Jews and Christianity

[beehumble]

Each Gospel has some cross points, and some unique points - they can be compared and contrasted, but they are all true.

Jesus also alluded to Himself as “I AM”. Is this also usual for those in the line of kingship of David?

And I wonder why the House of God of the Chosen People was made desolate shortly after the time of Jesus, and has remained desolate even unto this day? The land of Israel is fertile and blossoming again though, and ready!

Catholics believe and know the Jewish people will not be forsaken and will come to know the Messiah Yeshua before His Second Coming. As Jesus said, He (God) would stay away from Israel His Chosen People, thus keeping it barren and desolate typologically and quite literally, until they say, “Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord.” But near the end, His people who were scattered to the four corners of the world after the days of Jesus, would be brought back to their land by the merciful God who never forgets His first born children, and so all of this has come to pass just as foretold by Jesus. Behold, the reborn Israel after 2000 years, and Jerusalem in the possession of its people, and the Hebrew language back from the dead, and the literally blossoming land of Israel! The figs are on the tree; it is blooming and ripe for the harvest!

Watch the video here:
unitedwithisrael.org/awesome-video-israel-inspired/

God bless you!

 

[chosen_people]

Hi, Chosen People,

Now for my question. There are several aspects of Christ public ministry where He publicly challenged the Jewish religious leaders with a miracle on the Sabbath. So, while it was acceptable to pull an ox out of a pit on the Sabbath, it was not acceptable to heal someone. When confounded by Christ’s challenge - they did not rethink their Sabbath interpretation (healing like this was never envisioned with Sabbath rules were developed) but plotted to kill Him according the the Scripture. Do you have any idea why the Jewish religious leaders acted this way in the face of evidence that Christ had extraordinary power?

God bless

Well to begin with you have given examples of the Oral Law from a Christian source.

Secondly, the overriding principle in Judaism is the sanctity of life. This takes precedence over any commandment of the Sabbath and indeed over any Torah commandment unless it involves having to commit murder, incest or idolatry. We can therefore conclude that, like the so called “trial of Jesus”, this is an anti-Jewish fabrication written by a Gentile totally ignorant of Judaism. The other possibility is that we are not talking about “healing” (which would be allowed on the Sabbath as it concerns the sanctity of life) but of an act that would be forbidden, such as an idolatrous ceremony to “heal” the sick person.

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.

1. Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it.
2. If there will arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of a dream, and he gives you a sign or a wonder,
3. 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,”
4. 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.
5. 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.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Chosen People,

Well… that explains everything !

So, let me see if I have this straight… the New Testament is simply an anti-Jewish fabrication written by non-Jews.

Well to begin with you have given examples of the Oral Law from a Christian source.

Secondly, the overriding principle in Judaism is the sanctity of life. This takes precedence over any commandment of the Sabbath and indeed over any Torah commandment unless it involves having to commit murder, incest or idolatry. We can therefore conclude that, like the so called “trial of Jesus”, this is an anti-Jewish fabrication written by a Gentile totally ignorant of Judaism. The other possibility is that we are not talking about “healing” (which would be allowed on the Sabbath as it concerns the sanctity of life) but of an act that would be forbidden, such as an idolatrous ceremony to “heal” the sick person.

So, Christ wan’t a Jew, the 12 Apostles weren’t Jewish? Saul of Tarsus was not a Pharisee? Christ’s initial followers were not Jewish? (the occasional non-Jew does show up, the Centurian with the sick [Matt 8:4-8], the Syro-Phoenicial woman with the possessed daughter [Mark 7:25-30] and of course the generalized criticism of Christ eating with sinners and publicans (maybe some non-Jews in this group, too).
All of the writers of the NT were Jewish. But, I guess the only source for this would be from the NT… and, you have already dismissed that as a valid document

Tell me again what you want to accomplish on this list?

The OT is just full of references about the promised coming of the Messiah. Here is a link you can be equally dismissive about: clarifyingchristianity.com/m_prophecies.shtml It presents the OT prophecies of the Messiah (chapter and verse) - and their fulfillment in the NT (chapter and verse here, too).

