I was talking to a friend of mine, son of a rabbi, and I forget how it came up but we started talking about the whole idea of the messiah, and the second coming, etc. We talked about how Judaism continued to exist after the Jesus of Nazareth dude came and went because there were, inevitably, some Jews who didn’t buy into his divinity. We realized that, if and when some dude shows up that is accepted as the second coming, or the new messiah, or whatever, that–here’s that inevitability again–there would still be Jews who denied his divinity.
So we decided that, even though their religion prophesies the coming of a messiah, there will always be those who will refuse to believe this. We tentatively decided to define the essence of Jewishness based on that refusal to believe in a messiah; despite the prophesy, in other words, a Jew is someone for whom the idea of a messiah is eternally in the future, something that will never actually happen.
A couple questions arise from this: isn’t that basically, blasphemous? Isn’t this a fundamental denial of the truth of their religion? If not, why not? Just a few confusing thoughts I thought I’d lob. Um, share.
Jews aren’t waitng for a Messiah; they’re waiting for the Messiah. As far as Jews are concerned the reason they denied Jesus was the Messiah was because he wasn’t. When the real Messiah shows up, all Jews will accept him. And if you don’t accept the real Messiah, you’re not a true Jew (you’re probably a Scotsman).
No, except for some sects, the coming of the Messiah is not what I ever lived my life around, and it was not something brought up at all when I was in Hebrew School. The Messiah is really a political and military figure, and is not supposed to do all the things that are supposed to happen in the supposed Second Coming. You and your friend should read about what the prophecies really say without the Christian filter.
As for why my ancestors ignored Jesus - maybe it was because he didn’t really fulfill the prophecies. There were lots of supposed Messiahs, and they all either sold out or got killed, which is not what the Messiah is supposed to do. It’s not really any different than the way you probably feel about Joseph Smith.
This was kind of my point. Won’t there always be Jews who refuse to acknowledge the messiah? Won’t they always be entitled to known as Jews?
I mean, what you’re saying, Nemo, is that Christians have every right to deny the “true Jewishness” of modern Jews. We have a name for that kind Christian.
You’re coming from the Christian perspective that Jesus was the Messiah and therefore there are Jews who refused to accept the Messiah. A Jewish perspective would be that there have never been any Jews who refused to accept the Messiah - because there has never been a Messiah for them to refuse.
What you’re saying is that Jews are only Jews because they refuse to accept Jesus as the Messiah. But what your mistake is, is that you’re putting your ideological filter on the situation, in that Jesus was the Messiah.
What Jews are saying is that Jesus was not the Messiah. They don’t deny that he truly was the messiah in the way that someone denies the the sky is blue. They deny the messiah in the way I deny the Earth is flat.
You seem to be casting Jesus as as the Messiah as an immutable fact, and for Christians, it is. However for the rest of the world - not so much.
I’m just positing that no matter how many messiahs come, claimed by no matter how many Jews, there will always be those Jews who will reject that messiah. Those “eternal Jews,” to coin a clumsy phrase, have thus equated Jewishness with unfulfillable-phrophecy-of-messiah.
Making, it seems to me, the refusal to accept a messiah one of the essential things about being Jewish.
I don’t know anything about these prophecies but now I’m rather curious - does Judaism have a Messiah Checklist on hand for reference that one could run down and say “yup, that’s him alright”? It seems that a set of clearly-defined criteria would be an important factor in answering the OP’s question.
Another issue (which is one of definitions) is that if a suitable messiah appeared and a majority of Jews agreed he was the messiah, the ones who accepted him would still be Jews, and the ones who rejected him would be called something else. Even though Christians greatly outnumber Jews in the world today, most of them (the Christians) were never descended from Jews in the first place, they were converted from all sorts of belief structures. It’s not like simply rejecting Jesus as a messiah makes you a Jew - the OP makes it seem like that is a defining characteristic of Judaism. (and others have already attempted to correct this perception)
**Lissner, **what you’re doing is akin to defining Protestants as “people who rejected Joseph Smith”. It’s approaching the issue from exactly the wrong direction.
I agree that you’re looking at this issue through a Christian filter.
First of all, the entire issue of a messiah is really not all that important to Jews, and it’s not at all what separates Jews from Christians, ideologically. I was raised Jewish, and I really don’t recall much talk about any messiah, past or future. You, in fact are the person who is “equating Jewishness with unfulfillable-prophecy-of-messiah,” no one else.
