Stereotypes: Christianity is "orthodoxy" vs Judaism is "orthopraxis"

Two weeks ago, I blogged about my personal academic connection to the forged Dead Sea Scrolls.

Baruch Spinoza: Jew or not a Jew?

The next day, I got to thinking about the claim that Christianity, out of all the world's religions, focuses on "orthodoxy," or right belief of doctrines and dogmas, vs. other religions that focus on "orthopraxis," or right actions. Supposedly, this is in part because Protestant Christanity especially rejects "works righteousness."

But, is this really true?

The real Dead Sea Scrolls, especially the 30 percent or so that are Qumran community documents and weren't known of in other form before 1946, say otherwise. Expulsions from the community.

Per John J. Collins, the Essenes or whomever we call them, separated from other Jews of their time over observances of ritual Torah points, calendrical observances and more. This is spelled out in the 4QMMT scroll. This is doctrine or dogma, not praxis. Remember that the pope and the patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated each other in 1054 CE in part over whether or not the other used the "filoque" in the Nicene Creed.

The Qumran expulsions also fall under orthodoxy not orthopraxis because, in my interpretation, calendrical observances affect things like observances of festivals like Passover. From there, discussion spills into whether wrong observance makes the whole event nugatory or not, per the old Catholic phrase "ex opere operato." And, when you use multiple Latin words, and use them about interpretation of religious acts, even if it is an act itself, you're still moving toward orthodoxy and out of straight-up orthopraxis.

Qumran's ethico-ontological dualism, as expressed in places like the War Scroll, appears to be more clearly Zoroastrian-bent than what Orthodox Judaism holds today. Given that such beliefs underscored belief in the observance of purity rituals at Qumran, that's orthodoxy.

Or, if you're a Karaite vs Rabbinic Jews, the status of the Talmud? Dogma.

Remember that Baruch Spinoza was not only excommunicated, if one will, but even suffered an Orthodox Judaism version of an Amish "shunning," the Jewish "herem" (yes, that's cognate to the word "harem" from Arabic "haram") over matters of orthodoxy, not orthopraxis.

And, it's not just Judaism. Look at Islam. The Shi'a / Sunni split? The issue of succession to Muhammad is orthodoxy, not orthopraxis. I'd argue the same for the splits between the Seveners and the Twelvers within Shi'a, or the four major schools within Sunni.

And, that's having initially ignored that the "recitation," the head of the Five Pillars of Islam, "there is no god but Allah," is clearly doxy, not praxis.

And, if I looked closely enough at Eastern religions, I could find some "-doxy" there, too.