[geeks] christianity and judaism

[sammy ominsky]

On Nov 10, 2004, at 10:24, Michael Horton wrote:

>> In Judaism, that is not true. One accumulates "good guy" points for
> your thoughts and deeds while you are alive.
>
> this is not what the old testament nor biblical judaism teaches.
> (i suspect that you are referring to judaism as practiced today.

This was a subject of much debate even in the times of Jesus, and 
previous times.  One major difference of opinion between the Pharisees 
and Saducees was over whether or not there is reward and punishment in 
the world to come or if this is it, here and now.  The surviving branch 
of Judaism follows the Parisees and Talmud.

There is no afterlife explicitly mentioned in the five books of Moses, 
though allusions are found throughout.  Hence the disagreement.  (No, I 
don't have a copy of the Bible with me to look up citations.)


>  i am
> less conversant with this aspect but i know that what you have said is
> not believed by all jews today.)

Modern Jews who do not believe in an afterlife are not philosophical 
descendants of the Saducees of old, but instead follow the deluded 
ideas of "Enlightened" European Jews who decided that the Bible was not 
of Divine origin.  They somehow believe that one can identify oneself 
as a religious person and not have to involve a god.  I don't 
understand it, and have never heard a rational resolution to the 
inherent conflict.

In any case, they do not represent an authoritative Jewish source as 
far as this discussion is concerned.  They make it up as they go along, 
and have no continuous tradition on which to draw except that which the 
deny.


> the old testament teaching is that "the just shall live by faith"!
> of abraham, it is written that "he believed god and it was accounted to
> him for righteousness".

That accounting is one of the allusions to an afterlife.  What's the 
point of an accounting without a reckoning?


> yom kippur = day of covering
> yom kippur was not a day of atonement.
> yom kippur provided a covering until the day of atonement arrived.
> yom kippur foreshadowed the day of atonement.

No idea what you're talking about here.  Kapara is atonement.


> this was not the teaching at the time of jesus of nazareth.  his
> depiction of the beggar and the rich man shows two jews it the
> afterlife: one in a place of pain and torment (definitely not a 
> "lesser"
> heaven) and the other jew in a better place: described as abraham's
> bosom in some translations).

The concept of "hell" in judaism is a place for essentially good people 
to be cleansed of their sins before enjoying the reward for their good 
deeds.  There is no eternal torment as hoped for by Christians.  It's 
more like a laundry cycle.


> there is a great deal of difference between judaism as designated in 
> the
> old testament and what it became later.

Which goes back to the essential disagreement between the Pharisees and 
Saducees.  The afterlife was just a single point of difference, the 
major argument was over whether or not there is an Oral Law to go along 
with and explain the Written Law (Torah).  The Saducees (and the 
Karaites later) hold that the Torah is to be taken literally, while the 
Pharisees and their successors believe that an oral tradition that 
explains the Torah was passed down from Moses to the Elders, thence to 
the Sages and Rabbis, and finally codified in the Mishnah and Talmud in 
order to prevent it's being forgotten.  That tradition goes all the way 
back to Biblical days, though it diverged considerably in the 
millennium and a half between Sinai and the codification of the Talmud. 
  The Talmud is a record of discussions between the Sages of the day as 
to what the tradition was and how to reconcile the divergences.


> the agreement/covenant between non-jews and god has always been in
> place.
> what is called christianity is the continuation of that agreement.

According to Christians, anyway.  According to the Old Testament, there 
was never any formal agreement except God's promise to Noah that there 
would never again be a world-destroying flood.


---sambo