Is Christianity an offshoot or 'parasite' from Judaism

[Mithrae]

Just wrote this up in response to a comment that "Christianity as it relates to Judaism is an interloper and a parasite feeding off the establishment of an older religion." That's a fairly common type of view among critics, explicitly or more implicitly, but I wonder if it actually has any merit? I'm not an expert on the history of Judaism by any stretch of the imagination, but perhaps there is a little more to the story than folk who hold such views realize.



There were at least four noteworthy, distinct branches of Jewish thought before Jesus started preaching: Compare for instance the Sadducees - associated with social elites, oriented towards the temple and priesthood, accepting only the written Torah as divine scripture, rejecting life or punishment after death - with the Pharisees - a lay movement, using the Prophets, Writings and 'oral Torah' in addition to the written Torah, many believing in judgement or reincarnation after death, emphasizing personal observance of the Law as much if not more than temple sacrifice...

Jesus may well have been taught or influenced by Pharisees (particularly of the Hillel school) and/or the Essenes. Peter, John, Paul, James and so on were all Jews too. Rightly or wrongly, their understanding that Jesus was the messiah to be 'cut off' was firmly grounded in Jewish scripture (Dan.9:26, and, as if in confirmation, the city and the sanctuary were indeed destroyed shortly thereafter); so too were their respective (and not necessarily identical) interpretations of the 'new covenant' (Jer. 31:31-34) and being a 'light to the gentiles'/salvation to the ends of the earth (Isaiah 49:6). For forty years or so theirs was one of now at least five major streams of Jewish thought. The gradual demographic shift from a predominantly Jewish Christianity to a more gentile Christianity was undoubtedly marked by superficially obvious changes like maybe eating pork sometimes and no longer cutting a bit of skin off their sons' willies, but arguably such trivialities of practice were a mere consequence of the much more profound shifts in theology - believing Jesus was the Messiah, fulfillment of the law and bringer of a new covenant - which many if not most Jewish believers had already accepted even in the earliest decades of that Jewish sect's existence.

Meanwhile the temple's destruction began a shift in what eventually became 'mainstream' Judaism which was just as radical as the shift in what eventually became Christianity, begun forty years earlier. What became known as Rabbinic Judaism was heavily influenced by the Pharasaic tradition largely because they, like the Christians, had been ahead of the game in shifting emphasis away from the temple and towards a more adaptable, versatile attitude towards 'the Law.' Rabbinic Judaism, like Christianity, added more Scripture to their canon in the form of the Talmud. In fact, if you believe that it is important then surely you should be aware that Rabbinic Judaism added more content later on than the Christian branch of the religion did!

There's literally no reason to suppose that modern or for that matter 1st century Jews are any more the 'true' heirs to the religion Isaiah helped shape than that modern or 1st century Christians were.



Of course, there's also what could be considered an equally insulting view that Judaism is simply a misguided religion that missed the point of it all. What do y'all think; is one or the other of these extremes reasonable? Or even correct? Or are both of these branches from the 1st century Judaic faith equally il/legitimate?

[Jagella]

Three verses from Deuteronomy which (as explained above) was a covenant given to Israel across the Jordan just before they entered, apparently as a sort of national constitution rather than holiness as individuals under foreign rulership. One from Chronicles which refers to the covenant given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not Moses. And from Psalm 119 which doesn't mention Moses at all, and without knowing by whom or at least when it was written we can't be sure which commands and laws it's about; it too could be understood as exalting the Abrahamic and Noahide laws.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Are you saying that 1 Chronicles contradicts Deuteronomy? I posted three passages from Deuteronomy which most Christians believe was written by Moses. My point was that the dogma of the Hebrew Bible does not support Christian dogma regarding the law of Moses. Please address that issue. How can an eternal law be done away with by Jesus?

Even if that's what we did see - which we don't...

What don't you "see"? I posted passages from both the Old and New Testaments, and I had no trouble reading them at all.

...Paul was just one early Christian; I've already shown that the author of Matthew for one seemingly insisted on the ongoing relevance and perfection of the Torah's commands.

Yes, there is a contradiction there between Paul and the gospel tale. Christians have wrestled over that issue, but I understand that the attempted reconciliation is that the law only indicates what sin is while faith in Jesus saves from sin. So if we accept this "reconciliation," then the conflict with the Hebrew Bible remains.

...rather than going back to a tabernacle such as that commanded by Moses, Jews have neglected those sacrifices for over 1900 years now; and many believe that it doesn't really matter, that the sacrifices were merely a ritual or symbol of something else.

