The SIN that is UNforgiven a contrast between Christianity and Judaism

by Terry 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  PSacramento

  Kepler,

  SOme people are under the erroneous belief that Judaisim today AND int he past was a "homogeneous" religion and the fact is that it was not.

  There are today various branches of Judaisim, as there were in Jesus' day and before.

  The Torah is and always has been interprested by the teachers, more so after the 2nd temple destruction.

  To say there was ONE view on anything in Judaisim is grossly incorrect.

  In the 1st century there were at least 4 different Jewish sects that we know of: Pharisees, Saudecess, Zelots and Essences.

  WHy they shared most od the core beliefs, like the promeniance of the Torah, they interpreted them differently, a fine example is the contrasting view of the afterlife between the Saudecees and the Pharisees.

  In short, to say that any ONE interpretation of Judaisim was the only one is quite incorrect IMO.
• 

  PSacramento

  Terry, I can understand foprm your POV as a former JW, the issues you seem to have with Grace.

  The only thing I can say is that, IMO, it is NOT what you make it out to be ( how you are interpreting it).

  God's grace is about His forgiveness of Our sins AGAINST Him, not one another.

  Christ in his teachinsg is clear that we are to forgive others and to reconcile with them, if we are to expect God to forgive us our sins.

  Repentance comes before redemption and part of repentance is the full accepetance of the consequences of ALL our sins and the making of restitution/reconciliation with those we have wronged.
• 

  designs

  I attended a Jewish Orthodox funeral service for a family member and the Rabbi was careful deliniate that the afterlife was not written about in the Torah and it was up to each individual to believe or not believe.
• 

  PSacramento

  I attended a Jewish Orthodox funeral service for a family member and the Rabbi was careful deliniate that the afterlife was not written about in the Torah and it was up to each individual to believe or not believe.

  Indeed, the views about the afterlife tend to come from books like ECC, 2Kings, Lam, etc:

  From religiousfacts.com:

  For the most part, the Torah describes the afterlife in vague terms, many of which may simply be figurative ways of speaking about death as it is observed by the living.

  An early common theme is that death means rejoining one's ancestors. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and other patriarchs are "gathered to their people" after death (see Gen. 25:8, 25:17, 35:29, 49:33; Deut. 42:50; 2 Ki. 22:20). In contrast, the wicked are "cut off (kareit) from their people" (Gen. 17:14; Ex. 31:14). Other imagery emphasizes the finality of death: the dead are like dust returning to dust (Genesis; Ecc. 3:19-20) or water poured out on the ground (2 Samuel 14:14).

  Another recurring biblical image of the afterlife is as a shadowy place called Sheol. It is a place of darkness (Psalm 88:13, Job 10:21, 22) and silence (Psalm 115:17), located in low places (Numbers 16:30, Ezekiel 31:14, Psalm 88:7, Lamentations 3:55; Jonah 2:7, Job 26:5). In 1 Samuel 2:6, God puts people in She'ol. In Isaiah 14:9-10, the departed in Sheol rise up to greet leaders who have now been brought low as they are. The author of Psalm 88 laments his impending death with these words:

  I am sated with misfortune; I am at the brink of Sheol.
  I am numbered with those who go down to the Pit;
  I am a helpless man
  abandoned among the dead,
  like bodies lying in the grave
  of whom You are mindful no more,
  and who are cut off from Your care.
  You have put me at the bottom of the Pit,
  in the darkest places, in the depths.
  (Psalm 88:4-7)

  Taken together, these early biblical descriptions of death seem to indicate that the soul continues to exist in some way after death, but not consciously. Later in the Torah, the concept of conscious life after death begins to develop. Daniel 12:2 declares, "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence." Neh. 9:5.

  or:

  http://www.jewfaq.org/olamhaba.htm
• 

  Terry

  God's grace is about His forgiveness of Our sins AGAINST Him, not one another.

  The sin humans are "born with" is an offense against Jehovah? How so?

  Humanity is regarded as "dust on the scales", "wretched", and other synonymous terms of contempt by the Lord of Hosts as a generic default description.

  Yet, these scurrilous scoundrels are expected to treat one another as though they possessed opposite qualities!

  How is a vulgar and doomed animal creature with sentient awareness supposed to surmount the enmity between themselves and the Almighty?

  What I'm saying is that man is trapped by human nature, yet, held to a higher standard.

  You may as well expect to drop a stone from your hand and watch it rise into the sky!

  We are birthed by our mother and dealt a genetic hand of cards that is a dead loser. Yet, we must play the hand.

  We bet against death and God always wins.

