Who is a Christian?
Determining who is a Christian is a somewhat daunting task. Liturgical Christians, such as the Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Copts, would say a Christian is a baptized person, or at least someone actively seeking baptism. Non-liturgical Christians, like Baptists or Anabaptists, would say becoming a Christian is merely a matter of accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour. Anyone who proclaims with their mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believes in their heart that He is risen from the dead, is a Christian.
Since the act of baptism is understood to deliver the grace to believe in Christ, a Christian is defined by by belief, and to a certain extent, or for certain groups, by baptism. "Right belief" (aka orthodoxy) is paramount, and the extent of right belief is not limited to the deity of Christ. It also includes proper understanding of the Trinity. So, even though Mormons agree that Jesus Christ is God, Mormons are not considered Christians because Mormons insist that the Trinity is made up of three SEPARATE persons, while Christianity teaches the Trinity is made up of three DISTINCT persons.
The difference between "separate" and "distinct" is important. Each member of a family is separate from every other member. Even conjoined (aka Siamese) twins each have separate body parts that only one of the two twins control. Distinct, on the other hand, is like the facets of a diamond: each facet is distinct, but all the facets together are aspects of the same diamond.
In a similar (but not identical) way, the One Divine Nature is completely owned by each of the Three Persons, each Person of the Godhead owning the one Divine Nature completely unto Himself, the Godhead is not shared. Yet there is only one Godhead. It is not clear how this works, Christians are just required to believe that it does. In this sense, understanding the Trinity is similar in some aspects to understanding quantum mechanics or gravity - we don't know how it works, we just know that it does.
Who is a Jew?
If defining a Christian is hard, now let's try defining who is a Jew. Being Jewish is neither a matter of belief nor a matter of praxis. Christians have a hard time wrapping their heads around this:
It is important to note that being a Jew has nothing to do with what you believe or what you do. A person born to non-Jewish parents who has not undergone the formal process of conversion but who believes everything that Orthodox Jews believe and observes every law and custom of Judaism is still a non-Jew, even in the eyes of the most liberal movements of Judaism, and a person born to a Jewish mother who is an atheist and never practices the Jewish religion is still a Jew, even in the eyes of the ultra-Orthodox. In this sense, Judaism is more like a nationality than like other religions, and being Jewish is like a citizenship.
Unfortunately, being Jewish is not identifiably genetic either:
Genetic markers cannot determine Jewish descent:
It becomes overwhelmingly clear that although Jews maintained detectable vertical genetic continuity along generations of socio-religious-cultural relationship, also intensive horizontal genetic relations were maintained both between Jewish communities and with the gentile surrounding. Thus, in spite of considerable consanguinity, there is no Jewish genotype to identify.
And since it is not genetically identifiable, being Jewish is most assuredly not a tribal or national identity:
The refusal of the [Israeli] Supreme Court to accept the plea of 21 citizens [most of them well-known veterans of movements of civil rights], to recognize them as belonging to an Israeli nation […] is another expression of the failure of the civil struggle for the image of Israel. Sixty-five years after its establishment the authorities do not recognize an Israeli nation, disconnected of a religious definition or ethnic belonging. […]
In their decision, the judges deny the existence of an Israeli nation, and assert that it has not been proven that an Israeli nationality disconnected of a religious definition or ethnic belonging exists...
...Judge Haim Cohen responded: “the definition must be given by every single Jew for himself. If a person says of himself that he is a Jew, for me he is a Jew. This is his autonomy and nobody can decide for him or instead of him whether he is a Jew or not. There is no need in definitions.”
Now, it is clearly the case that many (but not all) Jews have distinct DNA links to historical groups. The Cohen priesthood lineage, for example, is interesting:
The results of the analysis of the Y chromosome markers of the Cohanim and non-Cohanim were indeed significant. A particular marker, (YAP-) was detected in 98.5 percent of the Cohanim, and in a significantly lower percentage of non-Cohanim (emphasis added).
