At the time I was naive concerning Judaism; I considered them a sister-faith, lost but special. But I was still shocked at the lack of Judaic missions I detected in his voice.

Then, I thought my Jewish acquaintance was wrong according to his Tanach principles) for his lack of zeal to be a light unto the nations. But now I believe it is precisely wrong for a Jew (to answer your question) to be a light unto the nations: it is against his Talmudic principles.

Though Solzhenitsyn credits the outbreak with bringing about the vernacular slavic Bible, the 80 year delay makes this doubtful to me. Luther’s writings, including the Bible translation, were in print almost before he stuck his pen back into the inkwell. So, is it just protestant paranoia that makes me suspect that the 80 year delay may suggest that there was resistance to publishing a vernacular Bible, and perhaps only competition from the Lutherans forced the issue? Or is someone going to answer no, it’s just that the Slavs are a lot less efficient than the Germans?

The name “Judaizing heresy” is unfortunate, since this is the name given to the heresy addressed in Galations. But there, the outward commitment was still to Christ, while in the Russian Judaizing heresy, it was at best indifference to Christ, and at worst, an explicit rejection of him.

But perhaps I am wrong here. Paul treats the Galation heresy as tantamount to rejecting Christ, even though the apparent commitment was there.

It seems unfortunate, and perhaps telling, that the Orthodox critique freely mingles (1) denial of Trinity and person of Christ, (2) Sabbath-keeping, and (3) worship of images. But the first is soul-destroying, the second could be just confusion as to the reason for the shift of days (though that was probably not the case here), and in the third, the jews were actually right.

A lesson that we can learn here is that when anything man-made is intruded into the worship and doctrine of God, then the enemy can appear as an angel of light by seeming to oppose something that rightly should be opposed!

This reminds of the video that Josh brought to our attention, of all the pagan religions that have a “god” born on December 25. And the anthropologists are making hay about how that shows Christianity is just one more among many.

Leaving aside the minor premise about “December 25,” which in view of the uncertainties of calendars until the late middle ages, is highly unlikely to be a fixed reference point…

December 25, or any other date for Christ’s birth, is nowhere to be found in the Bible!