Christianity vs Judaism

Christians teach that there is one God, who exists eternally as three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.¹³⁴ This teaching is called the Trinity, and the Catholic Catechism calls it the central mystery of Christian faith and life.¹ Christians also hold that the Son became human as Jesus, an event called the Incarnation.⁵

The branches part on one phrase about the Holy Spirit in the Nicene Creed, an early statement of Christian faith.³ Eastern Orthodox churches use the wording that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. Catholic teaching and the Westminster Confession, a Reformed Protestant statement, add "and the Son," in Latin filioque, which the Catechism calls a point of disagreement with the Orthodox.³¹⁴

Jewish tradition teaches that there is one God, the creator of all that exists, as the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4, declares.²⁶ Maimonides (1135 or 1138 to 1204 CE), a leading medieval teacher of Jewish law, writes that God is one in a way unlike any other unity and has no body.⁶⁷⁸ The Orthodox Union presents his thirteen principles of faith.⁹

The other movements describe God in their own terms. Conservative Judaism's 1988 statement of principles, Emet Ve-Emunah, allows two views of God: a supreme being who commands the world, or a presence found in the search for meaning and justice.¹⁰ The Reform rabbis' 1999 principles affirm God's oneness, and Reconstructing Judaism, the Reconstructionist movement's organization, calls God a power that works through people.¹¹¹²

Christians hold that Jesus of Nazareth, crucified under Pontius Pilate, rose from the dead and appeared to his followers for forty days.¹³³¹⁴ According to Acts, on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon the followers, and about three thousand people joined them that day.¹³

Historians describe Jesus as a Jew from Galilee who was put to death in about 30 CE, and his followers as a movement within Judaism.¹⁵¹⁶¹⁷ Dale Martin of Yale and Paula Fredriksen of Boston University hold that those followers were convinced he had been raised. Fredriksen says that as a historian this tells her about the followers, not about whether he rose.¹⁸¹⁹ N. T. Wright argues that history can weigh the resurrection, while Martin holds that historians' tools cannot say whether God was in Jesus Christ.²⁰¹⁸

In the Torah's account, God called Abram, later named Abraham, and made a covenant, a binding agreement, with him and his descendants. God later freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and gave the Torah at Mount Sinai.² Rabbinic tradition, and Orthodox Judaism today, holds that Moses received the Oral Torah there too, which explains the written Torah.⁸²¹

William Dever calls an Egyptian victory stele, an inscribed stone, the earliest reference to the Israelites outside the Hebrew Bible and dates it to about 1206 BCE; Christine Hayes gives 1204 BCE.²²²³ Hayes links early Israel to hill-country villages of the thirteenth to eleventh centuries BCE and notes that archaeologists have found no evidence of the extensive conquest Joshua describes.²³ Scholars differ on how much of the earlier account is history.²⁴

The Bible has two parts: the Old Testament, which holds the scriptures Christianity shares with Judaism, and the New Testament, which tells of Jesus and the early church.²⁵²⁷ Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant churches share 27 New Testament books but differ on the Old Testament.²⁸²⁵⁴ The Catholic Old Testament has 46 books, including Tobit and Judith, which Catholic documents call deuterocanonical and Protestants call the Apocrypha. Eastern Orthodox churches also count them among the genuine books of the Old Testament, while Protestant churches do not count them as scripture.^28272529 Christians hold that God inspired the human writers.³⁰²⁵⁴

Historians describe Paul's letters as the oldest New Testament writings, the earliest probably written around 50 CE, and Mark as the earliest Gospel, probably around 70 CE. Dale Martin explains that many modern scholars regard the Gospels as anonymous.³¹¹⁵

The Tanakh has three parts: the Torah, the five books of Moses; the Neviim, the Prophets; and the Ketuvim, the Writings.²⁶ Rabbinic tradition teaches an Oral Torah that explains the written text, recorded in the Mishnah, a body of rabbinic law, and the Talmud, later discussion of it.³²³³³⁴ The movements differ on revelation. The Orthodox Union teaches that Moses received every word of the Torah from God. Reform rabbis call Torah God's ongoing revelation, Conservative thinkers hold several views, and Reconstructionist Judaism sees Judaism as the product of the Jewish people's historical experience.^35111036

Christine Hayes describes the documentary hypothesis, which seeks to explain contradictions and repeated accounts in the Torah by four hypothetical sources written from about the tenth century BCE to the exile or after. She calls it a major hypothesis that is not without criticism.³⁷

Christians teach that sin has broken humanity's friendship with God.³⁸³⁹ All three branches read the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis as the account of the first sin.³⁸³⁹⁴

The branches describe the results differently. Catholic teaching holds that all people in Adam's line are born with original sin, though the Catechism says Mary was preserved from it. It calls original sin a state, not an act, and says human nature is wounded but not totally corrupted.³⁸ The Westminster Confession holds that the guilt of the first sin is counted to all descendants, who inherit a corrupted nature.⁴ An Orthodox Church in America answer says everyone bears the consequences, above all death, but only Adam and Eve are guilty.⁴²

Jewish tradition teaches that every person is created in God's image, and the Orthodox Union teaches that one meaning of this is free will.²⁴⁰ The rabbis describe two drives in each person, the yetzer tov, or good inclination, and the yetzer hara, or evil inclination. The evil inclination is not simply bad: a midrash, a rabbinic commentary, says that without it no one would build a house, marry, or have children.⁴¹⁴³

The rabbi Reuven Hammer writes: Judaism teaches that human beings are not basically sinful.⁴⁴ No one is born carrying the sin of ancestors, he adds.⁴⁴ The Torah also tells of Adam and Eve's disobedience in Eden.² This page does not cover how rabbinic teachers have read it.