It is my understanding that Jews (which ones I do not know) still wait for the Messiah. is this true? If so, what was wrong with Christ - the Son of God?

There are several references to Christ responding to questions by the Jewish religious leaders. The stated intention (obviously an anti-Jewish bias) was for these questions to confound Christ and for these learned men to show Christ up for the ‘country bumpkin’ he was. After all, even one of His own Apostles asked, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (john 1:4-6). Stop and think about it - besting the Jewish religious leaders as questioning is a remarkable achievement - but to do so on a regular basis… well… this must be a fabrication (requiring incredible authors to come up with these questons and the amazing answers that went with them) or - hold on … it was the Son of God responding to them. Ah, better dismiss that one, too. So, if a fabrication - please tell me who could write such questions and answers - even today?

God bless

 

[Kaninchen]

Hi, Chosen People,

Well… that explains everything !

Perhaps you’ve missed all the ‘why don’t Jews believe in Jesus?’ threads here on CAF?

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Kaninchen,

Actually, I have not missed much. Maybe you missed the rest of my post and were not able to go beyond the first sentence?

If you have a comment about the thread, why not just make it and take the opportunity to spread some light?

God bless

Perhaps you’ve missed all the ‘why don’t Jews believe in Jesus?’ threads here on CAF?

 

[johnnyjones]

And what, if we know, is the eternal destiny of the unbelieving Jew?

 

[Kaninchen]

Hi, Kaninchen,

Actually, I have not missed much. Maybe you missed the rest of my post and were not able to go beyond the first sentence?

If you have a comment about the thread, why not just make it and take the opportunity to spread some light?

God bless

Hm, well, the thing is . . . I rather doubt you can have followed them because, had you done so, I expect the rest of your post would have (at least) sounded somewhat different.

Hinting to you that you might possibly check out some of gems of the past was, of course, taking the opportunity to ‘spread some light’ - if only on the futility of ‘why don’t Jews believe in Jesus?’ threads.

Do please remember that you are many here and we are few so what may be novelty to a Christian poster is ‘oh dear, not another one’’ to a Jewish poster.

 

[Kaninchen]

And what, if we know, is the eternal destiny of the unbelieving Jew?

Having to answer ‘why don’t Jews believe in Jesus?’ questions on religious message boards?

 

[johnnyjones]

Having to answer ‘why don’t Jews believe in Jesus?’ questions on religious message boards?

How do you read “why don’t Jews believe in Jesus” into my question? Don’t twist it.

Asking “why” is a question done all the time on the forum anyway.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Kaninchen,

Do you have a link to a particular ‘gem’ or ‘gems’ you would like me to see?

Concerning your ‘minority’ status as a non-Catholic on a Catholic listserve, don’t lose heart. I am confident that you are here - and posting (not just lurking) for a reason. Now, it may be simply to point to the fact that the Jews are still here…and they still reject Jesus as the Messiah … and they are still waiting for the Messiah. Do you know of a Jewish listserve that has a ‘minority’ Catholic presence on it?

God bless

Hm, well, the thing is . . . I rather doubt you can have followed them because, had you done so, I expect the rest of your post would have (at least) sounded somewhat different.

Hinting to you that you might possibly check out some of gems of the past was, of course, taking the opportunity to ‘spread some light’ - if only on the futility of ‘why don’t Jews believe in Jesus?’ threads.

Do please remember that you are many here and we are few so what may be novelty to a Christian poster is ‘oh dear, not another one’’ to a Jewish poster.

 

[Kaninchen]

Hi, Kaninchen,

Do you have a link to a particular ‘gem’ or ‘gems’ you would like me to see?

There have been many since I’ve joined so I expect the best bet would be to google: ‘Kaninchen messiah’, ‘Kaninchen pious fiction’, ‘Kaninchen jesus stubbed his toe’, I put myself forward because ‘Chosen People’, being a concept as well as a CAF member, would lead to other types of threads (while Kaninchen is just German for ‘rabbit’) and poster Chosen People has been on many of the threads I’ve been on. I seem to remember Valke2 wrote a lot on the subject so ‘Valke2 messiah’ would bring some of the threads he took part in.

