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

[Easyrider]

Messiah ben David and Messiah ben Joseph in Judaism

Easyrider: The fact is that the Jews cannot even agree that there is one Messiah or two (Messiah ben Joseph and Messiah ben David). From what I can tell they were never able to account for how the Messiah was to be a suffering servant (Isaiah 53, etc.) and a conquering king at the same time. Which is why they came up with the two Messiah approach.

cnorman18 wrote: Never heard of this, and I'm pretty well- read. References, please, from Jewish sources.

Heres a pro-Judaism (non-Christian) website that speaks about Messiah ben David

http://www.26reasons.com/reason8.html

From the site: "Many Jewish prophets foretold that a particular messiah, the Messiah ben David, would appear and fulfill six major prophecies that will lead the world into a special Messianic Era. "

Heres another pro-Judaism (non-Christian) website that denies Jesus is the Messiah but speaks about the Jewish Messiah ben Joseph:

There have been many different conceptions of Messiah, his duty, name, and lineage over time, depending upon the period. For example, during the Middle Ages, a lot of messianic literature came up in response to medieval ideas. One text, the Book of Zerubbabel, tells of a woman, named Hephzebah, who accompanies Messiah ben Joseph into war with the enemies, where he is killed. After his death, she will save Jerusalem in anticipation of her son's, Messiah ben David's, rule.

http://www.conncoll.edu/academics/depar ... ssiah.html

Like I said, there is no Jewish concensus on if there's one or two Messiahs, much less an agreed-upon list of Messianic prophecies. But with the web and through literature I do have access to a long, long list of passages in the Old Testament that various rabbis believed were Messianic, and for the most part they look a whole lot like Jesus, when both advents are considered.

IMO, Judaism has never been able to reconcile the two faces of the Messiah, so they posit two separate individuals. But in Christianity, that is easily reconciled with the two advents.

Cheers..

[Flail]

Although I have much disagreement with the concocted notions of Judaism, it is more peaceful and tolerant than the dogma of the concocted Christianity...which is more secular and steeped in materiality than any other institution of which I am aware...Jesus is surely ashamed of the istitution of Christianity and the dogma of Paul.

in the end it is all just a dance and a very goofy one at that.

[Easyrider]

Although I have much disagreement with the concocted notions of Judaism, it is more peaceful and tolerant than the dogma of the concocted Christianity...which is more secular and steeped in materiality than any other institution of which I am aware...Jesus is surely ashamed of the istitution of Christianity and the dogma of Paul.

in the end it is all just a dance and a very goofy one at that.

It's the same God, sport. As for your "Jesus is surely ashamed of the istitution of Christianity (Paul etc.)," please go start your own thread on that jive. It's unwarranted in this one.

[Goat]

Although I have much disagreement with the concocted notions of Judaism, it is more peaceful and tolerant than the dogma of the concocted Christianity...which is more secular and steeped in materiality than any other institution of which I am aware...Jesus is surely ashamed of the istitution of Christianity and the dogma of Paul.

in the end it is all just a dance and a very goofy one at that.

It's the same God, sport. As for your "Jesus is surely ashamed of the istitution of Christianity (Paul etc.)," please go start your own thread on that jive. It's unwarranted in this one.

Is it the same god?? IMO, no. Just as Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah, Jesus is not the God of Abraham.

[Smersh]

Dionysus

I'm saying that this is quite clearly a case of a governmental employee validating the biases and prejudices of the culture of which he was a part, namely the Russian culture which, as we all know, has a long history of engaging in pogroms and seems to be more susceptible to anti-Semitism than most.

So no investigation conducted by government employees is reliable? Or perhaps this statement of yours is true only in relation to inferior races (Russians in this instance)?

And Dal was not a 'brilliant scientist'. He was an etyologist, a social 'scientist'. This means he was about as 'scientific' as Marxist 'social scientists'.

Furthermore: Was his work peer-reviewed? If not, it means absolutely nothing.

