Judaism vs Christianity

The best faith??? The "best" of anything is always a subjective thing. There can be a "best" for you, but that is about it.

Because different faiths have different beliefs and these differing beliefs are at times mutually exclusive, it is left to an individual to decide what is the proper path to follow. Judaism is based upon the Torah and holds that text as sacred. Christianity is founded upon the Biblical New Testament writings and holds both that and the Old Testament writings (of which the Torah is a part) as sacred.

Not sure if that answers your question. If not, I'll be glad to try again.

Personally, I recommend druidism or Zoroastrianism.

If Judaism did not exist to begin with, the creation of christianity would not have been perceived or created.

Yeah, but if Ford had not existed then it's arguable that General Motors as we know it today would not have been perceived or created.

The precursor doesn't necessarily supersede or surpass what follows, it seems to me.

Trying to compare theism with economics just doesn't make any sense - imho.

True. Trying to compare the irrational with the rational just doesn't quite work!

Apart from noting that the Torah is the Old Testament (although there may be textual differences), i'd say CR has given the straightest answer here.

The best advice which i think could be given to David Henry is to explore the religious sects implied in his question. Jews adhere to a few sects, of which the Reformed and Orthodox Jews are the most common (i believe--Jespah could expand more on that topic). But when considering Christianity, he's really got his work cut out for him. Syriac Christians and Maronite Christians (who, at least nominally, recognize the spiritual authority of the Pope, and could therefore, notionally, be described as Catholic sects) are common in the middle east. Nestorian Christians hardly survive today, although they do survive--they were once the most vigorous of proselytizers, and spread throughout the middle east and central asia, reaching as far as China. Islam, however, overtook the regions in which they had made converts, and few of them remain. The Orthodox Chruch can actually be said to be older than Catholicism, and is practiced in the middle east (to a very small extent) and in Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia. In Europe and the Americas, Christians can be grossly divided into Catholics and Protestants. There are, in addition to the Syriac and Maronite Christians, Byzantine Catholics--but by far, the Roman Catholics predominate.

But with the Protestants, you have another bewildering array of sects, many of which differ little, although there are some profound theological divides, such as those between Calvinists and Reform Protestants. The Presbyterians and the Congregationalists are the largest number of those who derive their theology from John Calvin. Reform Protestants refers to those who followed the lead of Martin Luther and produced congregations who "reformed" the Christianity which they derived from the Roman Church. This includes "mainstream" sects such as the Lutherans, the German Reformed, the Dutch Reformed and the Anglican or Episcopalian Churchs, as well as Silesians (a "reformed" sect which is almost Catholic in its theology), the Moravians, the Baptists (who themselves are now divided into many sects) and the Waloons, as well as many other smaller sects. There are a few Protestant sects which date to a time before Martin Luther, although they are small in number of adherents--the Hussites and the Waldensians come to mind. There are also a host of "homegrown" charismatic and fundamentalist sects which arose in North America in the few generations before, and since the American Revolution.

You could canvass the different sects of Judaism in a few days online. It would take months just to track down all of the Christian sects. Good luck.

Judaism is racist
Islam horrible
Christianity silly.

Out of the 3 I'd go for silly, but then I'm not really in the market.

But I did think of a simple experiment to determine the best religion. Take equal numbers of Muslims Christians and Jews, get them to buy equal numbers of tickets for the lottery, allocate equal fervent pray-for-a-win time and compare the results with random or chance results.

Either there is a winner, or if no significant difference c.f. pure chance, then perhaps there was no one at home listening.

'Scuse me? Er, thanks for lumping us all together. Racist is such a sweet and generous term. And horrible and silly aren't too much better.

I know, I know, it's a shocker, but Judaism is no more a monolith of one person, one belief, one politics, one notion than any other group of more than three people is.

Anyway, that's a tangent. To answer your question, at least vis a vis Judaism. CoastalRat and Setanta have laid a foundation. Here's some more info.

Judaism is based on the Torah but we also have a number of written and oral laws. The written laws are in the Talmud and the unwritten ones, now in written form (confused yet?) are in what's called the Mishna. All of this stuff started off in Aramaic and then Hebrew but are now translated into quite a few languages including, of course, English. The Torah (commonly also called "the five books of Moses") covers creation, exodus (e. g. the movie, The Ten Commandments) plus a number of laws, including the basis of kosher law, plus a lot of odd stuff that most people these days find weird and antiquated, such as stuff about not planting two different types of crops together. Talmud and Mishna offer commentary on these and a lot of scenarios, kind of the specifics if you will. The Torah says to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy, whereas the Talmud and the Mishna give more practical stuff about how to do it and what to do. Plus there are a bunch of prayers, in Hebrew but translated into slews of other languages. Depending upon how strictly religious you are, you pray in Hebrew or in the vernacular or in a bit of both.

