...dating back to the Babylonian captivity and exacerbated by the Roman conquest. One conflict was class, between the wealthy and the poor, as the Sadducees included mainly the priestly and aristocratic families. Another conflict was cultural, between those who favored hellenization and those who resisted it. A third was juridico-religious, between those who emphasized the importance of the Temple, and those who emphasized the importance of other Mosaic laws and prophetic values. A fourth, specifically religious, involved different interpretations of the Bible, and how to apply the Torah to Jewish life, with the Sadducees recognizing only the written letter of the Tanakh or Torah and rejecting life after death, while the Pharisees held to Rabbinic interpretations additional to the written texts. Josephus indicates that the Pharisees received the backing and goodwill of the common people, apparently in contrast to the more elite Sadducees. Pharisees claimed prophetic or Mosaic authority for their interpretation of Jewish laws, while the Sadducees represented the authority of the priestly privileges and prerogatives established since the days of Solomon, when Zadok, their ancestor, officiated as High Priest. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE Pharisaic beliefs became the basis for Rabbinic Judaism, which ultimately produced the normative traditional Judaism...
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...categories: the Torah meaning the “Law” containing the five books of Moses,” History: the book of Joshua to the book of Esther, Wisdom: the book of Job to the book of Song of Solomon, Prophetic Books: the book Isaiah to the book of Daniel and the last twelve books are the Minor Prophets: the book of Hosea to the book of Malachi. The Old Testament books are pivotal to the birth of the New Testament because if God did not keep his promises to the Old Testament patriarchs Christianity would have not been born. In this research I will focus on early Christianity and how it began. Next I will speak upon how the gospel went from Judaism to a world religion. I will then talk about the persecution of the Jewish people by Christians. Lastly I will discuss the conflict between the two. Early Christianity In the first century there were four main religious sects made up of the Palestinian Jews: the Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, and the Zealots. The Sadducees were religious conservative priest and wanted to maintain the authenticity of the Hebrew teachings, they also did not believe in the resurrection of the dead or an afterlife. The Pharisees unlike the Sadducees took a more liberal mindset towards the Mosaic Law, they allowed multiple interpretations of the Torah, they accepted oral tradition of the Torah (the passing down of the Mosaic Law by word of mouth from generation to generation), and they believed in the afterlife. The Essenes formed the semimonastic community...
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...Caesarea. He is lodged "with one of the early disciples, Mnason from Cyprus." The next day Paul goes to see James, and all the elders of the Jerusalem church are also present. Paul tells them "in detail what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry." After hearing it they praise God and say to him: "You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the Law." These words indicate that it was the orthodox Jews of that time who had were better qualified than others to comprehend Jesus' Messiahship. And this is the way it is today, too. However, Paul had to remember that rumours were being spread about him that he teaches Jews to abandon Moses and forbids circumcision. Therefore he should take four men who "have made a vow." Now their Nazirite time had expired and therefore as a sign of this they had to have their hair cut and offer a fellowship sacrifice to the Lord.99 Paul "purified himself" with them, paid for their offering and took them into the Temple, so that people could conclude that Paul too lived according to the Law. And the elders assured them a second time that "as for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meat from which the blood has not been drained and from sexual immorality." Thus they held fast to the previously issued minimum basic requirements regulating Jewish proselytization. (Acts 21:15-25). From this there...
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