Concerning your ‘minority’ status as a non-Catholic on a Catholic listserve, don’t lose heart. I am confident that you are here - and posting (not just lurking) for a reason. Now, it may be simply to point to the fact that the Jews are still here…and they still reject Jesus as the Messiah … and they are still waiting for the Messiah. Do you know of a Jewish listserve that has a ‘minority’ Catholic presence on it? God bless

Actually, I’ve always been interested in the consequences of what people believe rather more than in what it is that they believe.

As to Jewish boards, I’ve not been on one for many years. I’ve been discussing religion on the Internet for a decade and a half and being on ‘foreign’ boards is much more fun.

Edited to add:

You might find this Simple To Remember page helpful. For further information on Messiah from a Jewish perspective - there’s Jewish Virtual Library, Judaism 101, and My Jewish Learning.

 

[Kaninchen]

How do you read “why don’t Jews believe in Jesus” into my question? Don’t twist it.

I was joking (it’s allowed) about our eternal fate being to spend our time on message boards explaining why we don’t believe in Jesus.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Kaninchen,

Thank you.

I do not know German, so the avitar(?) at the bottom of your page makes sense for the name you chose … What is the translation for what appears below your ‘rabbit’?

God bless

There have been many since I’ve joined so I expect the best bet would be to google: ‘Kaninchen messiah’, ‘Kaninchen pious fiction’, ‘Kaninchen jesus stubbed his toe’, I put myself forward because ‘Chosen People’, being a concept as well as a CAF member, would lead to other types of threads (while Kaninchen is just German for ‘rabbit’) and poster Chosen People has been on many of the threads I’ve been on. I seem to remember Valke2 wrote a lot on the subject so ‘Valke2 messiah’ would bring some of the threads he took part in.

Actually, I’ve always been interested in the consequences of what people believe rather more than in what it is that they believe.

As to Jewish boards, I’ve not been on one for many years. I’ve been discussing religion on the Internet for a decade and a half and being on ‘foreign’ boards is much more fun.

 

[Kaninchen]

Hi, Kaninchen,

Thank you.

I do not know German, so the avitar(?) at the bottom of your page makes sense for the name you chose … What is the translation for what appears below your ‘rabbit’?

God bless

“Il ruggito della coniglia!” is Italian and means ‘the roar of the rabbit’ and is taken from a very silly drive-time music/chat program on Italian radio (Rai2) called ‘Il ruggito del coniglio’.

 

[johnnyjones]

I was joking (it’s allowed) about our eternal fate being to spend our time on message boards explaining why we don’t believe in Jesus.

With clarification, I get it. Peace meeshpacha.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Kaninchen,

I went to the first site I could get open … chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/108400/jewish/Belief-in-Moshiach.htm And read it. Now, how much I understood is debateable - but, I did get through it.

The good news is that I have a lot more appreciation for what is going on. It really is a totally different world - and on this particular link there were far more references to uniquely Jewish documents, like the Talmud and the saying of 12th Century Maimonides about the coming of Moshiach (Messiah). My understanding of why today’s Jews do not believe Christ to be the Messiah is that Christ did not:

1.) bring world peace
2.) become publicly recognized as a politically powerful figure
3.) rebuild the Temple (of course it was still standing in 33AD)
4.) be observant Himself, and spread education and observance of the Talmud, (He and didn’t do this with miracles and work being done on the Sabbath)
5.) reestablish the Sandredrin (it, too, was still in existence in 33AD)

Now, I know I missed some items - and some things I really did not catch… but, I think this is an honest attempt to summarize the argument.

As I see it there is really not only a time warp here… but work being done from different documents and appraoches. How anyone agrees on anything is the amazement to me.

I would suggest that we work from the Bible - only because I have no knowledge of the other uniquely Jewish documents, and you are knowledgeable about books - in the Old Testament.

