Judaism vs Christianity

Quote:

Wise men are of one religion. (When asked what religion that might be, he replied:) Wise men never tell.

Anthony Ashley Cooper - Earl of Shaftesbury

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David Henry wrote:

Moishe3rd wrote:
[ 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.
.

Quote:
Soloveitchik was responsible for instructing and ordaining more than 2,000 rabbis, "an entire generation" of Jewish leadership.

"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 .....

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??

I know. It's not that I am confused... As I noted, it's such a subtle point that it's probably not worth making...
However, what the heck...
Yes, Rabbi Joseph D. Soloveitchik was one of the gedolim (great rabbis) of the 20th century. He was more involved in the secular world (as were many other great rabbis) than are many of the gedolim that followed him.
That does not diminish him, but it makes him a definitive authority to Ari Goldman, who is a journalist, not an observant Jew. Therefore Mr. Goldman takes what he can find - a public Orthodox rabbi such as Rav Soloveitchik and details his life and beliefs.
Then, you take as a source, Ari Goldman and state:

Quote:

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.

Now, were Ari Goldman to detail the life of two of the greatest sages of the twentieth century, the Chofetz Chaim or Rav Moshe Feinstein, he might come to different conclusions. Then again, he might not.
The problem is, is that the entire Talmud (mishna; gemora; Rashi; Tosafos; commentaries) is the study of the Torah (first Five Books of Moses). Rav Soloveitchik started learning the Torah when he was about 3 years old, as do most Orthodox Jewish boys and girls - it starts with learning the Hebrew alphabet - which is a prerequiste for learning Torah.
Then, he would have gone on to learning Torah by the time he was six years old (R. Soloveitchik actually, apparently learned Tanya 1st, as he had a Lubavitch tutor, but every great rabbi is different and have their different stories). The thing is, all Orthdox Jewish boys and girls are inculcated in the Torah - we pray 3 times a day; they learn Torah at least 4 hours a day in school; the entire Torah is read in the synagogue every year on Shabbos, plus passages on Monday, Thursday and holidays. By the time an Orthodox Jewish boy or girl is bar or bas mitzvah, they have read and studied the Torah with the various commentaries from Rashi and Onkelos and others, front to back, several times. In addition to learning Talmud (for boys).
So, to make a point of the idea that the Torah is not mentioned as a basis for scholarship, but only the Talmud, is sort of like saying that knowledge of Hebrew was never mentioned. It is a given.
There is no Talmud without the Torah. And, there is no reason to learn Talmud (seriously, as opposed to simply academically) if one is not intimately familiar with the Torah.
When a man learns a mishna or gemora, it constantly refers to, as proofs, and as examples, passages from the Torah and Tanach. One cannot be ignorant of these things and be knowledgeable in Talmud...

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Moishe3rd wrote:

[There is no Talmud without the Torah. And, there is no reason to learn Talmud (seriously, as opposed to simply academically) if one is not intimately familiar with the Torah.
When a man learns a mishna or gemora, it constantly refers to, as proofs, and as examples, passages from the Torah and Tanach. One cannot be ignorant of these things and be knowledgeable in Talmud...

Ok....so the basis of modern Judiasm is both the Torah and the Talmud, ideally starting with the Torah.
So if that's correct, I'm also curious about differences between a religious Jew and an ethnic Jew....I assume that anyone can become a religious Jew, but not anyone is an ethnic Jew?...if so, what is the basis of being an ethnic Jew?

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David Henry wrote:

Moishe3rd wrote:
[There is no Talmud without the Torah. And, there is no reason to learn Talmud (seriously, as opposed to simply academically) if one is not intimately familiar with the Torah.
When a man learns a mishna or gemora, it constantly refers to, as proofs, and as examples, passages from the Torah and Tanach. One cannot be ignorant of these things and be knowledgeable in Talmud...

Ok....so the basis of modern Judiasm is both the Torah and the Talmud, ideally starting with the Torah.
So if that's correct, I'm also curious about differences between a religious Jew and an ethnic Jew....I assume that anyone can become a religious Jew, but not anyone is an ethnic Jew?...if so, what is the basis of being an ethnic Jew?

Being an ethnic Jew would generally mean that your parents, or at least your grandparents, were Jewish.
As with most religions prior to the 20th century, Jews generally married Jews and had Jewish children.
In the 20th century, the Jews of Europe, the majority stronghold of Jews for about 1,000 years, were annihilated by the Nazis. Shortly before the Holocaust, millions of Jews emigrated to the United States.
So, as a result, the majority of Jews now live in the United States and Israel.
In the US, due to our diverse culture, Jews have been intermarrying and assimilating into the greater US citizenry in record numbers (according to statistics, the majority US citizens of those who had been born of two Jewish parents have intermarried with non-Jews) and therefore, they often lose their Jewish identity, either religiously or ethnically.
I have a friend whose grandfather was Jewish and she is not halachically (legally, according to Jewish Law) Jewish, even though her last name is Goldberg and her mother had a Reform Jewish conversion.
By the third generation of non-practicing Judaism, most people of Jewish descent have lost their ties to "ethnic" Judaism - unless they live somewhere like Israel where everybody they know is Jewish, whether they practice the religion or not, and therefore everyone they are likely to marry and have children with, is Jewish. These kinds of Jews tend to retain their "ethnic" Judaism, albeit in a changed form. Modern Israelis are not the same type of ethnic Jew as are Chasidim in Borough Park in New York City. (Although, for the most part, they will acknowledge their mutual kinship and act accordingly.)

