This is not a troll. I repeat: this is NOT a troll.
My girlfriend, who is not Christian, was at a party. There another person, also not a Christian, told her that Jesus was not ethnically / racially a Jew. She offered no evidence to back this up.
I am a lapsed Catholic. When my girlfriend asked me, I muttered something about Mary’s lineage being pretty well established in the Bible, and Joseph definately being of a particular house (but then, Joseph theoretically had nothing to do with it, right?)
Then I recalled a Cecil column which cited Jewish tradition that Jesus was the son of a Roman legionaire. And an old episode of “All In The Family” where Mike Stivic argues that Mary was Ethiopian.
So I ask, what is the current thinking about Jesus’ ethnic identity. Please, no flames – this is a legitimate question from a bunch of people who (obviously) just don’t know.
“The dawn of a new era is felt and not measured.” Walter Lord
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
“Rabbi”, he says " I brought my son up in the faith, taught him well, gave him the Best Bar-mhitsvah a boy could want, helped him through college, and now he tells me He wants to be a Christian, what do I do?".
The Rabbi turns to him and says “Funny you should sask that, the same thing happened to me with my son”
“what did you do?” asked the man.
“I turned to God for an answer” replied the Rabbi.
“And what answer did God give you?”
“well, I asked God, and he said 'Funny you should ask that…”
Apologies to everyone who heard that one before…
but as they say, a grain of truth is in everything said in jest.
“So what did you do” , asked the man
Ethiopian isn’t a religion. Ethiopia is a place, and therefore the designation “Ethiopian” only indicates where you’re from, not what religion you practice. Jesus was a Rabbi who preached and practiced the Jewish religion/teachings. That makes him Jewish, regardless of his nationality or parentage.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
(1) How would anybody know? The only evidence we have about Jesus is from the New Testament, and that indicates that he was a Jew (somebody correct me if I’m wrong).
(2) In the absence of any evidence to that effect, why would anybody want to suggest that he was not a Jew?
I put it no more strongly than that, but you can draw your own conclusions.
Well I’m a caucasian Jewish woman, and I’ve always contended that Jesus had to have been Black, or at least darker skinned than he’s portrayed as having had, given the region that he came from.
I don’t have time to research it now, but I remember seeing either a Time or Newsweek article many years ago that showed pictures of how Jesus was portrayed throughout the world, and oddly enough, he looked entirely different depending on the country(everything from having blonde hair and blue eyes to having dark hair and eyes with Asian features). It was really fascinating.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
I beg your pardon, but that does not make Him Jewish.
I could preach and practice the Jewish religion and teachings for the next fifty years, and I would not be Jewish. I could be the ethical Gentile “who stands as high before God as the Chief Rabbi of Israel,” but it would not make me Jewish.
Being Jewish is, as Chaim suggested, a matter of birth; if your mother is Jewish, and you have not affirmatively embraced another religion and denied your Jewishness, then you’re a Jew. It can also be a matter of “adoption into the tribe,” so to speak, if you convert to Judiasm.
This latter approach engenders no small controversy amongst the various Jewish sects, with ultra-Orthodox rabbis often unwilling to accept a even Conservative rabbi’s conversion of someone as sufficient.
Note that being Jewish does not require acceptance of any articles of belief or faith. Christians, by definition, must accept at least the divinity of Christ; we can then squabble amongst ourselves as to whether or not He intended to leave a church and sacraments to us. But Judiasm is an ethical religion, simply requiring that the mitzvoth be observed, even if you don’t believe that they came from God. And even the failure to follow any of the Commandments doesn’t make you not a Jew.
The above should not be construed to suggest that there are legions of atheistic Jews roaming the land; nothing could be farther from the truth.
Jesus was Jewish because Mary was Jewish. Plain and simple.
I think the question wasn’t about whether Jesus followed the Jewish faith, but whether he was racially a Jew- can’t the word be used both ways? My Webster’s dictionary gives the definition of “Jew” as:
a. a member of the tribe of Judah
b. ISRAELITE
a member of a nation existing in Palestine from the 6th century BC to the 1st century AD.
a person belonging to a continuation through decent or conversion of the ancient Jewish people
one whose religion is Judiasm
Anyway, a detailed genealogy is given in Matthew 1:1 to 1:17. According to this, he (and Mary) are decended from Abraham, David, and other well known Jewish big names. So he would be of the Jewish race in addition to following the Jewish religion.
Well then I’m completely lost, given that the title of the OP specifically asked, “Was Jesus Jewish?”.
