Books by Former Christians

[searchinmyroots]

Perhaps the biggest difference is that Jewish scriptural exegesis over the centuries has, in my opinion, tended toward humble, dialogical, self-critical, sometimes even a humorous awareness of our limited understanding of the mystery of God, whereas fundamentalist Christian interpretations of the Jewish scriptures seem to always tend toward narrow-minded, dogmatic, anti-Semitic readings.

Why is that? I'm glad that I've never been satisfied with dogmatic and narrow-minded readings but I hear some of it in the Christian world. 

I always thought of Judaism as a rigid religion. Since I've been here, this has changed. I find this video mind-blowing:

https://www.alephbeta.org/playlist/shach...ng-prayers   (Part 2, this doesn't come automatically)

I have never expected a rabbi saying things like:  "It seems strange to me that God just kind of threw together this world in 6 days." Let alone the questions he asks 

In the light of what I've learned here, Judaism has obviously the courage to question basically everything without considering it blasphemy (I don't know if I got this right).

Maybe there is more fear in Christianity to come to wrong conclusions and to loose salvation. So in order to keep control you don't ask so much (?).

Bluebird,

If I may answer as well -

Judaism is all about asking questions, we've been doing so for thousands of years and it is seen many times in the Hebrew bible as well (Abraham and Moses for examples).

No, we are not afraid to ask questions. 

And you will probably find many answers.

Not that any or all are right or wrong.

Of course there are some within Judaism that may not ask as much or may consider some questions off limits. But most to my knowledge encourage it. When I attended Torah classes, the Rabbi used to ask us what our interpretation of the verses were. Of course almost 100% of our answers (and questions) were already asked or commented on. The sages of long ago spent most of their time trying to decipher the meaning of Torah and it still continues to this day (and almost certainly in the future as well).