The Cabana Chronicles Conversations About God Judaism and Christianity: The Cabana Chronicles

Judaism and Christianity

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John B. Bartholomew

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MacLean Publishers

Copyright 2017, 2023 by John B. Bartholomew

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The Cabana Chronicles

Conversations about God

Judaism and Christianity

By John B. Bartholomew

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ISBN 9781386713883

All rights reserved solely by the author. The author guarantees all contents are original and do not infringe upon the legal rights of any other person or work. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the author.

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www.the-cabana-chronicles.com

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Acknowledgments

Book Contents

Preface

Introduction

Dedication

Week One

Week Two

Week Three

Week Four

Week Five

Week Six

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the input from all of my pastors, church teaching elders, and Christian friends, who have faithfully communicated the truth to me through their sermons and classes. Dr. R. C. Sproul, Dr. A. Bernard Kuiper, Pastor Ron Shaw, Pastor Frank Vanlandingham, Dr. Robert Branden, Dr. Voddie Baucham, Pastor Brent Merten, Pastor Brad Fell, Pastor Roger Ruff, Pastor Duane Kirchner, Dr. Del Tackett, Dr. Lamar Allen, and to Dr. Bill Waddell for his assistance in explaining the Jewish culture and religion, I am also grateful to the informed members of my Facebook Cabana Chronicles Discussion Group, particularly singling out members, Joseph Blum, Jr., John Marty Smithhart, Nick Mudge, Tuomas Nurmi, and our orthodox Jewish member, David Saelman, for their contributions to the discussions presented in this book.

Last but not least, I thank my loving wife, Patti Lee Bartholomew, whose patience, suggestions and loyalty to the cause have served to support me in my endeavor to complete this project over the past ten years.

BOOK CONTENTS

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Week One

Introduction of participants

Rules of Engagement

Introduction to Theology

Introduction to Judaism

Holy Books

First Century Judaism

Definition of a True, Saving Faith

Jewish Traditions

Role of the Messiah

The Importance of Doing Good

Jewish Law

Concept of Salvation, Heaven and Hell

Authorship of the Holy Books

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Week Two

Characteristics of God

Significance of Love as a Virtue

Description of the Triune God

The Person and Purpose of Jesus Christ

Summary of God’s Characteristics

Works versus Grace

The Law and the Gospel

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Week Three

Jewish Rejection of Christ

God’s Chosen People

Importance of the Temple

Character and Purpose of Jesus Christ

Purpose of the Messiah

Messianic References in the Old Testament

Purpose of the Jews

Formulation of the Bible

Criteria for Selection of Books in the Bible

The Theory of ijma

Free Will and God’s will

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Week Four

Contentment in Religion

The Role of the Holy Spirit in Christianity

The Role of the Spirit in Judaism

Credibility of the New Testament

Dead Sea Scrolls

Criteria for Analysis of Historical Documents

Comments on Islamic Doctrine

Fatalism, Predestination and Free Will

Significance of Destruction of the Jewish temple

Jew’s Expectation for the Messiah

Relationship with God

Prayer

External and Internal Challenges

Variation in Jewish Belief

Conspiracy Theory

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Week Five

Comparing Secular Humanism to Judaism

References to Christ in the Hebrew Bible

Replacement Theology

The Law and the Gospel: God’s grace

Muslim’s Aversion to Jews: Prejudice

Discussion of Christ in Gospel Accounts

Jewish Worship

Judaism’s Status Today

Christ’s Position in the Bible

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Week Six

The Resurrection: The Most Important Aspect of Christianity

Introduction of the Christian Doctrine

Christ’s Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy

New Testament Conspiracy

Salvation for Jews

New Testament as a Fulfillment of Scripture

Significance of the New Testament

Jesus and Jehovah Comparison

Opinion of Christ

Christ’s True Identity

Sub doctrines of Christianity

Commonality of the Three Monotheisms

Secularity of Islam and Judaism

Application of Tests of Truth

Appendices

Comparison of Religions of Judaism and Christianity

Preface

"It seems to me that a man must be a

believer or seek some belief, otherwise

his life is empty, empty....To live and

not know why the cranes fly, why

children are born, why there are stars

in the sky....Either he knows what he

is living for, or it’s all nonsense, waste."

