Single Idea 7351

[catalogued under 29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 4. Christianity / a. Christianity]

Full Idea

Jesus was a member of the school of Hillel the Elder, and may have sat under him. He repeated some of the sayings of Hillel, ...and turned his ideas into a moral theology, stripping the law of all but its moral and ethical elements.

Gist of Idea

Jesus turned the ideas of Hillel into a theology reduced to its moral elements

Source

report of Jesus (reports [c.32]) by Paul Johnson - The History of the Jews Pt II

Book Reference

Johnson,Paul: 'A History of the Jews' [Phoenix 1993], p.128


A Reaction

The crucial move, it seems to me, is to strip Judaism of its complexity, and reduce it to very simple moral maxims, which means that ordinary illiterate people no longer need priests to understand and follow it. Jesus was, above all, a great teacher.