Which is the correct tree?*
One could argue that this is fallacious insofar as Judaism is the "ancestor" of both Islam and Christianity, but my own opinion is that the Jewish traditions of this day and age (including "Orthodox" Judaism) are very different from ancient Judaism (the transition from ancient to modern Judaism might be analogized to anagenesis, while the relationship between Christianity and ancient Judaism is more like cladogenesis). In the United States the term "Judeo-Christian" became popular after World War II as the "Protestant-Catholics-Jew" alignment was used to characterize the piety of the American republic (the core of the "civic religion"). But my own experience with Jews is that substantively they are skeptical of the "Judeo-Christian" concept because it is Muslims who are, unlike Christians, uncontestably monotheists. Though the contingencies of history place Judaism and Christianity in alliance, there is a tacit implication from many of my acquaintances that in many ways Judaism and Islam are far more similar.
With that, I point you to Noah Millman, a believing Jew who has his own opinions on the topic of religion, reason, and the monotheisms. I would like to highlight this point though:
It seems to me that much theology is more technical and instrumental in its reasoning than its practitioners admit, and that as a matter of history Christianity has had its partisans of unreason as well as reason. But I did want to address a common assumption, that Judaism works in some way similarly to Christianity in this regard. It does not - anyway, traditional Judaism does not.
The fundamental problem with an "axiomatic" concept of culture which abduces back aspects of a book or text as the source of an aspect of a culture is that I strongly suspect texts have within them enough texture and vagueness that a sufficiently clever theologian can "reason" to almost any position from any arbitrary textual passage. Unlike science, the "theory" of textual analysis and exegis has no empirical check, God does not descend from on high (except in Talmudic legends) to falsify and sift between correct and incorrect theories. The only judge is the social consensus of the believers. As Muhammad said, "My Ummah shall not agree upon error."
* The analogy between culture and species fails in many areas, and the ubiquity of "horizontal transfer" among cultures is a clear difference. Nevertheless, I am less concerned with the genuine substance of the relationships (which I think can be better analyzed using a phenetic approach) than the cladistic perception in the public zeitgeist.
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Archy, who is a professional historian, has a somewhat different take on the origin of the phrase "Judeo-Christian".
Archy, who is a professional historian, has a somewhat different take on the origin of the phrase "Judeo-Christian".
there is something to that.
I confess that I picked the tree on the right without stopping to think about the differences between ancient Judaism and the modern varieties. Historically, Islam in its earliest growth was influenced by both Judaism and Christianity, but I think it took much more from the former.
I agree with archie, my memory is that the words started appearing 1970-1980, possibly at the latter end of that span. The Podhoretz and other neocons were trying to make the Jews more conservative and less secular, though the phrase "Judeo-Christian" probably came from politicians trying to recruit Jews into the Battle of Civilizations.
There are a lot of Christian Palestinians, but I've read that the Muslim Palestinians have a slogan "First Saturday, then Sunday": once we've finished off the Jews, we'll get the Christians.
So the theocon slogan would be "After Friday, then Saturday".
I absolutely agree that Judaism and Islam are much closer theologically than either of them is to Christianity. If it had not been for many Jews living in mostly Christian areas and trying to avoid forced conversion, modern Judaism probably wouldn't even accept Christianity as a legitimate monotheistic religion. The proclamations by the Rabbinate of the 9th & 10th centuries put that question to rest.
As for modern practice, it is definitely different than it was 3000 years ago. But I would argue that the essential elements (holidays, major commandments, etc) existed at the time of Christ -- and that Judaism as practiced outside of Israel at that time wouldn't be significantly different from a theological perspective than it is practiced today. Obviously, there is much more attention paid to the rebuilding of the Temple and the coming of the Messiah -- but even this doesn't have huge implications in the worship of Judaism, which is mostly concentrated on actions.
Razib,
I think both trees are very sparse and incomplete... and should be more bushy...
Caveat: I'm no religious scholar, but jusy musing as a layperson and Atheist.
I would seperate Judaism into 3 branches, Ancient, Modern and Comtemporary. I would seperate Islam into Shia and Sunni, and Christianity into Catholicism, Orthodox and Protestantism.
I think that Ancient Judaism is the root and under infleunce from Zoroasterianism, yields Modern Judaism (i.e. post exilic).
This in turn under infleunce from Greek religion (mythos) yields Christianity.
Modern Judaism also yields Islam.
Islam under the infleunce of Christianity and Zoroasterianism, yields Shia Islam.
Christianity splits into Catholic and Orthodox.
Catholicism under the infleunce of Northern European mythos and some Orthodox yields Celtic Christinaity.
Celtic Christinaity yields Protestantism.
Protestantism infleunces Modern Judaism to yield Contemporary Judaism.
I think both trees are very sparse and incomplete... and should be more bushy...
Caveat: I'm no religious scholar, but jusy musing as a layperson and Atheist.
see my addendum. if i wanted to be 'accurate,' i'd have to make a bramble :)
Hmmm --- on what grounds specifically does Jewish thought disqualify Christianity as a monotheistic religion?
