I wasn’t necessarily surprised by anything theologically. However, it struck me that the frequent Jewish view of Jesus as a respected rabbi might not be well-understood or appreciated by some Christians. A lot of people might be confused and think that all Jewish people alive at the time of Jesus rejected him. In reality, not only were all of Jesus’s disciples Jewish, but so were the majority of people to whom Jesus preached during his life. The same virtues and admiration that many Jewish people during his own time period had for him likely permeates through to the present. The only question, of course the central one that divides Judaism from Christianity, is Jesus’s role as the messiah. While that is an important theological divide and deeply important from the standpoint of salvation, I think that there is a lot of common ground between Christian and Jewish theology. This common ground is helpful in building bridges between people and coming to a greater respect for one another.
