So the Jews and the Romans are living in relative peace about 2000 years ago. The Jews are the scholars and money lenders and advisors (on some level) to the Romans. It’s a kind of peaceful existance they’ve not seen for a while. The Romans allow them to quietly practice their beliefs without much direct persecution. In turn, the Jews don’t try to convert any Romans. A sort of balance is struck.
Along comes this young upstart Rabbi named Jesus. Starts talking nonsense about his mother being a virgin. His father being god. Claiming he is here to save all humanity. The Jews and Romans pay him little attention at first, until he starts to undermine the Roman control by converting some of the pagans and jews to the new religion (which is still essencially jewish). They are having secret meeting in caves and painting graffitti of fish on all the walls. The Romans say to the Jews, what’s with this guy? Can’t you control him? You better tell him to knock it off before we have to crack down on everyone. In addition to this, the Jewish elders (people in power) don’t much care for this snot nosed rabbi stirring thing up and showing them up. They are comfortable you see, and have slipped into a certain complacency.
Enter Judas. Effectively the Harvey Lee Oswald of the BC/AD dividing line. He’s not too smart and easily manipulated. He is encouraged by the Jews and Romans to cosey up to Jesus and then give him up when the time is right. So he does.
Jesus is killed. The heavens don’t open up and rain fire. Jews have no reason to believe his claims of being the mesiah anymore though things never quite settle down after that. In a sense, Jesus may have done the jews a favour. By driving a wedge between them and the Romans he ensured that they would not assimilate into that culture in any great numbers and continue to be culturally distict while figuratively continuing to wonder through the desert.
Well, Beth, there are several reasons. They include:
The messiah (and yes, I did spell it with a lowercase, we’ll get to that later) must be a descendant of the House of David. Biblically speaking, descent is always reckoned through the father. Jesus (who, according to Christianity had no earthly father) could not come from the House of David.
He did not accomplish the things a messiah is supposed to do. There is no Biblical basis (by which I mean in the OT) for a second coming.
To go further, you have to understand that the Christian idea of a Messiah and the Jewish idea of a messiah are two vastly different things. The Christian Messiah is the Son of God. He died for the world’s sins, etc. All of these concepts are foreign to Judaism.
According to Jewish beliefs, the messiah will be an ordinary human being, born of two parents. He will be a religious and military leader who will lead the Jews to their homeland, restore the Temple in Jerusalem and eventually lead the world to the worship of God. He will not atone for anyone’s sins or be Divine in any way.
There’s more to it than that, but this is the crux of the issue.
I’ll take your second suggestion and follow Zev’s post (which very closely parallels the statements that CKDextHavn and cmkeller made in the link provided earlier in this thread).
The only problem I have with leaving your post uncommented is that others reading it may not realize that the Jews and Romans had been at loggerheads for well over 50 years before the birth of Jesus. It is unlikely that Jesus caused any of the Roman-Jewish conflict to which you alluded. (Remember “rendering unto Caesar”? That incident was the result of Roman-Jewish tension, not any sort of cause.) In the persecutions by Nero, Jews, as an ethnic group, were actually targeted for persecution as least as much as were Christians (who were basically seen–accurately–as a Jewish splinter group at that time).
The Jews were quite capable of displaying the fortitude to resist assimilation without requiring the “services” of heretical prophets.
I must take issue with this. The new testement goes to great lengths to link Jesus as the son of David, precisely because he was originally a PURELY JEWISH messiah. It was only later when he was co-opted by the world at large that the son of god thing came in. The early Christians were more like a Jewish messiah sect, of which there were quite a few around that time, rather than a whole different religion.
That may be. If he indeed was Joseph’s son (and if Joseph was from David [don’t forget, there are two different genealogies listed for him]) then, yes, he can qualify.
However, he still didn’t do what a messiah must do.
Furthermore, once Jesus was deified, then it became impossible for Jews to accept him in that role. That would also explain why Jews today cannot accept Jesus as the messiah, since it would, in effect, also entail accepting him as the Son of God.
Zev Steinhardt
If Jesus was just a Jewish messiah, then he was not the son of God. Certainly lots of Jews believed that back around CE 30 - CE 200. After that, “Orthodox” Christianity came into power over Gnostic and Judaic Christianity, and claimed such a belief was heresy.
For a Jew to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, regardless of whether he did what was expected of a Messiah, they’d have to believe he was born to create a new religion which consistently persecuted Jews for millenia. Plus, his birth just predated (by 80 years) the destruction of the temple - certainly not something a deliverer would do.
Jesus may or may not have claimed to be the son of God, but to believe that would be inherantly unjewish. Judiasm is strictly monotheistic, and has no place for a Trinity. The idea that God could have offspring, that a man could be God, or that God could ever die (on a cross or anywhere else) are fundamentally opposed to the Jewish understanding of God.
“Why don’t Jews accept Jesus as the Messiah?” is the same as “Why don’t Christians accept the Book of Mormon as the further teachings of Jesus?” is the same as “Why don’t Christians accept David Koresh as the Second Coming?”
Allow me to apologise for my flippant remarks made yesterday. I get really tired of the “why don’t you accept Jesus as savior” bit. It’s not you, it’s my little sister - who has recently become born-again and is driving me nuts.
Christians like my sister are irritating to me because they have never actually read the bible, just a few chapters or quotes that a minister pointed out to them. Many parrot the words of their pastor/minister’s sermon in Sunday church, but have no real understanding of the meaning of those words, or how to apply them.
Anyhoo, I shouldn’t have expressed it by being flippant to you.
First of all, each and every one of you needs to go see the new production of “Jesus Christ, Superstar” now in previews on Broadway. I’m not kidding. RUN - DO NOT WALK - TO SEE THIS SHOW. Saw it yesterday, totally blew my mind.
