I can't really add much to what Todd said (great job, bud), but I can't resist the temptation to put my own spin and read on things...
First of all, the entire post assumes that the Hebrew Scriptures are inerrant and authoritative, and that Chrsitian confessions need to be checked against them.
But honestly, I see no reason to actually
believe the Hebrew Scriptures apart from the truth that the metanarrative of the Jewish people was confirmed through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Why should I believe the Torah any more than the Qur'an or the Vedas? Only because the Torah was professed by one who rose from the dead. For once I'd like to see a Jewish person defend the inspiration and authority of the Torah instead of just assuming it. But quite frankly, apart from the resurrection of the ultimate Israelite, Jesus Christ, you can't.
But hey, we'll go with it just for fun...
1) Isaiah 45 and Zafanai 3 shows that when the messiah arrives the world will unite under pure monotheism! No time in Jesus's life time did this happen.
Jesus' life time? Once you accept that Christ is resurrected to a new state of life-being, such that Israelites expected on the last day, then you accept that Christ is still very much alive.
And if Christ's life-time extends to this very day, and his life is poured out in the people he has called his own, then his messianic mission continues. His arrival is not yet consumated.
In the resurrection, the
end of history (the resurrection of the dead and the vindication of the people of God) came
in human history. The messiah continues his mission, still. It will be complete when he arrives is
martial glory, which is precisely what Isaiah and Zephaniah foresee.
Also, Christianity teaches that there are three gods (The Holy Spirit, God, and Jesus) that are one. Does that sound like pure monotheism to you?
This incorrect. Christianity teaches that there is one God, of one essence, Adonai alone.
From the Athanasian Creed:
3. ...we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
4. Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.
5. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.
6. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.
7. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.
8. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated.
9. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.
10. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.
11. And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal.
12. As also there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensible, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.
13. So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty.
14. And yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty.
15. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God;
16. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
17. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord;
18. And yet they are not three Lords but one Lord.
The
Shema remains intact: Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God is Lord
alone.
There are no others Gods besides the one God, who exists as a single community of three co-substantial persons.
You have your Christianity wrong, friend.
* The Sabbath on SATURDAY is suppose to be an ETERNAL covenant but Christians do not follow that.
First of all, the Sabbath is an eternal covenant in that God as eternally, and will forever, remain the destiny of all mankind. Mankind will not rest until it finds its rest in God, ever.
The Sabbath, the eating of the Shabbat meal and the lighting of the candals and the singing of the songs and the fasting and the prohibition of work, are all ways in which
national Israel showed their allegience to this truth. The perscriptions of rest on the Sabbath are contained within the Torah law, which were not so much a personal ethical code or a means of individual salvation but a series of conditions, with corresponding blessings and curses for obedience and disobediences (namely dwelling in the promised land and exile, respectively). Celebrating the glorious truth that mankind, found most truly in the people of Israel, leads all creation into the rest all will find in God (which is, after all, Israel's primary vocation- to be a witness, a light, to the Gentiles/nations of the truth that there is but one God, who is the creator-god and their national patron), is eternal. But the means through which God decreed that
Israel celebrated the Sabbath, which determined their status vis-a-vis the promised land, where specific to the suzerain-vassal form of the Mosaic covenant.
And I highly suggest you read
The Sabbath, by Abraham Joshua Heschel, a mid-twentieth century Jewish existentialist. It's a fantastic meditation on the Sabbath.
But even ignoring those points, we don't forego the Sabbath. I personally celebrate it to commemorate God's gracious work in granting us existence, in creating the world. It's just that God's
new creative work, in sanctifying creation through the glorification of physical, created matter in the resurrection of Jesus Christ- which, just as the completion of the first creation on Friday dusk is celebrated at that time, is celebrated on Sunday morning because that's when the recreative act took place- takes precedence.
* Nor do ALL follow Circumcision which is also an ETERNAL covenant
Same deal. Circumcision identified a person as a member of the people of God. It signified converts and their descendents as members of the people of God, through which the divine creator cast his sign and seal upon them.
But to claim that the
sign is eternal is to confuse the
covenant itself with the
sign of membership. The covenant with Abraham, that his descendents shall forever be the people of God, is eternal. But nothing guarentees that circumcision will forever be the sign that binds a person to that eternal covenant.
And what is the Christian equivalent (and I know BreanTodd won't like this one bit)? Baptism.
Circumcision ran into two problems in the first century. First of all, as Jesus and the early church reconstituted the faithful remnant of Israel (that is, the Jewish community who accepted the prophet John the Baptist's message and who participated in the ministry and new life of Jesus), the identity of the people of God expanded from
national Israel to a
transnational, voluntary identity. And as it so happened, the act of circumcision was overtly Jewish. The Gentiles, to whom the first emissaries of the gospel message proclaimed their good news, were highly suspicious of the subversive diaspora community of Jews who constituted a dangerous full 10% of the imperial population. A new sign of membership in the eternal covenant was necessary.
Moreover, the patriarchial understanding of participation in the covenant- wherein the senior male of a housefold represented that family to God (essential, proto-federalism)- no longer applied in the new dispensation. A universal sign that could be applied to women as well as men was needed.
