JESUS STORY CONTINUES - Reaction to this question!

Can Jesus and the Jewish religion be reconciled?

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© February 21, 2015

REFERENCE:

A regular reader of this blog who has been following my “Jesus Story” as it is being developed in my book, Search for the Real Parents of My Soul, sent me an Internet article: WND America’s independent News Network’s “The Other Side of the Cross: Can Jesus and the Jewish religion be reconciled?” 

Dr. Don,

By a strange coincidence, my Jesus Story addresses some of these questions in the context of Jesus, the historical Jesus, not the Christ, and his time, against our own, but complicated by such questions -- was Jesus a Pharisee; was Paul a Pharisee; was Paul a Roman citizen? 

There is no definitive information to answer these questions as conjecture is the game of scholars in theology as it is in most other human endeavors.  Believe me when I say (writing this book) that there are literally thousands who have dedicated their lives to looking in every grain of sand for clues as to what is and what is not on the subject of Christianity and Judaism.

Search for the Real Parents of My Soul is only one man's odyssey, and he is not a scholar but a peripatetic philosopher.

Judaism departed somewhat from its undisputed anchor in the Law of Moses and the prophets of the Old Testament when Hellenistic Jews, that is, Jews much influenced by Greece and Greek culture found it amendable to follow or not follow Jewish tradition and laws as they were so inclined. They were also known as Pharisees.

Judaism today is a considerable departure from legalistic Judaism or even Hasidic Judaism, as Jews have the equivalent of many churches as does Christianity. 

Making no attempt to come off as a biblical much less theological scholar, my serious reading on Christianity and Judaism, including the Jewish Torah and Talmud, convinces me that religion is a very human enterprise, and that belief systems, as much as we would like to think otherwise, are man made creations to deal with the unknown and the dark shadows that man creates in his consciousness. It is no accident that subconsciously we feel we have been left here as orphans on this hostile planet, earth. 

We gained consciousness and a conscience on this planet, when or why is open to conjecture, and once that occurred we sought comfort in any way we could find, creating belief systems, some substantive and sustaining, others not. 

In my little book, I go back to the early days of Rome, the city state that built an empire, and by 496 A.D. had totally run out of gas, overrun by the Visigoths and German barbarians from the North.  A thousand years of "forward inertia" called the "Dark Middle Ages" followed. 

Monks in Christianity isolated in monasteries were the equivalent of our computers of that day, preserving what knowledge could be harvested from the devastation.  This included Christianity, our Western culture belief system.

Regarding belief systems, when they are challenged or come to decline in relevance and vitality, then all hell breaks loose, as we now see in the Islam world, have seen in the Christian world, and yes, have also seen in the Judaic world as well. 

Something in our collective DNA seems to feel our legitimacy challenged if everyone else fails to share our same beliefs, which of course is impossible, just as those reading this will have trouble with it, if it in anyway happens to offend their fragile sense of self.

There are more than 7 billion souls on this planet and about 14 million Jews worldwide, a culture, religion and theology that has had major impact on this planet over the past 2,000 plus years, and will continue to do so.

I have great admiration for the Jewish people and Jewish culture, as I was brought up with those feelings with my mother saying, "If I weren't Catholic, I'd be Jewish."

Well, I wouldn't have had much to read if it weren't for Jewish writers, and when I was a student, it was Jewish students that I would find at the Clinton County Library during holidays in my college years, and they were the best students in my classes at the university.

One word described their dedication, and that word was "excellence."  Never met a Jewish student who wasn't afraid to burn the midnight oil to master his studies.  

Just as Christianity has not remained stagnant, neither has Judaism.

Hasidic Judaism (the word mean "piety") came into prominence in the 18th century as a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promoted mystical spirituality and departed from legalistic Judaism.  As Christianity has embraced mysticism, so has Hasidic Judaism. This gave new value to prayer and deeds of kindness by appealing to unlettered or common folk unacquainted with the intricacies of the Jewish tradition.

One can easily get lost or exercised in defensiveness when one is not accepting or disinclined to appreciate another's belief system.  Legitimacy is a matter of choice, including not believing in anything, which is perhaps the most rigid and unforgiving of all belief systems because unbelievers seemingly feel superior for believing they control their own destiny when nothing could be more absurd.

I was reared strict Roman Catholic, and up until the age of thirty, already the father of four children, working on the international stage, believing capitalism was my god, I experienced South Africa and apartheid, and nearly lost my way. 

For the past fifty years, I've been working my way back to believing, not so much in a faith, a religion, a culture, a country, or even a God, but believing in the preciousness of every single human being that walks this earth, knowing that no one is better than another, or that some walk taller than others walk, for we are all God's children, and so was Jesus.

Be always well,

Dr. Jim