metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
You either are not reading my posts carefully or are just playing games, plus there are some "twists" of what I actually posted, whether it was accidental or intentional on your part that I simply am not even going to deal with.You are mistaken. Paul began quite early on deliberately targeting the God-fearers (righteous Gentiles) in the synogogues out in the Empire.
Paul couldn't do just anything he wanted to. He was under James and Peter for example. That doesn't mean Paul's primary mission wasn't to Gentiles.
Judaism does NOT teach that Gentiles need to become Jews. We teach that Gentiles need only be righteous Gentiles. You guys do not for any reason need to become circumcised and take on the covenant. The early Church agreed with this. Paul agreed with this. It's what the emphasis of every one of his epistles is.
We do? Where in your scriptures does it say this?
I have addressed this over and over and over in my writings here in this forum. The back and forth between Jesus (of bet Hillel) and the Pharisees of bet Shammai was typical. It was quite normal for the two schools to have these sorts of question and answers sessions, to argue, to have sincere disputes. It was the rage at this time in Jewish history. We have plenty of examples of this in the Talmud. There is nothing exceptional about what happened between Jesus and the other Pharisees.
I would like to recommend the following book by Orthodox Rabbi Harvey Falk: Jesus the Pharisee--A New Look at the Jewishness of Jesus
I don't know about this, and I certainly don't know about "most scholars". Perhaps you are referring to groups beyond the Pharisees such as the Essenes. But the Pharisees themselves, there were only two groups that historically matters: bet Hillel and bet Shammai.
What makes you think Jesus was against keeping the letter of the law? You have to keep the letter of the law if you are going to keep its spirit.
Jesus is not even a minor footnote in Jewish history. None of his ideas about Torah were original. In a word, he simply didn't contribute anything of not to Judaism. What's worse, his followers took what he said, and perverted it away from an obedience centered thing to a whole theology centered thing to start a new religion that was hostile to his own Judaism.
You never were able to prove this.
Your position is not even remotely logical, and also let me recommend reading up in the "Pharisees" since archaeologists know that there were at least four groups, maybe more. If my memory is correct, even the Wiki article on the Pharisees alludes to this, although my use of "four" came from an archaeological source since I worked on a dig at the edge of the highlands n.w. of Jerusalem, and it wasn't a "Christian" one, btw.
The Pharisees were more of a movement than a branch, especially since their approach was more based on scripture, and we all know that different people and groups tend to have different takes on what's written. However, they are not the same branches of Judaism that we see today.
Anyhow, I'm just going to move on and, as a matter of fact, I probably shouldn't even have responded at all because of your know-it-all attitude. You're simply not the "last word" on Christianity or Judaism-- neither am I.