How do Christians view Judaism/Jewish practices?

I am curious to know what Christians think are the origins of Judaism.

Do ya'll respect Judaisms patriarchs Abraham and Moses?
What good do you think Jews brought to world-wide religion?
Are Jews going to hell in your eyes? Why do they suffer so much?
Are they chosen to you?
Is circumcision really a God given initiation commandment?
What do you feel is the purpose of Judaism?

I used to be a Christian so I can answer your question. Today many Christians favor Jews compared to the past treatment of Jews by Christians. A lot of conservative Christians do see Jews as God's chosen people. But since they're not Christians I can imagine they would see them as unsaved. Christianity today views Judaism as the predecessors of the Christian religion. However, Christians see themselves as fulfilled because of Jesus in Christianity. There are differences from Jews do not believe in original sin and human sacrifice is not a way to atone for sins. In Judaism they still await the promised Messiah who will be a descendent of King David and Solomon on his father's side and will meet the Messianic requirements to usher in the Messianic age. To Jews Jesus was a long list of failed Messiah claimants. But Christians disagree and will try to express why they see Jesus as the promised Messiah who will return one day. That is all I can think off the top of my head.

reply to post by Phoenix267


Yeah, I know the differences between Jews and Christians.

Just wondering what the Christian opinion of modern day practicing Jews and also the ancient Jews is.

reply to post by FreedomEntered


I see what you're saying. I got a little mixed up because I thought you were asking mostly about the differences.

reply to post by FreedomEntered

Well there are two major conflicting views.

First, the Jews had Jesus killed, so not only do they believe in different Gods, one group had the other group's God killed.

Secondly, while they both believe that there will be the return of a messiah, they disagree as to who it will be...

So while Christian Zionists are busy supporting izraelis over the return of the messiah, Christians are in for a shock.

As Christians start jumping up and down in excitement over their messiah, the Jews are gonna be like GTFO, he aint our messiah...

reply to post by Phoenix267


Okay, I know today there are such diverse groups Jews for jesus, Zionist Christians.. the whole gourmet.

But I dont really know where they place Jews in an evolutionary sense.


I guess its in order of existance, that the closer we are to now... the more true the religion.

I mean each Religion proceeding the next rejects the one prior.

You also find the extremist slightly anti-Jew Christians. But I dont think they represent the overall Christian view of Jews either as they tend to be rather malicious. And I cant imagine thats a very Christian behaviour.

reply to post by FreedomEntered

I see the work of God in the Bible as a continuum, beginning with Abraham and Moses and coming to a climax with Jesus.
So I see "God's people" as a continuum, starting with the people around Abraham and Moses, and incorporating the Christians at the latter end.
The modern Jews are the people who are not taking on board the last chapter of the story.
(I once described the Bible without the New Testament as like an Agatha Christie novel without the last chapter, where Poirot gathers everybody together and explains what's been happening.
And the Bible without the Old Testament is like the last chapter by itself; you can read Poirot's explanation, but you've got no idea what he's trying to explain)

reply to post by DISRAELI


So you reject the basic Judaism , but how do you view modern day Jews then? Are they just in the way, confused, delluded? Or are they continueing a worthy religion in your opinion?

reply to post by FreedomEntered

I think I would view their religion as incomplete- they're missing out on a very important element.
I don't feel able to consider them as outside God's people.

However, one member has told me in the past that I confuse my Ecclesiology and my Israelology, and will probably be along in a moment to put my statements right.

reply to post by FreedomEntered

Do ya'll respect Judaisms patriarchs Abraham and Moses?

I don't know about "ya'll", but I am not currently convinced that those were actual 'historical' persons.
They are identified as persons in stories purported to be history.
That doesn't mean those persons ever existed as described.
Isaiah is an Old Testament book "proven" to be old because there are copies of it found with the Dead Sea Scrolls.
OK, I will accept Isaiah as a reliable witness to at least the first century BC.
There is no mention of those two characters in Isaiah.
The books of the OT are not organized according to the dates that they were written. For all we know, Genesis could have been the last book written since no other book is dependent on it, and could have actually been pieced together based on clues from the other books.
I think it is possible that the name, Abraham, comes up more times in the NT than in the OT.

Let me repeat, in case anyone missed that:
There is no mention of those two characters, Abraham and Moses, in Isaiah.

What good do you think Jews brought to world-wide religion?

I think it depends on how you define "Jews".
If what you really meant is the people of the country of Palestine back in the early Hellenistic period, then I think they made a great contribution to world religion.
If you mean by "Jews" more what we think of by that term today, a group of rabbis who organized after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, then I think they have worked hard to reverse whatever good their predecessors did before, by creating a new level of mythology and evil such as the science of laying on curses to who they thought was their enemy, basically everyone other than themselves.

Are Jews going to hell in your eyes? Why do they suffer so much?
Are they chosen to you?
Is circumcision really a God given initiation commandment?
What do you feel is the purpose of Judaism?

I think my above two comments should also answer these questions.

reply to post by FreedomEntered
Christians fully endorse the Old Testament (which includes the Torah), even though we acknowledge some inconsistencies, etc.

Christians have a hard time understanding why Jews seem to actively distance themselves from Jesus, who was raised a Jew and in fact was a rabbi. He saw the Jewish faith as having lost its way, and was sent by God to get things back on track.

