by Stephanie SanHamel
In 1960, Norman Cousins, former editor of Saturday Review, wrote, “There is every reason for Judaism to lose its reluctance toward Jesus. His own towering spiritual presence is a projection of Judaism, not a repudiation of it.”1 Yet decades later, Jesus still remains an enigma – the Jewish man who claimed to be Messiah, Lord and God, resulting in billions of people following him and calling themselves Christians. So, what was Jesus’ religion? The simple answer is: Judaism. Jesus was a rabbi, a teacher of Judaism. He taught about the kingdom of God, he taught ethics, and at his final Passover meal he talked about a new covenant (alluding to Jeremiah 31:31–34), according to which God would write His laws onto the hearts and minds of His Jewish people. As the New Testament describes it, this takes place for those who come to understand who Jesus is: the promised Messiah who gave his life for our sins and rose from the dead.