# The Jew Question \[defining Jew and Christian. ed. title\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 3, 2009, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809 "2009-07-03T13:21:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/161 "2009-07-06T04:49:47Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > 1. Were you using an English translation, or did you go to the original Hebrew to see if they were, in fact, the same word? The latter. They are both **אחד** ('echad.). > [@](#): > > 1. Several people before DSeid pointed it out to you, myself included, pointed out that Judaism is fundamentally incompatible with a triune God. Unless I miss my guess, several of us pointed out the Shema. Even if you had found the same word being used as a metaphor in one place and literally in another, do you believe this would have ‘debunked’ the point all those Jews made? Yes, but let us not pretend. I know very well that I have a reputation for drama and renegade interpretations. I’ve heard all the jokes about my meds and whatnot. But I’ve taken my Tranxene, and I react like any other human being to what I perceive as disrespect or dismissal or whatever. What I believed was that, unless someone were knowledgable otherwise, he ought to concede that at least the word MIGHT — stressing might — have the same meaning in both cases. But that was not to be. There were merely insistences that I was silly and lacking in common sense. How would YOU react if someone responded to your argument by dismissing it altogether and saying you lacked common sense? Speaking for myself, I pretty much ignore what I perceive as a disrespectful tone, at least as much as I can these days. > [@](#): > > 1. Why was “because our religion chooses to see one as metaphor and the other as literal” not good enough until DSeid told you? If a religion chooses to use a word metaphorically on Thursday and seriously on Tuesday, why does that not serve as justification enough for why, _within the context of its use by that religion_ its usage must conform to one pattern on Thursday and another on Tuesday? Because for what, the fourth time? I trust DSeid. He does not insult me. He does not approach me with belligerence. He doesn’t parse my posts into a dozen phrases and dismiss them as silly or non-sequiturs. (Incidentally, if you will permit me, it is a pet peeve of mine, and I realize it is not binding on you in any way, but the word is “sequitur”, not “sequitor”. I mean no disrespect in bringing that up. It’s just a bit jarring to see it consistently spelled that way.) > [@](#): > > It’s also worth pointing out that your original argument was (and still is) a non sequitor and is quite silly sounding to most folks who’re Jewish (and probably a good few who aren’t). Arguing that the language that the Torah uses to describe marriage should inform the language that Judaism uses to describe God is a non sequitor in that it, literally, simply does not follow. That’s part of what I’m getting at. If you were talking about the language used to describe God, you might have had an argument. But you didn’t. You used a line about marriage to extrapolate to an argument as to how similar language used in a totally different context might mean the same thing. No, that’s not right. I asked whether Judaism held that a man and wife are literally one flesh. It was not an unreasonable question. Religions are full of strange and mysterious things, like the notion of drinking the blood and eating the body of Christ. When I felt it was ignored, I raised the question again. When it was finally addressed, I gave the verses in parallel, asking why they could not both be metaphors. I was then boohooed, shooed, scatted, and saw women running from the room and screaming as they pulled out their hair. And then, DSeid posted. Read his post. Read it from my point of you, and you’ll see why I accepted it. > [@](#): > > I’m trying to figure out why you thought it did, and what it would have shown if you could prove they followed. Did you believe, at the time, that you were going to use Genesis to show Jews that they were wrong about their religion, and it really does allow for a triune God? I know in the past that you’ve argued that Jesus is “the garden” and that absolutely all spiritual/religious paths lead to that ‘garden’. Was that, for example, the same sort of belief? That Jews just thought that they had a religion that was 100% separate but, in fact, it was totally compatible with Christianity? Certainly, it is a simple modus ponens that if both usages of the word had been metaphors, then “one (God)” could have been open to interpretation because, well, that’s what metaphors are: figures of speech that are open to interpretation. > [@](#): > > I mean, we’re not talking a minor point of theology, but a major, major, major one. It seemed (and seems) that your original argument was not _just_ about how the Torah contains language that we consider to be metaphor and language that we consider to be cut and dried (which is hardly a revelation to most Jews). But that, instead, the argument seemed to be that _because_ one use of roughly similar language seemed to mean one thing, that another use of roughly similar language must mean the same thing and that Jews were wrong about Judaism when they denied it. (To put a finer point on it, that you’d somehow found a gaping logical hole in Judaism that Jews had been ignorant of but you were prepared to argue about what their religion really meant.) It sounds rather amazing to me that it sounded like all that. It began, as I said, as a simple question: why is the same word ('echad) a metaphor in one instance and literal in another. It was a why question. No one answered the why. Except for DSeid. His “why” was his assurance that he could show it to be a fact that it was a metaphor in one instance and literal in another. Again, he did not badger, razz, or bristle. He just simply asked me to trust him. Which was easy to do for reasons I’ve given repeatedly. > [@](#): > > Yes, but _why_ [did you think your argument was a valid one to make when you began]? I don’t even understand that question. Who begins an argument that he believes in the first place is invalid? Why would he? I thought my argument was valid for the same reason you thought yours was: I thought I was right. > [@](#): > > Even if your