If you’re not concerned with his relious affiliation, then perhaps you should have phrased your question, “What nationality was Jesus?”, or “Where did Jesus come from?”.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
Of course you are correct, and I agree with you on all of your points. However, there are 3 operative words in my statement that you overlooked.
[list=1][li]I said that Jesus was a Rabbi, not just any man teaching Judaism. Yes, anyone can teach about religion and that does not make him/her the religion he/she is teaching. However, you have to be Jewish to become a Rabbi (at least as far as I know).[/li][li]I said Jesus preached the Jewish religion, not that he “taught” it. There is a difference between preaching and teaching. From Webster’s II New Riverside University dictionary, “preachvt.1. To expound upon, esp. to urge acceptance of or obedience to.” I can ill imagine anyone preaching a religion with which they did not subscribe.[/li][li]I said that Jesus practiced the teachings of Judaism. And while you are free to make the argument that converted Jews aren’t really Jews, it is my personal belief that if one practices Judaism and calls themself a Jew, then they are Jewish.[/li][/list=1]
However, that does not negate your argument that he was Jewish by birth. He was, as he still would have been even had he not become a Rabbi who preached the Jewish religion.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
Forgive me, Rick. You did not “overlook” the words I chose, but you defined them differently. I’m in a hurry because I’m VERY late for work and I used the wrong word when describing where I parted company with you on your assertions in my above reply. Please forgive me. Gotta go now…[scurrying off]
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
Well, by the reckoning of Orthodox Jews, believing that the mitzvoth came from G-d is a mitzvah, so one must indeed believe they came from G-d in order to properly observe the Jewish religion.
Thanks for all the responses, folks! You’ve been most helpful.
My girlfriend has read the posts, and now has another question (inquisitive type that she is). At what point, historically, did the Jewish nationality / ethnic identity begin? This may be one of those questions that has no answer, the evidence being lost in the mists of time. But we’ve established (at least according to the Bible) that Jesus and Mary descended from Abraham. Was Abraham Jewish in the nationality sense?
Again, no disrespect intended. Inquiring minds want to know. Thanks!
“The dawn of a new era is felt and not measured.” Walter Lord
Assuming that you take the genealogies that far back literally, no, Abraham was not Jewish, because nobody was Jewish in that generation. He was, however, the grandfather of Jacob (also known as Israel), and all Jews are supposed to be descended from him (at least by adoption). And Jesus is supposed to be a descendant of his.
Word of warning. Those who deny that Jesus was Jewish mainly fall into two classes: Jews trying (rather ineptly) to make a point about religion, and anti-Semites. In particular, if you live in the Pacific Northwest, back away slowly, leave the room, and never go to a party with the guy again; he’s probably a neo-Nazi.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
That is a point (or at least a pilpul) worthy of a grin and a salute. You are correct, and I withdraw my commentary to the extent it was in conflict with this point.
I reserve my own opinion on the subject of what constitutes a valid Jewish conversion. However, I would humbly suggest to you that merely practicing Judaism and calling yourself a Jew is insufficient in the eyes of virtually all Jewish authorities. Something more is needed. While I grant that the “something more” may vary greatly depending on who you talk to (brief parenthetical example: the ritual nick required of even a circumcised male for conversion, and of course the circumcision required for an uncircumcised one) it’s not just practicing and self-identification.
Well, I’ll split this into two questions: the “Jewish nation/religion” and the actual term “Jew.”
Abraham was the first Hebrew, a word meaning “from beyond the (presumably Jordan) river” and the discoverer/inventor (depending on one’s view of the truth of the religion) of the principles of Jewish faith. However, not all of his descendants are Jewish.
Jacob, who was also named Israel, is the father of the Israelite nation, none of whose descendants were not members of the Israelite (now called Jewish, as will be explained below) nation/religion. However, at the time of his death, his descendants could hardly be considered to constitute a nation. However, they were definitely a distinct clan.
The Israelites were not considered a nation until they were freed from Egypt and had the Torah revealed to them at Mount Sinai. It was also at that point that the Jewish religion, with its many practices, came to be.
About five centuries after that, under King Rehoboam, the Israelites split into two kingdoms, the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah/Judea. When the Babylonians conquered Israel and Judah, the members of the kingdom of Israel were conquered first and ceased to exist as a distinct people. It was several years later that the kingdom of Judah was conquered, and its people remained distinct. The word Judaism was applied to the religion that the people of Judah worshipped.
