Judaism

Even though Judaism and Christianity are different religions, they do share some common beliefs according to the ESV Study Bible. Both believe in an omniscient, holy, just, righteous, and eternal God; loving one’s neighbor; the idea that we are all made uniquely in the image of God; the importance of family; the pursuit of peace and justice; and so forth (2624).

However, in many ways they differ, as seen is Islam, as most of them don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah. Instead, Jews specifically believe the Messiah is yet to come, whereas Christians believe He already came once and is going to come again. With this being said, the Messianic Jews are culturally Jewish people who do believe Jesus is the Messiah. Many of them attend Messianic Christian congregations. Due to these beliefs, the majority of Judaism adherents have shunned this group thinking that they are really Christians and not Jews (2624).

Some more differences are the following:

While acknowledging that both faiths hold much in common, it must be recognized that major differences exist, especially in the area of theology. Jews do not consider the NT of equal authority to the Tanach. Jews are monotheists, but not Trinitarian monotheists. Jews do not embrace the concept of original sin inherited from Adam. Jews do not accept the divinity of Jesus, his Messiahship, and his vicarious atonement. Jews do not teach salvation by faith, apart from works, through Christ alone. (2624)

So, like Islam, most Jews don’t believe in original sin, are not Trinitarian monotheists, and as reiterated throughout this article, they do not believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah. One thing to note is that even though many Jews don’t believe in the New Testament (NT), it was primarily written by Jewish writers; this is rather ironic, right?

Works Cited

ESV Study Bible. Crossway, 2016.