The Messiah ben David is by definition that man who fulfills all six of the criterion in the Jewish scriptures. From a Jewish perspective what makes Christian claims that Jesus was the Messiah ben David so remarkable, is that he did not fulfill a single one of the six criterion.
On the other hand, there is no concept in Judaism that faith in the Messiah ben David leads to personal salvation. There is not a single verse in the Torah or prophets that states or implies that belief in the Messiah ben David is required for or related to personal salvation. The salvation program for Jews is to love God, fear God and keep His commandments.
The six authentic Jewish Messianic criteria are:
- have the correct genealogy by being descended from King David and king Solomon
- be anointed King of Israel
- return the Jewish people to Israel
- rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem
- bring peace to the world and end all war
- bring knowledge of God to the world
We see that each of the six Jewish messianic criteria is empirically verifiable and therefore faith is not required to determine the identity of the Jewish Messiah ben David. We can see if the Temple has been rebuilt, if all the Jews have returned to Israel, if the entire world believes in God and follows Torah, if the entire world is at peace.
Christianity couldn’t overcome the defect of their leader not fulfilling a single one of the six criteria, so they created the concept of “faith” in the Christian leader to overcome this defect. Of course, they were still stuck with the non fulfillment of the criteria for the Jewish Messiah ben David, so they also came up with the concept, which has no basis in Jewish scripture, of the “second coming”. So Christians say, Jesus didn’t have to fulfill the six criterion of the Jewish Messiah ben David ( (which ironically are the way to identify the Messiah ben David), and they say you can put off the fulfillment of these criterion, until Jesus comes back to life on earth a second time. However, if this is true, can’t anyone claim that a beloved deceased relative was a good and righteous man and is in fact the Messiah ben David?. Of course, They’ll have to wait until he returns to know if they are correct in their assumption, however they can claim to have “faith” that they are in fact correct.
That left Christianity with two problems. If the Christian leader didn’t bring about the state of things as stated in the six criteria, what did he do and under what other criteria can they claim that he was the Messiah ben David?
If we read the Christian scriptures, we see that the Christian leader made a couple of egregious misquotes of the Jewish scriptures. None the less, he did say a few really worthwhile things. However, it turns out that these things were lifted from the Jewish scriptures and presented as if original to Jesus in the Christian scriptures.
Here are just a few of many concrete examples:
Psalms 37;11
'but the humble shall inherit the earth, and delight in abundant peace"
becomes in Matthew 5:5 (the sermon on the mount)
‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth’
Psalms 24:3-4
“Who may ascend the mountain of Hashem and who may stand in the place of sanctity?One with clean hand and pure heart;”
becomes in Matthew 5:8
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”
Lamentations 3:30
“Let one offer his cheek to the smiter, let him be filled with disgrace”
becomes in Matthew 5;39
“…but if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also…”
So Christianity found itself rejected by Jews, since from a Jewish perspective it was clear that Jesus did not fulfill the criteria of the Messiah ben David. In as much as he was rehashing Jewish scriptures, that too was not impressive to the Jews.
In this regard, it should be mentioned that Jesus is mentioned in the Torah as a test of the Jewish people’s faith to God and the eternal covenant:
Devarim - Deuteronomy - Chapter 13
א אֵת כָּל-הַדָּבָר, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוֶּה אֶתְכֶם–אֹתוֹ תִשְׁמְרוּ, לַעֲשׂוֹת: לֹא-תֹסֵף עָלָיו, וְלֹא תִגְרַע מִמֶּנּוּ. {פ}
ב כִּי-יָקוּם בְּקִרְבְּךָ נָבִיא, אוֹ חֹלֵם חֲלוֹם; וְנָתַן אֵלֶיךָ אוֹת, אוֹ מוֹפֵת. ג וּבָא הָאוֹת וְהַמּוֹפֵת, אֲשֶׁר-דִּבֶּר אֵלֶיךָ לֵאמֹר: נֵלְכָה אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-יְדַעְתָּם–וְנָעָבְדֵם. ד לֹא תִשְׁמַע, אֶל-דִּבְרֵי הַנָּבִיא הַהוּא, אוֹ אֶל-חוֹלֵם הַחֲלוֹם, הַהוּא: כִּי מְנַסֶּה יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם, אֶתְכֶם, לָדַעַת הֲיִשְׁכֶם אֹהֲבִים אֶת-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם, בְּכָל-לְבַבְכֶם וּבְכָל-נַפְשְׁכֶם. ה אַחֲרֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם תֵּלֵכוּ, וְאֹתוֹ תִירָאוּ; וְאֶת-מִצְוֹתָיו תִּשְׁמֹרוּ וּבְקֹלוֹ תִשְׁמָעוּ, וְאֹתוֹ תַעֲבֹדוּ וּבוֹ תִדְבָּקוּן.
- Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it.
