In short, the Christians claim to believe in the Jewish G-d. Jews do not claim to believe in the Christian god.
Since you're talking about what people believe, I have no problem with this. You're probably right.
If you want to argue that a three-in-one god sounds very different from a just plain single god, I agree. But it seems equally sensible (take that any way you like) to take the New Testament as further revelations as to the nature of God ("Yes, God is all that... and so much more, besides"). Since both religions draw upon the same documents, it seems to me that they're both the same deity. Or at least part of the same character's evolution.
First of all, I think we should take this to e-mail, and not fill up filkertom's journal with our religious discussions. That is, unless other people are reading this, and are interested. 1) Authorship of the Bible: G-d dictated the Five Books of Moses to Moses over a period of time that started at the Sinai Revelation. There is an argument over who took the dictation for the last five verses - Moses or Joshua. These are the verses that deal with Moses' death and burial. The Prophets' books were all prophecies given Divinely to the relevant prophets. The remainder of the books (Psalms, Job, Esther, Lamentations, etc.) were all Divinely inspired, and while the Rabbis considered them canonical, they cannot be used to decide Jewish law, as they are not the direct words of G-d. 2) Witnessing the miracles: None of the miracles that appear in the gospels were witnessed on the kind of scale of the Sinai Revelation. If G-d wanted to change things, shouldn't He (I use the male pronoun not out of suggesting that G-d is a man, but I need some kind of way to refer to Him, and am accustomed to using the masculine pronoun.) do the same to revoke it? And what kind of witnesses, other than the disciples, did Jesus' miracles have? 3) Commandments: What about things like circumcision or the keeping of the Sabbath? 4) The 'they' I referred to were the authors of the gospels and the early Church fathers. 5) Second Coming: If there was to be a second coming, why didn't G-d tell us about it? Why did he give all those prophecies that tell us what the Messiah is supposed to do, and forget to tell us that it won't be until the second time around? 6) I still don't see how a Jew can say that he believes in the same thing as a Christian. If a Christian wants to claim that, that's his problem. But although we may draw on the same sources, we come to different pictures of who and what G-d is. Also, if you really want to complicate matters - Judaism doesn't actually believe in G-d. It's not one of the principles of faith. We believe different things about G-d, but we don't believe in G-d. We know He's there.
First of all, I think we should take this to e-mail, and not fill up filkertom's journal with our religious discussions.
Certainly. I'm at ooblick.com, with "arensb" before the @. (I'm not using circumlocution to annoy you; I just don't want to make it easy for spammers to scrape my email address from this page.)
Is the email address in your profile correct? If so, I'll wait a bit to see if anyone pipes up with "please continue arguing in public" or some such; if no one does, I'll respond in email.
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branchandroot
Part 2
Date: 2004-12-18 08:40 pm (UTC)Since you're talking about what people believe, I have no problem with this. You're probably right.
If you want to argue that a three-in-one god sounds very different from a just plain single god, I agree. But it seems equally sensible (take that any way you like) to take the New Testament as further revelations as to the nature of God ("Yes, God is all that... and so much more, besides"). Since both religions draw upon the same documents, it seems to me that they're both the same deity. Or at least part of the same character's evolution.
Re: Judaism vs Christianity
Date: 2004-12-18 09:45 pm (UTC)That is, unless other people are reading this, and are interested.
1) Authorship of the Bible: G-d dictated the Five Books of Moses to Moses over a period of time that started at the Sinai Revelation. There is an argument over who took the dictation for the last five verses - Moses or Joshua. These are the verses that deal with Moses' death and burial.
The Prophets' books were all prophecies given Divinely to the relevant prophets.
The remainder of the books (Psalms, Job, Esther, Lamentations, etc.) were all Divinely inspired, and while the Rabbis considered them canonical, they cannot be used to decide Jewish law, as they are not the direct words of G-d.
2) Witnessing the miracles: None of the miracles that appear in the gospels were witnessed on the kind of scale of the Sinai Revelation. If G-d wanted to change things, shouldn't He (I use the male pronoun not out of suggesting that G-d is a man, but I need some kind of way to refer to Him, and am accustomed to using the masculine pronoun.) do the same to revoke it?
And what kind of witnesses, other than the disciples, did Jesus' miracles have?
3) Commandments: What about things like circumcision or the keeping of the Sabbath?
4) The 'they' I referred to were the authors of the gospels and the early Church fathers.
5) Second Coming: If there was to be a second coming, why didn't G-d tell us about it? Why did he give all those prophecies that tell us what the Messiah is supposed to do, and forget to tell us that it won't be until the second time around?
6) I still don't see how a Jew can say that he believes in the same thing as a Christian. If a Christian wants to claim that, that's his problem. But although we may draw on the same sources, we come to different pictures of who and what G-d is.
Also, if you really want to complicate matters - Judaism doesn't actually believe in G-d. It's not one of the principles of faith. We believe different things about G-d, but we don't believe in G-d. We know He's there.
Re: Judaism vs Christianity
Date: 2004-12-18 10:04 pm (UTC)Certainly. I'm at ooblick.com, with "arensb" before the @. (I'm not using circumlocution to annoy you; I just don't want to make it easy for spammers to scrape my email address from this page.)
Is the email address in your profile correct? If so, I'll wait a bit to see if anyone pipes up with "please continue arguing in public" or some such; if no one does, I'll respond in email.