Judeo-Christian

[Sage_Rat]

@race_to_the_bottom

We all know that Christianity is one of three Abrahamic religions along with Judaism and Islam, but is there any basis for us of the term “Judaeo-Christian” to describe Western civilization?

Mormonism?
Mandaeism?
Bahá’í?

I’m pretty sure there’s more than three. Probably a lot more than three, depending on how you want to cut it.

We understand that there is a strong influence of the Greeks and Roman law is the basis of our legal system. Then there is Islam. I am no scholar, but it seems that since most of the stars in the sky have Arabic names, the must have been some serious scholarship there between the end of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, in a way providing a bridge from Greece and Rome to our modern day civilization.

I feel like there is meant to be a question here, but I’m not sure what it is.

Were there scholars between the age of the Romans and modernity? Well…yes? And yes, many of them were Arabic. You should look up the Islamic Golden Age. You should also look up the Byzantine Empire.

[watchwolf49]

@race_to_the_bottom

[snip] … but is there any basis for us of the term “Judaeo-Christian” to describe Western civilization? … [snap]

Well … Jesus was a Jew … so it’s fair to say Christians worship someone who was a Jew … there’s four thousands years of heritage until the first advent and another two thousands years after … The Bible tries to make this connection … “we were once Jews but now we’re Christians” type of logic …

If we said that 500 years ago in Europe, the Church would kill us … that expression is a nasty bit of heresy … not sure where the OP got the idea that Jews in Europe had citizen rights …

[septimus]

tomndebb sum(s) up what I would have guessed, were I more articulate and better informed.

On the sub-debate …

@Weisshund

Well, because they were there in the peninsula, unless their libraries and schools etc dont count?

We have advanced mathematics out of Babylon, long before Mohamed’s grand pappy was born. Ok fine we all hate algorithms but

Ancient Persia? no wonderous scholarly stuff going on there?
Art Science Medicine Universities?

I mean come on man, you are saying none of this counts? why?
Is there a criteria i am missing or something?

… there seems to be confusion. Arabia and India are separate peninsulas, and Babylon and Persia are on neither peninsula.

The sciences of ancient Babylon, Persia and India are often under-appreciated, but it was the Islamic Empire in its Golden Age that helped trigger the European Scientific Revolution. Kitab al-Manazir by Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham was one of the most important original scientific texts prior to Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

Although many of the nearly-lost ancient Greek works were eventually translated directly into Latin, the Latin copies of ancient Greek science texts read in the early Renaissance were often translated Ancient Greek –> Arabic –> Latin (or by a more roundabout Ancient Greek –> Syriac –> Arabic –> Hebrew –> Latin).

[Nava]

A nitpick from the foreigner gallery: it doesn’t refer to “Western Civilization” in a lot of the countries which I’d consider “Western”. It refers to specific, religious, aspects of it.

That a specific Western country happens to have a specific group which wants to either appropriate or deny the existence of anything and everything is a separate issue.

[Latro]

@Chronos

The Crusades were Christians vs. Muslims, and at the time, the Muslims were far ahead of the Christians in scholarship. Which might be one factor explaining the net scorecard of the Crusades.

Might I remind you that Byzantium was also Christian?

[Monty]

@Shagnasty

What is the specific question? I think I get it but I am not quite sure. Is it early Jewish contributions to modern Western society or why Judeo-Christian is used as a popular term in political speech?

The answer to the latter question is that American religious conservatives know that Moses, Abraham, Mary and Jesus and many others of Bible fame were Jewish themselves. Evangelicals and fundamentalists love Israel because it is “the Holy Land” and the Jews are the rightful protectors of it in their view. The term “Judeo-Christian” simply acknowledges the progression of ancient Jewish practices to modern Christian ones in an unbroken line (that is very important to some people).

Rightful protectors? Yeah, those Crusaders went there to take the Holy Land back from the Saracens and have the Jews in control of it. That’s why they made sure there were Christian kingdoms there. No. “Judeo-Christian” is simply code for “Christian”.

[coffeecat]

In spite of the unpleasantness in the Middle East, I think Judaism is closer to Islam than to Christianity. Both Judaism and Islam agree that God is one, and he expects us to follow certain rules. Christianity spends a lot of time talking about Christ and the importance of having faith in Christ, and it says God is kinda one, but also kinda three.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for politicians to say “Judeo-Christi-Muslim,” though.

