Jesus - was he a Jew?

[ewq1938]

Yes, a contemporary Jewish person can convert to contemporary Christianity. My point is that the so-called "parting of the ways" was much more messy than is generally thought. Daniel Boyarin describes it more as a religious apartheid than the generally accepted simple splitting.

You said, "Not only was Jesus Jewish but his followers were Jewish too. They never considered themselves non-Jewish."

In a racial sense naturally they still thought themselves as Jews, but in a spiritual sense I think there was a change, which Paul speaks of as there being no Jew or gentile in Christ....all being one.

And I realize the messiness of changing from one religion to another...the tendency to cling to things of the old...but I believe all the disciples and Apostles did make that change as well as taught it to others they witnessed to.

 

[Job8]

Is it possible for a physical Jew to stop practicing Judaism and convert to Christianity?

Absolutely. Check out Alfred Edersheim for starters.

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

You said, "Not only was Jesus Jewish but his followers were Jewish too. They never considered themselves non-Jewish."

In a racial sense naturally they still thought themselves as Jews, but in a spiritual sense I think there was a change, which Paul speaks of as there being no Jew or gentile in Christ....all being one.

And I realize the messiness of changing from one religion to another...the tendency to cling to things of the old...but I believe all the disciples and Apostles did make that change as well as taught it to others they witnessed to.

Well, I'll put it another way, the Gospel of John is Jewish literature. All the NT is Jewish literature. It owes to a specific form of Judaism which was also inhabited by Philo of Alexandria. The early high Christology of the NT was Jewish, it understood Jesus within the already existing framework of Jewish binitarian (two powers in heaven) theology. The only difference was that the NT understood the second power to be incarnate in Jesus. Biblical scholars since the last few decades have increasingly looked towards Second Temple Judaisms to understand early Christian literature; the Gospel of John as well as Hebrews sits comfortably alongside the sort of Judaism of the DSS (especially 11QMelchizedek and Hebrews), as well as targum Breshith rabbah. Jesus died as a Jew, his earliest followers died Jewish. The differentiation between Judaism and Christianity occurred rather messily during the second and third centuries in both Rabbinic Judaism and proto-orthodox (as well as not-so-orthodox) Christianities.

 

[ewq1938]

Absolutely. Check out Alfred Edersheim for starters.

A rhetorical question

 

[ewq1938]

Well, I'll put it another way, the Gospel of John is Jewish literature. All the NT is Jewish literature.

I have to disagree. All the NT is Christian literature. All of the OT is Jewish literature.

Jesus died as a Jew, his earliest followers died Jewish.

Not in the religious sense. They were all Christians, Christ being the originator of it.

The differentiation between Judaism and Christianity occurred rather messily during the second and third centuries in both Rabbinic Judaism and proto-orthodox (as well as not-so-orthodox) Christianities.

I disagree here as well. Christianity didn't just sprout up hundreds of years after Christ died. Paul is clear about the differences between Judaism and Christianity and he lived in a time when the disciples were still alive proving the difference in religions existed from the very early days of the religion.

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

I have to disagree. All the NT is Christian literature. All of the OT is Jewish literature.

You can disagree but you're essentially reading the texts outside of their original contexts in doing so...

Not in the religious sense. They were all Christians, Christ being the originator of it.

My point is that "Jewish Christian" and "non-Jewish Christian" are dubious categories. They don't elucidate the religious landscape of the earliest Jesus-movement or the subsequent movements which followed.

I disagree here as well. Christianity didn't just sprout up hundreds of years after Christ died. Paul is clear about the differences between Judaism and Christianity and he lived in a time when the disciples were still alive proving the difference in religions existed from the very early days of the religion.

I didn't say that there wasn't a Christianity before the second and third century, I said that differentiating it from Judaism is problematic. The NT makes perfect sense within the wide cultural and religious milieu of Second Temple Judaism, nothing about it is problematic within that context.

There most certainly was a Jesus movement, he was baptised, he was a preacher, he performed what he and his followers considered exorcisms and healings, he died and his followers experienced his resurrection. They were all still Jewish and they made sense of everything about him from within their Judaism.

 

[ewq1938]

You can disagree but you're essentially reading the texts outside of their original contexts in doing so...

No, understanding that the NT was written by Christians doesn't change the context in the slightest. They were the first to understand that race and lineage was meaningless to the new religion Christianity. Faith in Christ made all the same and equal in God's eyes. That is the proper context.

My point is that "Jewish Christian" and "non-Jewish Christian" are dubious categories.

Of course, see above.

I didn't say that there wasn't a Christianity before the second and third century, I said that differentiating it from Judaism is problematic.

Not for Paul...not for the early church and by that I mean the very disciples.

They were all still Jewish and they made sense of everything about him from within their Judaism.

Only perhaps in the sense that they had some growing yet to do. Christ was teaching the beginnings of a new religion, which they did eventually understand the difference. By the conversion of Paul, and his writings the difference between the two religions and which to choose was very clear.

