Can someone explain this to me?

[Tab]

Sorry to be ignorant, but I've never been formally religious. Nevertheless, I've tried to understand all the differences and splinter groups, short of taking a comparative religion course.

I know Jesus was supposed to be King of the Jews, but Judaism doesn't seem to worship Jesus. Basically, what's up with that? Christianity sprung up revering Jesus as the son of God, but the Jewish religion doesn't seem to reflect any of that, at least not obviously. There's Yahweh (sp?) but generally Jesus doesn't seem to figure into it.

What happened? I know there's a major gap in my knowledge, but what is it?

Thanks

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the promised messiah.

[Devlzown]

2. The Romans called Jesus the king

of the Jews derisively when they crucified him. The first Christians were Jews, but they were a splinter group. Most Jews did not accept Jesus as the messiah.

[Warpy]

3. The concept of a Messiah was a complicated one

and during the various wars and occupations, he was invariably seen as a political leader who would throw off the yoke of whoever was doing the oppressing at the time. It's only natural. It's only during periods of relative peace and prosperity that any of them considered the rest of the prophecies.

The Jews never called him a king. Only the Romans did that, a sarcastic label they applied while they were executing him at the behest of the people whose feet were being held to the fire by his rabblerousing, the Pharisees and the people who were making bucks off the desperate at the Temple.

At least that's how the story goes if you believe there's history as well as allegory in the bible.

[Lerkfish]

4. Christians believe Jesus was the fulfillment of old testament prophecy

Jews believe in the prophecy, but that the messiah is not yet here.

The "king of the Jews" title was given by Pilate on the cross when Jesus was crucified. Technically, Jesus did not assign that exact title to himself. All he claimed to be was the Son of God, but he also referred to his disciples that way.

I hope that helps.

[no_hypocrisy]

5. I'm not certain that Jesus defined himself as the King of the Jews.

He was recognized as a rabbi (teacher) but his reputation was specifically defined by people who weren't Jewish.

[Crunchy Frog]

6. That's because Christianity is basically a splinter group off of Judaism.

The Jews who accepted Jesus as the messiah became Christians, and the rest of them remained Jews. Since Christianity is just an offshoot of Judaism, there is no reason to expect that Judaism would incorporate any formal recognition of Jesus.

There's probably a lot of good books out there that could give a decent overall history of the major religions and their relationships to one another.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. Within its first century, Christianity split off from Judaism not only

over the status of Jesus, but also over the question of whether Gentiles had to become Jewish before becoming Christian. There had long been Gentiles who admired Jewish ethics and spiritual practices and hung around the synagogues without formally converting, and some of these people were receptive to Christianity when it came along.

Eventually the Christian communities decided that Gentile Greeks, Romans, and others could join them directly without first becoming Jewish. This finalized the split.

[Meshuga]

17. Christianity emerged from Judaism but the emergence wasn't a direct line

If gentiles had interest in being Jewish they would not go for Christianity and vice-versa since the two religions are completely different from one another.

Paul started a religion mixing pharisaic ideas with pagan ideas creating the Christian messianism and the "Jesus son of God idea". The Christian religion came about when Paul made Torah and mitzvot irrelevant, making Jesus the supernatural redeemer of humanity, and by going out to convert gentiles to his new religion since Jews were too stubborn to convert.

As opposed to James, for example, who (some say that) was believed to be from a Jewish sect that believed Jesus was the Jewish messiah (in the Jewish context of a messiah) in the same way that some Chabad nowadays think the late Lubavitcher Rebbe (Menachem Mendel Schneerson) was the Jewish messiah. Chabad still follow Judaism and is a Jewish sect and it is not a new religion. James' Jewish sect was probably not Christian and considered itself Jewish because it followed mitzvot and Torah was relevant.

[angrycarpenter]

7. Todays christian church bears little resemblance to it's begining

It started out as a movement against the politicization of the jewish faith by the temple and the romans. This pissed off a lot of people. The movement was then hijacked by a roman (st. paul) which began persecuting jews as soon as they gained political power. Overly simplistic perhaps but it explains why jews have little to do with Jesus.

[Book Lover]

8. Minor point, but an important one

Paul was a roman citizen, but he was born and raised a Jew. I think calling him a roman slightly misleads insofar as that usually means that that person participated in the state religion of Rome, which Jews cannot do. Not a cut and dried situation...

[angrycarpenter]

13. He acted roman when it suited him.

He was literate which means he was educated by Rome. When it was to his advantage I am sure that he acted as a roman rather than a jew. Paul was as much a politician as a preacher.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. We don't know if Paul knew Latin; he wrote in Greek

which was the international language of the Eastern Mediterranean. It was how Pilate, a Roman from Rome, and Jesus, a Galilean whose native language was Aramaic, would have spoken to each other.

There were a lot of Jews whose first language was Greek, enough so that the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek before Jesus' time. Paul was not from Judea, but from Tarsus, which is in modern-day Turkey.