FURTHER CONFIRMATION
In a second study, Dr. Skorecki and associates gathered more DNA samples and expanded their selection of Y chromosome markers. Solidifying their hypothesis of the Cohens' common ancestor, they found that a particular array of six chromosomal markers was found in 97 of the 106 Cohens tested.
But, notice, the DNA linkage is not perfect. There are a significant number of gentile men who bear the Cohen gene, yet are not identified by anyone as being Jewish. There are Jewish men who claim to be descended from the ancient priestly caste, they are even recognized as being related to that caste, yet they have no DNA marker to indicate that they actually are. Genetic tests may show that two-fifths of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from four women, but that means three-fifths are not. And it says nothing at all about Mizhraic, Sephardic, Ethiopian, or Cochin Jews, the last two of which trace their own lines via patrilineal descent, not matrilineal descent.
Despite this, Israel still uses genetic testing to determine if someone is Jewish.
In February of this year, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, reported that the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, the peak religious authority in the country, had been requesting DNA tests to confirm Jewishness before issuing some marriage licenses.
But, this farcical "genetic Judaism" is no more or less reliable than the claim to be genetically a Viking:
Vikings as a group don't exist anymore.
However, they have descendants all over Europe and the Scandinavian countries.
In many Scandinavian countries, many people dedicate their lives to living like the Vikings did long ago.
There are Viking villages in Norway and Sweden where people recreate the Viking way of life.
So, we have the odd situation wherein there seems to be no clear definition of what constitutes being Jewish, nor any authority who can clarify it. There are merely a lot of people who recreate what they understand to be the ancient Jewish way of life, and on that basis, claim to be Jewish.
But there is not even any real agreement on what constitutes that way of life. For instance, Jews who accept the Talmud as authoritative will necessarily follow the teachings of one or more of the rabbis whose commentary makes up the Talmud. Such Jews will insist that anyone born of a Jewish mother is Jewish, regardless of belief, because that's what they read in the Talmud. Of course, this opens the question: which Talmud? For there are actually two versions, and no clear way to determine which is authoritative: the Babylonian Talmud or the Jerusalem (Palestinian) Talmud?
The differences are significant. For instance, the Jerusalem Talmud says, "“Whoever saves a single life is considered by scripture to have saved the whole world." while the Babylonian Talmud says, ""Whoever destroys a soul from Israel, the Scripture considers it as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life from Israel, the Scripture considers it as if he saved an entire world." One version of the Talmud says saving anyone's life is like saving the whole world, the other says that only the saving of a Jewish life is like saving the whole world. Which one is authoritative?
And once we ask which Talmud is authoritative, we must first ask if either Talmud should be accepted as authoritative at all. For instance, Karaite Jews reject the Talmud, the authority of rabbis and they also reject the idea of matrilineal descent. For Karaites, whose chief authority is the Torah, and who hold rabbinic commentary in no special esteem, the patrilineal descent determines whether you are Jewish. That is, if you are born of a Jewish father, you are Jewish. For the Karaites, how Jewish your mother is does not enter into it. And, increasingly, Reform Judaism sees the matter the same way. In fact, 25% of Israeli Jews say patrilineal descent is enough. “Reform Judaism accepts a child… as Jewish without a formal conversion if he attends a Jewish school and follows a course of study leading to confirmation.”
But, as indicated above, the problem does not just concern an individual's belief system, it also concerns his actions. Jews cannot define Judaism according to action for a very simple reason. From Abraham through the destruction of the First Temple, Jews always performed ritual liturgical sacrifice. But the Temple was destroyed in 586 BC, rebuilt in 516 BC, then destroyed for the second time in 70 AD and never rebuilt.
