Jews For Jesus - For Real?

Great Debates
61

CMK:>>While I realize you addressed your comments to zev, I think he’ll forgive me for jumping in here<<

CMK: I also have no objection to your jumping in. I was curious what you would have to say as well. Since you both give essentially the same answers to my points, I’ll just choose one response and answer back.

CMK:>>However, it is a Christian belief that there are three different “portions” of G-d, and that one of these is known as “the Son” and that this being was incarnated in the form of JC. This is incompatible with Jewish belief.<<

I disagree, but I’m studying to support my view. More on this later, hopefully. I think it hinges strongly on Elohim with a singular verb.

CMK:>>Jews do not believe that this sin condemns the soul of all future generations to damnation. Granted, it does condemn the bodies of all future generations to eventual death.<<

I agree with this statement as well. What condemns me are my personal choices. Although Adam’s sin affected my nature as well as his own, giving me a sinful nature, it is my own sins that condemn me, not Adam’s. But, my sinful nature is what makes me inclined to sin, even though each sin I commit is my own choice.

CMK:>>The plural form “Elo-him” is, according to Jewish tradition, intended to imply G-d acting with his many (plural) powers. The root of the word, in Hebrew, implies lordship and/or power. As for “talking to himself,” it is used to mean “thought about”, as people are doing when they talk to themselves (unless, of course, they’re nuts).<<

A lot of the disagreements here come from the acceptance of Jewish Tradition as equal with the words given by God. I agree that tradition and interpretive writings are extremely valuable, but they cannot be allowed to stand equally with the actual text that is being interpreted.

Following is my opinion, and one which I hold strongly. I don’t expect you to accept it, but I hope you may at least give it a fair ear. Otherwise, oh well. Ignore it at your option.

In this particular instance, the interpretation hinges on the assumption that the messiah has not yet come – an assumption whose roots come from Jewish leaders’ blind refusal to consider Jesus fairly against prophecies of the messiah – and is not one with God. Do you see the fallacy here? It’s circular reasoning. You can say “the messiah has not come yet”, and use that to interpret the writings that may indicate there is something more than meets the eye (God acting in his many powers, even though it is clearly a plural noun) in a way that reflects the initial assumption. You then use the other interpretations to help interpret messianic prophecies, producing a conclusion that the messiah has not come. All arriving from the initial assumption that he has not.

So that it’s clear that I am not attacking Judaism, there is a lot of the same thing in Christian churches, and probably every other group. Giving the interpretations the same weight as what is being interpreted is almost always bad. I have a number of annotations, study guides, expositions, etc, of the bible, but I hold the bible to be absolutely authoritative, whereas the others are not.

Zev:>>Repentence and sacrifices
Read Isaiah. It’s perfectly clear that what God wants is true repentence, not a sacrifice brought without any true repentence. The sacrifice is a vehicle to bring one to that, but is in no way neccessary.<<

CMK:>>In Jewish belief, animals do not have souls of their own. Their purpose on Earth is to be (properly) used by human beings. As such, the sacrifice of animals represents the atoner forfeiting some of his property in order to achieve atonement. Said property that is to be offered must be an animal, in order that the superficial similarities between the sacrificed animal and a human being make the atoner reflect on the sorts of punishments he theoretically deserves for his sin. Not “atonement by proxy” as Christians believe of JC.<<

You both raise good points, and I agree with both of you to a large degree. Ritual is not what God desires, but faith and true repentence.

However, Hebrews 9:22 says “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission”, which is backed up in the O.T. by Leviticus 17:11, which says “for the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.”

It’s not a simple matter of giving up property to atone for sin, otherwise God would have found Cain’s sacrifice of plants to be acceptable. He did not.

The sacrifices were mandatory for Jews (all people, really, since the law hadn’t been given when Abraham, Adam, Cain & Abel made their sacrifices), even if their repentence was sincere. Bloodshed is required. The only difference between Jewish beliefs and my Christian beliefs on this point is that I believe the final sacrifice has been made, making all other sacrifice superfluous and unnecessary.

>>“Enhanced” implies improvement. But Judaism (Orthodox, at least) believes the Torah was already perfect as only the “Old” Testament. As such, any alteration or addition cannot be an enhancement.<<

Enhanced can also imply completion or fulfillment. I agree that the OT was perfect in its purpose, but that it was not complete, as it is left looking forward for the messiah. I consider Acts I and II of Romeo and Juliet to be perfect (in the sense that I can’t imagine improving on them). But without Act III, it’s not finished. Without the final chapter, it doesn’t work. I believe God did complete his work, and that the final Act is what we call the New Testament.

