The Role Of Jesus In Judaism.

Factual Questions
1

After a quick search for the answer, in previous posts, I believe it is safe to post this question. I am a Recovering Catholic, just so you know the basis for my (lack of) knowledge. The questions are at the end, but please feel free to correct me along the way.

My understanding of Judaism is that they recognize the existance of Jesus, perhaps by a different name, but not as the Savior/Son Of God that Christianity claims that he is.

What is the closest term that Judaism refers to Jesus as? Prophet? Heretic?

Does Jesus appear under a different name in the mainstream Jewish texts?

If Judaism doesn’t recognize Jesus as the Son Of God, what is the basis for that decision?

And, most importantly, what is the basis that Christianity claims that Jesus is the Son Of God?

I know that the answers to these questions are probably blantantly obvious to the educated. But, this seems like such a simple concept, that it is just assumed that everone knows the answer, therefore, it is not covered in Bible Class.

I don’t remember this last point ever being documented in the Bible. Actually, to the contrary, one of the texts describing Jesus at the time of his crucifixion quotes Jesus as saying, “Why have you forsaken me, my Lord?” Forsaken? Whoops! Talk about being a day late and a dollar short.

I assume that one of the answers to the last set of questions is that this is just taken for granted as a given, that Jesus is the Son Of God. The second most likely answer to these questions is that this is a result of ingrained tradition.

2

  1. Jesus is just, like, this guy, you know? Jews don’t really consider him anything.

  2. Jesus doesn’t appear in any “mainstream” Jewish texts like the Torah or other parts of the old testament, though he might be mentioned in the Talmud. I don’t think he is referred to as any other name.

  3. Judaism requires that the Messiah fulfill certain requirements, which Jesus never did. I’m not too familiar with the specific requirements, though.

  4. Jesus said he was the son of God, so he is. According to people who believe him.

3

To give you a quick answer:

Yesu ben Yosef (Yesu, son of Joseph) is of no more religious significance to Judaism than most of the other rabbis of that period – slight to none.

Jewish texts don’t mention Reb Yesu at all in a religious context. We don’t consider him as divine because we don’t consider any Human to be divine.

My take on your question about Christianity’s claim is that that’s the definition of mainstream Christianity belief.

4

You’ll find this link informative:

http://www.jewfaq.org/moshiach.htm

It is important to note that Jews and Christians have a quite different take on the idea of “messiah.” So much so that many Jews choose not to use the word “messiah” at all preferring the term “moshiach” or “annointed one.”

To friedo’s point #3, from the site above:
“The moshiach will bring about the political and spiritual redemption of the Jewish people by bringing us back to Israel and restoring Jerusalem (Isaiah 11:11-12; Jeremiah 23:8; 30:3; Hosea 3:4-5). He will establish a government in Israel that will be the center of all world government, both for Jews and gentiles (Isaiah 2:2-4; 11:10; 42:1). He will rebuild the Temple and re-establish its worship (Jeremiah 33:18). He will restore the religious court system of Israel and establish Jewish law as the law of the land (Jeremiah 33:15).”

Notice from the list above how incredibly unlikely it is that Jesus was the moshiach… he was not a political leader… he did not rebuild the Temple… he did not do anything to re-establish Jewish law (quite the contrary, some would say).

5

According to a column by Uncle Cecil which is included in More of the Straight Dope, Did Jesus really exist? And what’s with the Shroud of Turin?:

6

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Well, I’ll agree that it is certainly probable that Jesus existed. But in no way do Jews recognize him as a Savior, messiah or son of God.

**

Prophet? Definitely no. Heretic? Maybe. More likely a Jew who was uneducated in Jewish law. In a number of places Jesus showed that he was mistaken about Jewish law.

**

Well, for starters, according to basic theology, God cannot have “children.” Anyone claiming to be a son of God is making an impossible claim.

The claim to messiahship is likewise flawed. The messiah will be a descendant of David. If Jesus is the son of God, then he can’t be from the Davidic line. (And, before the issue is brought up, we are referring to male-line descendants only. Maternal geneaology is never considered for these purposes.) There are other reasons to reject the messiahship of Jesus, but that’s just one.

