leomoon
Well-known member
Christianity was formed by many cultures, not just the Jews or Hebrews.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Christian
David: Oh, I see now, you did say "sect"
Human existence: the gender of God
- Thread starter CapAquaPis
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Christianity was formed by many cultures, not just the Jews or Hebrews.
David: Oh, I see now, you did say "sect"
david starling
Well-known member
The Christian sect of Judaism includes a lot of Zoroastrianist influence. Zoroastrianism is a separate religion which had a great deal of respect for Judaism.
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leomoon
Well-known member
Zoroaster hails from Persia today's Iran. The Fire religion...
Edgar Cayce said that Zoroaster was part of the soul of Jesus i.e. another lifetime.
I had a FB friend in Iran, a lady who visited this place on the outskirts of the country and posted some photos. I'll have to look and see if she or they are still there. If so I'll amend this post to include one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism
note: I'll see if I can write her, she hasn't been on since 2019 -
I once visited the Bahai gardens here in Haifi Israel, coming down from Nazareth. It was not my choice but part of the overall tour in 2010. I enjoyed seeing the area or small mountain where Elijah had his school of prophets...today this school is believed to be connected to the Essenes. It is very near these gardens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah
Photo from the Bahai Gardens 2010:
(from the hills overlooking valley below:
a religion teaching the essential worth of all religions, and the unity of all people.[1] Established by Baháʼu'lláh in 1863, it initially grew in Persia and parts of the Middle East, where it has faced ongoing persecution since its inception.[2] It is estimated to have between 5 and 8 million adherents, known as Baháʼís, spread throughout most of the world's countries and territories. It grew from the mid-19th-century Bábí religion, whose founder (the Báb) taught that God would soon send a prophet in the same way of Jesus or Muhammad.
Behind me it's the Tower of Silence called in Persian Dakhma.
Dakhma is a Zoroastrian structure where dead bodies used to be exposed to carrion birds.
Zari Tehrani copyright....FB.
my visit in Yazd/Iran. (Sept. 2017)
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Source????
The Nazarenes were one particular Jewish sect in the Second Temple Period, but I wouldn't say that Christianity is a sect of Judaism today, seen as synonymous with Rabbinic Judaism, which rejects and curses Christians as heretics to be destroyed.
Eastern ''Orthodox'' Christians have similar ''benedictions'' (yes, both groups call them such) on Jews and every Christian heretic who doesn't ''venerate'' icons.
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david starling
Well-known member
The Persian Zoroastrians rescued the Judeans from the "Babylonian Captivity" and help them rebuild the Second Temple in the late 6th Century B.C.E.
Some say the prophet Zoroaster himself lived and taught in the 14th Century B.C.E., but his teachings didn't really catch on until the 7th Century.
Cyrus was named by the prophet Isaiah about 200 years before he was born.
14th century BC would still be newer than Judaism.
waybread
Well-known member
David, not so. Christianity hinges on a belief in the divinity of Jesus. Jews do not accept this. Some will go so far as to consider Jesus to have been a wise teacher, but the term New Testament isn't operational in Judaism. There's just the Jewish Bible. To Orthodox Jews, the Talmud (biblical commentary) is also scriptural.
If you think of all of the pogroms, expulsions, and severe limits on Jews enacted by Christians, the idea the Christians are actually Jews is a cruel joke. (I don't define Nazi Germany as Christian.)
What Christians have claimed is that they are now the Chosen People, a status the Jews forfeited when they failed to accept Jesus as the messiah.
Then Jewish descent is reckoned through the mother. If your mother wasn't Jewish, neither are you unless you undergo a conversion process. To retain his Jewish status, a male baby must be ritually circumcised.
There are some interesting Jewish genetics, as well.
david starling
Well-known member
It's still a sect of Judaism. Even uses the Hebrew scripture. Sunnis and Shias are sects of Islam, even though they have extremely different points of view on some matters that are very important to them. Important enough to kill each other over them.
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david starling
Well-known member
Three major Judean sects: Rabbinical, which doesn't believe the Messiah has come yet, but eventually will; Roman Catholic, which believes the Messiah already came once, but has to come again to complete God's plan for humanity; and Protestant, which agrees with the Catholics on most things, but doesn't want anything to do with a Pope. The Thirty Years' War was originally between two of the sects, Catholics and Protestants. Both of these Judean sects have persecuted the oldest sect, the Rabbinical.
waybread
Well-known member
Leomoon, a good call on the very early history of Christianity, re: the gnostics, Elaine Pagels, and Constantin.
