No matter how many times you read a Jewish written book (or translation, thereof) – however correctly or incorrectly (more likely) – and no matter how much you believe in and worship a Jewish-written failed messiah, you are not somehow magically Jewish for this. Judaism has never worked this way, in any of its versions and forms!
Christians, if you really want to have productive relations (attempts at kinship) with Jews, you must acknowledge that you are Christians practicing a Gentile religion – and that this religion of yours is based in a 180 degree reversal of all that is Judaism.
The Jewish Jesus of Matthew is a *literary* demigod messiah (birthed half-human in the manner of demigod Samson, with the sacrificial human-lamb life purpose of demigod Isaac, and wrapped up in a formulaic genealogy based on the number 14).
The Jewish Jesus demanded in the Gospels that his followers *observe* Torah laws and worship YHWH god, the deity that demands observance of these divine laws. Albeit, yes, according to *his* proto-rabbi interpretations of said laws, and at the rejection of the pre-rabbinic oral laws of the Pharisees. A correct reading of the Gospels (meaning, read on its own terms, without *interpretation*) shows this clearly!
Jewish Jesus never once in the Gospels told his followers that they are “freed” from observing the Torah laws and that they should worship him as YHWH god in flesh. This is a later Gentile idea inserted, by Church doctrine, into these Jewish texts – a *deliberate* misread.
The very idea, itself, that one should worship a half-human-half-god as “G-d” is abhorrent to Jesus’s YHWH god. And the idea would have been abhorrent to Jesus of Nazareth! This idea of “the Trinity” was dreamt up by later Gentiles who, at the extreme dismay of Jewish followers of Jesus’s teachings, created the heretical Christian religion – what John of Patmos, a Torah observant Jew and writer of Revelations, termed a “synagogue of Satan.”
The 3rd and 4th century Gentiles that created Christianity and aligned it to Byzantine Roman politics for state-sponsored backing, are the leaders of Christianity that introduced to the Western nations the Christian written doctrines of “God”-established white nation supremacy and skin-color/geography based racism. By the 4th century, this racism began in full towards Jews in established laws and teachings, and included from the start Ethiopians (brown-skinned people) and Arabs in doctrinal rants of detest and religion justified hate.
If Christians really want to make amends for Christianity and its behavior in this world – whether you give up the idol worshipping or not – and really want to redeem Christianity from its racist supremacist origin sins, there is a way:
1) You are not Jews, do not call yourself this! Stop proselytizing your Gentile religion as somehow Jewish, it is not!
2) There is no such thing as Judeo-Christian values or heritage, stop saying this!
3) You are not Jews, stop appropriating Jewish things and stop *speaking for Jews*. We Jews can speak for ourselves, and are the authority on all things Jewish – both religious and secular.
4) Stop being complicit in the racism of Christians targeting Jews, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians with hate tropes and violence! Be truly anti-racist! And,
5) Reject any so-called Christian that is not following to the letter Jesus’s Torah teachings on the Mount – Matthew 5-7! And be a pious follower of Jesus’s teachings yourself!
If you can do all this – faithfully – and teach this to other Christians, then your Christianity is holy and righteous. But, if you allow historic Christianity to continue on, then you are still the epithet that John of Patmos called you in the Book of Revelations.
https://www.abc.net.au/religion/turning-the-jewish-christian-history-of-mutual-contempt-to-frie/11004358
From the article itself: “The history of degrading and humiliating Judaism and Jews stains Christian history and theology. Being victimised by Christians has pushed Judaism toward theological tribalism and Jews toward xenophobia….
Awareness [by Christians] that anti-Judaism is theologically and morally problematic for Christianity, quite apart from antisemitism, is often only dimly recognised,… Understandably, Jews are more likely to notice Christian contempt than are Christians…. The asymmetries between the two traditions are serious, even irreconcilable;…
Christians often yearn for a pristine form of Christianity, perhaps the religion of Jesus or that of his earliest followers. However, the idea that there is such a pristine form of Judaism is anachronistic as all contenders that appear in the Younger Testament were vying for that identity…. Judaism is comfortable with the idea that it adapts to and changes, sometimes dramatically, in response to events and circumstances as happened during the Babylonian exile and the defeats by ancient Rome. It does not prize an original pristine core to be protected or reclaimed. Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people for the sake of creating a healthy common life in accordance with divine guidance detailed by its scholars…. Judaism does not detail beliefs as its primary means of promoting healthy community.”
In other words, a fixed or absolutist theology determining identity – in this case, religious identity for Jews – is not appropriate for Judaism, because Jews are a “peoplehood” with an evolving ethno-religion. Rather than simply a religion, like Christianity and Islam.
This article is a good and *informative* read, so take the time needed to read it.
To add more thought to this post, non-Jews please understand this clearly:
Saying that Jews are just a religion and that, as religions go, Judaism and Christianity are sparring *equals* in this world – is like saying that blacks and whites in the United States are *equals* in every way, sharing the same privileges and opportunities. Both of these are absolutely untrue statements, both historically and presently!
Christianity and its white supremacy is *always* advantaged over Jews and over blacks/POC at the literal expense – and, often, lives – of these minority groups. *There is no actual equality*, except in the racist whitewashing to avoid addressing the demonstrable self-evident truth.
Jews are like Druze, an ethno-religious people. Our survival is fully based on us, despite any interaction with theology-based religions – like Christianity and Islam – and the effects, thereof, upon us.
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