INTRODUCTION:
I often tell christians, muslims, mormons that they are jewish.
The reason is that I try to emphasize to these people that the foundation for their faith is the jewish culture and religion.
I don’t think that there is any way to escape that fact.
This means that Jesus is a jew, his parents are jews, his grandparents, sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts and plenty more are most likely jews.
He grew up in a jewish culture, which automatically means that he is going to know the version of hebrew of the time and he is going to get a religious education at some point.
Therefore, it is no surprise that he is going to build on that foundation as he starts up his own religion.
I don’t think that there was a singular jewish religion at the time of Jesus. It was fragmented.
The Bible mentions the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. I would not be surprised if there were more and I have no idea how long these sects have existed for.
We would need some written documentation where it states who the master leader of the pharisee movement was and what his ideas were.
I view christianity as just another sect of judaism.
In the case of christianity, we know that the master leader is suppose to be: Jesus.
Once the master leader is dead, then a power struggle takes place with his followers. Who is going to be the next leader?
It can happen that a split occurs.
In the Bible, we see evidence of it. There was also an extra biblical writing where one sect was urinating on another sect.
So anyway, I view religion like I view software.
At one point, Microsoft created Win NT. They improved on that source code and came out with Win 2000, then Win XP, Win Vista and so on.
These are just software versions. Some parts might be removed and new things might be added.
The same thing happens in the Linux world, the Mac OSX world, and so on.
It happens with TV, watches, XBox, circuit boards.
For me,
Judaism is Judaism v1.0
Christianity is Judaism v2.0
Islam is Judaism v3.0
Mormonism is Judaism v4.0
Each new leader(s) comes along and improves the product, he removes the bugs, adds new feature and goes into mass production.
THE PROBLEM:
I encounter people who write this to me even when I explain that to them:
Smedley Butler:
Judaism ≠ Christianity. The religion of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Caleb, Samuel, or King David, can no more be called “Judaism” than a Jehovah’s Witness missionary today could be compared to the Peter, Paul, or Martin Luther.
Me:
Yes, their religion would be a form of judaism, since they came from that particular culture. You can call it the religion of the hebrews. Each culture has developed their own religion over time, but religion is not static. It evolves over time.
Smedley Butler:
In 33AD there weren’t Jewish people. There were no Jews. There were ethnic people from the tribe of Judah, and Benjamin, and Levi.
There were Judean’s which is about as specific as saying someone is “American”. There were those that followed the Torah, who were from all of the original 12/13 tribes, from those that followed the Torah, there were emerging cults with the Pharisees and Sadducees taking prominence.
Jesus was not a Jew, he was a Israelite, of the House/Tribe of Judah.
The idea that Christianity is Jewish in background is not accurate. It’s like saying Water is an offshoot of Pepsi.
People have conflated Temple worshippers/Torah adherents in Jesus’ day with the Scribes, Sadducees, Pharisees, and their more modern, (and, mostly unrelated) Talmudic Jewish
Me:
What was the religion of these ethnic groups: tribe of Judah, and Benjamin, and Levi?
Who wrote the tanakh and what was their religion?
CONCLUSION:
Let’s discuss.
I often tell christians, muslims, mormons that they are jewish.
The reason is that I try to emphasize to these people that the foundation for their faith is the jewish culture and religion.
I don’t think that there is any way to escape that fact.
This means that Jesus is a jew, his parents are jews, his grandparents, sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts and plenty more are most likely jews.
He grew up in a jewish culture, which automatically means that he is going to know the version of hebrew of the time and he is going to get a religious education at some point.
Therefore, it is no surprise that he is going to build on that foundation as he starts up his own religion.
I don’t think that there was a singular jewish religion at the time of Jesus. It was fragmented.
The Bible mentions the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. I would not be surprised if there were more and I have no idea how long these sects have existed for.
We would need some written documentation where it states who the master leader of the pharisee movement was and what his ideas were.
I view christianity as just another sect of judaism.
In the case of christianity, we know that the master leader is suppose to be: Jesus.
Once the master leader is dead, then a power struggle takes place with his followers. Who is going to be the next leader?
It can happen that a split occurs.
In the Bible, we see evidence of it. There was also an extra biblical writing where one sect was urinating on another sect.
So anyway, I view religion like I view software.
At one point, Microsoft created Win NT. They improved on that source code and came out with Win 2000, then Win XP, Win Vista and so on.
These are just software versions. Some parts might be removed and new things might be added.
The same thing happens in the Linux world, the Mac OSX world, and so on.
It happens with TV, watches, XBox, circuit boards.
For me,
Judaism is Judaism v1.0
Christianity is Judaism v2.0
Islam is Judaism v3.0
Mormonism is Judaism v4.0
Each new leader(s) comes along and improves the product, he removes the bugs, adds new feature and goes into mass production.
THE PROBLEM:
I encounter people who write this to me even when I explain that to them:
Smedley Butler:
Judaism ≠ Christianity. The religion of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Caleb, Samuel, or King David, can no more be called “Judaism” than a Jehovah’s Witness missionary today could be compared to the Peter, Paul, or Martin Luther.
Me:
Yes, their religion would be a form of judaism, since they came from that particular culture. You can call it the religion of the hebrews. Each culture has developed their own religion over time, but religion is not static. It evolves over time.
Smedley Butler:
In 33AD there weren’t Jewish people. There were no Jews. There were ethnic people from the tribe of Judah, and Benjamin, and Levi.
There were Judean’s which is about as specific as saying someone is “American”. There were those that followed the Torah, who were from all of the original 12/13 tribes, from those that followed the Torah, there were emerging cults with the Pharisees and Sadducees taking prominence.
Jesus was not a Jew, he was a Israelite, of the House/Tribe of Judah.
The idea that Christianity is Jewish in background is not accurate. It’s like saying Water is an offshoot of Pepsi.
People have conflated Temple worshippers/Torah adherents in Jesus’ day with the Scribes, Sadducees, Pharisees, and their more modern, (and, mostly unrelated) Talmudic Jewish
Me:
What was the religion of these ethnic groups: tribe of Judah, and Benjamin, and Levi?
Who wrote the tanakh and what was their religion?
CONCLUSION:
Let’s discuss.