You're confusing dogma with practice here. Jews have done a lot of things that their religion disapproves of. Such practices don't mean that the Jewish god did away with his eternal law. Many Christians engage in extramarital sex; does Jesus approve of that sex? Does such sex do away with Jesus' condemnation of adultery? No, and neither does the Jewish practice of neglecting their religion mean that the law of Moses was only temporary.

The one thing which is certainly and unequivocally not the case is that Christianity developed from (let alone distorted) the religion we know as Judaism.

You can always change the meaning of Judaism to try to save your position, but the fact remains that the Hebrew Bible does not support the Christian dogma of the temporary nature of the law of Moses. I know. I've read it. The law was meant to be kept always--forever--eternally.

What is it about those words that you don't understand?

[Mithrae]

...rather than going back to a tabernacle such as that commanded by Moses, Jews have neglected those sacrifices for over 1900 years now; and many believe that it doesn't really matter, that the sacrifices were merely a ritual or symbol of something else. Christians likewise believe that those sacrifices were merely a ritual or symbol of something else, and that this is the main reason why the temple became redundant and was destroyed so soon after they had begun spreading their message.

You're confusing dogma with practice here. Jews have done a lot of things that their religion disapproves of. Such practices don't mean that the Jewish god did away with his eternal law. Many Christians engage in extramarital sex; does Jesus approve of that sex? Does such sex do away with Jesus' condemnation of adultery? No, and neither does the Jewish practice of neglecting their religion mean that the law of Moses was only temporary.

Are you appealing to a real God and his actual eternal law here? Strange, I didn't think you believed in those things Historically, sociologically and, yes, theologically according to all Christians and most modern Jews the law of Moses was temporary in even some of its core rituals*. Finding a few ancient Hebrew sentences (of debatable scope and application) which incorrectly insist that it should have been otherwise does not change that fact. As I suggested in my previous post, this line of argument you're pursuing is a highly dogmatic, fundamentalist one... and coming from someone who isn't even religious that seems even less respectable than we might otherwise allow. Cultures and religions evolve over time alongside changes in circumstances and social/technological sophistication: In my view all intelligent people should accept that as a generally good thing, but good or not it is a fact, and so is the fact that from the 1st and 2nd centuries the ancient Hebrew religion/s evolved along two main surviving paths, Christian and Rabbinic.



* For example one Orthodox Jewish site attributes a perspective along those lines to the famous medieval rabbi Maimonides:

• Quite the contrary, some would say that the original institution of sacrifice had more to do with the Judaism's past than with its future. Rambam [Maimonides] suggested that the entire sacrificial cult in Judaism was ordained as an accommodation of man's primitive desires.
  
  Sacrifice is an ancient and universal human expression of religion. Greeks and Romans and Canaanites and Egyptians all offered sacrifices to their gods. Sacrifice existed among the Hebrews long before the giving of the Torah. Cain and Abel offered sacrifices; Noah and his sons offered sacrifices, and so forth. When the laws of sacrifice were given to the Children of Israel in the Torah, the pre-existence of a system of sacrificial offering was understood, and sacrificial terminology was used without any explanation. The Torah, rather than creating the institution of sacrifice, carefully limited the practice, permitting it only in certain places, at certain times, in certain manners, by certain people, and for certain purposes. Rambam suggests that these limitations are designed to wean a primitive people away from the debased rites of their idolatrous neighbors.

[Jagella]

You're confusing dogma with practice here. Jews have done a lot of things that their religion disapproves of. Such practices don't mean that the Jewish god did away with his eternal law. Many Christians engage in extramarital sex; does Jesus approve of that sex? Does such sex do away with Jesus' condemnation of adultery? No, and neither does the Jewish practice of neglecting their religion mean that the law of Moses was only temporary.

Are you appealing to a real God and his actual eternal law here? Strange, I didn't think you believed in those things

Yes I am obviously appealing to a real god! Just read what I posted above. I mentioned the Jewish god. I must therefore believe in him. Just like you can logically conclude that I believe in Beavis and Butt-head when I mention them.

Historically, sociologically and, yes, theologically according to all Christians and most modern Jews the law of Moses was temporary in even some of its core rituals...

All those Jews and Christians must read a dictionary that defines "always" and "everlasting" as "temporary."

Finding a few ancient Hebrew sentences (of debatable scope and application) which incorrectly insist that it should have been otherwise does not change that fact.

