Judaism

At a glance

Judaism is the religion and people bound to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Scripture, covenant, Torah, and the life of Israel shape Jewish identity across ancient, rabbinic, medieval, and modern forms.

Catholics share the Hebrew Scriptures (with differences of canon) and must reject antisemitism. This page is a profile of Judaism itself—history, texts, and practice—before any debate about Jesus as Messiah.

Origin and timeline

Biblical Israel’s story runs from the patriarchs through Exodus, monarchy, exile, and return. After the destruction of the Second Temple in A.D. 70, Jewish life re-centered on Torah, synagogue, and rabbinic teaching. The Mishnah (c. 200) and Talmuds (Palestinian c. 400; Babylonian c. 500–600) shape classical Judaism.

Medieval Judaism includes communities under Christian and Muslim rule, philosophical giants such as Maimonides (1138–1204), and recurring persecution in Europe. Modernity brings Emancipation, Reform (19th c.), Conservative, and Orthodox movements, Zionism, the Holocaust (1933–1945), and the State of Israel (1948). Today’s Jews include religious and secular identities across Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi cultures.

c. 13th–10th c. B.C. — Traditional dating for Exodus / early Israel (debated by historians)
586 B.C. — Babylonian destruction of the First Temple
516 B.C. — Second Temple period begins
A.D. 70 — Romans destroy the Second Temple
c. 200 — Mishnah compiled
c. 500–600 — Babylonian Talmud
1138–1204 — Maimonides
19th c. — Reform and modern denominational Judaism
1933–1945 — Shoah
1948 — State of Israel

Key figures and texts

Tanakh (Law, Prophets, Writings) is Scripture, and rabbinic literature—Mishnah, Talmud, midrash—interprets and applies it. Moses stands as lawgiver; later sages (Hillel, Shammai, Akiva, Rashi, Maimonides) form the teaching tradition. Modern figures vary by movement: from the Vilna Gaon and Hasidic rebbes to Reform leaders and Israeli founders.

Tanakh — Hebrew Bible
Mishnah & Talmud — rabbinic foundation
Maimonides — medieval law and philosophy
Rashi — classic biblical/Talmudic commentary
Modern streams — Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, secular

Beliefs and doctrines

Judaism confesses one God, covenant with Israel, and the moral claim of Torah. Beliefs about Messiah, afterlife, and dogma vary more than in classical Christianity; practice and peoplehood often weigh as heavily as creed. Catholics share the Hebrew Scriptures (with canon differences) and must reject antisemitic myths, while witnessing to Jesus as Messiah and Lord without erasing Jewish identity or history.

Monotheism and covenant
Torah as instruction and life
Peoplehood / Israel
Diverse views of Messiah and world to come
No Trinity or Incarnation in Jewish teaching

Torah
Deuteronomy 6:4–5, the Shema
Exodus 20:2
“Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”
Daily prayer
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”
The covenant

Practices and worship

Synagogue prayer, Shabbat, kosher food, circumcision, bar/bat mitzvah, and the festival cycle (Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Hanukkah, Purim) structure communal life. Observance differs sharply between Orthodox and liberal communities.

Shabbat
Synagogue and liturgy
Kashrut (dietary law)
Festival calendar
Lifecycle rites

Texts they live by

Jewish prayer and study center on the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4), the covenants with Abraham and at Sinai, and the Torah as it is read in the synagogue and argued in the Talmud. The Tanakh is not identical with the Catholic Old Testament: the order differs, and Jewish Bibles do not include the deuterocanonical books.

Christians read those same covenants as kept and fulfilled in Jesus. Nostra Aetate 4 says that this claim must not become contempt. It repudiates antisemitism and says that God does not repent of the gifts and the call given to Israel. Hatred of Jews is not a Christian argument. It is a sin the Church has had to name.

Deuteronomy 6:4
“Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one.”
Genesis 12 and 17
Exodus 19–20
Romans 9–11, on the Christian side
Nostra Aetate 4

Tradition and magisterium

Nostra Aetate 4 repudiates antisemitism and affirms that God’s covenant gifts to Israel are not revoked—after a Christian history that includes tragic sins against Jews, which the Church must repent.

Jewish prayer opens with the Shema: God is one, and Israel is to love him with heart, soul, and might. Catholic faith confesses Jesus as Messiah and Lord, and it rejects contempt for the people from whom he came according to the flesh.

History and development

After a history that includes tragic Christian sins against Jews, Nostra Aetate and later teaching re-center Romans 9–11 and reject antisemitism as incompatible with the Gospel.

What to know before dialogue

Describe Judaism in ordinary sentences—covenant, Torah, synagogue, the modern movements—then point to the Scripture and Church teaching already cited on this page. Language of fulfillment must not slide into contempt, and antisemitism is a sin to name as such, not a debating tactic.

Explain fulfillment without contempt.
Use Romans 11.
Reject antisemitism clearly.

Common misconceptions

Christians stole Jewish Scripture.

The first Christians were Jews announcing Israel’s Messiah from Israel’s own books. Receiving the Old Testament as Christian Scripture is a confession of continuity, not plunder from a hated rival. The Church reads Moses and the prophets as fulfilled in Christ—sometimes in ways Jewish readers reject—but that is an argument about interpretation inside a shared library, not a theft. Antisemitic contempt for Judaism is a sin against that very continuity. You can debate whether Jesus is the Messiah without pretending the apostles hijacked someone else’s Bible.

The Church is to blame for antisemitism.

Christians have sinned gravely here—preaching contempt, fostering violence, failing to protect Jewish neighbors. Repentance is required, and modern Church teaching has named that failure without excuse. Guilt for sins of Christians does not mean the Church’s claims about Jesus are false, any more than Jewish sins in Scripture falsify the Torah. Doctrine is not a license for hatred; hatred is a betrayal of the Jewish Messiah Christians claim to follow. The Church must hold both truths together: antisemitism is evil, and Jesus is Lord. Dropping either for the sake of the other falsifies the conversation.

OT God differs from NT God.

Marcion tried that split in the second century; the Church called it heresy. The God of Abraham is the Father of Jesus Christ—one God, not a stern deity upgraded by a nicer sequel. Hard texts remain hard: judgment, war, wrath. Soft texts in the New Testament remain demanding too—hell, the Cross, final accountability. Careful reading, typology, and moral development within revelation are honest work. Inventing two gods is not. The apostles preached Israel’s God revealed definitively in Christ, not a replacement deity.

Sources

Citations for this article. Browse the full bibliography to see every place each source is used across the library.

Primary text

The Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4–5

The confession of one God that opens Jewish prayer.

Deuteronomy 6:4–5, recited in Jewish daily prayer as the Shema. Their own text

Open source In bibliography

Scripture

Romans 9-11

Paul on Israel and the Church.

Romans 9-11. Biblical core.

Open source In bibliography

Scripture