Talk:Christianity and Judaism/Archive 3

message: There is a contraction in the article.  One part says:
*Only belief in Jesus, as a savior and son of God, could rescue a person from this fate. This is the majority Christian view.
and another part says:
*In response to these criticisms, Pope John Paul II on October 2 of that year emphasized that this document did not say that non-Christians were denied salvation: "this confession does not deny salvation to non-Christians, but points to its ultimate source in Christ, in whom man and God are united".  (emphasis added)
Any statement claiming to be a "majority Christian view" but at odds with the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church cannot be correct.  Stephen C. Carlson
:In theory you would be right, but the problem is that Christians have teachings which contradict each other. (So do Jews and Muslims.) The Catholic Church definately does not view this as a contradiction, even if you and I do. They seem to hold that since all salvation comes from Jesus (even for Jews who don't believe in him) then there can be no contradiction. Traditional Protestant Christians would claim that it is a contradiction, since no one is saved by Jesus unless said person actually believes in Jesus as God/messiah/trinity.  RK
:: I think the difference may be that the Catholic Church makes some allowance for a person to be saved after they have died, at least through their doctrine of Purgatory, while Protestants for the most part do not. I could be wrong, but I don't think the Orthodox Church makes a strong dogmatic stand on this point, and so the opinions of different Orthodox theologians will vary. On a minor tangent, the Roman Catholic Church is I think the single largest denomination, but is it so large as to comprise more than half of Christendom by itself? Wesley 18:58 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)
:::Not totally relevent to this discussion, but this comment belies a gross misunderstanding of purgatory.  Catholicism holds that it is impossible to be saved after death.  PStrait 18:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christian views and Catholic views - What constitutes a majority view? 

message: Editted the faith vs good works section to make beliefs a prequisite for salvation in Christianity.  Certainly, once can not be a Christian without the belief that Jesus, the Son of God, made flesh on earth, died for our Sins and rose on the third day, that mankind be saved. 
Proposed additions: 
# That the only way of approaching God is through the Son (Jesus).
# That faith is more important than good works.
# That a lack of faith (disbelief) bars one from salvation
# That a lack of good works can be forgiven by Jesus/God.
Can someone provide one or two examples of this: "Both views are based on texts in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible, Old Testament) that are quoted in the New Testament."?  
Someone may also with to state the status re salvation/comdemnation of those who lived before Jesus's death and those who have not had the opportunity of hearing the Gospel. OneVoice 13:28, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Faith versus works section 

message: Saying that Judaism requires good deeds is not entirely accurate. You have a number of occasions where people have repented at the end of their lives without doing any additional good deeds, and that repentance has been accepted. For example somebody who is well known to be a transgressor of the laws of the Torah, and marries a woman on the condition that he is righteous has perhaps married her, because his words are an indication that he might have repented of all his unjust deeds. We also find the story where somebody had done every sort of sexual misdeed and spent one hour in total regret after which he died, and was accepted as a righteous person.
In the other direction, you find that there those who say that any good deed that is not done because it is the will of God, is not counted as a good deed.
Ezra Wax
:Ezra, I think you are saying we need a more nuanced discussion and I think this is a good point.  My only caution is that we don't replace one generalization with another.  Perhaps different movements or Rabbis have taken different positions; or different texts say different things; or Jews' views have changed over time.  It would certainly be an improvement if we could be clearer about this.  But if we present different views, we also need to be clear about who or where these different views come from (I am not saying we need to quote specific rabbis, but we need to specify time and place, perhaps, or be clear whether a few, some, many or all Jews took this position). Slrubenstein
I would argue that Judaism does require good deeds; in Hebrew, "good deeds" are "mitzvot," meaning, "commandments." Jews are "commanded" to do them. EzraH 21:37, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Judaism requires one to do good deeds 

message: This is just to inform people that I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view.  In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate for the detailed proposal. Slrubenstein   |  Talk  22:55, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Announcing a policy proposal 

message: Is there any pre-Vatican II document that posits this as a possibility?  Or is this merely a post Vatican II anachronism/apologetic? Jayjg (talk) 23:28, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoops, looks like I posted at the same time as you. See below. --Xiaopo ℑ 23:40, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "while not denying the possibility that those not visibly members of the Church may attain salvation as well."

