Sunday, November 25, 2007

Jewish roots of the Christian story

Listening keenly as Joel Marcus was being interviewed on NPR radio it reinforced the course content that was taught in our last religious class. The relationship between Jews and Christians, the controversial surrounding Jesus’ life, his ministry leading up to his death and resurrection, including the many events that followed after his resurrection as it relates to his followers.
I have also heard many preachers preached that the Jews were responsible for his death. I believe that many of them know that his death was caused by both Jews and Gentiles, but it is most often said that it was the Jews who handed him over to the Romans, because he often disagreed with many of their teachings especially the Pharisees. The type of death by crucifixion was a Roman punishment. After the death of Jesus, Christianity which started as a sect within Judaism struggled to survive during the Roman Empire.
I was amazed to understand that during the first century of the church that the movement was entirely Jewish. It was after sixty to seventy years after the death of Jesus when the Jews started to rebel against the Romans, leading to the destruction of the temple in Jeruslem.Jews and Christians got together after been crushed by the Romans, they concluded that it was impossible to be a good Jew and a Christian at the same time. I believe this was the beginning of the conflict between Jews and Christians. I find Christianity to be very controversial. There are so many different believes as it relates to Jesus’ teachings, mainly baptism, forgiveness of one’s sin, where one would spend eternity after death, and the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit
The interview was interesting it made me more aware of the sensitivity of the Jews as it relates to the death of Jesus and who was responsible.

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