Why Jews will never accept Jesus

Harel13 said:
It seems to me you're asking two things here:

a. Can the Tanach be trusted?

b. Going deeper, why should the Tanach be trusted?

The difference is nuanced and slight, but I believe it's there.
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Sure. I am asking to discuss if TaNaKh is reliable. If one answers "Yes", then one would want to give reasons why.
 
Harel13 said:
Thank you for answering.

You say Judaism is "a dead religion". How so? What does that mean exactly, that a religion is dead?
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All organized religion is dead. Dead to God. It uses God's name. But, it does not have the spiritual life and His security that the Holy Spirit bestows within a believer who became immersed into regeneration.

I am telling you from personal experience. Its the same experience others have shared with me, and we agree. We all know that the unbeliever is oblivious. Sorry. Only telling you the truth.
 
Harel13 said:
And, yes, I never disagreed with you that Jews were scattered to the four corners of the earth. But for the last couple of centuries, we're seeing a regathering here in Israel. We have Jews here from all over the world. For example, there's a city in Israel called Kiryat Gat. The government did a survey and discovered that on a particular street in Kiryat Gat, you can find people from 42 different countries! And for this we have other verses:
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Its not simply a matter of agreeing with me that the Jews have been scattered all over the world. The issue you failed to address? WHY?

Why were they scattered? Why was the Temple destroyed? Why is there no active Levitical priesthood functioning in Israel?

Why is God DENYING the Jews what God Himself mandated for them to be His people? They have regathered not in belief. Its the same religious "good luck charm" mentality that some of the Prophets mocked wayward Jews for in the past.
 
Harel13 said:
"then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and take you back in love. He will bring you together again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you. Even if your outcasts are at the ends of the world, from there the LORD your God will gather you, from there He will fetch you. And the LORD your God will bring you to the land that your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will make you more prosperous and more numerous than your fathers."

"In that day, my Lord will apply His hand again to redeeming the other part of His people from Assyria—as also from Egypt, Pathros, Nubia, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the coastlands. He will hold up a signal to the nations And assemble the banished of Israel, And gather the dispersed of Judah From the four corners of the earth."

And so forth. One prophecy was fulfilled, the other is being fulfilled as we speak.
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That is not what is happening now. The only thing that is happening is Israel is once again a nation and some Jews have returned. Israel still has too many enemies for that to be fulfilled prophesy.
 
jonathan_hili said:
I know what you're saying, Open Heart, but I think you are missing something that the early Christians didn't miss. It's quite clear that - despite all the various conceptions of Messiah in the first century - Jesus didn't fulfill any of them in the conventional sense. And yet, his earliest followers insisted he was the Messiah. This is a pretty strange claim and you don't find it applied to any other "failed" messianic figure. They could have called Jesus a prophet, or healer, or miracle worker or even someone close enough to God to be like His son, but why Messiah?

I suspect it's because they saw Jesus doing the things Messiah was supposed to do but on a deeper and more permanent basis. That is why they took the prophecies and other aspects of the Hebrew scriptures and, in a sense, symbolically interpreted them but, in another sense, applied them on a deeply spiritual level to Jesus.

The crucifixion with "King of the Jews" is a prime example. As you say, what the Romans did was ironic (and how the guards treated Jesus); however, for Mark and his community within this irony was the real truth of who Jesus was for those who had eyes to see. Again, I'd take God's warning in Genesis 2 as an example of this: the death Adam and Eve endured was a truer kind of death than mere physical death - it was death of the soul or spirit. Jesus as Messiah renews something more truer than the physical world - the spiritual world.
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A very few Jews looked at things idiosyncratically. The vast majority of Jews were not taken in by this esoteric way of thinking. The fact is that Jesus did NOT fulfill the prophecies. Nor does doing miracles, and even coming back from the dead if you believe that, prove messiahship. The messiah is judged solely on whether he fulfills all the prophecies.
 
Open Heart said:
A very few Jews looked at things idiosyncratically. The vast majority of Jews were not taken in by this esoteric way of thinking. The fact is that Jesus did NOT fulfill the prophecies. Nor does doing miracles, and even coming back from the dead if you believe that, prove messiahship. The messiah is judged solely on whether he fulfills all the prophecies.
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I agree that very few Jews looked at things the way some Jewish Christians - and other groups of Jewish non-Christians - did.
 