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

Only perhaps in the sense that they had some growing yet to do. Christ was teaching the beginnings of a new religion, which they did eventually understand the difference. By the conversion of Paul, and his writings the difference between the two religions and which to choose was very clear.

This sounds like precisely the same sort of history of religion from nineteenth century Germany. It became very popular in the early half of the twentieth century...

 

[ewq1938]

This sounds like precisely the same sort of history of religion from nineteenth century Germany. It became very popular in the early half of the twentieth century...

It actually comes from the NT.

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

From Daniel Boyarin's The Jewish Gospels (2012:22-23):

The Gospels themselves, when read in the context of other Jewish texts of their times, reveal this very complex diversity and attachment to other variants of "Judaism" at the time. There are traits that bind the Gospel of Matthew to one strain of first-century "Judaism" while other traits bind the Gospel of John to other strains. The same goes for Mark, and even for Luke, which is generally considered the "least Jewish" of the Gospels.
By blurring the boundaries between "Jews" and "Christians," we are making clearer the historical situation and development of early "Judaism" and Christianity. We can understand much better the significance of our historical documents, including the Gospels, when we imagine a state of affairs that more properly reflects the social situation on the ground of that time, a social situation in which believers in Jesus of Nazareth and those who didn't follow him were mixed up with each other in various ways rather than separated into two well-defined entities that we know today as Judaism and Christianity.

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

It actually comes from the NT.

Paul prided himself on being a Pharisee trained under Gamiel, (a rather famous proto-rabbi).

 

[ewq1938]

Paul prided himself on being a Pharisee trained under Gamiel, (a rather famous proto-rabbi).

Correction, that was technically Saul not Paul. In other words, before he left Judaism for Christianity.

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

Correction, that was technically Saul not Paul. In other words, before he left Judaism for Christianity.

On my reading of the Pauline corpus, Paul lived and died convinced that he was a Jew living out Judaism.

 

[ewq1938]

On my reading of the Pauline corpus, Paul lived and died convinced that he was a Jew living out Judaism.

Perhaps that is a different Paul. The one who penned the majority of the NT was a Christian since he met Christ on a certain road.

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

Perhaps that is a different Paul. The one who penned the majority of the NT was a Christian since he met Christ on a certain road.

Paul considered the early Christians to be a heretical group of Jews, upon his conversion he considered them to be correct Jews. He considered belief in one God and one Lord to be universal so he believed that the Gentiles could share in this universalist Judaism; to the Jews first and then to the Greeks/Gentiles. His argument: is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.

 

[ewq1938]

Paul considered the early Christians to be a heretical group of Jews, upon his conversion he considered them to be correct Jews.

No, he came to understand they were Christians and why they followed Christ.

He considered belief in one God and one Lord to be universal so he believed that the Gentiles could share in this universalist Judaism;

That is false. Paul opposed Judaism and taught Christianity. I see no need to entertain this nonsense any further.

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

Correction, that was technically Saul not Paul. In other words, before he left Judaism for Christianity.

It wasn't uncommon for Jewish people to have two names in the Greco-Roman period. "Saul" would have been his Palestinian name and "Paul" would have been the name he used when travelling around.

 

[Hank77]

No, he came to understand they were Christians and why they followed Christ.
That is false. Paul opposed Judaism and taught Christianity. I see no need to entertain this nonsense any further.

Eph 2:11 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
Eph 2:12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
Eph 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
Adam Clarke
Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel - Ye were by your birth, idolatry, etc., alienated from the commonwealth of Israel - from the civil and religious privileges of the Jewish people.
Strangers from the covenants of promise - Having no part in the promise of the covenant made with Abraham, whether considered as relating to his natural or spiritual seed; and no part in that of the covenant made at Horeb with the Israelites, when a holy law was given them, and God condescended to dwell among them, and to lead them to the promised land.
Having no hope - Either of the pardon of sin or of the resurrection of the body, nor indeed of the immortality of the soul. Of all these things the Gentiles had no rational or well-grounded hope.
Rom 4:16 Because of this it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, for the promise being sure to all the seed, not to that which is of the law only, but also to that which is of the faith of Abraham,
Rom 4:17 who is father of us all (according as it hath been written--`A father of many nations I have set thee,') before Him whom he did believe--God, who is quickening the dead, and is calling the things that be not as being.
Rom 4:18 Who, against hope in hope did believe, for his becoming father of many nations according to that spoken: `So shall thy seed be;'

 

[witness of G]

The scars were for identification purposes. I highly doubt other scars or bodily imperfections were kept as they would serve no purpose.

Dare we call the sign of a covenant an imperfection?

 

[Job8]

I have to disagree. All the NT is Christian literature. All of the OT is Jewish literature.

This is exactly what is revealed to us. Christianity is Christ, and the New Covenant brought us the New Testament (which also means covenant). While it is true that all the evangelists and apostles were ethnically Jews, they were inspired to write as Christians. At the same time the Old Testament is the New Testament enfolded, so the NT becomes the OT unfolded, and Christ Himself showed Himself to the apostles in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (the Hebrew Bible called the Tanach) (Lk 24:27,44,45).