- If there will arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of a dream, and he gives you a sign or a wonder,
- and the sign or the wonder of which he spoke to you happens, [and he] says, “Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us worship them,”
- you shall not heed the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of a dream; for the Lord, your God, is testing you, to know whether you really love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul.
- You shall follow the Lord, your God, fear Him, keep His commandments, heed His voice, worship Him, and cleave to Him.
Jesus is presented in the Christian scriptures as a prophet who performed signs, wonders and miracles. The concept of the son of God and the trinity are gods that the Jewish people did not know.
God tests the Jews to keep the eternal covenant between Him and the Jewish people. From a Jewish perspective, for a Jew to “believe” in Jesus is a failure of God’s test. While Judaism teaches that it is easier for the Gentile than for the Jew to get into the World to Come as the Gentile has only to uphold the seven Noahide commandments, the penalty of failing God’s test for a Jew is to be separated forever from God in the World to Come.
Matthew,Mark;Luke and John are the putative authors of their respective Gospels, only Matthew and John are mentioned as disciples and witnesses to to events in the life of Jesus. Mark and Luke did not claim to be eyewitnesses to events in Jesus’ life.
Now we know that the Gospel of Mark (who was not an eyewitness) was the first synoptic Gospel since Matthew copied about 90% of the Gospel of Mark (600 out of 660 verses) and Luke copied over 50% of the Gospel of Mark. Now if Matthew really was a disciple and a witness to events why would he need to copy Mark and rely so heavily of Marks version of events ? (why would he refer to himself in the third person in Matthew 9:9?). Which leaves us with John which contains material not found in Mark, contradicts events reported in Matthew and Luke and contains none of the" historical material" contained only in Matthew and Luke such as infancy and childhood.To make matters even more complicated, whenever they reported "historical material"l not found in Mark (on whose Gospel they obviously relied) and although they were not eyewitnesses, they contradict each other and make alterations and additions to Mark’s Jesus story.
The Epistles make no mention of the Gospels which strongly suggest that the Gospels did not exist until after the Epistles were written. Although this earliest Christian document was written much closer to the alleged lifetime of Jesus, the Epistles speak of a divine being with virtually no reference to physical events on earth or in history. There are no sayings of Jesus, or parables, or miracles or details about his life. There is no crucifixion mentioned, no empty tomb, no alleged rising from the tomb.
Although Christian scholars put forward that the Gospels existed in some form by the late first century of the common era, the first time there is a written reference to a Gospel is a reference to the Gospel of Mark in 125 c.e. and the first written reference to all four Gospels is in 175 c.e.
Now although Christians believe that a god had literally come down to earth, this was missed by every one of the 41 historians who lived during the first and early second century, who wrote about Judea and Rome and whose works have survived. Not a single one of them mentioned Jesus, his alleged disciples, his apostles or any of the miraculous events described in the Gospels.
The lack of sources outside of Christianity has led to reliance on forged passages from Josephus and even trying to interpret Talmudic passages as somehow referring to the Jesus figure. Now Jesus may have existed historically but there is little or no credible evidence supporting his existence.
The Jewish prophets have explicitly stated,that in the Messianic Era, Gentiles will stop being blinded to the truth and realize they have inherited falsehood:
"Hashem (God) my Strength, my Stronghold and my Refuge on the day of distress! To You (God) nations will come from the ends of the earth and say: "It was all falsehood that our ancestors inherited, futility that has no purpose. Can a man make gods for himself - they are not gods! (Jeremiah 16:19-20)
יט יְהוָה עֻזִּי וּמָעֻזִּי, וּמְנוּסִי–בְּיוֹם צָרָה; אֵלֶיךָ, גּוֹיִם יָבֹאוּ מֵאַפְסֵי-אָרֶץ, וְיֹאמְרוּ אַךְ-שֶׁקֶר נָחֲלוּ אֲבוֹתֵינוּ, הֶבֶל וְאֵין-בָּם מוֹעִיל.
כ הֲיַעֲשֶׂה-לּוֹ אָדָם, אֱלֹהִים; וְהֵמָּה, לֹא אֱלֹהִים.
{In the Messianic Era} “Nations will walk by your [the Jewish People’s] light and kings by the brilliance of your shine” Isaiah 60:3
וְהָלְכוּ גוֹיִם, לְאוֹרֵךְ; וּמְלָכִים, לְנֹגַהּ זַרְחֵךְ.
"I will set you [the Jewish People] for a covenant to the people, for a light to the nations, to open blind eyes [in the Messianic Age] Isaiah 42:6-7
וְאֶתֶּנְךָ לִבְרִית עָם–לְאוֹר גּוֹיִם.
לִפְקֹחַ, עֵינַיִם עִוְרוֹת
)), it’s against board policy.
So now I’m indeed back here to this thread, but for another reason: no way that this was coincidence, but Christ lead me to that passage. Case closed… at least in my book 