I am interested as to how Judaism has changed from the Judaism in the Bible (at the time of Christ) - I know that after Christ, the Jewish Leaders changed the Biblical canon (so Catholic Old Testament has more books).
I have also read (
fisheaters.com/circumcision2.html) that circumcision has changed. I understand that these changes could have happened (because Judaism has no central authority) - what other changes have been made? I’d imagine that accepting contraception is a new development, but I could be wrong.
There’s a lot of good answers here. My reading relates to your first comment about changing the Biblical canon.
It depends on what you mean. If you mean changing the texts of the individual books in the canon, yes, that went on for some time then stopped (the experts say). If you mean selecting which books are in the canon, yes that too, the Conservative Judaism that I’ve read about identifies the canon as finalized (through no special process that has been ever discovered, except just perhaps by agreement). The role of the prophets in scripture was replaced by the leaders of the various sects. For example, Jesus refers to the High Priest as sitting on the chair of Moses.
In specific, for reasons not well understood except just perhaps a prejudice, Judaism accepted the Hebrew Masoretic text as authoritative and rejected the Septuagint (greek) version, which interestingly is thought to be older than the Masoretic text. And, there’s the rub, the S. had the deuterocanonical books in them, whereas the Masoretic did not. This decision held for a long time, until it was discovered that there were Hebrew versions of at least some of the deuterocanonical books in the scrolls at Qumran (Dead Sea). (whoops?)
Well, that decision still holds. Jewish scholarship looks at all the various texts for the widest understanding.
There’s a lot more to the discussion, as you can imagine. Part of it hinges around the subsequent commentaries of the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds and which books that they accepted. I’ve forgotten the details of that.
As far as there being a central authority in Judaism, there’s a lot of viewpoints. There still is a Sanhedrin in Jerusalem which issues interpretations. But, in a book called the Jewish Study Bible (Oxford Univ Press) and someplace else, I’ve read that there is no official interpretation of any Hebrew scriptures. Strange? Well, there’s a lot of writings (talmud “study”) and more modern Midrash (homiletic considerations of the Torah), with sometimes conflicting views. The modern commentaries I’ve read (just a few) seem to look across the full range of texts, to see what’s out there. The conflicting opinions don’t cause schisms as we know them because the Biblical texts themselves are conflicting.
One of the biggest differences is the directions for cooking the passover lamb. In one place it says that it should be boiled and another place it should be roasted. Trivial? Quite a big deal, actually. Leviticus, the priestly book, emphasizes the Aaronic priesthood, and the Levites are like sacristans, not performing priestly functions. But, in Deuteronomy, there is a “different tradition” (as the commentary says) where the Levites perform all the priestly functions – big difference, big deal.
Where did change come from? Look at the emergence of rabbis from the group of Pharisees. Rabbis aren’t mentioned in the Torah, but here they are today. big difference, big deal.
The transformation of Judaism after the destruction of the Temple c.70 AD is discussed briefly by Benedict XVI in the second volume of Jesus of Nazareth. The theology of the Torah became more important, with prayers replacing sacrifices. Prayer is the penultimate human activity of communication with the Divine.
D). So, perhaps it might be a good idea to read a few Jewish interpretations rather than head first to certain Christian websites for your information.