My understanding is that there were multiple references to the coming of the Messiah in the OT - that were fulfilled by Jesus Christ and recorded in the New Testament. I would appreciate your comments on these. Here are just 5 items I chose from a rather long list:

**1.) The Messiah will be born of a virgin Isaiah 7:14 [Matt 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-35]

2.) The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem Micah 5:2 [Matt 2:1, Luke 2:4-7]

3.) His 1st spiritual work will be in Galilee Isaiah 9:1-7 [Matt 4:12-18]

4.) People will hear him but not believe Isaiah 53:1 [John 12:37-38]

5.) He will be enter the Temple with authority Malachi 3:1 [Matt 21:12, Luke 19:45]**

Looking forward to hearing from you.

God bless

“Il ruggito della coniglia!” is Italian and means ‘the roar of the rabbit’ and is taken from a very silly drive-time music/chat program on Italian radio (Rai2) called ‘Il ruggito del coniglio’.

 

[Kaninchen]

My understanding is that there were multiple references to the coming of the Messiah in the OT - that were fulfilled by Jesus Christ and recorded in the New Testament. I would appreciate your comments on these. Here are just 5 items I chose from a rather long list:

**1.) The Messiah will be born of a virgin Isaiah 7:14 [Matt 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-35]

2.) The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem Micah 5:2 [Matt 2:1, Luke 2:4-7]

3.) His 1st spiritual work will be in Galilee Isaiah 9:1-7 [Matt 4:12-18]

4.) People will hear him but not believe Isaiah 53:1 [John 12:37-38]

5.) He will be enter the Temple with authority Malachi 3:1 [Matt 21:12, Luke 19:45]**

Let’s start with a core problem in Christian-Jewish discussion of what are usually called ‘proof texts’ (passages in the NT which seem to be foreshadowed in what you call the ‘Old Testament’ and we call ‘The Tanakh’) which I, usually, describe as ‘we don’t believe a word of it’. You’ll find these arguments in the ‘gems’ I was talking about but let’s review the themes here.

Christians see the NT as being reportage, the life, works and teachings of your Saviour. We don’t, we see it as a ‘construct’.

First of all, let me say that, if we look at many of his teachings and sayings, they weren’t actually new. It’s the kind of thing that Jews have been discussing ‘forever’ and, at that time, the notable names (for google purposes, should you wish to look them up) were Hillel and Shammai who could be described as opposite sides of ‘the debate’.

So, while the NT shows Jesus going around intellectually beating-up the naughty Pharisees, we Jews don’t see it like that at all. It’s just an itinerant ‘rabbi’ (teacher), possibly a Pharisee of some sort himself, going around arguing themes that were commonplace with views that weren’t exactly original.

Now, what about the prophesies?

They divide, I’d argue, into prophesies that one can talk about seriously (Isaiah 7, Isaiah 53 etc) and prophesies I tend to put under the heading of ‘and Jesus stubbed his toe’:

Isaiah 99:53 ‘. . . . the child shall stub his toe’.

Matthew 77:62: ‘. . . . and Jesus stubbed his toe’.

In other words, the kind of fulfilled ‘prophesies’ one finds in Josh McDowell’s ‘Evidence That Demands A Verdict’, pages of stuff that really do stretch the idea of prophesy beyond any kind of sense and just reflects a desperate search of the Old Testament for anything that might, even vaguely, prefigure Jesus.

When we come to the ‘serious prophesies’, we’re still faced with a set of problems which I describe as the “Jesus fulfilled all the prophesies that could be achieved through text manipulation’ but not the ones that couldn’t, they are left over for the ‘Second Coming’”.

Let’s take a simple one: ‘Bethlehem’. Obviously, there was no ‘Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths’ so what do we get? Well, from our perspective, a contrived story about a guy who has to go to Bethlehem to register for a census, something for which there is no record elsewhere (I think other Jews might have noticed having to scurry about all over the place), followed by a massacre of baby boys (something nobody else noticed and Jews of the time would have loved another Herod scandal) followed by a trip to Egypt. In other words, like biting bits off jigsaw pieces to make them fit a picture Jesus is made to ‘fit’ a prophesy, with all sorts of Moses allusions to beef it up.