From Chekhov’s Three Sisters

Aristotle, the man considered to be the father of philosophy, said there are three different ways to judge a person’s mode of living. Each mode differs in the degree of awareness of the experience of life.

The lowest level consists of people who are most easily satisfied with a life of mere day to day enjoyment. Often by necessity, they focus primarily on their own basic survival. Aristotle believed that the majority of people on earth are living at this level. He called the second level the life of active citizenship. People living at this level are satisfied with the pursuit of career, money, fame, honor and pride. He called the highest level of living the life of contemplation. This is the level requiring the most mental commitment. It is only at this level that we are motivated to really think about the real purpose of our lives. Socrates said the unexamined life isn’t worth living.

This distinction of the three modes of living is of course, by its very nature, subjective. There are no arbitrary boundaries in place which separate them. And there are no restrictions to prevent people from moving from one level to another depending on the circumstances. It is therefore possible for a person to move up the ladder of mental involvement from one mode to another and many people do accomplish this feat as they mature in life. This is a welcome improvement to those people who recognize that something is missing in their lives, and they want to fill the perceived void.

We humans are religious by nature, and everyone has a set of beliefs that collectively make up what they call their religion. Most of us though don’t give what we believe much thought. Surveys indicate that there are many people who confess that they may be living a life that falls somewhat short of their potential, but claim they just don’t have the time or the inclination to do anything about it. Few of us take the time to think through what we believe and whether our beliefs can be supported and are worth retaining or whether they should be discarded for some other belief.

The ability of people to think introspectively, to lead a self-examined life, is a lost art in this day and age. People are content to settle for progress in the material sense but don’t understand that only by questioning where we all stand on more important issues, do we truly move forward. We must accept that our basic need is for real fulfillment in our lives and that to achieve this completeness, we need to recognize that we should engage in discussions of the more important issues in our lives.

How can we integrate the knowledge of others into our own without exchanging ideas and opinions with others? We need to use our good minds to formulate opinions about important matters, test the support of these opinions and discover the limitations of our fallible knowledge. Solomon tells us in Proverbs 27:17 that As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. We need to get out of that rut we are in and begin to prioritize living a life of contemplation. We need to crave knowledge and clarity.

Philosophy has been characterized as a great conversation, and the same description would apply to theology, the father of philosophy. Valuable spiritual experiences can often come out of conversations revolving around these two important disciplines. Philosopher, John Stuart Mill once said Estimate the proportion of men and women who are selfish, sensual, frivolous, idle, absolutely common place and wrapped up in the smallest of petty routines, and consider how far the freest of free discussion is likely to improve them. Indeed this is exactly what I believe happened when we formed our little discussion group of Winter Texans. We retirees met under a beach cabana on South Padre Island, Texas each season for three years to discuss philosophy, theology, and religion.  .

Most of us had had successful business careers which required our attention during those earning years so we had to wait until our retirement for the additional time to enable us to pursue that life of contemplation. We seemed to have reached that point in our lives when we had the time and the inclination to know more about what we believed, and how our beliefs compared to the doctrines of other religions. Believing that no day is lost on which some spiritual truth becomes clearer, we were motivated to meet on a regular basis to calibrate our spiritual compasses and put the priorities of life in proper order. We discovered that we now have that time to focus on the mental and the spiritual aspects of our lives. We understood that this is the very age when new horizons should be appearing and new doors opening. It almost seems as though our entire lives have led up to this point in time. We are motivated to once again pull those books off the shelf which address liberal arts subjects like theology, religion, philosophy, history, literature, and psychology and read them again, as though for the first time.

In our discussions of philosophy, religion, politics and theology, we discovered that we really enjoyed the experience of meeting together to discuss and debate such weighty subjects. Theology is important because it’s important to understand what we believe. In fact, Christian apologist, C. S. Lewis, once said that he found the study of theology and doctrine more helpful in devotion than the devotional books. He said that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.

