Submitted 3 weeks ago by count_dongulus@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Jesus was 100% Jewish circa year zero. Observed Torah, went to and taught at synagogues, celebrated Hannukkah, ate a kosher diet, etc. But Christians don’t follow Jesus’s own religious practices.
There’s some line in the New Testamant that absolves Christians of the obligation to observe the laws of Kashrut and whatnot, if I recall, but I couldn’t tell you where it is or how exhaustive it is.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
- Matthew 5:17 KJV
To be a follower of Jesus, which is what the disciples originally called themselves, you would need to observe the law… IE, follow the original kosher laws and such.
The real (historical) reasons why Christians don’t follow Jesus’s religious traditions, come from an ease of assimilation. The Catholic church assimilated pagans into the religion, and it was easier to do so by telling them they don’t have to change their current traditions, and that they just have to celebrate Easter, for example, for the birth of Christ and not as a celebration of the goddess of war, love, and fertility.
There are movements that try to go back to this core belief, though. Jews for Jesus and Messianic Judaism are two such movements, where they celebrate Judaism nearly in its entirety, while also believing Jesus was their savior and following his teachings. Truly an interesting, seemingly contradictory, mix of views.
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I am fully aware that there are disagreements on whether or not Catholicism is Christianity or even whether it’s a monotheistic or polytheistic religion, and, as such, whether the Catholic assimilations of pagans were relevant to Christianity as a whole. But, honestly, I couldn’t care less. In the wise words of Shepherd Book, “I don’t care what you believe in, just believe in it”.
I think it goes a bit deeper than just ease of assimilation. A big part of Paul’s ministry was the idea that only Jesus can provide salvation, which implies that following all the laws can not. At least that was my understanding based on what I remember reading.
Where do I begin…
Easter was never celebrated for a goddess. Easter has always been Christian. The myth about that comes from the word itself which was just a germanic month named after said goddess. It’s like saying Christians worship the sun for going to church on Sunday.
The time you are speaking about, the Roman Catholic Church we know of now wasn’t the same as the Catholic/Orthodox Church. It was pre reformation, pre purgatory, pre works based salvation, pre immaculate conception, pre rosary, pre great schism. Every Church calls itself the “Catholic” Church. Both the orthodox and the Protestants also. Catholic literally just means “universal”. So we believe in “one Holy, Apostolic and Universal Church”
These concessions were recorded in St Paul’s epistles at the earliest and were documented by St Luke in the 15th chapter of Acts of the Apostles which is new testament canon in of itself as occuring at the Jerusalem council in around 50 AD.
But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, “‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.’ Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.” Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.” So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words. And after they had spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also.
But like…would Jesus have been cool with that?
In his words, seemingly fine with it; Two commandments
Who could say? Not me. Maybe a theologian
I mean, for the line in the New Testament to have any authority it'd have had to come from Jesus himself, so presumably yes.
There’s an argument out there that Paul was the guy who really started Christianity. He molded it into something that could spread all over the Roman Empire. It’s not completely accepted by biblical scholars, but it has a lot of merit.
If you wanna follow Jesus (according to the best of our information about him), you can’t be a Trinitarian quasi polytheist who thinks faith, salvation and works are all disjointed and independent. But Paulian doctrines are nothing but that, and the way for a Roman Empire to convert Jesus’ message of accountability and righteousness and his Abrahamic monotheism to something more palatable and in-line with their existing beliefs. This includes but is not limited to: a pantheon of three (with a “human God” as one of those three), “consumption of blood and flesh” rituals, the Day of Judgment no longer being one of actual judgment because if you “believe” “Jesus is God” you’re automatically saved, whatever Paulian “grace” was…
The Roman Empire is the grandaddy of all Western imperialistic doctrines and my informed guess is that Paul, who didn’t actually know Jesus and even in the Bible he gets told off by Jesus’ actual followers, was nothing more than an agent of destabilisation and an infiltrator, perhaps sent by the Romans themselves but if not at least used by them to create what we know now as “Roman Catholicism”, which is nothing but a deformed, unrecognisable husk of the teachings of big J. Whether this happened this way or more organically is up to debate, whether Jesus’ teachings and Christendom are fundamentally different is not, though, that just requires some basic reading comprehension skills.
