"Judaism and Christianity are linked to each other with a kinship that transcends all their differences. Christianity arose in the Jewish household of faith, and its basic teachings clearly reflect the influence of its family origin. The Jewish heroes of faith from Abraham through the prophets, are also deemed as the pioneers of Christian faith; the basic teachings of Judaism concerning God and man were adopted by Christianity into its own doctrinal structure. [?] Jews and Christians have forgotten their true relationship."1
As we look at the Jewish and the Christian faiths, both of which trace their origins back past Abraham and Moses, to the original stories of Genesis and the Garden of Eden, we notice basic similarities and major differences between the two religions. This paper will attempt to highlight those similarities and differences, illustrating major points in each religion and contrasting them, in order to come to a higher understanding of each religion and their relationship to each other.
Judaism is the faith of a people, in a people and as such, does not qualify itself so much as a religion as a group of people who follow the same traditions, laws, and beliefs. "Judaism does not characterize itself as a religion. The subject of the Tanakh is the history of the Children of Israel, especially in terms of their relationship with God. Thus, Judaism has been categorized as a culture or as a civilization."3 However, Christianity is a faith in faith, in an idea or ideal. The purely theological aspect of Christianity is one of the many differences between the two religions, and also one of the most important. There is no concept of national identity in Christianity the w ...