You know, Agrarian, people learn something even, and especially, when they disagree. Just as loving those who love you is no accomplishment, tapping each other on the back because we agree is no effort either. It's a feel-good self satisfaction. So, I really don't understand why you always bid good bye to me other than that I have nothing to teach you even in my ignorance and even in my naivete or just curiosity.
So, I am not responding to you and others that I may have the last word, but to ask more questions. You do a good job of pointing why the Church believes that our faith is "Messianic Judaism," the same faith of the Prophets and OT saints, but you do not tell me why did Christ establish a church and not a synagogue; why did He establish His own royal priesthood? Did he give up on His own? He didn't seek followers among those who knew the faith of Moses, but among fishermen whom He taught true faith. Was there a single rabbi or priest who followed Him? is this not our argument to discredit Martin Luther -- that there was not a single bishop who joined him? Why did the Church develop worship that does not resemble that of the synagogues? Why did we stop Jewish dietary and fasting practices, and so on, if we are one and the same faith as that of the OT saints and Prophets?
If they share the same faith with us, why not then commune with Roman Catholics whose faith is a lot closer to ours than that of Moses and the Prophets? Why do we differentiate between various Christians, yet consider ourselves spiritually in communion with Moses and the prophets?
What you described in your otherwise, as always, excellent presentation is what Kolokotronis (whom I did not ping because he seems disinterested at this point in contributing to this thread)the "sporoi" or "seeds" of our faith, as anticipatory but not fully developed, something we find in many other religions.
"Was there a single rabbi or priest who followed Him?"
In John 3 Nicodemus is referred to as a teacher of Israel. It is the same Greek word used of Jesus in the same passage. He and Joseph of Arimathea were members of the Sanhedron.
I certainly always learn much from exchanges on FR, to a point, and that point is where the same questions are asked, the same answers are given, and the same responses ensue, or when new opinions start appearing seemingly for no other reason than that the other guy said the opposite.
Usually exchanges on FR die a natural death when that happens, but when they don't, I check out of them, rightly or wrongly. You will note that I stay completely out of exchanges on this thread where the same things are being repeated over and over by the same people. It just isn't my cup of tea.
As to the offer of giving you the last word, when I've announced in the past that I'm formally checking out of a particular exchange for a time, I've been accused of wanting to have the last word, and so I've started to try to make a point specifically of inviting others to have the last word when I reach the point where I want to quit. No offense was meant -- I was trying to be polite.
I usually get involved in an exchange either because I think that the pre-fab Orthodox position deserves to be stated clearly at least once, or because I think something is particularly interesting and relatively unexplored on this forum (such as your interesting question about the Biblical basis of Christ's descent into hell.)
What I generally find most interesting are questions of what the Scriptures say, what the Fathers have to say about those Scriptures, and what the liturgical texts of our Church say. But at a certain point, that has been discussed, and then I run out of anything to say and begin to repeat myself. Perhaps I am depriving myself of learning opportunities by taking a break at those points, but so be it.
This is how I understand the claim that the Apostolic Church, East and West, is messianic Judaism. I believe it is close to what Agrarian was saying.
If the Jews of the 1st century, en masse, had accepted Christ, then they and their heirs to this day would have developed a church that would have been in essentials identical to the Catholic or Orthodox Churches. The differences with what we actually have today and what they would have developed would have been important but they would not have been any greater than the differences between the Orthodox and the Catholic. They would be primarily differences of discipline: relative authority of the bishops, leavened/unleavened bread, celibacy, fasting, etc. There would have been differences in terminology. Possibly, Jerusalem and not Rome would have been the papal see, and Hebrew and not Latin/Greek combo would have been the universal language of the Church.
The Church would have remained hierarcical, sacramental and liturgical, because historical Judaism is hierarcical, sacramental and liturgical. The Scripture would have been seen embedded in Tradition and unseparable from it. Synergism between the man of free will and the Divine Grace would have been the theological norm.
That was not to be and so what we now know as Judaism is a religion that rejected not only Christ, but also the faith of the Old Testament fathers. When we look to the modern synagogue we see a mixture of the pre-Christian covenantal remnant, the loss of levitical priesthood, linked in the mysterious ways to the rejection of Christ the Eternal Priest, and layers of post-Christian theological development that is of no relevance to the question on hand.
We also have many Jews converting to Christianity and some of them are opting for one or another Protestant community, with which they blend their ethnic flavor. God bless them for that. Post-Christian Judaism has a natural affinity with Protestantism in that the former suffered the loss of priesthood through the rejection of Christ the Priest, and the latter -- through anticlericalism of Luther and his followers. To see modern Jewish converts to Protestantism as validating it is to see one error attempting to validate another.
Now let us look at the relationship that the New Testament established with the Old. In that, we clearly see a radical new light revealing its meaning. No longer do we read the Old Testament independently of the New. The precepts of the Old Testament are obeyed not because God gave them to Moses but because, and inasmuch as, Christ validated them, or reason validates them as natural law. The continuity of the Divine Revelation does not mean uniformity. Christians do not circumsize babies but they baptize them; eat pork and lobster; venerate icons and pray to Mary and saints; offer the eternal sacrifice of Christ at Golgotha and not cattle and fowl. Had the Jews accepted Christ when St. Peter preached to them, they would be baptizing babies, celebrating the Eucharist and venerating the statues and icons with us. One day, we all will.