Different views Quote by Lester L. Grabbe

Judaism was not a religion but a law.

— Moses Mendelssohn

“Unlike Christianity, the laws and beliefs in Islam and Judaism are derived through a process of reasoning and scholarship; there are no councils or…

— Harry Freedman

“the idea of 'orthodoxy' or a 'state church' is not a good way of looking at Judaism before 70.”

— Lester L. Grabbe

“One of the great gains of biblical scholarship this last generation, not least because of our new understanding of first-century Judaism, is our realization…

— N.T. Wright

One cannot accept Christ and still be part of the normative Jewish community; one cannot live by Torah and still be part of the…

— David Novak

“no word in the Hebrew language of that period for “religion.” Religion was not a separate, identifiable category of beliefs and activities. It was…

— Richard Elliott Friedman

Orthodox Judaism is a thicket of detailed injunctions, Biblical commandments elaborated during centuries of prohibited proselytizing, functioning to limit interaction with outsiders. At the…

— Mary Catherine Bateson

“Judaism was a legal religion in the Roman Empire; Christianity was not until the first Christian emperor ascended the throne in the fourth century…

— Norman F. Cantor

Judaism is in a sense a Rabbinic, Talmudic religion, rather than a Biblical religion.

— Elie Wiesel

I think Jewish history did away with a priesthood when the Temple was destroyed, and it became, supposedly, a religion of scholars. A rabbi…

— Ben Katchor

We were Orthodox Jews, but we really didn't deserve it. I mean, bacon - my father said, 'Don't put bacon in the house,' but…

— Don Rickles

I would not speak of Judaism as a Talmudic or Rabbinic religion. It's a Biblical religion.

— Frank Moore Cross