One thing, though. Go into any synagogue -- any in the world -- and we're all on the same page. We start over every year, at the beginning of our year, which starts in about September to early October or so, a holiday called Rosh Hashanah. We start with creation and go along until, hmm, I can't recall. I think it all ends with Moses's death at Mount Nebo but I'm not certain. In any event, a Jew traveling to another part of the world can go into a synagogue and have a connection, even if it's a different sect. My father experienced this very thing in 1968. He was in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on business and it happened to be Passover. he asked for directions to a synagogue (there was one in a neighboring town) and could more or less follow along with the service, even with his old High School German. At the end of the service, a family approached him and asked him if he was an American and if he wanted a home-cooked meal the following night. He said sure, but it was also the Sabbath and it would not have been polite to write down the man's name and address (some stricter Jews -- we aren't -- don't write on the Sabbath). So the man told my Dad, oh, just ask for the only Jewish family in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. And so we made friends with this family. If Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a familiar place, it perhaps should be -- it's where Hitler had the winter Olympic games held in 1936.

Back to Judaism. There are, hmm, about a half a dozen sects. In order, more or less, of strictest to least strict, they are Orthodox, Hasidic (pretty much just an ultra-traditional form of Orthodoxy. Not everyone who is Orthodox is a Hasid, but all Hasidim are Orthodox), Conservative (that's me), Reconstructionist and Reform. I see on Wikipedia there's also one called Humanistic which I haven't heard of 'til now and haven't met anyone who is. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism One thing about the sects, which is very different from Christianity and I believe also Islam, is that there is generally a great deal of play among the sects. A person can start off in one sect, move into another readily and then into a third or a fourth in life. I was raised in a Conservative household where we attended synagogue more often than the bare minimum (for a few years there, we went every single week), we kept kosher and celebrated all of the holidays. My brother and I both attended Hebrew School; he had a Bar Mitzvah, I did not have a Bat Mitzvah. But these days, I am much more like Reform. My husband is a Reform Jew and we aren't as observant. My brother, on the other hand, is more like Conservative, still, and even has some Orthodox tendencies at times. He is also married to a Jew and they are raising their son in our faith.

There's a lot more, of course, and it's not an Internet post you want; it's a class in comparative religions, assuming the reason for the question was an actual attempt at understanding, rather than an attempt to get people to do battle with one another. Is one faith better than another? I have no idea. I don't even know if one sect is better than another. I suppose the answer to the question of what is better is, like CoastalRat said, answered by understanding what is better for ourselves. What offers comfort, morality, love, spirituality? What feels right? What makes sense? What fits? We are all, ultimately, born to eventually die. It's how we fill up the space in between that means anything. If you choose to fill it with religion, then fine. If not, then fine, too. If with the same religion as mine, fine. If not, then fine, too.

Judaism is really Zoroastrianism as the Persians forced the returning Jews to convert to monotheism thru Ezra the Priest who was an agent of the Persians. The name Pharisee suggests it as it resembles Farsi or Pharsee, the language of the Persians. The cleanliness rules are unexplained in Leviticus but fully explained in the Vendidad from which it was burrowed. Modern Judaism is from the Pharisees.

http://www.hebroots.org/hebrootsarchive/9709/970919_d.html

The Talmud is Judaism's holiest book (actually a collection of books). Its authority takes precedence over the Old Testament in Judaism. Evidence of this may be found in the Talmud itself, Erubin 21b (Soncino edition): "My son, be more careful in the observance of the words of the Scribes than in the words of the Torah (Old Testament)."


Rabbi Joseph D. Soloveitchik is regarded as one of the most influential rabbis of the 20th century, the "unchallenged leader" of Orthodox Judaism and the top international authority on halakha (Jewish religious law). Soloveitchik was responsible for instructing and ordaining more than 2,000 rabbis, "an entire generation" of Jewish leadership.

N.Y. Times religion reporter Ari Goldman described the basis of the rabbi's authority:

"Soloveitchik came from a long line of distinguished Talmudic scholars...Until his early 20s, he devoted himself almost exclusively to the study of the Talmud...He came to Yeshiva University's Elchanan Theological Seminary where he remained the pre-eminent teacher in the Talmud...He held the title of Leib Merkin professor of Talmud...sitting with his feet crossed in front of a table bearing an open volume of the Talmud." (N.Y. Times, April 10, 1993, p. 38).