[JWT_Kottekoe]

@John_Mace

Sounds about right to me. I’d only add that the phrase seemed to have gained traction around the time of WWII hence a desire to include Jews because, well the holocaust.

John made a good point. Ngram Viewer shows that the term was essentially unused (in books) in the 1920’s, and really picked up steam from 1940 to 1995. It has declined slightly since then, but is still much more widely used than it was in 1940.

[RivkahChaya]

I think the term people who say “Judeo-Christian” are actually looking for is “Ethical Monotheism.”

I realize it sounds slightly judgmental to people who have never heard it before, but if you hang around with people who study religion, you hear it a lot, and it becomes a neutral term.

It does not, for example, imply that polytheistic religions cannot be ethical; it just points to an area on some Venn diagrams-- the intersection of ethical and monotheistic religions. The so-called 10 commandments are borrowed from the Code of Hammurabi; Hammurabi’s religion was ethical, or at least progressing toward being ethical (Hammurabi was a king, not a god, but he could put the weight of religion behind his proclamations). However, the religion of Hammurabi was not monotheistic.

I am not going to give an example of a religion that is monotheistic but not ethical, because I’m not opening that Pandora’s box.

[coffeecat]

@RivkahChaya

I am not going to give an example of a religion that is monotheistic but not ethical, because I’m not opening that Pandora’s box.

Pastafarianism?

[cmkeller]

Christians believe in the truth of the Old Testament - the Jewish scriptures - as well as the New Testament. They preach from the Old Testament. When they do so, what they’re preaching was Jewish before it was Christian as well, so to call the combined Old Testament-New Testament belief system Judeo-Christian is not incorrect.

This is in contrast to Islam, which believes that Abraham, Moses, and Jesus were all genuine prophets who pre-dated Mohammed, but believe that the Jewish and Christian scriptures are corrupted revelations and only the Koran is divine truth. They are not Judeo-Islamic or Christo-Islamic or “Abrahamic”, they are exclusively Islamic because they consider those other belief systems to have been fraudulent, not pre-foundational.

[Tamerlane]

@cmkeller

This is in contrast to Islam, which believes that Abraham, Moses, and Jesus were all genuine prophets who pre-dated Mohammed, but believe that the Jewish and Christian scriptures are corrupted revelations and only the Koran is divine truth.

With you so far.

They are not Judeo-Islamic or Christo-Islamic or “Abrahamic”, they are exclusively Islamic because they consider those other belief systems to have been fraudulent, not pre-foundational.

But that’s probably a bridge too far - corrupted does not necessarily equal fraudulent. You no doubt will find certain Muslims with a hate on calling them a deliberate lie - but the more standard answer is transcription errors and inadvertent corruption over time. And it is hard to say a religion that venerates Abraham is non-Abrahamic ;).

Maimonides considered Christians to be essentially polytheists, unlike Muslims. Stepping into a mosque was fine, stepping into a church forbidden. Pretending to be a Muslim to escape persecution was fine, pretending to be a Christian disallowable - martyrdom was preferable. In many respects ( not least of them the fact that both faiths are highly legalistic ) Islam and Judaism are much more similar to each other than to Christianity. If you want to start drawing Venn diagrams it is just as easy to create an artificial Judeo-Islamic model distinct from Christianity.

Of course on the other hand Maimonides also thought Christians were more open to theological discussion, since Christians accepted the Old Testament as accurate ( if superseded in part ), whereas as you noted Muslims do not.

But really trying to parse Judaism from Christianity from Islam from Baha’i ( and etc. ) in a way that combines some but not others is futile. The linkage is quite simply too obvious and overwhelming. Looking from the outside this atheist thinks the Baha’i has the right of it - they’re all part of the same system.

[marshmallow]

In my experience, many Christians view Judaism as a quaint, old fashioned, hipster version of Christianity, but when they come across the genuine article they’re left scratching their heads.

[Hector_St_Clare]

@cmkeller

Christians believe in the truth of the Old Testament - the Jewish scriptures - as well as the New Testament. They preach from the Old Testament. When they do so, what they’re preaching was Jewish before it was Christian as well, so to call the combined Old Testament-New Testament belief system Judeo-Christian is not incorrect.

