History and Background: Modern Judaism - Essay Example

A second covenant was made some 450 years later when Moses led the Jews from slavery out of Egypt back to Cannon. It was during this exodus upon Mount Sinai that God told Moses the ten commandments, now contained in the Torah or Old Testament, the first five books of the Bible Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It was here upon Mount Sinai that saw the beginnings of the structured religion, Judaism. The religion of Judaism is ethical; when the Israelites accepted the ten commandments they committed to follow a religious code of law.

The Torah contains 613 commandments from God which teach them how to act and think about life and death. The religion of Judaism believes that God will judge people by their actions alone which leads to a fundamental difference between Christianity and Judaism. Christians believe that all humans are born with original sin and that this sin cannot be absolved by oneself but that the sacrificial death of Jesus is atonement for all humans' sins. Jews on the other hand do not believe in original sin but believe that all have good and bad in them and that they have the choice of moral actions, Jewish principles are that humans themselves decide how to act and it is their actions that will be their salvation in the face of temptation, whereas in Christianity even the thought of temptation is classed as a sin.

1Judaism is monotheistic; there is only one god, in Christianity the idea of trinitarianism exists, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Whilst all three represent the one God Almighty in Judaism God cannot be divided. Whilst both religions share the books contained in the old testament many Jews see that Jesus replaced Jewish law. The New Testament containing the Gospels and scriptures of Jesus' disciples is not believed or is part of the Hebrew Bible. Whilst Jews do not deny the existence of Jesus they do deny that he was the messiah as they argue he did not fulfill what the prophets had said he would.

The coming of the messiah or the Moshiach is a belief held by all Jews however the belief is that when he comes there will be peace created on earth, Jesus was not on this earth in times of peace and there has never been completely global peace since his death. Jewish faith proclaims that every generation has a person born who could potentially be the Moshiach but only if the time is right will that person become the messiah however if they die before their mission is completed then he has still yet to come.