Why Jesus was not the Jewish Messiah

[cnorman18]

A word before I begin:

This post is NOT an attack on Christianity.

Jews, as a rule, do not comment on the truth or falsehood of any other faith, and that includes the Christian faith; we have no right. We only claim to know how God chose to speak to US. If He chose to speak to another people in another manner, that is no business of ours, and we have no warrant to say yea or nay. Only in the matter of literally worshiping idols as divine beings do we pronounce judgment, and that is rather rare in the modern world.

In my own, personal belief, Jesus was indeed sent by God to bring the light of Torah to the rest of the world. The Jews will always be "a small people"--the Book says so--and surely the rest of the was not meant to be left in the darkness of paganism. If not for Jesus, and perhaps even more for Paul, my own Celtic ancestors might have continued to paint themselves blue and worship trees.

The battle has never been between Christians and Jews, anyway. We are on the same side. On the other side are today's pagans--those who worship things; money, power, fame, gratification, status. May we both always remember that.

This post is on the rather more limited topic of why the Jews did not, and do not, accept Jesus as our Messiah. That some few have, and do, does not matter. Peace to them, but there are reasons why very few Jews who are familiar with and committed to their faith and tradition ever have, or ever will, believe in Jesus. This post is an effort to explain some of the most important.

To begin, then; Jesus, to put it plainly, simply did not perform the very specific actions that the Messiah was expected to do. There can be no "wiggle room" here; the tradition has been constant for thousands of years, and has not changed.

It is not that there were certain "prophecies" that the Messiah had to "fulfill"; the Messiah was DEFINED by certain acts. To do them was to be the Messiah, and the meaning of the word "Messiah" was "the man who does these things."

Jesus did not do them. He was not the Messiah. There is no "therefore," because the phrases are synonymous.

Further, Jesus claimed (or it was claimed for him) that he had power and authority that no Jew could or would claim for any man, far beyond any that were ever attributed to the coming Messiah; and he took on a role that no Jew, at any time from Abraham forward, had ever contemplated that any man, Messiah or no, would ever be called upon to fulfill. There was no need for it.

Jesus fulfilled one and only one attribute of the Messiah; he was of the tribe of Judah. Much is made of this in two of the Gospels, Matthew and Luke, with elaborate genealogies given for Mary, and, oddly, for Joseph.

Other than that, St.
Paul and the Gospels to the contrary, Jesus did nothing expected of the Messiah. Three such expectations will suffice for our purposes: (1) The Messiah was to be a military, or at least a political, leader, an actual, rightful King. (2) He would restore the independence of Israel and free it from foreign (at the time, Roman) rule. (3) Most importantly, he would institute a reign of perfect peace, justice, liberty and piety that would shortly extend over all the earth.

It seems rather clear that none of these occurred; most glaringly the last, which was and has always been the most important sign and task of the Messiah (The short answer, for many Jews, to the question "Why don't you believe in Jesus?" is "Oy! Look around!").

The Messiah was the coming King who would restore the line of David, free Israel, and being peace to the world; he would institute the Messianic Age. He was named for it, and it would be named for him. The two would come together, or not at all. They were one.

At the end of Jesus's life, these things had not happened. The Messiah had not come.

As if all that wasn't enough, Jesus, or his followers, made claims for him that were alien to Judaism, and in fact often blasphemous from a Jewish point of view. For starters, that Jesus was God incarnate.

It would be hard to think of an idea more repugnant to Jews, then or now. The oldest and most fundamental and nonnegotiable tenet of Judaism is that God is One, which means a good deal more than "one God." Among other things, it means that God is unique and indivisible, and shares His Essence and Being with no one and nothing.

It would be easier for Jews to begin chowing down on ham-and-Swiss sandwiches than to accept the claim that a man could be, in any sense, God. The Messiah was never conceived to be anything other than an ordinary mortal man; anointed by God, to be sure, but no more a God himself than King David was. There is no hint of such a thing in any Jewish tradition; it is about as likely as the High Priest carving a stone idol and placing it in the Holy of Holies. It was, and remains, quite literally unthinkable.

Second, Jesus was said to be the literal son of God. This was way beyond bizarre. The idea that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Moses and Sinai, could or would come down to earth and father a human child is as foreign to Judaism as temple prostitution. That is a Greek idea, not a Jewish one--consider Zeus had Hercules--and it may be no coincidence that Paul was speaking to Greeks, not Jews, when he formulated it. There has never been anything within a light-year of that idea anywhere in all the enormous tradition and long history of the Jewish people. It is, again, unthinkable:

Third, Jesus claimed the power and authority to forgive sins.

All sins.