message: The doctrine that non-Catholics are not necessarily denied salvation is certainly not a Vatican II development -- not from a secular point of view, and certainly not from a modern Catholic point of view. (I'm not Catholic, incidentally) F'rinstance, here's the actual text from the two pre-Vatican 2 encyclicals mentioned in the article:
:“Outside of the Church, nobody can hope for life or salvation unless he is excused through ignorance beyond his control.” (Singulari Quidem (1856))
:“There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace.” (Quanto Conficiamur Moerore (1863))
It's certainly debatable how early this teaching is, but two things, at least, are clear: (1) That it predates Vatican 2 and (2) that asserting that the doctrine is a novel one is POV. --Xiaopo ℑ 23:40, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Catholicism and EENS 

message: I personally dislike the way people call Jesus "God". He is not an Independent God like some parts of this article states. He is in union with the father in heaven. I believe that he was part of God and not an individual god. Instead of saying like "He is God" should say "He was part of God". I am sure that other people have different views about this, but I believe that Jesus did not work individually but worked from his father that created everything. Ask yourself, why did he say that he had to descend to his father in heaven when he rose from the dead.
Draig goch20 23:09, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am afraid this is not a theology chat-page.  If that is what you are looking for, you really need to go outside of Wikipedia.  However, if you feel that there is a well-established Christian position that is excluded or misrepresented from, but relevant to, this article, by all means explain it to us and maybe you can help us improve this article. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 14:57, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Something to talk about 

message: I'm a little surprised that the devil is not mentioned in this article. Jews do not believe in his existance. Christians seem to have a viewpoint that good comes from God, and evil from the Devil. Jews reject the possibility of anything not coming from God. Evil is simply a lack of God.
The Satan is similar - Christians hold him to have an independent existance, but Jews believe he is merely an angel with no special powers, who was given the job of a prosecutor. The satan does his job properly, but takes no pleasure in it.
The reason I'm not writing this section myself is that I am not very familiar with the details of Christian belief, and I'm hoping Christians can expand on it. 67.165.96.26 23:30, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: For Christians, Satan and the devil are just two names for the same being, a fallen angel. Christian theology regarding the "problem of evil" and Satan's role in it is very diverse. For some I suppose, the devil is the "personification" of Evil, but I think for most he is just a created being who chose a path of evil, and not the sole personification or incarnation of it. As for the causes of evil, I've been taught in Orthodox Christianity that we have three enemies: Sin, Death, and the Devil. Sin would represent our own bad choices and their consequences, Death would refer to all the consequences of the fall and the "natural" bad things that happen, from having to work for a living, to dying, to "natural" disasters such as floods and hurricanes and droughts, etc. But there is so much diversity among Christian denominations on this topic, aside from Satan being a fallen angel (on which point they mostly agree), that I'm not sure it's possible to effectively compare Christian belief with Jewish belief in this area. Wesley 02:57, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  the devil 

message: This article is crying out for a section on "the body."  I am not in a position to even begin it now, but sooner or later I will.  I am hoping that in the meantime there are well-informed contributors who can start working on it. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 01:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  further work 

message: Would editors knowledgable about the Judeo-Christian ethic or tradition see my comment here: ?  Thanks, Slrubenstein   |  Talk 01:05, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  call for help 

message: This is minor, but I cut the reference to the direction of circles.  Christians as such generally do not ascribe any importance to either direction.  In fact, when Orthodox Christains circle around anything in their services (such as liturgical Entrances, or cross-processions on holy days) they always travel widdershins.  So to the extent any one direction is important, this isn't a difference.
Since the Jewish custom mentioned here of asking for the prayers of the deceased is essentially identical to that in Christianity, I wonder why it's listed here.  I suppose that to the extent it is different, it's that in some Christian churches certain particularly holy persons are formally recognized and their lives celebrated in the services, but any miracle is recognized as  coming from God whether it's mediated by a saint or not. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:27, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good move... it seems to be true on the outside, but it's only applicable at 8 Atzereth and Simchath Torah when there's a single (or double, I guess as well) "layer" of ppl dancing.  If there are 3 "layers", I've seen the "middle" one go clockwise on occasion.  Tomertalk 05:15, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Miscellaneous 

