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Originally posted by sigfreund:

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Originally posted by mark123:
Judaism subverts this by scaring the common Jew So that they won’t read the New Testament and if they do they’ve already been poisoned against it. It’s quite literally painted as antisemetic in rabbinical Judaism.

Wasn’t the New Testament the only basis for the traditional doctrine that is still accepted by many people that Jews were “Christ killers,” and that was justification for everything from economic and social discrimination against them to the pogroms? Couldn’t that be considered to be antisemitism?

Uh, no. Antisemitism rooted in atheism is the basis for the programs and Jew hate. Prime example: Hitler. He used words from the Bible to deceive and hide his own atheism and antisemitism. After childhood, he never again attended church and adhered to his belief in evolution and survival of the fittest.

Hitler only tacitly aligned himself with Christianity to appeal to the public while on the political rise. Once in power he returned to his atheism. As to Jews being Christ killers, that is collective condemnation. Collective condemnation is a genocidal mentality. Jews weren’t Christ killers. Political bureaucrats using religion killed Christ. Even then, Jesus laid himself on the sacrificial altar (as it were). Evil combined to kill Him. Evil is the enemy. Not Jews.

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I believe that modern Christianity’s putting away of the Old Testament is much like modern Judaism denying the validity of the New Testament.

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I’m one of those Sola Scriptura fellows.

I think any Christian "putting away" the OT is foolish. If I set out to consult an expert on the New Testament, I'd expect him to also be extremely familiar with the old one. Honestly, the "Sola Scriptura" concept is one I wasn't aware of until reading folks' responses in this thread. I think it's a good way to be, but I also think it takes a level of knowledge and spiritual maturity that I lack at this point. I hope to graduate to Sola Scriptura in the future. Until then, I'll gladly accept the help of people and ideas outside that strict scope.

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Jesus fulfilled quite literally all of the messianic prophecies.

Then was/is the Jews' primary beef the fact that he wasn't a warrior avenger of sorts? How/why would they be so stubborn, in ignoring the fulfillment of the scriptures?

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traditional doctrine that is still accepted by many people that Jews were “Christ killers”

I think those Christians who feel that way are foolish and "bad Christians". He had to die. Our salvation is in his dying. If anyone should be mad he died, it ought to be the Jews, not Christians.

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Originally posted by mark123:
I do not believe that Jesus abolished the Mosaic law. He specifically said just that. It goes beyond a cursory reading and has nothing to do with garnering God's grace.

Similar to the Israelites in exile, we keep what is possible to keep and look forward to a day when the rest becomes available to us.

I have come across others that come to the same conclusion as I do concerning the outer veil and it does seem that they also reject the idea that the Torah law was abolished by Christ. It seems exclusive to this group and I find that very interesting.

So which parts of the Mosaic law is still possible to keep? What is the purpose of following any part of the Mosaic law?

Because if the goal is to obey the law, then we have James 2:10 which says, "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all."

The whole book of Romans is an exposition on the differences of the law in people's hearts which is their conscience and the Law of Moses, neither of which can save but, rather, to point to our need of salvation. Even specifically in Romans 7:4-6 says, "Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another - to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter."

And what do you say of Galatians 3:24? "Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor."

I'm interest in how you reconcile even just these few passages with your position that people are under the Law of Moses and are to "keep what is possible."

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Originally posted by Rey HRH:
So which parts of the Mosaic law is still possible to keep? What is the purpose of following any part of the Mosaic law?

The only parts you can't currently keep are those that require a functioning priesthood and temple. Food laws, Sabbath adherence, marital faithfulness, imageless worship, et al. are all binding and easily followed. Traveling to the temple for the required convocations simply isn't available to us at this time. I also can't go to a priest to see if I have fungus in my house or skin disease.

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Originally posted by Rey HRH:
Because if the goal is to obey the law, then we have James 2:10 which says, "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all."

It's explained in the next verse. "For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law." It's stating that the whole law is authoritative. You can't demand adherence to one law and break a different law. A lot of the modern church does just that by not keeping Sabbath.

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Originally posted by Rey HRH:
The whole book of Romans is an exposition on the differences of the law in people's hearts which is their conscience and the Law of Moses, neither of which can save but, rather, to point to our need of salvation. Even specifically in Romans 7:4-6 says, "Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another - to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter."

Paul is saying that believers have died to sin and are released from the condemnation of the law that shows our sin. The law still defines what sin is. The law doesn't cause us to live righteously but it shows what is necessary to do so.

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Originally posted by Rey HRH:
And what do you say of Galatians 3:24? "Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor."