There is a problem in the history of Christianity called presentism, whereby the doctrines of the present are projected upon a past that was actually a lot more diverse than orthodox accounts with to acknowledge. The parts of the past that don't lead directly up to present-day beliefs get pruned away.
The Gnostics had an important following in early Christianity but it got stamped out by what became the early Catholic church in Rome.
You are also correct that normative Judaism was by no means the only influence on early Christianity. The earliest known versions of the NT are in Greek, not Hebrew. Crucifixion was a Roman method of execution, not a Jewish one.
The Jewish religion today is primarily an outgrowth of the Pharisee (rabbinical) tradition with a few acknowledgements to Sadducee (priestly) traditions. In a Saturday morning worship service, a man of priestly (Cohen) ancestry will be first called up to the Torah, followed by a man of Levite ancestry. Observant Jewish men know if they have this background.
One thing I'd like to stress to non-Jews is that there is a surprising amount of joy in Jewish observance. I don't practice Judaism now, but think of an entire congregation dancing the horah at a Jewish wedding or bat mitzvah, eating a meal with friends and family in a sukkah during the holiday of Sukkot, or dancing with Torah scrolls during the festival of Simchat Torah.
Judaism has beautiful liturgical songs, many of them sung at home surrounding the sabbath. Here is one from the service at the beginning of the Sabbath https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=913jZFL1bdE and one at the conclusion of the sabbath on Saturday evening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDn1zOqPVx4
Let's not forget the varied forms of worship-- they're not all about doctrine, rules, and regulations.
There is a problem in the history of Christianity called presentism, whereby the doctrines of the present are projected upon a past that was actually a lot more diverse than orthodox accounts with to acknowledge. The parts of the past that don't lead directly up to present-day beliefs get pruned away.
The Gnostics had an important following in early Christianity but it got stamped out by what became the early Catholic church in Rome.
You are also correct that normative Judaism was by no means the only influence on early Christianity. The earliest known versions of the NT are in Greek, not Hebrew. Crucifixion was a Roman method of execution, not a Jewish one.
The Jewish religion today is primarily an outgrowth of the Pharisee (rabbinical) tradition with a few acknowledgements to Sadducee (priestly) traditions. In a Saturday morning worship service, a man of priestly (Cohen) ancestry will be first called up to the Torah, followed by a man of Levite ancestry. Observant Jewish men know if they have this background.
One thing I'd like to stress to non-Jews is that there is a surprising amount of joy in Jewish observance. I don't practice Judaism now, but think of an entire congregation dancing the horah at a Jewish wedding or bat mitzvah, eating a meal with friends and family in a sukkah during the holiday of Sukkot, or dancing with Torah scrolls during the festival of Simchat Torah.
Judaism has beautiful liturgical songs, many of them sung at home surrounding the sabbath. Here is one from the service at the beginning of the Sabbath https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=913jZFL1bdE and one at the conclusion of the sabbath on Saturday evening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDn1zOqPVx4
Let's not forget the varied forms of worship-- they're not all about doctrine, rules, and regulations.
waybread
Well-known member
David, this is not only incorrect, but actually offensive to many of the faithful.
david starling
Well-known member
Wasn't Jesus Jewish? If so, his faithful are Jewish also.
david starling
Well-known member
Wait....who are the faithful who might find this wider definition of "Jewish" offensive?
david starling
Well-known member
Apparently, Muhammedans also accept the O.T. as originally being the word of God! ANOTHER "Jewish" sect!
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david starling
Well-known member
"Abrahamic" is used to label all three--Rabinical, Christian, and Moslem.
That doesn't seem to offend anyone.
Was Abraham "Jewish"?
That doesn't seem to offend anyone.
Was Abraham "Jewish"?
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Uncircumcised believers in Jesus are not Jews in the flesh, they are Gentiles grafted in.
''I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew...
I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. Now if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be! But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also; and if the root is holy, the branches are too.
But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?
For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written,
“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.”
“This is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”
From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.'' - Romans 11 NASB - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+11&version=NASB
Paul doesn't seem to claim that.
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They don't accept either the OT or the NT. They have a baseless, unhistorical and unverifiable claim that they were distorted and altered beyond recognition (Tahrif).
Muslims also claim that Jesus never died, the one historical fact all historians accept. Isn't that interesting?
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