In particular, the truth can be hard to find.
In actuality, it can take decades.
But, when you figure out a couple things, and synthesize a larger understanding from all of the smaller bits of understanding you’ll get somewhere.
Faith is either simple to some, or complex. Some lead their religious practice by assuming fact from feeling, and some through building knowledge from all they gather in order to separate fact from fallacy.
Those who do the latter cannot first believe without arriving at a sound knowledge and reasoning.
When it comes to religion, mainly Abrahamic religion- everyone claims to have the answer this side of Israel.
The truth is, there’s only one answer. As far as a limited word such as answer can describe.
The rest was produced.
The answer lies at the revelation on Mount Sinai, the same as the time God gave the Torah (or teaching) to Moses, and also at this time the Ten Commandments.
That revelation bestowed on the greatest teacher himself Moses, by God Himself is the answer, in closest its proximity.
There is none truer, none more potent, nor are there to be any greater or deeper revelations than the one packaged by God Himself.
This the event of the revelation on Mount Sinai, is the source, the most pure, and potent partaking of the teaching of God for which man to learn to do faithfully.
I start the assessment of the potency of the Abrahamic religions, dealing with the holy teaching of God, known to the Jews as the Torah, or a by-product of that teaching- the Bible.
The Bible, in itself, was not invented by Christians.
To be specific, Christians didn’t even exist at Mount Sinai, nor during the time of the writing of the Christian scriptures- the New Testament. They came along later, and were named later.
Christians enjoy the product of both Jewish chronology, and commandment which encompasses the near entirety of the Christian named “Holy Bible.”
What the “Old Testament” is, as Christians call it, is the chronological telling of the lives of important Jews which showcases different events, and stories which are to be gleaned from.
As any Christian will know, the Old Testament is the largest portion of the Holy Bible, and the entire portion of it is completely directed, and referring to the Jewish people. The Hebrews, The Israelites, the Judahites- precursor tribes to the people now known simply as the Jewish people.
The Torah, or rather as it may be called in English, The Hebrew Bible, was written in the language of the Hebrews- namely the language Hebrew. Which due to some very tight organization, the Jews continue to speak today through much intentional direction of the Rabbis. It’s also the native language of their nation Israel.
The Hebrew Bible also yes, has traces of Aramaic in it as well, but is mostly Hebrew.
Seeing how the Bible was first scribed in Hebrew, albeit transliterated in various languages around the world still remains the language of the Jews- it seems to say that it’s safe to confirm its true ownership.
Although, this is not at all to say that Jews claim any exclusive rights to the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh (as it is known in Jewish tradition in its entirety.) It’s a piece of religious literature open to all, used to inform religious practice.
This is because it is not explicitly stated anywhere that one must be of Jewish origin to fear the God of Abraham, Issac, Moses, and Jacob.
The only exclusivity comes, traditionally speaking, in studying the traditions and carrying out those specific lawful practices which dictate the lifestyle of the observant Jew, which were commanded by God Himself.
A person is completely free to be non-Jewish, and follow the Hebrew Bible without having to adhere to a Christian denomination for oversight. Explicitly there’s recognition for this as it’s called being a Son of Noah, or a Noahide.
As Noah himself, was not Jewish, but was still determined righteous enough by God to have a vital part in His plans for humanity.
Non-Jews can live a type of God worshiping lifestyle as an offshoot of the traditional Jewish way of living, and do.
The point being simply that as human beings we submit to the Oneness of God, as is spoken to be done either now by choice, or at some point in the future.
This is, and will spokenly be regardless of our ethnicity, origin, or lifestyle.
In that way, it’s simply seen that before arriving at the lifestyle focus of worshiping God, we must have first started with, and acknowledged the titanically pivotal event of Mount Sinai prior to doing so.
That there was explicitly an event where God took the time to conjoin the slaves he had freed, Jew and non-Jew, and give them exact instruction and leadership which would further that instruction on how to follow His ways with clarity.
Before we step into the domain of any denominational perspective- we must at the least place the revelation on Mount Sinai at its foundation. This and to a preemptive extent acknowledge the very first Jew- Abram, or Abraham as was his Hebrew name and the very first covenant made to him by God.
This being when he told Abraham that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars- which the meaning of these “offspring” meant the bloodline of religious Jews after him. Also to a lesser extent, those who followed in his similar footsteps and found themselves worshiping the Oneness of God.
The revelation on Mount Sinai is however, where the foundation of this post is focused.
The revelation on Mount Sinai is not simply any old event, and it wasn’t attended by any old people- it was attended by the Jews.
It was the Jews who received the acknowledgement of their God at the foot of Mount Sinai, and accepted Him as their God, along with their covenant of accepting the teaching Moses was to bring them.
This is where the bases of the Abrahamic religions take their first baby-steps.
This is the origin of the specific, explicit teachings to God’s people began.
No other denomination can supersede this event.
No normal man of the modern time can claim to have personal revelation over this event.
