This perspective is pretty anti-Jewish. The reality is Judaism is a deeply interpretive tradition and most do not view the Hebrew Bible as literal and prescriptive, nor God as actually jealous and wrathful as depicted in the Torah.
Reminds me of that tik tok sound bite that goes “how I love being a woman”
I love being Jewish and I feel like our religion is filled with love and debate and discourse and connection. And when I see people allude to the “OT as evil” it just feels like a covert (or arguably overt) way of saying they just have an issue with Jews since the only bit they seem to have an issue with is the part that’s decontextualized Jewish stories. Ultimately just ends up telling me a lot about the biases of the person making that claim.
It stems from a total lack of awareness on the oral tradition side of Torah. Most Christians just think Judaism is “Christianity without Jesus.” They’re ignorant to how rich and deep Jewish tradition goes.
In effect, he wants an old god of the OT and a new different god of the NT, while forgetting that Jesus is responsible for everything in the OT because he is in fact God.
According to Christian theology Jesus is God and was God during the events of the Old Testament. There isn't a Jewish God and a Christian God according to Christians at least. These "questionable things" such as slaughtering other tribes, and explicit support for slavery, cannot be divorced from Jesus because there is only one God and he's it, according to Christianity.
I mean, no, what you are describing is a heresy callled Markionism. Markion also read the OT literally and concluded that its message is incompatible with what Christ taught. But that again pressuposes biblical fundamentalism or literalism foreign to my tradition.
Religion in the classical period and even before was focused on antiquity. Without the Hebrew Bible, then Christianity didn’t have a solid grounding. Without history their religion is seen as untrue or worst case something to be feared and stamped out. Even with the inclusion of the Hebrew Bible, there was still issues. Because many Christians refused to do the sacrifices to
The Emperor and they didn’t have the exclusions that Jews had.
And without their interpretations of scripture Jesus was just a good guy who said to love thy neighbor and care for others and he was gonna be back and it was the end of the age. With no scripture then it comes out of nowhere like Nee Age religions today and there was no way that would have gotten the converts. There were often gentile believers in synagogues, “god fearers” I think. They often didn’t want the rules that came with conversion. Many did convert to Pauline Christianity.
Marcion Christianity is seriously what you are describing and it is considered a heresy by all versions of Christianity from eastern Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic, and oriental orthodox and others. His version was popular, especially because it was Gnostic adjacent and stories fit. It wasn’t the version that won out. Because it had no history, no real way to determine what would or wouldn’t become scripture, how to interpret, and what communities would look like. Even what become the “right” belief had issues with all of that but at least they had a grounding in their ideas and while Marcion’s Christianity survived until like the 7th century, it has long since died out.
As others said, literal belief of the Bible can be problematic and there is always interpretation when reading such a text. Even translation is an interpretation. The Targumim that were the translations of the Torah into Aramaic for those who didn’t speak Hebrew used the text to make theological points that were important for their day. Christians do the same. Even the literalists though they will deny it.
The Christian Bible without the Hebrew Bible would make no sense.
Messiah is a Jewish idea. Without the Hebrew Bible foundation, Jesus couldn't claim that he was the messiah, and even if he did, no one could have validate him, or other would claim aswell
Ngl, the NT feels majorly slapped together compared to the Hebrew Bible…. We have four different versions of the same story don’t even match up with each other, then a book or two of historical events, followed by a bunch of letters taken out of context, and then cap it off with some sort of creative writing project.
Like there just isn’t a lot to hang a religion on if we erase all of the context leading up to it. Like what is our origin story? Who is god? How did we end up in this relationship? What is our history?… we could probably piece some of that together, from what is in the NT, but it would be a mess.
> have four different versions of the same story don’t even match up with each other,
I wouldn't read Noah's story if I were you.
The Hebrew Bible is also very haphazard, stories are copied and pasted together, multiple versions of the same story are put immediately before and after, narrative stories alternate with long portions of law codes, books about historical and "historical" events are followed by prophetic speeches and visions. Then throw in liturgical poetry, some erotic poetry, a couple of short novels and a sex farce that forgets to mention God, for good measure. That's honestly why I love it.
