from Judaism to Christianity?

Question

genuine curiousity here , so please help me out if you can

why is there such a big leap from the Jewish beliefs to the Christian beliefs in regards to things such as Hell etc ?

surely if Christianity came from Judaism and the God remains the same ... why then does such a place like Hell exist in Christianity and not in Judiasm ?

St Louis ... then why wasnt Moses informed about Hell ?
why is the OT still included if it is not " proper " ?

Answer 1

What we now call the 1st century BC thru the 3rd century AD ((calendars have changed a few times since then)) saw the rise of many different traditions and sects in the middle east. All of them kinda saying the same things but yet different, which caused alot of turmoil in the roman empire.

The Essenes fighting with the Pauline Christians, the Paulines fighting with the gnostics, the gnostics fighting with the Essenes...you get the idea---it was a big ol' mess---though even bigger since I am only naming a few of the various groups.

Finally the Emperor Constantine in the 4th century said "enough is enough-figure out what ya believe". Simplified, but that is the just of it. Unfortunately, ONLY the Pauline sect of Christianity was invited to attend these councils that defined Christianity.... a few highlights.

325CE Council of Nice Promotion of the Goodman: Christ is Divine

363CE Council of Laodicea names 26 New Testament books as "inspired word of God"; Book of Revelation is excluded.

364CE Council of Laodicea ordered that religious observances were to be conducted on Sunday, not Saturday.

381CE First Council of Constantinople drew up a dogmatic statement on the Trinity and defined Holy Spirit as having the same divinity expressed for the Son by the Council of Nicea 56 years earlier.

Once the Orthodoxy was established, this new Church (the Catholics) used the Romans to kill off all the nay-sayers. Over the next several centuries the Catholics added to their religious views and creating laws concerning heresy (originally merely meaning Free Thinking) which the only punishment was death. The catholics not only killed off the other religous sects but also rewrote history. Which was easy to do when they were burning all the libraries--which did plundge the world into the 'dark ages'.

In many cases, the only references to these various sects or their scriptures was in comments referring to the in various letters written by catholic officals of the time period.

When the 'Dead Sea Scrolls' were first found the Christian community thought 'yeah, here is the PROOF of our faith'...hehehee which was said until they were translated and they found out what they actually had---gnostic scriptures, then they were dropped like a hot potato.

This is only a brief, simplified history of Christianity---really getting into it is a MAJOR WOOOW.

As to your question concerning the differences between Christianity and Judism is largely to do with the teachings of Paul. The teachings of 'Jesus' are largely based upon the Laws of Moses, while Paul says that people don't need these laws since they have their god 'Jesus'.

Though based upon the OLD LAWS, Paul teaching this marks him as a 'false prophet'. See Deuteronomy Chapter 13.

Many of the OTHER variants in the mythos and ritual practices can also be traced to the canaanites in the OT. In hosea and Habakkuk, we learn of the 'sons of ephraim'--the Canaanites, they venerated a stick of wood, offered up human sacrifice upon high places--like MT Calvary, used human sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin, and relished in their sin, just as Christians do---though all practices were defined as an abomination to god in the OT.

Alittle of the Canaanite mythology. Ya got Elohim, this powerful father god with a violent temper who favored his son MOT-the god of darkness. Mot was in an eternal struggle with BAAL, the 'resurrected' son god of LIFE/Fertility. hheheee which does sound familiar to the Christian story of the fall of Lucifer and the struggle between "Jesus' and 'satan'.

Answer 2

(((((Pangel)))))

There are a lot of historical currents and forces in play. A number of them are mentioned in a several of the answers here so far.

While I'm not an expert on the history of ideas of Hell, a couple things to add into the discussion are

(a) both Judaism and the Christian movement have always been living traditions, always evolving, and always containing multiple currents inside of them, and

(b) each has also always been influenced by other traditions and cultural forces outside of them.

