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Then, as Now, It’s Judaisms and not Judaism

16 Oct

On Judaisms- an observation. Judaism is not now, nor has it ever been, a monolith.  Any more than Christianity.

Jews in Jesus’ day argued as much among themselves as Jews of our day. This is why all talk of ‘the Jews’ or even ‘Jews’ requires extensive qualification and why New Testament scholars need to be much more careful in describing ‘Judaism’. The general population isn’t equipped to know which fragment of the many Judaisms are in mind when writers use the word ‘Jew’.

 
6 Comments

Posted by on 16 Oct 2010 in Bible

 

6 responses to “Then, as Now, It’s Judaisms and not Judaism”

  1. Doug

    16 Oct 2010 at 1:29 pm

    Well, I know of several different factions in Jesus’ day (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essences, just to name a few that I know of) . I imagine there were even more than that with every rabbi having a different view of the torah. Many would be similar, many not. Sounds like Christianity today.

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  3. Joel

    16 Oct 2010 at 4:07 pm

    Wrong. Christianity has always existed as the exact same thing, in the exact same way, with the exact same interpretations, and the exact same viewpoints as the Apostles.

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  4. Joel

    16 Oct 2010 at 4:07 pm

    Oh, and yes, the Apostles were Methodists

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