  If the Lord stops cheating we win. What kind of game is that?
• 

  PSacramento

  It is important to understand that for some, the Torah is only the Pentateuch, but for others the whole of the Hebrew bible is viewed as the Torah.

  Judaism is a religion deeply rooted in sacred texts and textuality. Therefore, the texts of the Torah and the written interpretations of them are very important.

  The term "Torah" refers most basically to the Jewish law that is found in the Hebrew Bible. However, the term can be used very narrowly or very broadly, depending on the context and who is speaking.

  Sometimes the term refers only to the Pentateuch, which is comprised of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Inside these books is contained the summary of the Jewish law, called the Ten Commandments, as well as the full listing of the 613 commandments that most Jews list as making up the heart of Jewish law.

  The term also can be used to refer to the entire written Hebrew Bible, or the "Tanakh". The term "Tanakh" comes from the three main consonants that make up the word - T, N and K. T stands for Torah, N stands for Nevi'im (meaning "prophets"), and K stands for Ketuvim (meaning "writings'). These three - Torah, prophets and writings - make up the major divisions of the Hebrew Bible: the Pentateuch, the books written by prophets (like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekial, etc.) and the writings (like Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon and others).

  Finally, the term can also be used to refer to the entire Hebrew Bible as well as to the Talmud, which is made up of a few centuries of rabbinic commentary on the Torah. Those using the term in this way sometimes divide Torah into 2 sections: the written law (the entire Hebrew Bible) and the oral law (the Talmud).

  So, the Torah is a central part of the Jewish religion, and it means different things to different groups within it. Some of the main differences between Orthodox, Reform and Conservative Judaism come from their diverging views of it and its meaning.
• 

  PSacramento

  The sin humans are "born with" is an offense against Jehovah? How so?

  Humanity is regarded as "dust on the scales", "wretched", and other synonymous terms of contempt by the Lord of Hosts as a generic default description.

  Yet, these scurrilous scoundrels are expected to treat one another as though they possessed opposite qualities!

  How is a vulgar and doomed animal creature with sentient awareness supposed to surmount the enmity between themselves and the Almighty?

  What I'm saying is that man is trapped by human nature, yet, held to a higher standard.

  You may as well expect to drop a stone from your hand and watch it rise into the sky!

  We are birthed by our mother and dealt a genetic hand of cards that is a dead loser. Yet, we must play the hand.

  We bet against death and God always wins.

  If the Lord stops cheating we win. What kind of game is that?

  We may be born with the inclination/desire to sin ( if we are honest to ourselves we knwo that to be true) BUT we have the potential to rise above it and God must think that we are worth His Grace because He choose to suffer with Us and continues to do so.

  God wins when we win.

  We are not trapped in our human nature, we have a way out, and that way out is NOT against our nature but is our TRUE nature.

  CHists ultimate lesson, IMO, was compassion, the suffering WITH us and it has been my experiences that humans are at our best when we do that, suffer ( compassion) with others.

  Notice that we can be full of "hate and spite" against someone or some people BUT if there is a horrific event (natural disater for example) we go all out to help and to eliviate their suffering? How we have compassion for them?
• 

  designs

  One of the differences between Judaism and Christianity are their views on humans is that Judaism teaches humans are the best of God's creation capable of having direct contact with the divine and Christianity assumes we are wretched disgusting sinners who need a god to do for us what we cannot do ourselves.
• 

  PSacramento

  One of the differences between Judaism and Christianity are their views on humans is that Judaism teaches humans are the best of God's creation capable of having direct contact with the divine and Christianity assumes we are wretched disgusting sinners who need a god to do for us what we cannot do ourselves.

  Unfortunatley, yes that is how it sometimes comes off as.

  Sad really.
• 

  PSacramento

  ITs funny because the Catholic Cathecism upholds the very goodness of creation and man:

  God creates an ordered and good world

  299 Because God creates through wisdom, his creation is ordered: "You have arranged all things by measure and number and weight." 151 The universe, created in and by the eternal Word, the "image of the invisible God", is destined for and addressed to man, himself created in the "image of God" and called to a personal relationship with God. 152 Our human understanding, which shares in the light of the divine intellect, can understand what God tells us by means of his creation, though not without great effort and only in a spirit of humility and respect before the Creator and his work. 153 Because creation comes forth from God's goodness, it shares in that goodness - "And God saw that it was good. . . very good" 154 - for God willed creation as a gift addressed to man, an inheritance destined for and entrusted to him. On many occasions the Church has had to defend the goodness of creation, including that of the physical world. 155