Hahaha, true, and I have read most of it… it kind of makes sense though because it’s an oral tradition and the stories were waved together when written down. They likely evolved somewhat independently across different groups and then there was an attempt to reconcile them together to tell the history.
In the NT, it’s like these four guys couldn’t agree what happened, and then this random guy who didn’t actually meet Jesus, but said “trust me, bro!” Got in to a bunch of arguments with the disciples and wrote a bunch of letters about what he thought people should do. A few hundred years later some guys decided what books they liked and wanted to keep in the biblical cannon, and systematically set out to destroy all other writings, so very few survive.
I think the Jewish approach is also different than “the Bible is the infallible word of God and everything in it is true and should not be questioned” mindset that many Christian’s have. Which makes it funny how cobbled together the whole thing is…. Like ngl, the NT was very low effort compared to an oral history passed down through millennia.
Of course Christians will claim the message in the NT is different from the OT.
If they didn't then they'd have no excuse not to follow ALL the OT laws, including snipping your weewee.
Paul argued that faith in Christ, rather than strict adherence to the Mosaic Law, was the path to righteousness and salvation
Seriously, why do you think Paul dropped all that law stuff when he saw there were very few Jewish takers and he started fishing in gentile waters? I'll bet the snipping requirement wasn't very marketable.
Christian’s believe that Jews are Gods chosen people.
Additionally, there are many prophesies that speak of the messiah and point to Jesus.
Additionally, we should take and revere every interaction and writing with God that we can. Even if many of those commandments are not currently applicable to us.
Virtually the entire Jewish community rejects those prophecies as "pointing to Jesus"
Among them
He never ruled
He did not bring the nations together
And so on - the Jewish point of view AFAIK is that the NT tries to retro fit the prophecies to make it fit Jesus without success. It does become interesting when non Jews try to explain the prophecies to those who supposedly know them the best - the Jewish people.
I know Jews reject him. But Christian’s find a lot of value in the Old Testament. Many things that point to Christ the Jews don’t even feel point to any messiah figure.
Exactly Jews still existing is a theological conundrum for Christianity as a religion in general. And supersessionism and replacement theology is the way that Christianity tried to reconcile that conundrum, except Jews then being not willing to fall inline with the solution, continues to be a conundrum, hence 2 millennia of Jewish history.
Actually, I’d argue supersessionism is not the commonly held opinion in modern times. Dual covenant theology is very prevalent, at least here in the US.
Perhaps in very liberal Christian groups and surprisingly Catholicism, but look at the conversion attempts by missionaries. Those are indictive of supersessionism as much as forced baptism was.
It might have been better if they had dropped some of the historical books, which have probably given some people very bad ideas, but Christianity would have struggled without having the Tanakh as a solid foundation to build on.
Aside from the other issues with this question others pointed out, this also presupposes that early Christians had a dishonest utilitarian reason for choosing their scriptures.
Whether or not including the OT helped or hurt the missionary efforts of early Christians is irrelevant - the OT was of absolute fundamental importance to their beliefs.
Jesus is a messiah explicitly in the context of the Jewish prophetic tradition. To Christians Jesus is God specifically as described by Jewish tradition in the OT. Jesus himself in the Gospels is constantly quoting and referring back to OT scripture, and all of the first people to follow him and/or his message were Jews. The events and prophecies in the OT are interpretted by Christians to be pointing forward to Jesus' eventual arrival and his deliverance of salvation. Knowing how the Abrahamic God interacting with the world and its people before the coming of Jesus is of utmost importance to the followers of Jesus' teachings.
Additionally, the objections against the events in the OT you are referring to simply weren't that objectionable in the ancient world. This trend of criticizing Christianity and Judaism over the God-sanctioned violence (and other things we have moral qualms with) attested to in the OT is almost entirely modern.
This perspective is pretty anti-Jewish. The reality is Judaism is a deeply interpretive tradition and most do not view the Hebrew Bible as literal and prescriptive, nor God as actually jealous and wrathful as depicted in the Torah.
Kind of feels like the question is “Wouldn’t Christianity be better if we removed the evil Jewish bits?”