The point of Paul's letter was that obedience to the law is through faith and not, as the false teachers of the time were saying, that salvation is dependent on keeping law. Salvation is by God's grace through our faith. Keeping of the law is the appropriate response to God in this circumstance.

? I’m not aware of a major denomination which holds that Christians are bound to keep the Sabbath. Or any parts of Mosaic law.

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Originally posted by PowerSurge:
Uh, no.

Uh, yes.
If you can only cite Hitler, you evidently know very little about the history of antisemitism that predated him and his supposed atheism by centuries. The “Christ killer” accusation was the justification used by countless Christians throughout history for their actions against Jews, including many murderous pogroms (not “programs” ).

And why would an atheist hold some particular animus against Jews, and not other religionists?* I agree that Hitler was not particularly religious himself despite making occasional reference to Providence, i.e., God, but he and his attitude toward Jews were supported by many Christians in Germany. I won’t post any pictures showing what I’m referring to, but a brief Internet search will turn up any number of examples. In addition, there was significant Muslim support for Nazi ideology and practice—another group that can hardly be called atheistic.

But to reiterate my question, what do Jews believe about the New Testament account of Jesus when they think about it? Some obviously accept it, but are there those who believe it’s all just a myth?

* I am familiar with many of the accusations levied against atheists, but the claim that atheism was the basis for the Holocaust is a new one on me. Can anyone cite the origin of that notion?

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Some obviously accept it, but are there those who believe it’s all just a myth?

I would guess those that don't accept it consider Him to be an insane or demon-possessed blaspheming false prophet, and anyone (then or now) who follows Him is an idiot and an idolater. I don't think there's grounds to propose He never existed at all.

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murderous pogroms (not “programs”)

I learned a new word today.

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Originally posted by sigfreund:

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Originally posted by PowerSurge:
Uh, no.

Uh, yes.
If you can only cite Hitler, you evidently know very little about the history of antisemitism that predated him and his supposed atheism by centuries. The “Christ killer” accusation was the justification used by countless Christians throughout history for their actions against Jews, including many murderous pogroms (not “programs” ).

And why would an atheist hold some particular animus against Jews, and not other religionists?* I agree that Hitler was not particularly religious himself despite making occasional reference to Providence, i.e., God, but he and his attitude toward Jews were supported by many Christians in Germany. I won’t post any pictures showing what I’m referring to, but a brief Internet search will turn up any number of examples. In addition, there was significant Muslim support for Nazi ideology and practice—another group that can hardly be called atheistic.

But to reiterate my question, what do Jews believe about the New Testament account of Jesus when they think about it? Some obviously accept it, but are there those who believe it’s all just a myth?

I am familiar with many of the accusations levied against atheists, but the claim that atheism was the basis for the Holocaust is a new one on me. Can anyone cite the origin of that notion?

There is plenty of information out there on the points I made earlier. At my age, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had this same exact debate with countless atheists. And I’m weary with doing the legwork for them. And I’ll be quite honest with you: If you refuse to admit/see something as simple as Hitler was an atheist, I don’t have the time or energy to do the legwork for you. And yes I know it is pograms and not programs. I’m sure you have heard of autocorrect. I hope that you’ll forgive me for not proofreading and correcting the autocorrect feature. My mistake.

Good luck in your studies.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent

These ashes are a reminder that we need to repent.

Repentance is a powerful invitation. When John the Baptist first appeared in the desert of Judea, this was his message: “Repent, prepare the way of the Lord” (Matthew 3:2).
Later, when Jesus began his ministry, he led with this message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17).

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Originally posted by Aglifter:
? I’m not aware of a major denomination which holds that Christians are bound to keep the Sabbath. Or any parts of Mosaic law.

Seventh Day Adventist for one. It's in their denomination's name.

But in this case, Paul said in Romans 14:5-6 "One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God."

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Originally posted by mark123:

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Originally posted by Rey HRH:
Because if the goal is to obey the law, then we have James 2:10 which says, "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all."

It's explained in the next verse. "For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law." It's stating that the whole law is authoritative. You can't demand adherence to one law and break a different law. A lot of the modern church does just that by not keeping Sabbath.

It's a given that the whole law is authoritative, yes? I don't know that verse 10 is "explained" by the following verse; verse 10 is repeating the point that if you don't commit adultery but do murder, you've broken the law. And as Jesus said in Matthew 5, if you've looked at a woman with lust or if you've ever been angry at someone, you've committed both adultery and murder and, thus, have broken the whole law.

As for the Sabbath, Paul says in Romans 14:5, "One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it."