Nowhere does Goldman refer to Soloveitchik's knowledge of the Bible as the basis for being one of the leading authorities on Jewish law.

The rabbi's credentials are all predicated upon his mastery of the Talmud. Other studies are clearly secondary. Britain's Jewish Chronicle of March 26, 1993 states that in religious school (yeshiva), Jews are "devoted to the Talmud to the exclusion of everything else."

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It seems that the TALMUD is the basis of becoming a Rabbi.....so it would seem that it's the basis of Judaism.

I'm curious because normally when you ask how do you become a Christian, you're told to study the bible......so it's interesting that people don't automatically nominate the Talmud as the basic Jewish text.

Until about 100 years ago (okay, 125 years ago to be more precise), Jews were either Torah observant (Orthodox; Chasidic; whatever) or "off the derech" (secular; assimilated; converted to another religion).
And, until that time, the Talmud (which encompasses more than just the Mishna and Gemora) would have been nominated as the basic Jewish text.
Amongst Torah observant Jews today, it still is.
What is interesting about the other Jewish "denominations" (Conservative; Reform; etcetera) is that unlike, say, Christianity and Islam, these denominations were formed by people who wanted to be less "Jewish," not by people who believed that they had discovered "the Truth" of Judaism and wanted to spread "the Word."
In both Christianity and Islam, from the Pelagian heresy to Eastern Orthodox Christianity to Martin Luther to today's Evangelicals; and from Shiism to the Ottoman Caliphate to the Fatimids to today's Wahhabis - everyone believed that they found the new Truth; finally got the True Revelation; now had the Authentic Word of G-d, as opposed to those who came before....
Today's non-Orthodox denominations in Judaism, which is the vast majority of Jews, are practioners of sects that started from the viewpoint of "how can we still claim to be Jews, but not do all those crazy things that the Torah demands of us?"
Throughout history, there have been various Jewish denominations, but all of them either were still Torah observant (Orthodox) or fell in line with being Torah observant after their initial success. (Or, conversely, those that were not Torah observant according to the Orthodoxy, are no longer considered Jews - such as the Samaritans.)
Today, the Talmud, and its attendant gazillion commentaries from everyone from the Rambam (Rashi is in Shas, the complete Talmud, already) to the Chofetz Chaim and Rav Moshe Feinstein of the 20th century, are all considered Torah.
In other words, Mr. Henry, you are correct in that those who are Torah observant do take the Talmud as a basic text; as Torah.
(And, just for info's sake - The Torah is the first Five Books of the Tanach. The Tanach is what most folks call the old testament. It is also, like the Talmud, considered Torah.)

The Talmud is the largest and most important single piece of that literature … and the study of it is essential for any real understanding of Pharisaism.

The rabbi's credentials are all predicated upon his mastery of the Talmud. Other studies are clearly secondary. Britain's Jewish Chronicle of March 26, 1993 states that in religious school (yeshiva), Jews are "devoted to the Talmud to the exclusion of everything else."

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All the Jewish authorities cite the Talmud as the official/most important book....so I'm going with that, IOW being Jewish is dependent upon study of the Talmud first and foremost.

Talmud is a bunch of crap just like the Torah. It is an attempt to hide the mistakes of the Torah and a hidden anti-Christian agenda. God never spoke to anybody as no one canprove there is a God.

charming

You are correct, per say...
The difficulty in your above statement (quotes?) is that you are attempting to explain Judaism, or a least Torah observant, Orthodox, Judaism, through the history of Christianity, the secular West, and non-observant Judaism.
This is explaining what a particular religion means to a person who practices that relgion via an outsider who does not practice that particular relgion.
For instance, we generally don't use the term Pharisees in Orthodox Judaism. There are other terms referring to specific rabbinical schools or times, but the phraseology of "the Pharisees" and who they were is largely developed via Christianity.
So, whereas, your quotes may be accurate as far as commonly understood history goes, they are not accurate as far as the belief system that Torah observant Jews hold today - because the belief system you are attributing to Torah observant Jews is one described by those who do not believe in the Torah; the Tanach; the Talmud; etcetera.
It is a subtle point and I suspect a nitpicky one to everyone else, but... that's the fac'.

If you're an atheist, what difference does it make "if" the Talmud is anti-Christianity?

My curiosity revolves around which is the best religion, and obviously before I could ever determine such a thing, I would need to know the best text.......as for Christianity, I think the KJB is considered the current tome....and based on my quotes, it looks like the Talmud is the current Jewish tome for most Jews.

I used Jewish references....so I'm not sure why you're confused here??