As a result, because they do not have a Temple, Jews have not performed sacrifice for nearly two millennia. Synagogues were only created after the destruction of the First Temple, probably around the 3rd or 4th century BC. The rabbinical system probably started around the 2nd century AD, after the destruction of the Second Temple. Neither Abraham, nor Isaac nor Jacob, nor any of their progeny up through the 4th century BC had ever heard of a rabbi or a synagogue. The synagogue-rabbi system was invented out of whole cloth in order to deal with the loss of the First Temple and the exile to Babylon. This system has persisted for nearly two millennia because of the loss of the Second Temple in the 1st century (70 AD), but only for Jews who came from the Babylonian Exile. Jews who departed Israel prior to that event, such as the Ethiopian and Cochin Jewish communities, and who therefore never lived in Babylon, do not recognize rabbis. The Ethiopians do not use synagogues, Cochin Jewish use of the synagogue was very late, no more than 400 years old.
But even if we were to grant an older provenance to these fabricated social structures, the problems do not end. For instance, it is quite clear the original rabbinic system from the 2nd century AD had no place for women rabbis, no place for homosexual activity, no place for atheism at all. But the modern rabbi-synagogue permutations accept all of these things. The ancient Hebrew faith insisted on the mikveh and circumcision, but modern Reform Judaism does not. The loss of liturgical sacrifice and Temple worship, the addition of rabbis, synagogues, women rabbis, homosexual activity and atheism, the discarding of the mikveh and circumcision, all attest to a single fact: clearly, no Jew today does what any of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob's sons did for the first millennium of Hebrew faith.
And if we grant all of this, it gets worse still. If we restrict our understanding of who is Jewish just to the religious elements listed in the previous paragraphs, even the Jewish faith is disappearing. Religious Jews, both in Israel and the US, are increasingly abandoning their faith, with more than half of children in Orthodox families simply walking away.
94 percent say a person is Jewish even if they work on Shabbat, 89 percent say a Jew can be strongly critical of Israel, and 68 percent say Jews don’t have to believe in God, but an astonishing 34 percent say a person is still Jewish even if they decide to believe in Jesus as the messiah.
In fact, for most Jews, their relationships with their pets matter more than their relationship with God:
Religion is not central to the lives of most U.S. Jews. Even Jews by religion are much less likely than Christian adults to consider religion to be very important in their lives (28% vs. 57%). And among Jews as a whole, far more report that they find meaning in spending time with their families or friends, engaging with arts and literature, being outdoors, and pursuing their education or careers than find meaning in their religious faith. Twice as many Jewish Americans say they derive a great deal of meaning and fulfillment from spending time with pets as say the same about their religion.
So, being Jewish has nothing to do with anything specifically Jewish. Being liberal is sufficient to "be Jewish":
For the non-Orthodox, though, the top slots went to remembering the Holocaust, leading an ethical and moral life, working for justice and equality, and being intellectually curious. These last two, especially, identify Judaism with liberal values of intellectual independence and commitment to social justice.
Consequently, the number of irreligious Jews is growing:
While the Orthodox appear to be proportionally growing, Pew found even more Jews becoming more secular and unaffiliated. “Jews of no religion” — Pew’s term for people who identify as Jews and do things they see as Jewish but do not identify with the religious parts — in 2020 made up 27 percent of all U.S. Jews, up from 22 percent in 2013.
LARPing as Culture
So, given that Judaism is not based on belief, Judaism is not based on activity, Judaism is not based on genetics, and Judaism is not based on a genetically demonstrable tribal membership... what does it mean to claim that one is Jewish? It's not clear that the claim means anything at all. It would seem today's Jews are primarily made up of 21st century socialists who like to LARP as a group of ancient monotheists. Some people dress up and LARP being Civil War soldiers, others LARP being Vikings. Today's "Jews" like to LARP being ancient monotheists. But they only LARP the pieces of monotheism they like, and they leave the rest out. As we have seen, most "Jews" substitute medieval commentary (rabbinical Talmudic commentary) for the mess and fuss of animal sacrifice on a bloody altar. Modern "Jews" replace rabbis with women. They replace belief in God with national socialism or atheism. They replace circumcision with... well... nothingness. Action, belief, genetics - every bit of turns out to be unnecessary to modern Judaism. Since at least the invention of Reform and Conservative Judaism in the late 1800s, there has been literally nothing left to distinguish a Jew from a non-Jew except an arbitrary, unprovable claim.
