What is the DIFFERENCE between CATHOLICS and JEWS!?

Question

I'm confused on the differences between Catholics and Jews. I thought I UNDERSTOOD them, but after my last question, I think I was misinformed on the differences between CATHOLICS and JEWS.

I grew up BAPTIST, and have not studied outside RELIGIONS much. I haven't got any friends who are either CATHOLIC or JEWSIH to ask. I KNOW HOW TO BE SAVED, but I don't know the DIFFERENCE between all the different CHURCHES.

John 3:16
-Mrs. Paige

Answer 1

Well, you fall under the greater religion of Christianity - along with Catholics, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and anyone else who believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah.

Jews, however, are not considered Christians, because they do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. Many Jews believe instead that there will be a "Messianic Age" in which, basically, the world has a "happy ending" - and through their actions, they try to make that happy ending come. Jews believe in God very strongly, but they do not believe that Jesus is the son of God.

The connection between Judaism and Christianity is that Judaism is one of the foundations of Christianity. Jews, for example, wrote the Old Testament and it is considered the Jewish bible (or "Torah") while the New Testament (which is where Jesus comes in) is considered the Christian bible. And as you probably know, Jesus was a Jew.

Wikipedia says: "Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people with around 15 million followers as of 2006[1]. It is one of the first recorded monotheistic faiths and one of the oldest religious traditions still practiced today. The values and history of the Jewish people are a major part of the foundation of other Abrahamic religions such as Christianity, Islam, as well as Samaritanism and the Bahá'í Faith."

Another difference is that Christians believe that we are all born sinners, but "the Jewish view is that humans are not born naturally good or naturally bad. They have both a good and a bad inclination in them, but they have the free moral will to choose the good and this free moral will can be more powerful than the evil inclination. Indeed, Jewish ethics requires the idea that humans decide for themselves how to act."

Finally, Jews do not believe that other people will necessarily go to hell, not by any means! Being the "chosen people" never meant "chosen for heaven", because heaven isn't a very big part of the Jewish religion. Here is what Jews believe about heaven:

"Judaism does not believe people who are Gentiles will automatically go to Hell or that Jews will automatically go to Heaven on their basis of their belonging to the faith. Rather, individual ethical behavior is what is most important."

What "chosen people" means, is that Jews were chosen by God (or perhaps chose God) to enter in a covenant - basically, Jews and God chose each other to be in a spiritiual relationship with each other.

"Crucial to the Jewish notion of chosenness is that it creates obligations exclusive to Jews, while non-Jews receive from God other covenants and other responsibilities. Generally, it does not entail exclusive rewards for Jews."

Check out the sites below for more info.

Answer 2

My dear lady, you just turned off a whole world of people. Unfortunately the Baptist have the reputation for being the most zealot, misinformed intolerant of all the Christian religions. Catholics BELIEVE that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save them from their sins, they are despite the misinformation that you received in your Baptist upbringing. Jewish people are split into many different sects, there is a group of Jews that are Messianic Jews and they do believe that Jesus Christ was the true messiah. If you really want to be heard and be helpful without being attacked you must first educate yourself, and second not be so judgmental about things which you, yourself have admitting to knowing nothing about.
God loves many more people than just the Baptist's, so get ready cause some of us United Methodist,Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Church of Christ, Church of God, Pentecostal, and absolutely CATHOLICS are going to be your neighbors in heaven.
Good luck , calm down, study with an open mind and God bless you.

Answer 3

The Jewish religion was the chosen and true religion until the time of Christ. They were God's chosen people, the people that would obtain salvation because they followed God's Law. When Christ was on the earth, He destroyed the religion of Judaism and replaced it with Catholicism. Christian and Catholic mean the exact same thing. Christian means you follow Christ's teachings and Catholic means "universal". It's the universal Christian religion.

So when Christ died, the only true religion remaining was Catholic. He destroyed the temple, signifying a cease of use for it. He was the sacrifice to end all blood sacrifices. Now we must do good works and receive the sacraments to obtain Heaven. Only through this one true religion can we hope to obtain Heaven.

On a further note, Protestant religions (such as Baptist, Lutherans, Methodists, etc...) were all started by men who disagreed with the Catholic Church started by Jesus. These religions cannot lead to heaven because they are not divine, but man made. In 1960 many non-Catholics infiltrated the offices of the Catholic Church and propagated their heresy at Vatican II. At this point, the Church only contained a remnant because many of the Catholics stopped following the Church and followed these new heresies. Most of what you see today called "Catholic" is truly not.

Catholics attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which is done in latin and is the same mass that Our Lord said at the Last Supper 2000 years ago. We follow His teachings. I know it is confusing because the devil has made it so. Traditional Catholics are the only followers left on this earth of Christ.

Answer 4

Catholics believe Jesus Christ is True God of True God and True Man of True Man, both Savior and Redeemer. Catholics believe Jesus is the Word and the Word is with God and the Word was God.

Jews do not believe this. They believe the Messiah is yet to come and he will not be divine.

Catholic services however were in their origin written by James, Peter, Mark and Thomas. Their services are still in use and they were of course written by Jewish writers and come out of the synagogue. Almost every word of a Catholic service comes directly out of scripture so I could understand the confusion. Catholics and the Orthdox are the original Christians. There is no other group older than they are. The Catholics and the Orthodox are not two separate Churches but the One Church split by schism. They are not different denominations. In fact the word Catholic means "all embracing," or what is often now called non-denominational.

