Why do Christians accept Jesus

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The Talmud (Sanhedrin 107b) discusses an incident between Jesus and his teacher, Rabbi Joshua ben Perachya. They were staying at an inn. The teacher made a comment about how beautiful the inn was. He referred to it as an “acsania” which can also mean a female innkeeper. Jesus thought his teacher was making a leering comment about the innkeeper, and he replied in kind: “But Rabbi, her eyes are so narrow!”

This comment angered his teacher, implying that Jesus had a bad habit of making inappropriate remarks about women. The teacher threw Jesus out of his “school” and would no longer teach him. (I’m not asking any Christian to believe this of course, but it makes a certain kind of internal logic sense, when viewed against the story of the gentile woman who approaches Jesus for a blessing and is at first rudely dismissed by him).

Jesus repeatdly asked to be accepted back over time, but Joshuar refused. Finally, Joshua determined to take Jesus back as a student the next time he asked. But when Jesus came and asked again, Joshua was in the middle of prayers and couldn’t be disturbed. He made what he thought was a friendly hand gesutre, asking Jesus to wait. BUt Jesus thought he was being dismissed again.

After this Jesus began instructing others in his heretical ideas. His personal issues became political and theological. Rabbi Joshua eventually sought him out and begged jesus to return to the fold. But he refused, saying “I have learned this from you: everyone who sins and causes other people to sin will not receive the opportunity to repent.”

It is interesting that the Talmud blames, at least partly, Rabbi Joshua. It concludes that one should “always let the left hand push away while the right hand invites.”

The talmud ends the narrative with “Yeshua ha’Notzri practiced magic and led astray and deceived Israel.”

The Talmud portrays Jesus as going astray because of a character flaw and it criticizes his teacher for this treatment of Jesus.
 
When I had posted similar threads a few months ago, some were very offended, so I’ll just add this postscript.

The Mishna, which is the earliest part of Talmud, makes almost no references to written scripture to back up its holdings. In other words, if the Mishna says that one is forbidden to ride a horse on shabbat, it does not refer to the verse in the Torah which it relies on to reach this conclusion. It was only when the written Talmud was added hundreds of years later that such references are made.

I believe these references to Jesus were put in in part because Christianity has grown by this time and the Jews felt that it was necessary to clarify things. It is in part, a reaction to Christianity’s success. So that while it is certainly not something that illicits a warm, fuzzy feeling in christians, it is at least evidence that Jews have traditionaly believed that Jesus the person existed, despite what many Jews (that I know) tend to say these days.

As for what I actually believe about Jesus and Mary… I believe Jesus was a person. I don’t believe he was divine or the messiah. I don’t really ever think about Mary (except for a few threads that I’ve participated on here), but I believe she had her children the way other mother’s have them, whether she was married to the father or not doesn’t really concern me. I assume she was.
 
Valke2 said:
First, I just want to say that i only started this thread as a cynical response to the many threads I’ve seen asking or explaining “Why can’t Jews accept Jesus”. I really do understand why Christians accept Jesus as Messiah/God. Or to put it more accurately, if people find a way to God that makes them better people and that way is through loving each other and enforcing ethical and moral behavior, then that’s all I need to know.

As to the teachings of Jesus I find objectionable, from what I’ve read, most of what he taught conforms to Jewish teaching. There are three issues that I find objectionable, however, both personally and from a Jewish perspective.
  1. Matthew 9:6: “The Son of man has the authority on earth to fogive all sins”. We believe that even God Himself only frogives sins that are committed against Him. “Yom Kippur atones for sins against God, not for sins against man, unless the injured party has been appeased.” (Talmud). Believing that Jesus can forgive all sins is a very dangerous belief, imo. It leads to such teachings as:
“Be a sinner and sin vigorously, but even more vigorously believe and delight in Christ who is victor over sin, death and the world…It is sufficient that we recognize through the wealth of God’s glory the lamb who bears the sins of the world; from this sin does not sever us, even if thousands, thousands of times in one day we should fornicate or murder.” (Martin Luther).