I don't judge anyone if they want to keep the Sabbath holy, but it does seem you think modern churches are breaking the law by not keeping Sabbath. But Paul says later on in verse 10 of Romans 5 after saying that one person can esteem one day above another or even eat or not eat, "But why do you judge your brother?" [/quote]

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Originally posted by mark123:

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Originally posted by Rey HRH:
And what do you say of Galatians 3:24? "Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor."

The point of Paul's letter was that obedience to the law is through faith and not, as the false teachers of the time were saying, that salvation is dependent on keeping law. Salvation is by God's grace through our faith. Keeping of the law is the appropriate response to God in this circumstance.

You said previously that it matters what scripture says, right? I think it should also matter what scripture does not say and I don't think that Galatians 3:24 says keeping of the law is the appropriate response to God in this circumstance. It says we are no longer under the law which was our tutor to bring us to Christ. That Christians are no longer under the law of Moses (Galatians 3:24) is consistent with Galatians 6:1 where Christians are exhorted to fulfill the law of Christ.

How about leaving us out of this argument amongst yourselves?

Do not presume to know or understand the Jewish position.

Such foolishness has led to enough more pain than can be appreciated in this discussion.

Stick to your "salvation", and leave us to work ours out with the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

We trust our G-d, will deal with us in fair and proper manner, and we willingly accept how it works out. Good or bad.

"The Jew has left the chat..."

I hope you reconsider your departure, sigmonkey. I think I am correct in saying we're all trying to learn. We may appear to presume, but we're merely postulating or hypothesizing, and hoping someone can point us in the right direction as a result. You could do the pointing. I'll use the Google machine to pursue information about the Jewish faith. You could likely provide insights with better accuracy and context than the results of even my most clever search prompt. I am more interested in the Jewish belief than the Jewish position.

Why do you choose to censor the word God?

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Why do you choose to censor the word God?

I am not "censoring".

It is a "Place holder" for His actual name(s).

It is not any of His Names. (there are many, and there is one that is ineffable).

Out of respect, we choose to not insult by referring to Him in third person or otherwise diminished way.

To understand this would require a bit of learning.

So, I only ask that you respect, and understand this is not a simple answer, but it certainly is not a "censoring", if that makes sense.


My point was that this whole thread is about the Christian faith discussion, and when we Jews are dragged in without our consent, it becomes a bit of a conundrum.

As you may realize, 18 pages and no Jew has tried to enter in and comment.

Yet, the bringing Jews in to this, cannot be expected to be met with abject silence.

Remember, according to your own doctrine, this was most certainly a Jewish issue, long before it was anything else.

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Yet, the bringing Jews in to this, cannot be expected to be met with abject silence.

Remember, according to your own doctrine, this was most certainly a Jewish issue, long before it was anything else.

I, for one, welcome SigMonkey and any of our Jewish brothers and sisters into our discussion of faith. After all, we share more than a common history.

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Originally posted by sigmonkey:
How about leaving us out of this argument amongst yourselves?

Do not presume to know or understand the Jewish position.

Respectfully, I am not aware of anyone in this thread saying to the effect, "such and such is what Jews believe" which would be presuming to know or understand the Jewish position.

The difficulty is that the Christian ethos is based on on a set of books, 39 of which are definitely of Jewish origins that comprise our Old Testament and 25 of the books that were written in the Common Era were also allegedly written by people claiming to be Jewish. The two remaining books are the only ones written by a Gentile named Luke.

So, for Christians to discuss and understand our faith, we have no choice but to delve into matters that are Jewish in our quest to make sense of it. Even as we may have an idea of how Jews may not see the Christian religion as having no valid standing, basis, or connection with the Jewish faith. To try discussing Christian beliefs without touching on any matter of a Jewish nature is like trying to discuss algebra without using numbers.

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Originally posted by Rey HRH:

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Originally posted by Aglifter:
? I’m not aware of a major denomination which holds that Christians are bound to keep the Sabbath. Or any parts of Mosaic law.

Seventh Day Adventist for one. It's in their denomination's name.

But in this case, Paul said in Romans 14:5-6 "One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God."

I am a Reformed Baptist and you can generally expect us all to still keep the Sabbath. We still have 10 Commands, not 9. Our Sabbath looks different than that of the Old Testament. I will have time later this weekend to provide some scripture.

As far as I can tell, I injected Judaism into the conversation in the seventh post on page seventeen. Mark's immediate response touched on something I think is interesting: the fact that Jews don't evangelize. I intend to research it more.