Christians teach that salvation comes from God through Jesus, whose death and resurrection reconcile people to God and defeat death.⁴⁵⁵⁴⁸ The branches differ on how a person receives it. Catholic teaching holds that justification, being made right with God, is given in baptism, and the Catechism says it establishes cooperation between God's grace and human freedom.⁴⁹ Lutheran teaching holds that people are freely justified for Christ's sake, through faith, not by their own works, and Reformed teaching calls faith the only instrument of justification.⁴⁸⁴ Orthodox teaching describes the purpose of life as theosis, a sharing by grace in God's own life, and Catholic teaching uses similar language.⁵⁰⁵¹⁵

Jewish tradition teaches that the way forward is teshuvah, a return to God, with a life of Torah.^46524711 Maimonides describes teshuvah as abandoning the sin, regretting it, resolving never to repeat it, and confessing it in words, and the Orthodox Union lists the same steps.⁴⁶⁵² Maimonides also writes that even a person who repents on the day of death is forgiven.⁴⁶ He calls Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the high point of forgiveness and pardon for Israel.⁴⁶

Reform's 1999 principles add that Reform Jews are partners with God in tikkun olam, the repair of the world, and the Conservative statement Emet Ve-Emunah calls God and humanity partners in redemption.¹¹¹⁰

Christians teach that every person will face God's judgment and that the dead will be raised, to everlasting life or to condemnation.³⁴⁸⁴

The branches differ on what follows death. Catholic teaching holds that each soul is judged at death and enters heaven, at once or after purification in purgatory, or is condemned to hell, which the Catechism calls a state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God.⁵⁴⁵⁵⁵⁶ Reformed teaching holds that after death the souls of the righteous go to heaven and those of the wicked to hell, and that Scripture names no other place.⁴ Orthodox teaching holds that after the resurrection God's presence will be paradise for those who love God and hell for those who hate him.⁵⁷

The movements answer differently. Maimonides's eleventh principle holds that God rewards those who keep the Torah's commandments and punishes those who transgress its prohibitions, and the Orthodox Union calls Rosh Hashanah the Day of Judgment for all individuals and nations.⁵³⁵⁸ The Mishnah teaches that all Israel have a share in the World to Come, and the Orthodox Union calls the resurrection of the dead a fundamental belief.⁵⁹⁶⁰

The Conservative statement Emet Ve-Emunah affirms that death is not extinction and names bodily resurrection and the soul's lasting existence, which some Conservative Jews hold literally and others figuratively.¹⁰ Reform's 1999 principles trust the tradition's promise that the human spirit is eternal. Mordecai Kaplan (1881 to 1983), who founded Reconstructionist Judaism, affirmed the soul's immortality and did not accept bodily resurrection.¹¹⁶¹⁶²

Christians hold that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God, who became human, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and rose from the dead on the third day.³⁵ Key early figures include Peter, one of his original disciples; James, who led the Jerusalem group; and Paul, whose letters are part of the New Testament.¹⁷¹⁵²⁸

The branches honor figures differently. Catholic teaching holds that the pope, as Peter's successor, has full and supreme power over the whole church.⁶³ Catholic and Orthodox Christians hold Mary, Jesus's mother, in special honor, while the Westminster Confession directs worship to God alone, not to saints.⁶⁴⁶⁵⁴

The Torah presents Abraham and Sarah as the ancestors of the covenant people, and Moses as the one who received the Torah at Sinai.² Rabbinic tradition traces a chain of teaching from Moses through Joshua, the elders, and the prophets.⁶⁶

Later teachers shaped the texts and the law. Judah ha-Nasi edited the Mishnah around 200 CE, and the Orthodox Union credits Rav Ashi with compiling the Babylonian Talmud around 500 CE, while Stephen Wald describes a process of many centuries, before and after Rav Ashi.³³⁶⁷⁶⁸ Maimonides wrote a code of Jewish law and listed thirteen principles of faith.⁷⁸

Christians teach that a person should love God completely and love others as themselves. Matthew's Gospel names these as the two greatest commandments, and the Catholic Catechism teaches that the Ten Commandments must be read in the light of this double command of love.¹³⁶⁹⁷⁰

Christians traditionally gather on Sunday because they hold that Jesus rose on the first day of the week.⁶⁴⁷¹⁴ Catholic and Orthodox worship centers on the Eucharist, a meal both churches hold is the body and blood of Christ, while Reformed churches join the preached word and the sacraments.⁷²⁷³⁴ Matthew's Gospel gives the Lord's Prayer, which Jesus taught his followers, and the Catholic Catechism calls it the summary of the whole gospel.¹³⁷⁴

