Skeptical

Having spent the past few years reading about Christian texts and origins and about 1st century Palestinian culture, it has been on my mind recently that there seems to be a fundamental contradiction at the heart of Christianity. To whit, if Christianity depends for its foundations on Judaism and the long Jewish traditions of communication with Yahweh, how can it simultaneously claim that Jewish people and traditions were fundamentally wrong about the Messiah, certainly one of the most important, if not the most important question in its history? Standing back a bit and looking at it "from afar" so to speak, the whole idea seems absurd on its face.

From what I can tell, the only other "fundamental" areas of disagreement between Judaism and the early Christians were regarding diet, circumcision and meal sacraments, i.e eating with non-believers. Those may have been big disagreements in the 1st century, but they seem pretty minor in comparison to a disagreement about the Messiah. So there doesn't seem to be a lot of disagreement between the early Christian movement and Judaism _other_ than about Jesus and where or not he was the Messiah.

All in all, it seems more like Christianity hijacked the heritage of Judaism than that it was a continuation. I know the beginnings of Christianity are complicated, and perhaps some of the original followers still considered themselves Jewish, but over time this idea definitely eroded and Paul certainly seems to have been interested in making a break with Judaism.

Is it legitimate to take a groups religion and say, "yes, we like your religion very much, except for this small fact that you were wrong about the most important question in your religions history, so we're going to start our own based on yours"? The whole enterprise just seems to want to stand on the shoulders of Judaism while at the same time cutting its feet out from under it.

I think this point of view really crystallized for me with the whole argument about the 10 commandmants displays. Many Christians were frothing at the mouth about it, and yet they simultaneously essentially condemn the entire religion of Judaism since they completely missed when the Messiah arrived. In fact, in my experience a lot of Christians spend a lot of time hammering on the OT, while not realizing or caring that they are simultaneously implicitly denying the authority they purport to obey by following Jesus as the Messiah. The whole thing now seems very bizzare and supremely ironic to me.

Am I wrong? Am I stating what has always been painfully obvious to everyone else but me? Thoughts?

judge

The message in the gospels seems to be that the religious people who revered the texts did not themselves even understand them, or have any connection to God.

Jesus for example asks how the messaih can be davids son and his lord.

He tells the saduccees that abraham is alive and not dead.

He tells the pharisees that they ignore the weightier matters of the law and pay strict attention to minor things.

In this day is that really so hard to believe?

manimal2878

I think it is because most christians including the pastors and preachers have never read the bible as a whole and looked at it's story without their dogma and doctrine attached.

It seems to me that the NT rebukes ALL of the OT laws including the 10 commandemets.

If christians wanted to post the beatitudes or some parable, while I would still think it wrong, at least it would be a desire not contradicted by their own religious beliefs.

Chris Weimer

It's always been painfully obvious to most Jews

Sven

No, it's indeed not hard to believe that anyone can make up a story including this claim.

jonesg

Are you using the human failure of christians to adhere to the teachings of Jesus as an excuse to dismiss those very teachings?
If you ignore the christians and focus on the Jesus figure you get a different example.

"Is it legitimate to take a groups religion and say, "yes, we like your religion very much, except for this small fact that you were wrong about the most important question in your religions history, so we're going to start our own based on yours"?"

Well, thats not what happened, it was Jesus who took things in a different direction. His followers followed.

Dharma

well that would be all right. But if you claim Jesus was the Messiah, and Christianity is a branch of Judaism -- the Jews NEVER worshipped their king AFTER the 10 commandments. So Christianity is blaspheming Judaism by saying Jesus is God, which is the most basic tenet of Christianity.

The 10 Commandments forbid worship of any other diety other than Yahweh.

Nay-Sayer

Not exactly. Christians DO NOT follow the example of Jesus. By no means....

Dharma

That varies by interpretation.

gee

Skeptical;

So glad you brought these points up.
Good post! However, it's huge. I'll comment on one point.

"...how can it simultaneously claim that Jewish people and traditions were fundamentally wrong about the Messiah"

There's a flaw in your premise here:

"fundamentally wrong"? On the contrary! Christians believe that the Jewish people and traditions were fundamentally right about the Messiah. Jesus didn't pop out of nowhere in the Jewish tradition. They had been expecting a Messiah for a long time. With the 400 years of silence from God between the OT and Jesus appearing; they were awaiting something....

gee