So social science is not science? What do you define as science then? UNESCO declared the year 2000 The International Year of Vladimir Dahl. Clearly UNESCO had no idea who can be considered a scientist, why don't you correct them.

McCulloch

The Dogma of the Church may not be negotiable, but it is debatable. Ask yourself, how is it that you know that the Church is right.

I am happy to debate specific points of The Dogma.

I know it is right because people I respect and admire knew it is right. On the contrary people I disrespect and contempt fought against it.

cnorman18
To Smersh:

....

....

....I find I have nothing to say.

Naturally, it is very hard to refute the truth despite majority of people conditioned to accept what you say on the subject unconditionally.

To others reading:

Do you see this?

Do you see what my people have had to fear for lo, these 3,500+ years?

Do you see the deliberate rejection of anything resembling truth or honest inquiry in favor of accepting anything, no matter how blatantly false or slanderous, that will validate vicious hatred?
Is there nothing to which Jew-haters will not stoop?

Don't waste your energy. The others are already on you side, even before we said a word to each other.

Promoting the thousand-year-old Blood Libel is particularly shocking. I have been posting on internet boards for more than a decade, and have dealt with many antisemites, from radical Palestinians to unrepentant, literal Nazis--and I have NEVER before seen ANYONE seriously allege that any Jew at any time ever performed a ritual murder or ate human blood as a religious act. It is absolutely jaw-droppingly astonishing to find that this vicious medieval fantasy still has believers today. I don't think even Hitler bought into this one.

So jews are fluffy bunnies incapable of evil?

From Boston Globe, July 30, 2005.
"PSAGOT, West Bank -- At the height of their incantation, as the men in white beards and black clothes were about to condemn Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to death in a spooky ritual known as pulsa denura in Aramaic..."

Hence few questions:
Do you agree that ritual known as pulsa denura exists?

If jews are willing to perform a satanic ritual to call death on their fellow jew, what would prevent them from doing the same to goim, which as I am sure you aware of are not even considered human beings in your religion?

Will you deny that on July 17th 1918 jews ritually murdered Tsar Nicholas II, along with his wife, Tsaritsa Alexandra, their 14-year-old son, Tsarevich Alexis, and their four daughters?

It frankly beats me how anyone with the intelligence to use a keyboard and read can seriously believe these excretions. The only explanation possible, to me, is willful, deliberate evil. How can anyone who has ever been within a thousand yards of anything ever written about Jesus embrace such vitriolic, murderous hatred?

Hatred? How much hatred one needs to actually murder someone, especially a child? So don't accuse us of your own ills.

One wonders just what "Orthodox" church teaches these things in the name of Jesus. I'm not sure that I want to know.

I can enlighten you:
The man who does not have enough of loving Christ will never have enough of fighting against those who hate Christ.

arayhay
From the book; Jesus the Jewish theologian by Brad Young, the forward of Rabbi David Wolpe writes;

When Christians write about Jesus, they write with the weight of Theology. When Jews write about Jesus, they write with the weight of history. for Judaism the life of Jesus is difficult to isolate from the rift it represented from Jewish history. All the rancor that followed -- the pain and persecution, the tentative efforts at understanding sabotaged by hatred, the rejection, belittlement, and horror -- is the prism through which Jesus has traditionally been refracted for the Jew. To see Jesus as He was is a difficult task because of the legacy left toward the Jewish people by Christianity.

This Characterization may seem excessively harsh to a Christian reader. Surly there were times of cooperation and harmony? Indeed such times occurred, although they were fewer than we would hope. But the basic outline was essentially fixed for centuries. Jesus represents a break to Judaism; He is a Jew who became the fountainhead of another faith, a religious child that broke from its parents. Given the subsequent history, what parent could look upon such a child without ambivalence, at best?

You never stop to amaze me. If you profess to be a christian how can you listen to Christ's enemies? Do you worship Christ or do you worship jews? You better decide on you loyalties.
Mt 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

So you either consider Jesus Christ the God or you agree with jews who reject Him. You cannot be both. Or as Saint John Chrysostom said:

"You who would be justified in the Law have fallen away from grace." This is what you must fear. On that day of judgment you must be afraid of hearing him who will judge you say: "Depart, I know you not." "You made common cause with those who crucified me.