And thus, Jesus and his followers adapted and comissioned the
mikvah ritual, wherein a Jewish person entering the temple or preparing for a festival would wash themselves in a special pool, to be the new sign and seal designating someone as a member of the eternal Abrahamic covenant.
*Nor do they celebrate Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur
Again, these holidays are laid down in Torah law, which was a serious of
legal, not moral, stipulations that Israel had to follow in order to remain in the promised land. Christians, however, do not seek to live in Palestine. Instead of us dwelling in the land by our own obedience to the treaty stipulations of the Mosaic covenant, Christ dwells in us according to his own good pleasure and decision.
*Christmas or Easter was never mentioned in the OLD or NEW Testament, and these holidays have some origins of the Pagans!
First of all, the
word Easter is not mentioned in the New Testament, but the
event is central to the
entire, THE ENTIRE, text. Would you not celebrate Passover to commemorate God's salvation of the people of Israel, in bringing them out of Egypt, if it were not commanded in the Torah?
As for Christmas... so? Even if this is true, it's not as if we're worshiping pagan gods. There were temples before the building of the one in Jerusalem, and many of the building materials came from pagan Tyre. Does that mean that when the Hebrews worshiped God in the temple, they were really worshiping Baal? Of course not, that's ridiculous.
* Also Christians does not eat kosher!
Again, this was a requirement of a set of laws stipulating the conditions upon which Israel would remain in the promised land. It was a symbol of identification with national Israel.
3) Also the Old Testament NEVER SAID THE MESSIAH WILL DIE FOR OUR SINS!
"Every man shall die for HIS OWN sin" - Deuteronomy 24:16
First of all, let me reinterate for the hundreth or so time, that Torah law is a series of legal stipulations according to which Israel may remain in the promised land or, conversely, go into exile. Many of these include not simply personal standards of living, but an outlines for government and
court administration. All this verse really says is that the law courts of Israel should not put to death anybody for anybody else's crime. A good principle for any law court to follow, whether Israelite, or Ottoman, or American.
But that side, story time...
I want you to, briefly, completely put out of your mind the idea that Christians believe that Christ died for our sins in a legal sense. I know that's the mainstrem Christian belief in the west, that God legally credited Christ with all sins ever committed (or, if you're Calvinist, for the sins of the predestined elect) and then punished him accordingly, thus remitting us of the responsibility and pain of punishment. But put it out of your mind. I'm going to off you an alternate, and far more Jewish view of the atonement.
Judaism, like all good religions, answers some of the primary problems of life. Is there life after death? What is the ultimate purpose of humanity? Where did humanity come from? What is humanity's primary problem? What is the solution to that problem?
The Tanakh and Talmud make quite clear that humanity's primary problem is it's spiritual exile from God- an exile so deep that it mankind is alienated from even the
knowledge of their creator.
Abraham's descendens through Isaac and Jacob, the people of God, Israel, is then chosen by God so that through them God can redeem the world. God has chosen a people for himself, whom he loves and nurtures, through whom he will restore the knowledge of himself to all humanity and renew his marvelous creation.
But as it so happens, Israel is not only a people whom God uses to restore humanity, but Israel
represents humanity. Israel represents humanity in its deepest lows of sin and exile, its greatest highs of true praise and honor toward God, and illustrates the lengths to which God will go to restore his people.
Consider, of course, the exodus. God's chosen people are left enslaved in Egypt, ruled over by a pagan king who oppresses them and leads them away from the truth that they are a special peopled in relationship with the one true creator-god. In this midst of this turmoil, God steps in and rescues the people from bondage.
But even so, after their establishment in the land and a golden people of united monarchy, the Israelites are invested with the darkness of surrounding cultures, fail to uphold Torah law, and so suffer the curse of disobedience- they are cast out of the law and go into exile in Babylon.
The prophets mainly operated during this period, and often spoke of the return to the land and a renewal of the covenant. Jeremiah 31 is an excellent example of this prophetic expectation. Isaiah, also, proclaimed that the the sufferings of the people of Israel were
pictures and
representations of the world on behalf of all mankind. I'll readily accept, for the moment, that Isaiah 53 refers to Israel, the suffering servant who suffers on the behalf of the world, and not to Jesus Christ. Only through their sufferings could Israel fulfill their vocation to proclaim the truth of God to the nations, and they could not complete this mission under God returned them from exile.
So, of course, he did. We know from 2 Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah that God restored the people of Israel to the land. We know even from Isaiah 40 that God called Cyrus the Great of Persian his annointed servant, through whom he ended the exile of Israel.
But there was a problem. This end of exile was
geographic, but not spiritual. Israel returned to God, and experienced what was admittedly a great flowering of spirituality such as they had not known since the golden age of Saul, David, and Solomon, but it was not sufficient. Israel's vocation as the suffering servant of God remained unfulfilled- and afterward, they repeatedly came under the domination of foreign rulers, first the Persians, then the Greeks, and then the Romans- just as Daniel predicted.