Zev Steinhardt

7

One more point added:

There is a figure in the Talmud that many like to point to and say that it is referring to Jesus, such as the one whitetho mentioned. However, there are many problems with identifiying them as the Jesus that we all know.

For example, there is a quote in Sanhedrin about a man who was excecuted for sorcery. Some people point to this a reference to Jesus. However, none of the details of that story fit the details of the Jesus story. For example, that man had five disciples, not twelve. He was excecuted by a Jewish court, not the Romans. And last (but not least) he was a disicple of a Talmudic sage who lived 150 years or so before Jesus is said to have lived. That being so, I find it extremely difficult to identify this person with Jesus. The other Talmudic quotes about him are similarly fraught with difficulties.

The bottom line is that Jesus didn’t really matter one way or the other internally in the Jewish religion. His name is (aside from a few possible, but doubtful references) absent from any classic Rabbinic literature that has survived to this day.

Zev Steinhardt

8

There’s a review of the book American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, by Stephen Prothero in the upcoming Dec. 28 issue of The New York Times Book Review. (I subscribe, which gets me the issues before they appear in the paper or - evidently - on the website.)

The review by Michael Massing has this to say:

I don’t know how much these ideas have filtered down to the various Jewish communities, however. My understanding is that of the others, who all correctly assert that Jesus is a non-issue or even a non-person (given the lack of contemporary references outside the Bible) in today’s Jewish teachings.

9

Zev:

Is it possible to determine who is and who is not of the line of David? Just thinking of the eventual Jewish messiah. How will anyone actually know if he is of that line?

10

“Son of God” was a problematic phrase by the end of the 4th century. In Hebrew and Aramaic “bene elohim” was (and is) a common idiom that can be translated as ‘son of God(s)’ or ‘son of (the) Lord(s)’ in both the sociopolitical and religious sense of “lord”.

“Bene elohim” actually means “high-minded”, “noble” etc. The opposite of “bene elohim” is “bene adam” (son of man) or “a common man”. Most people think ‘Adam’ in Genesis was a proper name. It wasn’t. It simply meant (a/the) “man”.

Christianity left the Middle East soon after Christ. Most of its early theology was conducted in Greek (the language of he New Testament) and other languages by people who knew no Hebrew. When it returned to the Holy Land, it found to its embarrassment that many of it’s “strong” proofs were treated as tissue paper fantasies by people who spoke the original (or related) languages.

This led to a great many changes. The Church held many meetings on translation and created ‘official versions’ that differed from all versions used before. It threw out entire books that had once been considered canonical, but were now inconvenient. It quietly added capitalization (not present in the original) throughout so that later readers would think some nouns, pronouns or articles ‘obviously’ meant God, Jesus, etc. (even in verses that had not always been interpreted that way in the past) while the exact same phrases and words were left uncapitalized, or translated as different words, siometimes in the very same verse. It also added key words (e.g. any good annotated Bible will tell you that the ‘begotten’ of John 3:16’s “only begotten Son” is not found in any original text - yet this is called the most widely quoted verse in Christianity). In fact, I can’t even scratch the surface of the many ways it messed with the text.

I’m not taking any stance on Jesus’ status. I’m just noting that the Church felt, early on, that their case was weak enough to require messing with “holy gospel” to shore it up. It may just be that the Church was guilty of lack of faith or apple-polishing.

11

Christians like to “quote” from a line in Isaiah (don’t remember the number of the verse) that the Messiah shall be a scion of David and born of a virgin, and named Immanuel, which, Christians say, is Jesus in English. In actuality, Isaiah says (in Hebrew) that the Messiah shall be born by a young woman, not a virgin. The lines translated by Christian bibles say: “The virgin shall be with child and give birth to a son, and they shall call him Emmanuel.” However, the original text did not say “virgin.”