You seem to wonder who Jesus was talking to. But I then ask; Why would He start the sermon on the mount with, "you have heard it said' ? The answer is obvious. His listeners were ingulfed in the Teachings of Torah.

There is fundamental difference between pre-Christ and post-Chriat jews. I told you that a number of times and supported it with Biblical evidence.

I have a solution for you. Just go and convert to judaism as cnorman18 had done. This is where you belong. Clearly jews are dearer to your heart than Christ The Saviour.

[bernee51]

With such diatribe they do not deserve the epithet 'Saints'.

People don't decide who the Saint is, God does.

God has yet to announce any saints. The only one's I know of have been pronounced by men.

What absolute garbage.

Why take refuge in a book of myth written (in part) by madmen.

The words you have chosen to use here would put you well in their company.

With such attitudes to defend against it is no wonder I am a 'militant atheist'

Sounds more like you are a militant judaizer or as your friend cnorman18 will refer to you shabes goim.

If anything I am militant against intolerance and bigotry - regardless of the source.

I don't play favorites with any of the monotheisms...they are all based in a deluded belief in a god myth. Each, in their own way, have caused untold misery in the history of mankind. The sooner we are rid of them - and their god - the better.

arayhay
You either have never read The Bible or didn't understand it. I support all my theological constructs with Biblical evidence.

The bible is not evidence of anything but mankind's insecurity in the face of the trials of existence. It is but one of a myriad of so-called 'sacred' scriptures.

It would be very stupid of you to attempt to argue against it for you will be arguing against Saints, people enormously better and more intelligent than us.

An appeal to authority...big deal.

The intelligent investigate their belief systems and those that came before. The intelligent see the evolution of such systems along with the god beliefs that precipitate them.

Luk 3:4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
Luk 3:5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways,
Luk 3:6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"

Is it not referring to God that jews murdered?

It is referring to a myth concocted in difficult times.

[cnorman18]

To Easyrider:

(I'm having some trouble making the copy & quote functions work, so you may have to refer fack your post to see what I'm answering.)

You're saying they're all in agreement, or does each book reflect the personal beliefs of that individual writer? I'd still like to see a list that shows a wide concensus of opinion amongst Jewish theologians. You'll have to back that up.

So look at two books. Mane three.

you want a list, though. Wikipedia okay? Here's a list of historical expectations about the Messiah:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_messianism

Most of the textual requirements concerning the messiah, what he will do, and what will be done during his reign are located within the Book of Isaiah, although requirements are mentioned by other prophets as well.

The Sanhedrin will be re-established (Isaiah 1:26)
Once he is King, leaders of other nations will look to him for guidance. (Isaiah 2:4)
The whole world will worship the One God of Israel (Isaiah 2:17)
He will be descended from King David (Isaiah 11:1) via Solomon (1 Chron. 22:8-10)
The Moshiach will be a man of this world, an observant Jew with "fear of God" (Isaiah 11:2)
Evil and tyranny will not be able to stand before his leadership (Isaiah 11:4)
Knowledge of God will fill the world (Isaiah 11:9)
He will include and attract people from all cultures and nations (Isaiah 11:10)
All Israelites will be returned to their homeland (Isaiah 11:12)
Death will be swallowed up forever (Isaiah 25:8)
There will be no more hunger or illness, and death will cease (Isaiah 25:8)
All of the dead will rise again (Isaiah 26:19)
The Jewish people will experience eternal joy and gladness (Isaiah 51:11
He will be a messenger of peace (Isaiah 52:7)
Nations will end up recognizing the wrongs they did to Israel (Isaiah 52:13-53:5)
The peoples of the world will turn to the Jews for spiritual guidance (Zechariah 8:23)
The ruined cities of Israel will be restored (Ezekiel 16:55)
Weapons of war will be destroyed (Ezekiel 39:9)
The Temple will be rebuilt (Ezekiel 40) resuming many of the suspended mitzvot
He will then perfect the entire world to serve God together (Zephaniah 3:9)
Jews will know the Torah without study (Jeremiah 31:33, see also New Covenant)
He will give you all the desires of your heart (Psalms 37:4)
He will take the barren land and make it abundant and fruitful (Isaiah 51:3, Amos 9:13-15, Ezekiel 36:29-30, Isaiah 11:6-9)

Okay?