Now this is difficult, because this is not widely known: Jews do not believe that God Himself has that power. God can forgive sins against Himself--ritual offenses, broken vows, and so on--but no more; a sin against another human must be forgiven by that person, or not at all. (This is why there can be no forgiveness for murder. The only one with the power to forgive is dead. This is also why the Jews of today cannot "forgive" the Holocaust. You must ask the six million for that forgiveness; we have no right to give it.)

By claiming this power, Jesus was not claiming to be coequal with God, but in fact greater than God. No wonder some tore their robes when they heard him speak.

And again, as if all this were not enough--it is claimed that Jesus was the sacrifice that saves all men from their sins, and that this salvation is accessed by believing in it.

This seems simple; but for Jews, there are no less than six separate problems here.

First, the idea that people need to be saved from their sins. Jews have never believed in "Original Sin," or that all people are born sinful. We believe that everyone has an impulse to do good, and an impulse to do evil, and that these remain with us all our lives; our job is to follow the first and resist the second to the best of our ability.

Second, St. Paul to the contrary, Jews have never taught, nor do we believe, that we are obligated to fulfill "the whole of the Law" or face eternal damnation. We believe that, since God made us, He knows our imperfection and our weakness, and does not demand that we be perfect and without fault or flaw. That would be the act of an unjust God, and we do not believe that God is unjust.

Third, Jews do not believe that any human can bear the sins of another. That principle is underlined in the Torah over and over again. Each man bears his own sins, and that cannot be changed.

Fourth, we do not believe that a "sacrifice" is necessary to obtain forgiveness for sins, whether animal or human (and the idea of a human sacrifice is so far from any Jewish belief or practice that it is barely comprehensible that anyone would even propose it as a possibility). It is true that animal sacrifices were performed in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple, but it is clear throughout the Torah and the Prophets that the sacrifice itself was meaningless without the repentance and devotion of the individual human heart.

Fifth, in Judaism, "belief" accomplishes precisely nothing by itself. There is no Creed in Judaism, no specified set of acceptable beliefs. What one "believes" is all but insignificant next to what one does, and no amount of "belief" cancels or ameliorates the results of one's actions. Believing the proper "doctrines" in Judaism is utterly irrelevant to anything at all.

Put simply: if I am in need, what do I care what you "believe"? Will you help me, or not? Nothing else matters.

Sixth, Jews are not even certain that there is a Heaven at all. Judaism has rather little concern with the afterlife; it isn't mentioned in the Torah, and belief in it seems to have been entirely absent from its teachings in the early years of our religion. Even those Jews who do believe in Heaven spend little time or energy thinking and talking about it. The point of the Jewish religion is THIS life. The next, we leave to God.

As you can see, though Judaism and Christianity share an ethic, basic values, and many religious practices, our views of the nature and structure of the relationship between God and man, the nature and importance of sin and the means of its forgiveness, the significance of the afterlife, and many other matters, are so different that they really do constitute entirely separate religions. That one was derived from the other, and that we share a large body of Scripture, no longer matters. We stand beside each other as brothers; but we have long since taken separate paths. We ought to respect one another and work together where our ideals and ethics converge--which is almost everywhere. Where our beliefs differ, we should agree to disagree and leave each other alone.

One more note: It is wholly illegitimate and improper for a follower of any faith to attempt to dictate to a follower of another what his beliefs OUGHT to be, then castigate him because they do not follow his prescription. No one has any warrant to point out passages of "prophecy" in our own Scriptures that we do not, and have never, read as such, and overrule the traditions and beliefs that we have held for more than three thousand years--and tell us what we ought to think and believe. No one has that right.

We have no warrant to deny that Jesus is your Savior, or to deny that, for you, any belief you may hold about him is true. That is between you and God, and is none of our business.

But in the same way, it is not your right to insist that we abandon our own beliefs and convictions in favor of an understanding of our own Scriptures that we have never held.

Thank you for reading. May we all work together for the good of the Kingdom of God and forgive each other our disagreements.

I'll close with a saying from the Talmud. When the sages of old disagreed and could find no way to reconcile their differences, they would often allow both rulings to stand as equally acceptable options in Jewish law. When asked how this was possible, it was said that "When Elijah comes, he will explain which of us was right--or why we both were."

Peace to all.

Charles

[Cathar1950]

To be honest, I have been shocked by what I have seen here--more by the horror of seeing that the medieval lies and calumnies presented by Smersh are still alive and festering in 2007,...

He is but one. In all my time here I think he is the first. His style of bigotry and intolerance, given the nature of these fora, can only be seen as cowardly. He can hide behind his anonymity.

...and that so many others, including the Moderators, are content to leave them lying about like dog excrement on the floor in this house we share, without so much as a comment (and isn't it remarkable that the two most vocal about his bigotry are myself and a professed atheist?), ...

