The purpose is not to disparage other religions, but rather to clarify the Jewish position.
Jews do not accept Jesus as the messiah because:
Jesus did not fulfill the messianic prophecies.
Jesus did not embody the personal qualifications of the Messiah.
Biblical verses “referring” to Jesus are mistranslations.
Jewish belief is based on national revelation.
For the rest of the essay please got to:
As you correctly noted, Christians believe that SOME prophecies have been fulfilled while others will BE fulfilled when he comes again. Some of those we see being fulfilled include, the focus on bethlehem…
Micah 5:2
"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times. "
Suffering of the messiah
Isa.53:4-5 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
And there are plenty of others that have been claimed. It may seem convenient that Christians can choose which ones we see being fulfulled and see others as looking to the future. Kind of like the way George Bush sees intelligence data, if you believe something already then you can see it everywhere. I can understand that if you start out from a position of NOT believing that Jesus is the messiah that it looks like he fulfilled only a portion of the messiah prophesies.
One issue that I haven’t seen discussed is that if one is still waiting for the real messiah (and I have to say from my limited experience, that many Jews are not waiting or expecting a messiah anymore) he would have to be a messiah that somehow has power over life and death itself.
Isaiah 9
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
This text seems to say that when the Jewish messiah comes he will live forever. My question would be, how can this be fulfilled by a man? Obviously, my answer would be that the Jewish messiah is both God and man, and I think we all know what his name is. But I’d be interested to know what a Jew would make of this particular prophesy and how it relates to the nature of the coming messiah.
The argument that Jesus was no a prophet because he came 350 years after prophecy ended is very strange. Jesus made a number of prophesies recorded in the gospels. If your assumption is that prophesy ended before he was born then obviously he wasn’t a prophet by your standard. But if you are going to be consistent, then the “real messiah” will not be a prophet either, since he will come thousands of years after prophecy ended. Strange argument.
Understanding the text to refer to a virgin is possible since the word was used for young girls who generally were “virgins”. If you want to be pedantic about it then I would agree that it does not explicitly predict a birth from a virgin.
I think this is an overstatement since God clearly led Israel by first speaking individually (directly or indirectly) to prophets (Moses), Priests (Samuel), and Kings (David). God rarely speaks to the whole nation of Israel from the clouds by way of “national revelation”.
However, I agree that revelation to the “people” is much more of a focus prior to Jesus. After Jesus the focus seems to be about revelation to individuals. I would argue that this is because in the Old Testament the relationship of a Jew to God was primarily based on heredity. Part of Jesus’ ministry was pointing out that God desires much more than this, he requires SINCERITY and obedience that can only come through personal choice.
John 8
39"Abraham is our father," they answered. “If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, "then you would do the things Abraham did.
This is one of the main points of Jesus’ ministry. That natural lineage does not necessarily mean that you are a child of Abraham. As has been said more clearly by someone else a long time ago…
Jeremiah 31
31 “The time is coming,” declares the LORD,
"when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them, "
declares the LORD.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"
declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
Ned, I disagree, the writer of Matthew, like all the false christian writers that the Roman Catholic Church invented. He was misquoting Scriptures from the OT to make it fit with the place of birth of Jesus:
Many of the NT writers misquote the OT. I wouldn’t take it personally.
No they didn’t. If they misquoted from Tanakh, then their arguments would not have been convincing to the Jews of the day. It was the chief scribes and pharisees who pointed out that Messiah would come from bethlehem. By the way (no pun intended), a lot of Jews are coming to know Yeshua. The things that happened in the Bible were not made up by Roman Catholics. Roman Catholics didn’t even exist until at least the third century.
In order to understand the Scriptures, you need to understand that Yeshua was a replacement for Israel. So a lot of things that happened to Israel happened to Yeshua, and that is why a lot of prophecies seem a little out of place. When they prophesy about the Scriptures saying Yeshua is the Son of God, it isn’t some greco-roman idea that God had sex with a woman. It is a reference to the fact that Israel was called God’s son, his first-born in fact. David’s heir was called God’s son in Chronicles (which is also why Yeshua was called Son of David). So, when we look at these titles and these prophecies, we can’t just be blind to the fact that the people who wrote the New Testament were Jews themselves and they knew the terminology and they knew the Tanakh from learning in synagogue just like the rest of the Jewish males of the day. You need to actually look at why they use those prophecies to prove that Yeshua is Messiah. They are not going to write something that seems so incredible and expect everyone to just believe them. They told them to “look into these things”. Now I’m not making defense for people who DO misquote the Tanakh, but unless you actualy study the reasons for why people say the things they say, it is pointless to talk about them. You would just be stating an uninformed opinion, in that case.