From the Jewish Encyclopedia: Messiah ben Joseph. The earliest mention of him is in Suk. 52a, b, where three statements occur in regard to him, for the first of which R. Dosa (c. 250) is given as authority. In the last of these statements only his name is mentioned, but the first two speak of the fate which he is to meet, namely, to fall in battle (as if alluding to a well-known tradition). Details about him are not found until much later, but he has an established place in the apocalypses of later centuries and in the midrash literaturein Saadia's description of the future ("Emunot we-De'ot," ch. viii.) and in that of Hai Gaon ("la'am Ze3enim," p. 59). According to these, Messiah b. Joseph will appear prior to the coming of Messiah b. David;

There's other sources as well. Will you update your theology on this now?

Funny you didn't post the rest of that entry. Well, maybe it's not.

Beginning where you left off:

"According to these, Messiah b. Joseph will appear prior to the coming of Messiah b. David; he will gather the children of Israel around him, march to Jerusalem, and there, after overcoming the hostile powers, reestablish the Temple-worship and set up his own dominion. Thereupon Armilus, according to one group of sources, or Gog and Magog, according to the other, will appear with their hosts before Jerusalem, wage war against Messiah b. Joseph, and slay him. His corpse, according to one group, will lie unburied in the streets of Jerusalem; according to theother, it will be hidden by the angels with the bodies of the Patriarchs, until Messiah b. David comes and resurrects him (comp. Jew. Encyc. i. 682, 684 [ 8 and 13]; comp. also Midr. Wayosha' and Agadat ha-Mashia% in Jellinek, "B. H." i. 55 et seq., iii. 141 et seq.).When and how this Messiah-conception originated is a question that has not yet been answered satisfactorily. It is not possible to consider Messiah b. Joseph the Messiah of the Ten Tribes. He is nowhere represented as such; though twice it is mentioned that a part of the Ten Tribes will be found among those who will gather about his standard. There is a possibility, however, as has been repeatedly maintained, that there is some connection between the Alexander saga and the Messiah b. Joseph tradition, for, in the Midrash, on the strength of Deut. xxxiii. 17, a pair of horns, with which he will "strike in all directions," is the emblem of Messiah b. Joseph (comp. Pir3e R. El. xix.; Gen. R. lxxv.; Num. R. xiv.; et al.), just as in the apocalyptic Alexander tradition in the Koran (referred to above) the latter is called "The Double-Horned" ("Dhu al-2arnain")."

Messiah Ben Joseph is a fairly obscure and little-known figure in Judaism, and almost unknown today except by specialists. I don't apologize for never having heard of him. Considering the rest of this information, I don't see how he's relevant to the discussion. Jesus wasn't of the tribe of Joseph anyway, so what's the point?

---

Your "list of rabbis on Isaiah 53" consisted of a bunch of references from fundamentalist Christian scholars cherry-picking quotes from obscure and unknown "rabbis" that no one has ever heard of, in books that no one reads. Sorry. Find me some direct references in recent books actually written by Jews and I'll take a look.

---

You can argue about the names given to the Messiah in Isaiah and Jeremiah all day, but the notes I posted are definitive. Again; show me a reference from a Jewish writer, and I'll consider it. Christian writers have been distorting and twisting our Bible for centuries, and these quotes are pretty good examples. The information about the meaning of Semitic names is clear and applicable. Show me why it's not, with some reason other than that you don't like it and like the Messiah being labeled "God" better.