To use a little black humor, as Jullen feiffer said: “Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrydom meaningless by not comitting them?”
  1. “Turn the other cheek”. "Offer the wicked man no resistance. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well. (Mat. 5:38). “Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors” 5:44.
I believe that it is our obligation to use violence when necessary to fight evil. We won WWII because the vast majority of American Christians did not pay attention to Jesus’ advice offer no resistence to the wicked man. JWs remained true to this conviction. Which is why they were the barbers for the SS troops in the camps. They could be trusted with scissors. I do not wish to love my enemies. And jews are not commanded to do so.
  1. The only way to God is through Jesus. I know many Catholics do not take this position as literally as many fundamental protestants. But I (and Judaism) believe anyone can come to God – “God is near to all who call unto Him.” (Psalms 145:18)
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OK - thanks for that summary. You’ve been on the forums long enough that you’ve probably done it many times, but I appreciate knowing where you’re coming from 🙂
 
Valke2 said:
It is set forth in Friedlander’s book “Why the Jews rejected Jesus.” I’ll look for the origional source material. But I believe it is accepted that most of the Jews that did convert, and their numbers were very small compared to the gentiles that converted, were Hellenized Jews that were more secular than religious.
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I will look for that book as well.
Again, thousands is a small number. And again, the origional converts did not believe they were abandoning Torah or practicing another religion.
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Yes, thousands is a small number with respect to the whole population when taken literally as I think it should in those cases, but multitudes and other references to groups of people can mean many things in the same way forgiving a person 77 times. I’ll make it a point of study. Though it morphed into what we know today what is to say that the original converts recognized the transition and accepted it as documented. I think they were right.
I’ll try to find the sources for this
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.

Thanks.
Why are you so convinced that he could be? On that criteria, it is possible Koresh is theMessiah. That would be unexpected.
The examples you quoted were all done in the furtherance of a specific goal – bringing the Jewish nation into existance and securing Israel as part of the covenant. And none of the examples contradicted any of the others. God’s actions were not inconsistent.
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I don’t think it possible that Koresh could have been for a number of obvious Catholic reasons.

Agreed, God’s actions are not inconsistent. And it could be well argued that Jesus took it further than anticipated consistent with the many OT figures.

And to follow your original jibe
It seems to me that this was all just a response to the gentile’s fear of circumcision. I just don’t get it.
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It seems to me the traditional stubborness of the Hebrews found it more unacceptable to let God be for all men than restricted to themselves under the old law that was fulfilled.

When all the ingredients have been added to the soup, it’s time to serve it.
 
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Valke2:
It is odd to me that Christians would accept Jesus. God had already told us He was not a man.
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Where please? Thank you
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Valke2:
And we already had a system in place, that required teshuva as a form of repentence so that there was no need for any “god” to die for our sins.
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The Old Law allowed sins to be ‘covered.’ The New Covenant allowed sins to be removed and forgotten.

The Old Law was to instruct the faithful on the nature of death and of the futility of human effort in the face of death.

The New Law was to restore folks to Life. In order for that to happen a Sacrifice had to be made because G-d is not only merciful but just. No Sacrifice was adequate but G-d Himself and in order to be sacrificed, He had to be on the Earth as a man.
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Valke2:
It seems to me that this was all just a response to the gentile’s fear of circumcision. I just don’t get it. 🙂
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Was Paul circumcised? Peter? The apostles?
 
Valke2 said:
As for circumcision and other commandments, it was a huge factor. how many Gentiles do you think would have listened to Paul if he reuquired circumcision of them???
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Why do I get the feeling you are going to tell us?
 
For me, I feel that Jesus had to spread his message through the gentiles because the Jewish people had not adequately spread the message of God as a nation of Priests.

It is also prophecised that His own people would not accept Him. This is enough for me to know that Jews were never expected to accept Jesus, although this does present problems for me when thinking of them in terms of heaven and Jesus being the one way… and the first Christians were Jews, but their peoples function as a nation of Priests was inadequate and so truth spreaded better amongst gentiles.

S
 
Thank you very much, Valke2.

When I have more time on my hands i’ll do more personal study.

Thanks again.
 
