Why did the Jews reject Jesus?

[Aeneas]

I grew up Christian and didn't deconvert until my early twenties and so depending on your age, I might well have spent more time as a Christian than you have even been alive.

Not relevant.

1 Timothy 4:12 Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

I have read both the OT and the NT in their entirety

So have I...

and right now I attend RCIA, and occasionally services and bible studies at a local Church of Christ with my parents. Also my parents are still Christians as well as my sister.

Grats.

And so your comparison is entirely wrong.

*smiles tolerantly*

If you say so.

Okay, I see what the problem here is. It appears to me that you don't quite get that they were Jewish first and had to learn how to be Christians. The reason this is important is because they didn't have a gentile understanding of the way the world worked. Having grown up Jews and having been following Jesus, who was a Pharisee and so kept Kosher himself, keeping Kosher was just their way of life and it only came natural that they would expected that nonJews should get Kosher if they wanted to join their cult. That Jewish requirements would keep most gentiles from converted was something that had to be discovered and once it was, they mostly dropped those requirements.

Expectations do not equal "requirements". This is purely your speculation. You have no idea what they "expected", only what Saint Peter thought and then in Council was shown to be wrong.

I say mostly because it wasn't until the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD that the Jewish requirements were completely dropped. James the Just, the younger brother/cousin (there seems to be disagreement between Protestants and Catholics what his exact relationship to Jesus was and I don't know enough to take a side one way or the other) of Jesus was what would today be called the bishop of a church in Jerusalem that kept kosher and observant all the way up until the temple was destroyed during the Roman invasion. And so again, what you said is not correct.

Fine, say whatever you like. Except the Bible says you are wrong, since the Council of Jerusalem happened before 70.

Acts 15:19-29 ESV - Therefore my judgment is that we should - Bible Gateway

The point is that the spread of Christianity appears to have been dependent largely upon the Jews rejecting Jesus. If this is really is the case, and even many Jewish scholars think it is, it casts serious doubts on the legitimacy of or the divine inspiration of Christianity.

Why? It isn't the true faith's fault the Jews rejected and killed their Messiah.

But you in the end you are right. It is a purely academic exercise because there is no way to check to see how things would have worked out had the Jews not accepted Jesus.

But again, why didn't they? If God's plan really was to incarnate himself and be sacrificed for the sins of all mankind, why did God not communicate the clearly enough to the Jews so that they could recognize Jesus as the Messiah and God when he came?

From my perspective, He did. It isn't His fault that Jewish zealots twisted the prophecies into political propaganda about some freedom fighter.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

Not relevant.

1 Timothy 4:12 Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

You entirely missed the point of my comment. Here's the quote I was commenting on:

There's a certain degree of amusement to be derived in someone who isn't a Christian attempting to school me in the fundamentals of my religion. Kind of similar to how some Christians insist that all Muslims believe in terrorism: it is comical.

Here you are comparing me to Christians who comment on Islam without having any knowledge or background at all in Islam but know only what they see on the news. This quote assumes that I, like these Christians, have no background or schooling in Christianity but only know what I heard at synagogue or somewhere else. And this is an entirely incorrect assumption.

Your actual age or the time that you have been a Christian has no bearing at all on the fact that I am not unschooled in Christianity.

So have I...

I don't doubt that your read the NT in its entirety. I do have some doubts that you read the OT in its entirety and in chronological order because something you say down below displays an ignorance of what's actually in the OT.

But aside from that. I have a challenge for you. Read the OT again. But this time, instead of assuming Christian theology, assume nothing. Build your theology up from the ground up and be strict about it. For example, many people just assume that the serpent in Genesis is the devil. No where in the entire book of Genesis (or the entire rest of the OT) is the serpent ever identified as the devil (there is no mention of any devil in the entire OT) and so don't assume it's the devil. Treat the rest of the text this way and see if the picture of Jesus as either God or Messiah ever emerges.

Grats.

*smiles tolerantly*

If you say so.

Yeah, I say so because it's the truth.

Expectations do not equal "requirements".