Second of all, what I want to know is, why don’t you all believe in the IPU? HMMMM?
I just got in, Brian. And, well, a number of people already have.
There’s one other thing to mention here, and that is that JC’s contenporaries overwhelmingly rejected the idea that he might be the Messiah. Whatever he said or did during his lifetime (whether it was what the Gospels say or not) was not regarded by the Rabbis of the time as proof of messianity. It hardly makes sense for later generations of Jews, who certainly do not have access to more accurate information about the guy than they did.
And don’t think that they just weren’t “Messiah” people in general. It’s well known amongst Jewish historians that Rabbi Akiva (one of the most respected Rabbis of his generation) originally thought that Bar Kochba (leader of a revolt against Rome circa 127 CE) was the Messiah. However, when the Romans massacred him and his troops, he dropped the idea (which should also put to rest any thoughts that the Jewish concept of Messiah includes a second coming).
If they, who saw him in person, didn’t think he was the Jewish Messiah, why should we, working on the re-interpreted writings of people who rejected Jewish law (I know, only some of the original apostles did, but it’s their vision that ended up winning out) think so?
“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
This is absolutely true. I think what needs to be understood in this case is that the Romans were an conquering nation; they had invaded the nation of Judea, and were not seen as pals, they were seen as mean, nasty conquerers. The Jews were constantly rebelling against Roman rule. According to Josephus, Herod Antipas (the Herod in the NT), who was a Roman patsy, made a speech to the Jews, telling them to stop rebelling, as better people than they had been subjugated by the Romans. The idea that the Jews and Romans were living together in peace is most definitely inaccurate. Read Josephus’ The Jewish Wars for more information.
Thanks for the interesting discussion in this thread! Just curious, would someone please post, or link to a list of the specific prophecies from the Old Testament concerning the Messiah, from the Jewish perspective? I’ve seen Christian versions, but would be interested in looking at this from another angle. Thanks again!
Beth started a similar thread at LBMB. Please tell me if I got out of line or misrepresented anything? If so, I will immediately retract anything I said… I fear I might have…
I am NYCNative there for the people here who might not know!
Thank you again everyone… I have not abandoned this thread, but Gaudere pointed me at enough reading to keep me busy through the weekend.
aenea: I am sorry that you are being harrassed. I know what it’s like to be on that side of it, even if it is someone doing it because they love you and are worried about you. I try in my life to be a witness in my actions, not in beating someone over the head with Christianity. Apology accepted.
Esprix: I am going to be in NY in June… thanks for the recommendation. I will try to get tix to see the show.
Brian: I read that thread… You did come across a little harsh on mercyangel. Meet me on YM at some point.
Now for the meat of this post chuckle…
I have NOT finished all the reading yet, but here are some ideas I am understanding from what little I have read. Please… I am not trying to make rude generalizations, so if I offend someone by what I say, please tell me. I am trying to make sure that I am understanding what I have read so far.
According to the Jewish belief:
The messiah (I still don’t understand the little m vs. big M) will be a man ONLY. Not a part of God.
The messiah will fulfill all of the prophecies in ONE coming… one lifetime.
It is part of what you are raised with. Conversion is not the norm. (This is true for religion in general… or lack there-of.)
[related to #3] Most Jews who were there when Jesus was around, died, etc… did not believe that He was the messiah. Therefore it makes sense that the Jewish since then also don’t believe. (Sorry if that came out garbled. Hope it made sense.)
The messiah is going to be coming “for the redemption of Isreal”… NOT for the salvation of sin.
Questions: WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF JUDAISM…
What does the “redemption of Israel” entail?
Is the messiah coming ONLY for the Jewish? or for all of mankind?
How will the messiah die?
What happens after he is here?
I would also like to apologize for something. My mentioning that I was a Christian was probably not necessary nor appropriate when I posted the first question. I only chose to include it because someone here may have eventually realized that I am a Christian and then tried to accuse me of posting this in hopes of converting people. That was not and is not my intention… at least in regards to this thread. I am merely trying to learn and to understand so that people can not say of me what aenea justifiably has qualms about. “Many parrot the words of their pastor/minister’s sermon in Sunday church, but have no real understanding of the meaning of those words, or how to apply them.”
Primarily a political salvation. The Jewish people will be gathered in (to Israel) from exile. There will not be any dangers to our sovreignty over ourselves.
A bit of both. The salvation I mentioned above will be primarily for the Jews. However, in the messianic age, eventually all people will come to worship God. That does not mean that everyone will become Jewish. It simply means that everyone will worship God. (As an aside, Judaism doesn’t teach that you have to be Jewish to worship God. Sacrifices offered at the Temple by non-Jews, for example, were accepted)
Good question. The Talmudic and post-Talmudic sources argue about the state of the world during the messianic age. Without going into too much detail, there are some who say that we will be immortal and live forever (as would have been before Adam & Eve’s sin). There are others (such as Maimonides) who maintain that there will be no difference except for our political indepedence. The verses such as “the wolf shall lie with the lamb” and others are only allegories, he states. If that is the case, the messiah may die of old age and be suceeded (did I spell that right?) by his son.
I don’t know about the book of Mormon, but Dave Koresh was a wee teensy bit off the level about his ‘we’re inside a giant globe’ thing. I wonder how he’d explain space flight.
No more off then saying that you’ll be granted immortality after you die. Or that if you lead an un-christian life you will be tossed into the pits of hell.
Beth: There are a lot of people who readily accept the idea that there was no Jesus, much less that he was the son of god. Go to http://www.magi.com/~oblio/jesus/home.htm .
FYI, folks, I’ve been doing some archiving, and as luck would have it, at least two of the threads referred to in this thread (by Gaudere) have been moved. So if you click on a link and it’s dead, check the archive – they’re in alphabetical order.
