Thread by @Delafina777

There's no such thing as "Judeo-Christian ethics."

Judaism and Christianity's ethical systems don't have any more in common with each other than Christianity and Islam's ethical systems, so all this phrase is is a roundabout way to shit on Islam. 1/x

Plus, "Judeo-Christian ethics" almost always gets trotted out in a vague, Golden Rule sort of way.

Which is basically just shitting on every other major world religion, since they ALL have "treat other people with compassion" teachings.

But wait! I hear you saying. Christianity has its roots in Judaism, so surely we can speak of some sort of ethical tradition common to both, but not to other religions, that's more robust than "just treat people with compassion."

...can we, though?

Okay, well, in order to define what's unique about a purported "Judeo-Christian ethics," we first have to define what was--I'm not going to say unique, but--*different* about Judaism's ethical system from other major religions around the Mediterranean at the time.

So, okay, what were Judaism's innovations as a religion.

If you've taken a high school world religions unit, like, ever, you've probably heard the term "ethical monotheism."

One of the defining features of mainline Judaism around the late Bronze Age/early Iron Age was the idea that its deity was the only deity (or at least, the only one worthy of worship), and that what that deity wanted wasn't just allegiance and sacrifices, but ethical behavior.

I'm not saying that idea was absolutely unique in the world at the time or anything, but it was kind of a big deal in the world of the late Bronze Age Mediterranean milieu.

And the other one was the primacy of law. One of the most enduring negative stereotypes about Judaism is that it's "legalistic." That's a weird flattening of everything it is, but absolutely the idea of law holds a central place of honor.

It's a huge deal. Law was the province of kings--and in most of the ancient Near East, commoners didn't have a right to know what the laws governing them were. Law was basically whatever the king said (or wrote) it was.

So the idea that everyone gets to know what the law is, AND everyone is responsible for upholding/teaching/enforcing it was a HUGE deal.

When Moses starts his final speech to the Israelites about moving on without him, he doesn't start with a bunch of religious stuff.

He starts with: ok, you're going to build yourself a legal system, and you're going to make sure it applies equally to EVERYONE.

So, okay, what are the defining features of Jewish ethics, as they existed when Christianity split off (so that they can accurately be said to be part of the same ethical tradition)?

#1 divine desire = ethical behavior
💕💖💗🥰LAW LAW LAW❤️💕❣️😍

So, if Jewish Ethical Characteristic #1 is that the primary divine desire is for ethical behavior, not pure allegiance to the deity, Christianity skipped off into the sunset shouting "BYEEEEEEEE!" almost immediately on that one.

Like, Christianity is pretty clear that Thing #1 is allegiance to Jesus, and then the RESULT of that is supposed to be the desire to do good works.

And it's only doubled down on that over time. At least in Catholicism, you still have the idea of faith and works existing more or less equally and in tandem, but Protestantism goes all sola fide and ends up developing "works righteousness" as a term of contempt.

So if the first and foremost thing the Eternal wants in Judaism is ethical behavior, in Christianity, it's for you to be saved, and then you're supposed to want to do good works to be more like Jesus.

These are two COMPLETELY different bases for an ethical system.

And then we've got the primacy of law.

There are a million and one debates about how antinomian Christianity is, and I'm not going to rehash them. I don't think there's a single right answer. I DO think, however, that this is pretty clear that law isn't a primary focus.

So no, I don't see a single unbroken line of descent from Jewish ethics to Christian ones. Christianity incorporated Jewish texts, certainly. But the bases of the systems diverged immediately.

And I'm hard-pressed to find a single major principle in Jewish ethics that's shared by Christianity but not Islam, or even, in broad strokes, but every major world religion.

"Judeo-Christian ethics" aren't a thing.

People who are going to get instablocked:

-Atheists showing up to ignore the point and make this about them
-Messianic "Jews"
-Islamophobes

Go start your own threads, and stay out of mine.