Yeah. Jesus was explicitly clear that he came specifically for the Jews and that his offer was for them. The only gospel story that even hints at anything is is the story of the Gentile woman who wanted him to hear her daughter; he told her that he came for the Jews, and she replied that even the dogs may eat scraps from the master’s table. Jesus was “amazed by her faith” and healed her daughter, but that’s the end of the story.
It’s only after Jesus’ death that Peter had a vision that he interpreted to mean that Gentiles could be accepted as following Jesus too, and then Paul really leaned into it. Most of the rest of the New Testament is written by Paul or one of his disciples.
Sure but the Jews never followed Jesus so he failed in everyway then.
It’s mostly due to Paul, most Christians are mostly following what Paul wrote. Churches that don’t follow Paul, like messianics, are wildly different.
I’ve met messianic Christians who to me felt Jewish like me but with the Jesus talk.
whoa, I didn’t know there were Churches that don’t follow Paul. he’s one of my biggest issues with Christianity.
I felt like Christianity suffered a lot from so many gentiles streaming in early on without becoming Jews, and by the time it became the religion of Rome it blended with Sol Invictus, Greek Platonism and other Roman mythology, and became incomprehensible. Jesus was Jewish, the Disciples were all Jews, all the context of his teachings only make sense in a context the fresh converts lacked.
I kinda wonder about an alternate universe where a sect of Jews accept Jesus as Moshiach but not as literally God. there’d be no trinity, the parables would go into the Talmud, he’d be seen as a rebbe like Hillel I guess.
I’m a Christian in the Calvinist tradition, but I try to follow Jesus more than Paul. Paul was in my opinion very much a pragmatic who tried to spread Christianity in Greece, and was willing to compromise a bit with Greek sensibilities (which included slavery and misogyny). When in doubt, I look to Jesus instead.
Also, I think Calvin went a bit too far overboard on some things. The reformation was a good thing, but that doesn’t make him right about everything.
Almost like the only things most Christians do is what they personally like about the religion. The part that tells you to not sleep with a man if you are a man, literally tells you to not wear two types of cloth in the next sentence. You never hear republicans going after the people wearing two types of cloth do you? Never a single word. Not once in the history of the Republican party have they tried to dehumanize people who wear two types of cloth. Funny how that works. Almost like religion is just a tool they use to spread their hate.
Also fuck the people who write in scripture that being gay is a sin. I hope those people burn in hell. 2000 years of suffering and killing of gay people because some asshole couldn’t be bothered to think for 30 seconds about whether it’s actually wrong or not. Probably a good thing because without its several flaws, religion might have came to dominate the world.
Abrahamic religions generally frown upon non-procreative sex. Not to justify their hate, but they generally see sex for pleasure as inherently sinful.
They see everything as sinful, because they themselves are the most sinful people. It’s no mistake that serious religious people tend to be both some of the worst and also some of the most miserable people you ever meet. I believe in God as well but I never assumed God was a dumber then your average human, or that it was just a way for me to impose myself on the world. I always assumed God was close to perfect and so whenever I would assume things about God, I never assumed dumb things like God being a Republican or something. To me God was just an imaginary friend who explored psychic spaces with me. Someone to talk to or pray to if you want to use their auspacious language. The older I get the more I see religion as evil. Even if some of what it says is good, some of what Hitler said was good too. That doesn’t make it a good thing. Religion at its core is a very mean and oppressive worldview and the people who practice it aren’t very rational on the simple ways. Not to state that everything needs an explanation, but the idea that a grown adult would think God dislikes someone because they are gay or something is incredibly dumb. When you see the dark side of religion like this. If you can put yourselves into the shoes of others and see that religion has created so much horror and suffering for simply kind and innocent people who aren’t hurting anyone, not to mention it dehumanized almost everyone, especially women, and is mostly powered by fear, you can really see the issues with it. The worst problem of all however is that it trains people to not think rationally but to think like a schizo. To start with an answer and work backward to try and prove it.
