Jews and Jesus

[naz]

- Some Questions for Debate -

* Are Jews for Jesus?
* What are some common reasons for Jewish people not believing in Jesus?
* Are Jewish people no different than the pagans that killed Christ for turning their backs on him?
* Are Jewish people ungrateful for not believing and is that why they havent had any other messengers from god in over 2,000+ years?

Debate and justify your reasons.

[Flail]

...I see your point; but the point of being a Christian, i.e. believing in Jesus as one's personal savior, is still going to Heaven, is it not? From that point of view, ethical behavior is essentially irrelevant and unnecessary, and I don't agree with that idea either...

Technically speaking, we don't "go to heaven"; rather, heaven comes to us. The New Jerusalem comes to the restored earth, and the entire universe will be our home.

Christians are to love God with all our heart, and we are to love our neighbor (especially the least of our neighbors) as ourself. This includes not only charity, but also justice in the larger structural sense. To the extent that any of us actually does this, the present world will become a better place for everyone. And to the extent that we fail to do this, we are not following the example and teaching of Jesus as we should.

Do you consider it 'neighborly' to belong to a 'God Club' which professes that all who believe otherwise will be condemned by 'God' to eternal suffering?

[Flail]

...my quibble, if you like, is with Christianity's idea of the point of ethical behavior. Christianity teaches that the point is primarily to go to Heaven...

Wow... Christianity teaches the exact opposite! While it is true that perfectly ethical behavior would be the only way to earn favor with God, Christianity insists that no one is able to live a perfectly ethical life. Therefore, God gives us his favor out of his mercy and love, and we respond by following Jesus' example and teaching to love God with all our heart and to love our neighbor as ourself.

This is the non-sensical concocted 'Grace' notion of Paul. It boils down to indoctrinating followers that they are incapable of living lives good enough for 'God', until and unless they take out a membership, wherein all will be forgiven. Can an organization be any more self-serving, selfish and manipulative just to get customers?

[naz]

...my quibble, if you like, is with Christianity's idea of the point of ethical behavior. Christianity teaches that the point is primarily to go to Heaven...

Wow... Christianity teaches the exact opposite! While it is true that perfectly ethical behavior would be the only way to earn favor with God, Christianity insists that no one is able to live a perfectly ethical life. Therefore, God gives us his favor out of his mercy and love, and we respond by following Jesus' example and teaching to love God with all our heart and to love our neighbor as ourself.

This is the non-sensical concocted 'Grace' notion of Paul. It boils down to indoctrinating followers that they are incapable of living lives good enough for 'God', until and unless they take out a membership, wherein all will be forgiven. Can an organization be any more self-serving, selfish and manipulative just to get customers?

You have no idea what you are talking about do you? I designed this thread to get feedback from Jewish people on their views and beliefs, wanting to know why they choose not to believe or follow Jesus. You are adding nothing productive/constructive to this thread, and I would appreciate it if you stopped posting nonsense.

[Cathar1950]

...my quibble, if you like, is with Christianity's idea of the point of ethical behavior. Christianity teaches that the point is primarily to go to Heaven...

Wow... Christianity teaches the exact opposite! While it is true that perfectly ethical behavior would be the only way to earn favor with God, Christianity insists that no one is able to live a perfectly ethical life. Therefore, God gives us his favor out of his mercy and love, and we respond by following Jesus' example and teaching to love God with all our heart and to love our neighbor as ourself.

This is the non-sensical concocted 'Grace' notion of Paul. It boils down to indoctrinating followers that they are incapable of living lives good enough for 'God', until and unless they take out a membership, wherein all will be forgiven. Can an organization be any more self-serving, selfish and manipulative just to get customers?

You have no idea what you are talking about do you? I designed this thread to get feedback from Jewish people on their views and beliefs, wanting to know why they choose not to believe or follow Jesus. You are adding nothing productive/constructive to this thread, and I would appreciate it if you stopped posting nonsense.

I dont think it is a matter of not knowing what he is talking about but like EduChris he is focusing on small aspect with many unspecified presumptions and conditions behind what is but one aspect of comparison, the ethical behaviors Cnorman mentions.

There is a certain tendency to see humans as somehow incapable of living good lives (what ever that might happen to mean out of context) or even perfectly ethical lives as if they were doomed from the beginning for not measuring up to a standard they cant measure up to.
It takes advantage of guilt, learning, forgiveness, mercy and an unattainable standard.
In Pauls defense Grace was the Justice of judgment God showed those that were one with Christ. It is an undeserved favoritism, something we see as a common theme on those God picks.

