Saltmeister said:
I was just drawing an analogy.
yes, but the trouble is that there's so much bad stuff that goes with being a dhimmi that doesn't go with being a noahide. i prefer to nip analogies that faulty in the bud before they become pervasive.
Yeah I guess Aslan and Neo are a bit like Christ too. Harry Potter I'm not sure.
neo, definitely. harry potter, by the end of the seventh book, definitely. aslan, overtly so - c.s. lewis wrote the narnia books as a sort of soft evangelical allegory, which was the cause of the famous letter from tolkien to lewis in which he is extremely rude about allegory. in the introduction to LoTR, he is careful to state that the book doesn't have a message and, more to the point, why it isn't allegorical or symbolic *of* anything. you will further note that whilst jesus combines both the "hidden king" and "dying god" mythological themes (check your joseph campbell), as do both aslan, potter and neo, frodo does not - the hidden king role is reserved for aragorn and, of course, gandalf is an equally messianic figure.
I was not aware of belief in a "past messiah" as something that would disqualify one from being a Noahide. Doesn't that have more to do with Judaism than just plain Noahidism?
if you are an "official noahide", i believe it means you have to accept the halakhic view on things like that. if you are a "default noahide", ie, just someone who isn't jewish, then i don't think it matters.
Rabbi Jacob Emden who suggested that Jesus and Paul intended to make the early Christians a kind of "Noahide."
i don't think that's right as far as jesus was concerned, but perhaps he has more of a case for paul. in any case, the minute anyone starts thinking that jesus has any Divine power that puts it straight into the Big Box Of Heresy.
Different people will have different ideas on the "ideal state of a religion," whether it's insiders or outsiders.
fair enough, although i would say that long-term survival as a viable community and retaining and building capability to fulfil its long-term goal however long that takes is a pretty good strategy. arguably, that could be said to have occurred, initially at least thanks to the yavneh paradigm.
Christianity's premise was that Judaism's ultimate purpose was justice, but that it got itself pre-occupied with pointless conformity to rules that had little to do with efforts at achieving justice.
certainly that is the basis of much new testament polemic, but the operational definition of "justice" would certainly be disputed. as for the rules, certainly pointless conformity would be no sort of end, but you'd be surprised how little conformity there actually is once you study the system - take almost any modern observance and there are many different positions as to how it is to be carried out, by whom, when, how much and so on, as well as how much it reflects the customs of the local community and the time and place. look at trousers for women, for a start! i would agree, however, that if the pointless conformity starts to frustrate the idea of social justice then there is a problem - this was the basis of much of the principled bits of the early reform movements.
If Judaism has reformed and put its house back in order then it should be considering its mission and purpose in the world.
both of these things have been going on on an ongoing basis ever since the destruction of the Temple, i'd argue.
But personally, I don't think much can be done until the three traditions see themselves as part of a common purpose. They are presently ideologically opposed to each other, each conforming to rules they have made for themselves.
but the trouble with that is that it imposes something on judaism from the outside, namely a duty to see itself as part of the common purpose of the abrahamic religions and, with the greatest of respect, we didn't ask for that. judaism existed before the other two and did not and does not require their validation, agreement or even existence for us to carry out our mission. the other two, by contrast, appear to require us to do or be certain things in order for their own to be validated and that, i'm afraid, makes it a very one-sided relationship. we don't require islam or christianity to do anything other than to coexist with us peacefully, or to fulfil any function within our religious system any more than we require the same of buddhism, hinduism or neo-paganism. we may revere some of the same people and texts, but it is for very different reasons.
When we see a way to look past our conformist ideological rules, we may realise that what divided us was never really important in the first place. Judaism, Christianity and Islam will simply disappear. That may not happen for several generations. I may not be alive when it happens. But there must be a time to reach consensus. That would be the real reformation.
the thing is that people have been saying this about judaism since long before christianity - the assyrians did, the persians and babylonians too, so did the greeks and romans. some even did their best to hurry it along. yet they failed to convince us and, so, thousands of years later, here we still are, as indigestible as ever. i'd say don't hold your breath.
Have a look at the following two web sites and compare them. In the first you will find some not so friendly things said about Christianity if you look in the right places. In the second, it hardly mentions Christianity. I don't really have a problem with the second. But the first one really disturbs me.
well, the first one has a big picture of the chabad-lubavitcher rebbe right at the top and the second one is based right across the road from chabad world headquarters on eastern parkway in brooklyn, so i'd say there's your answer. i find that disturbing but not especially surprising.
Faithfulservant said:
Im not saying that in Judaism, wil Im saying it in a dialogue with another evangelical Christian that holds the same belief. Im not the only one with this belief in the Christian faith. I would like to make sure BB understands that when he is so rude.. that I dont put myself in his face on the Judaism board telling him how wrong his people are for rejecting their messiah.. It for sure would not be tolerated. but for some reason everyones up BBs butt..
well, he's not my messiah and you are, in my view misrepresenting the Divine Will and the Divine Word as Revealed to us. this illustrates exactly my point above about this one-sided relationship we jews get dragged into with christianity. i only got involved in this discussion because you said:
The Law of Moses was God teaching the Jews that they need Jesus.. (I know this is going to rile other people up)
i understand you considering this an uncontroversial thing to say to another evangelical christian, but even though this is the "christianity" board that doesn't mean i ought to be prohibited from pointing out something that, in my view, is a fundamentally misleading and absurd statement made about my own faith, i hardly see how where you say it on an interfaith dialogue board makes any difference. that sort of sentiment belongs elsewhere, just as muslims making da'wah on the islam board here also get short shrift from me.
Saltmeister said:
Talk more about HaShem than Christ and I think he'll like you more. Say more of what an Orthodox Jew wants to hear.
that is the precise opposite of what i want to hear. i want transparency, not two-faced protestations of brotherhood. if you want to convert me, at least be honest about it and i'll tell you precisely why it isn't going to happen, not least because the things you think the Torah teaches are not at all correct in this respect.
Dream said:
A rabbi's #1 job is probably to make other people want to be rabbis.
firstly, i'm not a rabbi. secondly, we don't evangelise and thirdly that isn't their job although sometimes you could be forgiven for thinking that they thought it was - there are far too many bloody rabbis in the world already.
b'shalom
bananabrain
