Would Jesus have been allowed inside the Temple if he was anything other than an ethnic Jew? I was taught that they were pretty strict about who was let in. For that matter, wasn’t the argument that Jesus was black advanced largely by guys like Malcolm X and Louis Farrakan (some of the biggest anti-semites around).
–It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
Chaim, I don’t want to split hairs or cast aspersions on your first response to the OP, but, IIRC, the maternal lineage proving a person’s Jewishness was not extant in Biblical times. I could be wrong, however, and if anyone has evidence to the contrary, I humbly bow to their superior knowledge.
The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 2, verse 39, states that Joseph and Mary “had done everything required by the Law of the Lord…”, presumably a bris and any other temple rituals necessary for a child. Elsewhere in the Gospels, it is made clear that Jesus himself was intimately familiar with Jewish Law and observances. The world being what it was (and is), it seems unlikely that someone on the fringes of a religion would know so much about the practice of same.
Take into account the lineages that are listed in Matthew and Luke also. At least the writers took great pains to prove that Jesus was Jewish.
The Dave-Guy
“since my daughter’s only half-Jewish, can she go in up to her knees?” J.H. Marx
Not just a bris, but a pidyon haben, the presentation to the Lord of the firstborn male child. (Sorry if my spelling attempt is off; I can pronounce easier than I can spell).
Nope. I was an hour late - Yikes! I claimed car trouble [hanging my head in shame].
In the interest of brevity, I didn’t include that “more” was required of a “converted” Jew, simply because I wasn’t making the argument that Jesus was converted. You are, of course, correct that there is more to conversion than simply practicing and referring to oneself as Jewish.
I know people sometimes get “spanked” for repeating topics of discussion that have been had here in the past, but the subject of what makes a Jew a Jew has always been of enormous interest to me. I’m wondering if it’s been talked about here in another thread I might be able to visit (the lame-o search engine doesn’t work properly). If not, or if it’s been a while and a new topic wouldn’t be frowned upon, I’d like to start a new posting regarding that. I’d have to do it later tonight though, as I’d like to take some time in gathering and composing my thoughts.
Oh, and Beruang, apology accepted (but not really necessary).
Shalom,
Shayna
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
Quite a topic for my first post.
Anyway, this is something I feel pretty strongly about. I was born and raised Jewish, but I am not a Jew. My mother, who is officially Jewish, doesn’t practice or even believe in what Jews are supposed to believe in. Yet she considers herself a Jew. In her eyes (and many others’), it’s more of a social club than a religion, and she gives it extra value due to all the suffering of Jews over time - to paraphrase her repeated inane statement - “If they’ve survived all that, they must be the chosen people.” Why am I bringing this up? Because I think it speaks to the meaninglessness of the label, just like any other label.
But there’s a more basic issue. I firmly believe that its not possible for someone to tell me or anyone else what religion they are. How can someone else decide that Mr. Smith is not a Jew if he believes in and strictly (religiously, in the true sense of the word) follows the Old Testament. Do the “religious authorities” own the word? Is “Jewish” or “Christain” or whatever else a trademark to be owned in such a way?
I think that two additional arguments support my point, although I’m confident that most people won’t be swayed by any statements on this topic. First, Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t think that other Christians are really Christians, I believe. So are they or aren’t they? Who has the right to say, who takes precedence? Doesn’t it have to be subjective if two Christians (followers of the teachings of Jesus Christ) define it differently? And if Mr. Greenberg truly believes in Jesus and follows his teachings, wouldn’t Jesus himself consider him more of a Christian than, say, a thief and spouse-beater who is “officially” Christian?
The last argument - look at it from the other direction. I don’t believe in Jewish beliefs, never practice, and consider myself to follow a more personal religious path. But my mother is a Jew. So does that give someone the right to call me a Jew? Of course it does - they can call me anything they want - but it has no meaning whatsoever. What if I start a religion called Winterism, and declare that everyone with the last name “Frost” is a member - does that make them members? Strangely enough, it does if you are one who believes that the authorities of the religion have this true Labeling power.
Remember - this is my first post - be gentile with me.