As an ex-Catholic atheist/agnostic/Deist (depending on my mood) who enjoys learning about Judaism, I have often felt that Jews get too distracted by the whole Trinity thing. In my view, there is actually something of a precedent for this doctrine in the Jewish custom of speaking about shekhina as the (grammatically feminine) "Spirit of God."
On the other hand, what ought to rule out Christianity as a monotheistic religion is the Christian conception of Satan -- although he's ostensibly just a fallen creation, in functional terms he comes very close to being an equal-but-opposite Antigod. Indeed, although all Christian denominations agree on the absolute necessity of Jesus Christ's death on the cross, how can any course of action be "necessary" for God, unless he's locked in a struggle with a hostile adversary of similar power? Without the presence of a powerful Satan who can DEMAND the sacrifice of God in the person of His Son, the entire Crucifixion story loses its dramatic force -- it just becomes God sacrificing Himself to Himself, in order to satisfy a requirement that He Himself made up.
Obviously, this is my analysis as an ex-Christian -- it would be heretical for any adherent of Christianity to suggest that the religion is in fact "crypto-dualist."
Hmmm --- on what grounds specifically does Jewish thought disqualify Christianity as a monotheistic religion?
you answered your question in the second paragraph. jews & muslism are not the only ones who think that the trinity is polytheistic, many christians like isaac newton perceived as a paganized influence within christianity, a greek trojan horse. as an atheist, these are just word games to me, but words matter to most people.
there has long been a debate about whether christian houses of worship can later be used to jewish services. i believe in most christian countries jews have have pragmatically agreed that they can be. to my understanding there has never been this argument with mosques, precisely because there is never any confusion as to whether muslims are monotheists.
the point about satan is interesting. the problem though with logical analysis of the terms is that unless you are a believer you start (in my opinion) chasing your tail as they aren't leading anywhere that corresponds to the convential understanding of a religion. theology is window dressing on the cognitive substratum, which is operationally henotheistic, that is, devotion to one primary god (even if you are a hindu or polytheist pagan of some sort), but acknowledgement of other power forces (some friendly, some not so).
Can somebody give me a quick History lesson here:
At what point in the evolution of Christianity did the Trinity start to become such a central concept?? When did Jesus stop being thought of as just the son of a God (a very commonplace thing in Greek/Roman mythology) and start being thought of as an actual God? And when (& how) did the "Holy Spirit" stop being an abstract emotion, and become a distinct, autonomous "Person" ?
At what point in the evolution of Christianity did the Trinity start to become such a central concept
i believe it was common by 200, and normative at the council of nicea, 325.
When did Jesus stop being thought of as just the son of a God (a very commonplace thing in Greek/Roman mythology) and start being thought of as an actual God?
i don't think this is the way to think about, the question, at what point did jesus transform from human to god. i think ~100 is a good date, after the final break between jews and christians catalyzed by the first jewish rebellion.
I'm surprised you didn't offer up the other possible tree with Judaism branching off first. Christians long viewed Islam as a version of the Arianist heresy. Christianity and Islam share universalism and evangelism (there may be elements of both in Judaism, but they are not normative). There have been other Christian groups that have followed Mosaic dietary laws and disputed the divinity of Christ.
As I understand it, there are trinitarian ideas in Judaism, but they were a much bigger deal in pagan neo-Platonism.
Christianity and Islam have come to be styled as universal religions open to all. Judaism has been come to be styled as a relatively exclusionary sect. Despite some doctrinal similarities, are these really parallel belief systems - now?
Christianity and Islam are also both imperial religions: of the Umayyad and Roman/Holy Roman Empires. Judaism has ceased to be, but now a Jewish state has been created. Maybe Judaism will change its doctrines to accept converts to survive as a state religion.
Machiavelli noticed that armed prophets succeed and unarmed prophets fail. But the converse might also be true: prophetic armies can succeed where non-prophetic armies fail. "Convert or die" might not be a great choice, but it's a mite more attractive than "die."
>When did Jesus stop being thought of as just the son of a
>God (a very commonplace thing in Greek/Roman mythology) and
>start being thought of as an actual God?
i don't think this is the way to think about, the question, at what point did jesus transform from human to god. i think ~100 is a good date, after the final break between jews and christians catalyzed by the first jewish rebellion.
Clearly, the answer to this depends very much on what sort of answers one accepts to some very basic questions about where certain New Testament passages come from. The opening of John's Gospel states pretty clearly a believe in Jesus as God. However, opinions vary widely on when it was written, with orthodox Christian sources usually putting it earlier and those skeptical of Christian claims putting it later.
Whether Paul clearly states a belief in Jesus' divinity in the Epistles is perhaps more open to argument, though it seems to me pretty clear, but even there, there are those who claim that the Epistles were either written or ammended later.
Either way, as with dating a species by the first appearance of fossils, I'd suggest that the belief probably preceded the first writing of it by a ways. And thus it seems that the belief in Christ's divinity must have been quite, quite early in the history of Christianity.
As a Catholic, of course, I'd say that it was part of Christ's original message and that it was understood as such by the Apostles.