Ironically, being raised an Orthodox Jew is quite possibly the best preparation in the world for understanding the Christian gospel. A Protestant Christian can read the New Testament and perhaps imagine to herself the religious philosophy Jesus sought to overthrow. An Orthodox Jew has lived it. (The other side of this irony, of course, is that you can't truly understand Rabbinic Judaism until you've read the gospels.)
avraham abulfia [kabalist born in 1240] held he was a kind of proto type messiah called messiah son of joseph.this is scattered in his writtings.The image above, taken from the post, is of Rabbi Hillel. The text he's expounding says: And you shall love your neighbour as yourself. This, of course, was part of what Jesus held to be the "golden rule" (Luke 10:27).
Update: This isn't directly relevant, but Freethinking Upstart has fascinating post on the distinction between (Jewish) orthodoxy and orthopraxy. This is of particular interest to me as a Christian, as in contrast to Jews, we don't ask: "he is a practising Christian," but "is he a believing Christian?" The former without the latter would be an oxymoron. On second thoughts, the latter without the former would also be an oxymoron (James 2:14).
2 comments:
Thanks for the link! I definitely appreciate it. You are spot on about the picture, it's one of Artur Szyk's who is a fantastic Jewish illustrator.
And thank you for the name! This is an artist I want to discover more about. I love his quote: "Art is not my aim, it is my means"!
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