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Criticism of Judaism has existed since Judaism's formative stages, as with many other religions, on theological grounds.
Heretical views within Judaism
In many religions ex-members and excommunicates became known for doctrinal disputes with their former faith. In Judaism a process similar to excommunication is called cherem. The process is a form of ecclesiastical censure that states the person is not to be listened to by the community. Among people declared to be in cherem there were a few critics of Judaism.
The most famous might be Baruch Spinoza who was censured primarily for rejecting the orthodox understanding of the Torah and its view of God. His Theologico-Political Treatise in particular rejected the idea of the Jews as a chosen people and saw the Torah as merely a kind of Jewish constitution. He further felt that Judaism allowed for little in the way of speculation or internal reflection. Spinoza's critique of the Judaism of his day formed the foundation for his broader radical critique of theology that would follow in his later writings, which have been seen as precursors to later trends in Enlightenment thought. An earlier heretic, Uriel da Costa, a convert of Jewish ancestry, had also been met with a writ of cherem for his denial of the immortality of the soul.
Criticism from Christianity
Paul criticizes non-Christian Jews for their failure to believe in Jesus (Romans 9:30-10:13) and for the Jewish view about their favored status and their lack of equality with gentiles (Roman 3:27).
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Criticism from Islam
A prominent place in the Qur'anic polemic against the Jews is given to the conception of the religion of Abraham. The Qur'an presents Muslims as neither Jews nor Christians but followers of Abraham who was in a physical sense the father of the Jews and the Arabs and lived before the revelation of Torah. In order to show that the religion practiced by the Jews is not the pure religion of Abraham, the Qur'an mentions the incident of worshiping of the calf, argues that Jews do not believe in part of the revelation given to them, and that their taking of usury shows their worldliness and disobedience of God. Furthermore,the Quran claim they attribute to God what he has not revealed ). According to the Qur'an, the Jews exalted Ezra as the "son of God." (See the Quranic statements about perceived Jewish exaltation). The character of Ezra became important in the works of the later Andalusian Muslim scholar Ibn Hazm who explicitly accused Ezra of being a liar and a heretic who falsified and added interpolations into the Biblical text. In his polemic against Judaism, Ibn Hazm provided a polemical list of what he considered "chronological and geographical inaccuracies and contradictions; theological impossibilities (anthropomorphic expressions, stories of fornication and whoredom, and the attributing of sins to prophets), as well as lack of reliable transmission (tawatur) of the text".
References
- E. P. Sanders, Paul the Law and Jewish People, Fortress Press, p.154
- Encyclopedia of Islam, Uzayr
- Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, Tahrif, Encyclopedia of Islam
See also
External links
- Hofesh organization - The largest Jewish secular web site.