Judaism and Christianity

      

     Three of the world’s great religions: Islam,

 Judaism, and Christianity, all share their

roots in the Hebrew patriarch of Abraham. 

Consequently, religious scholars have thus 

termed these three religions as Abrahamic

faiths.  Judaism  and Christianity, however, appear to have even deeper ties to each other, as 

Christianity sees itself as the continuation and indeed even the fulfillment of scripture and 

prophecy of Judaism.  While there are divergent dogmas between the two faiths because of 

this, there are also many parallels and commonalities as well.  From reverencing some of the 

same important people in the faiths, to shared scriptures, the mutual concept of a messiah,

the understanding on the need for suffering, and even mutual understandings on some rituals,

these two of the three Abrahamic faiths are fascinating in the ties that bind them and the 

differences that create their separate faith identities.

            Both Judaism and Christianity acknowledge Abraham as the great patriarch of their faiths from which subsequent important Jewish figures came.  God promised Abraham for his faithfulness and obedience in his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac that his people would flourish and become as many as the stars in the sky.  From that line of progeny, God the Father revealed himself to Moses to lead the captive Jewish people out of Egypt and slavery.  In the desert, at Mt. Sinai, God revealed to Moses his holy law as encapsulated in the ten commandments.  Even the greatest of Jewish prophets Elijah is revered by both Jews and Christians.  Indeed, in the transfiguration of Christ, it is the Jewish lawgiver Moses and the prophet Elijah that are present along with Christ.  Even Jesus Christ, who was an observant Jew, descended from the Jewish line of the house of King David.

            Both Jews and Christians share the Pentateuch as the initial scriptural foundation of their faiths.  The first five books of the Tanakh being Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, are considered sacred scriptures to both.  Further, the Jewish delineations of the books of the Nevi’im, which told of Jewish prophets, and of the Ketuvim, which were important writings, comprise what Christianity has come to define as the Old Testament.  While observant Jews do not recognize the scriptures of the New Testament as being divinely inspired, both faiths find all of the Jewish scriptures found in the Tanakh to be authoritative and sacred.

            The Jewish faith is replete with prophecies of a coming messiah that is both kingly and priestly to unite and lead the Jewish people.  The ancient Jews were awaiting a warrior king and priest to lead them out of Roman oppression and return Jewish society to greatness and piety under God.  Christianity tells of Jesus Christ being that very messiah that thus fulfilled all of Jewish prophecy of a messianic coming in the Tanakh.  While many Jews of the day were waiting for a warrior king riding a stallion to lead a revolt against the Roman oppressors, Christ road into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday meekly riding the colt of a donkey.  Many Jews expected a messiah to come that would be an earthly king to rid them of their woes and restore the city of Jerusalem to glory.  To Christians, Jesus came not as a worldly king, but as a heavenly one.  Indeed, Christ when questioned by Pontius Pilate in John 18:36 told him, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.”  Jews are still waiting for the coming of their messiah today in the fulfillment of Tanakh prophecies.

            Suffering is also an integral part of the both the Jewish and Christian stories.  Indeed, without suffering, one cannot appreciate goodness, it is thought.  God allows suffering to occur, typically through Jews’ and Christians’ own actions, as a means to have them turn back to God in prayer.  It is suffering that often helps people find or rediscover God, as many Christian and Jewish faiths believe.  The Tanakh is resplendent with stories of the Jewish people becoming complacent and faithless and thus having to suffer as a means to return back to God in repentance and prayer.  In Exodus 3:7, it states, “But the LORD said: I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry against their taskmasters, so I know well what they are suffering.”  Because of this, God sent Moses to deliver them out of Pharaoh’s enslavement and into the promised land as they turned to God in prayer.  

             Meanwhile Christians, see the incomparable suffering and sacrifice of Jesus Christ himself for the expiation of mankind’s sins as the ultimate act of suffering and of love. Many of Christ’s disciples in his day sacrificed, suffered, and were even martyred as a means of giving praise and having faith in Christ.  In Isaiah’s suffering servant discourse in the Tanakh, it tells of a suffering servant of God.  An excerpt of this passage in Isaiah 53: 3-6 states, “He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, knowing pain, Like one from whom you turn your face, spurned, and we held him in no esteem.  Yet it was our pain that he bore, our sufferings he endured. We thought of him as stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity. He bore the punishment that makes us whole, by his wounds we were healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, all following our own way; But the LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all.”  Christians see that discourse as being the person of Christ in the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy through his ultimate suffering. 

            Ritualistically, the Jewish and Christian faiths also share some similarities.  They both are obliged to keep the Sabbath holy in worship to God, as is proclaimed in the Tanakh. They both have rituals of purification and righteousness for the young or newcomers to the respective faiths.  For Christians, this ritual is called baptism, while for Jews this ceremonial ritual is called circumcision.  Other similar rituals between the two faiths are the Christian ritual of confirmation when a child comes of age in the church.  This is acknowledged in the Jewish tradition through bar-mitzvahs or bat-mitzvahs.

            The beautiful faith traditions of Judaism and Christianity are similar in so many aspects as Christianity is the religious offspring of the Jewish faith.  The observant Jew, Jesus Christ, is worshiped as the second person of the Holy Trinity, in Christianity, while Judaism still awaits the coming of their messiah.  Despite the differences, commonalities in these two faiths are still found in the revering of common scriptural people, shared scriptures, messianic prophecies, the need for suffering, and even in some of their rituals.  Indeed, the ancient Jews would offer blood sacrifices of sheep and other animals to God for expiation of their sins.  In Christianity, Christ is called the lamb of God, and thus was the only unblemished and pure sacrificial lamb as he willingly sacrificed himself for all of mankind’s sins.  It is these similarities in concepts and understandings that bind the Judeo-Christian faith traditions together.