I too was a little surprised by the silence...

I didn't hear silence.
On the surface there is a lot more Antisemitism inherent in much of their beliefs. This is reflected in much of the NT. It is a product of their times where vilifying Jews seemed like a good idea given the wars and competition concerning interpretation. Except for the insanity of Paul and his somewhat backwards and weak analogies, the writing were created in the aftermath. It isn't until the second war that the writings were even being considered slower then their editing and propagation.
The problem only gets worse when you take human writings to be God's word on the subject. One often finds a lack of maturity and openness reflected in their words. I see the Hebrew writings also as human works and there is every reason to think the writings have been worked over even if by well meaning priests for kings, laws and temple. I also don't think Jesus fulfilled prophesy as much as the prophets created the stories for the NT writers. I took it everyone saw it for what it was, bigotry and like Paul's lie that the Jews killed the prophets, pure propaganda.
I suspect if we look just under the surface we could find more.
Even the words "rejecting Christ" presuppose their error that they are right and everyone else is rejecting "Truth".

[cnorman18]

I may as well put this here.

There is a reason besides Scriptural interpretation that more Jews don't become Christians, and it's worth considering. It looms rather large in the minds of many Jews whenever the subject comes up.

As I posted earlier:

"Even if your way IS the right one, can you understand how hard it is for Jews to listen to those who tell us to abandon and betray everthing that has sustained us and helped us to survive as we have for almost 4.000 years, in favor of a system of belief that makes no sense to us and seems contrary to some of the most basic tenets of our faith?

"Is there any intellectual argument, any logic of history, any proof text, any Biblical insight, any line of reasoning, any words from any authority figure, even from your own faith, that could convince you to spit on the Cross, admit that Jesus did not rise from the dead, give up Heaven, throw away the entire New Testament, laugh at Christian martyrs as fools, and turn your back on your spiritual ancestors of two thousand years? Is there anything at all that could convince you to do that?"

Especially if the people trying to convince you had a history of murdering, torturing, burning, banishing and harassing your people for almost as long?

We're not just talking Bible verses and theology here. History has a voice, too.

Think on that for a moment. I personally know an elderly Jewish woman who shudders and crosses the street to avoid walking in front of a Christian church. The sight of a cross makes her frown blackly, and sometimes she spits on the ground.

She has a very good reason; in her childhood in Eastern Europe, the Christians would beat Jews and occasionally kill them (with no official consequences) if they caught one too near their house of worship. They thought their presence a contamination.

She stays indoors on Easter, trembling in fear with the blinds closed and the doors locked, for a similar reason; in her home town, gangs of Christians would roam the streets on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, looking for Jews to punish for killing their Savior. Easter Jew-murders were rather common, and punishments for them rare; none of the Christian officials in the town thought it much of a problem.

Now: How ready is she, do you think, to listen to Christians preach to her about how Christianity is the only true religion, the way of Righteousness and
Peace and Love?

This was in Poland. Similar things happened in Russia--and I hate to be the one to tell you, but they still do. The Russian Orthodox Church still turns a blind eye to, or even tacitly encourages, the worst and most vicious kinds of Jew-hatred--and we have seen it promoted on this very board.

Those things don't happen much in Poland any more. Virtually all of the Polish Jews are dead. Other than the few that escaped to America and Israel, they went into the gas chambers and the ovens. Out of more than 5 million Polish Jews before the war, there were only 50.000 left at war's end.

Germany and Poland were both overwhelmingly Christian nations. If the Holocaust was not the fault of Christians, then who? You were the only ones there. WE didn't do it.

Do you really think Christianity is going to have much appeal for us anytime soon?

Your response, no doubt, will be "I had nothing to do with that."

Your faith did. Explicitly, deliberately, and as a matter of formal teaching and doctrine, for centuries. You have seen it on this very thread--and some others of you have preached a milder form of it yourselves.

The teaching that Judaism is obsolete, that now that Christ has come there is no more need for the Jews, that God is done with them and that all Jews should immediately become Christians, led directly--DIRECTLY--to mass murder on an absolutely unprecedented scale, just as it has led to mass murder on a smaller scale at frequent intervals for well over a thousand years.

The protest that "those were not true Christians" is a plain falsehood. The doctrine that the Jews killed Christ, that Jews practiced ritual murder and drank the blood of Christian children, poisoned wells and caused the Black Death, and much more, were universally taught and believed by ALL Christians till only a few hundred years ago--and were still widespread in Europe at the turn of the 20th century, and are still believed by some today. The idea that Judaism is over, now that Christ has come, is probably in your own mind and heart, and that is a very large piece of the problem; maybe the biggest.

You have never seen anything from the point of view of a Jew. You have no clue how Christianity looks from inside the synagogue.