So I read six passages from the Hebrew Bible describing the covenant with Moses with phrases like "to a thousand generations," "keep his...commandments always," "keep his charge...all the days you live," "an everlasting covenant," "founded them forever," and "endureth for ever," only to have an apologist tell me that these passages are not what I just read.

That's very typical apologetics. A person reads the Bible, explains what she has read, and then the apologist tells her that's not what the Bible says!

As I suggested in my previous post, this line of argument you're pursuing is a highly dogmatic, fundamentalist one...

I actually prefer religious fundamentalism over liberal religion. Fundamentalists are more to-the-point while liberals are always contradicting their own religion constantly revising it to make themselves look intellectually respectable.

...and coming from someone who isn't even religious that seems even less respectable than we might otherwise allow.

Make sure you "argue against the man." Your post isn't complete without at least one glaring mistake in logic.

Cultures and religions evolve over time alongside changes in circumstances and social/technological sophistication...

Well I know for a fact that many Jews do not accept that Christianity has done away with the law of Moses and that they never accepted Jesus as the Messiah. That much has not changed. So the changes you cite are irrelevant.

[Mithrae]

As I suggested in my previous post, this line of argument you're pursuing is a highly dogmatic, fundamentalist one...

I actually prefer religious fundamentalism over liberal religion. Fundamentalists are more to-the-point while liberals are always contradicting their own religion constantly revising it to make themselves look intellectually respectable.

...and coming from someone who isn't even religious that seems even less respectable than we might otherwise allow.

Make sure you "argue against the man." Your post isn't complete without at least one glaring mistake in logic.

Any argument which depends on a fundamentalist approach - such as the one you're trying to advance - will always be invalid and unconvincing, but when it's made by a religious person it might at least have some internal coherency. When such a dogmatic argument is made by someone who is not religious then it evidently cannot have even those shreds of internal coherency. Pointing that fact out is not ad hominem, it's just common sense.

Historically, sociologically and, yes, theologically according to all Christians and most modern Jews the law of Moses was temporary in even some of its core rituals. Finding a few ancient Hebrew sentences (of debatable scope and application) which incorrectly insist that it should have been otherwise does not change that fact.

So I read six passages from the Hebrew Bible describing the covenant with Moses with phrases like "to a thousand generations," "keep his...commandments always," "keep his charge...all the days you live," "an everlasting covenant," "founded them forever," and "endureth for ever," only to have an apologist tell me that these passages are not what I just read.

That's very typical apologetics. A person reads the Bible, explains what she has read, and then the apologist tells her that's not what the Bible says!

Yes, at least one of your verses obviously is not what you think you read, as I already pointed out: The one from Chronicles is clearly and explicitly speaking about the Abrahamic covenant, not Mosaic. But such poor quote-mining aside, more broadly what you're doing is like finding a few quotes from Jefferson or Washington or the Federalist Papers which present a vision for America different than it has historically developed, and declaring that therefore the US is an illegitimate 'distortion' and 'parasite' off whatever political faction or state you feel has stayed truer to your chosen sentences. Even if you were interpreting the provenance, scope and application of your proof texts from Deuteronomy and Psalms correctly (which is possible, but debatable) it obviously doesn't change the facts of how the Christian and Rabbinic branches grew away from those more primitive roots, nor does it in any way delegitimize them short of accepting your fundamentalist assumptions about religion.


In any case, this will now be at least the fourth time in as many months that I have had to tell you that I am not an "apologist." The fact that you constantly have to stoop to this kind of name-calling perhaps tells us something about the quality of your arguments, and certainly reminds me not too bother spending too much effort in my responses.

[Danmark]

That Christianity is derivative of Judaism is without question, if one gives the least consideration to early Christian voices such as those attributed to Jesus and Paul. And there are so many forms of each, both including both the divine and the lack of divinity that it makes little difference whether one uses a pejorative like 'parasite' or the general, 'offshoot.' In either case, to the extent one relies on the supernatural, religion is bunk.

[Jagella]

That Christianity is derivative of Judaism is without question, if one gives the least consideration to early Christian voices such as those attributed to Jesus and Paul. And there are so many forms of each, both including both the divine and the lack of divinity that it makes little difference whether one uses a pejorative like 'parasite' or the general, 'offshoot.' In either case, to the extent one relies on the supernatural, religion is bunk.

