*Originally posted by godzillatemple *
As was stated early on in this thread, one of the defining parts of the Jewish faith is a firm belief in the coming of the Messiah. This assumes that the Messiah will, in fact, come some day, and it would be paradoxical to say that faithful Jew must always await the Messiah but never accept him when he arrives.
Jesus was Jewish, as were all his original disciples. Christianity was, in fact, originally nothing more than a sect of Judaism. You had, among other groups at the time, the Sadducees (who accepted only the written Mosaic law), the Pharisees (who emphasized strict interpretation and observance of the Mosaic law in both its oral and written form), and the “Christians” (who believed that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah).
The moment a faithful Jew believes that the long awaited Messiah has come, he does not suddenly cease being Jewish. He may be misguided, but he is still Jewish. And there is nothing intrinsically wrong that I can see with a person professing to be both a faithful Jew and a good Christian, if, in fact, he believes that Christ was the promised Messiah and not simply “the Son of God.”
Of course, having been born Jewish and raised Mormon, I might be a bit biased in my views here…
Barry **
If he believes that Christ is the Messiah and the Son of God then he has a non-Jewish definition for the Messiah. In Jewish doctrine the Messiah cannot die without fulfilling certain prophesies and (more importantly) cannot be worshipped as God.