Paul was certainly educated in Greek, but he also studied with Gamaliel, a famous rabbi in Jerusalem, so his intellectual heritage was mixed.

[Beregond2]

9. Jesus...

Paul was not a Roman. He was a Pharisaic Jew. He originally was a persecutor of the Christians, but converted after having a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus. He became the "Apostle to the Gentiles," spreading Christianity throughout the Roman world. His interpretation of the life and teachings of Jesus was that he represented a new covenant between God and man, replacing the old religion of law with a religion of love. He went from being a fanatical enforcer of the minutiae of Jewish religious law to believing that the only law that mattered was to love God and your neighbor as yourself.

After the destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of the Jews by the Roman Empire, Judaism became dominated by the very Pharasaism Jesus and Paul were against, and so, what had been a branch of Judaism - Christianity - became a seperate religion entirely, and the two religions developed an antagonistic relationship. Actual persecution of the Jews by Christians did not begin until several hundred years later, when Constantine made Christianity the offical religion of the empire, and eventually his successors outlawed all other religions. Judaism was the only one that survived, and so the terrible history of anti-Semiticism lived on up to the present day.

[angrycarpenter]

11. Sorry for the doctor seuss explanation

But in essence it is correct. I am no theologian. Perhaps I should have left the answers to more learned minds.

[Tab]

10. Thanks everyone

It's hard to ask questions like that without seeming totally ignorant, but it's the only way to learn.

'preciate it - thanks!

[pingzing58]

12. Jesus never said he was staring a new religion. Conflict arose between Peter and Paul.

Peter believed that to become a follower of Jesus the Risen Christ (Christ meaning anointed) one had to follow Mosaic law including the keeping of festivals and rituals that included baptism for the forgivness of sins (but John the Baptist a Jew baptized in the river jordan nothing particularly Christian about that practice) and to the horror of pagan believers - circumcision. Peter changed his mind when in vision God taught differently (Acts, chpt 10). Paul saw the keeping of the law with its festivals, rituals and male circumcision as having no power to save a person from their sins and inherit the promise of everlasting life (not in this world as believed by the Jewish Saducees) but in the world to come (Acts, chpt. 15). This led to the first gathering of leaders where the decision was made that those who are not jewish do not need to follow all of the Mosaic law. It was not until after the fall of Jerusalem in 74 a.d. that Judeo-Christians were kicked out of the synagogue. This can be seen in the prayer of curse against them found in the Encyclopedia Juadaica "BIRKAT HA-MINIM … the 12th benediction of the weekday *Amidah … Under Rabban Gamaliel II (first century C.E.) this prayer was invoked against the Judeo-Christian and Gnostic sects and other heretics who were called by the general term *min (plural minim). To avoid any suspicion of heresy, the hazzan had to be certain to recite this prayer in public worship. If he omitted it by error, he had to return an recite it, although such a regulation does not apply to any other benediction (Tanh. B., Lev. 2a). … The formulation of this prayer is ascribed to *Samuel ha-Katan, who revised its text after it had fallen into oblivion (Ber. 28b)." 2 "MIN … According to Berakhot 28b, Samuel ha Katan (fl. c. 80-110), at the invitation of Gamaliel II of Jabneh, composed the "benediction against the minim," included in the Amidah as the twelfth benediction (see E. J. Bickerman, in HTR, 55 (1962), 171, n. 35). This was directed primarily against Judeo-Christians (specifically mentioned in one old text—see Schechter, JQR 10 (1897 / 98)), either to keep them out of the synagogue or to proclaim a definite breach between the two religions." 3 the synagogue prayers after the meeting in Jamnia. Pagan Christians were not allowed in the synagogues but Judeo-Christians were until they were asked not to attend. So, each went their own way since then.

[Meshuga]

14. In a nutshell

The concept of Jewish messiah is different from the Christian idea. In fact, totally different. The Christian idea of "Jesus the messiah" is totally foreign to Judaism. And one religion is apple and the other oranges. Yes, Christianity emerged from Judaism but the emergence wasn't a direct line.

Jews were not expecting supernatural messiah, they were expecting a messiah to come and save Jews from oppression. The Jesus messiah concept of a supernatural son of God who comes to save the souls of humanity is foreign to the Jewish idea of a messiah.

Judaism doesn't worship a messiah because it would be considered idolatry. To Jews, whatever wonderful teacher and storyteller Jesus might have been, he was just a human, not the son of God (except in the metaphorical sense in which all humans are children of God). The concept of the messiah "son of God" to be worshiped was created when Christianity came about.

The Jewish idea of a messiah was not of a peace loving son of God but a military leader, like Shimon Bar-Kokhba, who was thought to be the Jewish messiah but failed to live to expectations in his failed revolt against the oppressing Romans. The messiah was supposed to usher in an era of peace but by fighting the oppressors. I had nothing to do with a son of God who would die for our sins to redeem humanity.

On edit: I always forget to spellcheck. :-)