Why was Jesus not a convince Christ to..........

Spectrum

.... the majority of jews that were expecting him according to their own religious text and tradition but extremely convincing to those that had no clue of Judaism ie gentiles?

What was it that the citizens of the Greco-Roman world was missing that they would grasp at this vague character as a saviour even though ironically had died on a cross like a criminal?

How many of us today (60 years after his murder) would believe that Gandhi was the Son of God had he or his followers made that claim?

Star Moore

Hey there,

I wouldn't believe Ghandi was the Christ..lol

But, I think the jews didn't believe him because they expect a mighty warrior, whom would bring the new world, right then. What they didn't realize, was that Jesus' mission was a 2 part one. 1st and 2nd coming.

I think, the fact that people still would die for the truth of Jesus shows alot. 2000 years later..

Spectrum

Interesting, whose fault was it that they were expecting the wrong kind of Messiah, was it the bible writers who weren't clear or the machinations of the pharasees during Christ's evangilising?

Brigid

This is actually a question I asked when quite young to my mother: If the Jews had literally built an entire religious system based on looking for the Messiah, why, when he came, did they not recognize him via prophecy? Not well received (you know, the usual, they were influenced by Satan *yawn*, blinded by greed and power *sigh*)

Having studied Judaism a fair bit, the following cut and paste (if interested) are some reasons why Judaism rejected Yeshuah (Jesus being messiah jesus being a greek translation of the hebrew for Joshua) ennumerated (in very simple terms) by a Rabbi for a Christian audience (volumes have been written on this and truly...TRULY, one has to know how to read biblical Hebrew (which takes years of study) to understand the prophecies in their true sense). The Jews had and have been looking for this Mashiach for generations. They know the sources from whence these prophecies come--they are not going to be easily fooled.

It is interesting to note that many Jews now believe that it is a state of human consciousness and not necessarily a person that will come and "save" the world. The Messiah is you the Messiah is me--we hold the seeds of our salvation or destruction by the choices we make.

Also of most interest to me is the absorption of the Jewish man-god mythos into the pagan nations' cosmology--this is because a man-god (born of a chief god's insemination of a human woman--part of both worlds) resonated so similarly to their own native myths. Virginal birth was also huge in pagan mythos--however, again, "virgin" does not necessarily translate as a woman/girl who's never had intercourse but the maiden aspect of the feminine--also, can mean the insemination comes not from human origins but of a god. Modern Christianity, imo is the perfect mix of 1 half Judaism 1 half European native religions and voila! One has a fairly decent religion and unique pantheon in it's own right.

by Rabbi Shraga Simmons

For 2,000 years Jews have rejected the Christian idea of Jesus as messiah. Why?

In the wake of Mel Gibson's phenomenally successful film and the production company's ambitious plans to market the film worldwide to "the faithless," taking advantage of what is perhaps "the best Christian outreach opportunity in 2,000 years," it is important for Jews to understand why we don't believe in Jesus.

The purpose is not to disparage other religions, but rather to clarify the Jewish position.

Jews do not accept Jesus as the messiah because:

1) Jesus did not fulfill the messianic prophecies.

2) Jesus did not embody the personal qualifications of the Messiah.

3) Biblical verses "referring" to Jesus are mistranslations.

4) Jewish belief is based on national revelation.

But first, some background: What exactly is the Messiah?

The word "Messiah" is an English rendering of the Hebrew word "Mashiach", which means "Anointed." It usually refers to a person initiated into God's service by being anointed with oil. (Exodus 29:7, I Kings 1:39, II Kings 9:3)

Since every King and High Priest was anointed with oil, each may be referred to as "an anointed one" (a Mashiach or a Messiah). For example: "God forbid that I [David] should stretch out my hand against the Lord's Messiah [Saul]..." (I Samuel 26:11. Cf. II Samuel 23:1, Isaiah 45:1, Psalms 20:6)

Where does the Jewish concept of Messiah come from? One of the central themes of Biblical prophecy is the promise of a future age of perfection characterized by universal peace and recognition of God. (Isaiah 2:1-4; Zephaniah 3:9; Hosea 2:20-22; Amos 9:13-15; Isaiah 32:15-18, 60:15-18; Micah 4:1-4; Zechariah 8:23, 14:9; Jeremiah 31:33-34)

Many of these prophetic passages speak of a descendant of King David who will rule Israel during the age of perfection. (Isaiah 11:1-9; Jeremiah 23:5-6, 30:7-10, 33:14-16; Ezekiel 34:11-31, 37:21-28; Hosea 3:4-5)

Since every King is a Messiah, by convention, we refer to this future anointed king as The Messiah. The above is the only description in the Bible of a Davidic descendant who is to come in the future. We will recognize the Messiah by seeing who the King of Israel is at the time of complete universal perfection.