Reminds me of that tik tok sound bite that goes “how I love being a woman” I love being Jewish and I feel like our religion is filled with love and debate and discourse and connection. And when I see people allude to the “OT as evil” it just feels like a covert (or arguably overt) way of saying they just have an issue with Jews since the only bit they seem to have an issue with is the part that’s decontextualized Jewish stories. Ultimately just ends up telling me a lot about the biases of the person making that claim.
It stems from a total lack of awareness on the oral tradition side of Torah. Most Christians just think Judaism is “Christianity without Jesus.” They’re ignorant to how rich and deep Jewish tradition goes.
In effect, he wants an old god of the OT and a new different god of the NT, while forgetting that Jesus is responsible for everything in the OT because he is in fact God.
We decided long ago that anyone who does that is a heretic.
According to Christian theology Jesus is God and was God during the events of the Old Testament. There isn't a Jewish God and a Christian God according to Christians at least. These "questionable things" such as slaughtering other tribes, and explicit support for slavery, cannot be divorced from Jesus because there is only one God and he's it, according to Christianity.
Marcion called, he wants his theology back.
I mean, no, what you are describing is a heresy callled Markionism. Markion also read the OT literally and concluded that its message is incompatible with what Christ taught. But that again pressuposes biblical fundamentalism or literalism foreign to my tradition.
It would have been a lot better for us if they weren't so fixated on our texts I would imagine.
Religion in the classical period and even before was focused on antiquity. Without the Hebrew Bible, then Christianity didn’t have a solid grounding. Without history their religion is seen as untrue or worst case something to be feared and stamped out. Even with the inclusion of the Hebrew Bible, there was still issues. Because many Christians refused to do the sacrifices to The Emperor and they didn’t have the exclusions that Jews had. And without their interpretations of scripture Jesus was just a good guy who said to love thy neighbor and care for others and he was gonna be back and it was the end of the age. With no scripture then it comes out of nowhere like Nee Age religions today and there was no way that would have gotten the converts. There were often gentile believers in synagogues, “god fearers” I think. They often didn’t want the rules that came with conversion. Many did convert to Pauline Christianity. Marcion Christianity is seriously what you are describing and it is considered a heresy by all versions of Christianity from eastern Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic, and oriental orthodox and others. His version was popular, especially because it was Gnostic adjacent and stories fit. It wasn’t the version that won out. Because it had no history, no real way to determine what would or wouldn’t become scripture, how to interpret, and what communities would look like. Even what become the “right” belief had issues with all of that but at least they had a grounding in their ideas and while Marcion’s Christianity survived until like the 7th century, it has long since died out. As others said, literal belief of the Bible can be problematic and there is always interpretation when reading such a text. Even translation is an interpretation. The Targumim that were the translations of the Torah into Aramaic for those who didn’t speak Hebrew used the text to make theological points that were important for their day. Christians do the same. Even the literalists though they will deny it.
No, not a mistake.
>In hindsight, was it a mistake for Christians to include the Old Testament? Yes, I hope they fix it soon.
The Christian Bible without the Hebrew Bible would make no sense. Messiah is a Jewish idea. Without the Hebrew Bible foundation, Jesus couldn't claim that he was the messiah, and even if he did, no one could have validate him, or other would claim aswell
Ngl, the NT feels majorly slapped together compared to the Hebrew Bible…. We have four different versions of the same story don’t even match up with each other, then a book or two of historical events, followed by a bunch of letters taken out of context, and then cap it off with some sort of creative writing project. Like there just isn’t a lot to hang a religion on if we erase all of the context leading up to it. Like what is our origin story? Who is god? How did we end up in this relationship? What is our history?… we could probably piece some of that together, from what is in the NT, but it would be a mess.
> have four different versions of the same story don’t even match up with each other, I wouldn't read Noah's story if I were you. The Hebrew Bible is also very haphazard, stories are copied and pasted together, multiple versions of the same story are put immediately before and after, narrative stories alternate with long portions of law codes, books about historical and "historical" events are followed by prophetic speeches and visions. Then throw in liturgical poetry, some erotic poetry, a couple of short novels and a sex farce that forgets to mention God, for good measure. That's honestly why I love it.