message: The discussion of the Catholic view appears to be literally correct but, as worded and placed in the main text, could be misinterpreted.  Catholic teaching does not condone abortion in any case, even if one is medically necessary to save the mother's life.  Catholic teaching does not condemn, however, a medical procedure (other than abortion) performed on a mother to save the mother's life, even if the procedure presents a risk to the fetus. It is a fine distinction, but an important one.  Since the section topic is "abortion," it should be made clear that Catholic teaching in no circumstance allows abortion. --Rehnquist 23:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abortion discussion 

message: So many things said on this page concerning Jewish views do not reflect Jewish views but the Xian POV/outlook on Jewish views. Just a reminder that some big order needs to be done here. hasofer 17:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reminder to change many things on this page 

message: As of Jan. 25, 2006, this article's size is 81KB.  Not only is that over the recommended 32KB, it's WAY over.  I recommend spinning several sub-topics off into separate articles.  My initial proposals are splitting it up as follows:
*Judaism and Christianity#Love→Love in Judaism and Christianity
*Judaism and Christianity#The Messiah→Messiah concept in Judaism and Christianity
Thoughts?  Tomertalk 00:10, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article size 

message: Uhh, how is that being used in the article? the editor who added it made it as their first contrib, didn't seem to add any content, it's written in french which is annoying, and from what I can tell in the title has something to do with the creation of the world rather than either Christianity or Judaism. Anybody know what that says? Homestarmy 21:00, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: That newest "reference"...

message: Would people who regularly follow/contribute to this article please look at  (Primitive Yahwism and the talk page, where I express my concerns?  Thanks, Slrubenstein   |  Talk 19:09, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  informal request for comment 

message: I am porably at the end of the long and detailed discussion but it seems to me that the description of Christiansity is superficial and right at the top the article announces that it is making a case. I did not think that this is what an encycopaedia is for. Roger Arguile 16:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I don't think any discussion has occured recently about it, (either that or I really haven't been paying attention to my watchlist enough.) but you do seem correct. There's probably a way to re-word that to make the point of the article anyway, rather than make self-references, make the Judeo-Christian mention be a disambiguation link thing, and rather than say what the article will say, just note that Judaism and Christianity share things in common, such as God and the Bible. Homestarmy 18:39, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Roger makes two points: first, that this article is POV, second, that it is under-sourced.  As to POV, let me first reply to Homestarmy.  Many Jews would say that Jews and Christians do not share the Bible; some would even say they do not worship the same God.  I am not saying this to offend or even to argue these points, but just to remind people that there is a legitimate topic here.  The purpose of the article is no more to "argue" that judaism and Christianity are different, as the article on Judeo-Christian is meant to "argue" that they are the same.  This article spun off from that article, because it had become too long in trying to cover all the similarities and differences.  The notion of a Judeo-Christian ethic or culture or value explicitly does argue that there is a commonality.  Yet there are many profound differences, and this article is meant to review them.  There is nothing NPOV about it. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:16, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