When the basketball team at the private Jewish school where I taught for some years was about to play the team from a nearby Catholic school, our campus rabbi was horrified to learn the name of their team; it was the "Crusaders." He was absolutely furious, outraged. "Why don't we call our team the 'Jesus-Killers,' then?" he roared.

Do you know why he was so upset?

The Crusaders of the Middle Ages, on their way to the Holy Land, would often--very often--stop and casually massacre whole villages of peaceful, virtually unarmed Jews--men, women, children, the aged, infants in arms--and burn their towns to the ground, leaving nothing behind but corpses and smoldering rubble. Hundreds of villages, thousands of corpses. It was one of the worst times in Jewish history. We do not have admiring thoughts about brave men in shining armor when we hear the name "Crusader." We think of laughing cowards who made a game of throwing Jewish infants in the air and catching them on their spears--and raping their mothers as they watched their babies impaled.

All wearing the Crusaders' cross over their armor, of course.

Did you even know that?

That sort of thing happened regularly, all over Europe, all over the Mideast, for most of Western history. The Inquisition you have heard of; the Chelminitzki massacres you probably have not. Google them sometime, but don't do it after you've eaten.

And then we come to the most educated, the most religiously sophisticated, the most cultured and technologically advanced nation of its day; the center of Christian scholarship and of classical art and music, a thoroughly modern industrialized society, with a free and democratic system of government and an independent free press, where Jews were more accepted in society and more successful and secure than at any time until present-day America.

Germany in 1930.

When I was in seminary, I read a book by a Methodist scholar that affected me deeply. It was Franklin Littell's The Crucifixion of the Jews. In it, Littell says that the Holocaust is the great unhealed wound of the Christian faith. To this day, the fact that the most hideous crime in human history was perpetrated by Christians, as other Christians looked on and did nothing, has never been addressed by the Christian church or by the Christian community as a whole.

Forgive? Jews do not believe that even God can forgive a crime against another human. Only the injured have the the right to forgive the injury. Forgiveness for the Holocaust must be asked of the six million. Neither I, nor any Jew living, has the right to give it.

And how can there be forgiveness where there is no repentance? To this day, the Christian church has never acknowledged ANY responsibility for the Holocaust or for complicity in it. And before you say it had none, read what Martin Luther had to say about the Jews. Founder of the Protestant Reformation--and a good German in every way. Don't pretend otherwise; the camps were run, guarded, administered and engineered by good Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox and Calvinists.

Littell also said that any Christian who looks at the murder of two-thirds of the Jews of Europe and at the literal rebirth of the two-millenia-dead nation of Israel after three years (cf. "three days") and does not think of Crucifixion and Resurrection isn't paying attention.

God is not finished with the Jews. The Old Covenant has not been revoked. We still have a place in the Divine Plan, and as Jews, not as ought-to-be-Christians.

Yes, it is true that some Jews have become Christians. That has always happened. How do we feel about that? For the most part, OK. People can believe as they like, and go in peace. But there is a bit of history there, too.

In earlier generations, Jews converted at sword's point, or in the shadow of the stake, or on the rack with red-hot irons poised over their genitals. "Come to Jesus" had a slightly different tone then. Some chose baptism over torment and death, and we understood. Peace to them, and we let them go.

But very, very many Jews refused. The great rabbi Akiva has been cited here as a source for Messianic quotes; do you know how he died? He was wrapped in a Torah scroll and burned alive, with a roll of wet wool over his heart to keep him alive in the flames as long as possible. He had been forbidden to teach Torah, and refused to stop.

I fudge on the kosher laws quite often; many Jews do. I often eat unkosher meat, and sometimes I even "don't want to know" if there's milk or cheese in a meat dish.

But I won't eat pork.

In the concentration camps--and though you have heard the names of only a few, there were literally thousands of them all over Europe--there was very little food. The Nazis had carefully calculated the precise number of calories that would allow them to extract the last bit of labor from their prisoners while starving them to death. A typical day's ration would be a half-cup of watery spoiled-vegetable broth and a quarter of a raw turnip.

But every year, on Yom Kippur--when observant Jews do not eat or drink at all--the Nazis would treat the prisoners to sumptuous feasts; fat, juicy sausages, thick slabs of roasted meat, ribs and chops and steaks, served with bread, vegetables, fruits and all the trimmings.

All pork, of course.

It was a deliberate bit of humiliation, and it was considered great fun when the starving Jews ate the forbidden meat on their holiest day, a day of prayer and fasting.

Now the rabbis in the camps would eat the food themselves, to show the people that it was all right; there is almost no Commandment that cannot be broken to save a human life.

But there were some that would not eat on Yom Kippur. They would rather die. And they did.

