Judaism +Paganism = Christianity?

[Elijah John]

Judaic elements of Christianity:

-Veneration of the God of Abraham, YHVH as the Father.
-A Jewish founder, namely Jesus.
-The ethical monotheism of Judaism as taught by the founder in the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount.
-A very Jewish prayer, the Lord's prayer.

Elements of Paganism

-The idea of an Incarnate God
- The dying and rising God.
-The Virgin Birth story
- Atonement by the blood of human sacrifice.

For debate, which parts of this analysis do you accept or disparage, and why? Where would you add or detract?

And was it entirely necessary to incorporate elements of Greco-Roman Paganism into Messianic Judaism in order to promote a more universal version of ethical Monotheism?

[Willum]

It is a beautiful observation.
I suppose you'll hate that it agrees with my pet theory that Rome used the principals of your observation to conquer all of Europe.(?)

The only objection I see is that it was only the briefest of times that Judaism was the religion of the Israelites. You have kind of made Judaism altruistic, as opposed to Christianity.

We find that, at least in the history books, not the Bible, that Jerusalem's religion and government was Seleucide, a word the forum has probably never heard of.

They were Ba'el worshiping pagans, right up until the Sadducee took over, who were pagan themselves.

The era of the Pharisee is the only non-pagan era, and it lasted from ~63BC to 70AD, a good run, but still...

[Divine Insight]

And was it entirely necessary to incorporate elements of Greco-Roman Paganism into Messianic Judaism in order to promote a more universal version of ethical Monotheism?

I would say that it was necessary to change the original Judaism in order to promote a more ethical monotheism.

In fact, why aren't the Jews still stoning sinners to death? Who told them to stop?

If we go solely by the Old Testament we should still be stoning sinners to death,
we should still be sacrificing animals to appease God and atone our sins,
we should still be killing witches (Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, remember?)
we should still be killing gays.
In fact, we should still be killing anyone who preaches of Gods other than Yahweh, Jehovah, or YHVH, or whatever you care to call him.

How can any Jew claim that they aren't supposed to be judging and stoning sinners to death? Even if they think this is supposed to be done via a court of law? Do they still kill people for collecting wood on the Sabbath for example? Do they still kill people who preach of other Gods?

In fact, if the Jews don't believe that Jesus was God shouldn't the Jews be killing any Christians who come into Israel and preach that Jesus is God, or even the "Son of God"?

I don't see where the Jews obey the laws of the Old Testament in any case. In order to do so they would need to be behaving like ISIS.

So yes, it was necessary to bring in higher moral values in order to promote a more ethical form of monotheism. The original religion was extremely immoral.

In fact, look at the numbers. If Judaism hadn't been replaced by Christianity Judaism would have most likely died out entirely centuries ago. The only thing that kept Judaism alive was the fact that Christianity (and Islam) continued to grow. Judaism is almost non-existence in terms of percentage of the Abrahamic religions.



Jews are only 0.2% of the Abrahamic faith. Less than a full percentage point!

If Christianity and Islam were never created Judaism would have most likely been dismissed as being nothing more than an ancient mythology by now.

Christianity and Islam are the only reason these Abrahamic religions still exist today.

[bjs]

[Replying to Elijah John]

There are the basic accuracy problems. The Christians concept of an incarnation is fundamentally different from the common pagan idea of gods appearing in human form. The idea of pre-Christian virgin birth stories appears to be a fictional concept created in 19th century.

However, the more fundamental problem is that this seems to be a surface level comparison. It requires us to ignore the complexity of both pagan and Christian beliefs. Christianity did grow out of Judaism. However, the comparisons with paganism seem largely superficial and don’t seem to have any historical basis beyond coincidence.

If you just mean “Hey, these vague similarities are kind of neat,� then okay. If you are suggesting that Christianity is genuinely or intentionally a mixture of Judaism and paganism then the idea does not appear to have much merit.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 4 by bjs]

BJS, it is a great post, but it requires some elaboration:

Paragraph one needs elaboration, and
Paragraph two is not apparent to non-Christians, it seems to me, as an outside observer, that Judaism is less like Christianity and Christianity is more like paganism.

Of course, viewed from DI's context, Judaism, with its sacrifices and stoning, seems very pagan from my currently abject point of view, but dis-similar from traditional paganism.

Thank you for the post.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 3 by Divine Insight]

"Higher moral standard" of Christianity? Aren't you the one who has repeatedly called Christianity the most "immoral religion on the planet" because of the human sacrifice of an innocent man to atone for the sins of the guilty?

An evolution of your perspective, perhaps?

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 4 by bjs

"The Christians concept of an incarnation is fundamentally different from the common pagan idea of gods appearing in human form".

How so, BJs? And conversely, how can the notion of the Christian Incarnation be traced to any element of Judaism? How is incarnation not a pagan departure from Judaism?