Hahaha, true, and I have read most of it… it kind of makes sense though because it’s an oral tradition and the stories were waved together when written down. They likely evolved somewhat independently across different groups and then there was an attempt to reconcile them together to tell the history. In the NT, it’s like these four guys couldn’t agree what happened, and then this random guy who didn’t actually meet Jesus, but said “trust me, bro!” Got in to a bunch of arguments with the disciples and wrote a bunch of letters about what he thought people should do. A few hundred years later some guys decided what books they liked and wanted to keep in the biblical cannon, and systematically set out to destroy all other writings, so very few survive. I think the Jewish approach is also different than “the Bible is the infallible word of God and everything in it is true and should not be questioned” mindset that many Christian’s have. Which makes it funny how cobbled together the whole thing is…. Like ngl, the NT was very low effort compared to an oral history passed down through millennia.
Of course Christians will claim the message in the NT is different from the OT. If they didn't then they'd have no excuse not to follow ALL the OT laws, including snipping your weewee. Paul argued that faith in Christ, rather than strict adherence to the Mosaic Law, was the path to righteousness and salvation Seriously, why do you think Paul dropped all that law stuff when he saw there were very few Jewish takers and he started fishing in gentile waters? I'll bet the snipping requirement wasn't very marketable.
Christian’s believe that Jews are Gods chosen people. Additionally, there are many prophesies that speak of the messiah and point to Jesus. Additionally, we should take and revere every interaction and writing with God that we can. Even if many of those commandments are not currently applicable to us.
Virtually the entire Jewish community rejects those prophecies as "pointing to Jesus" Among them He never ruled He did not bring the nations together And so on - the Jewish point of view AFAIK is that the NT tries to retro fit the prophecies to make it fit Jesus without success. It does become interesting when non Jews try to explain the prophecies to those who supposedly know them the best - the Jewish people.
I know Jews reject him. But Christian’s find a lot of value in the Old Testament. Many things that point to Christ the Jews don’t even feel point to any messiah figure.
Christians don’t believe we are the Chosen People. They believe in supersessionism.
No, we believe Jews are chosen.
We believe both actually.
Exactly Jews still existing is a theological conundrum for Christianity as a religion in general. And supersessionism and replacement theology is the way that Christianity tried to reconcile that conundrum, except Jews then being not willing to fall inline with the solution, continues to be a conundrum, hence 2 millennia of Jewish history.
Actually, I’d argue supersessionism is not the commonly held opinion in modern times. Dual covenant theology is very prevalent, at least here in the US.
Perhaps in very liberal Christian groups and surprisingly Catholicism, but look at the conversion attempts by missionaries. Those are indictive of supersessionism as much as forced baptism was.
It definitely is still a commonly held belief. Even in the US.
Ehhhh I don’t know. Most Christian’s I know believe Jews are
Does that include reverence for the Hindu gods or the gods of the New World?
No. It’s “the one true God. The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob”
Or as other religions would call your "one true god" the "false god" and that seems to be a sticky problem with religions in general.
Agreed.
It might have been better if they had dropped some of the historical books, which have probably given some people very bad ideas, but Christianity would have struggled without having the Tanakh as a solid foundation to build on.
In the modern age it is. And that's just because more people are literate.
Aside from the other issues with this question others pointed out, this also presupposes that early Christians had a dishonest utilitarian reason for choosing their scriptures. Whether or not including the OT helped or hurt the missionary efforts of early Christians is irrelevant - the OT was of absolute fundamental importance to their beliefs. Jesus is a messiah explicitly in the context of the Jewish prophetic tradition. To Christians Jesus is God specifically as described by Jewish tradition in the OT. Jesus himself in the Gospels is constantly quoting and referring back to OT scripture, and all of the first people to follow him and/or his message were Jews. The events and prophecies in the OT are interpretted by Christians to be pointing forward to Jesus' eventual arrival and his deliverance of salvation. Knowing how the Abrahamic God interacting with the world and its people before the coming of Jesus is of utmost importance to the followers of Jesus' teachings. Additionally, the objections against the events in the OT you are referring to simply weren't that objectionable in the ancient world. This trend of criticizing Christianity and Judaism over the God-sanctioned violence (and other things we have moral qualms with) attested to in the OT is almost entirely modern.