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cabaret
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I thought supercessionism was thought to be somewhat passé nowadays.
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Ghosty
Guest
Cabaret: He’s not describing supercessionism at all. Supercessionism would be saying that Catholics are NOT Jews, but rather replace Jews. He is saying that Catholics are the inclusion of Gentile blood in Jewish practice and belief, a view expounded upon by Paul himself. The Church IS the real continuation of Ancient Judaism, and this has been and continues to be the teaching of the Church. It does NOT replace Judaism, but rather completes it; that is entirely different from supercessionism.
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cabaret
Guest
You’d hardly expect me to accept that (any of it).
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Antonio_B
Guest
Code:
I fail to see why you have to defend Catholicism against Judaism. Obviously from their perspective our belief in Christ’s divinity is wrong. From our perspective, they are the ones who are dead wrong, that’s all.
Antonio
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dizzy_dave
Guest
Hi everyone! I’m not really trying to convert any Jewish people, it’s just hard to explain to a Jewish person why Jesus was (is) the Messiah, when dealing with protestants at least you already have that in common. When I try to say Jesus fulfilled the prophecies they say no he didn’t, etc. Some of it is just them flat out denying it, they get mad and don’t even want to discuss it. I don’t like hearing someones opinion or view on something then them refusing to hear mine. I guess that’s what I mean. Like I said they think they are as right as we are. How do you tell someone something when they won’t even let you say your view?
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Salvo
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Hmmm. Maybe. Who is the editor of the Boston Globe? Who continues to slander His Holiness Pope Pius XII (buon’anima)? Who spreads misinformation about the Catholic and Orthodox church supporting terrorists?Is Catholicism under attack from the Jews???
I’m not saying there is a massive Jewish conspiracy to destroy the church. But I definitely feel that at least on a subconscious level, many Jews attack the church when given the chance. Whether they do so out of spite or fear is anyone’s guess.
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David_B
Guest
Is Judaism really the same religion today that it was in the time of Christ and beforehand? Without the temple rituals and practices, how related is the Judaism of today to that of the past?
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Salvo
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David B:
I’ve heard Jews described as all of the above. But as far as the religion goes, it has undergone as much change and evolution as Catholicism in the past 2000 years. The core beliefs are still the same, though much of the ritual and cultural practice has been dropped.
David, good point. What the heck are Jews anyway? A race? Followers of a religion? A way of life? A state of mind?
I’ve heard Jews described as all of the above. But as far as the religion goes, it has undergone as much change and evolution as Catholicism in the past 2000 years. The core beliefs are still the same, though much of the ritual and cultural practice has been dropped.
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cabaret
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Slight terminological inexactitude in the use of the word ‘defending’ when you’re ‘selling’ Jesus-to them in the first place! [tongue very firmly in cheek here, by the way]
Over the years I’ve engaged in many debates with Christians – usually Protestants, I don’t know that much about Catholic Christians, which is why I’ve started visiting here from time to time – and I can appreciate how frustrating we can be for you. 2000 years and we still “don’t believe a word of it”. Obviously, I have no interest in helping you evangelize Jews but, perhaps, I can try to help you understand what is going on when you try.
There are a number of things I think you need to bear in mind. One of them is to remember that we’re not an evangelizing religion, we see no need to be because we don’t see people like Muslims and Christians as being disadvantaged in any way by not being of the Jewish faith, though I do wonder, sometimes, whether some Christians verge on idolatry (no, I’m not talking about statues in Churches) which is a really, really bad thing from God’s point of view. That is, however, by the by.
It has often struck me that Christians don’t appreciate just how paradigmatically different the two religions are. Christianity is not Judaism+Jesus, Judaism isn’t Christianity–Jesus. You may have taken our scriptures to be your own but the whole approach to them is different – to you, the Tanakh (Old Testament) is part of a seamless whole that prophesies and leads up to the arrival of your ‘Savior’. To us there’s the Torah (the first five books of your OT), the books of The Law and the rest is commentary on The Law – it’s even organized differently; for example, the Book of Ruth is the eighth book of your Bible – reflecting, probably, your believe Ruth was the ancestress of Jesus. In the Tanakh it’s number thirty-one, being mainly of interest as commentary on the treatment of strangers and those people who do wish to convert.