>>However, this gets back to the previous point; if you don’t believe that there was a new covenant, which Jews don’t, you believe the rituals are still obligatory.<<

I don’t really think this is terribly relevant to the discussion at hand, since Jews for Jesus obviously do believe that there was a new covenant. If that’s the case, then it’s completely self-consistent. If you don’t believe that, then you’re obviously not a Jew for Jesus and the points I raise don’t apply to your beliefs. :slight_smile:

>>They are Jews who are practicing Christianity rather than Judaism. There are too many differences between the two to believe in both religions being true simultaneously.

Chaim Mattis Keller<<

This is true, but only so far as your nonacceptance of Jesus as the messiah. If you believe that he was, then you believe that the Law is fulfilled and you’ve been freed from the condemnation that came with it. If not, then we’re getting into a completely different topic of debate: Apologetics.

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Thanks! That’s exactly what I’m saying. You just said it more clearly than I did.

63

Well, Jesus was a man.

As for your interpretation of orginal sin being we are all doomed to hell for the sins of two people, this isn’t what Genesis says. Genesis says, among other things, Adam and Eve are doomed to die. Are you saying no one else has died since Adam and Eve were around? Certaintly, no people mentioned in scripture before them seem to have died (of course, their son Abel did die before they did IIRC).

What about the septugint (sp?), a.k.a. those seven books of the bible Martin Luther got rid of? Some Jews did accept those at the time, and they don’t date very far before Jesus IIRC.

I fail to see why not. Defining it is not strictly needed, nor does it tend to help those who already do not love, for they will only disagree and try to weasel out of whatever law or teaching you present. Love is either something you understand or do not, and then do or do not. Which is why xtians believe in the third leg of that Trinity, the holy spirit – somehow, God must communicate what love is to people in an extra-rational fashion. But these three are only aspects of God. I go fishing, I type on my computer. That doesn’t mean I am really two separate beings – I am a fisher and a typer in one.

Now that is interesting. Why is world peace so accepted?

I used to have a dog that laid down with goats, if it helps…

Yeah, I know what you mean. I never “got” Paul myself. Jesus surely didn’t die for my sins as I was not even born yet.

Well of course your personal conduct is what gets you into Heaven. But j.c.'s teachings are that definition of love which should guide your personal conduct. Certaintly a person can happen to love in accordance with these teachings and not actually be a christian and be fine.

BTW, KeithB, sacrament is just a fancy word for ritual. The RCC certaintly does not teach that merely being baptized puts you in auto-save mode, though some more recent heresies do teach this.

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Joe_Cool: *I think it hinges strongly on Elohim with a singular verb. *

[annoying nitpick mode]
If we’re really going to get into the theology of the ancient Hebrews here, we should not overlook the fact that modern Semiticists (although emphatically not traditional Jewish religious scholarship) relate the use of such plurals in Hebrew monotheism to deities in earlier polytheistic or henotheistic traditions. There are some interesting references at the end of this article about theories on YHWH’s consort Asherah in the Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages. This, of course, has no direct bearing on how traditional Jewish or Christian theologians interpret “Elohim”; but if, as you say, you are studying this topic, you ought not to ignore what contemporary scholarship has to say.
[/annoying nitpick mode]

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Joe_Cool:

What, exactly, do you define as your “sinful nature”? Is that your susceptability to succumbing to temptation? Then tell me this: if Adam didn’t have that before he ate from the Tree of Knowledge, what could have made him eat from it? He didn’t have a sinful nature yet.

In Jewish belief, no one’s nature is inherently sinful. Subject to temptation, yes, but the sin is no more inherent in the tempted person than the virtue (of avoiding sin and/or performing good deeds) is.

Another place where Orthodox Judaism disagrees with Christianity. Much of the written Torah, if read and translated without the context supplied by tradition (since recorded in the Talmud and Midrash), is simply unreadably ambiguous or contradictory. Yet somehow, this document managed to survive many generations of transmission, and its words followed, with extreme uniformity. That would not have happened without the interpretations that had been handed down together with the writings when it was taught throughout the generations. And, as such, those interpretations are to be considered the word of G-d as the written words they interpret.

Just an interruption…note that despite the (apparently) plural noun, the singular form of the verb is always used. That is significant. Now, to continue your words…

That could be a reasonable reading of the Orthodox Jewish position, except for one point: the Jews of JC’s own time did not consider him the Messiah either. Their idea of Judaism was clearly not dependent on believing that he wasn’t the Messiah; they had to have evaluated his claim of Messiah-hood based on their knowledge of the Torah and existing (pre-JC) tradition…and they found the claim wanting.