It was the inception of the very first steps in which God’s people, in mass, began to worship the God known as YHWH.
This is where I began to think from when I had again, for the second time, begun to lose both the enthusiasm and faith in the offering of Christianity.
It was at the arrival of the acknowledgement of this divine event, that I admitted to myself that it was not the Christians of today who were being commanded at Mount Sinai, it was only one people:
The Jews.
From this came the personal revelation that, as we’ve already highlighted, the Bible, or Hebrew Bible, had always been a specific conversation between God, and the Jewish people.
The Christians do not assume Jewish identity like many denominations like to teach, as if it were to be some automatic update poured on them by simply being.
It still belongs to those who carry the teachings, follow the law, and have within them the bloodline of those very first Jews on Mount Sinai itself. There is no reasonable way to refute, or argue this.
The Jewish people of today, and more which can be argued, descend directly from those first Jews on Mount Sinai. This is the time where God commanded for this specific teaching to be followed forever. Obviously which religious Jews are still commanded, and diligently follow today.
This was where the teachings of God came from.
From His people who had both carried the traditions, had discussed in painstaking detail, and taught to their generations- for all generations as is dictated in the very scripture.
The Christians came to assume the Hebrew scriptures for themselves, after their Christian scriptures were sown onto them, altering the true and original meaning of the scriptures as necessary to fulfill their new canon.
For clarity, without the Jewish- Hebrew scriptures, the scriptures of Greek origin alone would make for a tiny, miniscule, Bible in comparison to what we know it as.
In truth, the Christians have the Jewish people to thank for the existence of the Holy Bible, and to a lesser extent the fact there was a Jesus at all. Who he himself was at least in his early life, an observant religious Jew.
When you make this acknowledgement, you can only arrive at the fact that what the Holy Bible exists as is but a tiny addition to the Jewish Hebrew Bible. The Bible which the Jewish have used in concert with remaining oral tradition for thousands of years to follow God.
You then arrive at the further realization, that while powerful- the literature encompassing the Bible in itself is the only tool which the Christians have to practice their faith.
There’s scriptures alone, while in actuality it becomes up to every Church or denomination to by reading these texts come up with a manner of lifestyle of which to follow them.
One would not err to say that Christianity is a base belief in Jesus, where the expression of the religious practice itself comes wholly from the church leaders who father it.
This means that a traditional understanding of any Christian denomination is only as mature as the years since its inception. Even the most ancient Christian orthodoxy is not as ancient as the revelation on Mount Sinai.
If you compare that to the thousands of years of accumulated understanding, the reworking and furthering of this understanding, the practicing, and elucidating of traditions practiced by the Jewish people in total- it is almost nothing to compare Christianity to it.
For an individual looking for the most potent form of Abrahamic religion, which can carry out practice as closest to its core tenants as possible, there is no question of which to choose.
While Christians do have the ability to build and organize themselves in modesty, with allegiance to God, it’s done so and can be done so only with their personal denomination’s doctrinal analysis of the scriptures of the Holy Bible.
In comparison, the Jews in this same respect, have not only the scriptures of God, but also:
The lifestyle practices, the understanding of those practices and their purposes which God gave them.
And the passing down not only of blood-knowledge of the oral traditions, also known as the Oral Torah- but the results of thousands of years of cultivated toilsome study in numerous volumes of literature of more than one category.
The sheer countless hours of work which have been performed throughout thousands of years to not only understand, but to work to perfect, and better acquire a closeness to God which has only partly been recorded by the seemingly endless library of Jewish works can not be overlooked when compared to Christianity.
In addition to this there are the ordained Rabbis, who are penacles of study who have each undergone certified learning of these literatures from which to draw from. Many of these rabbis also post classes from special full-time Torah learning universities that are available free on Youtube.
The source of knowledge and availability of learning practice in Judaism seems nearly endless.
There is simply no way to compare.
Knowing what I know now, I can only know the tip of the iceberg of what there is to know which gave me those initial reasons of interest in Judaism.
Yet, it only started as a tiny acknowledgement- the acceptance of both the revelation of Mount Sinai, and who were the attendees of which joined in covenant with God at that legendary location.
Once I acknowledged this, it was all made clear.
I made the choice to learn what Christianity cannot teach. What Christianity can neither practice, nor natively understand.
What was beyond the personal teachings of Christian denominational teachers.
What is beyond understanding to most of all men, themselves.
The very understanding which God gifted to His people to attempt to grasp, when he chose them for Himself.
In this understanding, and for this understanding- I was sure about my parting ways with Christianity, and more than sure about my new found passion to learn about the teachings of God encased in Judaism.
It has been a wonderful, and fulfilling revelation indeed, and I am blessed to have had it bestowed upon me.
Yet, this is just my story. While your understanding may be different, there are simply some groundings of foundation we have to agree on if we are to be honest.
For this part, it is and will be that event on the Mount of Sinai.
This is where I will choose the origin of the revelation of God’s teaching to be when I think about what to learn from.
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