Does Jewish tradition predate Christian tradition in any meaningful way? [closed]

Question

Many people assume that because Judaism is the super ancient religion and Christianity relatively modern, although ancient by any standards, that if someone wants to dig up some meaningful bit of Jewish history or Jewish tradition, even as it relates to Christianity, then the best source would be a Jewish scholar.

In one way at least, I know that Christians have preserved Jewish traditions in a way that the Jews were incapable of doing, because of the diaspora and the splits in their culture and heritage. Public sacrifice is an instance where the Jews have essentially lost a central part of their religion with the desecration of the temple. I understand some have traditions that supplant the sacrifices mentioned in the Torah, but it's Christianity which preserved sacrifice as the central aspect of her liturgy.

But would modern Jewish Scholars really have any reason for knowing how to pronounce (or translate) their own language any better than modern Christian Scholars and are Rabbinical interpretations of scripture more ancient or authoritative than Christian interpretations?

Answer 1

Judaism predates Christianity in one overwhelmingly important way: Jesus was a Jew, and is considered (by Christians at any rate) to be the realization of at least a couple of thousand years of Jewish prophetic promises.

In another dimension, Judaism has a long-standing ethic of accurate copying of scripture that Christianity sorely lacks. See Bart Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus for some solid scholarship about the variation between ancient sources of the New Testament. On the other hand, a scroll of Isaiah from around the time of Jesus that turned up among the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls is very close to the Masoretic orthographic one you'll find in your neighborhood synagogue today. This is not so with the typical ancient Christian copy.

The chain of teaching of the language and the scriptural traditions is also continuous, in a very similar way that we Christian clergy types claim a commission from Peter.

Why would one ask a Jewish scholar about the meaning of a Hebrew Bible text rather than a Christian scholar? Well, they learn Hebrew when young. They're most likely steeped in the Hebrew traditions of studying scripture. They know the ancient and Talmudic traditions well.

Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity both had the destruction of the second temple as a very early event in their development. They share the idea that the Holy One may be addressed from anywhere.

Is Holy Communion a sacrifice? Well, yes, it can be interpreted that way, but it's a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise. It is nothing at all like the temple sacrifices.

Sometime we'll get into Rene Girard's theological anthropology which makes a good case that the Resurrection was God's definitive statement "NO!" to sacrifice. But that's a long story.

Direct blunt answer to your question: Yes!

Answer 2

There's a strong argument that Jewish tradition has been preserved with far less external influence than modern Christianity. Much of the liturgy was formalised after the destruction of the temple and has very likely remained unchanged since. As user116 alludes to, the religious Jewish practice of diligently preserving texts throughout history is unmatched.

Western Christianity, however, has been through a syncretistic period of adopting pagan practices (cf. Christmas and Easter) and was constrained to a relatively unrelated language (latin) for about a millennium before being rocked by the reformation.

While Christian scholars may be capable of expounding exegetical commentaries with understanding of the historical Jewish perspective, it is only by studying Jewish sources that they will be able to do so!

Answer 3

On Hebrew, Jews have been studying their texts for this whole time, in Hebrew with scholars handing down information on how to make sense of the texts. Within the information is often clues to subtle meanings, that don't exist when simply reading a Christian text by yourself or with Christian scholarly books.

There are also spots that over the years Chrisitianity changed, that aren't changed in Judaism because it's the same Hebrew it was back then. They often are changes to support Christian theology which can't be found in the original Hebrew.