For some reason, I keep thinking about this.
The Christian Bible includes both the Old and New Testaments, so why is it that Christians don't keep kosher or celebrate Hanukkah?
Disclaimers:
1. For the intents of this ramble, I am treating both testaments as true. This ramble isn't about my personal beliefs – it's about the relationships between the two religions and their texts, in a very basic and general sense.
2. I haven't read the whole bible. I've read all of Genesis and Exodus, all of Matthew, and various other stories, all only once through, plus whatever excerpts I've read at Hebrew School, Torah Study, or camp.
3. I'm honestly not that familiar with the history of Christianity in terms of what happened hundreds of years after Jesus' lifetime and the formation of the religion, so that might account for a good chunk of what I'm missing.
So. Why is it that Christians aren't Jews, plus? Why don't Christians celebrate all the Jewish holidays and observe the Jewish customs, plus the ones centered around Jesus' life and teachings? If Jesus was supposedly Jewish, and furthermore the son of the God that made all the rules of Judaism, why wouldn't he preach his new teachings in addition to those rules? It seems like he kind of let his new followers off the hook for all the old Jewish stuff, in favor of the new things he was teaching them.
I was talking to Erica about this, and she said that the way she's had it explained to her, Judaism was sort of an elite religion. To be truly observant you basically had to sit around studying Torah all day, and only the rich could really afford to do that. So along comes Jesus, who says that no, you don't have to sit around studying all day – all you really have to do is be good people to be good in the eyes of God, and here's how to be good people. All of a sudden, pleasing God was something that was accessible to the masses.
But if Jesus is the son of God, and God is perfect, and God made those rules laid out in the Old Testament, how could Jesus have had the authority to go to the people and tell them the rules had changed? If God told him to, did that mean that the original rules weren't perfect? If God didn't tell him to…well that would be really bad, wouldn't it? Or are the father and the son supposed to be equals in the trinity? Even if they are equals, why would one deity say to the people that they don't really have to observe the Sabbath, even if the other deity told them to? That would mean a weird competition for power over dictating the rules that just doesn't seem right in this context. Plus, (and here's the kicker,) if the rules did change so that all you had to do was be a good person and not follow all of the 613 commandments in the Torah, why does the Christian Bible still include the Old Testament?
I have no idea. Maybe I'm wrong about some of these details or interpretations. Maybe I'm vastly over generalizing. Maybe it has to do with the history of the formation of the religion. Maybe I'm completely way off and just don't know my stuff that well. But these are things I wonder about, and it'd be cool to understand more about these questions and their answers.
The Christian Bible includes both the Old and New Testaments, so why is it that Christians don't keep kosher or celebrate Hanukkah?
Disclaimers:
1. For the intents of this ramble, I am treating both testaments as true. This ramble isn't about my personal beliefs – it's about the relationships between the two religions and their texts, in a very basic and general sense.
2. I haven't read the whole bible. I've read all of Genesis and Exodus, all of Matthew, and various other stories, all only once through, plus whatever excerpts I've read at Hebrew School, Torah Study, or camp.
3. I'm honestly not that familiar with the history of Christianity in terms of what happened hundreds of years after Jesus' lifetime and the formation of the religion, so that might account for a good chunk of what I'm missing.
So. Why is it that Christians aren't Jews, plus? Why don't Christians celebrate all the Jewish holidays and observe the Jewish customs, plus the ones centered around Jesus' life and teachings? If Jesus was supposedly Jewish, and furthermore the son of the God that made all the rules of Judaism, why wouldn't he preach his new teachings in addition to those rules? It seems like he kind of let his new followers off the hook for all the old Jewish stuff, in favor of the new things he was teaching them.
I was talking to Erica about this, and she said that the way she's had it explained to her, Judaism was sort of an elite religion. To be truly observant you basically had to sit around studying Torah all day, and only the rich could really afford to do that. So along comes Jesus, who says that no, you don't have to sit around studying all day – all you really have to do is be good people to be good in the eyes of God, and here's how to be good people. All of a sudden, pleasing God was something that was accessible to the masses.
But if Jesus is the son of God, and God is perfect, and God made those rules laid out in the Old Testament, how could Jesus have had the authority to go to the people and tell them the rules had changed? If God told him to, did that mean that the original rules weren't perfect? If God didn't tell him to…well that would be really bad, wouldn't it? Or are the father and the son supposed to be equals in the trinity? Even if they are equals, why would one deity say to the people that they don't really have to observe the Sabbath, even if the other deity told them to? That would mean a weird competition for power over dictating the rules that just doesn't seem right in this context. Plus, (and here's the kicker,) if the rules did change so that all you had to do was be a good person and not follow all of the 613 commandments in the Torah, why does the Christian Bible still include the Old Testament?
I have no idea. Maybe I'm wrong about some of these details or interpretations. Maybe I'm vastly over generalizing. Maybe it has to do with the history of the formation of the religion. Maybe I'm completely way off and just don't know my stuff that well. But these are things I wonder about, and it'd be cool to understand more about these questions and their answers.
1 comments:
I don't want to write a whole new post, but just in case anyone cares, I was talking to my dad about these questions this morning on the way to work. I'll try to remember some of the things he said, but I don't remember well so this is gonna be simplified.
(Another disclamer: my dad's thoughts on the matter come from the perspective that Jesus is a historical figure, maybe a prophet, but not the son of God, which is different from the original post.)
- Jesus didn't actually let anyone off the hook for the old rules, cause I mean, he was Jewish. But when Paul and others were trying to convert people later, it was much more enticing that way.
- Jesus said "I am the son of God," but he also said "I am the son of man." Maybe he saw himself as a profit, and even as a messiah, but maybe he didn't see himself as literally a divine figure.
(Sorry I don't have the bible verses to cite...)
- Something about the Jewish priests being corrupt, which I don't really remember. So perhaps Jesus was trying to steer people back to the core values of the religion and away from the politics of it.
- Apparently God does change his mind. My dad said there are places in the bible (again, sorry I don't have verses) where humans convince God to change his mind. Or her mind, or its mind. Which means that God isn't perfect, so maybe God did change his/her/its mind and decide that following all the rules wasn't really necessary. (This point was brought up in the context of free will vs. divine determinism - if the latter were true, people wouldn't have been able to give God new ideas or convince God to do something else than what God wanted to do.)
That's about all I can remember right now...and again, he could be wrong, and interpretations/facts could be off, but these are all just thoughts and ponderings of a Jewish agnostic who's curious about religion.
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