That’s the thing with ‘text fulfilment’, you take a set of previous writings (whether prophetic or not) and can make your story ‘fit’ while putting aside the non-fulfilled ‘real world’ prophesies for ‘Part II, the Second Coming’.

There’s something important here that I think you should bear in mind when talking to Jews about this stuff, it’s what I call the ‘reading forwards/reading backwards’ problem.

If you start with having read the NT and read the OT ‘through its eyes’, do you come up with Jesus as Messiah/God? You’d say ‘Yes, of course!’

So let’s, now, take the Old Testament and read it ‘forward’, which, for arguments sake, let’s say we’ve done. Would you come up with Jesus as Messiah/God? I think you’d have to think about that for a while.

Now, the Tanakh isn’t organized like the OT, it’s organized Law/Prophets/Writings and reflects the focus of Judaism which is a very different religion from Christianity but, even with the Christian OT, if you hadn’t read the New Testament, I’d suggest you’d have a somewhat different picture about ‘what it’s all about’ from a Jewish perspective.

The importance lies in the fact that Christianity and Judaism are very different religions with very different foci and themes, there are ideas in the NT that are not prefigured in the OT. Things like ‘Original Sin’, ‘Salvation’ as a spiritual concept, a powerful Satan, a Triune God, a dying God, a resurrected God. Where did these ideas come from? Well, you’d say Jesus but we’d say that those sorts of ideas were all around the ancient Middle East.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Kaninchen,

Thank you for your very thoughtful response. By the way, did I basically get the distilled version of that link correct?

When you use the term ‘proof text’ I understand it to mean a verse or two of something taken out of context used to demonstrate a point that other-wise would not apply - but THIS text shows how it does. It may appear that is what I did - but, I see it quite differently. All of the OT is focused on God’s Faithfullness - and the on-again-off-again faithfullness of His Chosen People. Throughout the OT there is the promise of Someone coming Who will be a great help (slavation) for both Jew and Gentile. The 5 items I provided hold together with this.

Reading the Bible from NT to OT is what I have done … and you have done the reverse (using your books) there is no way to un-ring that bell.

I had never thought of Bethlahem having a Bureau of Census where the presence of Joseph and Mary could be independently cofirmed or Registry of Births … .

In the story of the confrontation between Moses and Pharao - we see God telling Moses what to do, Moses doing it - Pharao rejecting the request and being sent a plague in response. This cycle is repeated and each time some natural explanation for the devestation is provided to effectively further harden his heart. In a similar way, could not this Exodus story have an application here?

Pharaoh was (maybe … to keep this analogy going…) ‘looking forward’ and every time he relented - some natural explanation was given on how the plague developed - ‘Hey! Nothing Divine about this! The deal to free the slaves is off!’ Then the cydle repeats. If Jews do not see Christ as the Messiah could this not be like Pharaoh who is given rationales on why not - instead of beliving in What Is.

The arguments given, e.g., “Jesus bumped His toe” as you say, make sense if one is willing to throw out all of the proofs used by Christians - especially Catholics - that this is not some 2000 year old fraud… developed by a back-water Carpenter, picked up by a bunch of less then gifted followers - and then - for some reason takes off and spreads throughout the world. For a ‘fraud’, this is pretty remarkable.

So, tell me, for Jews where does Faith come in? Jews still await the Messiah and Christians say He came 2,000 years ago. It isn’t an issue of who’s right (each of us thinks we are…) but where is the Faith to sustain these positions? And, I guess what I am really saying is the Faith to reject what we hold to be true. Isn’t there anything in ‘The Tanakh’ that you can see as a foreshadow of Jesus? And, if so, how is it address so as not really applying?

God bless

Let’s start with a core problem in Christian-Jewish discussion of what are usually called ‘proof texts’ (passages in the NT which seem to be foreshadowed in what you call the ‘Old Testament’ and we call ‘The Tanakh’) which I, usually, describe as ‘we don’t believe a word of it’. You’ll find these arguments in the ‘gems’ I was talking about but let’s review the themes here.