In case you forgot, Christianity began as a Jewish cult and Judaism does have requirements for conversion. It took some time for them to realize they were forming a new religion.

This is purely your speculation. You have no idea what they "expected", only what Saint Peter thought and then in Council was shown to be wrong.

In case you forgot, Christianity was originally a Jewish cult and wasn't recognized as a separate religion until some time later.

Many sources cite the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD when the rift become permanent (the Christians did not participate in the defense of Jerusalem against the Romans).

Fine, say whatever you like. Except the Bible says you are wrong, since the Council of Jerusalem happened before 70.

Acts 15:19-29 ESV - Therefore my judgment is that we should - Bible Gateway

I did some research on this and it turns out there is no consensus among scholars as to what kind of Church James lead. According to wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_the_Just]James the Just - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/url]]
Modern historians of the early Christian churches tend to place James in the tradition of Jewish Christianity; where Paul emphasized faith over observance of Mosaic Law, which he considered a burden, an antinomian disposition, James is thought to have espoused the opposite position which is derogatively called Judaizing. One corpus commonly cited as proof of this are the Recognitions and Homilies of Clement (also known as the Clementine literature), versions of a novel that has been dated to as early as the 2nd century, where James appears as a saintly figure who is assaulted by an unnamed enemy some modern critics think may be Paul. Scholar James D. G. Dunn has proposed that Peter was the bridge-man (i.e. the pontifex maximus) between the two other "prominent leading figures": Paul and James the Just.[44]
Traditional Christian theologians have maintained likewise that the two held the same beliefs; evangelicals claim that James' talk of works referred to works which God produced in Christians, while Orthodox and Catholic theologians claim that Paul did not discount the importance of works (citing passages such as Romans 6 and 8) and that James was not referring to ceremonial works of the Torah (citing the fact that at the First Council of Jerusalem, James declared that only a small portion of the Torah should be applied to gentile converts).

And so what exactly James expected of gentile converts is a bit sketchy. I'll concede that Jewish requirements for gentile conversion probably weren't universal in the early days of Christian but that's it.

Why? It isn't the true faith's fault the Jews rejected and killed their Messiah.

First, I am not conceding that Christianity is the true faith. But if Christianity were the true faith, this statement would be entirely false. According to Christianity, the entire point of the messiah was to get killed. If the Jews had recognized Jesus as the Messiah and/or as God, they would not have put him to death. Unless Jesus instructed them to. Which he would have had to if he was to fulfill his purpose, according to your "true faith."

The reason this casts serious doubts on the divine inspiration of Christianity is because it suggests that God intentionally seriously mislead the Jews to fulfill his purpose. If that's the case, then all those promises to the Jews were just a bunch of lies. And if that's the case, then none of the rest of us can trust God either. And a god who can't be trusted is not a god at all.

From my perspective, He did.

Your perspective is that of someone who has grown up and lived in a world where Christianity has been around for two thousand years and so your perspective is quite a bit different from someone who is living in prechristian times.

It isn't His fault that Jewish zealots twisted the prophecies into political propaganda about some freedom fighter.

This is why I am fairly certain you never actually read the OT in it's entirety because if you did, how did you miss these verses:

Isaiah 1:26: "And I will restore your judges as at first and your counsellors as in the beginning; afterwards you shall be called City of Righteousness, Faithful City."

Isaiah 2:2. And it shall be at the end of the days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be firmly established at the top of the mountains, and it shall be raised above the hills, and all the nations shall stream to it.
3. And many peoples shall go, and they shall say, "Come, let us go up to the Lord's mount, to the house of the God of Jacob, and let Him teach us of His ways, and we will go in His paths," for out of Zion shall the Torah come forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4. And he shall judge between the nations and reprove many peoples, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

11:9. They shall neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mount, for the land shall be full of knowledge of the Lord as water covers the sea bed.
10. And it shall come to pass on that day, that the root of Jesse, which stands as a banner for peoples, to him shall the nations inquire, and his peace shall be [with] honor.
11. And it shall come to pass that on that day, the Lord shall continue to apply His hand a second time to acquire the rest of His people, that will remain from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Sumeria and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.
12. And He shall raise a banner to the nations, and He shall gather the lost of Israel, and the scattered ones of Judah He shall gather from the four corners of the earth.

