by Dror Ben Ami

Created on: August 23, 2009   Last Updated: August 24, 2009

The Link Between: Judaism and Christianity

In my opinion, the basic link between: Judaism and Christianity is the Hebrew language. The Gospel of John claims that Jesus is the word of God and the word of God was written in Hebrew. In both the Old and New Testaments the names of people and the locations are only relevant if one reads them in Hebrew. So, for example, in Hebrew the name of the mother of Jesus is: "Miriam" and this means: "Bitterness from the sea" . The Hebrew word for: "Bitter" comes from the word: "Mor" or: "Mar" (in ancient times they did not use marks for pronunciation). What is important here is that this word is also the Hebrew name for: "myrrh".

In the New Testament myrrh is quite important because we are told that when Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, made the decision to betray Jesus immediately after he had inhaled this fragrance. In the Book of Esther, we are told that she was massaged with myrrh oil for 6 months in order to make her : "beautiful" and when Jesus talks about the myrrh oil he uses the exact same word.

In both the Old and New Testaments there are numerous references to water: Moses was pulled from water; Jesus walked on water; the words of Moses were like the rain; people were washed clean with the water of the gospel; etc. etc. Thus when we read the New Testament in English and we see the name: Mary it doesn't really mean anything to us. When, however, we read the name: Miriam (bitterness from the sea) and we begin to ponder the stories about: myrrh and the stories about: water and we recall that Miriam was selected to be the mother of Jesus, then we begin to gain some insight into why she was selected.

Therefore, by reading the New Testament in Hebrew we begin to appreciate that the text has an entirely different meaning then it does in any other language. From the other side, by studying the language used in the New Testament (i.e. images, parables, and even the narratives) we begin to better appreciate how the Hebrew of the Old Testament was meant to be understood during ancient times. In other words: Studying how the Hebrew language was used in the Old Testament gives us a better understanding of the stories found in the New Testament and studying the metaphors and stories of the New Testament gives us a better understanding of how the Hebrew language was used in the Old Testament.

Let's take for example the stories surrounding the fig tree. In the Old Testament, after Adam and Eve realized they were naked

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>