Well Jesus and John the Baptist were very much in the prophetic tradition or Legacy. Like the ancient prophets they were calling the people to righteousness and faith and good works and in the case of Jesus like many of the prophets the miraculous was part of his ministry as it is recorded. That is in the cases of Elijah and Elisha we read about the miraculous being involved in their Ministries like how they would heal people or their bones would heal people, I'm thinking of the story of Elisha's bones. In the case of Jesus he is recorded as going to different towns and places and healing people and having the miraculous as an aspect of his mission work. Like the ancient prophets, or at least like numerous ones, Jesus experienced rejection by much of the people. In the case of the ancient prophets we have the rejection of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and it seems that other prophets also had conflicts with either people or rulers.
 
There is actually a certain aspect of the prophetic tradition that Jesus fulfilled which was the aspect of rejection by people and rulers. The argument is that just as those holy prophets were rejected, the Messiah would also undergo rejection as being part of that Legacy. And so rather than the rejection of Jesus serving as proof that he was not the Messiah, it actually serves as a sign of his fulfillment of that role.
 
Basically, in terms of understanding the prophetic Legacy and ancient Judaism, it does appear that Jesus fulfilled the role of the Messiah, God's anointed, as Jesus was the one to spread knowledge of the god of Israel around the world. Even Muslims consider Jesus Messiah and so as at least an indirect result of the ministry of Jesus the Muslims have come to know God of Abraham, albeit there is the argument that their knowledge is imperfect. In any case when you count the Christian and Muslim world, you are talkin about most of the world's population in total considering Jesus as Messiah and recognizing the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob.

As a result, there are Jewish philosophers in modern times who see Jesus as specifically the Messiah to the Gentiles although they don't see him as the Jewish Messiah. If I remember correctly one of them was named Rosenzweig. I would have to look it up again to be sure to get it right.
 
e v e said:
the prophets were not idiosyncratic.
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Oh Yes they were! If you are interested to learn about some of them - as taught from the Hebrew texts - just let me know. Its a real eye opener. Audio lessons of the highest order.

In the new testament? (while it was yet still the age of the Jews).. Just look at John the Baptist who came wearing his camel hair suit and eating locust and honey. And, living out in a desert.
 
rakovsky said:
Basically, in terms of understanding the prophetic Legacy and ancient Judaism, it does appear that Jesus fulfilled the role of the Messiah, God's anointed, as Jesus was the one to spread knowledge of the god of Israel around the world. Even Muslims consider Jesus Messiah and so as at least an indirect result of the ministry of Jesus the Muslims have come to know God of Abraham, albeit there is the argument that their knowledge is imperfect. In any case when you count the Christian and Muslim world, you are talkin about most of the world's population in total considering Jesus as Messiah and recognizing the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob.

As a result, there are Jewish philosophers in modern times who see Jesus as specifically the Messiah to the Gentiles although they don't see him as the Jewish Messiah. If I remember correctly one of them was named Rosenzweig. I would have to look it up again to be sure to get it right.
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I repeat, and I will continue to repeat, Jesus did NOT fulfill the Messianic prophecies in the Tanakh.

1. Most of the prophecies that Christians say he fulfilled are actually not prophecies at all, but are about other things, and Christians yank them out of context. This would be passages like Isaiah 53.

2. Some of the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled are fulfilled by a great many people, such as being a descendant of David.

3. The important prophecies, prophecies that only the Messiah would fulfill, Jesus did not fulfill. For example, the Messiah will usher in an era of worldwide peace between the nations. Jesus just didn't do that. And thats not the only one. I usually list three.
 
e v e said:
the topic of idiosyncratic was that they followed “their own mind“ but I didn’t agree to that.

yes i know people can have unusual personal details. : )
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Well... if you are using the word in that sense... OK. They were not "ego-centric."

They were non conformists. They did not follow the commonly held views. In that sense, they did think for themselves. Just like we are supposed to do according to the Word of God we have accepted and been transformed by.

A mind that had become transformed by the Spirit and the Word of God is a person who has his own mind. He possesses his own mind on matters. When God gives us something He gives it to be made as our own.
 
e v e said:
They held God's view, and relayed to the people what He said. Not than anyone listened.

I don't see how having 'an own mind' relates to a prophet of God and conveying what He says.
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It takes having one's own mind to obey the Word of God. Those who reject God's message (from God's perspective) are out of their minds.
 
rakovsky said:
Sure. I am asking to discuss if TaNaKh is reliable. If one answers "Yes", then one would want to give reasons why.
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Sorry for the late reply. I've been putting off answering some things on here.