There are more verses. (See Jewish messianism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). They had very good reasons for thinking the Messiah was going to be a King who liberated Israel and returned all the Jews home to Israel.

Christianity hasn't ignored these verses. The way that Christianity gets around that Jesus didn't fulfill the requirements of the Messiah is that it's said he will fulfill the Jewish requirements of the Messiah on his second coming.

The Jewish POV is that he must fulfill all the requirements before he can be considered the Messiah, not before. I think that is perfectly valid.

 

[Aeneas]

First, I am not conceding that Christianity is the true faith. But if Christianity were the true faith, this statement would be entirely false. According to Christianity, the entire point of the messiah was to get killed.

Only if you obsessively focus on a single aspect of the Gospel. I don't, you can do that if you like.

If the Jews had recognized Jesus as the Messiah and/or as God, they would not have put him to death. Unless Jesus instructed them to. Which he would have had to if he was to fulfill his purpose, according to your "true faith."

Hypothetical. You have no idea if this would have been the case. For all you know, he could have died in His bed of natural causes.

The reason this casts serious doubts on the divine inspiration of Christianity is because it suggests that God intentionally seriously mislead the Jews to fulfill his purpose. If that's the case, then all those promises to the Jews were just a bunch of lies. And if that's the case, then none of the rest of us can trust God either. And a god who can't be trusted is not a god at all.

this would be the case if I accepted your wild speculations as factual.

Your perspective is that of someone who has grown up and lived in a world where Christianity has been around for two thousand years and so your perspective is quite a bit different from someone who is living in prechristian times.

Thanks, I never would have guessed that I wasn't nearly 2,000 years old.

This is why I am fairly certain you never actually read the OT in it's entirety because if you did, how did you miss these verses:

Isaiah 1:26: "And I will restore your judges as at first and your counsellors as in the beginning; afterwards you shall be called City of Righteousness, Faithful City."

Isaiah 2:2. And it shall be at the end of the days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be firmly established at the top of the mountains, and it shall be raised above the hills, and all the nations shall stream to it.
3. And many peoples shall go, and they shall say, "Come, let us go up to the Lord's mount, to the house of the God of Jacob, and let Him teach us of His ways, and we will go in His paths," for out of Zion shall the Torah come forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4. And he shall judge between the nations and reprove many peoples, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

11:9. They shall neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mount, for the land shall be full of knowledge of the Lord as water covers the sea bed.
10. And it shall come to pass on that day, that the root of Jesse, which stands as a banner for peoples, to him shall the nations inquire, and his peace shall be [with] honor.
11. And it shall come to pass that on that day, the Lord shall continue to apply His hand a second time to acquire the rest of His people, that will remain from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Sumeria and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.
12. And He shall raise a banner to the nations, and He shall gather the lost of Israel, and the scattered ones of Judah He shall gather from the four corners of the earth.

There are more verses. (See Jewish messianism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). They had very good reasons for thinking the Messiah was going to be a King who liberated Israel and returned all the Jews home to Israel.

I didn't miss them, I obviously have a different interpretation. It seems to be pretty clearly talking about the Church.

Christianity hasn't ignored these verses. The way that Christianity gets around that Jesus didn't fulfill the requirements of the Messiah is that it's said he will fulfill the Jewish requirements of the Messiah on his second coming.

Jesus didn't fulfill the requirements of the Messiah according to a poster on an internet forum anyways.

The Jewish POV is that he must fulfill all the requirements before he can be considered the Messiah, not before. I think that is perfectly valid.

I don't. Who cares about the Jewish POV?

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

I have read through the scriptures and studied them myself, and I can see if they were only looking for Physical liberation, Christ not full fill His task.. But, what if God purposes and plans exceeded those of his people who wished to be liberated from Rome? Then that would mean they openly chose to stay with the "religious" interpretations of God, rather than with God Himself?? Why would anyone completely commit themselves to their personal expectations and demands from God, rather than changing their own definitions of God to match what He has provided for us?