Welcome aboard, thas. You make a very strong argument, and I enjoyed reading your views. I do have one question though…
Was this a Freudian slip, perhaps? 
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
The Dave-Guy spake:
Interesting that the matrilineal/patrilineal descent question comes up today. In the weekly Talmud class I attend, our Rabbi mentioned that the rule of matrilineal descent was enacted by Ezra (6th century BCE), so the rule was around by Jesus’ time. It seems clear from the Torah (Pentateuch) that membership in the community of Israel was patrilineal at the time of Moses (Tzippora was a Midianite, for example).
Disclaimer: I affiliate with the Conservative movement, so this may not accord with the Orthodox view of the matter. Although I agree with my Orthodox coreligionists that Jewish law is binding, we probably differ on beliefs about the source of that law.
Rick
Thas,
I think the traditional view of the matter is that whether or not you are a Jew has little to do with whether you practice the Jewish religion. It’s essentially a citizenship question. If you’re born in the US, you are entitled to be a US citizen automatically, without naturalization. Similarly, if you are born of a Jewish mother, you are a Jew (that is, a citizen of the tribe/nation of Israel) and may “return” to the Jewish religious community without conversion.
And, since the privileges/rights of Jews are essentially community based (counting for a minyan, religious life cycle events, etc.), certainly the Jewish community has a right to set criteria defining who is/is not a Jew.
Rick
John W. Kennedy –
I believe the people involved in the discussion at the party fell into a third category: Muslims, who follow a different (though related) set of beliefs, trying to parse out exactly who falls where in the Abrahamic world.
“The dawn of a new era is felt and not measured.” Walter Lord
Q.e.d.
Also…
He went into his father’s business.
He lived at home until the age of 33.
He was sure his mother was a virgin.
His mother thought he was God.
Peace.
Just to be a big dork, I’m going to point out that a. there are plenty of Ethiopian Jews. Most of them live in Israel now, and b. the Reform movement allows Jews to be traced patrilineally (I claim patrilineal descent, BTW). The “who is a Jew” thing is a huge argument - one of the biggest going on in world Jewry today, and it won’t be resolved in this thread.
~Kyla
“Anger is what makes America great.”
From what I understand, Abraham was the father of Islam, Christianity and Judaism Therefore if Jesus’ ancestry included Abraham that should answer the question.
Congratulations! This is the beat thread with the least garbage I have read since I started reading this message board.
:::applause:::
Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&* codes 'til I get 'em right.
DAVEW0071:
Even those who dispute the age and authenticity of the Bible will concede that the matrilineal descent rule was well-known in the time of the Rabbis of the Mishnah/Talmud, which is the era in which JC lived.
Thas:
In Orthodox Judaism, the “religious labeling” means what the Torah believes it is a person’s responsibility to follow. According to the Orthodox Jewish understanding of the Torah, anyone who is Jewish by its definition is obligated to obey all 613 Biblical commandments, and anyone who is not Jewish by its definition is obligated only to obey the 7 Noahide commandments.
RickG:
According to the tradition maintained by the Orthodox Jews, Tzipporah had converted to Judaism. The Biblical source for matrilineal determination is the story in Leviticus about the blasphemer. He was the son of a Jewish woman and an Egyptian man, and he is referred to as the “son of the Israelite woman,” with his Egyptian father mentioned only in passing. Thus, the Rabbis derive that when the parents are of different religions, it is the mother who is the primary parent for this purpose.
Chaim Mattis Keller
Thas:
This is a good point.
I would suggest to you that words have to have a common meaning. If I told you I was a CEO, for example, it would be disingenuous, at best, for me to later clarify that by saying, “Oh, I meant the chief executive officer of my household. It’s just me and the cat, I know, but I’m clearly the one in charge.***** My job is retail store clerk.”
Now, with that said, I absolutely admit there are many different - and reasonble - takes on what it means to be a Jew, starting with the general positions taken by the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements, and the splinter groups thereof, and who knows what else. And you may argue passionately for the correctness of any of those views.
Where I think you may go a bit astray, though, is in the suggestion that your personal definition has equal probative value. I would suggest that, much like my CEO example, it’s not sufficient to say, “I am Jewish,” while thinking, “…by my definition.” If your definition differs materially from that which is commonly understood, at the very least it’s incumbent upon you to clarify what you mean.