Jews reject Christianity as a complete misunderstanding of the life of Jesus or reject the life of Jesus as a false God.

Answer 5

In short, Catholics are Christians too, and the main difference is that they are under the authority of the Pope, venerate the Virgin Mary as well, and some Saints, and the specific doctrine they follow includes some additional sacraments, the most notorious one being probably confession. Priests are not allowed to get married. And although they believe in Christ, there is a lot of "righteousness by works" in catholicism.
Jews, well, the simplest way to put it, they believe in the God of the Old Testament. So for them Jesus is only a prophet and the Messiah is yet to come, they probably think that the Messiah will be a king in the earthly way and will win battles for them or so (not the way we understand Jesus as being King, but His kingdom not being from this world).
So, Christians and Jews have part of the doctrine in common (the old Testament), and they all follow the same ten commandments, but Jews also follow some laws that Jesus made unnecessary for us Christians (bus since Jews don't believe that Jesus is God, then they keep following those laws, like circumcision, for example, or the way they eat their food). Their righteousness is totally by works, by following the law.
Ok, yeah, this wasn't too short, but it's a lot more complicated, I totally tried to summarize here.

Answer 6

Roman Catholics are the original Christians who believe in not only the Bible and Jesus' teachings but also certain rituals (e.g. seven sacraments, mass) that maximize the aesthetic and moral qualities of their life. Catholicism is a denomination of Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox denomination is similar to it.
Judaism, on the other hand, is a different religion. Its followers only believe in the Old Testament.
The Baptist religion is a Protestant religion that basically takes away some of the parts of Christianity that people don't like to follow. The basic difference among Christian denominations is that they disagree on some relatively minor issues.
I can't outline all these religious beliefs here without copying and pasting, so I recommend you look on Wikipedia or something like that.

Note: Don't believe many of these lies! Catholicism uses both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. In fact, it's said that St. Peter (Jesus' disciple) started the Catholic Church under God's command. It's the first Christian denomination. It believe in Jesus. It's Seven Sacraments are Baptism, Reconciliation (Penance), Holy Communion (Eucharist), Confirmation, Matrimony, Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick. The majority of Christians in the world are Catholic. We have a hierarchy of priests that ends in this world with the pope, the leader of the Catholic Church. The current pope is Pope Benedict.

Answer 7

Judaism was the first major monotheistic religion (one big kahuna as opposed to lots of minor gods which most other ancients worshipped) The other two, of course, are christianity and islam. They all worship roughly the same god.

Christianity basically arose out of/broke away from Judaism with the belief that Jesus was the Messiah predicted by the old testament prophets. The early christian church eventually took on the form of the Catholic church with the pope etc etc

In the 16th century...Martin Luther (among others) had problems with the way the pope was running things, and this led to the Protestant Reformation and new groups of christians took up a different kind of worship independent from the catholic church and the pope. Protestants have since had many many many doctrinal schisms...one of which led to the formation of the Baptists. The catholics keep plugging away pretty much unchanged.

So...thats your mini history lesson. What do they teach in schools these days?? I would suggest reading books other than the bible and get out of your small town as its a big old world with lots of different belief systems. Most of them are quite fascinating, and equally as bizarre and ludicrous as christianity.

The above is for historical purposes only, as god is imaginary.

Answer 8

I'm Catholic. We were taught in Catholic school to be respectful of others religions and their beliefs.

We also had quite a bit of education on other religions: all the Protestant churches, Jews (Conservative, Orthodox and Reform), Muslims, Hindi, Buddhist, Zoroastrians, Mormons, Pagans, etc. We had a number of guest speakers from other religions and visited different faiths places of worship.

I guess I just demonstrated the difference between Catholics and Baptists. Sorry for not staying on topic.

Go to some place like Wikipedia and look up "religion", then read all the hyperlinks to each religion. You can widen your world in two hours of reading.

Answer 9

Jesus and his disciples grew up as jews. Jesus said he came to establish his church, that he was the fulfillment of the old covenant between God and his people and that he was initiating the new covenant. The church Jesus started was the Catholic Church, so Catholics were the first Christians.

Later, a Catholic monk from Germany named Martin Luther didn't like some of the doctrines of the Church, so he started his own religion. He took out many books from both the old and new testaments (though most protestants have restored the New Testament) and even added some words to the Bible that weren't there in the original text so as to support his change in doctrine. Because he "protested" against the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church, his followers are called "protestants" and they continue the practice today of making up new religions when doctrines don't suit them.

Answer 10

To put it bluntly...

Catholics are Christians.

Jews aren't.

Catholics celebrate Christmas and all that and accept Jesus as the Messiah. They differ from Protestantism (like baptists, pentecostal, methodist, lutheran, etc...) in a few things. Catholics believe that when they take communion, they are actually eating the Body and Blood of Christ, they have some extra apocryphal books in their Bible, they believe only certain people can be saints (as opposed to the sainthood of all believers), and they think the Pope is the head of the church. Some will argue that Catholics are not Christians, but they believe in Jesus' divinity, so they are.

Jews do not accept Jesus as the Messiah and are still waiting for theirs to come. They are not a Christian denomination or sect. They are not a Christian church. They meet in synagogues and believe in the Old Testament, only.