I don't think the first century Jews were thinking that way. They didn't recognize Jesus as the messiah because God promised them the Messiah would restore Israel, lead all the Jews home from Dispora, end social injustice, hunger and war world wide and teach the entire world to worship the God of Abraham. Jesus did none of that.

The God of Abraham, the OT God, is invisible, unchanging, eternal and infinite being without beginning or end and omnipresent being in all places and all times. Jesus was man who was seen, was born and who died, who changed continually (every time he changed his position while sitting in a chair he changed) and was localized to his body and to the time of the first century.

And so Jesus didn't resemble either their God or their messiah. Not even remotely. It wasn't like the Pharisees were having some great debate during their day trying to figure out if Jesus was their guy or not. He wasn't even being considered because he nothing going for him that made with worth considering as either a Messiah or God.

Indeed. Because if for not the Jews refusal, the Rest of the world would be condemned.

And there in lies part of the problem. Seems like God set up the situation from the start to screw the Jews. This is in direct contraction to long list of verses in the OT proclaiming the eternal nature of God's promise to the Jews.

Actually Christ explained it a little differently:
Matthew 22 NASB - Parable of the Marriage Feast - Jesus - Bible Gateway

As you can see God's invitation went unheeded by the "chosen." The hope you have is in the same invitation that was extended to them, is now available to you. If you choose to accept. If not know you fate will be the same as those who did not accept the original wedding invitation.

Again, this is in direct contradiction to literally thousands of verses in the Old Testament. There is nothing in the Old Testament saying that God is going to forsake the Jews in exchange for everyone else.

Also, what exactly was he inviting the Jews to do? Again, it wasn't like they were considering whether or not he was really a god or not.

.. Yet they all continued to sin anyway..

Actually by the time Jesus showed up on the scene, the Jews had leaned their lesson well. They had already gone through the Babylonian and the Summyrian exiles as a result of turning to false gods and so were not at all anxious to repeat the experience. The NT even ackowledges that the Pharisees were very big on keeping the Law.

That they rejected Jesus as God is partly because they weren't going to take the chance he was a fake and wind up back in exile as a result. (That happened anyway though for other reasons).

.. But this "effort" was conditional on the completion of a certain ceremony was it not?

Not exactly. It is both more simple and more complex than most Christians seem to know because most Christians haven't read the OT in Chronological order nor have most Chrstians ever made a real serious effort in learning about Judaism. The temple sacrifices were partly a sin offering but they were also part of a ceremony that turned the home of into a kind of domestic temple and consecrated the father and mother as 'domestic priests' of their household.

When Jesus said he desired mercy, not sacrifice, he was quoting from an Old Testament verse where God says, "I desire mercy , not sacrifice." The point was that going through the motions was the important part because of the way it effected the individuals involved, not becaue it did anything for God. It was not like God was 'incapable' of forgiving unless someone killed a goat.

Also the Christian idea that if you break one law, you were just as guilty as if you broke them all was not the Old Testament law worked. Instead it had a specific penalty for each sin. For example, if you stole, you paid back double what you stole. And giving your sin offering didn't undo your wrongs. If you stole something, you had to pay it back plus the penalty before you gave your sin offering. Otherwise your sin offering was no good.

Is that what you think? True Christianity does not describe a specific "faction" of "christianity. it is a condition of the Heart that is why there are no commands for a hierarchy nor an established religious structure like God provided for the Jews.

That's another huge strike against Christianity in my book. "A condition of the heart" sounds like a bunch of ethereal new age nonsense to me. The Jewish religion system provides a social network where everyone takes real good care of each other. They know how to because the mitzvot are the instruction on how to do just that. A religion that is nothing more than "a condition of the Heart" sounds like a very selfish or self centered religion. And that would explain perfectly well the horrible way Christians treat each other.

Religion is Man's effort to serve and praise God. Christianity is God's effort to reach out and provide for man.

Except for the OT religion was given by God to the nation of Israel. As for Christianity being God's effort to reach out and provide for man, what exactly is it that Christianity provides that the OT doesn't?