---

So God couldn't have been talking about anything but "salvation" when speaking to Abraham? Everything is about being "saved"?

I hate to break it to you, but that concept comes out of Christian tradition and your own head. Judaism, especially as early as Abraham, just doesn't think in those terms. As I've said elsewhere, Judaism is minimally concerned with the afterlife. It isn't the focus of our religion and we don't think or talk about it much.

One of the chief complaints of Jews about Christians is their tendency to ignore and erase Jewish understandings of our own Scriptures, then superimpose their own patterns of thought, belief and doctrine over them and declare them the only acceptable way to read the text.

Look, you can read the Bible any way you like; it's no concern of ours. We believe in religious freedom. But don't tell us how to read it, especially when you inject meanings into it that patently aren't there. God never said a word to Abraham about "salvation," being "saved," or about Heaven. Heaven is not directly mentioned anywhere in the entire Torah. The Jewish faith was not about "going to Heaven" then, and it's not about that now.

Maybe--just maybe--religious faith should be about more than whether or not one goes to Heaven. Even when I was a Christian, I thought that an oddly selfish and self-centered kind of faith. I have actually had Christians tell me (this was when I was a minister) that if there were no Heaven, there would be no reason to be good. I find that pathetic. If we need to be promised a heavenly lollipop to be good, and a hellish spanking not to be bad, just how good are we being?

Jews believe we should be good BECAUSE IT IS GOOD. We should serve God BECAUSE HE IS GOD. If there is a Heaven, well, that would be wonderful; but we plan to be good and serve God anyway. Don't try to inject your bribe-and-threat system into our Scriptures.

---

Isaiah 53 again. Just as predicted: the children are symbolic. The "stripes" are literal, the children symbolic, and the only standard is fitting the verses to the life of Jesus. That's not prophecy. That's editing.

---

Your next question is equally telling. You want an acceptable list of good works? How about the list that Jesus gave? Did you feed me when I was hungry, clothe me when I was naked, and like that? Does that work for you?

Do you seriously believe that a person who COULD do good, but does nothing, in favor of sitting around contemplating the love of Jesus and his "faith," is "saved"--while someone who spends his life in service to others, but does not hold the right beliefs, is damned?

'Faith without works is dead." Or have you deleted the letter of James from your Bible?

If Hitler had claimed to believe in Jesus on his deathbed, would he be cavorting in Heaven now? And are all the pious, faithful and observant Jewish families that he murdered now burning in Hell? Straight answers, please. Show me what kind of God you believe in. Say what you believe--unless you're ashamed of it, of course.

I was formerly a Methodist. John Wesley, the founder of that denomination, once asked a provocative question: "What good is correct doctrine? The devils in Hell know all the right doctrine, and for all that, they be but devils."

You asked me for a list; I'll ask you for one. What specific correct thoughts or understandings--beliefs, if you like--must one hold or else go to Hell? What does God insist that we THINK? And why does that matter more than what we actually DO?

[otseng]

Moderator note:

Please tone down the level of direct and indirect attacks in this thread. Remember that the purpose of this forum is to have respectful and civil debates about topics. If anyone considers a post to be in violation of the rules, simply report it and do not comment about it in the thread.

[Assent]

Look, you can read the Bible any way you like; it's no concern of ours... Don't try to inject your bribe-and-threat system into our Scriptures.

I'm sorry, I could not help but notice this. How do these statements not conflict? Are you refering differently to the Christian and Jewish Bibles? The term does get used for both, so that may be why I am confused.

Peace be with you.

[McCulloch]

I am happy to debate specific points of The Dogma.

I know it is right because people I respect and admire knew it is right. On the contrary people I disrespect and contempt fought against it.

You have a lot to learn about critical thought. Nothing is true and right because those people you respect and admire believe it to be right. Conversely, nothing is false simply because those people you have contempt for and disrespect are against it.

Perhaps I should give you another chance to answer the question. How is it that you know that the Church is right? This time please try to provide something approximating rational evidence.