original point was true and Judaism was using the same exact word/phrase/whatever to mean two different things, why assume that instead of using the same vocabulary in different ways depending on context, that Judaism might really be compatible with a triune God and all the Jews who said otherwise might just be wrong because they didn’t know their own scripture well enough? I don’t know. They’re kind of asking me the same question over in the Aesthetical Jesus threads. Why do I think differently from scholars throughout the ages on a number of philosophical topics? And I don’t know. I guess it’s just the nature of philosophy. “All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.” Ambrose Bierce ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/162 "2009-07-06T06:33:24Z")
When I started this thread I was under no illusion that Christianity was compatible with Judaism. I simply wanted to understand what the problem was with calling an ethnic Jew/Christian a Jew. To some up what I’ve learned is as follows. 1. When refering to anyone as a Jew, it must be assumed that they are either atheist(neutral) or their religion is Judaist. No other deist religion is acceptable. 2. When labelling a person a Jew by ethnicity who has converted to another religion, one must qualify that label. Ethnic Jews of another religion are ethnic Jews but they are not Jews. This does come across as somewhat snarky to me, but please trust me, no snark is intended. If anything, I feel somewhat dense in trying to understand what the rules are in labeling a Christian who happens to be named Morgenstern. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/163 "2009-07-06T06:42:24Z")
“A Christian of Jewish descent” would probably serve just fine. Lib: At least, I guess, we can be glad that DSeid was here. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/164 "2009-07-06T14:01:55Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > Look - this is maybe a hijack but I’m curious. How do Jews in general feel about Christians using the Tanakh and calling it “The Old Testament”. (Tanakh is the correct term, right? I’m not trying to be rude here.) When Christians refer to Adam & Eve, or the 10 Commandments, or the Psalms - is that seen as subverting or appropriating Judaism? Or is it all just ancient news? Jews generally don’t care. They do care about people faking up a spurious “Jewish” identity, because generally speaking people care about the appropriation of their identity. The suspicion is that they are doing so for an improper purpose, and 90% of the time that is exactly correct - using a fake idenity to subvert and convert those who really have that identity is an “improper purpose”. Jews generally wish that Christians would, you know, stop trying to convert them. It’s tiresome. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/165 "2009-07-06T14:06:38Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, seperate or not, I don’t care about ethnicity. > > It’s an objective standard that has no spine to it. Contradictions and paradoxes abound even within single religions, so I don’t see the problem in accepting them when forming hybrid religions. Humans are perfectly capable of holding contradictory beliefs (George Orwell didn’t invent the concept of “doublethink” - he merely gave it a name) and when confronted with these contradictions can readily adopt any of a number of established mental strategies: > [ul][li]Will choose not to think about them (Orwell called this “stopthink”);[/li][li]Will declare that God moves in mysterious ways;[/li][li]Will declare that the contradictions don’t exist - it is simply that human minds are not (yet) capable of resolving them;[/li][li]Will declare that all will be made clear in the afterlife;[/li][li]Will reflexively accuse the person asking the question of being a heretic or oppressor; or[/li][li]Some other coping mechanism.[/ul][/li] > Personally, I think it’d be great if I could point out the contradictions in the beliefs of a religious person and have them go “You’re right, this is all nonsense!” but when has that ever happened? I have no illusions that you pointing out that is it impossible to be Jewish and Christian will have the same effect and I’m a little surprised you haven’t realized this, either. Yeah, we all get it, you think religions is all bullshit and so the more crap heaped on the religious by infighting, the better. Which is all very amusing no doubt, but this is about defining an ethnicity. Lots of Jews are atheists, and they don’t care for Christians masquerading as Jews any more than the religious ones do. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/166 "2009-07-06T14:12:54Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Except that, once again, belief in the divinity of Jesus is not a part of every Christian denomination. I am well aware of the infinite variety of Christological flavours. Point is, people for whom Christology is the significant religious concern are called “Christians”, not “Jews”. ---
**Author:** ![Sablicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@Sablicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sablicious)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/167 "2009-07-06T14:17:45Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > I need this cleared up once and for all. > > Can one be called a Jew and a Christian at the same time ? Oh geez… :rolleyes: [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197) ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/168 "2009-07-06T14:18:04Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Is it just Christianity? Would a philosophical Taoist Jew be an oxymoron too? The key here is “philosophical”. As you probably know, Taoism is both a philosophy and a _religion_ - complete with priests, rituals, temples, and gods. There is nothing incompatible with a Jew being a _philosophical_ Taoist and imbibing the mad wisdom of Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu. However, a Jew could not convert to _religious_ Taoism and (say) worship at the shrine of Yu-huang, and still be a Jew. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/169 "2009-07-06T14:51:55Z")
2 questions: - What about Jewish atheists? - How impressed would the Nazis have been to hear that someone with an obvious Jewish background had recently converted to Christianity? ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/170 "2009-07-06T15:42:03Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > - What about Jewish atheists? What about them? They’ve been discussed in depth throughout the thread. > [@](#): > > How impressed would the Nazis have been to hear that someone with an obvious Jewish background had recently converted to Christianity? It would have made no difference to them. Edith Stein was of Jewish descent, converted to Catholicism and became a nun. She died in Auschwitz. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/171 "2009-07-06T17:01:09Z")