Introduction to the Cabana Chronicles Series

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The Cabana Chronicles is a series of books addressing the subject of apologetics, the systematic and logical defense of the Christian religion as it is compared to several other world religions. This book compares Judaism to Christianity.*

So, why is apologetics important? The Apostle Peter believed defending his religion was important when he tells us to always make sure Christians have an adequate explanation of why we believe what we believe. What was important in the first century is even more important now in this day and age. Dr. Peter Kreeft, in his introduction to his book, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, surmised that our civilization today is in social crisis, intellectual crisis, and spiritual crisis. We do apologetics not to save the church but to save the world. Dr. Kreeft listed three reasons for the study of apologetics: It leads to faith for unbelievers; it builds up faith and aids love for Christianity for believers; and it engages in spiritual warfare.

Apologist Cornelius Van Til once said that apologetics begins with dialogue. It is not a one way form of communication or a simple matter of proclamation. Since The Cabana Chronicles series is a record of the dialogue in our weekly debates,** I believe the books in this series exemplify what Van Til meant. As it was for Socrates, the argument is all. Indeed, throughout history, the dialogue literary style has proven to be a most effective learning tool because it translates thought-provoking concepts into the vernacular and encourages the reader to vicariously participate in the discussion taking place. It also allows for the expression of a variety of opinions on the subject being discussed. Dr. Kreeft states that he loves the dialogue format. He tells us an argument is valid if the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. If all the terms in an argument are clear, and if all the premises are true, and if the argument is free from logical fallacy, then the conclusion must be true.

Philosophers who study epistemology, the study of how knowledge is obtained, tell us the three sources of man’s knowledge are faith, tradition and reason. While each one of these sources is certainly utilized in the formulation of a person’s beliefs to one degree or another, depending on the religion, one source of knowledge is typically emphasized over the other two. Since Judaism is basically inseparable from its culture, its primary source of knowledge is tradition.

*Other books in the series: The Cabana Chronicles: Book One, Book Two, Book Three, The Foundation of Belief, The Religions of Secular Humanism and Christianity, Islam and Christianity, Mormonism and Christianity, Comparing Christian Denominations and Catholicism and Protestantism.

**Although some of the content presented in these fictional dialogues is based on actual conversations, The Cabana Chronicles is a work of fiction. With the exception of myself, the characters in the books in the series are fictitious and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Charles Chuck Brookins.

The Cabana Chronicles

Judaism and Christianity

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"Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit,

according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles

of the world, and not according to Christ."

Colossians 2:8

You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

Mark 7:8

Week One

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Bobby:  Gentlemen, this is the season we take up our discussion of Judaism. It’s good to see our original group return this year. Ben’s back this year to tell us about Judaism. As you may recall, he used to be a high school teacher in New York City and now owns a clothing store on the Island. Ahmed is back as well. He has officially retired from his real estate sales career in Chicago and has now begun to obsessively pursue the art of surf fishing. And of course, our regulars, Darrel, Daniel, Peter and John are back. Darrel used to own a John Deere dealership in the Midwest; he identifies with the Christian religion. Daniel used to be a Christian missionary and is now working as a part time guidance counselor for the Port Isabel School District. Peter is a retired biochemist; he used to work with the FDA in Denver; and John is a retired real estate appraiser from Colorado. John’s also a Christian, and is the author of a number of books based on our discussions each year. I assume this season’s discussions will result in another book in the series, right, John?

John: Yes, I intend to do just that. Thanks for the plug, That’s why I brought along this recorder again.

Ben: Personally I would be flattered if I were quoted in some book.

John: As some of you also know, the first book in the series compared Christianity to the atheistic belief system of secular humanism. The book was a monumental effort and turned out to be so long, I subsequently divided it into two books and re-published both books separately. The first of these books dealt with philosophy and epistemology, the study of how we acquire knowledge, and the second book dealt with the comparison between the belief systems of secular humanism and Christianity. Epistemology is an important subject in itself because it addresses the very foundation of why we believe what we believe; and, as we did last year, it might be useful to briefly review this information as an introduction to these discussions before we get into comparing our two religions. It’s good background information.