And, lest you think that back then, they weren’t interested in the possibility of Messiah at all, I should point out that less than a century later, the esteemed Rabbi Akiva stated that he thought the rebel leader Bar Kochba was the Messiah. However, once Bar Kochba died, Rabbi Akiva dropped the idea…another telling point about the prevailing Jewish notion of Messiah roughly contemporary with the time of JC.

However, Judaism’s view of the Talmud, Midrash and the oral traditions that they encompass is that they are the authoritative transmission of the word of G-d.

Another interruption…the Jewish view of why Cain’s sacrifice was not acceptable to G-d was not the fact that it was vegetable matter rather than animal matter, but the fact that he did not offer up the best that he had, wheras Abel did. Back to you…

Actually, the sacrifices brought by the earlier folks were all sacrifices of thanksgiving, not of repentance.

Bloodshed is only required of those who can afford animals; Leviticus clearly states that those who cannot afford to bring mammals may bring birds, and those who can not afford to bring birds may even bring flour and oil. However, the closer one can get to the human form in offering a sacrifice, the more of a spur to sincere regret one achieves, which is the point I tried to make earlier. The statement about the blood making the atonement merely states the Jewish law that in sacrifices which include blood, the sprinking of the blood on the altar is an indispensable part of the service, invalidating the offering if not done correctly.

And Jews believe the final act is the “Old” Testament, and that it is complete and fulfilled. To use to your Romeo and Juliet analogy, to us, the New Testament is as if someone had penned “Romeo and Juliet II: the Capulets” and tried to claim it as an essential part of Shakespeare’s original story, which anyone in possession of the original would know it is clearly not.

Not true. The Jewish concept of Messiah, as had been defined for centuries prior to JC’s birth, has nothing to do with divine conception, redemption-by-proxy from sin, or a discontinuation of obligation to G-d’s laws as the Torah defines them. Anyone who believes that JC, in his role as the Messiah, has these attributes is believing in something other than Judaism.

Chaim Mattis Keller

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Jews don’t believe Jesus is the messiah for the following reasons:

  1. He didn’t fulfill all the prophecies that the messiah is supposed to. Notice the distict lack of world peace. Yeah, I know, second coming. Sorry, there is no provision for that. The messiah’s got to get it right the first time around.

  2. Lineage. The messiah has to come from David. Paternally (all biblical geneaology is paternal). The fact that Joseph (who was not Jesus’ father) was from David (putting aside the contradictory accounts) doesn’t wash. It runs counter to Jewish law. Tribal lineage always follows the father’s tribe. If a Kohen (priest) adopts a non-Kohen son, that doesn’t make the son a Kohen. An adopeted son does not, according to Jewish law, inherit his father’s estate (the father, can, of course, make a gift). An adopted brother cannot fulfill the levirate marriage. So, any geneaological connection between Joesph and Jesus doesn’t count. Neither does any between Mary and Jesus since maternal geneaology doesn’t count.

  3. The messiah must be Torah observant. Jesus desecrated the sabbath, said that eating non-kosher food was not a problem, etc.

First of all, we don’t consider Hebrews authoritative. As for the verse in Leviticus, keep in mind the context of the verse. The verse was notabout sacrifices and atonement. The verse was about the prohibition of eating blood. It in no way means to indicate that blood is teh only way to forgive sin.

As for plant matter being unacceptable, take a look at either the end of Lev 1 or the beginning of 2 (I forget which off the top of my head). There are provisions for a meal offering. And further down in Lev. there are provisions for a meal offering to atone for sin.

As for Cain and Abel, the Jewish commentators explain very simply that Abel offered the best of what he had while Cain did not. Had Cain offered his best fruits, his sacrifice too would have been accepted.

**

As I proved above, bloodshed is not required. All that is truly required is sincere repentence.
Zev Steinhardt

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Kimstu,

I’m not much of a Semiticist, but I can tell you that the use of a plural for a singular in Hebrew is not confined to God. All (or many - I haven’t thought this through fully as I write) words denoting lordship or ownership are plural, even when referring to a singular person. Such as Adonav - his master[s], Ba’alav - his owner[s]. I don’t think this fits in with the theory you quote from modern Semiticists. Though they must be familiar with what I’ve pointed out, so maybe there’s more to it then that.

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I see a ton of analogies and some lengthy posts quoted and requoted to death here, so to maybe clarify things, I thought I would put out my simple opinion on the matter as it might help steer the debate onto more level ground.

