Christianity and Judaism - Sacred Texts

Sacred Texts

The Hebrew Bible is composed of three parts; the Torah (Instruction, the Septuagint translated the Hebrew to nomos or Law), the Nevi'im (Prophets) and the Ketuvim (Writings). Collectively, these are known as the Tanakh. According to Rabbinic Judaism the Torah was revealed by God to Moses; within it, Jews find 613 Mitzvot (commandments).

Rabbinic tradition asserts that God revealed two Torahs to Moses, one that was written down, and one that was transmitted orally. Whereas the written Torah has a fixed form, the Oral Torah is a living tradition that includes not only specific supplements to the written Torah (for instance, what is the proper manner of shechita and what is meant by "Frontlets" in the Shema), but also procedures for understanding and talking about the written Torah (thus, the Oral Torah revealed at Sinai includes debates among rabbis who lived long after Moses). The Oral Law elaborations of narratives in the Bible and stories about the rabbis are referred to as aggadah. It also includes elaboration of the 613 commandments in the form of laws referred to as halakha. Elements of the Oral Torah were committed to writing and edited by Judah HaNasi in the Mishnah in 200 CE; much more of the Oral Torah were committed to writing in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, which were edited around 600 CE and 450 CE, respectively. The Talmuds are notable for the way they combine law and lore, for their explication of the midrashic method of interpreting tests, and for their accounts of debates among rabbis, which preserve divergent and conflicting interpretations of the Bible and legal rulings.

Since the transcription of the Talmud, notable rabbis have compiled law codes that are generally held in high regard: the Mishneh Torah, the Tur, and the Shulchan Aruch. The latter, which was based on earlier codes and supplemented by the commentary by Moshe Isserles that notes other practices and customs practiced by Jews in different communities, especially among Ashkenazim, is generally held to be authoritative by Orthodox Jews. The Zohar, which was written in the 13th century, is generally held as the most important esoteric treatise of the Jews.

All contemporary Jewish movements consider the Tanakh, and the Oral Torah in the form of the Mishnah and Talmuds as sacred, although movements are divided as to claims concerning their divine revelation, and also their authority. For Jews, the Torah - written and oral - is the primary guide to the relationship between God and man, a living document that has unfolded and will continue to unfold whole new insights over the generations and millennia. A saying that captures this goes, "Turn it over and over again, for everything is in it."

Christians accept the Written Torah and other books of the Hebrew Bible as Scripture, although they generally give readings from the Koine Greek Septuagint translation instead of the Biblical Hebrew/Biblical Aramaic Masoretic Text. Two notable examples are:

• Isaiah 7:14 -- "virgin" instead of "young woman"
• Psalm 22 -- "they have pierced my hands and feet" instead of "like a lion, (they are at) my hands and feet"

Instead of the traditional Jewish order and names for the books, Christians organize and name the books closer to that found in the Septuagint. Some Christian denominations (such as Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox), include a number of books that are not in the Hebrew Bible (the biblical apocrypha or deuterocanonical books or Anagignoskomena, see Development of the Old Testament canon) in their biblical canon that are not in today's Jewish canon, although they were included in the Septuagint. Christians reject the Jewish Oral Torah, which was still in oral, and therefore unwritten, form in the time of Jesus.

Christians believe that God has established a new covenant with people through Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Epistles, and other books collectively called the New Testament (the word testament attributed to Tertullian is commonly interchanged with the word covenant). For some Christians, such as Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, this New Covenant includes authoritative Sacred Traditions and Canon law. Others, especially Protestants, reject the authority of such traditions and instead hold to the principle of sola scriptura, which accepts only the Bible itself as the final rule of faith and practice. Additionally, some denominations include the "oral teachings of Jesus to the Apostles", which they believe have been handed down to this day by Apostolic Succession.

Christians refer to the Biblical books about Jesus as the New Testament, and to the canon of Hebrew books as the Old Testament, terms associated with Supersessionism. Judaism does not accept the retronymic labeling of its sacred texts as the "Old Testament", and some Jews refer to the New Testament as the Christian Testament or Christian Bible. Judaism rejects all claims that the Christian New Covenant supersedes, abrogates, fulfills, or is the unfolding or consummation of the covenant expressed in the Written and Oral Torahs. Therefore, just as Christianity does not accept that Mosaic Law has any authority over Christians, Judaism does not accept that the New Testament has any religious authority over Jews.

Many Jews view Christians as having quite an ambivalent view of the Torah, or Mosaic law: on one hand Christians speak of it as God's absolute word, but on the other, they apply its commandments with a certain selectivity (compare Biblical law in Christianity). Some Jews contend that Christians cite commandments from the Old Testament to support one point of view but then ignore other commandments of a similar class that are also of equal weight. Examples of this are certain commandments that God states explicitly shall abide "for ever" (for example Exo 31:16-17, Exo 12:14-15), or certain practices which God prohibits as abominations, but which are not prohibited by most Christian denominations.

Christians explain that such selectivity is based on rulings made by early Jewish Christians in the Book of Acts, at the Council of Jerusalem, that, while believing gentiles did not need to fully convert to Judaism, they should follow some aspects of Torah like avoiding idolatry and fornication and blood, including, according to some interpretations, homosexuality. This view is also reflected by modern Judaism, in that Righteous Gentiles needn't convert to Judaism and need to observe only the Noahide Laws, which also contain prohibitions against idolatry and fornication and blood.

Some Christians agree that Jews who accept Jesus should still observe all of Torah, see for example Dual-covenant theology, based on warnings by Jesus to Jews not to use him as an excuse to disregard it, and they support efforts of those such as Messianic Jews (Messianic Judaism is considered by most Christians and Jews to be a form of Christianity) to do that, but some Protestant forms of Christianity oppose all observance to the Mosaic law, even by Jews, which Luther criticised as Antinomianism, see Antinomianism#Antinomian Controversies in Lutheranism and Luther#Anti-Antinomianism for details.

A minority view in Christianity, known as Christian Torah-submission, holds that the Mosaic law as it is written is binding on all followers of God under the New Covenant, even for Gentiles, because it views God’s commands as "everlasting" (Ps 119:152, 119:160; Ex 12:24, 29:9; Lev 16:29) and "good" (Neh 9:13; Ps 119:39; Rom 7:7-12).