Jewish refutations of Jesus

[Bezant]

How do apologists respond directly to these specific criticisms?

(aish.com/jw/s/48892792.html) )

 

[promethius]

How do apologists respond directly to these specific criticisms?

(aish.com/jw/s/48892792.html) )

Fair enough!

1. Jesus Did Not Fulfill the Messianic Prophecies

What is the Messiah supposed to accomplish? The Bible says that he will:

• 
  *]Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
  *]Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).
  *]Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4)
  *]Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: “God will be King over all the world ― on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One” (Zechariah 14:9).

• 
  A: I see the third temple in the Tabernacle of Every Catholic church in the world.(FULFILLED)
  B. Looking at a map and I see a very Jewish Israel reformed… (FULFILLED)
  C. Isaiah 2:4 refers to the “last days”… in other words the time of the new covenant. The second coming of Christ promises this fulfillment of prophecy. (TO BE FULFILLED)
  D. I see a UNIVERSAL (read “Catholic”) church in the world right now… (so basically, FULFILLED)
  

  ) Jesus Did Not Embody the Personal Qualifications of Messiah
  A. Messiah as Prophet
  **B. Descendent of David **
  C. Torah Observance

  A) Hogwash manmade rule with no backing whatsoever, other than a post-Christian Era change made by jews AFTER Christianity had already launched. Christ gave true prophecies, so either He was a prophet, or the best guesser of future events of all time.
  B) Jesus is not a demi-God, He WAS fully human. On the part about David, nowhere in scripture does it say that Jesus must be a PATERNAL descendent of David… only a descendent… which is why the Bible includes geneologies to demonstrate this heritage.
  C) Christ both observed and perfected the Torah. The reason Christ didn’t FOLLOW the Torah? Because He IS the Torah, the very emboddiment of the law. I happen to think that Christ understood the law just a weeeeee bit better than the pharisees.
  

  3) Mistranslated Verses “Referring” to Jesus
  Biblical verses can only be understood by studying the original Hebrew text ― which reveals many discrepancies in the Christian translation.
  **A. Virgin Birth **
  **B. Suffering Servant **

  First, I reject the idea that biblical verses can only be understood by looking at the hebrew… since NOT all biblical verses were written in hebrew to begin with (rather, greek for much if not all of the new testament, and for 7 books of the old testament).
  
  A) That would make sense if this were the ONLY prophecy for the virgin birth, but there is also the prophecy of the gate into Israel by which only the king will be allowed to pass through (and this gate is Mary’s womb).
  B) I’m going to go with dualism here, since many passages of the scriptures, particularly prophecies, carry multiple meanings in the same sections. Either way, the interpretation of Is 53 in this manner squares with prophecies such as the psalms (My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?)… prophecies which I note the website CONVENIENTLY fails to even mention.
  

  4) Jewish Belief is Based Solely on National Revelation

  Utter hogwash. The entire book of Isaiah is based on personal revelation. The prophecies of the psalms? Personal revelation. The Judges? People whom God spoke specifically to.
  
  God spoke to ALL of Israel? Nope… Moses went into the mountains and spoke to God, and thus was established the seat of Moses and Moses’ special teaching authority. Further, if we want to show that ALL of Israel that was gathered could see the formation of the new covenant (just as with the old) we can discuss the earthquake and the tearing of the veil at the crucifixion… CERTAINLY visible signs to all of what had just happened.
  
  And this claim only makes sense if Jesus were claiming to be a mere prophet… but He is not. Jesus’ claim is that He is not a JUST a prophet of God, but actually God Himself in the flesh.

 

[Bezant]

I should add that this is a very difficult matter, and am primarily curious about how you lot would approach these points.

Fair enough!
A: I see the third temple in the Tabernacle of Every Catholic church in the world.(FULFILLED)
B. Looking at a map and I see a very Jewish Israel reformed… (FULFILLED)
C. Isaiah 2:4 refers to the “last days”… in other words the time of the new covenant. The second coming of Christ promises this fulfillment of prophecy. (TO BE FULFILLED)
D. I see a UNIVERSAL (read “Catholic”) church in the world right now… (so basically, FULFILLED)

But the accusation to this would be, you’re retroactively proving the NT–IOW, accepting it first as divine revelation, and then using the OT to prove it’s divine revelation – instead of the other way around: using the OT to prove that the NT is true.

A) Hogwash manmade rule with no backing whatsoever, other than a post-Christian Era change made by jews AFTER Christianity had already launched. Christ gave true prophecies, so either He was a prophet, or the best guesser of future events of all time.

But why would 1st century Jews ‘change’ the rule to paternal descent only, if Christianity didn’t become successful until the 4th century?

B) Jesus is not a demi-God, He WAS fully human. On the part about David, nowhere in scripture does it say that Jesus must be a PATERNAL descendent of David… only a descendent… which is why the Bible includes geneologies to demonstrate this heritage.

I do know that tribal/clan descent is patrilineal, but if we assume Davidic descent could have been through Mary, and if we agree that Davidic descent was very important–why are there two differing accounts of her genealogy in the Gospels?

C) Christ both observed and perfected the Torah. The reason Christ didn’t FOLLOW the Torah? Because He IS the Torah, the very emboddiment of the law. I happen to think that Christ understood the law just a weeeeee bit better than the pharisees.

But your explanation’s contradictory. Christ observed the law…but he didn’t follow it?

God spoke to ALL of Israel? Nope… Moses went into the mountains and spoke to God, and thus was established the seat of Moses and Moses’ special teaching authority.

That’s not what the text says.

“12 Then the LORD spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form—only a voice. 13 So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten **Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. 14 The LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might perform them in the land where you are going over to possess it. So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire." (Deut.4:12-16)

Further, if we want to show that ALL of Israel that was gathered could see the formation of the new covenant (just as with the old) we can discuss the earthquake and the tearing of the veil at the crucifixion… CERTAINLY visible signs to all of what had just happened.

Interesting point, but this wouldn’t be a national revelation. For one, it’s not visible to the nation, since many Jews were in the diaspora at the time. And furthermore, visibility’s not the only issue, but also clarity. The miracle could easily be attributed to natural phenomena.

And this claim only makes sense if Jesus were claiming to be a mere prophet… but He is not. Jesus’ claim is that He is not a JUST a prophet of God, but actually God Himself in the flesh.

**

 

[danserr]

A sufficient and I would say necessary reason to accept Jesus would be two combined factors:
1). His radical claim to divine authority, to overturn the Old law, speak on his own authority (you have heard it said, but I say to you…), forgive sins, speaking of himself as God’s unique son etc, claims for which he was eventually executed.
2). His resurrection. Because if Jesus rose, then that means that God confirmed Jesus’ claims about himself and vindicated him. The God against whom Jesus supposedly blasphemed raised Jesus from the dead.