Jews, Muslims, the Divinity of Christ and Catholic Attitudes

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So obviously Jews and Muslims both deny Jesus as being the Son of God. But why exactly do Muslims get such scorn for it while Jews seemingly are given a sort of free pass in judgement from the laity? We acknowledge that we all worship the God of Abraham, but that doesn’t seem to really put a dent in the attitudes.

Is it just because of people like ISIS and violent passages in the Koran that we agressively look at all Muslims as being violent and evil (because such sentiments are TOTALLY okay and in line with Catholic teachings /sarcasm) or that Islam came about after Jesus ascended so their denial is somehow worse?
What if the Jewish people still had an attitude towards Christians akin to St. Paul’s Saul of Tarsus days while Muslims were really good at the whole “respect the People of the Book” thing in the Koran and really never attacked Christians, would you say the attitudes seen in respect toward the denial of Christ’s Divinity stay the way they are or invert?

It just feels kinda unfair and a tad hypocritical that a lot of people lambast Muslims for it while never seeking to be angry that Jews have a similar view. Especially since the Cathechism says in very plain words that both faiths and their members are made in God’s image and we all worship the God of Abraham thus we really should love them all equally.
We are seeing a lot of divide in reactions with Pope Francis and his actions concerning Islam and Muslims and this question keeps coming to mind, so what’s the deal?
 
I would imagine it’s because islam has been very threatening to christians and all non-muslims over the centuries. The jews, who were once the major persecutors of christians, pose no threat anymore. With everything going on lately, it’s creating a very bad image for muslims in general, even though it’s mostly just the radical sects creating the havoc. Of course, the moderate muslims haven’t helped themselves any, by their relative silence concerning the numerous atrocities committed by these muslim sects.
 
WonderAndAwe said:
So obviously Jews and Muslims both deny Jesus as being the Son of God. But why exactly do Muslims get such scorn for it while Jews seemingly are given a sort of free pass in judgement from the laity? We acknowledge that we all worship the God of Abraham, but that doesn’t seem to really put a dent in the attitudes.

Is it just because of people like ISIS and violent passages in the Koran that we agressively look at all Muslims as being violent and evil (because such sentiments are TOTALLY okay and in line with Catholic teachings /sarcasm) or that Islam came about after Jesus ascended so their denial is somehow worse?
What if the Jewish people still had an attitude towards Christians akin to St. Paul’s Saul of Tarsus days while Muslims were really good at the whole “respect the People of the Book” thing in the Koran and really never attacked Christians, would you say the attitudes seen in respect toward the denial of Christ’s Divinity stay the way they are or invert?

It just feels kinda unfair and a tad hypocritical that a lot of people lambast Muslims for it while never seeking to be angry that Jews have a similar view. Especially since the Cathechism says in very plain words that both faiths and their members are made in God’s image and we all worship the God of Abraham thus we really should love them all equally.
We are seeing a lot of divide in reactions with Pope Francis and his actions concerning Islam and Muslims and this question keeps coming to mind, so what’s the deal?
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I have a feeling it has to do with the fact that the Jews are, first and foremost, God’s Chosen People, and our ancestors in faith. Islam, on the other hand, has Christian heresies mixed with Arabian paganism and nationalism as its origin. We still use the ancient Hebrew scriptures in our Bible (the Old Testament) and our liturgies. The Qu’ran, however, uses many of the Christian and Jewish apocryphal writings as sources (specifically the Book of Enoch, the protovangelion, and the infancy gospels). So, really, it’s distinguishing people who were veiled from realizing and accepting the Truth from people who had the Truth and then twisted it.
 
The Jews who reject the doctrine of the Holy Trinity (not all of them reject this) do this because of a misunderstanding of their religion. The Holy Trinity is in the Old Testament (the Jewish Bible) in an implicit way. Most modern Jews just don’t realize it. This misunderstanding continues on because of the Talmud, a book that was written as a kind of catechism by the Jewish leaders that had crucified Jesus. It is written in a way that tries to deny that Jesus is the Messiah. But the Jews don’t consider the Talmud to be equal or superior to scripture. But, by contrast, the Koran (the book that Muslims call their scripture) explicitly rejects the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and tells Muslims that Christians are deceived for believing it. Muslims believe that the Old Testament and the New Testament are corrupted. What Islam does is it uses the names of people that are in the Holy Bible, but it says that they were all secretly Muslim and tells a different story about them.
 