So why would one NOT want religion? Because "Man's efforts" do not amount to a pile of beans in God's economy. God has provided or reached out to us. Who are we to turn our backs on His efforts in favor of our own?

This another difference between OT and NT. In the OT, our actions counted. In fact God called on people to perform certain actions and wouldn't take no for an answer. By contrast, our acts don't matter at all in the NT. In the NT, it's an ethereal new age condition of the heart.

You do not understand. The Law is not a curse.

I am perfectly well aware of that. It's Christians that have the problem understanding that. In the NT, Paul says that the Law was a curse because it showed us our sin.

The Law is a tool used to identify sin in everyones life.

No, the Law is a tool to teach us how to live right. We don't need the law to identify sin. We know we sin everytime we or someone we love get hurt as a result of some stupid thing we did. We need the law to eliminate sin because by keeping the law is the only way to avoid sinning.

Once sin is identified then one can seek atonement for said sin. What the "curse is," is trying to obtain, earn, or award ourselves or each other the redemption that only God is worthy to Give.

I just completely reject this theology because it doesn't match the Old Testament and it basically says that God set us up to fail so that he can give us grace instead of us actually living a life that merits reward.

Indeed, but this privilege is a doubled edged sword.

All privileges are.

One that cuts both ways. For some, they forget who gave this and honor to them, and why He gave it. If this gift was not well received then it is for Him to also take away. (How many times was Isreal conquered for this very reason?)

Except for there is nothing in the Old Testament saying that God was goiing to take away this privilege. There are literally thousands of verses, especially in the Psalms expressing the eternal nature of the covenant between God and Israel.

Only a proud emperor would think He is wearing "special cloths" when they have been taken from him.

Again, this contradicts literally thousands of verses in the Old Testament.

Not done away with.. "Completed."

What difference does that make? The bottom line is still Christians are not Torah observant and they treat each other like crap.

Actually no, No one enters Hell who truly wants to be with God.

The point is in the Old Testament, even in the worst case senerio, you were not threatened with Hell. Things got infinitely worse in the NT.

A man can show no greater love than to lay His life down for the ones He loves.

Except for no one asked him too. I certainly didn't and wouldn't have because I don't want that hanging over my head. I had nothing whatsoever to do with the crucifixion and so I refuse to take any blame or feel any guilt for it. As hard as life is sometimes, the last thing any of us needs to made to feel responsible for some one getting tortured to death, especially if there was no actual thing we did to involve ourselves.

Just because all a man knows is death does not men he is only reserved to die..

There is no mention of any eternal Hell in the OT and its not a part of OT theology.

"Mitzvahs" were often limited to public displays, and certain times of the Year. Not to mention because a people knew that people were "converting" for food the actual "conversion process" was next to impossible to complete.. This is apart of what happened in post WWI Germany.

The plural for Mitzvah is Mitzvot, not mitzvahs.

Not sure what your point was.

I was referring to the Jews in Russia during the days of the Czars.

It's always been a long complicated process to convert. Takes at least a year because they want you to learn the calender. Also, they want you to actually learn their religion. A Jew is a Jew is a Jew is a Jew is a Jew and so they don't get the luxury of crying, "Not a True Jew (TM)" like the Christians do and so everyone that converts is a Jew regardless of what they do after they finish conversion. For this reason, they make conversion hard because they don't want false converts.

That is the whole crux of the issue. It seems simply being a "Jew" is held in a higher regard than one's Love for the Lord. What is our greatest command again? Is it to Love your fellow Jew with all of your Heart Mind Spirit and Strength? and the second greatest command being to Love your God as yourself???

I think you entirely missed the point. When the adherents of a religion treat each other like absolute crap, the way that Christians do, it casts very serious doubts on the divine inspiration of that religion. All theological concerns aside, Jews can just look at the way that Christians treat each other and conclude that they are not filled with the Holy Spirit after all.

If you Love God with ALL of your being, then how you are treated by: Jew, gentile, unbeliever, Mother, father, sister, brother, wife, husband, child, or grandchild all comes in a far second to a Love that encompasses All of your Heart, Mind, Spirit and Strength.

