Posted on 02/14/2023 10:08:36 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The term "Judeo-Christian values" is frequently used.
I am one who uses it.
I do so for the same reason the late great British prime minister Margaret Thatcher did:
"The truths of the Judaic-Christian tradition," she said, "are infinitely precious, not only, as I believe, because they are true, but also because they provide the moral impulse which alone can lead to that peace, in the true meaning of the word, for which we all long... There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves."
Mrs. Thatcher was a believing Christian. I am a believing Jew. While we have some religious beliefs in common, we have different theologies. But we have the same core values. And in societal terms, moral values are far more important than theologies.
That is why traditionally religious Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, and Jews are aligned on almost every important social issue.
Here are 10 of those values.
No. 1: There is one God. That God is the God introduced to the world by the Hebrew Bible -- the source of one universal morality.
No. 2: The Hebrew Bible (the only Bible Jesus knew and which he frequently cited) introduced the most revolutionary moral idea in history: that there are objective moral truths just as there are mathematical and scientific truths. Without God as the source of moral standards, there is no moral truth; there are only moral opinions.
No. 3: Because there are moral truths, good and evil are the same for all people.
No. 4: God -- not man, not government, not popular opinion, not a democratic vote -- is the source of our rights. All men "are endowed (SET ITAL) by their Creator (END ITAL) with certain unalienable Rights," declares the American Declaration of Independence.
No. 5: The human being is "created in the image of God." Therefore, each human life is precious. Therefore, race is of no significance since we are all created in God's image, and God has no race.
No. 6: The world is based on a divine order, meaning divinely ordained distinctions. Among these divine distinctions are God and man, man and woman, human and animal, good and evil, nature and God, and the holy and the profane.
No. 7: Man is not basically good. Christians speak of "original sin" in referring to man's sinful nature; Jews cite God Himself in Genesis: "The will of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Genesis 8:21). They are not identical beliefs, but they are both worlds apart from the naive Enlightenment belief that man is basically good. And they come to the same conclusion: we need God-based rules to keep us from our natural inclination to do evil.
No. 8: Therefore, we must not follow our hearts. Both religious Jews and Christians are keenly aware of how morally dangerous it is to be led by our emotions. Those who reject Judeo-Christian values are far more likely to follow and promote the advice, "Follow your heart."
No. 9: God gave us the Ten Commandments -- the core of Judeo-Christian values. Therefore, to apply but one of the Ten Commandments to our morally confused secular age, you must "Honor your father and mother" even if they voted for someone you loathe -- meaning, at the least, remain in contact with them and do not dare deprive them of the right to be in contact with their grandchildren.
No. 10: Human beings have free will. In the secular world, there is no free will because all human behavior is attributed to biology and environment. Only a religious worldview, because it posits the existence of a divine soul -- something independent of biology and environment -- allows for free will.
There is another important aspect to the term "Judeo-Christian." The two religions need each other. Without the Old Testament, there is no New Testament. Virtually every Christian moral principle derives from the Hebrew Bible -- not only the 10 Judeo-Christian values enumerated here, but such basic moral principles as "Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18), "Love the Lord your God with all your heart ..." (Deuteronomy 6:5), and "Love the stranger" (Deuteronomy 10:19).
At the same time, Judaism needs Christians. It was Christianity that carried the Torah and the rest of the Hebrew Bible to the world. This was acknowledged by the greatest Jewish thinker after Moses, Maimonides.
Thus, while people speak of "Judeo-Christian" values, people do not speak of "Judeo-Muslim" values. As the noted Jewish scholar David Novak writes, "Maimonides rules that Jews may teach the Torah to Christians but not to Muslims because Christians believe Hebrew Scripture in toto to be the revealed word of God, whereas Muslims believe that primary text to be the Quran; for them, Hebrew Scripture is a flawed revelation. Thus, Jews and Christians share a common revelation in a way that Jews share with no other religious community."
The ultimate embodiment of Judeo-Christian values has been the United States of America. America's Founders were Christians (some culturally, some doctrinally) who were rooted in the Hebrew Bible. America was founded not to be a replacement of Israel, but a "Second Israel." Until recently, it was.
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Read later.
The basic Christian value is that Jesus is Lord.
“No. 10: Human beings have free will.”
I see Prager isn’t a Calvinist.
Prager ignores the Talmud which defines Judaism today much more than does the Old Testament.
Ping
Yep, I also think he misplaces the source of some of our truths:
“The Hebrew Bible introduced the most revolutionary moral idea in history: that there are objective moral truths just as there are mathematical and scientific truths.”
The reality is this idea is from Plato, and Greek thought is another core pillar of Western Civilization that can’t be ignored.
The Hebrew Bible is almost the opposite: making clear there is one set of rules for Jews and another for everyone else.
Praeger is always so readable. Thanks for posting.
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The same law applies both to the native-born and to the foreigner residing among you. Exodus 12:49
You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 24:22
The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the foreigner residing among you. Numbers 15:16
Every society other the the post-modern western world believed in objective moral truths. They may have disagreed on what those truth are (although they were actually fairly similar) and where the objective truths came from.
Amen and amen
“Every society other the the post-modern western world believed in objective moral truths.”
Not true. Greco-Roman paganism, and most other early belief systems, had no concept of a central moral truth.
They were based instead on the idea that the gods were venal and capricious beings and divine judgement was avoided only by not angering them.
....oh please, Dennis Prager has written best selling books on the Torah, still in progress and is a current Rabbi and teacher. You can follow him everyday on talkstream for three hours. Call him and debate him on his ignoring any tradition.
John 5:18, “the Jews sought the more to kill him {Jesus), because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.”
In his response he said: “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” v. 38.
The scripture he refers to here is the Old Testament.
“I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.” v. 43.
They received him not, the one who will come in his own name is the false Messiah, the antichrist, whom they will receive. As also the unbelieving world.
You aren’t making any sense. Do you know what the Talmud is?
Try taking a look at this:
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/israel-and-anti-gentile-traditions/
Even Zeus used a balance to tell him what is fair and just, which means even the Pagan Greeks believed in an objective measure of justice.
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