Judaism as a religion doesn’t ‘have’ Law – Judaism is ‘Law’. We have a God that not only can’t we imagine, we’re not supposed to try to imagine – even imagining God, nevermind the idea that a man could be God, as male is idolatry. When God made us in his (some gendered pronoun being necessary in English because “its” does not convey personhood) image, it was an image in his mind, not some kind of reflection. What God gave us when he ‘chose’ us (according to Jewish legend after others had turned him down) for the “follow my Law and I’ll look after you – don’t and I won’t” contract, was Law, we were left to get on with it. What emerged is what is often described as ‘Ethical Monotheism’, where the emphasis is on “How to live a good life,” not personal salvation within a dualistic battle between good and evil – Judaism, like other Middle Eastern religions in the area where it was ‘born’ is unclear on what happens after death – we may have hope for The World To Come, just like everybody else.
From a Jewish perspective Christianity consists of creating a need (something to be ‘saved’ from) and then sells the cure (Jesus). From what I’ve said above, you may appreciate that this is not part of the Jewish paradigm – it’s orthogonal to the Jewish paradigm, not so much contrary to it but irrelevant to it.
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cabaret
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In the Christian paradigm, the Messiah comes to ‘save’ the individual, so, ultimately, they live with him and the other two persons who make up your view of God. To us, Messiah (a very complex and fluctuating concept even in the Biblical Age, nevermind later) comes to ‘save’ the Jewish people in an earthly sense – then we get Israel and everybody (including non-Jews except you don’t get Israel) lives happily afterwards (possibly ever afterwards) – in whatever way God determines (and we can only guess at but would include ‘The Law’). It’s something few people spend much time thinking about – after all, we’ve had a few more false Messiahs than Jesus and, like Christians awaiting your ‘Second Coming’, one is wise not to hold one’s breath.
So, here are we, focused on ‘Ethical Monotheism’ and there you are, focused on ‘Saved’. So, you tell us that we need to be ‘Saved’ and have to come to know Jesus in order to be ‘Saved’. ‘Saved’ from what?
Then you tell us that Jesus, a man, is God, which is somewhat equivalent to telling Catholics that they should make abortion a Sacrament.
Then you tell us that Jesus was Messiah, go on to define Messiah entirely differently from the Jewish understanding of Messiah and say “Your redeemer has come and fulfilled prophesy – look at all these fulfillments.” To which our reply is?
Our reply: is “Funny that Jesus fulfilled all the prophesies that could be achieved by text manipulation but none of the ones that one could perceive in any other way.”
Then you tell us that your religion, not ours, is the true continuation of Biblical Judaism and you’re ‘Israel’ now.
And we say? We say things like: “After 2000 years of persecution – of which, do remember, many of us have recent family ‘folk’ memories – we still don’t believe a word of it.”
In other words, if you want to try to speak about Jesus, try to speak ‘to’ us, not ‘at’ us. If you want us to understand your point of view, try to comprehend ours. If you want us to glimpse the world through your eyes, try to glimpse it through ours and, perhaps, accept that neither side is going to back down but that both sides may learn.
So, here are we, focused on ‘Ethical Monotheism’ and there you are, focused on ‘Saved’. So, you tell us that we need to be ‘Saved’ and have to come to know Jesus in order to be ‘Saved’. ‘Saved’ from what?
Then you tell us that Jesus, a man, is God, which is somewhat equivalent to telling Catholics that they should make abortion a Sacrament.
Then you tell us that Jesus was Messiah, go on to define Messiah entirely differently from the Jewish understanding of Messiah and say “Your redeemer has come and fulfilled prophesy – look at all these fulfillments.” To which our reply is?
Our reply: is “Funny that Jesus fulfilled all the prophesies that could be achieved by text manipulation but none of the ones that one could perceive in any other way.”
Then you tell us that your religion, not ours, is the true continuation of Biblical Judaism and you’re ‘Israel’ now.
And we say? We say things like: “After 2000 years of persecution – of which, do remember, many of us have recent family ‘folk’ memories – we still don’t believe a word of it.”
In other words, if you want to try to speak about Jesus, try to speak ‘to’ us, not ‘at’ us. If you want us to understand your point of view, try to comprehend ours. If you want us to glimpse the world through your eyes, try to glimpse it through ours and, perhaps, accept that neither side is going to back down but that both sides may learn.
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cabaret
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David B:
Rabbinical Judaism continues the endless rowing of our ancestors and uses their rows to illuminate current ones.
Of the three ‘parties’ of Jesus time, the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Essenes, rabbinical – mainstream – Judaism is heir to the Pharisees (whose characterization in the New Testament we’d obviously disagree about – Jesus often sounds rather like a Pharisee, actually). There are a small group of non-rabbinic Jews, known as Karaites, who have many Sadducee ideas, I believe.
Rabbinical Judaism continues the endless rowing of our ancestors and uses their rows to illuminate current ones.
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Imprimartin
Guest
Cabaret,
This might be late in coming but I think I can say on behalf of everyone, Welcome to the Catholic Answer forums.
