What is Judaism?
Many Christians today have heard the term “Judaism,” equating it with the religion of the Jews, and confuse it for the ancient Israelites Old Covenant faith in YHWH, and his holy law.
Judaism is, in fact, not the faith of ancient Israel, rather a more recent phenomenon which roots came about after the Exile of the kingdom of Judah, after the fall of Jerusalem, and the destruction of Solomon’s temple, by the Babylonians, in the Babylonian Captivity of 586 BC.
Ancient Israel, less than a thousand years prior to the Babylonian Captivity of Judah, had received through Moses, from the Hebrew's God of Israel, YHWH’s laws and they received as part of the law, extensive ritual worship instructions by which, when the people of Israel had sinned against God, who dwelt among the children of Israel, they had to bring sin offerings before God to receive God’s atonement and the forgiveness of their sins.
Over the next eight hundred years the Spirit of YHWH was ever present within the 12 tribes’ Israelite nation, largely through his holy prophets.
The children of Israel had gradually sinned and continued to sin against God and his holy laws by forsaking him and worshiping other gods of the peoples of the lands around Israel.
For a long time, God still worked with Israel through his prophets who warned the people to repent and to come back to YHWH or face the consequences of his judgments.
The people of Israel by and large ignored YHWH and further committed sins. So, God eventually could no longer stomach the sin of the northern ten tribes of Israel and the two southern tribes of the house of Judah, so he casts the twelve tribes of Israel out of his sight and off the land of Israel.
The house of Israel was cast away from their northern region of Samaria by the Assyrian Captivity 720 BC. Many years later, the house of Judah is taken into captivity by Babylonians in 586 BC.
The house of Judah would remain in Babylon for seventy years of captivity by decree of YHWH through his prophets.
The Persian king Cyrus in the first year of his reign, made a proclamation to retore the temple in Jerusalem. It’s recorded in the book of Ezra the number of Judah and Benjamin which went to rebuild the temple.
Ezra 2:64-65
¶ The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore, 65 Beside their servants and their maids, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred thirty and seven: and there were among them two hundred singing men and singing women.
Not all of the captivity of Judah returned to the land of Israel to rebuild the temple, the majority were held up in Babylon, Persia, and regions throughout.
It’s there in Babylon, Persia, in the diaspora of Judah, and absence of the temple of YHWH, where the birth of the roots of Judaism takes form.
The Jews of Judah in Babylon and Persia were without the prophets, without the Spirit of YHWH to direct them, some of the Jewish scribes developed an oral tradition, or oral set of laws based on the written law of YHWH to compensate for their loss.
They developed Jewish scholarly schools of the law in Persia and other regions, which created this oral law, or oral torah, which ultimately added their own ideas and laws and customs to the written law of YHWH (the Torah), thus corrupting the pure law of God.
This new corrupt religion, is the foundation of the Pharisees and pharisaical law. It was not a literal reading of the written law of YHWH, but an oral law and series of laws, which encompassed the ideas, commentary, rules edicts of the Jewish Rabbis and scribes as they saw fit to interpret the written law of YHWH.
The God of Israel made it quite clear, in his law, his people were not to add, nor diminish from the law of YHWH.
Deuteronomy 4:2
Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of YHWH your God which I command you.
In creating their own laws and statutes, rules and regulations, they broke God’s commandment and law, and corrupted the Holy Law of God.
Menachem Stern, one of six Jewish Scholars at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem who compiled a huge book on the history of the Jewish people, "A History of the Jewish People", Edited by H.H. Ben-Sasson. Stern says on page 235, Chapter 15 "The Hasmonean State - sub-section "Religious Currents" [My notes in red parenthesis].
"The hakhamim were the moving spirit of the most important religious current among the Jews of the Second Temple era — the Pharisees, who set their imprint on the entire internal development of Judea and in effect even laid the foundations of Judaism as it was to be after the destruction of the Temple. In the main, the Pharisees carried on a trend that had its origins in the Persian era and had encompassed the activities of the soferim and interpretations of the Torah in the days of Ezra and thereafter. Their immediate predecessors were the hasidim, who chose martyrdom in the persecutions under Antiochus Epiphanes.
The basic tenet of the Pharisees was unswerving faithfulness to the Torah and its infusion into all aspects of life. The Torah to which they referred differed considerably from the text of the Scriptures, for it also encompassed the entire living tradition of halakhah [The oral torah] as it had evolved in the course of generations (see page 238) , based on the assumption that the Torah [YHWH's holy written law and scriptures] must be able to prove an answer to any question that arises in actual life. This 'oral torah', which the Pharisaic tradition arrived at by interpretation of the written Torah—with results that, on the face of it, often seem to be contrary to the plain reading of the written text– encompassed all aspects of religion, ritual, law, and social order. In the legal field the Pharasaic tendency was to humanize penal law; ..."
The new post exile corrupt oral law, which superseded the holy written law of God, became the basis for Jewish people’s religion, and culture and all aspects of Jewish life for about 600 years up to the arrival of Jesus the Christ our Lord.
When Jesus arrived, he taught the righteousness of the law of God, the original faith of Israel, and his coming, not yet revealed, Kingdom of God.
Jesus rebuked this corrupted legal system of the scribes and Pharisees.