Christians see the NT as being reportage, the life, works and teachings of your Saviour. We don’t, we see it as a ‘construct’.

First of all, let me say that, if we look at many of his teachings and sayings, they weren’t actually new. It’s the kind of thing that Jews have been discussing ‘forever’ and, at that time, the notable names (for google purposes, should you wish to look them up) were Hillel and Shammai who could be described as opposite sides of ‘the debate’.

So, while the NT shows Jesus going around intellectually beating-up the naughty Pharisees, we Jews don’t see it like that at all. It’s just an itinerant ‘rabbi’ (teacher), possibly a Pharisee of some sort himself, going around arguing themes that were commonplace with views that weren’t exactly original.

 

[Kaninchen]

By the way, did I basically get the distilled version of that link correct?

The answer would be ‘-ish’. ‘The Law’ is ‘Torah’ (the first five books), by the way, not the Talmud. The Talmud is ‘Oral Torah’, a collection of tradition, interpretation and argument, a whole lot of ‘on the one hand, while on the other hand, meanwhile on yet another hand.’

When you use the term ‘proof text’ I understand it to mean a verse or two of something taken out of context used to demonstrate a point that other-wise would not apply - but THIS text shows how it does. It may appear that is what I did - but, I see it quite differently. All of the OT is focused on God’s Faithfullness - and the on-again-off-again faithfullness of His Chosen People. Throughout the OT there is the promise of Someone coming Who will be a great help (slavation) for both Jew and Gentile. The 5 items I provided hold together with this.

We’re in the world of ‘reading forwards/reading backwards’ here. The reading forwards version is that God made a fairly simple covenant with the ‘sons of Noah’ which applied to everybody, then a series of Covenants (Abraham onwards) with his ‘chosen people’ who had to do lots more stuff (one of the reasons why we say that non-Jews have it easier and why they’re, actually, at an advantage in terms of ‘hope for the World To Come’).

Then we come to the tricky problem of ‘salvation’, with the inevitable question: ‘saved from what?’ To use another (frequent) CAF Kaninchenism: “the genius of Christianity was to invent an illness ‘you’re all doomed’ and prescribe itself as the only cure.”

We don’t share the same eschatology, you see, and that makes the concept of Messiah very different.

Pharaoh was (maybe … to keep this analogy going…) ‘looking forward’ and every time he relented - some natural explanation was given on how the plague developed - ‘Hey! Nothing Divine about this! The deal to free the slaves is off!’ Then the cydle repeats. If Jews do not see Christ as the Messiah could this not be like Pharaoh who is given rationales on why not - instead of beliving in What Is.

Bit like Christians not seeing the ‘truth’ of Islam, perhaps?

I’m only partly joking here. It’s a feature of new/subsequent religious movements that they seek explanations of why people say ‘hey, we don’t need all that, we’ve got all the religion we need, thank you.’ Muslims have them, Mormons have them, etc, etc, etc.

The arguments given, e.g., “Jesus bumped His toe” as you say, make sense if one is willing to throw out all of the proofs used by Christians - especially Catholics - that this is not some 2000 year old fraud… developed by a back-water Carpenter, picked up by a bunch of less then gifted followers - and then - for some reason takes off and spreads throughout the world. For a ‘fraud’, this is pretty remarkable.

Oh, I don’t go with the ‘back-water Carpenter, picked up by a bunch of less than gifted followers’ business. There was one of the world’s greatest religious geniuses involved - he hadn’t met the Carpenter but he repackaged the whole thing into a coherent whole for the ‘Gentile market’. I think Paul was quite awesome (in the same way that I think the people who put the hugely influential religion of Zoroastrianism together or Mohammed were).

So, tell me, for Jews where does Faith come in? Jews still await the Messiah and Christians say He came 2,000 years ago. It isn’t an issue of who’s right (each of us thinks we are…) but where is the Faith to sustain these positions? And, I guess what I am really saying is the Faith to reject what we hold to be true.