This is in contrast to Islam, which believes that Abraham, Moses, and Jesus were all genuine prophets who pre-dated Mohammed, but believe that the Jewish and Christian scriptures are corrupted revelations and only the Koran is divine truth. They are not Judeo-Islamic or Christo-Islamic or “Abrahamic”, they are exclusively Islamic because they consider those other belief systems to have been fraudulent, not pre-foundational.

I don’t really agree with this.

Muslims may not utilize the Hebrew Bible in precisely the same way that Christians do, but Muslims also believe that Jews are correct about the essential nature of God (that He is purely monotheistic, and that He doesn’t incarnate himself). Christians don’t share that belief. And of course there quite a number of early Christians who rejected the Old Testament in its entirety- Marcion and later the Gnostics- which I don’t know if that was ever true of Islam. All in all, I think what coffeecat says is correct: Judaism has more in common with Islam than with Christianity (as one of the medieval Jewish intellectuals, maybe Maimonides, noted), and therefore the term “Judeo-Christian” should probably be retired. It’s a tendentious term coined in order to make a specific theological point, and it isn’t (to me) particularly useful.

As far as ‘western civilization’ goes, it’s even less useful: there have been significant Christian and Jewish cultures which weren’t part of the west at all. (Russian Christians and Middle Eastern Jews, for example).

[clairobscur]

@Totenfeier

FWIW, my take is that “Judeo-Christian” is code for "conservative Protestant legalism.

Judeo-Christian is used in France, and it’s not exactly a protestant country.

[Shodan]

I think it’s Judeo-Christian rather than Judeo-Islamic-Christian for historical reasons.

Judaism came first. Christianity began around AD 34, and spread throughout the Roman Empire until the Empire became officially Christian. Islam began in AD 622, and spread throughout the Arabian peninsula, and Africa. It even made its way into Spain. Then came the battle of Tours, where the nominally Christian Karl Martel drove the nominal Muslims out of Europe, and laid the foundations of the Holy Roman Empire. The Franks did not consider themselves influenced by Islam to anything like the same degree as they did Christianity - the Muslims were their enemy. That opposition in thought continues to some degree to the present day.

Regards,
Shodan

[cmkeller]

Tamerlane:

But that’s probably a bridge too far - corrupted does not necessarily equal fraudulent.

I respectfully withdraw the adjective.

And it is hard to say a religion that venerates Abraham is non-Abrahamic

I did not mean they are not an Abrahamic religion. What I meant was that they are not part of some aggregate religion which is built on the scriptures of all three Abrahamic religions. Perhaps I would have expressed it better to coin the phrase “pan-Abrahamic”. Certainly Islam is a member of the category of Abrahamic religions.

and to both you and Hector St. Claire - I am well aware that Islam has the same G-d concept as Judaism, and that Judaism does not consider Islam a form of idolatry. It is certainly a belief that both Judaism and Islam have in common. Still, Christianity considers Jewish scriptures to be part of its canon, so an ethical system that is founded in the totality of Christian scriptural canon, which includes the Jewish scriptures, is properly referred to as Judeo-Christian (rather than simply Christian), and Islam, monotheistic though it might be, does not.

[Buck_Godot]

@JRDelirious

Re-christening Western Civilization as “Judeo-Christian” has always sounded to me as people wanting to call it “Christian” but needing a PC way to say it. The aim as far as I can see it in its usage is to imply that Western Civ is built upon, derived from, and made great by, Biblical Teachings and Values, above those of Classical Humanistic Philosophy as the successor to Graeco-Roman civilization.

This is also the feeling that I get. Basically its used by American’s to separate themselves from the heathens. They would just say Christian, but then there is Aaron Goldstein who lives two houses down,and doesn’t seem to be such a bad guy, and so we will include him to. It’s not like he’s one of those Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist foreigners. For one thing he’s white.

[XT]

According to this:

The term Judeo-Christian groups Judaism and Christianity, either in reference to Christianity’s derivation from Judaism or due to perceived parallels or commonalities shared between those two religions.[citation needed]

The concept of “Judeo-Christian values” in an ethical (rather than theological or liturgical) sense was used by George Orwell in 1939, with the phrase “the Judaeo-Christian scheme of morals.”[1] It has become part of the “American civil religion” since the 1940s.