The other dark side is that humans are basically monkeys and they can be extremely shitty to each other. It’s hard to say whether the atheist or the deist constitutes the better person, but at this point in history and probably all points, religion just became a vector for the powerful to impose their shitty views onto everyone else. Stuff like what project 2025 is doing. They are basically using religion to mobilize a idiot army to destroy freedom and democracy, so they can have their hoa corporatism. They are like the Nazis in so many ways. They claim to be things when they aren’t. They claim to be free market capitalists when they are anything but.
What really bothers me is how if they could just be honest for once in their life and admit that the reason they really voted for trump is because they are sick of mass immigration, they might actually get a compromise or resolution. Probably not because the state doesn’t care about those things, and sees it as something that will drive up labor down competition and stuff, but because they cannot be honest they live in these delusions.
Also their weakness, their actual moral failings make them extremely easy to manipulate by people who are quite literally evil. Because they hate gay people for example, trump got power a second time and he is quietly in the background destroying everything they ever loved. The constitution, the free society, their basic ability to even use the internet and access information without being brainwashed. Trump is hyperinflation the economy which is going to destroy the bonds market, honestly already has. This hatred they have makes them blind to everything. Their fear of being an outsider is also a giant weakness to them. They feel as if they have to be maga to fit in at work, to keep their jobs. They are a slave to money in this sense. This weakness also traps them into being manipulated because they don’t realize how many people actually agree with them, most of them in reality since your common person, for all their weaknesses actually isn’t an evil piece of shit like the Republican politicians. Their laziness also becomes a vector for evil to be done through them. They love to be political and vote, yet most people have zero desire to actually learn anything about the issues they vote on, or even history. Now it’s too late. You aren’t allowed to learn about campaign finance, history, political theory, or any of this. The algorithms will try to hide this stuff from you and direct you into brain rot. Their lack of moral character also becomes a vector of evil. They can never take responsibility, because it’s hard. It hurts a bit to admit you have been fighting for the wrong side, but with this pain also comes the ability to change for the better. These are the types of things I learned through my meditations with God. None of this is in the Bible. The Bible teaches obedience, not trusting your own judgment, God taught me the opposite of this, only show obedience to people who deserve it, judge within yourself so that you may know where you are wrong and improve. Most people tell you that one side or the other is better, God taught me that no side is better but representative of two fundamental irreconcilable aspects of reality. Honest work vs human dignity. Democracy as strength in freedom but republicanism as strength in property. Both are necessary. Humans will have children they can’t take care of and then expect others to take care of it. Republicans also always tend to become deeply dark and cynical people because the culture is always against their interests even when they are valid.
Religion teaches you to love religious people and hate gay or atheists people. God taught me to love good people and hate evil people. To realize how lucky I was to know him,but to also understand that so few will ever know him because they are too dishonest and do not love what is good and true like their own soul. That is the shame. I ended up becoming a lucifarian eventually. I still have my good character, but to me religion is terrible.
That’s not “the part”. The prohibition on homosexuality is repeated several times in the New Testament. The cloth thing is not.
Without flaws, a doctrine of fairness for all, murder being a sin, and an overwhelming emphasis on compassion, cooperation, loving thy neighbour and turning the other cheek wouldn’t be the disease modern religion is. It would be a codification of human values.
“human values” originated in religion
Fun fact: year 0 does not exist.
No year “exists”, we made up the entire concept of keeping track of “years” in the first place.
we made up all abstract concepts, but some abstract concepts are more real than othe6
Neither do nations or borders. Yet I still have to pay taxes and show my passport at the airport.
