Just curious. As a Chrstian, I would suppose that most of the NT writings would be heretical to an orthodox Jew. But, that said, many of the gospel parables seem (to me) quite similar in spirit, to the writings of some of the 1st cenrury rabbis (like Hillel ).
Apart from the obvios break with Judaism, what is currnt jewish opinion about the NT?
Well, frankly, it depends on who you ask and whom you’re asking about. There is not a single opinion amongst Jewish bible scholars on anything, let alone on the New Testament. (OK, OK, they probably agree that the sun comes up in the east, but that’s about it.)
I think the general feeling would be that the New Testament is a collection of works written from about 50 AD to about 150 AD (give or take.) As such, it can shed light on life in Judea at the time, and so has value as an insight into Jewish history. Some of the opinions expressed (parables and teachings) represent some of the schools of thought at that time (Essenes and Pharisees, for instance) and so give insight into Jewish politics.
If you mean, do Jewish scholars believe that Jesus the man actually existed and preached and was crucified by the Romans, you will find different opinions, ranging from the minority view of “No, there was no such person” to the majority view that he probably did live and probably did preach many of the things attributed to him.
If you mean, do Jewish scholars believe that shepherds and magi came to witness his birth under a star, or that he turned water into chardonnay, or that he fed the fishes with loaves, or was resurrected, or any of the other “story” elements: basically, no. You can probably find a couple of Jewish scholars here and there who believe those stories, but the vastly prevalent view among Jewish scholars is disbelief… at least, disbelief in the literal, objective, historic truth of the stories. That’s not to say that the people writing the stories didn’t believe them as either literal truth or moral truth. (BTW, there are lots of Jewish scholars – Reform and Conservative – who do not believe the biblical stories about Moses or Joshua or David to be literal, objective, historic truth, either.)
Well, hold on. How do you define “sun”. “comes up”, and “east”?
What about the claim made by Lee Strobel in The Case for Christ and other Christians that Jesus fulfilled so many of the Old Testament predictions about the messiah that it’s improbable that he is not (the messiah)?
Lee Strobel is being very disingenuous in his approach. Like Matthew, he presupposes something that “fits” Jesus to be a prophecy, and anything that does not to either not be a prophecy, or to reference the Second Coming.
Zev_steinhart, CK Dexter Haven, and cmkeller have several times outlined the reasons that Jews believe Jesus not to have fulfilled the criteria for the Messiah. I’ll see if I can scare up a link, if someone else doesn’t beat me to it.
Yes, you don’t have to tell me that Lee Strobel isn’t exactly the hard-nosed, objective journalist that he claims to be. I’m just wondering if there is much to his claim. Those threads would be helpful, thanks.
Has he ever convinced a Jew with this argument?
I would not count this as a scholarly observation, but one of my Hebrew teachers said that one explanation for the miracles was that Jesus snuck into the Holy of Holies in the Temple, saw the real name of God written there, and that this gave him the power to work miracles. I suppose that the high priest had the self control not to use this power.
I do hope that many of them really think that the Earth rotates so that the Sun appears in the East, right?
From what I read, the teachings of Jesus bear some similarity to those of Hillel. Right?
Inone of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, a book has a false dust jacket hat can be reversed to hide it. The false title is The Bible Revised to be Read as Literature. Kingsley Amis (who later went on to write Colonel Sun**, the first non-Fleming Bon Book) wrote The Book of Bond: or Every Man His Own 007 under the pen name of Lt.-Col/ William (Bill) Tanner (M’s Head of Staff in the Fleming books). You can reverse the dust jacket for the first printing of this book, and the false jacket inside is, ndeed, for "THe Bible Revised to be Read as Literature? There are even fake reviews on the bck, of which the last is relevant to this thread:
“Useful, but the later, more fanciful episodes might well have been dropped” – Jewish Monthly
There have been a nuber of threads discussing the Jewish messiah. (Doing a search on “messiah” with a poster name of cmkeller or zev_steinhardt will turn up most of them.
The one that I recall as providing the most information in line with this thread’s OP was Jewish Messiah?.
I found the following listing of messianic prophecies in the on-line Jewish Encyclopedia: Messiah:
Future ideal king:
Isaiah 9: 1 - 6
Isaiah 11: 1 - 10
Isaiah 32: 1 - 5
(The Immanuel passage of Isaiah 7: 14, alluded to by Matthew (1: 23) is not considered Messianic in Judaism.)
Further:
Micah 5: 1, 3 - 8
Jeremiah 23: 5 - 6 and 32: 15 - 16
Jeremiah 30: 9
Hosea 3: 5
Ezekiel 17: 23
Ezekiel 34: 23 ff
Ezekiel 37: 24 ff
Haggai 2: 23
Zechariah 3: 8
Zechariah 6: 12
Zechariah 9: 9 - 10
(In Deutero-Isaiah, the Jewish people, not an individual messiah, will be the source of the salvation of humanity. So, Isaiah 42: 1 - 6, 49: 1 - 6, 50: 4 - 9, 52: 13-53: 12 are not messianic in the sense of a person of the messiah. Although they do refer to the “servant of God” who will convert the nations to the service of God, the “servant of God” in Jewish theology is the Jewish people, and these passages are not considered messianic.)
I have seen suggestion that Judaism stopped viewing other messianic prophecies after the rise of Christianity. I doubt that that is true. I think it more likely that Paul and Matthew were moved to see “messianic” forecasting in a great number of passages because they found the parallels in the life of Jesus and that the Jews prior to the life of Jesus had not actually viewed many of those passages in the same light.
I don’t feel up to finding the other thread(s), but the bottom line is that Jesus hasn’t fulfilled the only prophecy that matters. When the Messiah comes, there will be universal peace, the lion will lie down with the lamb, the dead will awaken, nation will not life up sword against nation, and the world will be united in recognition of God. That hasn’t happened, not one bit of it, and therefore the Messiah hasn’t come.
The other stuff – whether the Messiah will ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, etc – that’s just poetry and metaphor, and not important. All those little prophecies that were so important to the early Christian fathers as “proof” of Jesus’ messianisity, those are all viewed as completely irrelevant by most Jews. Some of them are out-and-out misinterpretations (like a “virgin” giving birth). But they’re all basically irrelevant.
One common misconception is that miracles prove the man in Judaic thought. That isn’t the case. Maimonides specifically points out that the messiah will not be required to perform any supernatural miracles in order to qualify as the messiah. He simply has to fulfill the tasks set out before him. Doing miracles does not qualify one as a messiah or even a prophet (you’ll note that Pharroh’s magicians were able to duplicate the first two plauges - but that didn’t make them Moses and Aaron).
Zev Steinhardt
I have not read Strobel’s work, so I really cannot comment on it. However, if it is similar to the “lists of phophecies fulfilled by Jesus” that crop up here and there on the net, then Strobel doesn’t have a prayer. Most of the “prophecies” listed in those lists are not messianic at all, while others could apply to Jesus, but could just as easily apply to other people as well.
Zev Steinhardt
Adding on to Zev’s post, according to most Jewish thought, people, no matter how holy, do not work miracles themselves through their own powers; instead, God works miracles through people. For instance: who parted the Red Sea? If you answered “Moses”, you’d be wrong. God parted the Red Sea - Moses just waved his staff around a bit.
Men may be wise, they may be favored by god, but they never have any supernatural powers of their own.
Zev – Please email me. You musta changed your email address, I’ve been trying to send you a note requesting some help with some research, and it bounces back to me.
My apologies for this kinda un-orthodox (heh) way of getting in touch. Thanks.