History of the term

The term is used, as “Judæo Christian”, at least as far back as in a letter from Alexander M’Caul dated October 17, 1821.[3] The term in this case referred to Jewish converts to Christianity.[4] The term is used similarly by Joseph Wolff in 1829, referring to a style of church that would keep with some Jewish traditions in order to convert Jews.[5]

Use of the German term Judenchristlich (“Jewish-Christian”), in a decidedly negative sense, can be found in the late writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, who emphasized what he saw as neglected aspects of continuity between the Jewish world view and that of Christianity. The expression appears in The Antichrist, published in 1895 and written several years earlier; a fuller development of Nietzsche’s argument can be found in a prior work, On the Genealogy of Morality.

Jewish responses

Response of Jews towards the “Judeo-Christian” concept has been mixed. In the 1930s, “In the face of worldwide antisemitic efforts to stigmatize and destroy Judaism, influential Christians and Jews in America labored to uphold it, pushing Judaism from the margins of American religious life towards its very center.”[13] During World War II, Jewish chaplains worked with Catholic priests and Protestant ministers to promote goodwill, addressing servicemen who, “in many cases had never seen, much less heard a Rabbi speak before.” At funerals for the unknown soldier, rabbis stood alongside the other chaplains and recited prayers in Hebrew. In a much publicized wartime tragedy, the sinking of the Dorchester, the ship’s multi-faith chaplains gave up their lifebelts to evacuating seamen and stood together “arm in arm in prayer” as the ship went down. A 1948 postage stamp commemorated their heroism with the words: “interfaith in action.”[8]

In the 1950s, “a spiritual and cultural revival washed over American Jewry” in response to the trauma of the Holocaust.[8] American Jews became more confident to be identified as different.

Two notable books addressed the relations between contemporary Judaism and Christianity, Abba Hillel Silver’s Where Judaism Differs and Leo Baeck’s Judaism and Christianity, both motivated by an impulse to clarify Judaism’s distinctiveness “in a world where the term Judeo-Christian had obscured critical differences between the two faiths.”[14] Reacting against the blurring of theological distinctions, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits wrote that “Judaism is Judaism because it rejects Christianity, and Christianity is Christianity because it rejects Judaism.”[15] Theologian and author Arthur A. Cohen, in The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition, questioned the theological validity of the Judeo-Christian concept and suggested that it was essentially an invention of American politics, while Jacob Neusner, in Jews and Christians: The Myth of a Common Tradition, writes, “The two faiths stand for different people talking about different things to different people.”[16]

Law professor Stephen M. Feldman looking at the period before 1950, chiefly in Europe, sees religious conflict as supersessionism:

Once one recognizes that Christianity has historically engendered antisemitism, then this so-called tradition appears as dangerous Christian dogma (at least from a Jewish perspective). For Christians, the concept of a Judeo-Christian tradition comfortably suggests that Judaism progresses into Christianity—that Judaism is somehow completed in Christianity. The concept of a Judeo-Christian tradition flows from the Christian theology of supersession, whereby the Christian covenant (or Testament) with God supersedes the Jewish one. Christianity, according to this myth, reforms and replaces Judaism. The myth therefore implies, first, that Judaism needs reformation and replacement, and second, that modern Judaism remains merely as a "relic". Most importantly the myth of the Judeo-Christian tradition insidiously obscures the real and significant differences between Judaism and Christianity.[17]

Role of Islam
Further information: Abrahamic religions

Advocates of the term “Abrahamic religion” since the second half of the 20th century have proposed a hyper-ecumenicism that emphasizes not only Judeo-Christian commonalities but that would include Islam as well (the rationale for the term “Abrahamic” being that while only Christianity and Judaism give the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) the status of scripture, Islam does also trace its origins to the figure of Abraham as the “first Muslim”).

Advocates of this umbrella term consider it the “exploration of something positive” in the sense of a “spiritual bond” between Jews, Christians, and Muslims.[18]

[sqweels]

I think that being seen as inclusive towards Jews provides nice cover, but what they really mean is an emphasis on an Old Testament world view rather than one that emphasizes the actual teachings of Jesus.