I had to carry this over to Part 2
Your next argument is so admirable, I have to break it into parts...Let me say, thank you for this excellent post.
3. The New Testament contradicts the teachings of the Tanakh/Torah. The Torah clearly teaches the following of the Law, in order to receive the blessings of prosperity and the land of Canaan. Psalm 19 states that the Law is "perfect....sweeter also than the honey and the honeycomb." Yet Paul teaches that the Law brings a curse.
Paul, one of the most brilliant students Gamaliel ever had, sees the curse of Deuteronomy, as being two pages longer than the blessings of Deuteronomy. Paul's argument is clear...before Deuteronomy we would not have known the exigencies of the Law...but when your Law came, the curse also followed. Hence, an entire sacrificial system (which the Jew now, bereft of your temple, is forced to ignore) was put in place to activate the Grace and Mercy of God that involved the shedding of blood...and without the shedding of blood there is NO remission of sin, despite what your reassuring rabbis tell you. As it is written the nephesh/soul of the animal is in his blood, and soul must be given for soul. That's why Isaiah (53:10) says of Messiah, "...he made his soul an offering for sin...", and Messiah is shown as the perfect lamb. This is why no grave could hold him, and Adam's sin was forever forgiven. Saul/Paul is drawing from the promise you have always had...and sees in Christ the atonement Isaiah foresaw.
He teaches that circumcision is nothing and keeping the Sabbath is up to the individual, rather than being necessary for the Jew.
Saul, on the other hand, had the Hellenized Jew, Timothy, circumcised, because he never discounted the circumcision for the Jew. He did not extend that requirement of the Law to the gentile, because the unworkable requirement of your Law. and the curse that comes from breaking it, which, with terror, you must face daily, since you have been forced to ignore the requirements of the sacrificial system that brought you peace,
For Paul, every day had become a Sabbath, and his work became the work of the Messiah, having laid his own burden down, he took up the burden of God..."For the eyes of the Lord search the world to and fro to show Himself strong on behalf of the one whose heart is perfect toward Him." Paul was God's eyes and Messiah's hands and lips. Where the Law was but a shadow...a vehicle to God's love and mercy...the resurrection brought the realization. It's not days and months. It's not the circumcision of the flesh...It's what Moses and Jeremiah called us all to: the circumcision of the heart. That is the circumcision of the New Covenant.
These views, that of the Tanakh and those of Paul, are utterly incompatible. The Torah is agreed upon by both Christians and Jews to be the word of God, and is therefore the measuring reed to determine what else is orthodoxy -- and it therefore determines that the NT doesn't pass muster
Therefore you do ill to ignore it's most basic premise: Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.
How dare you emphasize a day of the week, or an act of the flesh, and ignore the requirements of the Law concerning your own sin and transgression? It's an omission of convenience, because, if the Jew were actually practicing the blood sacrifices required by Moses, the sensitivities of the New Millennium would rise up almost universally against the Jew.
But that hasn't even been an issue for two thousand years.
This next section is well-argued, so I want to make suggestions...certainly not corrections, as I've spent a few decades thinking the same things without the help of my Jewish friends, who are not as well versed as you in what is written:
4. The New Testament quotes prophecy out of context (i.e. Hosea 11:1, which is about Israel, not the messiah),
You are trying to concretize types and shadows. Matthew, a Jew, took the license...He says, "Out of Egypt I called my Son." That's indisputable. Jesus returned from Egypt...I'm ok with it, and your point is well taken.
misquotes prophecy (i.e. Isaiah 7:14 which is rightly translated young maiden, not virgin),
I've seen this one argued, and frankly, you fail. There's another word for a "young maiden" who is NOT a virgin: "stoned" and "dead." Your point is moot. A young Jewish maiden is a young virgin maiden. No one would have misunderstood, and that's why the LXX says "virgin."
and even makes up prophecy out of whole cloth (such as Matthew 2:23, He shall be called a Nazarene aka someone from the city of Nazareth.)
Yeah...this one is a total win for you...unless someone finds it in the missing books of prophecy, like the book of Jesher. I've never seen a good argument in defense of this point.
5. Jesus cannot be the Messiah because he simply did not fulfill messianic prophecy. It makes no sense to say, "He will fulfill the rest when he comes back again."
Unless, in fact, there are two separate comings: How do you recognize Messiah of Isaiah 53 with Messiah coming to conquer?
The Jews, who had filtered the gnat, but swallowed the camel, had been big on restricting Sabbath travel to the number of steps, but had ignored the primary commandments of Scripture, "Love God; Love your neighbor," could not see the possibility that Redemption comes first, before the kingdom...and that the FAITH of Abraham, who heard God and took Him at His Word, must be restored to Israel. It was Abraham that set the example for you...not Aaron, who threw gold into a fire and out sprang a calf to worship.
After all, anyone can claim to be the messiah and say they will fulfill the prophecies the next time around.
Yeah...
...you're probably right.
...but, then, an empty tomb and a resurrection, His appearance among His disciples and to hundreds of others, buttresses His claim of an imminent return in a way far better than any false messiah I can think of.
You seek Christians are forced to look realistically at history, and at a demonstrably remarkable point in time, where the grave that held a dead man, crucified and run through sufficiently after his death for hemoglobin and plasma to have separated, was actually empty. If you ignore history, you can make all kinds of fruitless argument...even appear reasonable. But for the empty tomb, I'd be with you.
The only way we have of determining the messiah is if they fulfill the messianic claims, all of them, and quite frankly Jesus did not; thus he failed in his attempt to be the messiah. Here are just three examples:
- Yet...because the peace He offers you begins with an internal conquering...It's from the inside out...not top down theocracy...but an affair of the heart.
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The Messiah will rule from Jerusalem. Jesus did not.
We agree. Yet...Not before He rules in the heart...
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The Messiah will bring ALL Jews back to the Land of Israel. Jesus did not.
And yet...Paul makes a powerful point that..."They are not all Israel who are called Israel." I don't want to go into 20th century politics...but I could.
"In returning and rest you shall be saved...but you would not." You taught us all that peace with God is an affair of the heart.
I'd love to know if you read this. Let me know if it helped.