I don’t agree:
" But you Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel" [ Matthew 2:6 NIV ]
He misquoted :
“But you Bethlehem Ephrathah,though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel…” [ Micah 5:2 NIV ]
Most pertinently, it is likely that the story of Jesus’s being born in Bethlehem is purely fictional, since this idea had been suggested by Micah 5:2. This passage created an expectation that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, and the gospelers, knowing this, may well have inserted it into their narratives, assuming it must have been the case. Since the scriptures were assumed to be the word of God, the events they purportedly foretold and the details they suggested had to have occurred, according to the gospelers’ line of thinking.
What makes fabrication the more likely here is the fact that this particular Messianic oracle–like virtually all others–was badly misunderstood. According to the standard Christian interpretation, Micah is predicting the town where Jesus would be born. But Bethlehem here actually referred to a person, not a place. First Chronicles 2:51, 54 both contain references to a man named Bethlehem. Matthew, who wrote from the Septuagint, took unwarranted liberties with the Septuagint text, changing the actual phrase “Bethlehem of the house of Ephrathah” to “Bethlehem, in the land of Judah.” The fact that there was a house of Ephrathah is confirmed by 1 Chronicles 2:50, and supports the proper reading of the text of Micah.
The alleged Messianic passages were further distorted by taking them out of context, and this was the case for Micah as well. One need only read further (vs:5-6) to know that Micah was referring to a contemporary situation with the Assyrians and predicting a great military leader who would wreak vengeance on their oppressor. The fact that this did not occur is bad enough for Micah’s prophetic credibility, but it clearly cannot be referring to Jesus–unless you take the position that “Assyria” is actually referring to Rome, which would be typical exegetic fudging (also known as “pee wee hermeneutics”). But then, Jesus didn’t effect any triumph against the Romans either, so he comes out a loser regardless.
The degree of distortion involved regarding the alleged Bethlehem prophecy can only lead an objective mind to conclude that Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem is almost certainly a fictional element.
Please go over the essay: Why Jews don’t believe in Jesus
i guess this is why i dont so much like to argue over the net. There is so much to discuss, whereas it would take a long time to explain why the NT says something Different from the Tanakh. The Septuagint was what most people used back then. I cannot give a good explaination for this as yet. If I ever can, I will post my reasons. I am studying Church and Judaic History right now. I’m reading Rabbonic writings, and will read that essay you pointed out to me. Wow, there is so much I am in the middle of reading right now. I think I’m in the middle of about 10 books. And now 1 essay.
Hi,light_eclipseca, I do respect your effort by going over info. that way you can reach your own personal conclusion. The majority of people they just like to impose their form of belief. They don’t understand that faith, history , evidence, etc. there are always different ways to interpret it. Maybe we can disagree in the way we see things but the Creator will reward our efforts.We’re simple mortal men that pay attention to the wonders of who caused it all. Thanks for answering, Eddie
Correct me if I’m wrong but maybe one reason is because it was during the Messiah period, within a few hundred years they had about a thousand messiahs.
Hi, thesun1, Yes, according to recorded history the list of Messiahs is very long, indeed. When Jesus supposedly was born and lived in the beginning of the 1st century CE. Messiahship was very common.I’m posting an essay regarding the issue:
bibleinterp.com/articles/online_messiahs.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah
I don’t know that I can totally disagree with this, my aunt works as a psychiatrist and she says its more common then you think to have someone who either believes they are a messiah or they are jesus reborn. She said they even had two jesus’s on the same floor one day…
The only difference is now-a-days we classify them as looneys. In the middle ages I think that it would be easier to pass such a thing off.
If Jesus was perfect, then why did he fail when trying to persuade and save the Jews? “All-mighty” and “perfection” labels got slapped onto some old dudes that don’t exactly fit into those shoes.
Hi, thesun1,thank you again for answering on the subject. Basically as understand it there are two kind of events. Judaism has an open mind, some say is a person but others say is going to be a Messianic Age.
Personally, I’m a Deist which means I don’t believe in revelation and religion, period. I do believe in a Superior Being, Force, Entity with an intelligence beyond our understanding. I don’t think will ever find out how everything was put together and what will happen in the future. We’re just guessing. Thanks, Eddie
Hi, thesun1,thank you again for answering on the subject. Basically as I understand it there are two kind of events. Judaism has an open mind, some say is a person but others say is going to be a Messianic Age.
jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso … ssiah.html
Personally, I’m a Deist which means I don’t believe in revelation and religion, period. I do believe in a Superior Being, Force, Entity with an intelligence beyond our understanding. I don’t think will ever find out how everything was put together and what will happen in the future. We’re just guessing. Thanks, Eddie
Paul frequently misquotes the OT. And his letters are not usually addressed to Jews.
I’m a virgin to nt/ot (too modern), but was Jesus “Jewish”?
Of course he was. As were the 12 disciples, the apostle Paul and the majority of the early church.
So, then he did exist as a man? Is this correct Ned?
Did and still does.
As a man?