Christians with some knowledge of the Talmud (which was written many years after Jesus Christ) wonder why it is so ...well...hateful... regarding Jesus. I won't go into the exact quotes here. Interestingly, the Jewish historian Josephus (who lived just a few years after Jesus' crucifixion) wrote some rather nice things about him.

Many Christians are trying to learn more about Jewish practices, like the Passover dinner, in order to incorporate it into their personal religious rituals and to help them understand more about the life of Jesus.

Jews and Christians should both learn more about the faith of the other.

A final note: If you believe in God, you should believe in Satan. The Bible consistently warns against the powers of darkness. God's people and institutions are under constant attack by Satan and have been since the beginning of time. Don't let the evil acts of any individual or institution keep you from trusting in God.

reply to post by N4mYourself

Christians fully endorse the Old Testament (which includes the Torah) . . .

"Endorse" . . as in including it on a list of recommended reading?
I think so, and why it was attached in modern times to the New Testament, which is the Christian Bible, the old Jewish Bible, as a sort of appendix, though for some reason it was placed in the front, rather than in the back.

Obviously Christians are not compelled to think of the OT as being anywhere near as authoritative as the Christian Bible, since Christians understand that the ignorant people of the past had no clue about salvation or how to gain it.
Jesus endorsed some aspects of the OT that could be gleaned from its pages, while ignoring all the rest as so much mumbo jumbo.

Jews and Christians should both learn more about the faith of the other.

In my opinion this statement is absolutely false in light of the fact that Judaism had declared Christianity its enemy from the very start and so has over the centuries adjusted itself into an armed fortress to destroy it in any way it can, even if it meant morphing itself into something entirely different than what it started out as.

Okay, so Jesus was a Jew in opposition to Jewish authority at that time according to the New testament. Was he also in opposition with Jewish practices? Is there anything about his Jewish background that he "appreciated"?

reply to post by FreedomEntered
Jesus totally appreciated his Jewish background. He kept all its practices. He opposed the Jewish authorities that were in power who had placed the letter of the law over the spirit of the law. For example, choosing not to help someone on the Sabbath. Jesus healed the blind on the Sabbath, and for that type of behavior the priests condemned him. Jesus taught that love for our fellow man (the spirit of the law) was/is supposed to take precedent over following the letter of the law about resting (not doing work) on the Sabbath.

Jesus was opposed to the priests who had allowed God's temple to be taken over by the money-changers and had turned it into a "den of thieves" when it was supposed to be a house of worship for the Jews.

There is nothing in the teachings of Jesus that contradict the Torah. Jesus knew the Torah better than the priests of his day, which is saying a lot. Jesus was truly the fulfillment of prophecy, and Jews do themselves a disservice if they don't try to learn more about the story of Jesus. Decide for yourselves if he was the messiah....Don't let someone else decide for you.

reply to post by FreedomEntered

It's clear from eveyrthing he said that he regarded himself as representing the same God that the Jews had always worshipped.
He saw himself as continuing the history, so that he could quote examples from it to illustrate his points.
He was not so much attacking the original Law as tightening it up- extending critiicsm from adultery to thinking about adultery.
The religious practices which he objected to were mostly the later ones which had been added by tradition, especially where they focussed on trivialities at the expense of more important concerns. (e.g. the clash between his healings and their obsession with details of sabbath observance).
But the leaders of the time were giving their backing to tradition.

Ah understood.

Do you regard Jews are tribes people or more as holy people?

I mean do you believe in conversion.
As you can convert to Islam or say Buddhism etc. But with Judaism is it not about lineage? I mean Abraham descendants? Are they of a spiritual bloodline?

reply to post by FreedomEntered

You would have to ask a Jew about outsiders becoming Jews.
But I know from history that people from other races were joining the Jews in more ancient times.
Paul seems to have got some of his early converts from Gentile proselytes, who were interested in Judaism and hanging around the synagogues, but decided to join the Christians instead.

reply to post by DISRAELI


Sorry I mean that do you view Israel as being a global people of lost tribes? Or of being only descendants of the Bloodline of Abraham ? Or are converts to Judaism to you belonging to part of the ancient Jewry ideology?

If that makes sense.

I dont want to start with the old there is ashkenzi and sephardic yada yada lol that arguement happens all the time and one of Israel and who it belongs to. Im speaking more about the practices of Judaism/beliefs etc.

reply to post by FreedomEntered

I would regard belief as more decisive than descent.
Since Christians, by definition, joined God's people by conversion, we would have to regard conversion as a valid way of joining God's people.
In fact the whole point of the New Testament is to say that descent is not as vital as the people of the time thought it was.
From God's point of view, which is the one that matters, I'm sure he would accept worshippers of any descent.

In any case, even if we set aside the sillier conspiracy theories, there has been enough historically documented conversion to Judaism (as in the forcible conversion of whole districts by the Maccabean kings) to make "descent" a fairly nominal criterion.

reply to post by DISRAELI


And for you why do Jews circumcise? I mean I think with Christians you dont have such rituals, you tend to baptise or something?!

Or maybe Im wrong about that.

Anyway, whats your opinion of the Blood convenant. Does it mean anything to you?