The Ontario Consultants (2008) Web site, Messianic Jews believe in the Messiah, the trinity, salvation and sin; which differs greatly from traditional Jews that believe the Messiah has yet to come. Messianic Judaism followers believe in the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, the virgin birth of Yeshua, his sinless life, his resurrection, his future Second Coming, and his salvation, which makes them Christians not Jews. The History of Messianic Judaism goes back as far as the First Century CE (Ontario Consultants, 2008). In the First Century, there were numerous sects of Judaism; Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Boethusians, Essenes, and the list could go on and on. The First Christians were called Nazarenes, which were Jews that listened to the message that Yeshua of Nazareth was teaching and began to follow his word.
In both societies, local governments were practiced rather than a unified, whole state. One reason for India’s decentralization was its caste system, which prevented loyalty to one overall king or ruler because people were loyal to the caste instead. Because of it, people knew their obligations and duties in society. It is important to take note of the caste system because it had and still has a monumental influence on Indian culture. India’s decentralization was also caused by the failure of the regional kingdoms established by the Aryans to conquer one another.
The priestly class, Brahmins, would have performed these sacrifces for the noblemen (Kshatriyas) and the wealthy commoners (Vaishyas). The lower classes, such as the Shudras (servants) and the Dalits (less-than human), were completely exempt from religion. One of the ways that they were excluded, aside from being left out of sacrifice, was the fact that only the priests, warriors and kings were educated. The holy scriptures of the Brahminical religion were the Vedas, and these were written in Sanskrit. The concept of class within the Brahminical religion comes from the Rig Veda, which stated that humans came from a large ‘Cosmic Man’.
During the time of Paul, Jews were so preoccupied with upholding the Law that their lives where devoted to a strict regimented life. Paul would assert that freedom from sin (or rather the punishment of sin) comes only through Jesus Christ since he was sent from God as fulfillment of the Law1. Jews in the first century saw this as an attempt to throw away that Law, to make it void. It is easy see how the Jews would assume that this radical new idea, being free from sin purely by faith rather than austere adherence to the Law, but that is not entirely what Paul’s message is. In Galatians 3:15-18, Paul argues that a new covenant does not void previously made promises of God.
Religion gave meaning and explained human existence, agriculture, natural biological occurrences, and even the light of day. Religion and the gods surrounded the Aztecs lives in every direction. In order to further understand the reasoning behind why the Aztecs felt they needed to practice sacrifice, one needs to understand the importance religion held within the Aztec race. Sacrifice of any form was considered to be a payment to their gods. According to Michael Graulich (2000), the director of religious studies at a school in Paris, the primary reason for sacrifice was atonement (p. 2).
Hinduism seems like it set the footprint for the other eastern religions that have emerged over the years. Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism religions and philosophies have been practiced by millions of people for centuries.These seven different religions has a lot of similarity even though the origin of the religions comes from different geographical locations. Hinduism Hinduism seems to be a true Pagan religion. Countless deities, gods, goddesses, and incarnations abound, and are defined in sacred Hindu texts, such as the Rig Veda, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Upanishads. Yet the Hindu acknowledges a "supreme reality"( Smith, Houston.
Judaism and Christianity are linked to each other with a kinship that transcends all their differences. Christianity arose in the Jewish household of faith, and its basic teachings clearly reflect the influence of its family origin. The Jewish heroes of faith from Abraham through the prophets, are also deemed as the pioneers of Christian faith; the basic teachings of Judaism concerning God and man were adopted by Christianity into its own doctrinal structure. As we look at the Jewish and the Christian faiths, both of which trace their origins back past Abraham and Moses, to the original stories of Genesis and the Garden of Eden, we notice basic similarities and major differences between the two religions. This paper will attempt to highlight those similarities and differences, illustrating major points in each religion and contrasting them, in order to come to a higher understanding of each religion and their relationship to each other.
People of high social class would were special clothing to set them apart from the other Maya. farmers were in the lowest Mayan social classes. Slaves, who were usually prisoners of war, were the bottom of Mayan society. Many Mayan cities had pyramids with temples on top that were used for religious ceremonies. The priests were powerful because the Mayans believed that only the priests could perform the religious ceremonies that were needed to please the Mayan gods.
The election of Israel as God’s chosen people and first receiver of his grace underlies even Paul’s most emphatic appeal to the righteous nature of the Gentile; his position is clearly that while the Gentile may indeed be offered a place in the scheme of divine favour (a theme deeply rooted in the Masoretic Scriptures) the privilege of Israel remains undiminished. In this context it should be understood that while Paul asserts that “οὐ γάρ ἐστιν προσωπολημψία παρὰ τῷ θεῷ”, he clearly understands the respective grace and wrath of God to be applied to Jews and Gentiles in a fashion relative to their position in the divine scheme, i.e. first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. On this point one recalls the discussion made by scholars such as Grindheim regarding the tension inherent in Paul’s theology and the sense of conflict which lends the text of Romans much of its direction: the gospel is to the Jew first, yet God is not only God of the Jews, “Paul insists that the advantage of the Jew is great (3:1-2) and yet there is no distinction (3:22)”. This theological tension over the notion of elevation is one which reaches back to the days of the
Mesopotamia and Egypt had their respective differences and similarities, such similarities include belief in gods, the afterlife, and hereditary leaders and the differences contrasting the two consist of the way they saw the gods, burial method, the way the priest were held, and the laws and taxation. Both civilizations shared similar beliefs in their religious structure about gods and what to expect in the “afterlife.” There were also some very different views about the role of priests. The two civilizations strongly believed that gods ruled their world, but Mesopotamians thought the gods in each of their “city-states” were angry and they feared the gods. The Egyptians thought very highly of their gods and believed that they controlled nature and created harmony and prosperity. Each civilization perceived the great floods is an example of their polytheistic beliefs: Mesopotamians thought the flooding and calamity was punishment, while Egyptians thought it was a sign that the gods were looking down on them and the water would make the land more fertile for farming.