You can use any word you wish to describe Christianity as it relates to Judaism. I think it's best just to understand that Christianity has taken Jewish beliefs and changed those beliefs to the advantage of Christianity and to the detriment of the Jewish people.

[Mithrae]

You can use any word you wish to describe Christianity as it relates to Judaism. I think it's best just to understand that Christianity has taken Jewish beliefs and changed those beliefs to the advantage of Christianity and to the detriment of the Jewish people.

I suspect that one of Jesus' primary motivations was the hope of protecting his people from the consequences which nationalism, messianic hopes and cultural separatism contributed towards bringing down on the Jewish people during the three Jewish-Roman wars of 66-135CE.

• The table below shows [the three wars] resulted in between 350,000 - 2,000,000+ [Jewish] fatalities. . . . While there is dispute as to what happened there is no dispute about the result. The enormous Jewish casualties and their expulsion, the disappearance of Judea from the map, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and change in the name of Jerusalem with entry forbidden to Jews and repopulated with Greeks. The Jews were now stateless and lived in other countries were they usually paid extra taxes and suffered massacres and sometimes expulsion and gradual resettlement in many other countries
  ~ http://www.jewishwikipedia.info/romanwars.html

Cultural separatism is also big part of the reason why a distinctively Jewish identity has survived subsequent millennia of sporadic persecution in Christian- and Muslim-dominated areas, of course. But quite possibly another major contributor is the simple fact that for most of that time virtually the whole European, Middle Eastern and northern African world acknowledged the Jewish God, the God of Abraham and Moses. A religion and culture based primarily on an interpretation of ancient Hebrew writings about god might have faded into obscurity - like so many others have - if its adherents from generation to generation had found nothing to sustain their belief that that god was real. In dispersal, Judaism may well have been extinguished by indifference; and by comparison may well have been partly sustained by Muslim and Christian worlds acknowledging the reality of the Jewish God, even in spite of the persecution which often accompanied their differences in culture and interpretation.

Declaring that the existence of Christianity has been to the detriment of the Jewish people is equivalent to an entirely speculative and unsupportable claim that the Jewish people would have fared better in a counterfactual world without Christianity; for all we know, in that world the Jewish people as such might no longer exist.

[William]

[Replying to post 25 by Jagella]

You can use any word you wish to describe Christianity as it relates to Judaism. I think it's best just to understand that Christianity has taken Jewish beliefs and changed those beliefs to the advantage of Christianity and to the detriment of the Jewish people.

I look at both and ask "What detriment can be seen active today which shows that the Jewish people suffer from being disadvantaged by Christianity?" and am unable to identify anything which answers that question adequately.

Having read the various answers in this thread, I am still convinced that post#6 is closest to the Truth as far as facts go.

[Jagella]

Any argument which depends on a fundamentalist approach - such as the one you're trying to advance - will always be invalid and unconvincing, but when it's made by a religious person it might at least have some internal coherency. When such a dogmatic argument is made by someone who is not religious then it evidently cannot have even those shreds of internal coherency. Pointing that fact out is not ad hominem, it's just common sense.

What you've posted here is laughably stupid. Taking a "fundamentalist approach" doesn't make an argument invalid and unconvincing. Fundamentalists like anybody else are welcome to put their cards on the table and argue their case. If they have facts and good logic, then they'll probably be right. The sensible way to judge those arguments is to use sound logic and not dismiss them just because those arguments are made by Christian fundamentalists! If you judge an argument by saying it's wrong because of the person making it, then you're using fallacious reasoning.

Yes, at least one of your verses obviously is not what you think you read...

Yes it is exactly what I've read. I know--I've read it.

So Mith, I'm sorry but your arguments are just full of plain awful "logic." If and when you learn to use sound reasoning, then get back to me.

[Danmark]

I suspect that one of Jesus' primary motivations was the hope of protecting his people from the consequences which nationalism, messianic hopes and cultural separatism contributed towards bringing down on the Jewish people during the three Jewish-Roman wars of 66-135CE.nity; for all we know, in that world the Jewish people as such might no longer exist.

I think this is correct. His main thesis is related, that there is a core to Jewish ethics that is lost with the legalisms of the Pharisees and Sadducees. We see this in law in the debate between the natural law theorists and the legal positivists.

In any event, Jesus was not Christian; he was a Jew who understood that God was not just a tribal God. Paul damaged that message by worshipping the messenger. Today the message has become almost completely destroyed by that deification and the sectarian strife and cheerleading it inevitably engendered.