Valke2,

I read your post a few days ago, but haven’t had time to respond. It’s an excellent question, and I’m glad you asked it. I hope to provide my complete response in a day or two (I’m just coming off my third night of work – gotta sleep now). However, to prepare my response, I’d appreciate your answer to this question…

Do Jews still sacrifice birds and animals to atone for sin? If not, what do they do, and how long has that atonement “method” (for lack of a better word) been in place?
 
Hello,
Valke2 said:
First, I just want to say that i only started this thread as a cynical response to the many threads I’ve seen asking or explaining “Why can’t Jews accept Jesus”. I really do understand why Christians accept Jesus as Messiah/God. Or to put it more accurately, if people find a way to God that makes them better people and that way is through loving each other and enforcing ethical and moral behavior, then that’s all I need to know.

As to the teachings of Jesus I find objectionable, from what I’ve read, most of what he taught conforms to Jewish teaching. There are three issues that I find objectionable, however, both personally and from a Jewish perspective.
  1. Matthew 9:6: “The Son of man has the authority on earth to fogive all sins”. We believe that even God Himself only frogives sins that are committed against Him. “Yom Kippur atones for sins against God, not for sins against man, unless the injured party has been appeased.” (Talmud). Believing that Jesus can forgive all sins is a very dangerous belief, imo. It leads to such teachings as:
“Be a sinner and sin vigorously, but even more vigorously believe and delight in Christ who is victor over sin, death and the world…It is sufficient that we recognize through the wealth of God’s glory the lamb who bears the sins of the world; from this sin does not sever us, even if thousands, thousands of times in one day we should fornicate or murder.” (Martin Luther).

To use a little black humor, as Jullen feiffer said: “Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrydom meaningless by not comitting them?”
  1. “Turn the other cheek”. "Offer the wicked man no resistance. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well. (Mat. 5:38). “Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors” 5:44.
I believe that it is our obligation to use violence when necessary to fight evil. We won WWII because the vast majority of American Christians did not pay attention to Jesus’ advice offer no resistence to the wicked man. JWs remained true to this conviction. Which is why they were the barbers for the SS troops in the camps. They could be trusted with scissors. I do not wish to love my enemies. And jews are not commanded to do so.
  1. The only way to God is through Jesus. I know many Catholics do not take this position as literally as many fundamental protestants. But I (and Judaism) believe anyone can come to God – “God is near to all who call unto Him.” (Psalms 145:18)
Click to expand...
Well number one and number three go hand in hand with that whole “Jesus is God” thing. If you don’t believe that, then obviously these two are near impossible for a Jew to believe.

As for number two, you should look at the Catholic Church’s teaching on legitimate self-defense and just-war doctrine.
 
Hello,
Valke2 said:
The Talmud (Sanhedrin 107b) discusses an incident between Jesus and his teacher, Rabbi Joshua ben Perachya. They were staying at an inn. The teacher made a comment about how beautiful the inn was. He referred to it as an “acsania” which can also mean a female innkeeper. Jesus thought his teacher was making a leering comment about the innkeeper, and he replied in kind: “But Rabbi, her eyes are so narrow!”

This comment angered his teacher, implying that Jesus had a bad habit of making inappropriate remarks about women. The teacher threw Jesus out of his “school” and would no longer teach him. (I’m not asking any Christian to believe this of course, but it makes a certain kind of internal logic sense, when viewed against the story of the gentile woman who approaches Jesus for a blessing and is at first rudely dismissed by him).

Jesus repeatdly asked to be accepted back over time, but Joshuar refused. Finally, Joshua determined to take Jesus back as a student the next time he asked. But when Jesus came and asked again, Joshua was in the middle of prayers and couldn’t be disturbed. He made what he thought was a friendly hand gesutre, asking Jesus to wait. BUt Jesus thought he was being dismissed again.

After this Jesus began instructing others in his heretical ideas. His personal issues became political and theological. Rabbi Joshua eventually sought him out and begged jesus to return to the fold. But he refused, saying “I have learned this from you: everyone who sins and causes other people to sin will not receive the opportunity to repent.”

It is interesting that the Talmud blames, at least partly, Rabbi Joshua. It concludes that one should “always let the left hand push away while the right hand invites.”

The talmud ends the narrative with “Yeshua ha’Notzri practiced magic and led astray and deceived Israel.”