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Moishe and world.

I generally only forum from Sunday to Wednesday, so I'll see you then.

In the meantime, if anyone is critical of Judaism, why not outline your views, as I'm sure no religion is perfect+ I've noticed some harsh remarks in this thread concerning Judaism.

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Re: Judaism vs Christianity

David Henry wrote:

I was looking for opinions on which is the best faith....I would also like to know the exact text/s that underpin each religion?

There is no 'best faith', all the three religions have the same underlying message. And that is God is One, and has No companions.

God reveals that those Christians and Jews who believe in Him and the Day of Judgment and do good deeds will receive the fairest rewards for their virtue:

Those who believe, those who are Jews, Christians, and Sabaeans, all who believe in God and the Last Day and act rightly will have their reward with their Lord. They will feel no fear and will know no sorrow. (Qur'an, 2:62)

But please don't try to form a rift between them, instead unite against radicalism. God knows best who is right, which is why genuine believers must seek to draw closer to God instead of accusing one another. The following verse reveals that people who act otherwise are wrong:

The Jews say: "The Christians have nothing to stand on," and the Christians say: "The Jews have nothing to stand on," yet they both recite the Book. Those who do not know say the same as they say. God will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection regarding the things about which they differ. (Qur'an, 2:113)

Hope that helps! Smile

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Re: Judaism vs Christianity
Raul writes:

Quote:

There is no 'best faith', all the three religions have the same underlying message. And that is God is One, and has No companions.

You reveal your prejudices. There are far more than just three religions. As it happens, in this case, David Henry has expressed no interest in the religion about which you are obsessed.

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I thought the following link was interesting enough to post.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/chinesejews1.html

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cicerone imposter wrote:

I thought the following link was interesting enough to post.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/chinesejews1.html

Vis a vis your link:
About 20 years ago, I heard the author of The Fugu Plan: The Untold Story Of The Japanese And The Jews During World War II, Marvin Tokayer, who is a scholar of Far Eastern Studies somewhere or another, give a lecture.
In the course of his lecture, he gave over the following anecdote, which he appeared to relate as having actually happened.
I don't know about that, but here it is:

In the 1300's Rome sent its first Jesuit missionary to establish a Mission in China.
He got there and set up shop, garnering zero interest from the Chinese.
After several months of living in China, with no interest and no converts, a Chinese man walked into his mission. Speaking very poor (Latin? Italian? French? beats me...), he exclaimed to the missionary how happy he was that finally, someone had arrived representing the True G-d! He went on in his fractured combination of Chinese and the missionary's language at how wonderful it was that the missionary was here and he went around the room and bowed respectfully to a couple of pictures the missionary had hanging on his wall.
The Jesuit was astounded and finally asked the Chinese "How do you know about the Son of G-d?"
The Chinese looked puzzled and apologized for his poor understanding of the missionaries language and asked him to explain.
The Jesuit asked again "Where did you find out about The Church of Rome?"
Again the Chinese apologized and asked for explanation.
The Jesuit said "How do you know about Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior?"
The Chinese expressed his total confusion and bafflement.
The Jesuit then asked, "Well why did you bow to the pictures on my wall?"
The Chinese apologized profusely, begged that he had not offended the missionary, and asked him to explain what the pictures were...
The Jesuit replied: "Well, this one is of Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus."
The Chinese man said "Oh. I thought that was Abraham, Sarah and their son Isaac."
Then the Jesuit said, "And this one is of Jesus and his twelve disciples."
The Chinese man said "Oh. I thought that was Jacob and his twelve sons."
The Jesuit asked "Who are you?"
The Chinese man replied "I may not know who I am, but you're a fake!"
And, he walked out.

According to the story, the Jesuit investigated further and wrote to Rome that he found 4 Jewish synagogues in China, populated totally by ethnically Chinese Jews...

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Among the many successful semitic peoples of the ancient middle east were the Aramaic people, also known as Chaldeans or Chaldees. With the Medean and Persian invasion of the middle east, they were marginalized as a political force, but had long been successful merchants. Given over largely then to commerce, they spread all over the region. The peoples of what would become Palestine under the Romans were all speakers of dialects of Aramaic, which either facilitated or derived from the commerce with the Aramaic Chaldees, who traded long before the Persian take-over. They embraced Judaism later, after the return from the Babylonian captivity of the Jews. They then spread confessional Judaism throughout the area in which they traded. Those in the Arabian penninsula at the time of Mohammed who were not pagan were largely confessional Jews. Many of the Jews who migrated to Israel after 1948 from Yemen and Oman were confessional Jews as opposed to ethnic Jews.

The Aramaic trader took Judaism into the central Asian highlands, among the nomadic tribesmen there, and on to China. Much later, the Nestorian Christians followed in their path, and converted people in the same areas. Eventually, the Mongol-Tatar invasions spread Islam into the same regions, but it (Islam) never reached as far as China. But when, after many centuries, Europeans again "discovered" China, they "discovered" a land in which at least nominal Jews and Christians already practiced their faiths.

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And don't forget, ole Abe himself was originally from Ur, in the Chaldeans.

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talk72000 wrote:

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.

the only chance the part in bold has of standing scrutiny, is if the Talmud was written after Christianity was born.

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talk72000 wrote:

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.

can you back your statement up with facts?

how is judaism zoroastrianism in disguise?

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Judaism vs Christianity

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