Nazi antisemitism was racial, not religious. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/172 "2009-07-06T17:31:02Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Yeah, we all get it, you think religions is all bullshit and so the more crap heaped on the religious by infighting, the better. I like to think it’s a bit more subtle than that - I look forward to a time where every individual picks-and-chooses what (if any) religious beliefs to hold, which I figure is a step toward the end of _organized_ religion and its detrimental influences on science and politics. As such, if someone wants to call themselves a Jew for Jesus, or an Imam for Confucious, so be it. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/173 "2009-07-06T21:06:56Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Nazi antisemitism was racial, not religious. It was indeed. But it might be important to note that Nazi purification went beyond race. Gays were targeted. People with disabilities and deformities. That sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/174 "2009-07-06T21:33:15Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > …Lots of Jews are atheists, and they don’t care for Christians masquerading as Jews any more than the religious ones do. 😕 Why would an atheist Jew give a shit what other Jew’s _religious_ believes are? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/175 "2009-07-06T22:21:41Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > 😕 > > Why would an atheist Jew give a shit what other Jew’s _religious_ believes are? Because they do. They may be atheists, but they’re still members of the Jewish People. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/176 "2009-07-06T22:31:18Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > Why would an atheist Jew give a shit what other Jew’s _religious_ believes are? Why would a non-Jew give a shit what other Jews believe about Jewish culture? Hell, read the thread in its entirety. The question is answered multiple times. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/177 "2009-07-06T22:35:22Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > 😕 > > Why would an atheist Jew give a shit what other Jew’s _religious_ believes are? They care only insofar as such people are _not Jews_. Judaism is a religion/ethnicity that, above all else, is characterized by survival - survival as a group identity. Jews (and Judaism) have survived for so long by establishing certain rules determining who is - or is not - a “Jew”. If Jews accepted that one could be both Christian and Jewish at the same time, their resistance as a group to assimilation would be that much less - they would (most Jews believe) soon dissapear as a distinct group. Some Christians of course ardently desire this outcome (I believe there are millenial reasons for this), and Jews by and large (even athiest Jews) do not: if they did, they would hardly self-identify as “Jews”. Or think of it this way: why would atheists approve of religious Christians’ quest to destroy, for entirely religious reasons, an ethnic identity and culture that they (the atheist Jews) identify with and find to be of value? ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/178 "2009-07-06T22:44:49Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Because they do. They may be atheists, but they’re still members of the Jewish People. Still doesn’t make sense. Being atheists their only claim to being a “Jew” is ethnicity, right? And atheists by definition have no god beliefs, so why would they care who worships what non-existent sky-pixie in order to be a “proper” Jew? Personally, being an atheist myself, it really makes no difference to me who calls themselves a Christian, a neo-Christian, a Buddist-Muslism and/or any combination you can think of – after all, in my experience, most people define their own gods/religions in ways that are consistent only to _themselves_. You know, the whole “personalized god buffet style religion thingie.” Now, if I ask someone what their _ethnicity_ is (not something I do anyway) and they say “I’m Jewish” all I interpret from that is that they are of Jewish ancestry. Period. What they do or don’t believe is no business of mine. Of course, if I see someone wearing a beanie and/or the long black coats and the curly sideburns, it’s pretty obvious what _faith_ they belong to. But by the same token some of them _may not have_ Jewish ancestry, correct? Thus the whole thing seems rather arbitrary to me. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/179 "2009-07-06T22:48:16Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > Still doesn’t make sense. Being atheists their only claim to being a “Jew” is ethnicity, right? And atheists by definition have no god beliefs, so why would they care who worships what non-existent sky-pixie in order to be a “proper” Jew? Because they believe that those who worship another flavour of non-existant sky-pixie are pretending to be like them for irrational sky-pixish reasons of their own, reasons of which the atheists do not approve. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809/180 "2009-07-06T23:00:33Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > Still doesn’t make sense. Being atheists their only claim to being a “Jew” is ethnicity, right? . Wrong, I’m afraid. Ethnicity and religion are only two factors. There’s also culture, history, a sense of shared fate and the acceptance and responsibility of other Jews. Basically, it’s being part of a group. Conversion to any religion other than Judaism gnaws away at this, by erasing the distinction between Jew and Gentile. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jew-question-defining-jew-and-christian-ed-title/501809.md?page=10)