As the well-fed Christian guards watched and laughed.

All through our history, there have been Jews commanded to eat pork, with knives to their throats or guns to their heads, and they would not; and they died. There are other meats as unkosher as pork, but for whatever reason, pork has become a symbol of forbidden food for Jews, both to us and to our enemies.

Eat pork willingly? How could I? When so many who came before me laid down their lives before they would eat it, in token of their faith?

Some have asked why a Jew is allowed to be an atheist and yet remain a Jew--but a Jew who confesses faith in Jesus is not. This is why.

Do not blame us. Blame the Christians who tried to force us to baptism for centuries with dungeon, fire and sword.

Jesus himself talked about this, you know. Something about those who would not enter in, but allowed no one else to enter, either. Who did you think he was talking about? Jews?

Do you not know that those phony preachers on TV actually drive people away from your faith? Why do you tolerate them in silence?

How much more have my people been driven away?

A Jew who follows Jesus is free to do so, and peace be upon him; but he is no longer one of us. When so many of us had molten lead poured down their throats as the alternative to baptism, how should we feel about one who takes the side of the pourers?

Jesus was never our enemy. We think Jesus was a very nice guy, if a little misguided. But don't ask if we think Christians have been our enemies. History will have an answer for you.

Is anyone here ashamed?

Why not?

Smersh has been spreading the most vicious and evil kind of antisemitic excrement on this very thread. Did YOU respond to it?

Few did. Most just pretended he wasn't there--"nothing to do with ME or MY faith." A few Christians spoke out against him--two? three?-- but who has been most vocal? Myself--and a professed atheist!

Where were the Christians?

We asked that same question from 1933 till 1945. Where were the Christians?

Has anything changed?

Did YOU have anything to say when you saw Jews accused of Christ-killing, Satan worship, ritual murder, and religious cannibalism, right here before your very eyes?

Why should I believe you'd have done anything if you saw Jews being loaded into trucks and cattle cars? Millions of your fellow Christians didn't.

"You dare to equate not posting something to a nut on the Internet with complacency in the face of the Holocaust?"

Damn right.

If you can't be bothered to post a rebuke to literally Satanic hatred from the anonymity of your keyboard, why would anyone think you would have the stones to face down men with guns? Fat chance.

(Yes, a very, very few did; and of them you may be proud. But do not pretend that they were more than a tiny, brave minority. If ALL the Christians had stood up, Hitler could have murdered no one at all.)

When Christians, as Christians, have something to say to Jews on the order of "Yes, we did all this to your people, and we did it for centuries, and we did it in Jesus's name, and it was horribly wrong, and we are sorry," then Jews will have a reason to listen.

But to sit on top of a mountain of Jewish skulls and ignore it, and preach to us about what WE have to do to go to Heaven--

Words fail me.

Maybe these:

"Take the beam out of your own eye before you try to take the speck out of your brother's."

Oh, and this:

"By their fruits ye shall know them."

What do the fruits of Christianity look like, do you suppose, to a Jew?

MY Messiah? He was supposed to bring us peace, and justice, and the respect of all nations. What, at the hands of Christians, has Jesus brought us?

If anyone screwed up so badly that Jews may NEVER be open to the Gospel, guess who it was?

Will you take responsibility for that? Or will you continue to try to force us to convert against our will, with arguments and judgment and threats of Hell instead of sword and stake--and never, ever acknowledge the continuity with the past?

-----

If you read the foully evil fulminations of Smersh and posted nothing, you have no right whatever to complain about this post.

None.

At.

All.

Have you denied Jesus before men with your silence?

What will you do now?

Repent? Or attack?

[cnorman18]

Jgh7, you were the first to rebuke Smersh, and for that I thank you again. I will answer your questions in the morning, but right now I need sleep.

I think I speak for all Jews on this point; No, we don't think about these things all the time. We try not to think about them at all. It's too upsetting and exhausting.

Thanks again.

[Smersh]

cnorman18
So he really does believe in the Conspiracy, and that he's actually important.

We have now established that Smersh is not only a vicious bigot, but a fool.

Don't try to assign a meaning to my words which is not there. I meant that if I were you I wouldn't use such tactics. But I guess that general public has been zombied to believe jews to such an extent that they will buy whatever you say.

Note to mods; I shall comment as I choose. I shall complain about this drooling antisemite
SOB on the Forum, and I shall mock his conspiracy theories all I want. If you think that calling this vicious bigot and fool by his proper name is worse than his accusing me and my people of ritual murder and cannibalism, you can take your forum and put it elsewhere. Do you serve good here, or evil? It isn't rocket science to figure out who is wrong.

Why hasn't this Nazi been barred?