The Orthodox Union teaches that Jews should live by the Torah's commandments, the mitzvot, which the Torah presents within a covenant between God and Israel.⁴⁷² It teaches that 613 commandments bind the Jewish people, while seven given to Noah's descendants apply to all humanity.⁴⁷ The Torah also commands love of God and of one's neighbor as oneself.²

The movements differ on how binding Jewish law, halakhah, is. Emet Ve-Emunah calls halakhah indispensable but always developing.¹⁰ Reform's 1999 principles commit Reform Jews to study the mitzvot and fulfill those that address them, and Reconstructing Judaism teaches that the past has a vote, not a veto.¹¹⁶² Traditional practice includes Shabbat, the weekly day of rest, kosher food laws, and prayer three times a day.⁷⁵⁷⁶⁷⁷

Christian teachers read many Old Testament prophecies as pointing to Jesus.⁷⁸²⁵ Matthew's Gospel reads Isaiah 7:14, a virgin bearing a son named Immanuel, as fulfilled in his birth.¹³ Athanasius (about 296 to 373 CE) read Daniel's seventy weeks as foretelling his coming.⁸⁰⁷⁸ A 2001 Catholic Pontifical Biblical Commission document says the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one²⁷, but that reading as Judaism does means accepting rabbinic traditions that exclude faith in Jesus as Messiah and Son of God.²⁷

The Catholic declaration Nostra Aetate (1965) says God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their fathers and that the Church decries hatred and persecution of Jews at any time and by anyone. It adds that, although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God⁸¹. It also says the Jews in large number did not accept the Gospel and that Jewish authorities pressed for Jesus's death, which cannot be charged against all Jews then alive or against Jews today.⁸¹

The Eastern Orthodox document For the Life of the World (2020) says Orthodox Christians look to Jewish communities as, in some sense, their spiritual elders⁸². It adds that Christians must seek God's forgiveness for bigotry and violence against Jews.⁸² The Orthodox Church in America's manual (2023) says Israel was called to accept Jesus as the Messiah and that the Church still urges Jews to convert. It says most Jews of the first and second centuries rejected Jesus and saw his movement as a dangerous heresy. It also says that people who named themselves Christian committed terrible atrocities against Jewish people, which the Church teaches are sinful.⁸³

A 1982 World Council of Churches study document says the view that the Church replaced Israel had fateful consequences, and that Christians differ on whether mission to Jews is part of authentic Christian witness.⁸⁴ The evangelical Cape Town Commitment (2010) says the Jewish people were not strangers to the covenants and promises of God, and it acknowledges with grief Christian complicity in ethnic violence, including the holocaust against Jews. It also says they still need reconciliation to God through Jesus and urges the Church to share the good news with them.⁸⁵ Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, and Baptist statements are not covered here.

Rashi (1040 to 1105 CE), a leading medieval commentator, explains the young woman of Isaiah 7:14 as Isaiah's own wife. He reads Daniel's seventy weeks as 490 years from the First Temple's destruction to the Second's.⁸⁶⁷⁹⁸⁷

Maimonides writes that a would-be Messiah who fails or is killed is not the redeemer the Torah promises. He says Jesus of Nazareth aspired to be the Messiah and was executed by the court, and asks, Can there be a greater stumbling block than Christianity?⁸⁸ He says Christianity led Jews to be slain and the Torah to be altered, yet he writes that the deeds of Jesus will prepare the way for the Messiah's coming.⁸⁸

A 2016 statement from the Rabbinical Council of America, the Conference of European Rabbis, and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, three Orthodox rabbinic bodies, says Christian beliefs centered on Jesus as the Messiah and on a triune God create an irreconcilable separation from Judaism⁸⁹. It adds that some of Judaism's highest authorities hold that Christians have a special status because they worship the Creator of heaven and earth. It also calls Catholics partners, close allies, friends, and brothers, and asks Christian denominations that have not yet done so to excise anti-Semitism from their liturgy and doctrines and to end the active mission to Jews.⁸⁹

Conservative Judaism's 1988 statement, Emet Ve-Emunah, says belief in a trinitarian God can never be consistent with Jewish tradition and history. It also says Conservative Jews eschew triumphalism toward other ways of serving God. It says Maimonides believed Christianity and Islam spread knowledge of God and the Torah through the world, and that some modern thinkers hold that God may have entered covenants with many nations, and it calls either view compatible with commitment to one's own faith. It adds that honest Jewish-Christian relations must face centuries of prejudice and persecution.¹⁰

My Jewish Learning, an educational site, reports that the four main movements have all rejected Messianic Judaism as a form of Judaism.⁹⁰ Its congregations hold that Jesus is the Messiah and describe themselves as Jewish.⁹⁰⁹¹ Reform, Reconstructionist, and Haredi (often translated ultra-Orthodox) statements on Christianity are not covered here.⁹²