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[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

On Thu, 22 May 1997, Jonathan Bricklin wrote:

[..]

>
> Jesus had many allegiences
> with the beliefs of the Pharisees, but he brought a conceptual revolution
> nonetheless.  Citing commentators that weave Shankara with the Mimamsakas
> does not address the issue.  There are Jews for Jesus who keep kosher.

There are major historical, doctrinal and social differences between the
two situations that are being compared here.

The Pharisees and their later successors, the Rabbinical Jews, do not
accept the New Testament and Jesus as a new covenant that God made with
the chosen people. Therefore, the scriptures of the Jews and the
Christians have different content.

In contrast, the scriptures interpreted by the mImAm.sakas and the
vedAntins have the same content, but they differ in their views about the
karmakANDa and jnAnakANDa, and the relationship between them.

>From the point of view of the Pharisees, Jesus must have been just one of
the many Jewish preachers of the time. From the point of view of the later
Christians, Jesus was the promised savior.

In contrast, the mImAm.sakas would never have seen Sankara as just another
mImAm.saka with a different interpretation of the vedas. Both mImAm.sakas
and vedAntins were quite clear on what Sankara's role was, namely an
interpreter of vedAnta teachings.

Finally, Jews for Jesus who keep kosher are not accepted as Christians by
the Christians, and they are not accepted as real Jews by most Jews. Such
a sharp break between traditions has never happened, and never will happen
in the context of mImAm.sA and vedAnta. The notion of varNASramadharma and
the idea that each darSana has its place in one's religious/philosophical
views ensure that mImAm.sA and vedAnta coexist in a kind of symbiosis,
with very large gray areas between. The monasteries run by all vedAnta
traditions also teach mImAm.sA, while the veda pAThaSAlAs run by
householder teachers also occasionally teach vedAnta. Those who learn
mImAm.sA and vedAnta in such schools come from the same religious
background and belief. In contrast, no Christian seminary teaches the
Talmud, and no yeshiva teaches the New Testament, and the students at each
kind of institution have very markedly different religious backgrounds and
beliefs.

Vidyasankar