1. JESUS DID NOT FULFILL THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES

What is the Messiah supposed to accomplish? The Bible says that he will:

A. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).

B. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).

C. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)

D. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world -- on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).

If an individual fails to fulfill even one of these conditions, then he cannot be "The Messiah."

Because no one has ever fulfilled the Bible's description of this future King, Jews still await the coming of the Messiah. All past Messianic claimants, including Jesus of Nazareth, Bar Cochba and Shabbtai Tzvi have been rejected.

Christians counter that Jesus will fulfill these in the Second Coming, but Jewish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright; in the Bible no concept of a second coming exists.

________________________

2) JESUS DID NOT EMBODY THE PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS OF MESSIAH

A. MESSIAH AS PROPHET

The Messiah will become the greatest prophet in history, second only to Moses. (Targum - Isaiah 11:2; Maimonides - Yad Teshuva 9:2)

Prophecy can only exist in Israel when the land is inhabited by a majority of world Jewry, a situation which has not existed since 300 BCE. During the time of Ezra, when the majority of Jews refused to move from Babylon to Israel, prophecy ended upon the death of the last prophets -- Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

Jesus was not a prophet; he appeared on the scene approximately 350 years after prophecy had ended.

B. DESCENDENT OF DAVID

According to Jewish sources, the Messiah will be born of human parents and possess normal physical attributes like other people. He will not be a demi-god, (1) nor will he possess supernatural qualities.

The Messiah must be descended on his father's side from King David (see Genesis 49:10, Isaiah 11:1, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:17; Ezekiel 34:23-24). According to the Christian claim that Jesus was the product of a virgin birth, he had no father -- and thus could not have possibly fulfilled the messianic requirement of being descended on his father's side from King David. (2)

C. TORAH OBSERVANCE

The Messiah will lead the Jewish people to full Torah observance. The Torah states that all mitzvot remain binding forever, and anyone coming to change the Torah is immediately identified as a false prophet. (Deut. 13:1-4)

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus contradicts the Torah and states that its commandments are no longer applicable. For example, John 9:14 records that Jesus made a paste in violation of Shabbat, which caused the Pharisees to say (verse 16), "He does not observe Shabbat!"

____________________

3) MISTRANSLATED VERSES "REFERRING" TO JESUS

Biblical verses can only be understood by studying the original Hebrew text -- which reveals many discrepancies in the Christian translation.

A. VIRGIN BIRTH

The Christian idea of a virgin birth is derived from the verse in Isaiah 7:14 describing an "alma" as giving birth. The word "alma" has always meant a young woman, but Christian theologians came centuries later and translated it as "virgin." This accords Jesus' birth with the first century pagan idea of mortals being impregnated by gods.

B. SUFFERING SERVANT

Christianity claims that Isaiah chapter 53 refers to Jesus, as the "suffering servant."

In actuality, Isaiah 53 directly follows the theme of chapter 52, describing the exile and redemption of the Jewish people. The prophecies are written in the singular form because the Jews ("Israel") are regarded as one unit. Throughout Jewish scripture, Israel is repeatedly called, in the singular, the "Servant of God" (see Isaiah 43:8). In fact, Isaiah states no less than 11 times in the chapters prior to 53 that the Servant of God is Israel. When read correctly, Isaiah 53 clearly [and ironically] refers to the Jewish people being "bruised, crushed and as sheep brought to slaughter" at the hands of the nations of the world. These descriptions are used throughout Jewish scripture to graphically describe the suffering of the Jewish people (see Psalm 44). Isaiah 53 concludes that when the Jewish people are redeemed, the nations will recognize and accept responsibility for the inordinate suffering and death of the Jews.

For further reading, go to: http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/web/faq/faq-ss.html

______________________

4) JEWISH BELIEF IS BASED SOLELY ON NATIONAL REVELATION

Throughout history, thousands of religions have been started by individuals, attempting to convince people that he or she is God's true prophet. But personal revelation is an extremely weak basis for a religion because one can never know if it is indeed true. Since others did not hear God speak to this person, they have to take his word for it. Even if the individual claiming personal revelation performs miracles, there is still no verification that he is a genuine prophet. Miracles do not prove anything. All they show -- assuming they are genuine -- is that he has certain powers. It has nothing to do with his claim of prophecy.

