The differences between the Christianity and Judaism lie in the differences of understanding, evaluation and apprehension of the Old Testament and the New Testament. To understand what happens then, we must first take into account the fact that, originally, the nascent Christian movement is fully Jewish. Jesus himself is Jewish. His disciples were Jewish. And all the great figures of the first Christian generation, Jacques, Peter, and Paul, to name a few, are Jews. Thus, the Christian movement was born and began to grow within Judaism. However, that Judaism was soon through a terrible crisis, caused by the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, and emerged profoundly transformed. It seems Judaism characterized by three major aspects it is essential to remember to understand what could have happened.
1) It is characterized by the monotheistic affirmation and recognition of the importance of two major institutions: the Temple (of Jerusalem) and the Act. Furthermore, the Act could be a bone of contention, to the extent that the different parties in presence do not offer the same interpretation.
2) It is both diverse and plural. It is crossed by a number of trends, movements, parties - the Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Baptists, zealots of the law, etc. - That reveal different ways to locate the exact spot of the Law and the Temple. Some may even go, we repeat, to question the validity of worship, as is celebrated in the Temple of Jerusalem, without however there is a question of putting the ban.
3) It is not limited to the territory of Palestine. It includes a large diaspora, which generates another phenomenon at that time considerable developments will play a key role in the development that later will know the Christian movement.
In fact, Judaism has some radiation through the synagogue institution and enjoys a privileged status as a recognized religion.
The flip side of the story, the population consecutive deportations to war and exile, as well as strong demographics - that does not regulate the use of children's exposure also widely practiced in antiquity - generated significant emigration of Jews in Egypt, Babylonia and, more broadly, throughout the Mediterranean basin. This had resulted in the creation of significant diaspora, due to the centralization of sacrificial worship in the Temple of Jerusalem, was taken to develop an original institution: the Synagogue. By necessity, we are celebrating a bloodless worship could exercise real attraction for an informed public and be inclined to distance themselves from the pagan sacrifices. In addition, the extraordinary company that represented the translation of the Pentateuch, then the whole of the Hebrew Bible in Alexandria, allowed making accessible to a broad public the founding texts of the Jewish faith. All this contributed to the emergence of proselytes and a large number of "God-fearing" sympathizers of Judaism which gravitated synagogues without being ready to take the important step that represented the circumcision for the full membership. This explains the Mediterranean and the Fertile Crescent have sheltered a dense network of synagogues. So we agree that, if Judaism was not provided missionary, he exercised real influence and was well established in the Roman world, and beyond, towards the Parthian world. That the Jewish religion was the subject of special recognition within the Roman Empire, as was granted recognized cult status, illustrates this well integrated. Recall that, in addition to guaranteeing them the right of association, that status allowed the Jews to collect taxes for the sanctuary exempted them from military service and dispensed to participate in the imperial cult.
We will extract the Babylonian Talmud. Scripture suggests that one can give to his meal of sanctity for it is written (Ez 41, 22): "The altar of wood was three cubits high and two cubits long. It had its corners, its length, and its walls and the wooden man said to me: This is the table before the Lord. "The verse begins by detailing the dimensions of the altar and says, in the end, it is a table! Rabbi Eleazar and Rabbi Yohannan draw both this idea: as long as the Temple stood, the altar procured atonement for Israel, and now that the sanctuary is destroyed, the table enriched reviews sacred texts, serves as a substitute.
These two texts illustrate how, in fidelity to the teaching and meditation of the Torah, one could conceive that the Pharisee mid table replaces somehow to the altar. The genius of the Pharisee party, therefore, was to fix his gaze on the law, to respect the principles and to adopt the implementing rules in a new space that will not organize around the sanctuary but houses. Thus, commonality would continue. However, it would be full, it would place the Other insofar as the mainstay of the Act itself would be fully honored. The Torah, which established the required separations and distinctions between people, between places and between the time for communion in the sanctuary was possible.
It is essential to consider this movement to capture what tended to and still tends Pharisaic spirituality. Besides, he probably started even before the ruins of the sanctuary, in fraternities, harboureth which gathered lay people anxious to live in the secular sphere as if they had been priests in the sanctuary. Living in daily by imposing the same rules of purity as the priests serving in the Temple, they stood in their way, "at least for the purists, the most finicky for purity, the table of ordinary days in the metaphorical altar. But even if this movement was undoubtedly prepared, even before those who, within the movement Pharisee, were employees of the way to sanctify the profane sphere, it should be noted that Judaism that emerged and the ruins of the Temple was profoundly different from that, plural and diverse, which we described previously. It took one hand, overcome the shock, considerable ruin of the Sanctuary. It was on the other hand, regain the confidence of the masters of the Roman Empire, confidence was shaken by the revolt that had just taken place. It was necessary to give this master anxious to order submission of pledges, pledges that Yohannan ben Zakkai had perhaps granted, upon his surrender in the year 68, the general besieging the holy city. In short, it was appropriate to close ranks. And that's what was done in the synagogue institution Pharisees rabbis took control now.
