Christianity and Judaism: similarities and differences

Jesus and his first followers were Jews. Early Christians worshipped in the Jerusalem Temple and synagogues, read the Hebrew scriptures and observed Jewish customs. Over the first and second centuries, as more non-Jews joined and disputes grew, Christianity and rabbinic Judaism developed into separate religions.

Both traditions therefore share a large common heritage: the stories of creation, Abraham, the Exodus, the prophets and the Psalms, and the conviction that God is one, just and merciful.

Judaism teaches the absolute oneness of God, expressed in the Shema. Most Christians also affirm one God but understand God as a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jewish tradition generally regards the Trinity, and the belief that God became human, as incompatible with its understanding of God’s unity.

The central difference is Jesus. Christians believe he is the Messiah promised in the Hebrew scriptures, the Son of God, who died and rose again for the salvation of the world.

Judaism does not accept Jesus as the Messiah. Jewish tradition expects a messiah who will be a human descendant of David, gather the Jewish people, rebuild the Temple and bring universal peace, and holds that these expectations were not fulfilled. Judaism also does not regard Jesus as divine. Many Jewish scholars today discuss Jesus as a Jewish teacher of his time.

The Jewish Bible, the Tanakh, consists of the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings. Christians include these books in their Old Testament, though in a different order and, in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, with additional books. Christianity adds the New Testament.

The two traditions also read the shared texts differently. Christians often read passages in the Hebrew Bible as pointing to Jesus. Jewish interpretation reads them through the rabbinic tradition of the Talmud and later commentators, which Judaism regards as the Oral Torah.

Judaism understands the commandments of the Torah, interpreted through halakhah, as the framework of religious life: Shabbat, kosher food, festivals, prayer and ethics. Observance varies between Orthodox, Conservative and Reform movements.

Christianity teaches that the moral law, including the Ten Commandments, remains valid, but most Christians do not observe ritual laws such as kashrut or the Saturday Sabbath. Early Christians decided that non-Jewish believers did not need to follow the full Torah, and Paul’s letters explain this through faith in Christ.

Judaism teaches that people have both good and bad inclinations and can turn back to God through repentance, prayer and righteous deeds, especially on Yom Kippur. It does not teach inherited original sin, and it does not make salvation depend on belief in a saviour.

Christianity teaches that all people need redemption and that Jesus’ death and resurrection atone for sin. Christians differ on how salvation is received, but they agree that it comes through Christ.

Jewish worship takes place in synagogues and homes, with Shabbat from Friday evening to Saturday evening and festivals such as Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Christians worship mainly on Sunday, the day of the resurrection, and celebrate Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. Easter and Pentecost are historically connected to Passover and Shavuot.

Jewish identity combines religion, people and history, and one can be Jewish by birth or conversion. Christian identity is based on faith and baptism and is open to all peoples.

The relationship has been marked by centuries of Christian anti-Judaism and persecution of Jews. Since the Second World War and the Holocaust, many churches have revised their teaching. The Catholic Church’s 1965 declaration Nostra Aetate rejected blaming Jews collectively for Jesus’ death, and many Protestant churches have made similar statements. Jewish–Christian dialogue is now active in many countries.

Christianity and Judaism share the God of Abraham, the Hebrew scriptures and core moral teaching. They differ on Jesus as Messiah and Son of God, the Trinity, the New Testament, the role of Torah law, and the meaning of sin and salvation.