There are several topics already about so-called Messianic Jews. Jews for Jesus is a blatantly Christian group out to convert Jews, but there are other groups trying to form some sort of synthesis between traditional Judaism and Christianity (acceptance of Jesus as Messiah in some form).
That’s a whole different topic… and we’ve already got bunches of digressions here.
I’d like to respond to Izzy’s comments about Maimonedes… I’m sorry if I gave the impression that I thought Maimonedes was only responding to Christianity in trying to define the principles of faith of Judaism. That would be blatantly untrue. I admire Maimonedes greatly – “from Moses [Biblical] to Moses [Maimonedes], there was never one like Moses.” However, he clearly was writing in his time and influenced by (and knowledgable of) 1100 years of Christianity or so.
If he had been writing in Temple times, for instance, he would have stressed One God as opposed to Many (pagan) gods. Writing in the 1200s, he stressed One God with a Unique Unity as opposed to three-Gods-in-One. Similarly, if he’d been writing in Temple times, there would be no need to put the non-corporality of God as a principle of faith; but it was necessary when the Christian world holds God-becoming-man as a principle of faith.
He was not writing to define Judaism in a vaccuum, but against a background of Christianity and Islam. Are we agreed?