livingwordunity said:
The Jews who reject the doctrine of the Holy Trinity (not all of them reject this) do this because of a misunderstanding of their religion. The Holy Trinity is in the Old Testament (the Jewish Bible) in an implicit way. Most modern Jews just don’t realize it. This misunderstanding continues on because of the Talmud, a book that was written as a kind of catechism by the Jewish leaders that had crucified Jesus. It is written in a way that tries to deny that Jesus is the Messiah. But the Jews don’t consider the Talmud to be equal or superior to scripture. But, by contrast, the Koran (the book that Muslims call their scripture) explicitly rejects the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and tells Muslims that Christians are deceived for believing it. Muslims believe that the Old Testament and the New Testament are corrupted. What Islam does is it uses the names of people that are in the Holy Bible, but it says that they were all secretly Muslim and tells a different story about them.
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forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=898506&page=21 see post #301 to the answer to your above which you also posted in the other thread.
 
livingwordunity said:
The Jews who reject the doctrine of the Holy Trinity (not all of them reject this) do this because of a misunderstanding of their religion. The Holy Trinity is in the Old Testament (the Jewish Bible) in an implicit way. Most modern Jews just don’t realize it. This misunderstanding continues on because of the Talmud, a book that was written as a kind of catechism by the Jewish leaders that had crucified Jesus. It is written in a way that tries to deny that Jesus is the Messiah. But the Jews don’t consider the Talmud to be equal or superior to scripture. But, by contrast, the Koran (the book that Muslims call their scripture) explicitly rejects the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and tells Muslims that Christians are deceived for believing it. Muslims believe that the Old Testament and the New Testament are corrupted. What Islam does is it uses the names of people that are in the Holy Bible, but it says that they were all secretly Muslim and tells a different story about them.
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A few points on your comments. First, the only Jews who accept the Trinity are Jews who have converted to Christianity: for example, Hebrew Catholics and perhaps Jews for Jesus. Even the Nazarene Jews, who accept Jesus as the Messiah, do not believe that He is G-d and do not believe in the Trinity. Second, the question of whether a trinitarian G-d is to be found in the pages of the Hebrew Bible is not misinterpreted by Jews according to Jewish and Hebrew scholars, but instead misinterpreted by Christians. Third, for Torah (Orthodox) Jews especially, the Mishnah, which is the first part of the Talmud, is the codified Oral Law and is as holy as the Torah (Written Law), having both been handed down to Moses by the divine inspiration of G-d. (The second part, called the Gemara, is the rabbinical commentary on the Mishnah.) Finally, the Talmud is not concerned with the issue of whether Jesus is or is not the Messiah. The mention of Jesus of Nazareth, if at all since there were others during ancient times who had the same name of Jesus, constitutes a minuscule part of the Talmud.
 
Meltzerboy,

I realize that most Jews of today don’t accept Jesus as the Messiah. That’s because the Talmud tells them to reject this. But my point is that in the view of the Catholic Church Judaism is much closer to our faith than Islam is. In fact, there was a brief time in the beginning of the Church when our faith in Jesus as the Messiah was thought to be only for Jews.
 
livingwordunity said:
Meltzerboy,

I realize that most Jews of today don’t accept Jesus as the Messiah. That’s because the Talmud tells them to reject this.
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If you’re going to come out with things like this, you might consider trying achieve the vaguest idea of what it is you’re talking about. Or not, of course, depends on you.
 
WonderAndAwe said:
It just feels kinda unfair and a tad hypocritical that a lot of people lambast Muslims for it while never seeking to be angry that Jews have a similar view.
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Hang around here long enough and you’ll find there are a few people who get quite cross about Jews.

Most people recognize that unlike Christians and Muslims, we really not too bothered about what others believe - that the best thing for a Christian or a Muslim is to be the best kind of Christian or Muslim they can be. That and the fact that there are only a few million of us as opposed to over a billion in the case of Christianity and Islam means that nowadays one would have to be of a fairly paranoid disposition to consider us much of a threat.
 
Kaninchen said:
If you’re going to come out with things like this, you might consider trying achieve the vaguest idea of what it is you’re talking about. Or not, of course, depends on you.
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Are you saying that the Talmud does not instruct Jews to disbelieve that Jesus is the Messiah?
 
livingwordunity said:
Are you saying that the Talmud does not instruct Jews to disbelieve that Jesus is the Messiah?
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If you had the slightest idea of what the Talmud actually is, you’d know that such a question is ridiculous. It’s not some kind of believers’ recipe book.