Bobby: I think that’s a good idea. And, as he does every year, John also prepared an outline for us to follow on what we hope to cover in our discussions this season. We found it to be helpful in keeping us on track. I have a copy for each of you.

I should also mention that we also have certain rules of engagement for our discussions. We need to keep our discussions civil and polite; we need to avoid what I call engaging in a dialogue of the deaf. That’s when one guy, person A, talks about his religion with another guy, person B, who doesn’t share his belief and offends him by berating his religion so that person B doesn’t listen to what person A is saying and simply waits for his turn to talk about his religion. Neither party listens to the other; no information is exchanged, and it’s all just a waste of time. We need to remember to keep an open mind. Whenever possible, we should support our argument with expert opinion; we need to try to use quotes from only people considered to be nationally recognized in their field of expertise. We need to remember to always define our terms so everyone knows what we’re talking about.  For our definitions, we will use both the Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms by Donald K. McKim and Webster’s Dictionary. We can also refer to Zondervan’s Bible Dictionary when necessary. Lastly, although we have our outline to guide us, we need to remember that these discussions are supposed to be informal and open ended. In sum, I guess you could say that we need to focus on being reasonable, civil and truthful.

Peter: The motto of our discussions is Just make sense.

Darrel: Proverbs 14:15 says that The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thoughts to his steps.  Keep those cognitive filters in place, boys.

John: I should also mention we all need to be honest with ourselves and with each other. We should refrain from deliberately ignoring the truth when it seems to threaten what we think we believe. Theologians call this vincible ignorance.

Darrel: We’re supposed to learn from one another. Solomon tells us in Proverbs 27:17 that As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Daniel: Yes, we can learn so much more in a group discussion than we can on our own. I know that applies to my experience in these discussions.

Ben: Yeah, maybe I can learn something that I can pass onto someone else or just sound smarter at my next cocktail party.

John: You’ve brought up a good point, Ben. Do we pursue wisdom to pass on to loved ones and friends? Do we want to learn stuff to impress others with our wisdom? Of course, when we’re talking about theology and religion, we know these are most serious subjects because they address the serious business of life. It’s important to understand what we believe. Correct understanding is critical because it should give us the confidence our belief is based on a firm foundation of truth. But, we aren’t just learning for our own edification. Theology is defined as the study of God, and it’s a practical discipline, especially in this day and age. I say this because everyone has a belief and, for most of us, that belief involves God. Most educated people read and many more people are having discussions like the one we’re having about this subject. If we don’t know very much about God, we can be confused and misled by bad theology. And, most importantly, we must remember that what we know, what we do here, and what we say here counts forever. As R. C. Sproul said, We must all be theologians. We all have a theology; the challenge in our life is to have the right one.

Darrel: Yeah, you’re right about theology being practical. The correct theology serves as our guidebook for living this life. But it’s all about being aware, and, unfortunately, most folks don’t choose to lead a self-examined life.

Ahmed: For the record, we should go over what an examined life is.

John: Darrel is right in saying it all has to do with our degree of awareness or consciousness. People who live an examined life are most acutely aware of every aspect involved in living out this life. They live introspectively. They aren’t functioning on autopilot observing traditions habitually.

We know Satan works best through our ignorance of God and him. I think we can conclude from experience that many people generally don’t seem to care about acquiring knowledge, particularly knowledge of God. And they don’t care about our opinion unless it agrees with theirs and are therefore usually unwilling to engage in conversation about religion. So, unless we’re fortunate enough to be in the teaching profession, or we write a book someone actually reads, we won’t be able to share with others what we know, nor can we receive feedback from them.

Bobby: Life seems fruitless in that regard.