Again, I think you entirely missed the point. It isn't just that I want to be treated well but I also want to be able to treat people well. The sum of the Law is love God with all your heart, soul, strength, mind and spirit and love your neighbor as yourself. The Law provides specific instructions on how to do that. In Christianity, the Law has been "fulfilled" and so we no longer have instructions on how to be decent to people. Instead, all we have is "a condition of the heart." The result is a bunch of people stumbling around in the dark.

Now, that said.. will a Jew love his God to the point of fore sake his community and or family? Again you ask the question, and the honest answer is why the Jews (who did not convert) did not convert?? They loved themselves and the thought of their God given position, over that of God himself. How can God continue to "choose a people" who choose themselves over Him?? Even if this is not true for all Jews (Save the 144,000) it is true for you!

I'm not a Jew.

Also, again you entirely missed the point. It isn't that Jews are chosing themselves over God. It's that they know their own system, the Mosiac law, was given to them by God on Mt. Sinai. They don't know that about Christianity and looking at the awful way that Christians treat each other, its no wonder at all they doubt it so seriously.

Christianity is, in a nutshell, saying to the Jews, we don't have to be good to each other after all.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

Are you Not familiar with the account at the money changers tables?

"The Saducees were not the only influential class of priest in that time. The Pharisees did indeed believe in the things that Christ represented himself as, (but not Christ being the embodiment of those things) and is what inflamed charges of blaspheme.. Why did you only represent a half truth? Were you hoping I did not know Who both parities were?

I didn't represent a half truth at all. Regardless of the quarrels Jesus had with the Pharisees, they still didn't have anything to do with the Sadducees or with the execution of Jesus.

So you do see where the Chief priests could construe that Christ was threating their very livelihoods and wanted to change their very way of life? (Why did He over turn the money changers tables what were His charges???)

Not just threatening their livelihoods but their very lives and entire society. They had no reason at all to think that he really was God incarnate and so when he went ballistic in the Temple, all they saw some rebellious Pharisee going crazy and possibly inciting the wrath of the Romans.

I'm not excusing their actions but at the same time, I can understand perfectly well where they were coming from.

Imagine for a second it wasn't Jesus but someone else that caused the temple incident. How would you expect them to handle such individual?

Outside of the bible there are one or two secular references
that go into any detail of Pontious Pilate, and they do coincide with the biblical account. He was an appeaser who was being threatened by Rome that if He did not do something about the civil unrest in his prefecture that he would have to answer to a very unhappy Cesar. Which is somewhat confirmed by the biblical account of him. (That is why He washed His hands symbolically of Christ)

After doing a little more research, it turns out he wasn't so cruel but was just insensitive to Jewish cultural concerns.

So now you are contradicting the biblical account?(Why then did Pilate wash His hands if they did not call for His death?)

I'm not a Christian and so I only consider the gospel accounts to be accurate insomuch as they are plausible. That they would want to get rid of Jesus because they were worried he'd incite a riot is entirely plausible. That they wanted him crucified for blasphemy, much less so.

Not that He died because of their actions
(He died because of mine)

Again, I'm not a Christian and don't believe in magic and so I do not attribute my actions to being the cause of Jesus' death.

1) if the Sadducee's were so roman compliant then why were they targeted, and completely obliterated by the romans after the siege in 70 AD??

They weren't. It was the zealots, another Jewish sect, that revolted against the Romans in Jerusalem and incited their wrath. The Romans didn't make distinctions between the different sects of Jews.

Maybe perhaps that it was the Sadducee's who were indeed looking for a Messiah and thought the found one when they incited the rebellion that lead to the destruction of the temple?

No, thats not what happened at all. The Sadducees only regarded the Torah and disregarded the rest of the OT, including the Messianic texts.

The truth is the saw what they wanted to see in whom and where they wanted to see it. Which is why God removed that stain from what was left of His people.

This assumes a Christian perspective that I do not share.

2)If the Pharisees prior to 70 AD were the minority of temple priest, then what happened after 70 AD?

