Ask about Judaism

[ena]

Ok. I always thought there was some kind of distinction between a Jew who is a Christian, like the apostles and gentile Christians.

The early Christian community was fraught with problems between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. It did not end with the circumcision decision. It even shows in the New Testament. It comes out of the mouth of Jesus who died a Jew.

Matt 5:20 KJV For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

[Scott]

Ok. I always thought there was some kind of distinction between a Jew who is a Christian, like the apostles and gentile Christians.

The early Christian community was fraught with problems between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. It did not end with the circumcision decision. It even shows in the New Testament. It comes out of the mouth of Jesus who died a Jew.

Matt 5:20 KJV For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

That's my confusion. You are saying there are "Jewish Christians" same as I did.
Ag is saying no. Once a Jew becomes a Christian they are no longer a Jew. My guess is that this is true from the Jewish pov but not the Christian pov. I would also assume that if a Jew becomes a Christian that they can leave Christianity and become a Jew again. Hopefully they wouldn't have to retake any exams. But then maybe there is two ways to view a Jew, spiritually and genetically?

[agricola]

Ena is right that in the first century there were Jews who believed Jesus was the messiah, etc. It is not really correct to call them 'Christians' though. That term is a late first century term and was used, as the NT tells us, 'first at Antioch' which is not a Jewish city, and the group there who believed Jesus was the messiah were most likely a gentile group (or largely so). The Jewish-followers pretty much were banned from attending Jewish services sometime between the first and third centuries, and by the time of the third century certainly did NOT consider themselves to be 'Jewish' and neither did the Jewish community consider them to be Jewish, and so it has remained ever since. The original (and decidedly Jewish) Jesus-followers in Jerusalem were dead or dispersed sometime between 70 and 135 as far as we can tell. There may have been remnants of them scattered around but they soon vanish. Look up 'Ebionites' and you will find an early Christian group with certain beliefs that are very 'Jewish' (Jesus wasn't God, for instance) but the dominant Gentile church soon declared that group 'heretics' and they were destroyed almost without trace - most of what is known about them comes from writings by their enemies - the early church fathers.

A Jew can 'convert' to darned near every other religion in the world and be considered no more than a sinning Jew, but one who converts to Christianity (voluntarily - we have a very long history of 'forced' conversions) has decisively placed himself outside the community altogether.

and yes, a Jew who voluntarily converted to Christianity who repents and wants to return to Judaism, does indeed have to go through a formal conversion - it might be cut short somewhat, but he or she can't just start showing up again as if nothing had changed.

There is considerable leniency, however, for their children, who are assumed to have the status of 'kidnapped children', so being raised as Christians wasn't THEIR fault. But they still usually go through a (shortened) conversion process anyway.

This is really more historical reality than doctrinal reasons. Doctrinally, a Jew who converted to any other religion should be treated the same, but only Christianity gets the full deal.

[agricola]

As recently as the early 20th century, if a Jew converted to Christianity, his family would 'sit shiva' for him: a mourning custom for the dead. This may go back to the middle ages, when a newly converted Christian who maintained any ties with the Jewish community was eyed with distrust by Christian authorities, and was subject to the Inquisition (which was everywhere in Christian nations, but most dangerous in Spain because of the backing of the secular authorities, who carried out the actual executions by burning).

In most Christian nations, a Jew who was baptized - EVEN INVOLUNTARILY (and that was a real thing) - was a Christian forever, and if that Jew tried to return to Judaism, he was automatically 'heretic' and subject to the death penalty upon conviction.

So the extreme 'shunning' and 'death to us' behavior could have been part of an attempt to sever relations entirely for the safety of both the new christian convert and the local Jewish community too. It was a capital offense for the Jews in Christian lands to 'proselytize' Christians, and it was a capital offense for Jews to socialize with Christians, employ them in business, and a host of other interactions. You can see the start of this attitude in the NT, when 'Judaizing' (adding Jewish practices to Christianity) became something to be avoided at all costs.

Some of that may have been political, since the Roman empire started destroying Jews and Judaism in the middle second century after a series of increasingly near-successful rebellions. It would have been to the Christians' advantage by then, to define themselves as something distinctly different from 'the Jews'.

The book of John, I think it is?, is always talking about 'the Jews' as enemies of Jesus and the apostles, even though in fact Jesus and the apostles were all equally 'the Jews'. But in John, they are set up as 'other', and John is what, 90's? I think - late first century. The earlier gospels of Mark and Matthew don't say 'the Jews', they talk about the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the scribes, the priests - everybody is a 'Jew' and nobody is 'other' in the same sense as in John and to some extent, Luke (who admits from the beginning that HE isn't Jewish and never was).

[Scott]

So is my prior statement incorrect?
Jews view a Jew who becomes a Christian as a Christian.
Christians view a Jew who becomes a Christian as a Jewish Christian?
In today's world.

Anyway I am impressed with your knowledge.

You were in the COC?

[agricola]

Jews view of a Jew who becomes a Christian: what a fool/idiot/deluded - or with sadness/anger - how can you join the people who have tried so hard to destroy us for so long? how can you do that?
Remaining Jewish is seen as flipping off Hitler and every other non-Jew who has tried to obliterate the Jewish people for centuries - millenia, even. Failing to remain - It is surrender, it is committing treason....it doesn't even matter whether that person was or wasn't 'observant'.

