Christianity began as a movement within Second Temple Judaism, but the two religions gradually diverged over the first few centuries of the Christian Era. Today, differences of opinion vary between denominations in both religions, but the most important distinction is Christian acceptance and Jewish non-acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition. Early Christianity distinguished itself by determining that observance of halakha was not necessary for non-Jewish converts to Christianity. Another major difference is the two religions' conceptions of God. The Christian God consists of three persons of one essence, with the doctrine of the incarnation of the Son in Jesus being of special importance. Judaism emphasizes the Oneness of God and rejects the Christian concept of God in human form. While Christianity recognizes the Hebrew Bible as part of its scriptural canon, Judaism does not recognize the Christian New Testament.
Eschatology concerns expectations of the end of the present age, human history, or the world itself. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions, which teach that negative world events will reach a climax. Belief that the end of the world is imminent is known as apocalypticism, and over time has been held both by members of mainstream religions and by doomsday cults. In the context of mysticism, the term refers metaphorically to the end of ordinary reality and to reunion with the divine. Various religions treat eschatology as a future event prophesied in sacred texts or in folklore.
Jewish eschatology is the area of Jewish theology concerned with events that will happen in the end of days and related concepts. This includes the ingathering of the exiled diaspora, the coming of the Jewish Messiah, the afterlife, and the resurrection of the dead. In Judaism, the end times are usually called the "end of days", a phrase that appears several times in the Tanakh.
In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of mashiach, messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a mashiach is a king or High Priest traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil.
The Second Coming is the Christian and Islamic belief that Jesus will return to Earth after his ascension to heaven. The idea is based on messianic prophecies and is part of most Christian eschatologies. Other faiths have various interpretations of it.
Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism, is a religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control of the movement and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as Rastafari, Rastafarians, or Rastas.
Messianic Judaism is a modernist and syncretic movement of Protestant Christianity that incorporates some elements of Judaism and other Jewish traditions into evangelicalism.
The Messiah in Judaism is a savior and liberator figure in Jewish eschatology, who is believed to be the future redeemer of the Jewish people. The concept of messianism originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible a messiah is a king or High Priest of Israel traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil. However, messiahs were not exclusively Jewish, as the Hebrew Bible refers to Cyrus the Great, king of the first Persian empire, as a messiah for his decree to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple.
Judaism teaches that Jesus of Nazareth was not the Messiah nor "the Son of God". In the Jewish perspective, the way Christians see Jesus goes against monotheism, a belief in the absolute unity and singularity of God, which is central to Judaism; the worship of a person is seen by them as a form of idolatry. Therefore, considering Jesus a deity is forbidden according to Judaism. Judaism's rejection of Jesus as the Messiah is based on Jewish eschatology, which holds that the coming of the true Messiah will be associated with events that have not yet occurred, such as the rebuilding of The Temple, a Messianic Age of peace, and the ingathering of Jews to their homeland.
Messianism is the belief in the advent of a messiah who acts as the savior of a group of people. Messianism originated as a Zoroastrianism religious belief and followed to Abrahamic religions, but other religions have messianism-related concepts. Religions with a messiah concept include Judaism (Mashiach), Christianity (Christ), Islam, Druze faith, Zoroastrianism (Saoshyant), Buddhism (Maitreya), Wotanism, Taoism, and Bábism.
The Twelve Tribes of Israel is a Rastafari religious group and one of the Mansions of Rastafari. Its headquarters is on Hope Road in Kingston, Jamaica. The group was formed in 1968 by Vernon Carrington, who was known to the organisation as "Prophet Gad". The twelve tribes have been described as the Rastafari mansion closest in beliefs to Christianity or Messianic Judaism. Members follow the teaching of reading the Bible a chapter a day from Genesis 1 - Revelation 22, a practice encouraged by Carrington. It is the most liberal of the Rastafarian orders and members are free to worship in a church or building of their choosing.
Mansions of Rastafari is an umbrella term for the various groups of the Rastafari movement. Such groups include the Bobo Ashanti, the Niyabinghi, the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and several smaller groups, including African Unity, Covenant Rastafari, Messianic Dreads and the Selassian Church. The term is taken from the Biblical verse in John 14:2, "In my Father's house are many mansions."
The "Third Temple" refers to a hypothetical rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. It would succeed Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple, the former having been destroyed during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in c. 587 BCE and the latter having been destroyed during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Although it remains unbuilt, the notion of and desire for the Third Temple is sacred in Judaism, and particularly in Orthodox Judaism; it is anticipated as the most sacred place of worship for Jews. The Hebrew Bible holds that Jewish prophets called for its construction to be fulfilled prior to, or in tandem with, the Messianic Age. The building of the Third Temple also plays a major role in some interpretations of Christian eschatology.
In Abrahamic religions, the Messianic Age is the future period of time on Earth in which the messiah will reign and bring universal peace and brotherhood, without any evil. Many believe that there will be such an age; some refer to it as the consummate "kingdom of God" or the "world to come". Jews believe that such a figure is yet to come, while Christians and Muslims believe that this figure will be Jesus.
The Hebrew Roots movement is a religious movement that advocates adherence to the Torah and believes in Jesus, whom they refer to by the Hebrew name Yeshua, as the Messiah. The movement emphasizes and promotes the belief that the Torah was never abolished by Jesus, but was instead meant to be permanent . However, they do not embrace obedience to the Talmud.
Two House theology primarily focuses on the division of the ancient United Monarchy of Israel into two kingdoms, Israel and Judah. Two House theology raises questions when applied to modern peoples who are thought to be descendants of the two ancient kingdoms, both Jews and the ten lost tribes of the Kingdom of Israel. The phrase "the two houses of Israel" is found in the Book of Isaiah.
The books of the New Testament frequently cite Jewish scripture to support the claim of the Early Christians that Jesus was the promised Jewish Messiah. Scholars have observed that few of these citations are actual predictions in context; the majority of these quotations and references are taken from the prophetic Book of Isaiah, but they range over the entire corpus of Jewish writings.
This is a glossary of terms used in Christianity.
The Rastafari movement developed out of the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade, in which over ten million Africans were enslaved and transported to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries. Once there, they were sold to European planters and forced to work on the plantations. Around a third of these transported Africans were relocated in the Caribbean, with under 700,000 being settled in Jamaica. In 1834, slavery in Jamaica was abolished after the British government passed the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Racial prejudice nevertheless remained prevalent across Jamaican society. The overwhelming majority of Jamaica's legislative council was white throughout the 19th century, and those of African descent were treated as second-class citizens.
