[kosta50]

Yeah, I'm not crystal clear on how this works. We know the Jews lived "under law". Yet we also know that Moses WROTE that righteousness was accorded to Abraham because of faith, not works

I said I would revisit this topic, so here I am.

The best way to understand Jewish mind is to talk to your Jewish friends and ask them. If they invite you to a Passover Seder, please go and learn. You will be astounded to hear them quote from Isaiah and other OT verses. It will bring you very close spiritually to them.

When you ask them, you will get simple, unambiguous, no-nonsesne, reverent answers. They will say things like "we make ourselves acceptable to God by doing good things." Or, "man does not need to be saved." Or "There is only one God, not three."

Basic Judaism, simple enough for a non-Jew to understand states:

"Nevertheless, we definitely believe that your place in the Olam Ha-Ba [The World to Come] is determined by a merit system based on your actions, not by who you are or what religion you profess. In addition, we definitely believe that humanity is capable of being considered righteous in G-d's eyes, or at least good enough to merit paradise after a suitable period of purification."

all ephases are mine

So, the Judaism of the Pharisees, the rabbinical Judaism of today, is essentially Pelagian: man is good enough to merit a place in the World to Come based on his own conduct, deeds and "purification" (in Shoel or Hades, which some have liked to the Purgatory).

The Sadduccees, the priestly class, did not believe in resurrection because it is not mentioned in the Torah, the Five Books of Moeses. The fact that it appears in later Tanakh, in the disputed book of Daniel, shows that the Sadduccees did not believe it to be a genuine biblical source, but the Pharisees do (although some of the chapters do not appear in their and Protestant versions).

Likewise, the idea of being "saved" is perplexing to them. They will tell you that God already saved the His people (Israel) from Egypt and put them in their promised land, and that God saves us on a daily basis.

Thus, regarding salvation, the Jews will say:

"The concept of salvation from sin as it is understood in Christianity has no equivalent in Judaism.

Salvation from sin is unnecessary in Judaism, because Judaism does not believe that mankind is inherently evil or sinful or in need of Divine Intervention in order to escape eternal damnation. In fact, Judaism does not even believe in eternal damnation.

Judaism recognizes that people have sinful impulses, but Judaism also recognizes that people have an inclination to do good and to be good, and that people are able to choose whether to follow the evil inclination or the good inclination.

It is within our ability to be righteous. The Torah itself says, " The word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it." (Deut. 30:14). And if we miss the mark, when we fail to fulfill the good laws that G-d has provided for us, then we can obtain forgiveness through prayer, repentance and good deeds.

So, while they use the same Book of the Old Covenant that we consider Scripture, they read it differently. They believe that God gave us the Law so that we may make ourselves righteous by obeying it by their own free will and not because God "moved" them to do so.

There are a lot of the same words being used as in Christianity, but without knowing at least the basic principles of Judaism it is easy to fall into a false belief by equating their principles of faith with ours.

Whether Judaism reflect the faith of the OT righteous or not is not ours to determine. Just by seeing how different Judaism is from Christianity, down to the core, is enough to understand that Christianity is not the faith the OT righteous would recognize as their own.

One more interesting aspect is the Jewish concept of the Nature of God. One of these is that God is neither male nor female. As one rabbi said, God has no genitalia. Yet, liturgical Judaism uses the phrase "Avinu Malkeinu," ("our Father, our King.")

Judaism uses the male gender "because it is convenient" (?), but this has probably more to do with the fact that Jewish women were social nonentities at the time Torah was being written. Jews disallow any other being or part of God to be considered as equal or co-equal. The idea of Trinity is blasphemy for the Jews.

[Forest Keeper]

Whether Judaism reflect the faith of the OT righteous or not is not ours to determine. Just by seeing how different Judaism is from Christianity, down to the core, is enough to understand that Christianity is not the faith the OT righteous would recognize as their own.

Thank you for the snapshot of today's Judaism. I would agree that a contemporary Jew would not share the same faith as a Christian, but I can't assume that their faith is the same as the OT righteous. Of course we have so many advantages over those in the OT in terms of knowledge, I'm not sure it's fair to compare them on the same scale. We know that today's Jews openly reject Christ, but I don't think we can know that about Moses, David, Elijah, etc.

One more interesting aspect is the Jewish concept of the Nature of God. One of these is that God is neither male nor female. As one rabbi said, God has no genitalia. Yet, liturgical Judaism uses the phrase "Avinu Malkeinu," ("our Father, our King.")

I would agree with the Jews here, in that "God" is neither male nor female. "He" is all of both. :) It certainly is reasonable to me that Jesus appeared as a man given the time period and His mission. God appears to have wanted us to refer to Him as "Him", so I have no problem with that, but I don't think His essence is purely "male".