cheetah

We all know that Christians believe that you have to believe in Jesus as the son of God to get into heaven. therefore, Jews will go to hell, yes?

BUT! Will Christians go to heaven if Jews are right, since Christians also use the Old Testament. I mean, I know they don't honor everything the exact way Jews do, but in essence they believe in the same god, so what are Christians missing?

ohwilleke

Your question is hardly silly.

In the Old Testament, God makes a covenant with the people of Israel, to make them God's people, in return for them honoring him. Membership in the community of God's people, in this view, is a matter of membership in one of the twelves tribes of Israel and its descendants, in addition to following God's commandments for his people. It doesn't matter how good Ghandi is, he still isn't and under the more Orthodox readings, never can be a Jew.

This said, the Old Testament generally, does not really adopt the three tier universe view of the world with "Heaven", "Earth" and "Hell", in which a good God, and a bad "Satan" are contesting with each other.

In the Old Testament, God is the source of all things good and evil, and Satan, rather than being the ultimate evil who has turned away from God and good, is the loyal servant of God. Satan exists, in Jewish cosmology, to test man at God's request. Moreover, various passages in the Old Testament that Christians read as referring to a single Satan, are not read the same way in the Jewish tradition. The serpent is one character, the person who tempts Job is another, "Lucifer" is a reference to an Earthly king rather than a non-human evil being.

The Torah itself doesn't discuss the need for salvation or the notion of hell, at any particular length. The visions it offers of greatness are mostly Earthbound, it is the promise for the Jewish people to live happily ever after in the land of milk and honey. It is the promise of the coming of a Messiah who will bring divine justice to Earth. A significant part of the New Testament metaphysics of heaven and hell, is tracable to Zorostrian and neo-Platonic influence, rather than to the Jewish tradition.

Jewish mysticism, mostly expressed in the Kaballa -- i.e. the mystically tradition, not necessarily a single book, does get into the metaphysical side of things more than the Torah (first five books of the Bible) or Talmud (legalistically leaning commentaries on the first five books of the Bible) do, but the world it describes is not particularly Dantesque.

Thus, in the Jewish tradition, on one hand, it is at best very difficult and at worst impossible, for a person not born a Jew to become a Jew, but, no one needs salvation in the same way that it is necessary within the Christian worldview. It is important to be good for God related reasons to be sure -- but it isn't a 72 virgins v. eternal hellfire kind of equation. In the Jewish tradition as expressed in the Old Testament, there is a cycle of the community as a whole behaving virtuously resulting in rewards for the community as a whole from God, and in the community as a whole misbehaving and not following Gods laws, resulting in God punishing or smiting many members of the community (but sometimes sparing those who followed God's law).

[Editted for grammar and to add new ideas]

[ March 26, 2002: Message edited by: ohwilleke ]</p>

sighhswolf

I think it is important to add to ohwilleke's
post, that Hebrew law based on the law given to Moses and the oral traditions, specifically states the "oneness" of god.

"Hear oh Israel, the lord our god, the lord is one."
This statement of gods "oneness" are the first words a Jewish child is taught to say, and the last words uttered before death.
The worship of a three part god as christians do is considered idolatry.
The rabbinic leadership teaches that to espouse that god came to earth as a man diminishes his divinity and his unity.
The Jewish concept of god is quite clear
"God is not a man that he should be deceitful, nor the son of man that he should repent.
Would he say and not do?
or speak and not confirm?"
So the christian elevation of Jesus to the level of god is quite unacceptable to the Jews.
Christians will not be able to take a place in the coming kingdom of god on earth as long as they worship Jesus.
However, if they renounce this idolatry, and live the Noahide Laws to the letter, they may then assume a role in the coming kingdom, although
gentiles will never have equal share in that kingdom, simply because they have no Jewish lineage.
Wolf

HelenM

Like Wolf says: it's total idolatry to a Jew, to worship a man as God.

In John's gospel there's a place where it says the Jewish Leaders were about to stone Jesus for making himself equal with God.

It was for his constant breaking of the Jewish laws and his outrageous claims about himself, that the Jews had Jesus executed, according to the gospels.

Therefore it wouldn't make sense if they said it was ok to worship this heretic they had executed, as God?!

(I thought, though, that Gentiles can share equally in the spiritual inheritance of Jews if they submit to whatever the Jews say they have to - like the law, circumcision, etc?)

love
Helen

[ March 27, 2002: Message edited by: HelenSL ]</p>

cheetah

WOW! I never realized the historic importance of Jewish lineages. I mean, I knew that my sister's new mother-in-law was pissed that her son was marrying my sister (because she isn't Jewish), but I didn't see the full scope of why!!

Maybe this is why the Jews aren't so fanatical about converting people...

Thanks guys!