One big factor is the exposure of Judaic peoples to Persian culture and Zorastrianism (lots of dual good versus evil perspective, lots of heavenly entities and demon figures) in the period of time between the last Hebrew Testament writings and the first Christian writings.

And Christianity was deeply influenced by Hellenistic culture. Paul's version of religiousness very much qualifies as a mystery religion.

So, my little point here, is that it's not really a direct line you can trace going from Judaism to Christianity. Christians owe much more to Jews than any other religious peoples, but both have a lot of variety within them and both owe a lot to other cultural influences, as well.
.

Answer 3

I do not know the answer exactly... I do know that the Jews held a big conference after The Church started to gain real popularity. I think it was around 400A.D. They made a lot of changes in their stated "beliefs" so to distance them from The Church. The leaders knew they would be out of jobs if The Church kept going and The Truth of direct connection between The Nation of Israel(the Jews) and The Church was kept and accepted by the greater body of the Jews.... The Church is open to All who will enter as God prescribes...and that includes The Nation of Israel...but there is no position for a leadership such as the Jews had at that time...so needless to say the leaders were not happy about The Church taking over... even if it was clearly God who instituted The Church.

Answer 4

Pangel, Hell, Satan, the devil as a being totally dedicated to Evil didn't even exist in the Christian Church until about 1000 AD. Prior to that, the "devil" was merely a TEMPTER Who was simply cast out of heaven, not into HELL per se. Just out of the sight of God ( a concept that is unimaginable for an onmipresent being). Perhapos it just meant that the Devil couldn't see God but God could see him (it?). The concept of Hell and the devil began around the time of the Nicene (sp) Council but was not fully Developed until the time that the Inquisition began and then, it tok on a life all of it's own. Today, most Christians simply cannot function without there being a HELL to be afarid of going to..

BB,
Raji the Green Witch

Answer 5

As you pointed out, the beliefs of eternal torment and an immortal soul have no place in Judaism. They were picked up by the church of Rome at the time of Constantine when pagans entered the church. The beliefs have become rooted in Christianity and some have taken biblical texts out of context in an effort to support these beliefs. An honest study of scripture will leave you with the conclusion that these teachings are man made.

Answer 6

Paul and the church that followed. There also might be some weight to the fact that a whole religion exists based on one man....but a record of his actual words and deeds exists nowhere, and the book that the religion is based off was written by people 30 years after his death and for the most part, by people who had never met him.

Maybe?

Answer 7

God is just a figment of the human beings imagination originally created by poor people with under developed intelligence.
Anything they seen they couldn't find a reason for or understand they developed a God for it. Nothings changed because most people are still too primative to think any better. Human beings are still very primative. All religions contradict themselves which is proof alone that its all manmade rubbish.

Answer 8

Christianity copied a lot of religions. The life of Jesus for instance is a rip off of Mithra as are many of the early church rituals. Christianity and Judaism are nothing alike.

Shihan claims Jews do not believe in an after-life, that is completely false, she obviously knows nothing about Judaism

Answer 9

Hell is a grave, if your not in the book of life you will be forever away from God (Hell) your second death this is your finally death you will be no more, you wont be tortured or anything like that you existed no more, your thrown into the lake of fire and puff you are dead.

Answer 10

Having been a Jew and now a Christian-based Fusionist, I wonder the same darned thing!

I do know that Jews do not believe in an afterlife. (My father always said that his children were his reincarnated spirit.) What Jesus offered was the potential for eternal life. I think that is one of the things that scared the Jews so much. And because God was offering the Jews this potential, and they rejected it, He finally got fed up and said you know what? I'm going with the Gentiles ("goyim" in Yiddish). I'm over this. I'll let the Priests (Levites) in on it, but that is it. Okay, Jesus, go for the Gentiles. So the Gentiles said "eternal life!!?? Coool!" and they conceived of heaven and hell.

The end.

Believe that one, I'll tell ya another . . .

(((Pangel)))
(((Retro)))