As I PMed you, there was a time not so long ago when Christians all over Europe turned a blind eye to this sort of evil, and that inaction had consequences. Are you, too, going to stand by and do nothing? Will you allow blatant, vicious lies and Jew-baiting go unchecked here?

This is where it started in the 1930s. I shall NOT remain silent. My people did that once before, and we have a saying that is rather well known: "NEVER AGAIN!"

I shall not stop complaining publicly till something is done.

Which one of us will you silence?

Make your choice.

And exactly why do you think people should treat you in a special way?

In the interest of fairness and truth, I'd like to make it clear to everyone that Smersh does not speak for all Orthodox Christians.

From "Antisemitism and Orthodoxy," by Stephen Methodius Hayes

(This article is from an Orthodox website. Following are excerpts relevant to the present debate.)

http://www.orthodoxy.faithweb.com/antisem.htm

Once again you try to pervert the meaning. We don't hate jews as race, we hate judaism as the most anti-Christian religion ever in existence. There were and are many Christians who were born jews, but unlike you they prize their eternal life more than well being in this world.

Also no single Orthodox has authority to make statements on the matters of Dogma. This is why all jewish bishops that infiltrated The Church in recent times can do nothing about fundamental tenets of Faith.

Peddling the old "Christ-killer" poison isn't much above peddling ritual murder. Would you care to guess how many hundreds of thousands of my people have been murdered over the centuries, by Orthodox Christians, as a direct result of that teaching?

Obviously you made this statement out of sheer ignorance. Because if we start to count jews killed by Orthodox versus Orthodox killed by jews you will expose satanic nature of your religion.

Shall I remind some facts? Communists murdered Orthodox Christians by tens of millions. Needless to say that communism is a jewish phenomenon in both theory and practice.

It's good to see the Orthodox Christians and Jews having a dialogue, and it's good that tney're finding common ground.

It's probably best for them to avoid the topic of the Jews murdering Jesus for the moment. I think we should do the same here.

You cannot possibly expect us to adjust The Faith of Jesus Christ as delivered to us by Holy Apostles just to please you? We are not catholics or protestants. So there will always be people who accuse you in this world as to the next world He whom you crucified will judge you.

bernee51
Obviously they can.

I suggest you educate yourself on exactly what is involved in Glorification of Saints.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonization

Where have I taken sides. I really hadn't noticed anyone expressing outright bigotry and hate speak other than you. If they were please point them out so I can remonstrate.

By the way...this is what I posted to cnorman18:

"Judaism is complicit in bringing to the world one of the most vengeful. oppressive god concepts. A tribal god, that through Judaism's belief that a particular tribe was somehow 'chosen' in the Bronze Age, has fomented and continues to foment division and suffering.

This god concept was appropriated by a 'convert' from Judaism to establish a belief system the history of which is rife with misogyny, hatred of the body and a glorification of self abasement.

The sooner the world is rid of this concept - just as it has ridded itself of Thor, Zeus and a thousand others - the better it will be for it.

May you be happy, kind, loving and peaceful."

I apologize for accusing you undeservingly.

Theology is the study of myth. The bible is still only one in many books which study theistic myth.

This applies equally to you belief system if we study it from this world's prospective.

cnorman18
This was in Poland. Similar things happened in Russia--and I hate to be the one to tell you, but they still do. The Russian Orthodox Church still turns a blind eye to, or even tacitly encourages, the worst and most vicious kinds of Jew-hatred--and we have seen it promoted on this very board.

Among the most vicious and satanic enemies of The Church and Orthodox people jews are the most prominent. Yet, we do not revenge jews for that. That is unlike jews who still milk German taxpayers for supposed wrongs of their grandfathers.

Also I would be really curious to see exactly how many jews have Orthodox Christians supposedly killed? Be specific. And BTW you still haven't answered my questions there were only 3.

[cnorman18]

Where are the Christians?

[cnorman18]

Cnorman:

Before you leave, I have a few questions for you. It's not often I see Jews who are actually religious like you are (for most it's just a cultural and traditional thing), so I was wondering what your perspectives on these things would be:

1) For you, what is the meaning of life?

2) Why choose Judaism rather than any other religion?

3) Why be religious, or what do you hope to get out of your religion?

1) Tikkun Olam, the repair of the world. In Judaism, God deliberately left the world unfinished and imperfect so we humans could finish and perfect His work, and thus participate in the Creation.

Individually, you have to make your own. I spent my life as a christian--50 years, mind--hoping and praying for a Call, a Mission, something that God wanted me to do. That's why I entered the ministry. It never came. I was very good at preaching, but otherwise it was obscurely a burden I found hard to bear, and not the fulfillment I had hoped for. Now that I'm a Jew, I wish I'd been brought up with their belief instead of my own. There is no Call. You find your mission for yourself, or there isn't one.

