my knowledge in this area is pretty weak, but I’ve done some reading in some of these threads lately that got me thinking about a few things.
apologies in advance if these have already been answered, but I confess I didn’t read all of those threads in detail.
Even with the arrival of Jesus, isn’t the Jewish God and the Christian God the same God? (I know Jesus is part of the holy trinity, so jews will probably say no, but let’s assume for a moment that we can separate Jesus from that. The pre-Jesus God would have to be the same as the post-Jesus God regardless of whether or not you believe that Jesus was the son of God, correct?
Do Jews believe in a Christ-like arrival, and are waiting for their messiah to be born?
If the answer to 2 is yes, then what does this individual have to do to prove he is the messiah? Are there certain, defined attributes of the messiah? Some jews obviously thought Jesus was this person and followed him, others did not. I’m assuming there is some criteria established.
if indeed this person is believed to be the messiah by the Jews, do they stay Jews or automatically lose their jewish standing as they believe the Jews who believed that Christ was the Messiah lost their jewishness (sorry, cant think of a better way to put this) to those that don’t believe this person to be the real Messiah (you have to figure that some still wouldn’t believe, those doubting thomases!)
Did Christ consider himself a Jew during his lifetime? Did his followers?
Is the holy trinity part of christianity itself, or is something like this described in the OT?
Is the Messiah supposed to be named Jesus Christ, or does that just happen to be the name chosen to describe Jesus when he was born?
Thanks for your patience, and hope these questions don’t offend. They are not meant to.
Yes, the god of the Jews and the Christians is the same god. it should be noted that Muslims believe in this god as well. The simplest (but not the only) difference are that Jews and Muslims do not believe that Jesus is his son.
Yes, Jews, at least more conservative and Orthodox, are still waiting for the arrival of the messiah.
Not sure.
Not sure.
Yes, Christ was a Jew. His followers still followed Jewish law and custom for about 100 years of so after his death.
I believe the holy trinity was something that evolved in Christian belief over it’s first 300 years or so. There were many different sects of Christianity, at the beginning, eventually the most populace sect won the debates and the holy trinity became canon. Maybe someone here will go into depth on the Council of Nicea.
The messiah can have any name.
I know these answers are very simple, but someone with much more knowledge than me will be along shortly.
The Jewish messiah isn’t divine. He will be a man who accomplishes the tasks set out in the Torah. We’ll only be able to identify him by the fact that he completes all those tasks. I’ll let others more knowledgeable list the things the messiah has to do.
That really depends. If you’re talking about mainstream Christianity, then yes, they are the same god. If you’re talking about Gnostics, Cathars, Bogomils, or Marcionites (and possibly even Paul of Tarsus) then no they are not the same god.
Many Jews are waiting for a Messiah to be born, some believe particular Rabbis are the Messiah.
I don’t know the answer to that one.
There’s no reason why someone would cease to be Jewish because they believe someone is the Messiah. As I said, there are Jews that believe in living Messiah.
Jesus undoubtedly considered himself a Jew. All of his followers before his crucifixion were Jewish as far as we know.
The Trinity is not described in the OT. I’m not even sure if they ever mention the Holy Spirit in the OT. Not all Christians believe in the Trinity.
I don’t think the Messiah is supposed to have a particular name. There is a prophecy about an Immanuel (I think that’s the name) that is used by many Christians as evidence that Jesus is the Messiah.
Edit: Sorry if I’m a bit vague, I’m kinda answering off the top of my head.
Most Jews would agree that it’s the same God; however, most Jews would also agree that more specific Christian theology and worship is incompatible with Judaism.
Jews believe in the arrival of a Messiah, although the importance of this belief changes from Jew to Jew (it’s hardly the cornerstone of the faith it is with Christianity). The Jewish Messiah is a different beast than the Christian one - a mortal man, albeit an exceptional one, who will defeat Israel’s enemies, restore the Temple and bring world peace. Less of a personal savior and more of a warrior kind; more Paul Atreidis than Christ.
He has to defeat Israel’s enemies, restore the Temple and bring world peace. Once he does that, the Jews will consider accepting him as Messiah.
If he really is the Messiah there won’t be any doubt as to the matter. Again, world peace.
Yes and yes.
Pure Christianity.
Jesus is Greek for “Joshua”, and Christ is Greek for “crucified.” So yeah, it’s just the one guy’s name.
Kristos means “anointed”, not "crucified. It’s essentially the Greek word for Messiah. It’s an honorific, not part of his name. He would have been called Jesus, son of Joseph (in Aramaic, of course).
1 He is the same God, but it is the relationship which is changed. In Judaism YHWH is a God far away, one that most people don’t know how to pronounce or understand, he is the ‘I am’ a concept that we can hardly understand , to reach such a high God one goes though a special person, a priest. Jesus is the personal relationship between God and man, we know His name, we get to use the very name of God, He is no longer the incomprehensible ‘i am’, but now the fully understandable ‘I am He’.
6 The trinity is a term that does not appear in scriptures but defines a concept defined in scriptures and there are hints of it in the OT, though much of it is veiled and must be looked at in the light of the NT. If it is part of Christianity, it is a part that IMHO does not have to be understood fully to get salvation, and one does not have to even know the term ‘trinity’ exists. What is needed is recognition of God in the Son of God and accepting Him as Lord.
7 Christ and messiah mean anointed one, Jesus Christ, or sometimes Christ Jesus is Jesus the anointed one. Jesus comes from ‘YHWH saves’.
One Aramaic version is Yesu bar Youseph. “Bar” of course is Aramaic for “son of.”
“Christ-like arrival” is pretty vague. The general Jewish outlook (warning: 2 Jews, 3 traditions) is that some person will accomplish the traditional tasks (which I believe are post-Torah), whereupon they will be anointed as the Redeemer. Accomplishments first, pot of oil second.
I don’t mind when you cut loose and let your imagination run wild with your personal cosmology, but you can’t just invent this sort of silliness about someone else’s religion and except them to be quiet about it.
In other words, no such thing exists, it isn’t “veiled” and only when a completely different book says completely different things can you go about inventing meanings.
There are no more ‘hints’ of Christian theology in the Tanakh than there are ‘hints’ of Hinduism in the Christian BIble.
There are no “priests” (in the sense of religious functionaries with a special relationship to the diety) in Judaism since the fall of the Temple, 2000 years ago or so. Rabbis are not “priests” and have no such relationship.
In contrast some versions of Christianity have “priests” in this sense, such as Catholicism.
Well, priests are still around. They just don’t do anything special that other Jews don’t do, other than not go to funerals or marry divorcees. That’s one of the things about having a hereditary priesthood…it still has members even after it has lost its existential purpose.
Well, yes, Kohens still exist and still do that Vulcan hand gesture thing. They are not of course “priests” in the sense that a Roman Catholic priest is a “priest”.
They were at the same place. Herod’s temple was the rebuilt Solomon’s temple (Actually, it was an extension of Ezra’s temple, which was the rebuilt Solomon’s temple). Just the Temple. It needs to get up and running again before you know he’s the messiah.
