In recent years, the Jewish press has devoted an increasing number of articles to the attempts and problems in the relationship between Jews and Christians. Speaking as a former Baptist preacher, I can attest that the primary cause of the problems is endemic Christian ignorance of the extent, influence and effect of Roman Hellenism on their authentic roots. While the assertion of a 1^st-century Ribi being the Mashiakh is within the realm of the understandable to Jews, the Hellenism inherent in Christianity – with its Hellenist man-g*o*d demonizing Jews to save gentiles – intractably conflicts with the basic core of Judaism taught by the 1^st-century Ribi: Torah.

I'm an Orthodox Jew instead of a Baptist preacher today because I realized that this not only conflicts irrefutably with the Torah that Ribi Y^әhoshua taught, it is self-contradictory! You can follow Ribi Y^әhoshua if you will do so as he taught: in harmony with keeping Torah. It is post-135 C.E. Hellenist Romans who perverted his teachings into anti-Torah – misojudaic – Christianity. Follow Ribi Y^әhoshua, instead of the post-135 C.E. Roman Hellenists, and you can develop a shared foundation upon which to build a solid and enduring relationship with the Jewish community.

Jewish-Christian Relations are typically undermined by a misnomer – "Jewish-Chistianity" – which precludes meaningful discussion, hobbling the best and most well-intentioned attempts to improve relations between Christians and Jews.

While Jews can, and frequently do, practice religions ranging from Hinduism to Buddhism to Christianity, often injecting their own "Jewish" symbols and terminology, Judaic trappings don't transform any of these religions into Judaism. Such syncretism is unique to Hellenism and its offspring, Christianity. The only claim that Jewish-Christianity could make with integrity would be historical. However, the notion that "Jewish-Christianity" is a form of Judaism depends upon well-documented post-135 C.E. distortions of history (see The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue).

Attempts to promote relations between Jews and Christians that impose this misnomer ensure that subsequent discussion must bog down in the same intractable conflicts that have hobbled such attempts for millennia. Nearly 2,000 years of totally consistent failure should have taught that progress can be made only after some basic assumptions have been reevaluated, harmonizing opening positions with a deeper understanding of documented history. Jews and Christians who both understand the history documented by Parkes are far more likely to share solid historical footing on which to build a relationship. This historical shared footing is the basis of all teachings by every 1^st-century P^әrushim Ribis: Torah. On Torah as the foundation, Jews and Christians can build an enduring relationship. Failing to develop this solid historical foundation that Jews and Christians can share inexorably leads back to today's intractably contradictory starting positions.

"Jewish Christianity" is invariably presented as portrayed in the NT, which even Christian historians and scholars acknowledge was extensively redacted by post-135 C.E. gentile Roman – Hellenist – Christians, who were antithetical to the 1^stcentury Jews who followed Ribi Y^әhoshua. Corroborating The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible ("Text, NT," 2^nd edition; Abingdon, 1962) and Qumran scroll 4Q MMT (Elisha Qimron, Discoveries in the Judean Desert, Oxford), Parkes indisputably documents that the NT reflects exclusively the post-4^th-century Hellenist Roman Christianity that was, and is, intractably antithetical to the original, 1^st-century, N^әtzarim Jews. The earliest extant Church historian, Eusebius (260-340 C.E.), documented that the N^әtzarim never accepted the NT, approving only their own Hebrew (not Greek) Matityahu (EH, III, xxvii, 2-6).

While even gentiles should be aware of this history, it is even more true for Jews, who have had the opportunity to recognize and reject paganism and avoid mixing the unholy with the holy.

The key position to foster relations between Jews and Christians is the leader of those who follow the authentic 1^st-century Judaic teachings of Ribi Y^әhoshua as the Mashiakh in the Israeli Orthodox Jewish community. This is the position founded by the brother of Ribi Y^әhoshua, the first Paqid of the N^әtzarim: PaqidYa·aqov ha-Tzadiq Ben-David. Today's Paqid 16 is a former Baptist preacher who is recognized by Orthodox rabbis as an Orthodox Jew in good standing: Paqid Yirm^әyahu, ha-Tzadiq Ben-David

Contact Paqid Yirm^әyahu, ha-Tzadiq Ben-David and learn how you can contribute toward building a lasting relationship between Jews and Christians. Do it now (via our blog, in our Web Café, click in panel at left).