text: As to under-cited for the parts on Christianity, that can only be the responsibility of people who know a lot about Christianity (I am not one of them), but I certainly agree that there should be more on how Christianity differes from Judaism with appropriate citations.  As a final note, I urge Roger Arguile to assume good faith.  For example, when I made a sizable contribution to the section on the Jewish view of love, I left messages on various pages I assume on the watchlists of Christians (e.g. Christianity) announcing that I added a good deal of Jewish material and requesting that Christians balance it with Christian material.  I can't do more than that. I do not think you will find one example of someone reverting an account of a Christian (as opposed to Jewish) belief, let alone one that was sourced. This article does not violate POV, it is just incomplete. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:16, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, sorry, I guess I should of been more clear, I was just talking about the intro because of the self-reference primarily. Homestarmy 19:28, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree, it seems more incomplete than POV, and definitely undersourced.  Also, I'm wondering whether the title should be changed to something else that better reflects that this article is about the differences between the two religions, not just a comparison in general, since the Judeo-Christian article already covers where the two converge. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 00:38, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Roger is 100%wrong.  No editor is responsible for providing both (or all three, or four, or five) points of view.  This is not what our NPOV policy asks for, and the very idea goes against the nature of Wikipedia as a a collaborative project.  If he wants to collaborate by adding valuable and relevant content, by all means he is welcome to join us.  Roger, do not ask me to do your work for you.  It is for all wikipedians to add what they can, and encourage others to add what they can. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 15:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

text: This article has long bothered me. I do not question the editors' good intentions, but as it stands the article reads more like a disputation. I wish I had a solution to propose. However, I can't see any methodical way to write this article. For any particular topic, X,  it is in many cases easy to find a Jewish source and a Christian source that take diametrically opposite views of X. But it is often just as easy to find two Jewish sources on opposite sides of X or two Christian sources that don't agree on X. Which do we include? Who decides? At what point does the selection of sources become original research? Absent some agreement on a methodology for writing about this topic on Wikipedia, I don't see how this article can pass muster.--agr 20:12, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the above is a good point. There can be so much variation within Judaism and within Christianity -- for example, between traditional and liberal sources but even within each of these -- that variation between Judaism and Christianity can be left obscured, and we can be left wondering whether the variation presented represents a real difference between the two or just an artifact of the particular sample of sources the editor has selected -- and since the selection isn't random, the selection may reflect the editor's own bias and POV. How can we tell? --Shirahadasha 21:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am much helped by both of the previous contributions. They raise a question which may well have been debated somewhere on WP: that editorial function which consists in the use of the eraser. Becasue WP doews not use up trees, it can include articles about minor figures and events which would not feature in a conventional encyclopedia. This may not matter. If they are not consulted because they are unimportant to all but their contributors no harm is done. The present case is otherwise. The twin subject matters are very important. The article is interesting, but I would contend that WP is the wrong place for it. It reads like a an article in a semi-serious periodical (I mean no insult by saying this - its coverage is wide, its sources however are not always scholarly - and both agr and Shirahadasha both make the point that they do not see what can be done.) It may help to say that the article 'Judaeo-Christian' ( apart from lacking a noun to go with this adjective) is likewise of dubious value. Apart from noting a usage which is highly disputable for the reasons set out in 'J & C' it,  its contents might better be covered under the separate religions. Finally, I have to say that I regard the sections in J & C on common views of one religion from the point of view of the other as utterly worthless.  But I shall not make any edits; any that I made might properly be considered to be vandalism, such as withdrawing both articles. Roger Arguile 12:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

text: That is very helpful. I would offer to do a complete rewrite, which is what both articles need but knowledge is lacking. People whom I respect argue that the notion of Judaeo-Christian anything is of limited use implying as it does a congruence of thought which needs unpicking in every individual case. What would be lost if both articles were withdrawn? Roger Arguile 17:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: POV

message: May I offer my heartfelt sorrow to those Jews who have had to read the occasional foul language used by vandalising editors. Roger Arguile 17:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Anti-Semitism

message: Dear fellow editors,
the Christianity article contains a section title "Controversy and criticism" which includes one item about Jewish criticism of Christian exegesis. (This item also links here, which is why I am posting here.) As an example it currently gives the supposed identification of the Messiah in Daniel 9 with Cyrus. I have raised the issue of whether Jews actually make that identification. But more importantly, I don't think that this issue is really a good and representative example of Jewish-Christian differences in exegesis. So my request is to those editors knowledgable in Jewish exegesis to review this situation and comment at Talk:Christianity#Jewish_criticism. Thanks, Str1977 (smile back) 22:34, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jewish criticism in Christianity article