Judaism, unique among all of the world's major religions, does not rely on "claims of miracles" as the basis for its religion. In fact, the Bible says that God sometimes grants the power of "miracles" to charlatans, in order to test Jewish loyalty to the Torah (Deut. 13:4).

Of the thousands of religions in human history, only Judaism bases its belief on national revelation -- i.e. God speaking to the entire nation. If God is going to start a religion, it makes sense He'll tell everyone, not just one person.

Maimonides states (Foundations of Torah, ch. 8):

The Jews did not believe in Moses, our teacher, because of the miracles he performed. Whenever anyone's belief is based on seeing miracles, he has lingering doubts, because it is possible the miracles were performed through magic or sorcery. All of the miracles performed by Moses in the desert were because they were necessary, and not as proof of his prophecy.
What then was the basis of [Jewish] belief? The Revelation at Mount Sinai, which we saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears, not dependent on the testimony of others... as it says, "Face to face, God spoke with you..." The Torah also states: "God did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us -- who are all here alive today." (Deut. 5:3)

Judaism is not miracles. It is the personal eyewitness experience of every man, woman and child, standing at Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago.

For further reading: "Did God Speak at Mount Sinai?"

WAITING FOR THE MESSIAH

The world is in desperate need of Messianic redemption. And to the extent we are aware of the problems of society, is the extent we will yearn for redemption. As the Talmud says, one of the first questions asked of a Jew on Judgment Day is: "Did you yearn for the arrival of the Messiah?"

How can we hasten the coming of the Messiah? The best way is to love all humanity generously, to keep the mitzvot of the Torah (as best we can), and to encourage others to do so as well.

Despite the gloom, the world does seem headed toward redemption. One apparent sign is that the Jewish people have returned to the Land of Israel and made it bloom again. Additionally, a major movement is afoot of young Jews returning to Torah tradition.

The Messiah can come any day, and it all depends on our actions. God is ready when we are. For as King David says: "Redemption will come today -- if you hearken to His voice."

For further study visit: Jews for Judaism

AuldSoul

Interesting, whose fault was it that they were expecting the wrong kind of Messiah, was it the bible writers who weren't clear or the machinations of the pharasees during Christ's evangilising?

In my opinion the reason is more basic, although this reason also encompasses all that Brigid's inclusion mentions. They were expecting the wrong kind of Messiah because of tradition.

But some Pharisees became Christians. And Jews do not deny that Jesus of Nazereth existed and founded the apostate movement of Christianity.

Respectfully,
AuldSoul

lovelylil

For all you Bible Believers out there:

In Romans chapters 9,10,11,12 The Apostle Paul addresses all the issues about the Jews and the fact that they were God's Holy Nation and he favored them among the nations, but still they did not believe Christ was the Messiah. This event was prophesied by Isaiah, the Prophet. I agree with Auldsoul that it did have to do with Jesus not being the Messiah They wanted but there is much more to it than that. It seems that God hardened their hearts to not believe in the Christ because he had a plan to save ALL mankind by their unbelieving. These chapters listed above explain it much better than I can. Hope this helps.

Narkissos

The Jews had and have been looking for this Mashiach for generations. They know the sources from whence these prophecies come--they are not going to be easily fooled.

Don't forget that the 70-AD destruction of the Jerusalem temple mostly reduced a very diversified Judaism to one of its components, i.e. the Pharisaic-rabbinical one. As earlier works show, there was no unified concept of a Messiah before. The Messiah could refer to a kingly, Davidic figure or a priestly, Aaronic one (apparently both in the Essene community, by the Dead Sea Scrolls). Whole segments of Judaism may have been devoid of any Messianic expectation (such as the Sadducees or some Hellenistic circles such as Philo's). So what is now called "Messianic prophecies" -- either the Christian or the Jewish-rabbinical set -- involves a later doctrine read back into earlier texts which were originally not "Messianic" at all.

greendawn

He was to them a rock of scandal as there was so much in his past that the arrogant pharisees could not accept. A carpenter the son of a carpenter and an uneducated Galilean were to them unacceptable, they were thinking more of someone from a prestigious, rich and educated Jerusalem family that would follow the law to the letter.

Spectrum

Brigid,

"Judaism, unique among all of the world's major religions, does not rely on "claims of miracles" as the basis for its religion. In fact, the Bible says that God sometimes grants the power of "miracles" to charlatans, in order to test Jewish loyalty to the Torah (Deut. 13:4)."

So what were Moses's miracles all about then? Sticks into snakes, food dropping out of heaven.

steider2006

The Jews thought the savior will come to set Isreal free (Luke 24:21). Not as a savior for all men.

Why was Jesus not a convince Christ to..........

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