The Talmud portrays Jesus as going astray because of a character flaw and it criticizes his teacher for this treatment of Jesus.
Click to expand...
Wouldn’t that make the Talmud, at least in this section, very anti-Christian?
 
Larry1700 said:
Valke2,

I read your post a few days ago, but haven’t had time to respond. It’s an excellent question, and I’m glad you asked it. I hope to provide my complete response in a day or two (I’m just coming off my third night of work – gotta sleep now). However, to prepare my response, I’d appreciate your answer to this question…

Do Jews still sacrifice birds and animals to atone for sin? If not, what do they do, and how long has that atonement “method” (for lack of a better word) been in place?
Click to expand...
we do not sacrifice animals for any intentional or unintentional sins since the destruction of the temple. The concept of “teshuva” (return) existed along with the Temple, as far as I know. It consists, basically of:
  1. Recognizing and accepting the sin. Regret what you did.
  2. stop doing it.
  3. Confess the sin to God.
  4. If it was a sin against another, seek their forgivness.
    Make restitution if necssay.
  5. Never do it agian. When a similar situation arises, you don’t do what you did.
Even when the Temple was around, the above was extremely important. Now it is the exclusive way of atonement for Jews.
 
Hello,
Valke2 said:
I believe these references to Jesus were put in in part because Christianity has grown by this time and the Jews felt that it was necessary to clarify things. It is in part, a reaction to Christianity’s success. So that while it is certainly not something that illicits a warm, fuzzy feeling in christians, it is at least evidence that Jews have traditionaly believed that Jesus the person existed, despite what many Jews (that I know) tend to say these days.
Click to expand...
I always got the feeling that the parts of the Talmud that deal with Jesus were very deliberate. First, I don’t recall anywhere else in the Talmud that deals with other so-called false prophets or false messiahs in such depth or even by name. Second, it seems that the wording used was so derogatory and defamatory that it was meant to insult and discredit Christians.

The rest of the Talmud seems very good in its content, it is a shame that this section places a pall over the whole thing.
 
JMJ_coder said:
Hello,

Wouldn’t that make the Talmud, at least in this section, very anti-Christian?
Click to expand...
It does not speak of christians but only of Jesus. So, while it certainly is not an endorsement for christianity, it is not berating, accusing or making any judgments on the gentiles that followed Jesus.
 
Hello,
Valke2 said:
we do not sacrifice animals for any intentional or unintentional sins since the destruction of the temple. The concept of “teshuva” (return) existed along with the Temple, as far as I know. It consists, basically of:
  1. Recognizing and accepting the sin. Regret what you did.
  2. stop doing it.
  3. Confess the sin to God.
  4. If it was a sin against another, seek their forgivness.
    Make restitution if necssay.
  5. Never do it agian. When a similar situation arises, you don’t do what you did.
Even when the Temple was around, the above was extremely important. Now it is the exclusive way of atonement for Jews.
Click to expand...
But there was always some sort of sacrifice involved with the atonement process. The Torah is full of precepts of exactly what sacrifice was needed for what sin. In the viewpoint of Judaism, it seems that the atonement process is definitively incomplete without this sacrifice.
 
Hello,
Valke2 said:
It does not speak of christians but only of Jesus. So, while it certainly is not an endorsement for christianity, it is not berating, accusing or making any judgments on the gentiles that followed Jesus.
Click to expand...
I agree that it doesn’t explicitly condemn Christianity. But there is an implicit nature to it - in that it attacks the very founder of Christianity, whom we acknowledge as God Himself, speaks volumes of the writers view of Christianity and those who followed it.
 
JMJ_coder said:
Hello,

But there was always some sort of sacrifice involved with the atonement process. The Torah is full of precepts of exactly what sacrifice was needed for what sin. In the viewpoint of Judaism, it seems that the atonement process is definitively incomplete without this sacrifice.
Click to expand...
Yes, there was an element of sacrifice for various sins. But atonement without sacrifice has been how we repent for 2,000 years now. Judaism has evolved since the destruction of the Temple (and leading up to it as well).

‘Lovingkindness I desire, not sacrifice.’" (Hosea 6:6)
 
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