scottcatchot said:
I am not trying to start any arguments, just curious, As Jesus is believed (in Christianity) to be the Messiah which the Jews were waiting on, and Jesus was Jewish, how is the [Christian] faith not based on Judiasm?
Well, you'll have to take a look at what I said in its original context. I specifically replied to the comments:
"Consider this: w/out Jewish contributions there would be NO Catholic faith. No Christianity, no true monotheism, no respect for the individual as opposed to the group, etc."
So, to take them one at a time:
1) The two most popular threads of early Christianity --- Marcionism and Manicheism --- emphatically rejected what we would today call Judaism. If either of these threads had gained the official approval of the Roman state under Constantine, then you wouldn't be referencing Judaism at all in regards to the Christian faith.
2) Monotheism has its origins in ancient Egypt, under Akhenaton's worship of Aton. "Judaism", in fact, did not become monotheistic until relatively late, and even then, did so under the influence of Hellenistic culture. Furthermore, there are many monotheistic strands within Hellenistic philosophy (Plato, Hercaclitus,
Corpus Hermeticum, and so on). In fact, more than one Gentile critic (such as Celsus) accused the Jewish people of being polytheists at the time.
3) I really don't see the logic of approximating individualism from Judaism. It was a fairly common value system throughout Western civilization.
Also, as a minor note, I would argue against the points of Jesus fulfilling the Messiah role in modern Judaism (his character is more like the Qumranic "Teacher of Righteousness" or a Gnostic Redeemer than the Hebraic Messiah), as well as the point of Jesus being "Jewish". In my opinion, "Jesus Christ" is a mythic composite and, as such, has no real ethnicity.
Laterz.