John: Oh, I’m not suggesting that conclusion. I was just trying to say that life’s mostly about learning and teaching for our own edification. As Christians we are to continue to grow in our knowledge and love of Christ throughout our lives. What we learn from reading, particularly from reading Scripture, and also from what we hope to learn from those infrequent discussions with others is beneficial to us because knowledge gives us the power we need to defeat Satan’s intentions to tempt us to fall from God’s grace. That’s what life’s all about.

Bobby: It’s a kind of test, eh? Is there a final exam?

Darrel: Yeah, it’s called Judgment Day, Bobby.

Ben: Who do you think would be interested in knowing what a bunch of retired, old farts thinks about anything anyway? That’s ironic, isn’t it? We’re supposed to have accumulated more wisdom at this stage of our lives, right? That’s probably the only good thing about getting old. We’ve already learned a lot of stuff, and we continue to learn. And, I think the most charitable thing a person can do is to give out good, well thought out advice based on what we know. But these days, it seems we’re never asked. The millennials know it all.

Darrel: Yeah, most people in the next generation don’t solicit advice; nor do they volunteer it. And, when they get it, they don’t take it.

John: These days, thanks to technology, there are more distractions for our kids and their kids. They all seem to have their heads so buried in their various electronic devices, they miss out on interacting with other people. The experts tell us development of their social skills is stifled. And social skills are important for communication. There are over five billion people in the world today, and it’s important to understand how to get along with each other.

Ben: What’s the matter with kids today? Why can’t they be like we were, perfect in every way? Isn’t that the way that old song goes on Bye, Bye Birdie? Kids don’t listen and they don’t mind, right? Since the beginning of time, every parent has said this about every kid.

Darrel: You can joke about it, Ben, but it’s sad that the younger generation just doesn’t seem to be taking life seriously enough. Life’s all about making choices and everyone needs all the help they can get to avoid making the mistakes those providing the advice have made. These days, apathy seems to reign supreme. People don’t seem to care as much about what the other guy has to say.

John: I remember what the great poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, had to say about life in A Psalm of Life. Life is real, life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul. Let us, then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait. We’re still achieving in the sense we are hopefully learning our lives cannot be just about us. The less we focus on us, the more we get out of life. We understand that everything we do involves choices and counts both for now and for eternity. So we pursue knowledge to help us make good decisions every day of our life. But we should of course recognize our inability to do this without help. Christians know we must rely on God’s help. We’re to go to Him in prayer, and, as Paul says in Philippians 4: 5-7: The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Ben: Well, I’m a Jew, and I don’t believe Christ was God. How about you, Bobby? What’s your faith?

Bobby: Even after several years of these discussions in comparing religions, I still don’t know what I believe. I’m still an agnostic.

Ben: And, of course, Peter, I assume you’re still a secular humanist, right?

Peter: Yes, I am. But, as I’ve mentioned before in previous discussions, I’m not a pure atheist.  I believe in God but only as our creator. Like philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, I believe we were created, we were expected. I found myself admitting to being a deist in last year’s discussions because I found pure atheism to be logically untenable. A deist is a person who believes in the creator God of the philosophers. I don’t believe in the personal God your various holy books describe. God created us and then let us be. We’re to fend for ourselves. I’m not a religious person, and I take intellectual pride in saying that.

Darrel: Yeah, pride is a big thing with the pseudo-intellectual crowd, Pete. Build up the old self esteem by knocking the other guy down. That’s bad pride. But pride can be a good thing. The Apostle Paul says that it’s good to be proud of your knowledge of Christ. So, I’m proud to call myself religious. You know that only a generation or so ago, most people in America were religious, and we’re proud of it. Now, of course, in our pop culture, being religious has a negative connotation. Religious people are thought of as being narrow-minded and judgmental. A religious person is believed to be a person who’s intellect is stifled by their faith in God, a person who’s focused on being devout, someone who goes to church on a regular basis, says grace over their meal, and so on. Devout Christians in particular are mocked by unbelievers. But, anthropologists tell us we’re all religious by nature and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud says we’re all inclined to worship someone or something. So, we’re all religious to some extent, whether we