But what were the causes of the rupture?
As we used to show, it is clear that the rupture was secondary to the destruction of the Temple and that Christians not had the initiative. It was therefore suffered not desired.
It seems that this was the new historical situation created by the first Jewish War and its dramatic outcome that led the Pharisees authorities now in charge of the synagogue to exclude Jewish Christians; Jewish Christians who in many cases had to be on a line significantly down compared to that of Matthew. The Pharisee party's attitude change is explained by the change in the historical situation because previously, and text data is the consistent case it seems that the Pharisees have advocated a wait and rather kind to the primitive Church of Jerusalem. This does not preclude that it is important to ask the question whether, in addition to these cyclical factors, there was also properly theological reasons for the separation happened. And here our answer will be yes, even though we shall see, the consequences could be drawn from differences between the two camps remained until today and remain a matter of judgment, as it considers them irremediable or for many interpretations which are in tension within the same system. As we mentioned at the beginning of our journey, Judaism was based on two pillars: the Law and the Temple. Now these two pillars were questioned and this from the beginning, within the nascent Christian movement. To take things from the beginning and do not accuse Paul of all evil when in fact it turns an interpreter certainly great but we did think, consistent and, in its way, the faithful preaching of Jesus, we begin with the proclamation of the Galilean. At the center of it is the affirmation of the irruption of the Kingdom of God. This concept of divine kingship or kingdom was previously tied primarily to the Temple, conceived as palaces and holy to both. It was there that God had destined to be manifested as King. It was there that was his throne. That was it appropriate to venerate. It was from there that his kingship was expected to expand to win the world. The sacrificial worship was supposed, for its part, ensure the conditions of possibility of communion with the God-King. But in preaching and action of Jesus, the kingdom of God is manifested, but it manifests itself outside the sanctuary and independently of him while making what was supposed obtain Temple worship: the communion of the Kingdom. The coming of the Kingdom created the other conditions totally new, and already establishing a proper eschatological communion last. Commensality of Jesus with the wicked and sinners attests. To these who wonder why his own disciples do not fast when they themselves regularly do, he replied: "Can the son of the wedding fast while the bridegroom is with them? Jesus thus characterizes the time of his presence among his people as a time of marriage - and we are led to think the theme of the eschatological marriage of God with His people and the feast that accompanies it. Communion, which constituted the horizon of sacrificial worship in the Temple, and is offered without no longer required prior to repair posed rituals such as fasting, but also and more repair rites were performed by beside the Temple. The proclamation of the Kingdom could thus be understood as assuming and subverting the categories of the Temple and its rituals, such as realizing what was intended hitherto occur within the sanctuary. Jesus' attitude from the rules of purity seems to be in winning a similar perspective. With Jesus, since stormed the Kingdom and manifested the Holy Spirit, communion takes over the repair and separations. For this issue more extensively developed. This is illustrated not only the legion not fasting but also his attitude toward sinners, tax collectors rendered unclean because of their collaboration with pagans, prostitutes or the adulterous woman thus he approaches the impure sick, eats with sinners, makes contacts with strangers and perspective the representations relative to ritual purity, illustrated Mc 7, 15: "this is not what is external to man, that entering into man, defile, but what comes out of the man, that's what defile the man. "He embodies, therefore, charismatic way, a form of holiness that takes possession of the space and shines. Such a concept is foreign to a logic in which the penalty is intended as the prerequisite for communion logic inherent in the defensive design purity. It seems therefore that Jesus, by attacking those who exercised an essential function of mediation for the celebration of worship, not so much wanted to protest against their presence attests another presence, that of the United God whose eschatological burst frustrates the sacrificial mediation. Although the intervention of Jesus is to be read and not as a gesture of rupture but as a positive affirmation of eschatological fulfillment, the fact remains that this accomplishment generates in his eyes a dynamic that can authorize, in connection with the promises enclosed in the First Testament, a new approach to the ritual law. It seems, therefore, that future developments in the nascent Christian movement are already contained in embryo in the action and the preaching of Jesus, even though everyone, including Judeo-Christian background, were not ready not to perform the others did (Armstrong, p. 56).
