O contexto judaico da ‘Identidade cristã’ proposta no Novo Testamento

• Autor(a) principal: Lourenço, João
• Data de Publicação: 2007
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34632/didaskalia.2007.1753

The Jewish identity of the intertestamental period, especially associated with the Pharisees, is based on what we might call ‘privilege of separation’ – to be Jewish is to be separate, to be chosen and apart from all other peoples, especially separate from gentiles and idolaters. This identity hinged on a set of doctrines and practices that were consolidated in the so-called ‘Sinai or Exodus tradition’, brought together in the theology of the Alliance and which had been transformed into a kind of normative and legal code which was the ‘Law’ or ‘Torah’, as a kind of life and manifestation of an individual and particular identity. One of the fundamental elements that conferred upon Israel the certainty of a specific identity, separating it from all other peoples was its conviction that it had received the mission of sanctifying the ‘great Name of God’ among themselves, which, at the same time, constituted both a task and the basis for its own identity. From the time of its liberation and journey in Sinai, Israel experienced the sanctity of Yahweh. From the time of the revelation of Sinai God manifested His sanctity and this would constitute one of the essential bases of Biblical and Jewish identity. The rupture that Jesus brought about with the Judaism of his time, especially with the codes of Pharisaic legalism, is certainly the act and the founding principle of a Christian identity or, if you like, of a New-Testament identity.