I find it surprising that you would question the reliability of the Tanach. Aren't you Christian?

In any case, I think the Tanach is reliable, but the meaning of that reliability is fluid and is bound to change from person to person. I personally would say that first and foremost, I believe in Tanach out of faith in my religion, which includes an unbroken tradition in the validity of the Tanach. Secondly, as time moves on, more and more archeological discoveries are being found that further validate the Tanach. Not everything has been found yet, but I think we're slowly but soundly heading in a positive direction. Thirdly, some of the Tanachic prophecies have already been fulfilled.

Here's why I think the meaning of that reliability is fluid. In my opinion, Jesus didn't fulfill any Tanachic prophecies. A Christian, on the other hand, would say that he did, in fact, fulfill many, and that's a basis for belief in the truth of the prophecies of the Tanach. A minimalist person in Biblical archeological terms would claim that multiple archeological discoveries actually show that the Tanach is entirely or almost entirely unreliable. Such a person could still be religious. For example, Werner Keller, who wrote The Bible As History, was a Christian pastor but was clearly minimalistic in his views. Some random examples: He thought that David wasn't the name of King David but was a later misinterpretation of an ancient Mesopotamian tribal leadership title, the "davidum", and he thought that Manna wasn't literally miracle foodstuff from heaven but a kind of sweet plant. So Keller's and other religious minimalists' views on the Tanach would be that it's either much more symbolical than viewed by most or that we simply don't have enough understanding of the Biblical lingo to correctly interpret that when they say X, they actually mean Y.
 
Harel13 said:
Sorry for the late reply. I've been putting off answering some things on here.

I find it surprising that you would question the reliability of the Tanach. Aren't you Christian?

In any case, I think the Tanach is reliable, but the meaning of that reliability is fluid and is bound to change from person to person. I personally would say that first and foremost, I believe in Tanach out of faith in my religion, which includes an unbroken tradition in the validity of the Tanach. Secondly, as time moves on, more and more archeological discoveries are being found that further validate the Tanach. Not everything has been found yet, but I think we're slowly but soundly heading in a positive direction. Thirdly, some of the Tanachic prophecies have already been fulfilled.

Here's why I think the meaning of that reliability is fluid. In my opinion, Jesus didn't fulfill any Tanachic prophecies. A Christian, on the other hand, would say that he did, in fact, fulfill many, and that's a basis for belief in the truth of the prophecies of the Tanach. A minimalist person in Biblical archeological terms would claim that multiple archeological discoveries actually show that the Tanach is entirely or almost entirely unreliable. Such a person could still be religious. For example, Werner Keller, who wrote The Bible As History, was a Christian pastor but was clearly minimalistic in his views. Some random examples: He thought that David wasn't the name of King David but was a later misinterpretation of an ancient Mesopotamian tribal leadership title, the "davidum", and he thought that Manna wasn't literally miracle foodstuff from heaven but a kind of sweet plant. So Keller's and other religious minimalists' views on the Tanach would be that it's either much more symbolical than viewed by most or that we simply don't have enough understanding of the Biblical lingo to correctly interpret that when they say X, they actually mean Y.
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There were unbelieving Jews then. And, there will be unbelieving Jews now...

When standing before the Lord the believing Jews will leave the unbelieving Jews to be utterly without excuse. And, put an end to their excuses forever.

If you find yourself unable to believe in Jesus? All arguments are vanity. If the parting Red Sea left many in unbelief and rebellious towards Moses? What good is there in winning an argument over a detail of ones erroneous speculation.

We can be polite. But, usually it over a passing discussion and each goes his own way. In these forums. One can get bogged down and be forced to waste one's precious time over vanity.


“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them,
and I will raise them up at the last day." It is written in the Prophets:
‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father
and learned from him comes to me." John 6:44-45


​

To believers:

You can win an argument with an unbeliever that took hours to prove, and still watch that person not willing to believe even after being refuted.
Leave them to God. He saved you! You think you are better than that fool? When, you were a fool at one time, too.?
 
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GeneZ said:
There were unbelieving Jews then. And, there will be unbelieving Jews now...
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Not to be rude, but it's a little...uh, ironic that you say this to me. Because I think it's clear that we both view the other as being in line with this statement. :)
 
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