The Sadducees were aristocrats and relied on their social and economic status for their power. With the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the support for the Sadducees was entirely gone and they became exstinct. The Pharisees were a popular among the people and they became the rabbis. Modern day Rabbical Judaism is the descendant of Pharisitical Judaism.

And who was it that persecuted the first century church and help Rome hunt down and try and destroy the whole of Christianity during the reign of Domitian? (Because the mass of the 1 century church were converted Jews. That is why there was so much controversy in the early church about circumcision. They thought one had to be a Jew first then a "Messianic believer.")

It was the Sanhedrin that persecuted the early church. They considered Jesus and his followers to be heretics.

Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Sanhedrin « Learning to Follow[/url]]The Sanhedrin was a governing body made up of the chief priest (high priest), a vice chief justice, and 69 general members. It was made up of Pharisees and Sadducees. It is basically the Supreme Court and legislative body of ancient Israel. In Jesus’ time it was mostly made up of Sadducees. Annas and Caiaphas were Sadducees.

Which if this is what you are doing is not necessary. Per Paul and not me.

What?

Also, Do not mistake my intentions in no way do i condone any of our forefathers actions against any of their confused brothers.

What?

So you converted from Christianity because you Choose to Love your God as yourself and seek the Love of your brother with all of your being.. You know Even the Jew can not deny the accurate version of these commands.

No, I deconverted because Christians only pay lip service to love your neighbor as yourself. I wanted the real thing I knew that Christianity wasn't it.

for sure there will be a measure of us there. Along with many, many others.

Sounds like you are admitting that Jesus isn't so reliable after all.

Kinda like how the front of a dollar bill is printed in black, and the back in green? The questions is which side is worth a dollar?

No. Not even close. The New Testament needs the Old but the Old doesn't need the New.

Well from your testimony, if you were to seek God first, and not love from your brother first, you will find what it is you seek. For what father gives his son/daughter a snake when he asks for an egg?

In the end, this is what I have done. But turns out that it was the Old Testament God, not Jesus. The Old Testament God of Abraham has never let me down. Jesus has never come through for me.

It thought you said they weren't looking for Him So if they did not know to look, then how would they know if they saw Him?

I never said that they weren't looking for him. But actually I don't think the Pharisees were. Rabbinical Judaism holds that the world is on a 6000 year time line and that the Messiah will appear toward the end. The reign of the Messiah will the be during the last thousand days. Jesus' ministry was around the year 3790 (the current year is 5772) and so he had appeared on the scene almost 2200 years too early.

Also, the Pharisees were the ones that canonized both the TaNaKh (The original Hebrew scriptures) and the Septuagint (The Greek translations of the Scriptures, includes 7 more books that were originally written in Greek and another 1/2 of Daniel that was written in Greek). They had closed the canon because over 1/2 of the Jews had not returned from exile, bringing the age of prophets to a close (51% or more of the world Jewish population has to be in the promised land for a prophet to come). And so they probably didn't consider conditions to be right for the Messiah to come.

The zealots were the sect that believed the coming of the Messiah was eminent. But they believed in the Jew Judas Iscariot was a zealot and probably really did believe that Jesus was the Messiah in the Jewish, not the Christian sense. His betrayel was probably motivated by an attempt to provoke Jesus into action. Jesus knew Judas would betray him because Judas told him what he was doing and why. Judas thought that Jesus would fight back and win. Then it would be on between Jesus and the Romans and Judas thought that Jesus would win. When Jesus was arrested and sentenced to death, Judas realized just how wrongly badly he'd misunderstood Jesus and that it had cost him his life. Out of guilt, he committed suicide.

So are we talking about the Pharisees now?
Or are they now an integrated people? Because if they are then What I originally said still stands. They saw Him and refused to acknowledge Him as their God because they (as you put it) "could Not imagine themselves giving up what they had" for what Christ was asking of them.

I'm talking about all of them. The understanding that I developed of the Messiah from reading the Old Testament is that when the Messiah comes, it's not going to be a mystery. It isn't going to be like you have to just believe in him and hope that you are right. Instead, it will be self evident. It was in no way self evident to the Jews that it was Jesus.

