What are non-biblical arguments to believe Christianity over Judaism?

[WannabeSaint]

What are non-biblical arguments to believe Christianity over Judaism?

Each religion have their own scriptures that paint their religion as true, so I don’t know if arguments from scripture are fully convincing.

The Jews are God’s chosen people. Judaism came before Christianity, so they’re going to claim that Christianity is a distortion of Judaism just like Christians believe Islam is a distortion of Christianity.

How can we prove that Christianity is Judaism in its purest form and not a distortion of it.

 

[Feanor2]

There is no argument.

Faith in Christ is a gift from God.

Matters of faith do not lend themselves to argument or logical debate.

 

[Magnanimity]

What are non-biblical arguments to believe Christianity over Judaism? …they’re going to claim that Christianity is a distortion of Judaism just like Christians believe Islam is a distortion of Christianity.

I can think of three off the top of my head. First (and this is a reason why I made the move from Protestant to Catholic), if we believe that God has looked out for humanity and communicated with humanity from a very early stage, what occurred 2,000 years ago to believe that communication would have stopped? What stopped the flow of the prophets, for example? If it wasn’t the self-revelation of God in the Word (Christ), then what was it? Is it reasonable to believe that God would have communicated with a people at least since Moses’ time only to stop doing so before the time of Christ? Isn’t that more than a little peculiar? Where did He go?

Second, Islam has one person, the Prophet, not merely absorb the complete texts of the OT/NT and then add on, but rather re-writes stories contained in the OT/NT to suit himself. In contradistinction from this, the church merely absorbed the OT as it received it from Judaism. No revisions—just absorption, such that the church can plausibly be argued to be the fullest extension/expression of Judaism whereas Islam cannot (with its revisionist approach).

Third, it’s hard to argue against success. The church has spread far and wide, encompassing vast numbers of times/cultures/peoples and generally without the use of the sword. If God cares about the entire human race (which is probably the only reasonable position), then is it plausible that He would only be committed to this tiny people-group (Jewish folks)?

 

[Thom18]

Don’t we need Scripture to show them? We share the Old Testament in common, so that’s the ideal place to start.

 

[GUYMAN]

We (as Catholic Christians) should really look at this in a different way. Its not two separate religions - Jesus is the fufillment of Judaism. The fact that most Jews don’t realize this (yet) doesn’t make it any less true.

 

[billsherman]

How can we prove that Christianity is Judaism in its purest form and not a distortion of it.

You can’t. You can’t prove, or disprove any religion.

I dare you to disprove the Mayan religion, or the Egyptian religion. The best you do is say no one has any faith in them anymore.

 

[Kaninchen]

How can we prove that Christianity is Judaism in its purest form and not a distortion of it.

Christianity isn’t Judaism plus Jesus, Judaism isn’t Christianity minus Jesus, they’re two very different religions, two very different worldviews, with different foci.

Before deciding to sell Christianity to Jews, it might be a good idea to start to understand Judaism and how it ‘works’.

 

[phoage]

The Jewish historian, Josephus records Jesus and even records that he did miracles. Jesus is mentioned in Roman histories. The early Christians went to martyrdom for refusing to renounce Jesus. Having said that, I always look as Christians as heretic Jews. We have many of the same background traditions but we we kicked out of the temple for believing the Messiah had come.

Both are true but Christianity just carried on further and Jews got stuck waiting for a Messiah who they did not recognize as having come.

Patrick
AMDG

 

[Kaninchen]

The Jewish historian . . . . .

Actually, of course, the ancient references argument is a matter of stretching things and, while it may be convincing to the believer in the street, isn’t convincing to the critical non-believer (or critical believer, for that matter).

Where the argument really lies, I would suggest, is in the question of whether Christianity is ‘Judaism plus Jesus’ or something quite different.

From the perspective of this particular Jew who has been around this subject for a couple of decades, the answer is that it’s something quite different.