Isaiah foretold the nature and virtues of the Messiah, the just king (and also just a king, not a God) who was to rule in the golden age of peace and unity. He was to come from the stock of David and would manifest the virtues that had marked the great kings and patriarchs: the intellect of Solomon, the courage and integrity of David, and the perseverance and dedication of Moses, Jacob, and Abraham.

Jesus never said that he was the son of God. His followers or the Gospels may have had him say it, but nothing was written about his existence until at least 20 years after his death. He died in 30 CE and Paul (nee Saul) was the first to write of him, in 50-52 CE. Paul considered himself, as others who followed Jesus, as Jews, but a sect that believed Jesus was the Messiah. It was not until the first Gospel, written by Matthew, that this Jewish sect was delineated as an entirely new religion. And that was written about 50 years after Jesus’ death.

It must also be remembered that crucifixion was the method the Romans used to put people to death in those days. Jesus was not the only Jew to be so put to death.

12

One thing to add. My knowledge is limited, but it is certainly possible that some of the more recent Conservative and Reform movements of Judaism take a line from Jesus’s teachings. Not that they would ever admit it. There is IM very very HO more focus on a merciful and forgiving God in Reform and Conservative Judaism than there is in the more Orthodox branches, which at least in my shul when I was growing up only talked about the Mosaic God and often pretty violent actions. I also think that the concepts of salvation and eternal life through religion are more prevalent in Conservative or Reform versus Orthodox teachings. I certainly was never exposed to those concepts growing up in an Orthodox shul, except in a hazy kind of way. It was never emphasized that I would go to hell if I didn’t fast on Yom Kippur. More like, if you didn’t repent, you would die in the next year.

Orthodox branches often accuse the others of being assimilationist and taking cues from Christian rituals and teachings. These go from the quite minor – organ music with services and lack of yarmulkes – to the more major, like egalitarianism and not following laws of Shabbat and kashrut. While these may not come directly from Jesus’s teachings, it is certainly possible that the Protestant spirit of “Do Yer Own Thing” prevalent in American churches rubbed off on Conservative and Reform synagogues, who take steps to make their worship and practice more immediately accessible, understandable (i.e. prayers in English), and liveable than the more Orthodox branches. Much of my Hebrew School training went to the specific practices and laws of Judaism, because from an Orthodox mentality, that is very important. Orthodox Judaism is a way of life, a set of laws which if followed will let you live righteously. For instance, one is nearly constantly praying – from waking up to washing hands to eating to going to the bathroom to going to sleep, and thus aware of the laws. From my experiences in Conservative and Reform communities, Judaism is treated much more like the Christian concept of a religion – it is a set of guidelines and mandatory religious rites once or twice a week that keep you in a community and lead you to an eternal life.

13

Then how can you come to the conclusion that he never said it? His followers who handed down the tradition that was written down in the gospels said he did say it. If you’re going to toss out the Gospels because they were written later, you have no source from which to say Jesus did or didn’t say anything specifically.

The first canonical gospel written down is Mark, not Matthew – Matthew apparently used Mark as a source. Matthew and Luke also shared another common, older source as well. Some scholars may suggest that Matthew was written in the 80’s, but the common view is that it was written much earlier, based on sources that dated back to the first decades after Jesus’ death.

Who said he was?

I also have problems with KP’s characature of the early church playing fast and loose with the early canonical writings. You got a cite for that? I know that we have hundreds (thousands?) of the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament books, with no indications of significant fiddling with the text by the church. Certainly not as late as the 3rd century.

14

I’d be interested in follow-up to this, if this isn’t straying to far off topic or into GD. I’m familiar with some of the issues about Jesus not fulfilling the requirements for the messiah, but this is the first I’ve come across the claim that Jesus was mistaken about Jewish law (as opposed to reinterpreting).

15

Instead of pointing at “all those sources”, you might want to try actually reading them. The first thing you’ll learn is that we DON’T " have hundreds (thousands?) of the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament books".

If you want a cite, I refer you to the translators footnotes and forenotes of the First Edition King James Version, or for that matter, the footnotes and forenotes of any modern annotated Bible, or any book written for Biblical translators or about about the process.