-RMJesus was a Nazarene, not a Judean. He was of the House of David, whose people were fair of complexion. (See Song of Songs, and other references). Jewish is a fairly new word. There was no J in the Hebrew alphabet, nor the Aramic, nor the Greek, nor the Roman. The first time it appeared in the Bible was in the German translation, where it is pronounced as a Y, Ja?
So how could He be Jewish?
Discriminating people discriminate
:::sigh:::
For anyone who wants to know where Captain Ed is coming from, try linking to this site. (It’s better on an empty stomach.)
Captain Ed, we had a discussion on Nazarene a couple of weeks ago. I’m pretty sure that it was on the General Questions Forum so you can still scroll down to see it.
Points:
The “J” in many words coming from Judea (including the first letter of the name “Jesus”) came from German texts into English. So what? The Romans and the Greeks used the letter “I” (or iota) to transliterate the Hebrew yodh when it was the initial sound of a word? Again, so what?
Nazarene means “native of Nazareth” although there is some discussion on the remote possibility of that it was a corruption of Nazirite as applied to the early followers of Jesus.
Linking a poetic description of a person as “fair” as a direct prophecy of a different person and then claiming that the adjective indicates a physical attribute that separates Jesus from his Jewish neighbors is incredibly tortured logic.
Benjamin Freedman’s disgusting anti-Jewish polemic is so tortured and convoluted that it would be laughable if I didn’t keep running into people who believe it.
Using his logic, there were no ancient Greeks. (For that matter, there are no modern Greeks.) We have no gamma in English, so we can’t really be talking about a real group, can we? Oh, wait! The Greeks don’t even have a word “Greece” do they? Obviously another conspriatorial plot.
(For those who aren’t familiar with the Greek byplay, the Greek word for Greece would be transliterated to English as hellas. “Greek” is a name imposed by outsiders, just as we call the Deutsch Germans and the French refer to Allemagnards.)
Tom~
Oh, at the melvig site, look for Facts are Facts - the Truth About Khazars by Benjamin Freedman that links you to
http://www.melvig.org/facts.html .
(I also missed the note that the Germans took the Latin “I” and turned it into “J” for initial sounds, hence Jesus from Iesous (in Greek) and Jew from German Juden from Latin Iudaeus from Greek Iudaios–a person from Judaea.)
Freedman is not only hateful, he’s stupid–but he has a lot of followers.
Tom~
I think there is an aspect to this discussion that may not have been covered here so far - the difference between objective and subjective terms and concepts. Specifically, if I have a cube in front of me, and everyone knows its a cube, it’s meaningless for me to call it a pyramid, or a name I made up - its an objective term. But if I have a piece of art in front of me, then there are both objective and subjective statements about it - we all may agree that it is 24x36 inches, but if I say it’s beautiful or disgusting, that’s obviously my own opinion.
So my question is - is one’s religion objective or subjective. I believe that it is a subjective thing, and this may be the crux of any argument on this issue. If one believes it is an objective thing, then it can be a fixed and assigned term. But how can it be objective when different sects (whether of Judaism, Christianity, or any other religion) can’t even agree on the definition? But I can see the argument the other way on this issue - if all organized Jewish sects believe in this particular rule, then it is an objective one. Personally, I don’t buy that argument - but that’s back to the subjective thing again.
I guess that I think of a religion, at its core, as a collection of beliefs (and sometimes laws, requirements, etc…) - a personal and subjective thing that has no physical form or representation. I give no person or organization the right to declare me a member of, or not a member of a religion. They certainly have the right to exclude me from their particular sect - if someone decides to be Roman Catholic, the Pope could come and say “no you aren’t,” and that would be that. But the Pope would have, in my opinion, no right to say “you are not a Christian,” if that person faithfully followed the teachings of Jesus and considered themselves a Christian. The organization can own and assign it’s name, but does not own the religion.
But, of course, this is all just my opinion. The Pope may disagree, and I encourage him to respond.
Tom, you are usually 100% correct, but when you said above
I’m sure you meant “the French refere to Allemands.”