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The Pros And Cons Of Judaism

Decent Essays

For centuries, Judaism has endured persecution and resentment from the Christian religions. Many anti-Jewish views have stemmed from the idea that God abandoned the covenant with the Jewish people when Jesus, the son of God, was crucified at the hands of the Jewish people. While it was actually the Romans that killed Jesus, the Jews were greatly blamed. With this crucifixion, a new covenant was established that would supposedly make the previous covenant obsolete, as punishment for the Jewish people’s crimes. The belief that the Christian covenant with God superseded the covenant with God’s chosen people has been detrimental to Christian-Jewish relations. Christians in the past, centuries after the death of Christ, put blame on Judaism as a …show more content…

It is for that reason that so many misconceptions of Judaism will surface. For example, Michael McGarry showed me that Jews do not define themselves as denying the Jesus Christ, but define their religion based on revelation and reinterpretation of the Old Testament and post-biblical rabbinic writings. So many Christians do not realize how much Judaism has grown as a religion. Some Christians continue to believe it is a religion of the Old Testament and that it has become obsolete, just like their covenant. Therefore, we must show others that just as Christianity is changing in the modern world, so is …show more content…

Mary Boys explained these previous Christian beliefs including that Judaism had ceased to exist when Christ was crucified. The promise of redemption that Judaism brought was no longer needed. According to Mary Boys, before Vatican II the catechism did not recognize supersessionism as a harmful theory and, “texts presented the Old Testament as mere promise, the New Testament as fulfillment” (163). This long-standing belief of supersessionism has caused a gap in the knowledge of our own Christian history. Mary Boys had similar ideas to Michael McGarry in regards to the Christian identity being unfinished without dialogue with Judaism. Christians require conversation with Jews in order to understand our faith in the deepest of

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