Here are my personal thoughts concerning some of the arguments against Jesus being the Messiah mentioned in the link in the original post. If these thoughts are not in accord with the teachings of the Catholic Church please disregard them with my apologies.
The Jewish website linked to in the original post lists several things in (1) that the Messiah will accomplish. That is all well and good. After he gathers all the Jews back to the Land of Israel, spreads knowledge of the true God throughout the world, and establishes world peace, etc., then we will know that he is the true Messiah. However, are we suppose to ignore a prophet of God and wait until all his prophecies come true before we act? How are we to act toward the Messiah when he first appears, before he has accomplished all the things on the list? For instance, how is he to gather all the Jews back to the Land of Israel unless they first heed his call to return? It seems to me that people are suppose to believe in the Messiah and treat him accordingly before the accomplishment of all the things on the list proves that he is indeed the true Messiah.
In (1) B. and (2) A., they say that the Messiah will be a great prophet and he will gather all the Jews back to the Land of Israel. However, they also say that there can be no prophet until the majority of the Jews in the world are living in the Land of Israel. This sounds to me like a bit of a logical
catch 22, a paradox.
Jesus appeared in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday seemingly ready to make public his Messianic claim but within a few days he was arrested, tried, and convicted by the Jewish authorities and delivered up to the Roman authorities who put him to death. Less than a week was hardly enough time accomplish the things on the list. In a time without the modern means of mass communication, how was he suppose to get the word out to gather all the Jews back to the Land of Israel from the ends of the earth in less than a week? In (2) B., they admit, “The Messiah will be born of human parents and possess normal physical attributes like other people. He will not be a demi-god, nor will he possess supernatural qualities.” So, bilocation is out of the question. They might propose if Jesus was the true Messiah, he could not have been killed but by (2) B., quoted above, they admit the Messiah will possess normal physical attributes like other people, i.e., the true Messiah, like many true prophets, could be killed.
They seems to judge Jesus a false Messiah by what he did before he was killed but they do not take into account that, though Jesus truly died, he also truly rose from the dead on the third day, and for forty day showed himself to hundreds of Jews before ascending bodily into heaven, where he took his seat at the right hand of God, leaving his followers for a time to carry on his messianic mission in the world as his authorized ministers. From heaven for the past 2000 years, he has, through his very human ministers, been spreading knowledge of the God of Israel throughout the world, so that today there are about 2 billion Christians who acknowledge the God of Israel as the one true God. (If you count Muslims, who regard Jesus as a prophet, as heretical Christians, then there are about 3 billion Christians in the world, nearly half of the world’s population.) Even his critics have to acknowledge that this messianic accomplishment is well on its way to fulfillment.
They might argue that Jesus is taking too long to accomplish the things on the list for him to be true Messiah but they are reckoning time as impatient men and not as God reckons time:
For a thousand years in thy sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night. (Psalm 90:4)
Concerning Torah observance, mentioned in (2) C., they say, “The Messiah will lead the Jewish people to full Torah observance” and anyone changing its commandments “is immediately identified as a false prophet.” However, they seem to forget the words of the prophet Jeremiah:
Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, (Jeremiah 31:31)
A new covenant implies some change to the terms of the old covenant, some change in the commandments, doesn’t it? If there are no changes, how can it be called new?
Concerning Isaiah 7:14, mentioned in (3) A., Jews and Christians have been arguing over the proper understanding of the word *alma *in that verse since at least the second century C.E. See Justin Martyr’s middle-second-century work,
Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, chapters
43,
66,
67,
68,
71,
84. Justin Martyr’s main points seem to be:
(1) a young woman conceiving a child is a rather commonplace event and not as great a sign as the context seems to call for. On the other hand, a virgin conceiving would indeed be a very great sign and fit the context much better.
(2) in understanding the word *alma *to mean a virgin, Christians are simply following the pre-Christian translation of Jewish Scriptures into Greek, done by seventy unbiased Jewish scholars in Alexandria and known as the Septuagint. It is my understanding that the Hebrew word
alma can mean either a young woman or a virgin, whereas the Greek word used by the Jewish translators in the Septuagint can only mean a virgin.