I don’t know if it’s been mentioned yet, but one can certainly be Jewish (the race) and practice Christianity (the religion). As much as Jews hate seeing this, that’s what happens when you align your religion with your race.

That said, I doubt that a convert such as this would call themselves Jewish at all after conversion, even if their name was Moishe Cohen.

This is, of course, NOT what the orgainization Jews For Jesus is selling, however. Nor are they selling so-called “Messianic Judaism” which, while scoffed at by many Jews as an incorrect interpretation of their faith, is not an out-and-out deception.

This organization, as others have said, is there for one purpose only: To proselytize their faith as “true.” Christianity mandates this, and much like other groups and individual Christians will use certain tacts to “target” people as conversion fodder (like teenagers will be targetted with youth getaways, younger kids get comic books, etc.), this organization aims to convert life-long Jews into their fold, and they use the appropriate tools to do so most effectively.

Yer pal,
Satan

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69

Just because I think you two are speaking a somewhat different language, I would summarize the “sinful nature” believe as ultimately stemming from humility before God, which I would hope is also part of the Jewish tradition. Not all xtians believe this teaching (of Paul again, not j.c.) as litterally true.

Really? I thought there were at least a dozen Jews who believed he was the messiah, and those are just the ones I can name off the top of my head. Of course, the religious leaders who killed him probably didn’t come around. And what Jews that were left were practically wiped off the face of the earth 30 years later which sort of makes conversion difficult.

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jmullaney:

Jewish tradition certainly requires that one be humble before G-d, but what does that have to do with a “sinful nature” that comes as a result of Adam’s and Eve’s sin?

Presumably you are referring to the Apostles. However, against these twelve are all of the major religious figures of the time, entire academies full of Rabbis whose teachings are recorded in the Mishna, Talmud and Midrash.

Leaving aside the accusation, yes, the other eligious leaders didn’t believe his claim. There was a reason for that: his claim was contrary to all that Judaism, up to that time (and all the way until now), taught was to be expected of the Messiah.

Huh? Last I looked, there’s plenty of Jews around. Sure, the Romans conquered the land in a rather bloodthirsty manner, but it could hardly be said that there was a world shortage of Jews. (Lord knows, the Romans always thought there was way too many of them!)

Chaim Mattis Keller

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I’ll commend Satan for a well drafted summary. I have to agree.

The truth of the matter is, many ethnic jews do not practice judaism. There are some ethnic jews who have embraced Christianity. Many of these “Christian Jews” still function in their ethnic jewishness. One can culturally be a jew and also be a Christian. I know several people (who attend my church) who are in this category.

The messianic jew is different. Some “Christian Jews” identify themselves as messianic jews, but a messianic jew still functions as a jew from a religious perspective. This does not necessarily mean they keep all jewish law and tradition (generally, messianic jews accept the new testament, and will accept the concept of the law being fulfilled in Christ), but the worship service and religious life of these folks is ethnically jewish.

You will find that the people in Jews for Jesus fall into the first category of “Christian Jews.”

The real issue to be considered is not theological, for Mr. Keller and Zev and Dex will probably never see eye to eye with me on the concept of Jesus as messiah, at least not via this process of intellectual argument. The issue as I have come to understand, is that Jews for Jesus have allegedly used less than forthright tactics in the prosylizing process.

I think jewish people (and here, I mean non-Christian jews like CMK, Zev, and Dex - - hoo boy, who’d ever thought you’d have to define someone as a non-christian jew to make a point clear?) are more offended with this concept than anything else.

I am not familiar with any specific accusations brought against Jews for Jesus. I had some contact with the organization in my college days, and saw then as a group of ethnically jewish folks who had converted to Christianity, and were trying to “spread the word.” In that sense, I support them. Can any of you fill me in with specific examples of the purported underhanded tactics of JforJ? Cite to chapter and verse, so to speak?

Thanks

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Zev:

I don’t have a dog in this fight, but this piqued my interest. If you don’t believe Joseph was Jesus’ father, who do you believe was Jesus’ father? If you don’t believe God himself was Jesus’ father, doesn’t it stand to reason that Joseph was?

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I have no idea. You don’t have to believe in Paul to be a xtian. Some even believe he was working for the devil. Makes sense if you consider how much of what he taught seems designed to keep Jews from wanting to be xtians!

Well, give me a reference already. This is circular reasoning anyway – Jesus failed because almost no one follows his teachings, therefore, I won’t follow his teachings because Jesus failed.

