Judeo-Christian?

Judeo-Christian...hmm

There are those who object to calling the Old Testament Christian. Even though Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is the fulfilment of the hopes of the Old Covenant. 

Faithful Old Testament believers:

Looked forward Christ. 

Hoped for Christ  

Knew their need for Christ, and

Believed in the Supremacy of Christ. 

Many of them even actually encountered Jesus (cf Isa. 6 and John 12, for one example). 

The argument is not without some merit, though. Because the term Christian was first used in Antioch in the days of the Apostles, in Acts. 

Ok. Let's grant that then.

But nor is Judaism a term used in the Old Testament, nor is it used for the Old Testament faith, until not long before Christ walked in Galilee. 

Abraham was not Jewish. Nor Isaac, or Jacob. Nor 11 of Jacob's sons. Nor Joshua, nor Job, nor Samson. Jonah wasn't either. Nor many other Old Testament prophets. Many were of the tribe of Judah, as Jesus is. But many were not. 

What is more, the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 1 that Judaism opposed Jesus and he repented of that false understanding of the law. Read it. It is what OUR bible says. 

If it is anachronistic to call the Old Testament Christian, it is doubly so to refer to it as Judaism. First, the term is not found in the Old Testament. Second it refers to a faith that Paul says rejected Jesus; the Lord of the Old Testament. 

Hence to say our Christian tradition in our societies is Judeo-Christian is neither accurate, nor helpful. And it actually is far worse than that. 

It confuses the ordinary Christian on the basic claim of Christianity that the Old Testament is about Christ; a core Christian teaching. And it ignores the fact that historically Christianity and Judaism claim to be very different. 

It is not surprising, then, that the term started to really gain any traction at all, 100 years after the West had declined in viewing itself as Christendom. 

That in itself is more revealing than anything else. The West had to forget its legacy, before others, in error, could reframe it.