 

[spiderweb]

I don’t see why scriptures would be off limits especially when it comes to the books that Christians and Jews alike accept as Divine Revelation. When it comes to the Christian New Testament Gospels, they record historically verifiable events to the people who lived at that time. They were not written centuries after the fact, they were written when people could affirm or deny those events because they were there and witnessed it.

Perhaps Kaninchen or some other Jewish members on this forum could correct me, but I am not aware of any writings from that time period that say “the Gospel events didn’t really happen, here is the truth”. Jesus was a real historical person, he did and said things that caused more than a stir, and was put to death for it. If you throw away historical texts then there is no credibility to anything, Jewish or Christian. The point of books like Exodus, Joshua, Kings, Chronicles, etc is at least in part to demonstrate the truth of God manifesting himself to humanity IN HISTORY, not in a made up fairy tale. Trying to throw out history reminds me of people who deny the holocaust of WWII. They don’t believe it because they didn’t see it, but guess what thousands of others did. You can’t prove history by putting history off limits. Ultimately it boils down to the witnesses and credibility, and finally a leap of Faith.

 

[Kaninchen]

Perhaps Kaninchen or some other Jewish members on this forum could correct me, but I am not aware of any writings from that time period that say “the Gospel events didn’t really happen, here is the truth”.

You can’t assert the NT as scripture/reportage on the basis that nobody was bothered to refute it - for a start, that would assume that people beyond a small sect considered it important at the time.

I think the argument about whether Jesus (some itinerant teacher with somewhat pharisaic views) existed or not is a huge waste of time but arguing that, say, Jesus rose from the dead and nobody at the time seemed to deny it is something entirely different.

The evidence for Jesus is in the NT, the evidence for interpretation of Jesus is in the NT and belief in that evidence is a matter of faith.

 

[spiderweb]

You can’t assert the NT as scripture/reportage on the basis that nobody was bothered to refute it - for a start, that would assume that people beyond a small sect considered it important at the time.

As far as specific beliefs go, you are correct. Can you prove that God spoke to Moses, or said do this and not that? But the history itself brings forth evidence. For example: If the Feast of Passover was an invention of man, how exactly did the leaders convince thousands of people to do it and pass it on in tradition through centuries especially since the claim was that it was based on a real historical event. If it was not based on a real historical event, I would think that someone somewhere would have said close to that time period, that’s not what happened and it never would have been able to even get started because most people would have known it was a lie from the beginning.

As for Christianity, the same could be said. Yes, the resurrection from the dead does require faith along with other recorded miracles. However, the question that rises is “why was he put to death?” “what were the charges?” Those events are historical and not faith based. If Jesus didn’t actually say the things he did, no one would have believed what was being said or written about it from the beginning because there would have been others that said, that isn’t what happened, that’s a lie. Some things do require faith but other things do not.

There is a difference between “Did Jesus really say _____?” and “Is ____ really true?” One is historical, the other is faith. The faith element was rejected by most people at that time, but the historical element is not. It is only in later times that people reject the historical elements as not being true, as they also do for the exodus out of Egypt and institution of Passover, but it is not rejected by the people who lived at that time and who were the most qualified to reject it as historical because they were there.

My point was on the historical elements that people can agree on should not be off limits to the discussion. The main question to answer from the OP is “How can we prove that Christianity is Judaism in its purest form and not a distortion of it”. I think you would find it extremely difficult to even say what Judaism is without using scriptures, or to say what is or is not a distortion of it. Unlike the other religions of that time period, Judaism and Christianity both claim to be based on real historical events, not some mythological fable. Removing the historical elements limits them to faith based and basically puts them in the same catagory as pagan mythology. So the answer to the OP is, you can’t.

 

[Kaninchen]

My point was on the historical elements that people can agree on should not be off limits to the discussion.

Lots of works of fiction contain elements of historical detail that can be related to other sources, the existence of other sources that relate to those elements of historical detail don’t make those works of fiction anything other than works of fiction.

