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.

Catechism of the Catholic Church
CCC 597
CCC 839
“The historical complexity of Jesus' trial is apparent in the Gospel accounts. The personal sin of the participants (Judas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate) is known to God alone.…”
Truth
“Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways." (856, 63, 147) The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church,…”
Relation

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

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

Biblical evidence

Paul grieves for Israel and holds God’s gifts to his people irrevocable. Jesus says he came to fulfill the law and the prophets, not to abolish them. Luke shows the risen Christ interpreting Moses and the prophets on the road to Emmaus, and Ephesians describes Gentiles as grafted into Israel’s promises—not as a people who replace them.

Romans 9-11
“I tell the truth in Christ. I am not lying, my conscience testifying with me in the Holy Spirit,”
Matthew 5:17
“Don’t think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn’t come to destroy, but to fulfill.”
Genesis 12:1-3
“Now Yahweh said to Abram, “Get out of your country, and from your relatives, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.”
Luke 24:27
“Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
Ephesians 2:11-22
“Therefore remember that once you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “uncircumcision” by that which is called “circumcision”, (in the flesh,”

Sacred Scripture
Ephesians 2:11-22
Genesis 12:1-3
“Therefore remember that once you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “uncircumcision” by that which is called “circumcision”, (in the flesh,”
Scripture
“Now Yahweh said to Abram, “Get out of your country, and from your relatives, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.”
Scripture

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.

Romans 9–11 remains the frame: Gentiles are grafted onto the root without erasing the Jewish people. Catholic faith confesses Jesus as Messiah and Lord while rejecting contempt for the people from whom he came according to the flesh. See CCC 840.

Catechism of the Catholic Church
CCC 840
“And when one considers the future, God's People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah.…”
Hope
Clement of Rome
Letter to the Corinthians 27:5 [ca. A.D. 80]
To the church at Corinth.
Corinth had deposed its lawful presbyters; Rome writes to restore order.
“By the word of his might [God] established all things, and by his word he can overthrow them. ‘Who shall say to him, “What have you done?” or who shall resist the power of his strength?’ [Wis. 12:12]”
Fathers
Irenaeus
Against Heresies 4:26:3 · A.D. 189
A treatise against Gnostic teachers, written from Lyons.
He tests secret gospels against the churches the apostles founded and the bishops who still sit there.
“Those . . . who are believed to be presbyters by many, but serve their own lusts and do not place the fear of God supreme in their hearts, but conduct themselves with contempt toward others and are puffed up with the pride of holding the chief seat [Matt. 23:6] and work evil deeds in secret, saying ‘No man sees us,’…”
Fathers

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.

Polycarp of Smyrna
Letter to the Philippians 10 · A.D. 135
To the church at Philippi.
They asked for counsel—and for copies of Ignatius—after a presbyter had fallen.
“Stand fast, therefore, in these things, and follow the example of the Lord, being firm and unchangeable in the faith, loving the brotherhood [1 Pet. 2:17]. . . . When you can do good, defer it not, because ‘alms delivers from death’ [Tob. 4:10, 12:9]. Be all of you subject to one another [1 Pet. 5:5], having your co…”
Fathers
The Didache
Didache 4:5 · A.D. 70
A church-order from the first Christian generations.
Short rules on morals, baptism, confession, and the Sunday sacrifice.
“You shall not waver with regard to your decisions [Sir. 1:28]. Do not be someone who stretches out his hands to receive but withdraws them when it comes to giving [Sir. 4:31]”
Fathers
The Letter of Barnabas
Letter of Barnabas 6:7 · A.D. 74
A general epistle; no named church or person.
It teaches the ‘two ways’ and how to read the Old Testament in Christ.
“Since, therefore, [Christ] was about to be manifested and to suffer in the flesh, his suffering was foreshown. For the prophet speaks against evil, ‘Woe to their soul, because they have counseled an evil counsel against themselves’ [Is. 3:9], saying, ‘Let us bind the righteous man because he is displeasing to us’ [W…”
Fathers

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.

Catechism of the Catholic Church
CCC 597
CCC 839
“The historical complexity of Jesus' trial is apparent in the Gospel accounts. The personal sin of the participants (Judas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate) is known to God alone.…”
Truth
“Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways." (856, 63, 147) The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church,…”
Relation

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.

Catechism

CCC 839

Church’s bond with the Jewish people

"Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways." (856, 63, 147) The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church,…

CCC 839. Relation

Open source Also in bibliography

Catechism

CCC 840

Waiting for the Messiah and the Church

And when one considers the future, God's People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah.…

CCC 840. Hope

Open source Also in bibliography

Catechism

CCC 597

Jews not collectively guilty of Christ’s death

The historical complexity of Jesus' trial is apparent in the Gospel accounts. The personal sin of the participants (Judas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate) is known to God alone.…

CCC 597. Truth

Open source Also in bibliography

Councils

Nostra Aetate 4

The Church and the Jewish people.

Vatican II, Nostra Aetate 4. Essential modern teaching.

In bibliography

Scripture

Romans 9-11

Paul on Israel and the Church.

Romans 9-11. Biblical core.

Open source In bibliography

Scripture