Matthew 16:6
Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
Matthew 15:1-9
¶ Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, 2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. 3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? 4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. 5 But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; 6 And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. 7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, 8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. 9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Matthew 23:1-7
¶ Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, 2 Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: 3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. 4 For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. 5 But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, 6 And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, 7 And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.
Matthew 23:15
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees and scribes who wanted to keep the status quo of their corrupt Judaism alive, and their place, in authority, over the people of Israel.
Jesus came to fulfil the Old Testament prophecies, and the law of YHWH.
Matthew 5:17
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
He also came to declare, and put into motion, the New Covenant, by which the Old Covenant, the foundation upon which the corrupt Judaism is based upon, would be superseded.
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Behold, the days come, saith YHWH, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith YHWH: 33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith YHWH, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know YHWH: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith YHWH: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
The Pharisees and scribes, who expected their messiah to be a man of great power and lead them to freedom from Roman rule, and set up a Jewish political kingdom, were threatened by Jesus’s power, and teachings. Thus, before they lost control over the people of Israel, they put Jesus to death.
They did not realize that Jesus willingly came to die for the sins of Israel, he was the Christ, sent by God for to bring in the New Covenant or New Testament made for remission the sins of Israel and the world.
Matthew 26:28
For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Mark 14:24
And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.
Luke 22:20
Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.
Because Jesus ministered to the Gentiles, as well as the Jews, the Jews were even more outraged, because they held to the racist teachings of Judaism and held extremely negative attitudes toward Gentiles.
For these reasons and more, Jesus was rejected by and large by the Jews of Israel who were so corrupted by Pharisaical Judaism they did not see what Jesus was trying to communicate. Nor could they comprehend the coming Kingdom of God, a kingdom of the Spirit of Almighty God which would dwell in the heart of the believers of Jesus.
Luke 17:20-21
¶ And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: 21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
After Jesus dies on the cross and is raised alive to life everlasting by the power of God, and ascends to heaven to sit at the right hand of God in heaven and glory, God sends his Spirit to the disciples of Jesus.
The Jews soon witness that the Spirit of God is now present with the disciples of Jesus, and not in their temple which stands in Jerusalem.
God’s holy presence, which was absent from the Jewish people for 600 years, was now with the disciples of Jesus, not the temple which is the center focal worship point of Judaism.
Thus, the disciples and their doctrine of Jesus become a threat to the scribes and pharisees of corrupt Judaism and their authority.
As the Church, the body of baptized believers of Jesus, grew, there developed a Judaism vs Gospel conflict within the Church by those Jews who were baptized (Hebrew Christians) who sought to bring back corrupt Judaism (Gentiles forced to be circumcised) into the Church of Christ.
Paul the apostle of Jesus to the Gentiles saw and condemned this attempt and strived to keep the Church pure from corrupt Judaism and its traditions, wrote very much on the subject.
The Jews, by and large, rejected Paul’s teaching on Jesus and his mission to the Gentiles, being that Judaism is opposed to Gentiles, unless they convert to Judaism and become a Jews.
The Jews therefore rejected Jesus, and his apostles, and clung to their corrupt traditions of the Pharisaical Rabis of Judaism.
After the sacking by Rome of Jerusalem, and the destruction of the second temple in 70 AD, Pharisaical Judaism continued to evolve and when the full corrupted oral tradition of scribes and Pharisees was codified and written down in full, in 600 AD, in what is known as the Babylonian Talmud, becoming Talmudic Judaism.
Today corrupt Judaism, in many diverse forms, exists.
Those who hold to Judaism still reject Jesus as their messiah, and await a new messiah and new rising of a new third temple to bring back Old Testament animal sacrifices based not on the law of God, but the oral law of corrupt Talmudic Judaism.
It important for us all to realize the difference between Judaism, and the original faith of the 12 tribes of Israel, that they were not the same thing.
The Spirit of God was present with Israel in ancient times, today Judaism is devoid of the Spirit of God.
Today the Spirit of God dwells among his people of the New Covenant, the baptized believers of Jesus the Christ, God’s Holy Spirit dwelling in the heart of the believer.
Corrupt Judaism, is a dead, man-made religion. Those who cling to Judaism, are blinded to the truth of God.
2nd Corinthians 3:12-16
¶ Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: 13 And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: 14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. 15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. 16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
Judaism still seeks to assert itself in the world, and be accepted among the Church of Jesus Christ, but Judaism is incompatible with Christianity, and the will of Almighty God.
John 14:6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
John 8:19-24
Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also. 20 These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come. 21 ¶ Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come. 22 Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come. 23 And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.
Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
Therefore, the Jewish people today, who cling to Judaism, are still dead in their sins, for they rejected their Messiah, who came to die for their sins and the sins of the world.
As Christians, we are to preach the Gospel, to all creatures, and that means to the Jewish people, who must reject their religion, and accept and receive the Gospel of Jesus to be saved.
Mark 16:15-16
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
Romans 1:16
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
I hope now that you know the difference between the Old Testament faith of Israel and that of Judaism, that you will work to bring the Gospel to the Jewish people and all others, that they too, would receive the presence of God again in the Holy Ghost, which dwells in the heart of the baptized believers of Jesus the Christ.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for sending Jesus, to shed his holy blood and die for the sins of Israel, and all men, and women, and children, the world over. Praise your holy awesome name, and your awesome plan for our salvation!
Psalm 106:1 Praise ye YHWH. O give thanks unto YHWH; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.