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I believe the Talmud teaches Mary was raped by a Roman soldier.

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Maybe. But that’s not the Christian claim. The NT claim is that Joseph did not impregnate Jesus. You can’t have it both ways and say he’s God’s son AND Joseph’s son. He’s either one or the other.

Zev Steinhardt

76

I’m not so sure of that either. You’d be surprised how little mention of Jesus there is in the Talmud.

You’ll have to get me a source to look that up in the original Aramaic to see if it really says that. I’m willing to bet that’s wrong.

Zev Steinhardt

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Thanks cmkeller. I’m just picturing Jews for Jesus with shirts with half nude women on them. Jews for Jesus, the sexy choice.

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Sox: *Can any of you fill me in with specific examples of the purported underhanded tactics of JforJ? Cite to chapter and verse, so to speak? *

Sox, I get the impression that the issue is one of misrepresentation in glossing over differences between the two faiths, and misleadingly focusing on “Jewish culture” aspects of the group to draw attention away from the Christian theological aspects. But if you read carefully, it’s easy to see what’s going on. Check out the statement of faith at the J4J website:

That doesn’t use the word “Christ” or “Christianity” but I can’t believe any Jew wouldn’t recognize it as such! They also sell those “Jesus made me Kosher” T-shirts and Jewish-looking tchotchkes and even actual Judaica items such as shofars, so they are certainly exploiting the Jewish-culture aspect to make their message seem more appealing. Not positively fraudulent, as I said, but certainly rather sneaky.

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Zev,

Actually, the Talmud does name Jesus’ father. (I’ve forgotten what it was). It does not, to my recollection, say anything about rape, however.

This is one of the many parts of the Talmud that were censored by Christian authorities in medieval times. This is one of the reasons for there being so few references to Jesus in the Talmud. Most of these have been reintroduced to the more recent additions.

Incidently, the Talmud also refers to another person of the same name, who lived in a different time frame entirely.

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Part of the problem of having this discussion is that if you gathered together six Jews and asked them to explain their religion, they would probably all tell you pretty much the same thig. If you gathered together six Christians of varying denominations, they would not be able to agree, beyond the broadest of concepts, what Christianity means.

For this reason, and with all due respect to jmullaney, I think it’s facile to answer a highlighted difference between Judaism and Christianity by saying “not all Christians believe that.” Since Christians believe a wide variety of things, our Jewish friends must necessarily point to beliefs and tenets that will not be held by all of them, but are held by enough of them to serve as examples of how Judaism differs from Christianity.

That said, and knowing for the reason given above that many other Christians will disagree, I think the following are historically correct:

  1. Christians have historically believed that baptism is a necessary precursor to salvation. For much of the Church’s history, even babies who had died before baptism were considered damned – a particularly distasteful belief, IMO, but there it is. Even today, the majority of Christian denominations adhere to the belief that baptism is necessary to salvation – Catholics, all fundamentalist Christian groups, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons (who uniquely believe a person can be baptized after death, a belief firmly rejected by most other Christian groups). To my knowledge, the only large groups of Christians who do not still believe in baptism as a prerequisite to salvation are the so-called moderate Protestant denominations.

  2. Christians have historically believed in salvation through faith, not through good works. Many believe that good works are a reflection of faith, and that a person who truly walks with God will of course be a person who does good, but the necessary key to Christian salvation – that is, salvation through Christ – is faith. The NT is pretty consistent and clear that works alone are not enough.

I think both of these are beliefs inconsistent with Judaism, which does not recognize the sacrament of baptism and which exhalts obedience to the Law over belief. Lord knows I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong.

A couple more things: For the Jewish people who don’t get the Trinity, let me ask you this: do you believe you have a soul, independent of your functioning body? Do you believe you have a mind that might be part of that body but separatable for purposes of discussion? Same deal with the trinity. Except for the time when Jesus was incarnate, Christians do not believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are separate entities. They certainly do not believe they are practicing idolatry or worshipping more than one God by worshiping the Father through the auspices of His risen Son, any more than you are breaking yourself in parts by distinguishing between your body, mind, and soul. That may be the only thing every Christian would agree upon.

Obviously, I don’t expect you to agree with this, I’m just trying to explain it a little better.

Oh, and to the extent that Jews distinguish between Judaism as a religion and Judaism as a ethnicity (as Satan pointed out above), it is certainly possible to be both Jewish and Christian. For converted ethnic Jews, they cannot be otherwise, because in the eyes of Judaism, once a Jew, always a Jew. Again, I’m confident of correction if I’m wrong.