The versions that have “changed very little” are the original language versions, but The Church doesn’t use the Greek for its members, does it? [and changes to even the Greek are well known] The example I gave (John 3:16) is footnoted in most Bbles

Go to any site with the original language texts. If you need Greek and Hebrew fonts Olivetree.com had clear instructions and links to related sites for setting your computer up to integrate with their searchable Bibles. Though they don’t have the oldest texts [e.g. the Qumrum OT texts] on line, they do have the Biblia Hebraica (OT) and 1550 Textus Receptus (NT). Check out a copy of the full Strong’s Concordance, with translation dictionary and ancient language indexes, and use them.

Check for capitalization in the oldest Hebrew and Greek versions, and tell me I lied. Search for “bene elohim” on the Old Testament. Compare the original wording of, say Job 1:6 [Satan was among the ‘bene elohim’] with whatever version you typically read, which probably says something like “The Sons of God came before the Lord, and Satan came too”. Read the works of modern scriptural analysts. (Elaine Pagels is pretty easy to start with.) You can confirm anything she says agains the Catholic Encyclopedia online.

Check the Like’s version of the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 7:2-4) against Matthew’s [Matt. 6:9-13] in the original, and then again in whatever version you are using now. Are there changes and additions in your version?

Read about the hundreds of changes made by Origen [c. 185-254] and their rationales. See if these are reflected in your Bible. He’s just one of the early revisionists, and far from the most extreme but he was a prolific commentator, and his works are widely available.

That’s just off the top of my head - eclectic, and influenced by conversations I’ve had recently. Still, it should get you started.

What I said isn’t a secret or personal opinion; it’s widely known. I first encountered it in an introductory class at a theology school.

16

We have 4-5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, according to every reference I’ve found online about NT manuscripts, including the websites that are critical of the NT. It is the single most attested piece of ancient literature in history.

I had a point-by-point response to the rest of your post written, but I don’t want to hijack this thread anymore in this direction. In response to the question that was asked, Christians believe that Jesus was the Son of God because he claimed to be, according to the testimony of his followers as recorded in the New Testament.

In Jewish eyes, that probably makes him more of a heretic than a prophet. At the least, it makes him guilty of blasphemy (which was the charge against him).

17

Not wanting to continue the hijack, but I just wanted to point out that, shockingly, the Greek Orthodox Church uses the Greek text of the Bible.

18

Getting back to the OP, I have seen claims that the Talmud (Gittin 57a) has Yeshu (Jesus) boiling in excrement for eternity. I have also seen counter-claims that this passage is not really about Jesus. I have close to zero knowledge about the Talmud. Does anyone know what a reliable interpretation of this passage would be? Also, the Talmud has several attacks on a character called “Balaam”, which is often interpreted to be a code name for Jesus. I think Uncle Cecil’s column linked to above assumes this. Does anyone know how reliable this interpretation is?

19

Wow. Excellent information everyone. Very informative.

I, like John Mace, am also interested in learning more about the bloodline of David. Is this something that has been documented through the ages? How odd it would be, I think of myself, to go to work every morning and log onto my computer and drink my coffee, knowing that I was the heir to a holy throne simply by my bloodline.

20

**

Please see my earlier post about Jesus “quotes” in the Talmud and the difficulty of identifying the subject of those quotes with the Jesus identified in the Gospels.

This is one of the most bizzare claims I’ve ever seen. In Sanhedrin, the Talmud makes disparaging remaks about Balaam. Balaam was a real character from the Numbers who tried to curse the Jews (God wouldn’t let him) and did succeed in causing the Jews to sin (with the incident ending with 24,000 Jewish deaths). The statements about Balaam are backed up with verses from Numbers.

People who like to attack the Talmud often pull out quotes such as this:

The problem with this is that it was the antisemites themselves who put the “(Jesus)” in; it’s nowhere in the original Aramaic. Furthermore, Rashi’s commentary (Rashi is the leading Talmudic commentary – his commentary is published with every edition of the Talmud) specifically states that this referrs to the biblical Balaam.

Zev Steinhardt