read my post above and think about it before responding again.

 

[Crocus]

I hope this is not turning into apologetics, I am interested in the question/answer format that started this thread.

 

[TigerLily-1]

Crocus, I agree with you. This is a very interesting thread that I’ve been following and reading with enjoyment. I hate to see this thread hijacked and pushed off-topic.

I’ve learned a lot here Thank you @meltzerboy2 and @Moses613!

 

[meltzerboy2]

I do realize that the Judaism of the Ancients was not a single entity: there were, at best estimate, about 20 sects, the Pharisees just one among them, and some influenced by Hellenistic culture. However, I am saying that the Pharasaic tradition was the one that endured and the one that was codified in the Oral Law, besides which it is the one supported by the majority of writings found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. If you wish to call the continuation of the Pharasaic tradition post-Temple Rabbinic Judaism, that is your prerogative. However, my claim is that Judaism found its voice in the Pharasaic sect, while the other sects failed to survive. This is not so dissimilar to Christianity. Surely you don’t believe that Christianity didn’t also have differences of opinion at its inception: even the differences between Pauline and Petrine Christianity in the first place. Now many of these differences were ultimately labeled heresies by the Church, but they did vie for the soul of Christianity, just as the sects of Judaism competed for the soul of Judaism. I don’t think any religion emerges on the scene fully mature at its start. On the contrary, religions evolve and both Judaism and Christianity are still evolving to a certain extent. At the same time, they have evolved in their own ways, so that one can no longer say that Christianity is simply a continuation of Judaism, at least not from the Jewish perspective.

 

[thephilosopher6]

No, I don’t doubt that there indeed were differences at the start of the Church. James and Paul were in conflict, though James D.G. Dunn deems Peter as more of a “bridge man” between James and Paul in that, like Paul, he was open to other forms of the faith, but like James, he wanted to preserve the Jewish identity of Christianity.

And yes, obviously Christianity is no longer a form of Judaism in the strictest sense, though some groups like the so called “Messianic Jews” still forcibly blur the line. But it could hardly be said Catholicism or any other mainstream branch of Christianity is Jewish in any sense. It could be noted, however, that even up until the 13th century A.D., there were still small Jewish Christian groups, even in Europe. It should be said that Christianity originally evolved alongside Rabbinsim as a distinct form of Judaism for about half a century after the Temple was destroyed, competing for Judaism, until the ultimate replacement of the Jewish Church with the Gentile Church which shifted the focus and culminated into a new set of goals for Christians leading into becoming a distinct religion.

 

[meltzerboy2]

Thank you for these kind words.

 

[undead_rat]

undead_rat:

If I were a jew choosing to think that Yeshu was the Messiah, I would at least refer to him by his ancient Jewish name of Yeshu ben Pantera.

Yeshu ben Pantera was not Jesus of Nazareth.

That is how the Rabbi referred to Him in the 1st century. It is documented. They believed that Jesus had a biological father by the name of Pantera who was a Jewish archer enlisted in the Roman Army. Pantera’s full name may have been Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera. :“Abdes” is a latinization of “Ebed” which is a Jewish name.

Since this is a Jewish thread, I use the name that some Jews would have used for their Messiah. And I have a good reason for this. If Jews are ever going to accept Yeshu as Messiah, they are going to have to do that on Jewish terms. And that means throwing out pagan theologies such as virgin birth and worshiping any human form. Using the Messiah’s Jewish name of Yeshu ben Pantera accomplishes that purpose.

FYI: The gravestone of a 1st century Roman soldier who was in a Palestine archery brigade has been found in Germany: Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera.

PS: It seems unlikely that a free Jewish woman only fourteen years old would choose to marry a much older working class man who was not well off. That would only happen if the girl found herself in trouble.

 

[BartholomewB]

The first one says Ya’akov ben Binyamin.

The second one is a string of abbreviations, T N Tz B H, which are unfamiliar to me. Sorry.

 

[BartholomewB]

Yes, that’s obviously correct. It’s certainly an abbreviation that’s in common use in a synagogue context, as a quick Google search shows.