(August 22, 2022 at 1:47 pm)Vicki Q Wrote: Surely the Suffering Servant passages tell us that Jesus death should be seen as redemptive?The traditional interpretation of the servant songs is that they refer to the nation of israel. Certainly not christ, and not christian redemption. I'll just mention here at the top - since it seems to apply to many of these questions - there are still jewish people in the world. It would be beyond absurd to argue over whether or not there are christian claims about some inheritance or right to judaism - but this is an article of faith - not any historic or present reality.
Quote:Could you point me towards the evidence for this statement? I'm not aware of any debate within the Early Church about Jesus as fulfilment of OT prophecy. The NT documents are very clear on that point.By the time there's a church, proto-christianity is in the rearview. However, if you've never been made aware of the disagreement in proto-christianity regarding this issue (which did persist in some forms for some time in the early church) you'll find no shortage of verses de-emphasizing the necessity of cultural and ritual (or moral/ceremonial..if we prefer) jewish identity in the NT in Acts, as it's product. One of the most aggressive views, however, is found in galatians. There is no longer jew or greek. There is no longer slave and free. There is no longer male or female. All of you are one in christ.
Quote:Christianity might be seen as a separate religion to Judaism today, but that's wrong, and not how it was seen by the Early Church in C1. Paul's olive tree illustration amongst other writings tells us as much. Could you explain what the evidence is that Xianity considered itself apart from Judaism?Wherein the jews are cut off from the tree by their unbelief, and the gentiles grafted in through faith in christ? The aggressive expansionism represented by galatians above has backfired into flat out appropriation.
Quote:Surely it's a question of history rather than morality? The central Judeo-Christian claim is that YHWH has acted in history to inaugurate His Kingdom. Is that a moral or historical statement?Neither. It's an establishment myth.
Quote:Converts to Judaism were not uncommon in the C1 Mediterranean world. They would find a ready made international community accepting them. Converts to Xianity walked around with a huge target on their back. They were denying the rule of Caesar, denying the Torah/Jews as unique people of God, and denying the role of regional gods, thus angering (in order) the Romans, Jews and pagans. Pretty much everyone wanted them hurt.There was no concept of conversion that biblical israelites would have understood. National and religious identity were one and the same. There was assimilation, ofc. Assimilation through marriage, or purchase, or capture. It would remain this way until right around 75bce, when the pharisees came (or can be said to have come into) power. Amusingly, given their reputation to the christian faith - they were the ones that really leaned into jewish universalism - a product of exile - and this might be the only period in history in which we could consider judaism an actively proselytizing religion. It would be short lived, obviously.
By 60-70ace or so (so we're told) we've got paul up there talking about grafting and the temple destroyed. It would be a necessity for the growth of the proto-christian movement to appeal to gentiles. Particularly in their capture of the roman state. I don't doubt the effectiveness of the pitch. I don't see any way to explain the demographic explosion of christianity after the romanizers work aside from a very successful appeal to the gentiles. Been pretty much on a roll since then - and has continued to work towards inclusivity while bumbling it's way through appropriation. Today, there are something like 15million jewish people, and 2.5billion christian people. To say that judaism was then and is now less active in proselytization than christianity is to put it mildly. To say that one holds greater market share than the other is to be diplomatic.
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