At some point, something just exists.
So, we made it, thus it exists? Or did we somehow manage to create a year system but it still doesn’t exist?
Year 0 doesn’t exist in the BC/AD numbering system, but does exist in the astronomical year numbering system, as well as the ISO 8601:2004 numbering system (and, apparently, in most Buddhist and Hindu calendars, which I didn’t know).
And the Holocene/Human Era Calendar!
There was no year 0. It was 1 BCE then 1 CE. Just FYI.
Was it though? Like back then?
Back then it was technically the year 3000 something of recorded history. Christianity declared that that’s when time started.
Back then they didn’t use Jesus’s birth (or at least, the date Dionysius Exiguus thought was Jesus’s birth) as the epoch for counting the years.
Yeah, also Jesus wasn’t white.
I think Brian was, though.
Pretty sure his Roman.
Jesus was born Jewish but converted to Christianity in his teens
Christianity wasn’t a thing until 200 years after his death.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Savior?
If being a Christian means following Jesus’ teachings, I’m pretty sure that makes Jesus the first Christian.
The separation is generally considered to be when the first century church said circumcision was unnecessary. That was a clean break with Jewish tradition.
I mean, the only real difference is that one believes Jesus was the Messiah and the other doesn’t. I am pretty sure Jesus straight up told people he was the Messiah so it would be weird if he didn’t believe in himself.
Nah he was actually Buddhist
Because Jesus showed them a better way? I thought that was the point of it.
All of Jesus’s followers who lived when he did were Jewish as well. They were all guilty of what Jesus was crucified for, going against the established religion of the land (I wouldn’t call it apostasy though; that’s renouncing God and none of them were doing that). Christianity is/was based on the teachings of Christ; it builds upon Judaism.
That’s my understanding anyway. I am not religious. But, I don’t think “Christians are not Jews like Jesus was” is a bad thing.
What’s wild to me is that today’s Jews believe Jesus was this decent guy but not the son of God. Then you have Muslims who believe that maybe he was the son of God, maybe he was just a prophet, but they still follow his teachings, they just lean more into the teachings of Muhammad (peace be upon him) (that’s how they say it, or they add “PBUH” which means the same). But guess who the Christians side with politically? I don’t get it. But I don’t think that (the political thing) has to do with who’s more closely aligned with Jesus, I think it’s who pays better.
But again, I’m not religious, so I don’t support or reject any of them. And of course my understanding of these religions is far less than actual practitioners of said religions.
theoretically, Muslims and Jews should be closer. both believe in one god, rather than a trinity. both reject icons. both follow the dietary laws. both Jews and Arabs descend from Abraham.
maybe the closer you are the more you have to fight about 🤷♀️
I’ve read that Mohammed even wanted to merge his movement with Judaism, but Jewish leaders rejected him, and apparently that set some bad blood.
Muslims don’t believe Jesus is the son of god but do believe he is the prophecied messiah, performed miracles and ascended into heaven
You can’t be Muslim and think anything or anyone else is Divine in any way like Him, be it a son or an accompanying “god”. The Oneness of God is a core, undeniable part of Islam (any branch, any sect, etc., because it’s based on a singular book that’s accessible to all, the Qur’an, and that’s like THE main tenet of it). But yes, prophet Isa, big J, is of course a big part of the history of the religion! I don’t mean to be mean to Christians but listen, even in the Bible Jesus is shown praying (why would “God” pray?!), asking for intercession, and even denying being called ‘good’ because “only the Father is good” (because all of these hard categories belong only to God, He’s the superlative of all the good traits, our unreachable goal, since there’s “good and bad” in all of us, a bit of vice not just virtue). Jesus was a man who believed in God and asked Him for help and his prayer mentions it strongly!