In this sense, modern Judaism is not very different from Gerald Gardner's 1950's pretended "revival" of Wicca. Gardner famously invented artificial liturgy and rituals to justify his lifestyle, then attributed his ritualistic inventions to an ancient religious system (Wicca) of which he had no knowledge and to which he had no real connection. A similar dynamic seems to constitute modern Judaism. Instead of a 1950's Gardner, the "Jews" have two ancient Gardner prototypes: one group inventing both the rabbi-Talmud system in the first century or so after Christ's death, and the synagogue system in the century or so preceding Christ's birth, while a other groups invented Torah-based non-Talmudic systems like the Karaites, around 500-700 AD, or the Ethiopian Jews who may have originated anywhere from the time of Moses to somewhere in the first century AD, but who trace their Jewish lineage by the Torah-approved patrilineal descent, not by the rabbi-inspired Talmudic matrilineal descent.
And this multiple splintering left no central authority, no group or person who can definitively determine who is or is not a Jew. There is no universally agreed upon test for who is or is not a Jew. Distinguishing a "Jew" from a "gentile" is apparently like distinguishing pornography from art: we are supposed to know it when we see it. This is, perhaps, why so many Jews support the transgender movement and the LGBTQ+ system - it is similarly self-referential LARPing by people who desperately want an identity that will allow them to distinguish themselves from the rest of the world.
The irony is that, due to this complete lack of coherence, a Jew can actually profess the Shahada without fear of being cast out from "his" extremely ill-defined group. As Rambam points out, Jews who recite the Shahada, the Muslim testimony of faith, are still Jews. The Shahadah is but a meaningless phrase used by a religion (Islam) that is not considered by the Jews to be idolatrous. In comparison, most Jews tend to agree that belief in Christ is idolatrous, and therefore prohibited.
But there's nothing in particular in the Islamic profession of faith that violates Jewish faith. As one Jew stated, "Personally, I am quite happy to say the shahadah in full sincerity but in the belief that prophet Muhammad was a gentile prophet and that Judaism and İslam can coexist as two approaches to the same truth. At the core, our religion is the same and I have no issue with İslamic claims to that effect."
Rabbi Fayyumi, who influenced Maimonedes, held a very positive opinion of the Koran:
"He analyzes the words of the Koran carefully, to such an extent that in the second chapter of his book he finds mystical meaning in the Shahada (the Muslim declaration of faith).
A substantial part of the sixth chapter of Fayyumi’s book is dedicated to analysis and interpretation of the Koran. He concludes from this analysis that Islam is not directed to the Jewish people; rather, it is intended to provide religion and faith to the nations. Its purpose is not to abolish the Torah―just the opposite: the Koran confirms the obligation of the Jewish people to keep the Torah. At the same time, Fayyumi asserts that the Koran teaches that there are additional revelations to other nations, revelations that obligate them to their own religious systems."
- It isn't theological belief. You can be an atheist and be a Jew.
- It isn't belief in rabbis, synagogues or the Talmud. Ethiopian Jews don't accept any of those things.
- It isn't matrilineal descent. Ethiopian and Cochin Jews trace their own lines via patrilineal descent, not matrilineal descent. Matrilineal descent is a post-Christian invention.
- It isn't circumcision. Reform Jews don't require circumcision in order to be a Reform Jew. Muslims require circumcision of both men and women. Does that mean Muslims are actually Jews? Or are Muslims more Jewish than Reform Jews?
- It isn't DNA. There is no DNA test that distinguishes a Jew from a non-Jew.
- None of the "Jews" in the last 2000 years have offered sacrifice in the Temple.
- No "Jew" in the last 2000 years does or believes any of the things Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did and believed.
- There is no correspondence between modern "Jewish" belief or practice vs pre-Christian Jewish belief and practice.