The jewish community doesn’t recognize jews for jesus as jewish. Do christians see them as either jewish or christian?
I have a friend (whom my mother always referred to as “Jeff the Jew”) that became heavily involved in Jews for Jesus, and I defintely think of him as a Christian.
Since J4J consists of christians, at least by the normative definition thereof, at least some christians see J4J as being both jewish and christian.
I suspect many other christians do likewise, as at least some of them tend to see jews as “protochristians” and themselves as “jews in a later stage of spiritual development”.
There are zillions of christians, extremely varied in their perceptions of things, so you aren’t going to get a solitary unified answer about what all of them believe about J4J. I suspect you wouldn’t find it hard to come up with more than a few who’ve never heard of that group.
Does the pope have a view of them?
I have always heard them in terms of being Jews but getting on the right track and being allies at the moment.
This isn’t really correct. The Jewish Community doesn’t recognize Jews for Jesus as a Jewish organization. The Jewish Community does recognize members of Jews for Jesus as Jewish people if they were born of a Jewish mother.
The RCC has actually been somewhat critical of the movement. Bear in mind that the movement is not Jewish in origin but was started by evangelical Christians as a strategy for proselytizing Jews. The RCC has crititicized the J4Js because the Church takes a position that Jews are already saved within their own covenant and should not be targeted for conversion.
Jews For Jesus is the informal name for Messianic Jews.
According to Wikipedia:
"Messianic Judaism is a religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth that claims at least 47,000 followers and 280 congregations worldwide as of 2006.[1] [2] Like Christians and unlike Jews, adherents of Messianic Judaism believe Jesus to be the Messiah. While Messianic Judaism does not identify itself as a branch of Christianity but rather as a branch of Judaism, [3] this classification is rejected by all major Jewish denominations (Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism, and Reconstructionist Judaism), as well as national Jewish organizations, [4] the State of Israel [5] and others. "
I corresponded for a time with a girl in England who became a Messianic Jew. She was a longtime evangelical Christian with no regard for her mother’s Jewish background (dad was a nonpracticing Anglican); however, when she began studying Judaism, she felt she had to embrace both to become, as she put it, “spiritually complete”. She felt the Messianic movement combined the best of both worlds.
Another friend from college – also then evangelical – dabbled in the Messianic movement upon the advice of a non-Christian friend (not me) who felt it’d expand her narrow spiritual views. My friend didn’t stick with it, but learned a lot from it.
This uses two different definitions for “Jew.” It’s true that its members may are recognized as ethnic Jews but no mainstream Jewish group recognizes them as practicing the Jewish religion.
Messianic Jews are also not recognized by Israel and are not allowed to exercise the right of return.
Messianic Judiasm contains a lot more groups than just J4J’s but none of them have anything to do with religious Judaism. All anyone is going to learn from Messianic Judaism is evangelical Christianity and a few Hebrew words.
Not exactly. Messianic Judaism is an umbrella term for a loose collection of groups who may or may not have begun among either Jews or Christians and who attempt to synthesize the two traditions. Each group may or may not be “more” Jewish or “more” Christian, (although any group that accepts Jesus as Messiah or accepts the Trinity is pretty thoroughly outside Judaism).
Jews for Jesus is a very specific group under that broad umbrella that was founded and financed by various Baptist groups explicitly to proselytize young Jews to become Christian.
Now, what I’d think would be far more interesting, theologically, would be an org of Jews who think the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth should be part of the canon of Jewish spiritual wisdom, but who do not consider him to be God (at least not in any sense outside of Psalms 82). A home for people impressed with the teachings of Jesus but who don’t want any part of the trinity, resurrection, etc, of christianity.
From what I know, anyone who believes Jesus is the messiah is a christian. They may also be ethnically Jewish. People who practice the Jewish religion may be Jewish or any ethnicity.
I was unaware of this. For my own education, can you please point me to some places where I can read more? I’m especially surprised about the last bit about jews being saved within their own covenant. I have never heard this and have been to a catholic high-school where (moderately advanced but definitely not university level) catechism was taught right up to grade 11. The only source of salvation to which I have ever heard any one refer has always been Jesus.
Does j4j recognize themselves as a jewish organazation?
As a slight variation, I was taught (in Evangelical churches,) that Jews were in a state of grace under the ‘Old covenant’ of Abraham and moses, pretty much if they lived before the time that Jesus died on the cross and established the new covenant.
At that point, (so they said) the old covenant was no longer applicable and Jews who didn’t recognize Christ as the Messiah and convert were not saved.
No cites or further information, sorry.
If this is the case, then Catholic missionaries should be just as happy to convert people to Judaism as to Catholicism. But for some reason every Catholic missionary I’ve met has tried to convert me to Catholicism without even mentioning Judaism as an equally acceptable alternative.
Well, speaking quite broadly, the teachings of Jesus ARE part of Jewish spiritual wisdom, in the sense that (while alive) he didn’t say anything new and he didn’t say anything contrary to traditional Judaism. In fact, he held to a stricter standard of Torah observation that does traditional Judaism (“It’s not enough to avoid commiting adultery, you shouldn’t even THINK about committing adultery.”)
One has to draw a line between what Jesus preached while alive, and what Paul preached. Paul is the one who heard Jesus preach after the crucifixion, and who overturned Torah teaching. So, Jews would not accept Paul’s preachings (that ritual and observance don’t matter) but would agree pretty much with Jesus’ preachings.
Sounds good to me. I want nothing to do with Paul or anything he added to christianity.
The Nostra Aetate kind of started this line of thought and John Paul II made it more explicit.