I want to respond to what you’ve written in the last few posts but I don’t want to risk “talking at” you. I’m not sure how you make the distinction between “talking at” versus “talking to” someone. But in any case, this is my attempt to “talk to” you. You’ve covered a lot of topics in your last few posts but I’m a “one at a time” kind of guy. And so I would like to explore what you talked about above and maybe we can get to the rest.
You say that the book of Ruth is in a different sequence in the canon (canon = collection of books which makes up the OT or NT bible) than christianity. We catholics would respond that order of books doesn’t matter. Our reasoning is that if I were to collect various books/scrolls together which were written over thousands of years time span, I would have to put them in some kind of order. This order I would have to make up since I don’t know if G-d specified a book order throughout the “bible”.
And so if our book of Ruth comes in Xth and yours comes in Yth, we would see that as a difference without a distinction. This would also apply to any other books.
Do you agree with this logic or am I missing something?
Martin
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cabaret
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First, I should thank people on the various forums for welcoming me.
Well, for us, the significance really lies in Torah (Law)/Nevi’im (Prophets)/Kethuvim (Writings). Torah comes first; everything else is commentary.
As to the question of the positioning of Ruth in the Christian canon, I was taking it from what a Christian (sorry can’t remember the denomination) poster told me – that it was important there because, of course, it’s followed by the ‘Samuels’ and the arrival of David – all part of the seamless thread leading up to Jesus.
Thank you for an interesting insight into ‘difference’ between Christian outlooks.
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Ghosty
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Of course not. As a non-Catholic Jew (and I wasn’t aware that you were one, welcome to the forum!) I’d be perplexed if you did accept it. My point is merely that what the other poster was describing is not supersecessionism.
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Greg_McPherran
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Catholicism does not need to be defended. Jesus offers all humans, starting with His own Jewish people, eternal life with Him. They can choose to accept or reject.
Greg
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spauline
Guest
I think a central issue to discuss with the Jews is that Mortal Sin merits everlasting punishment, a debt that no animal sacrifice, or for that matter, even a human creature cannot repay.
Read this from my website:
spauline.net/religion/StarWars.htm
It demonstrates that only God Himself can atone for an infinite debt of mortal sin. That is a good starting point in dialoguing with Jews because they do not seem to realize that mere animals cannot atone for serious sin. Only God becoming a man could do this.
GB,
Scott
Read this from my website:
spauline.net/religion/StarWars.htm
It demonstrates that only God Himself can atone for an infinite debt of mortal sin. That is a good starting point in dialoguing with Jews because they do not seem to realize that mere animals cannot atone for serious sin. Only God becoming a man could do this.
GB,
Scott
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Jehu13
Guest
Get the book Salvation is from the Jews
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Imprimartin
Guest
Cabaret,
I really wasn’t looking to harp on the the whole ‘Ruth’ issue. What I was really getting at is that the differences/similarities in the position of Ruth in the table of contents of the “bible” is not a factor in differences between christianity and judaism. Those other things which you mentioned are very relevant, but not the Ruth thing.
As such, I would like to get to the other subjects that you brought up (one at a time please). I’ve always wanted to speak to someone on this issue. With your permission, of course. :bowdown2:
My first sidebar question is this: You have relegated everything but the Torah to “commentary” status. Does this mean that you (and/or all of judaidom) (judaidom?!) do not consider it the Word of G-d?
Martin
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hlgomez
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Dizzy Dave,
I suggest that you read Justin Martyr’s “Dialogue with Trypho, A Jew.” Justin Martyr is one of the early church’s Fathers. He’s got a whole bunch of explanations from the Scriptures with regards to Christianity and its fulfillment from OT prophecies. For me, his arguments are like an eye-opener for Jews. It’s a nice read.
Pio
I suggest that you read Justin Martyr’s “Dialogue with Trypho, A Jew.” Justin Martyr is one of the early church’s Fathers. He’s got a whole bunch of explanations from the Scriptures with regards to Christianity and its fulfillment from OT prophecies. For me, his arguments are like an eye-opener for Jews. It’s a nice read.
Pio
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cabaret
Guest
Well, depending on how Orthodox you are, ‘Torah is from Heaven’, as for the rest, before I answer, I’d like to ask a question.
Given the fact that I’ve introduced the idea of a highly legalistic religion, why (outside the Torah) would it matter if the rest was the ‘Word of G-d’ or whether it was just ‘inspired’ writing? Or, putting it another way - just how large do the Constitution and Bill Of Rights have to be relative to the size of ‘Case Law’?
Notice, by the way, I don’t use the ‘G-d’ semi-convention - God isn’t the name of ‘God’
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