It seems to me that this thread has followed a torturous course, going from:
Who are the Jews for Jesus?
to
Why couldn’t a group of Jews, hypothetically, believe that the Messiah happened to be Jesus?
to
Jews for Jesus are really thinly disguised Christians, dammit!
and
Jesus wasn’t the Messiah, dammit!
It seems to me that the interesting bit, question #2, is being obscured by the latter two questions. If I might ask a few things of CMK and Zev:
A.) Do you believe that Mormons are Christians?
B.) Do you believe that Lubavitchers are Jewish?
C.) Is someone invalidated from being Jewish because their interpretation of doctrine differs, even differs greatly, from your own? For example, is it appropriate for orthodox rabbis to declare that reform Jews aren’t really Jewish?
Let me make clear what I am not arguing here. I am not arguing that Jesus was the Messiah. I am not arguing that J4J’s are really Jewish. I am merely asking some questions about your statements about who is and is not really Jewish, because they appear to be inconsistent. In effect, there seems to be a rule that says:
“If you believe in Jmph the Chrmph you’re NOT JEWISH!”
“But…”
“No!”
“But what if I don’t believe he’s the Son of-”
“You’re still a Christian!”
“But I don’t believe in substitutive-”
“No! Maimonides says that if the J-man is involved, you’re not Jewish! Just forget about it!”
Most Lubavitcher’s don’t believe that the Rebbe is Moshiach. Even those that still hold that belief are still Jewish, but, IMHO, they are skirting the edges of being outside mainstream Orthodox Judaism.
**
That’s not what was said. No one said that Reform Jews are not Jewish. What was said was that Reform Judaism (as a concept) is not Jewish, in the sense that it advocates doing away with laws and traditions that have defined Judaism for thousands of years.
An appropriate analogy would be to say that an American who works to promote Communism can be said to be acting “Un-American,” even though he, himself, is still an American.
(N.B. Conversions performed by Reform Rabbis are not recognized by Orthodox Rabbis, but Reform Jews who are born Jewish are just as Jewish as I am.)
You raise an interesting point, Ben, and I’ll grant you that there is a difference here.
If you believe in a false messiah (whether he be Jesus, Shabbatai Zvi or anyone else) you are seriously outside the accepted norm of Judaism. If, however, you believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for your sins, etc., then you are completely out of the ballpark. Then you’re a Christian.
In the case at hand (J4J), they aren’t presenting a Jesus-as-a-man-messiah. They are presenting him as a Son of God, died-for-your-sins Messiah. That, in effect, makes you a Christian.
Except that (most) Christians do not believe Jesus is dead, what with the resurrection and all that. Jesus just ascended into heaven, where he’s biding his time until he shows up and takes care of all that “Left Behind” stuff. In short, he’s not dead – he’s on vacation.