Mostly it's a shrug and acknowledging that attrition 'destroys' more Jews than persecution. They are lost.

If it is a family member, well, they are probably still invited for Thanksgiving, and you still LOVE them, of course.

It is the people who claim that they can be Christians and still be Jews that really ticks everybody off. Especially that 'Jews for Jesus' group or the 'Messianic Judaism' people - they are funded by the Southern Baptists by the way.

Christians on the other hand - if a Christian manages to snag a Jew and convert him/her to Christianity, wow are they triumphant! they are VALIDATED! Christianity is TRUE! All because Christianity started in Judaism and was supposedly the be all and end all of Judaism, and to have Judaism STILL AROUND kind of undermines the whole story. The only way that works is if Christians can say and believe that it is just because they haven't really HEARD the story right, or they MISUNDERSTOOD things....so if a Jew converts, then clearly Christianity (especially their particular brand) is 'really right' and has been all along.


Only since the Holocaust have Christian theologians really LOOKED at the way Christianity has taught about Judaism for so long, and the consequences of the teaching of contempt. Many mainline Protestant denominations, and the Roman Catholic church, have come a long way in their attitude toward and teachings about Jews and Judaism - and they are exactly the groups that currently DO NOT attempt to target Jews for Christian conversion.

So naturally and of course, such Christian groups will ALWAYS call their shining example a 'Jewish Christian'. It is vitally important to their world view that they can point to that convert as evidence that Christianity (their version at least) is 'correct' because they converted 'one of Jesus' own people!'

Believe me, please. I have HEARD this often enough.

Mostly when such Christians talk to me seriously, they really truly seem to believe that I just didn't hear the STORY right! It is so obviously TRUE (and I am such a nice person...) that it is only that nobody ever really EXPLAINED it to me correctly....

[agricola]

So is my prior statement incorrect?
Jews view a Jew who becomes a Christian as a Christian.
Christians view a Jew who becomes a Christian as a Jewish Christian?
In today's world.

Anyway I am impressed with your knowledge.

You were in the COC?

Jews view a Jew who becomes a Christian as a Christian. Yes, and this has been validated by the Supreme Court of Israel. The Israeli Law of Return grants immediate citizenship to any immigrant who can show that at least one grandparent was Jewish. Period.
However, a committed Christian, even if BOTH parents were Jews, does not receive that benefit under the Law of Return. They are treated as an ordinary and common gentile, and have to go through the whole residency period etc. This was a huge controversy recently, when a Catholic priest who was born and raised Jewish, attempted to emigrate to Israel and requested citizenship under the Law of Return. He was refused.

Christians view a Jew who becomes a Christian as a Jewish Christian? Yes - in fact, try and find any congregation which has a member who converted from Judaism, and ask them about the membership. I guarantee that at some point, the wonderful and important fact that so and so is/was Jewish will come up. That other member such and so who converted from, say, Methodism, rarely gets attention. You have Jewish Christians, but as far as I can tell, you don't have any other dual-named Christians. Look around your own congregation and if there are any who joined as adults, ask yourself if they are identified with any kind of adjective about their previous affiliation or even ethnicity.

You were in the COC? Born and raised. Daddy was a deacon. Uncle J. was a preacher. Mainstream, growing (50's through 80's) suburban congregation in Nashville. I was supposed to go to Lipscomb but I negotiated my way out and into a good private university instead. My brother and sister both ended up at Harding.

[ena]

Scott, Jews generally have a better sense of their history than do Christians. Christians tend to study Paul and James without knowing the culture. You cannot even understand Paul outside of the culture. By "Jewish Christians' I meant Christians that were formerly Jews. They simply could not let go of their cultural baggage. The Ebionites were Jewish Christians who were later wiped out. Agri is right. Bart Ehrman covers this well in Lost Christianities which is a book. I gather that you possess a natural curiosity. This books talks about early Christians from a real perspective.
Here is a link for Ebionites. Wiki has many detailed Christian links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebionites
For Lost Christianities at amazon. Bart is a Greek scholar and works in Bible archeology as well as teach.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0195182499/?ta ... f01kxywy_b
Christian History is rife with Christians killing Jews. Hitler was bad enough but down though the centuries it has been going on. I found out from a friend who is Jewish that his grandparents had to hide out from the Bolshevics during the Russian revolution. They blamed the Jews for what they themselves had done: Kill the Czar, who was also antisemtic. My friend is American. His grandmother used to call him a fine Yiddishy Boy. I personally knew his mother as well. He later wrote that he was learning his aleph bet. That is like learning your abc's in Hebrew. I later saw a picture of him reading the Torah for his congregation. I think he is a very liberal Jew. Like CoCers they vary widely in their level of observance. Nothing is monolithic among humans. I wish the CoC would learn that. Even they vary widely under the table.

[agricola]

The Rhine massacres are some of the famous ones - although few Christians have heard of them -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhineland_massacres

We read a prayer at synagogue this weekend, in memory of the dead of that time.

[Scott]

I can understand the Jewish point of view with the history of persecution. I can't get my head around why Christians would do this, seems to be contrary to what was taught by Jesus. At least the way I understand it.