Even granting your assumption that there will be an open-ended number of messiahs in the future, why are you assuming that Jews who accept these messiahs will no longer be Jews? Nobody ever said, “We’re waiting for the true messiah, and when he comes we’ll start a new religion.” The early Christians still considered themselves Jews; according to Peter, new converts had to become Jews first, then Christians.
Look, when a direct descendant of David rebuilds the temple, establishes the Torah as the law of the land, establishes a government in Israel which is the center of all world government for all, and returns all exiles to their homeland, he’s the Messiah. Until then, he’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy.
Yes there is a clear list of items that the Messiah will do (partially listed in a previous reply). No, Jesus didn’t fulfill the prophecies so he wasn’t the messiah. The whole idea of a divine Messiah is heretical anyways.
Several folks have answered what the “messiah” is in this recent thread:
The “checklist” is not consolidated into one convenient list (like the 10 Commandments) but is scattered throughout The Old Testament, most of it in Book of Isaiah:
I’ll cut & paste from that wiki page for convenience of this thread:
[ul]
[li]Isaiah 1:26: “And I will restore your judges as at first and your counsellors as in the beginning; afterwards you shall be called City of Righteousness, Faithful City.” Some Jews interpret this to mean that the Sanhedrin will be re-established. (Isaiah 1:26)[/li][li]Once he is King, leaders of other nations will look to him for guidance. (Isaiah 2:4)[/li][li]The whole world will worship the One God of Israel (Isaiah 2:17)[/li][li]He will be descended from King David (Isaiah 11:1) via Solomon (1 Chronicles 22:8-10, 2 Chronicles 7:18)[/li][li]The Moshiach will be a man of this world, an observant Jew with “fear of God” (Isaiah 11:2)[/li][li]He will come from Bethlehem (Micah 5:2)[/li][li]Evil and tyranny will not be able to stand before his leadership (Isaiah 11:4)[/li][li]Knowledge of God will fill the world (Isaiah 11:9)[/li][li]He will include and attract people from all cultures and nations (Isaiah 11:10)[/li][li]All Israelites will be returned to their homeland (Isaiah 11:12)[/li][li]Death will be swallowed up forever (Isaiah 25:8)[/li][li]There will be no more hunger or illness, and death will cease (Isaiah 25:8)[/li][li]All of the dead will rise again (Isaiah 26:19)[/li][li]The Jewish people will experience eternal joy and gladness (Isaiah 51:11)[/li][li]He will be a messenger of peace (Isaiah 52:7)[/li][li]Nations will end up recognizing the wrongs they did to Israel (Isaiah 52:13-53:5)[/li][li]The peoples of the world will turn to the Jews for spiritual guidance (Zechariah 8:23)[/li][li]The ruined cities of Israel will be restored (Ezekiel 16:55)[/li][li]Weapons of war will be destroyed (Ezekiel 39:9)[/li][li]The Temple will be rebuilt resuming many of the suspended mitzvot (Ezekiel 40)[/li][li]Jews will know the Torah without study (Jeremiah 31:33)[3][/li][li]He will give you all the worthy desires of your heart (Psalms 37:4)[/li][li]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)[/li][/ul]
As you can see, Jesus of Nazareth didn’t do all these actions. He did come from Bethlehem with lineage back to Kind David (according to Matthew,Luke), but that’s only a handful of checked items. It shouldn’t be hard to understand why Jews are not saying “mission accomplished.”
The way Christians get around these Old Testament descriptions of the messiah is to redefine what the “messiah” is. It’s certainly a possible/valid theological position but you have to admit, it’s quite a quantum leap from what the Jews believed at the time of Jesus’ ministry.
But as far as Jews are concerned, you’re forming a conclusion with zero data points.
If I declared I was President of the United States and you refused to recognize my legitimacy, it doesn’t mean you’re denying the legitimacy of the President. It means you’re denying that I personally am President. You’ll recognize the legitimacy of Barack Obama when he’s inaugurated because he actually was elected President in the legal manner. Refusing to recognize the legitimacy of a hundred fake Presidents doesn’t mean you won’t believe in the legitimacy of a real President.
And that’s what Jews are saying. There have been a lot of fake Messiahs and they didn’t accept them because they were fake. But that has nothing to do with their willingness to follow the real Messiah when he comes along.
And since this will never happen, I’m sticking by my original point. And even if it does, there will be a group of Jews who refuse to accept it. And they will still be called Jews. Therefore, the ongoing definition of “Jew” will always be tied to a refusal to accept a messiah.