Well faith is important to Judaism but not in the same way, I think. We’re more a ‘doing’ religion than a ‘belief’ religion, that’s our focus, how to live ‘ethical Monotheism’, what does it mean to ‘live a good life, here and now?’

We have a God that we’re constantly being reminded of (all the rules that we bump into all the time remind us of who we are and what we do because of who we are) and about whom we have to be careful in our considerations since ascribing characteristics can so easily verge on idolatry.

Our history begins over three millennia ago, in the age of the great pagan religions and their powerful civilizations, their successor pagan religions and their powerful civilizations came and went, we survived, they didn’t. We’ve been driven from place to place, there have been massacres, pogroms, ‘final solutions’, we’re still here.

I think we’ve ‘sustained’ quite well really. Messiah will come when he comes.

Isn’t there anything in ‘The Tanakh’ that you can see as a foreshadow of Jesus?

I’m afraid the answer is ‘No’.

 

[de_tenebris]

(1 of 2)

Dear Chosen People,

Shalom aleichem.
שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם‎.

Your response to my post on this thread was thought-provoking to say the least. Before I say anything more on this subject, I wish to express my deep gratitude for your presence on ‘Catholic Answers.’ Your scholarship, and the courage and kindness with which you share it, renews yet again my hope in a generous Catholic-Jewish dialogue. That said, I must admit that when I initially read your responses to my statements, they took me somewhat by surprise. Quite simply, I had not written for anyone besides my fellow Catholics. This had been my first post on ‘Catholic Answers,’ which I made shortly after joining. Your comments remind me that every post on a board like this must be treated as a public statement that inevitably will be read by a wide variety of people. Such statements therefore require the utmost care.

Regrettably, my statements were sloppy in the sense that I inadequately and imprecisely conveyed certain words that have distinct and precise meanings in Jewish law (“blasphemy,” “idolatry,” etc.). Your clarifications are welcome if somewhat humbling. However, I beg your pardon to overlook my imprecision and recognize that my larger point was to convey to fellow Catholics that our Jewish brothers find the our belief in the incarnation so troubling precisely because of their faithfulness to the Mosaic covenant.

I want to focus on two things you wrote. First, in what I regard as your reply to my post:

Every Jew has a portion in the world to come. According to Maimonides there are fourteen ways a Jew may lose his portion in the world to come. While Christianity does not constitute idolatry for Gentiles, any Jew who adopts Christian beliefs and concepts of God, is cut off forever from God and the Jewish people (the Divine punishment of Karet). You can therefore understand why on the one hand we do not feel the need to convert non Jews but on the other the attempt to convert a Jew and cause him to break the eternal covenant between God and the Jewish people, to cause him to be forever caught off from God and the Jewish people, is repugnant to us.

And then in a later post:

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.

It seems to me that these concerns really get to the heart of the matter. Of course, as someone who strives in his daily life to be orthodox to his own faith, I sympathize whole-heartedly. Whenever a Jewish friend tells me that Jesus is merely a Santa Claus figure and probably never lived, or gives supreme weight to a few lines by Josephus while rejecting St. Paul as a liar and a fraud, I try to remind myself of my own instinctive reaction to Mormonism or Vodoun or other such cults that utilize Christian languages and symbols, but without any obvious respect for Christian orthodoxy.

We Catholics are in a similar position with our Jewish friends and neighbors, since we have access to the Torah and the Tenakh (in Latin translations no less) but without the Talmud, the Midrash, or the other commentaries that inform an orthodox understanding of the Torah. Much worse still, far too many who called themselves Christians (including certain popes and even saints) have behaved horribly to the Jewish people—an ugly stain on the Church for which our postconciliar popes have rightfully prayed for God’s forgiveness.

I fervently hope that all Christians take their prayers to heart, and reach out with warmth and joy and humility to our Jewish brothers and sisters. That persons of real integrity like yourself and Kaninchen meet us here on a forum like this fills me with profound reverence and wonder for God’s continuing covenants with us humans, and the prominent place He gives to the Jewish people in the salvation of the Earth.