2)There is a Jewish legend that every now and then, a child who was meant to be Jewish is born into a Gentile family. One of those children was me. Almost from birth, though I tried very hard to understand my religion, I just couldn't make it come together. The NT was always a closed book to me, though I learned to know it well; it was the OT where I heard the music. Long before I ever contemplated conversion, as I look back, there were clues.

My chief demand of any system of thought, religious or otherwise, is that it be internally consistent and "make sense." Giving the answer, "We'll never understand," to any question humans can ask, betrays a certain intellectual poverty and a failure to fully question and explicate one's belief. Even though that answer is sometimes the only one available (even in, say, mathematics), it should not be invoked at every turn in the road. Religious understanding, like any other, should be comprehensible and coherent. It should not retreat into "mystery" and "the unknowable" whenever the subject grows difficult.

I left my original religion on precisely those grounds. In Christianity, one trips over that unacceptable answer every couple of blocks--on the nature of Jesus, why his sacrifice was necessary for redemption, how anyone can bear the sins of another, why people still carry the "sin" of Adam around in the first place, how "believing" something can save you, why good people who never heard of Jesus will burn for eternity, how that could possibly be right in anyone's understanding--and most of all, just how do you KNOW all this?!? Jesus may have said some of this (certainly not all), but he never explained a word of it.

It also disturbed me that, besides handing one "mysteries" where there ought to be answers, Christianity claims to have specific answers where there ought to be mysteries: what the future holds, what happens after death, how God will judge everyone, and even what Heaven is like and how to get advance tickets and preferred seating. Again, how do you KNOW all that?

It also seemed to me to be vaguely rude, if not far worse, to dictate to anyone what he ought to believe, what God expects of him, and how God will judge him if he doesn't buy into the program. Call it "witnessing" or "evangelism" or "saving souls" or whatever, it's unspeakably arrogant and self-righteous, not to say blasphemous, to claim to speak for God on these matters. Or so it seemed to me.

I found my spiritual home in Judaism. The inverse of all the above; all the tenets are fully explained; other than God Himself, there are no "mysteries". Everything, to me, makes sense. That which cannot be known--well, we don't claim to know. We leave others alone about their beliefs, and we condemn no one to Hell nor claim to know whom God will curse or bless.

I stopped counting at over 100 books, and I have not struck a false note yet.

I also knew, somehow, that the fact that we are the most and longest hated people on Earth meant something, too. The Holocaust was a burden on my heart since I first heard of it; what was there about these people that transcendent evil feared so much?

What is there about them that evil still fears, to the point of obsessive hatred (as we can see just above)?

There is much more, but I need to PM the mods again.

3) C. S. Lewis was once asked what religion makes man the happiest. He replied that, for as long as it lasts, that that would probably be the religion of worshiping oneself. He then added that that was not the proper question for a man. A man would ask simply, What religion is true?

I do not know if there is a Heaven. I trust God; if there is none, why, then, that must be best, and Blessed be his Name. I try to serve God because He is God; I try to do good because it is good.

What do I hope to gain from it? Why, to be as good as I can be, for its own sake. To make the world a little better, here in my corner of it. To live as a man, and stand up for what is right and call evil by its proper name. What more could any human want?

(Where are the Christians? Sitting this one out--again?)

[Goat]

1) Tikkun Olam, the repair of the world. In Judaism, God deliberately left the world unfinished and imperfect so we humans could finish and perfect His work, and thus participate in the Creation.

We are not expected to repair the world.. but neither are we expected not to try.

[TMMaria]

Once again you try to pervert the meaning. We don't hate jews as race, we hate judaism as the most anti-Christian religion ever in existence. There were and are many Christians who were born jews, but unlike you they prize their eternal life more than well being in this world....

Hmmm...let's talk about hate. Let's discern the face of evil. Smersh, don't mind my saying so...but it seems to me even nonbelievers know how ugly hate is. Hate is a favorite game of the devils; instilling any form of hate to divide people against people is their game. Hate is that deadly scourging that causes wounds on the Body of Christ. Jesus knows our weakness in the struggle against hate and He commanded us: Love even thy enemy. For between you and "thy enemy" is hate and only Love can destroy hate and heals the wound. We are called to love, but it doesn't mean we have to agree with their beliefs. Jews and Christians can agree to disagree without killing each other for it. The minute you kill...you're neither a Jew or Christian. "Thou shall not kill."

You cannot possibly expect us to adjust The Faith of Jesus Christ as delivered to us by Holy Apostles just to please you? We are not catholics or protestants. So there will always be people who accuse you in this world as to the next world He whom you crucified will judge you....