Their greatest sage Maimonides refutes that notion of incarnation in his principles, stating that God is spirit and non-corporeal.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 3 by Divine Insight]

"Higher moral standard" of Christianity? Aren't you the one who has repeatedly called Christianity the most "immoral religion on the planet" because of the human sacrifice of an innocent man to atone for the sins of the guilty?

An evolution of your perspective, perhaps?

Not an evolution of my perspective. Keep in mind that this specific immorality would not be on the shoulders of Jesus, but instead it's on the shoulders of Yahweh.

You need to keep in mind that when I talk about "Christianity" I fully recognize that Christianity cannot be reduced to "Just the New Testament". And so the bulk of immorality that I see with Christianity has to do with the Father God, not with Jesus.

So when I say that Christianity is the most immoral religion in the world you need to keep in mind that it's Yahweh who is the immoral God here, not Jesus. Unless Jesus is Yahweh in which case Yahweh is an extreme con artist who cannot be trusted at all.

~~~~~

By the way, in all fairness to Islam, shouldn't we be recognizing Islam as nothing other than an attempt to keep the original monotheistic God of Judaism afloat?

This is really all that Islam is attempting to do. It's attempting to reject the claims of Christians that Jesus represents a newly revised "Yahweh", and instead it just tries to restore the original Old Testament laws as the "Word of Yahweh" (or Allah). The name is irrelevant. We're clearly talking about the same Old Testament God here.

So Islam is basically nothing more than an attempt to keep the original monotheistic God alive. And radical Muslim extremists are doing nothing more than trying to enforce the laws of YHVH as given by the Old Testament.

[Elijah John]

By the way, in all fairness to Islam, shouldn't we be recognizing Islam as nothing other than an attempt to keep the original monotheistic God of Judaism afloat?

This is really all that Islam is attempting to do. It's attempting to reject the claims of Christians that Jesus represents a newly revised "Yahweh", and instead it just tries to restore the original Old Testament laws as the "Word of Yahweh" (or Allah). The name is irrelevant. We're clearly talking about the same Old Testament God here.

So Islam is basically nothing more than an attempt to keep the original monotheistic God alive. And radical Muslim extremists are doing nothing more than trying to enforce the laws of YHVH as given by the Old Testament.

Thanks for the clarification, DI. But to blame YHVH for the human sacrifice of Jesus is unfair. Nowhere in the Hebrew Bible does YHVH sanction human sacrifice. That is Paul's baby, Paul's interpretation of the martyrdom of Jesus, and Paul's theology which somehow has been given the status of sacred Christian scripture.

As for Islam, I pretty much agree with your observations here.

It should be noted, however,, that modern Jews don't adhere to all the laws of the OT/Hebrew Bible. They too, would be radical if they attempted to stone people to death in this day and age.

If YHVH is entirely and fairly represented in the Bible, you may have a point. But if YHVH transcends the errors, absurdities and atrocities of the Bible, then no, not so much.

But that's probably another debate.

[Divine Insight]

Thanks for the clarification, DI. But to blame YHVH for the human sacrifice of Jesus is unfair. Nowhere in the Hebrew Bible does YHVH sanction human sacrifice. That is Paul's baby, Paul's interpretation of the martyrdom of Jesus, and Paul's theology which somehow has been given the status of sacred Christian scripture.

But that's the whole point of Christianity. Jesus could hardly sacrifice himself for the salvation of men without Yahweh's approval. So Christianity necessarily has no choice but to place the 'blame' (or responsibility for Jesus' sacrifice) onto Yahweh. There is simply no one else who could take responsibility for this, not even Jesus himself.

As for Islam, I pretty much agree with your observations here.

So then you agree that Islam is nothing more than Judaism preserved?

It should be noted, however,, that modern Jews don't adhere to all the laws of the OT/Hebrew Bible. They too, would be radical if they attempted to stone people to death in this day and age.

So why do the Jews no longer adhere to the laws of their God? Please explain what happened that caused them to no longer need to do as this God has commanded them to do? What changed, and when did it change?

If YHVH is entirely and fairly represented in the Bible, you may have a point. But if YHVH transcends the errors, absurdities and atrocities of the Bible, then no, not so much.

But that's probably another debate.

Yes, that leads to a whole other question entirely. If the "Real God" is not as described in the Jewish Bible then why even continue to refer to "God" as "YHVH"?

What would be the point to that?

If there exists a "Real God" that is not like described in the Bible then perhaps Buddhism is true. And they don't refer to God as YHVH, Yahweh, Allah, or any other name.

If the Jewish Bible doesn't correctly reflect what God is actually like, then why even talk about the "Jewish God" at all?

Why cling to Judaism if their Bible isn't a correct description of God?