The idea that Jews are somehow raised on reasons not to believe in Jesus is the equivalent of saying that Christians are raised on reasons not to believe in the idea that Mohammed is the last prophet of Allah, in other words, Jesus is as incidental to Judaism as Mohammed is incidental to Christianity. We are raised in our faith as you are raised in yours and it’s in the sufficiency of that that we reject other faiths as you reject other faiths.
 
Kaninchen,

Is the Talmud not a kind of catechism for Jews?
Does the Talmud mention Jesus in it?
If so, does it say that Jesus is not the Messiah?
 
livingwordunity said:
Kaninchen,

Is the Talmud not a kind of catechism for Jews?
Does the Talmud mention Jesus in it?
If so, does it say that Jesus is not the Messiah?
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What makes you think that the Talmud is a kind of ‘catechism for Jews’?
 
livingwordunity said:
Kaninchen,

Is the Talmud not a kind of catechism for Jews?
Does the Talmud mention Jesus in it?
If so, does it say that Jesus is not the Messiah?
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No, the Talmud does not discuss Jesus or His Messiahship, nor is it a catechism for Jews. The Talmud is the Oral Law of Judaism, which serves to “fill in the blanks” that the Torah (Written Law) does not describe in as much detail, as well as apply the Torah to contemporary life. Thus the Talmud can be used to better understand and appreciate the meaning of the Torah. Not all Jews accept the teaching of the Talmud as divinely inspired, not only less Orthodox Jews but also Karaite Jews, who believe in and follow only the Torah as the inspiration of G-d.
 
Kaninchen said:
That and the fact that there are only a few million of us as opposed to over a billion in the case of Christianity and Islam means that nowadays one would have to be of a fairly paranoid disposition to consider us much of a threat.
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Yes, but you control everything.

Kidding. Just kidding. 🙂
 
meltzerboy said:
No, the Talmud does not discuss Jesus or His Messiahship, nor is it a catechism for Jews. The Talmud is the Oral Law of Judaism, which serves to “fill in the blanks” that the Torah (Written Law) does not describe in as much detail, as well as apply the Torah to contemporary life. Thus the Talmud can be used to better understand and appreciate the meaning of the Torah. Not all Jews accept the teaching of the Talmud as divinely inspired, not only less Orthodox Jews but also Karaite Jews, who believe in and follow only the Torah as the inspiration of G-d.
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Just out of curiosity, would you say that the Jewish people of the end of the first century BC had a greater sense of expectancy regarding the Messiah due to the prophecies in the Hebrew scripture than you do today?

By then, it had been 400 years since the prophet, Malachi, so there had been a long period of silence for those people, too. It’s been even longer for you, but it seems that they were looking for the Messiah more than Jews do now.

Thoughts?
 
Randy_Carson said:
Just out of curiosity, would you say that the Jewish people of the end of the first century BC had a greater sense of expectancy regarding the Messiah due to the prophecies in the Hebrew scripture than you do today?

By then, it had been 400 years since the prophet, Malachi, so there had been a long period of silence for those people, too. It’s been even longer for you, but it seems that they were looking for the Messiah more than Jews do now.

Thoughts?
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It is hard for me to say what the mindset of Jews was in ancient times. Perhaps they did have a greater expectancy, being nearer in time and emotionally closer to the prophets and the miraculous events of the period. There are Jews today who do not believe in the Messiah or the Messianic era despite the fact this is one of the thirteen principles of faith in Judaism according to Maimonides. Then again, among the Ancients, there was also a host of Jewish sects, some of which did not focus at all on the Messiah or the World to Come. Judaism, as most other religions (look at Christianity, for example), tends to splinter over time into different movements and beliefs while retaining certain unifying elements. One thing that has always been emphasized in Judaism is moral behavior in the here and now, which is more highly regarded even than faith. In sum, it is an interesting question and one that requires more thought.
 
Do modern Jews acknowledge the suffering servant OT passages about the Messiah? If so, how can anyone else but Jesus fit with this?
 
livingwordunity said:
Do modern Jews acknowledge the suffering servant OT passages about the Messiah? If so, how can anyone else but Jesus fit with this?
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They do NOT acknowledge these verses from the Book of Isaiah as speaking of the Messiah. The whole passage, as well as the surrounding contextual verses, is one of the most vigorously debated between Christians and Jews in all of Scripture. According to most Jewish interpretations, the “suffering servant” is the nation of Israel and does not refer at all to the Messiah. However, there is the belief that Israel will be redeemed during the Messianic era, which is in the future, at which point a renewed/reinvigorated covenant (not new covenant) will be established consisting of more intense studying, understanding, and following of Torah.
 
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