If you look close enough you will find the idea of obedience through all this grace where even love is obeying God.

I tend to think the modern expressions of both Judaism and Christianity have shaped each other and have done so over the centuries and I am glad to see Cnorman is not a closet Christian.
It seems they made the split as the both wrestled with a Medrash reading of their text.
I think the Jews won with the readings and the Christians won by inventing a new god. Had Jesus remained a Aeon of some Angelic figure as we see in Jewish apocalyptic writings such as Enoch and Daniel who knows they might have remained Jews.
It seems the First Jewish war started then on separate paths with Christians finding themselves being kicked out of even Diaspora communities. After the destruction of the Temple and the Loss of the Jewish leadership we see the ideas of Jesus being compared to a sacrifice as Isaac. With all the Jews being killed and nailed to crosses there were metaphors of the victims dieing for the sins of the nation:They died for us. Others would compare the victims to Isaac caring the wood for the sacrifice.
Like the original story Isaac dies

[cnorman18]

..."A shadow of the life to come" indicates that this life is of minor importance compared to the next. QED.

I don't see how our ethical stance is any different simply because we believe that the good that we do, the joys that we share, the challenges that we overcome--in short, everything that is good in this life--will follow us into the next life. From a practical standpoint, nothing you've said indicates in any way that Jewish people and Christian people will actually behave differently from a "this-worldly" ethical standpoint.

I believe I said that the ethic of Christianity and the ethic of Judaism are similar; I have no argument with you on that score.

But the focus of the Christian faith is the next world, as you keep demonstrating in your own posts, and Judaism pays little or no attention to that concept. I don't know how much more clear I can be. We have differing primary goals. That seems undeniable to me. Going to Heaven is A central concern of Christians, if not THE central concern (though I'd love to know how that latter isn't the case); to Jews it isn't a concern at all.

Heaven is eternal, right? Therefore it's more important that the "shadow," the temporary existence, of this world, right? Well, we Jews don't even THINK about Heaven much. Why is this so difficult? Are you trying to deny that there are any significant differences between Judaism and Christianity?

...Uh, maybe you didn't know this, but many modern Jews don't believe we are obligated to follow the "Mosaic ritual/ceremony/dietary laws" either.

In that case (and I know there are Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jews who believe differently on this matter) then there would be no difference in the actual, this-worldly ethical stance between the Jews (the ones who don't follow those laws) and Christians.

See above.

...I usually advise people who profess knowledge of Judaism to read a basic book or two on the subject. I don't feel that your case warrants an exception. You might be surprised at what you don't know...

That's always good advice. And I expect you've already read Fretheim and Brueggemann?

I gather you are unaware that I was trained at a liberal Methodist seminary, Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University here in Dallas, long before I became a Jew. I am familiar not only with process and liberation theology and rhetorical analysis - none of which are my cup of tea - but neo-Orthodoxy, the "Jesus Seminar," Bultmann's demythologization, Barth's Church Dogmatics (I don't claim to have read it ALL), Tillich, de Chardin, etc., etc. I studied directly under Albert Outler, Schubert Ogden, and William R. Farmer, the last world-class New Testament scholar who believed in the priority of Matthew.

I am not ignorant of Christianity, thank you very much.

[Zzyzx]

.

I am not ignorant of Christianity, thank you very much.

It seems as though many Christian Apologists, even those with apparent religious education credentials, assume, suggest or state that Non-Christians are ignorant of Christianity.

Cnorman, do you also have experience as a Christian minister?

[cnorman18]

.

I am not ignorant of Christianity, thank you very much.

It seems as though many Christian Apologists, even those with apparent religious education credentials, assume, suggest or state that Non-Christians are ignorant of Christianity.

Cnorman, do you also have experience as a Christian minister?

Yes. I served as a minister of the United Methodist Church for approximately four years, pastoring small churches in rural Texas and Oklahoma.

I've never thought I was any smarter nor more likely to be correct or right than anyone else on this forum, but I DO think that I bring a rare perspective here, since I consider myself very well-read and well-informed on both Christianity (for which I retain a great deal of respect and even reverence, as is well known to the oldtimers here) and Judaism.

Very many Jews, it is true, are just as ignorant of the teachings and practices of Christianity as very many (most, in my experience) Christians are ignorant of the teachings and practices of modern Judaism. In my synagogue, I have often served as an educator on the precepts and teachings of Christianity just as I try to educate Gentiles about modern Judaism here.