Concerning other Jewish topics so-far mentioned, this conversation on Reddit (I know) has some very thorough and interesting replies. Perhaps sigmonkey can lend his opinion, if he cares to.

https://www.reddit.com/r/relig...reject_jesus_as_the/

This is an early and thoughtful response to the OP's query Why do Jews still reject Jesus as the messiah?...

Firstly, because, as you said, Jesus did not fulfill a single prophecy predicted of the Messiah from the Hebrew Bible, aside from riding a donkey into Jerusalem. Secondly, because the Messiah is not someone who needs to be accepted or who can even be rejected—the Messiah in Judaism, by definition, brings about the Messianic Age, when there will be world peace and universal prophecy, which will be obvious to everyone, so when the Messiah comes, to it won't be some covert "Messianic secret" which requires commitment to peculiar "spiritual interpretations" of scripture that rely on inconsistent anecdotal testimonies about supposed miracles witnessed by a small handful of people.

As you can tell then, the definition of "Messiah" is actually pretty different in Judaism compared to Christianity. As such, there is a difference between rejecting Jesus and rejecting Christianity. The earliest Jews who followed Jesus did believe him to become the Messiah, but in the Jewish sense, as a man anointed to bring about the Messianic Age, however that movement was never going to last long as it became increasingly obvious that the Messianic Age was not immanent. Instead, it is the Christian definition of Messiah as a divine world savior, one significantly influenced by other Greco-Roman savior figures, which defines the terms by which Christians identify Jesus as the Messiah. Christians claiming Jesus to be the "Jewish Messiah" simply do not understand what "messiah" even means in Judaism.

Put simply, the Messiah prophecied in the Bible is just not the kind of person it's possible to mistake. Hence why Christians throughout history have had so much difficulty with the supposed "Jewish rejection of Jesus", because by all expectations, Jews ought to have been the first people to recognize Jesus if he actually was the Messiah, and while there are many stereotypes of Jews, stupid and unstudious are not among then, so other antisemitic "explanations" are put forward, like being stubborn, blind, or just plain evil.

Thankfully though, the modern Catholic Church has made good strides against their antisemitic history, and they have finally acknowledged that Jewish interpretation of scripture is valid for Jews. Hopefully other churches will follow in this compassionate open-mindedness.

As for the ancient Jewish perceptions of Jesus, we don't have any contemporary accounts, and the earliest Jewish writings we have about Jesus are in the Christian Testament, though it is unclear exactly which parts were written by Jews, as only a small minority of Jews ever followed Jesus and by the time the four gospels were written, the vast majority of Christians were not Jewish. We do have some veiled references to Jesus in later Rabbinic literature, but this reflects anti-Christian polemic rather than anything to do with the historical Jesus himself.

This may come as a shock to some Christians, but Jesus was rather inconsequential during his time—simply another apocalyptic preacher who was claimed to be the Messiah ("King of the Jews") and was crucified by the Romans for it. This is why the Gospels are principally our only source for trying to understand the historical Jesus. However, as I said, some of the later ancient Rabbinic literature does refer to him, such as by claiming he was actually the son of a Roman soldier named Pantera or that he was sorcerer or even a miracle-worker, which was common at the time, but as the Torah states, miracles are not evidence of a prophet, let alone a messiah.

We've actually been studying Sabbath lately as a Christian practice in our church small group. I'm coming to believe that the church has largely neglected the Sabbath as unnecessary to our own detriment. God created the practice at creation, and commanded us to follow it for our own betterment.

The Sabbath should be a time to rest, reflect on what God has done and is doing in our lives, and take joy in what he has provided for us. Working (and thinking about work) 24/7 is unhealthy physically, mentally, and spiritually, and practicing Sabbath is a way to take a break and to refocus and recharge.

In the new testament, Christ rejected some of the legalistic rules of the Sabbath, but he still took time to rest and refocus when he could sneak away from the crowds that continually followed him. But when people came to him on the Sabbath for help, he still helped them. I think his example makes it clear that it's still a valuable practice that we should follow, but the underlying intent is more important than a particular day of the week or a traditional set of rules about how it should be done.

It's pretty much impossible for me to observe Sabbath on a set day of the week. I work a rotating 12 hour shift and am scheduled every other weekend, plus other random times when stuff comes up. It's very easy to get caught up in life and forget to set aside time to take that break. My wife and I have decided that we need to be a lot more intentional about setting aside at least one evening a week that I'm home to spend time as a family, ditch the phones, talk with our kids about what God is doing in our lives, and spend time together relaxing. So far it's been a very positive change.