Meanwhile, all this ‘if you deny Jesus, you deny Moses/the Shoah (not you, personally but it happens)/whatever’ approach is smoke and mirrors and you know it.

The main question to answer from the OP is “How can we prove that Christianity is Judaism in its purest form and not a distortion of it”.

I’m sorry but you’re in the business of trying to define Judaism using a Christian ‘agenda/focus’, that’s OK as long as you don’t want to understand Judaism, what ‘belief’ means in Judaism, etc, etc.

 

[spiderweb]

I think you are misunderstanding me. In all of my posts, I haven’t been trying to prove Christianity at all or to define Judaism using a Christian agenda or focus.

The two questions asked:
“What are non-biblical arguments to believe Christianity over Judaism?”
“How can we prove that Christianity is Judaism in its purest form and not a distortion of it?”

Maybe this will help. Can you understand Judaism and it’s beliefs and prove that it’s true, without using ANY scripture? (Edited to include: Could you say what is a distortion of Judaism without using scripture?) What would you appeal to as evidence or proof to even make that claim? That seems to me what the OP is asking. I’m not trying to answer those original two questions, I’m saying that with the restrictions placed by the OP, his/her questions can’t be answered in any meaningful way.

 

[Kaninchen]

Maybe this will help. Can you understand Judaism and it’s beliefs and prove that it’s true, without using ANY scripture?

This isn’t my problem (within the context of the op’s question), I’m just trying to keep the argument ‘honest’.

I’ve taken it that the question is whether there is extra-biblical (forgetting for a moment that I don’t consider the NT as being ‘biblical’ at all, of course) evidence to establish the NT as scripture/reportage and, hence (given its formulations and proof texts), that Christianity is, in some way, the fulfilment of Judaism.

 

[spiderweb]

I’ve taken it that the question is whether there is extra-biblical (forgetting for a moment that I don’t consider the NT as being ‘biblical’ at all, of course) evidence to establish the NT as scripture/reportage and, hence (given its formulations and proof texts), that Christianity is, in some way, the fulfilment of Judaism.

I understand that completely, but non-biblical would also exclude what you do consider as scripture. Basically it would just rely on Tradition, but Tradition itself has a basis other than “poof here it is”.

 

[Kaninchen]

but non-biblical would also exclude what you do consider as scripture.

I don’t think the op meant that at all, I think he wants to prove one within the context of the other with supporting, non-biblical, ‘evidence’ (from Josephus, through Turin shrouds and onto Portuguese hillsides, I expect) because he perceives no other way out of a “oh yes it is!/oh no it isn’t!” impasse.

 

[Neithan]

The second temple was destroyed in the first century, so we have to recognize that the Judaism practiced today has a significantly different essential expression than the ancient form. The first Christians were Jews, so we should question the effort to treat Christianity as something fundamentally incongruent with Judaism, as history disproves that claim. The Judaism that developed after the first century has defined itself in such a way to exclude acceptance of Christ, so using this as a basis to compare the two religions is begging the question.

The best reason to believe Christianity is the resurrection. If that didn’t happen, then what is the point? If we want to argue based on natural reason alone, we may as well be unitarian universalists.

 

[billsherman]

The two questions asked:
“What are non-biblical arguments to believe Christianity over Judaism?”
“How can we prove that Christianity is Judaism in its purest form and not a distortion of it?”

1. There probably aren’t any.
2. You can’t.

As I said above, you can’t “prove” or “disprove” ANY religion. That’s what makes them religions instead of science.

Just, for a moment, be happy that all of us live in nations that guarantee freedom of religion. In other times, or just in other places, we might all be killed for not believing what the government demands us to believe.

 

[Kaninchen]

so we have to recognize that the Judaism practiced today has a significantly different essential expression than the ancient form.

Nope, the entire population of the ancient Jewish world weren’t turning up at the Temple every Saturday for a quick sacrifice.

The Temple was just one aspect of ancient Judaism.