But yeah, Jesus is/should be seen as big for every Muslim regardless of whether you know his message or not simply because, even if it didn’t take complete root and the message was shared to the world already changed and corrupted by the Romans, it did perhaps prepare the world, through Western colonization, for virtue and monotheism (if you believe you’ll meet the Creator and be judged for your decisions in life you kind of have a bigger motivation to act right! lol), and that’s a crazy way to get there but hey, the Lord works in mysterious ways. And then people can adopt Islam, which basically takes any man, saints, St. Peter and the keys, etc, all of that nonsense out of the equation entirely and tells you: "your life is and the universe are gifts from your Creator that you will never be able to repay (of course, who here can make a universe?!), enjoy them but walk the straight path, and you will meet Him again on the Day of Judgment and if you were even slightly decent (at the very least very repentant while you’re alive still), you get an even better second, eternal life (why not? He already made a universe once at least!).
That’s because, per Christian doctrine, Jesus created a new covenant with his sacrifice that fulfills and supersedes the old laws, and put a more spiritual mercy/love-driven interpretation on the previous rigid adherence aspects of Jewish laws and traditions before.
I don't know too much abut religion, but I thought Jesus was supposed to have bashed up the temples due to them operating like banks.
I think that'd be evidence of crticising some the prevailing religious organisation.
IIRC it was other people abusing temples to set up markets there, he didn’t have problems with the church itself.
It was moreso about them selling the sacrifices. The idea was you couldn’t bring your own sacrifice, you’d have to buy one there.
That would be pretty based if somebody did that today
Western Christianity is basically Roman traditions rebranded. Jesus was just a paint coat over it to make it look cooler.
Except the new testament the one about Jesus says something along the lines of nothing you put in your body can taint you. So why would Christians fallo a kosher diet.
If you read the New Testament you would understand why. It goes into this… Everything from Dietary laws to circumcision.
More ironically western Christians HATE middle-easterners.
The Jews also killed Jesus so yeah
The romans, technically.
Nar the Romans handed Jesus off to the Jews to deal with him. That’s where the phrase “I wash my hand of this” comes from. Was the Roman judge saying not my problem its a problem for your religious group to deal with. Then the Romans crucified him on the Jews behalf.
The religious heads of his time and place were opposed to him, yes, but that doesn’t make Abrahamic and Mosaic Judaism any less important. If someone had the courage to be openly moral and follow Jesus’ footsteps in “Christian” America, he’d also be silenced…
It’s a bit more complicated than that. Jesus was a reformer of Judaism, and brought in a lot of unorthodox ideas. Plus, if the Gospel accounts are authentic, he was going around telling people he was the foretold Messiah and the Son of God, which isn’t typical Jewish teaching.
That’s because Jesus didn’t tell us to eat a kosher diet or observe Torah strictly. Christians do teach the Bible in churches, the successor to synagogues.
I’m not sure Jesus said anything about whether his followers need to keep kosher or observe the Torah. “I have come not to replace the Law, but to fulfill it” or something, right? I don’t think he weighed in on circumcision or pork. wasn’t that largely the early Christians deciding after his death?
Jesus said
Matthew 15:11
it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.
The circumcision thing did come about at the Council of Jerusalem 20 years later, but Jesus instituted baptism which replaced it, and it follows the spirit of what Jesus taught.
He also celebrated Passover. The Last Supper was a seder.
There are some christian denominations follow old testament holidays and honor the sabbath. Basically they recognize that jesus was jewish and follow most practices.
Christians see Jesus as kind of an honorary Christian, I suppose
Also wasn’t the birthplace of Chritianity in Damascus ? So he was middle-eastern.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Most christians seem to ignore most or all of the bible, anyway.
Ugurcan@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
After reading the book, I realized I’m following much more of the Bible as a Muslim than an average Christard zealot does.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
As an atheist who tries to do the right thing for people, same. If he lived today, Jesus would probably be a communist and thrown out by Christians.