The devils know the Scriptures and they can deceive. Let's look at the deception addressed by Stephen Methodius Hayes:

Those who say that Christianity was fundamentally antisemitic point to the Gospel according to St John, where Jesus debates not so much with the Pharisees as with "the Jews", and the Jews are made to seem the villain of the piece. St John even has Jesus say that the Jews were children of the devil (John 8:44), and you can't get much more antisemitic than that! If Jews are children of the devil, then they must be fair game, and the gas chambers of Auschwicz are too good for them.

Another verse used to support the thesis that Christianity was antisemitic from the beginning is Matthew 27:27, when the crowd demand the death of Jesus. When Pilate hesitates, the crowd shout that they will accept responsibility: "His blood be on us and on our children." This verse, the critics say, was intended to justify Christians in hating Jews as "Christ-killers", and to perpetuate this hatred for all generations. [???]
Two questions arise from this:


Do these verses really indicate "antisemitism" on the part of the NT writers?
Can they legitimately be used by Christians to justify antisemitism?
I believe that the answer to both questions is "No".


Who are these "critics" that justify hate? I hope they are not the official position of the Orthodox Church, but merely "wolf in sheep's clothing." Whoever they are, they do not act in the Spirit of God. I'd be surprised, Smersh, if those who claim to follow Jesus Christ cannot discern the spirit that "justify antisemitism" is something not of God. Even nonbelievers understand what Jesus said about: Love your neighbors. Love even your enemy.

There is nothing antisemitic about John's verse. To look at John 8:44, we need to look at what comes before and after, John 39-47:

Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works of Abraham.
40 But now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God; Abraham did not do this.
41 You are doing the works of your father!" (So) they said to him, "We are not illegitimate. We have one Father, God."
42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and am here; I did not come on my own, but he sent me.
43 Why do you not understand what I am saying? Because you cannot bear to hear my word.
44 You belong to your father the devil and you willingly carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies.

45 But because I speak the truth, you do not believe me.
46 Can any of you charge me with sin? If I am telling the truth, why do you not believe me?

47 Whoever belongs to God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not listen, because you do not belong to God."

In this passage here, Jesus pointed out to us the face of evil: the evil of killing, not just any killing, but killing an innocent man. Here Jesus pointed out the children of the devil are the ones who commit the deadly mortal sin of trying to kill an innocent man. How is it along the way these so-called "critics" who justify antisemitism conveniently interpret the children of the devil are the Jews? Are we to fall the the devil's tactic of taking the Scriptures out of context for its own hate purpose?

Be alert. Be awake, Jesus said. We have to be on guard and discern who belongs to God and who doesn't. We have Jesus's spoken words to us,: i.e. Love, as a defense against these tactics. The question is, are you listening to the words of God?

Likewise, looking at Mt 27:27, this is not about attributing guilt for Jesus' death is not attributable to all the Jews of his time or to any Jews of later times. This would be an injustice, something not of God:

When Pilate saw that he was not succeeding at all, but that a riot was breaking out instead, he took water and washed his hands in the sight of the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood. Look to it yourselves."
25
And the whole people said in reply, "His blood be upon us and upon our children."

The responsibility for Jesus' death is accepted by the nation that was God's special possession (Exodus 19:5 Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine. ), his own people and they thereby lose that high privilege; (Hosea 2:23 I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy;
22 [/u]I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the LORD. ), this is about a dutiful love, based on a social relation; here it refers to the covenant between God and his people. It is a love fulfilled by the performance of mutual obligations. See further Matthew 21:42-43 for more meaning on that verse: 42 Jesus said to them, "Did you never read in the scriptures: 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes'?
43 Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.

A people that will produce its fruit are the believing Israelites and Gentiles, the church of Jesus. The controversy between Matthew's church and Pharisaic Judaism about which was the true people of God is reflected here.

Among the most vicious and satanic enemies of The Church and Orthodox people jews are the most prominent. Yet, we do not revenge jews for that. That is unlike jews who still milk German taxpayers for supposed wrongs of their grandfathers.

May I point out where in the Scriptures it is said who are the enemies of the Church? St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 6:

Finally, draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power.
11 Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil.
12 For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens.
13 Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground.
14 So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate,
15 and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace.
16 In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all (the) flaming arrows of the evil one.
17 And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18 With all prayer and supplication, pray at every opportunity in the Spirit. To that end, be watchful with all perseverance and supplication for all the holy ones
19 and also for me, that speech may be given me to open my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel

Is the people of the Orthodox Church being awake to the tactics of the devill and the battle that is happening and be ready by praying at every opportunity in the Holy Spirit? For the temple of the Holy Spirit cannot foster any hate, don't you agree?

[micatala]

Moderator Action

At least for the time being, I am going to lock this thread. The moderators are discussing the thread and it may reopen after our discussions are finished.