Is the Christian God the same as the Jewish God?

[rosends]

I was just applying your analogy. obviously a flawed analogy.



And what I am saying is that Christianity wasn't started by Gentiles but by the Jewish people and it was shared in Synagogues throughout the known world. (Some accepted and some didn't).

Acts 6:7
And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.

The priests were Jewish.

In other words, there are different viewpoints within the Jewish nation. (Of course we know that since there are atheists, progressives, Hassidic, et all types of beliefs including Messianic jews within the Jewish populace)

You can't say that each one is telling the other "Are you telling me what my scriptures say?"

I don't see that the analogy is wrong, only that you assigned a statement to me that I didn't say.

We have "messianic" Jews now and yes, we tell them that if they are basing their beliefs on the gospel theology then when they tell Jews things, they are wrong. You are getting your history from the gospel accounts which are self serving and whose authorship is suspect but, yes, the early Christians were Jews who were mistaken and misled and who propagated wrong ideas and interpretations of text. Christians banked on and continue to espouse those ideas, telling Jews that the Jewish understanding is wrong.

 

[firedragon]

I see this is something that a number of people misunderstood about my OP. Let me try to explain differently. It was not my intention to suggest that there are literally two different deities. Rather, that there are two different images of God, or at least, of how God runs the world and appears to mankind - and only one can be a correct, considering the two images have inherent contradictions between the two. My belief is that the Christian view is sociological and doesn't truly reflect how God runs the world. But prior to that, I'm attempting to separate the Christian view from the Jewish view, hence my OP. Hopefully that makes more sense.

BTW, yes, I saw your thread on Marcion. It tied in well with something I had read recently about the Gnostics in an old book I found, in that Gnosticism is a combination of Persian dualism and the Greek god and demiurge concepts.

I concur.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

@Harel13

Judaism itself has two views about Christian trinitarianism.

The first view considers it to be outright idolatry for everyone, including non-Jews. You might run into the phrase avodah zarah, which means strange worship, and refers to idolatry.

But there is a second, very old, and well established campe tat considers the Christian God to be the same God, or at least it does if you accept te writings of the sages.

IN this group, trinitarianism is said to be "sh*tuf," which mean "an association." This is the idea that a person or other created thing can be associated with a monotheistic God, and that when non-Jews worship the associated being or thing, like Jesus, they are actually worshiping god. It would be like looking up to God in heaven thrugh a ceiling made of glass that has the word Jesus etched into it. When you see Jesus, you see God, and when you see God, you see Jesus. Even though the glass ceiling isn't even in heaven.

To give another example of sh*tuf, there was a time in Egypts history when one pharoah made the entire nation monotheistic. He worshiped only one deity, Aten, the sun God. This God was simply the disc of the sun, with no human attributes. Worship of all other deities was forbidden. Aten was said to shine upon the pharioah, who in turn would bless the people as the mediator.

In the same exact way, the shi tuf school of thought

I see this is something that a number of people misunderstood about my OP. Let me try to explain differently. It was not my intention to suggest that there are literally two different deities. Rather, that there are two different images of God, or at least, of how God runs the world and appears to mankind - and only one can be a correct, considering the two images have inherent contradictions between the two. My belief is that the Christian view is sociological and doesn't truly reflect how God runs the world. But prior to that, I'm attempting to separate the Christian view from the Jewish view, hence my OP. Hopefully that makes more sense.

BTW, yes, I saw your thread on Marcion. It tied in well with something I had read recently about the Gnostics in an old book I found, in that Gnosticism is a combination of Persian dualism and the Greek god and demiurge concepts.

I've never read a jewish author with your division meaning there are two different Gods, though I read your idea with interest.

The only two jewish positions on chrisitanitys trinitarianism is that this is either avodah zarah (strange worship, idolatry for our non-hebrew speakers) out right and prohibited for all people, OR it is shi-tuf (meaning association -- ask if you want a rundown of what this means, folks) and while not permissable to Jews, is fine for non-Jews

 

[Harel13]

@Harel13

Judaism itself has two views about Christian trinitarianism.

Nevertheless this thread isn't about the trinity. Thank you, I'm well aware of the Jewish positions on the trinity.

your division meaning there are two different Gods

I see this is something that a number of people misunderstood about my OP. Let me try to explain differently. It was not my intention to suggest that there are literally two different deities. Rather, that there are two different images of God, or at least, of how God runs the world and appears to mankind - and only one can be a correct, considering the two images have inherent contradictions between the two. My belief is that the Christian view is sociological and doesn't truly reflect how God runs the world. But prior to that, I'm attempting to separate the Christian view from the Jewish view, hence my OP. Hopefully that makes more sense.

 

[Kenny]

I don't see that the analogy is wrong, only that you assigned a statement to me that I didn't say.

We have "messianic" Jews now and yes, we tell them that if they are basing their beliefs on the gospel theology then when they tell Jews things, they are wrong. You are getting your history from the gospel accounts which are self serving and whose authorship is suspect but, yes, the early Christians were Jews who were mistaken and misled and who propagated wrong ideas and interpretations of text. Christians banked on and continue to espouse those ideas, telling Jews that the Jewish understanding is wrong.

Again, I am just expressing what some of the Jewish thought and interpretation was. It is not self-serving IMO in as much they searched the Jewish scriptures to see if it was so and by which many agreed. 3,000 one the first day, 5,000 not too long after and the rest is history. I personally don't think they were misled but, as history says in Acts, those who disagreed did so violently. Certainly many of the Jewish believers died because of their stance.

IMV, the Gospels are no more self-serving to believers than the Pentateuch would be self-serving to the Jewish people. They simply explain how the two are inter-related. So, in other words, it was one set of Jews telling the another set of Jews that they were wrong and visa versa.

"Suspect" authorship" is a matter of modern opinion.

 

[rosends]

Again, I am just expressing what some of the Jewish thought and interpretation was. It is not self-serving IMO in as much they searched the Jewish scriptures to see if it was so and by which many agreed. 3,000 one the first day, 5,000 not too long after and the rest is history. I personally don't think they were misled but, as history says in Acts, those who disagreed did so violently. Certainly many of the Jewish believers died because of their stance.

IMV, the Gospels are no more self-serving to believers than the Pentateuch would be self-serving to the Jewish people. They simply explain how the two are inter-related. So, in other words, it was one set of Jews telling the another set of Jews that they were wrong and visa versa.

"Suspect" authorship" is a matter of modern opinion.

You might want to read Rashi on yoma 10 from 1000 years ago if you think suspect authorship is modern.

 

[Kenny]

You might want to read Rashi on yoma 10 from 1000 years ago if you think suspect authorship is modern.

Application?

 

[metis]

What we may view as "scripture" today wasn't likely viewed the same way back when it was written.

On top of that, attempting to discern "the meaning behind the words" has always been a challenge within both in Judaism and Christianity, thus "literalism" didn't usually have that many followers. It did become more popular within some Protestant circles in the last two centuries as a reaction against "modernism" though.