In any event, the meaning was given to the early death of Jesus testifies that from the beginning the primitive Church of Jerusalem realized that the event Jesus Christ had come to subvert the categories of worship and sacrifice. This interpretation of Jesus' death is perhaps rooted in the Last Supper institution of words and in the dimension of "for you" that characterizes them. It was such that now the place where playing repair and fellowship with God was located outside the sanctuary. The early church in Jerusalem was quick, meanwhile, claim to be the new, true Temple, attested metaphor columns that were associated with its main leaders (Gal 2: 6.9), or that of the foundation, which is applied to Peter in Matthew 16, 18 and when Paul extended that privilege to be community-sanctuary to every single community that God's Spirit lives in believers (1 Cor 3: 16 -17), he only translate in their own way the implications of the proclamation of Jesus by the occurrence of the Kingdom related to the irruption of the Holy Spirit. But in doing so, it is clear that both the Temple ritual law that were the subject of a radical reinterpretation, possible for a Jew became a Christian, but hardly acceptable for another. There are many other examples, but we will not do it in the limited framework of this study. We just discuss one last point, that of the mission to the Gentiles. The horizon of Jesus was limited to all the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Mt 10: 6). However, the welcome he reserved the marginalized and the sinners and the relativity found in his remarks about the ritual law have certainly paved the way for a mission that would now be designed with the dimensions of the world. Certainly embark on this path was not without creating dissension and even clashes within the nascent Christian movement, precisely how far respect for the ritual law would be required or not in this mission to the dimensional world, but it seems clear that the pillar that was the ritual law was shaken from the preaching of Jesus.
Paul, who is Jewish and argues as a Jew, ultimately that reason a coherent and consistent manner when, starting from the assertion that Christ died for our sins, he is the Cross and Resurrection the heart even his Gospel and the exclusive place of salvation. The Act, which he had studied, observed and defended until then with such zeal, appears to him, and now in retrospect, lead to an impasse, unable to lead to justification. Otherwise, Christ would have died in vain (Gal 2:21). In saying this and defending that position vigorously, Paul pioneered certainly. Particularly by his refusal to compromise because then it would be all he says of the Gospel. A copy can be here the incident of Antioch, he recounts in Gal 2: 11-14. In the Antiochian community, Christians of Jewish and pagan origins had come to take their common meal, which was contrary to Jewish dietary laws. Peter and Barnabas first missionary companion of Paul, had not seen, at first, the fundamental objection to this practice. But when Jacques occur emissaries to remind all these people to reason - because such use could not be without consequences, especially for the Jerusalemite community who could not have the sanction without reprisals from the Jewish authorities - they waive this commonality. And Paul, finding himself alone, holds firm against all. Yield, in this case, would have been to recognize him that grace is not enough, there are believers "two-speed". There would, firstly, those who are still subject to the Act, fall within the elite. It would, on the other hand, those who, not obliged to this Act, are certainly recognizing a status but that of similar simple not allowed alongside other at the banquet of the Kingdom. But for Paul, believers are equal before God, reliant they are all basically the salvation manifested in Jesus Christ. Uncompromising, Paul thought as the salvation as a free gift and not in terms of effectuation of the works of the law. He maintained that the justification of the human being could be acquired but it was conferred, offered through faith in Jesus Christ. The singularity of the event Jesus Christ had for him and the universal consequences, every human indicator propose, whatever its origin and dignity, access to salvation by faith alone (Armstrong, p. 59).
But when Paul operates its radical redesign of the pure and impure that was taught him, that is the Lord's teaching that refers (Rom 14, 14), whose teaching Gospels also kept track precisely in Mark 7, 17. And when he is the promoter of an open identity, it is in line with the proclamation by Jesus the coming of the Kingdom, as we have previously considered. Clearly, under these conditions, there are theological reasons for the break which arose with the Synagogue. The reasons lie in a new understanding and initiated by Jesus in his preaching and in its action, the terms of communion with God. That said, it must be emphasized an absolutely fundamental point in Jewish-Christian dialogue. It is in the name of Israel's tradition, revisited under the new angle of the occurrence of the eschatological time from the proclamation by Jesus of the irruption of the Kingdom, the Christian movement committed on tracks where the break with the Synagogue, he did not wish originally was perhaps inevitable. These paths, it is more urgent and more necessary today than ever to revisit the whole, Jews and Christians, to respect and understand each other and seeking the same God and a communion we confess together she ultimately addressed to all the children of Abraham and, more broadly, to all children of God.
Works cited
Armstrong, Karen. A History Of God. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1993. Print.
The Holy Bible. New York: American Bible Society, 1989. Print.
The New Testament Of Our Lord And Saviour Jesus Christ. New York: F. Watts, 1967. Print.