They weren't. Of the early church only a fraction of the believers did not have Jewish roots, (Before we were known as Christians "we" were known as the messianic sect of Judea) and after only one generation, those believers no longer identified themselves as Jews. So an accommodation had to be made.

353 years later. The first purpose built church was built in Syira. and the first "christian nation was Armenia in 301 AD, The Romans were a bunch of Johnny come laties to the party.

I was talking the Jews and the Romans as peoples. The Jesus movement, yes, did start with a small group of Jews but didn't spread very far. Both the Pharisees and the Saduccees that had come in contact with the Jesus cult condemned them as heretics but that was a relatively small number of people. Over half of the Jewish population was no longer in Israel and only a fraction of those that were in Israel at the time came in contact with the Jesus cult during the first century CE. And so the vast majority of Jews during his lifetime of Jesus never even heard of him.

It wasn't until Constantine Christianized Rome that most Jews ever even heard of Jesus, let alone pay any attention to him. And so from the Jewish perspective, It was the Romans that introduced them to Jesus and tried to explain to them that that was their Messiah. But the Romans had an entirely different idea than the Jews of what a messiah was.

Again Rome was not the "Genesis" of the church, Judea was.(Right in the middle of Jerusalem)

Never said that it was but it was by the Romans that most Jews were introduced to Christianity. It wasn't just the Jews in Jesus' day. It's been Jews throughout history. They have universally rejected Jesus as both their God and their messiah.

Maybe you should looking into things yourself rather than than simply taking a well meaning rabbi's word for it.

Actually I came to those conclusions before I had ever even talked to a Rabbi for the first time.

I have acouple of questions:
What are you doing here is this all some big final exam or conversion test?

You said it yourself Jews do not look to convert, are you just here to gloat or show us your newly found version of righteousness? Is this what it means to be a giyoret in your heart?

I like to have my ideas challenged because if I am made to defend my beliefs, I have to research them and understand them better. And if I find out that a belief cant be defended, I drop it.

For Jews seeking converts, I'm not a Jew and I'm not seeking converts to Judaism. I am a Noahide, a gentile who worships their same God and I do plan to became a Noahide missionary in the next decade. Near the end of the timeline, Torah observance will increase among the gentiles, shaming the Jews back into to Torah observance. Then the Jews will return to Israel and when more than one half of them are back in the promised land, the age of prophets will began anew, the Third and Final temple willl be built and The Messiah will be revealed.

I want to do my part in this.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

I don't. Who cares about the Jewish POV?

I do because they are the ones that wrote the Bible where the idea of the messiah is introduced in the first place. If they say that the book that they themselves wrote means x, it's a pretty same bet that the book means x.

If you feel that you are free to interpret the bible however you want, then you become your own authority.

 

[Aeneas]

I do because they are the ones that wrote the Bible where the idea of the messiah is introduced in the first place. If they say that the book that they themselves wrote means x, it's a pretty same bet that the book means x.

It is. Unfortunately, that did not turn out to be the case. Especially seeing as the Jews didn't author things like the prophecies.

If you feel that you are free to interpret the bible however you want, then you become your own authority.

I'm not, I'm simply going with what the Church teaches, you are the one who said I should re-read the entire OT and ignore Tradition.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

It is. Unfortunately, that did not turn out to be the case. Especially seeing as the Jews didn't author things like the prophecies.

Okay, I have no idea what you are talking about here. If the Jews didn't write the OT, then who do you think did?

I'm not, I'm simply going with what the Church teaches, you are the one who said I should re-read the entire OT and ignore Tradition.

Well, you got a point. I did, didn't I.

There are actually multiple oral traditions surrounding the interpretation of scripture. The Rabbinical Jews believe that the Torah was given in two parts, the written and the Oral Torah. The written Torah being the Pentateuch and the Oral Torah being a guide to reading the Pentateuch.

Christianity abandoned the Oral Torah in exchange for a new Oral Tradition and a new written "Torah" of sorts soon followed in the form of the Gospels. The Catholic Church was the result of the accumulation and editing of the new oral and written traditions.

Beginning with Luther, the Protestants began abandoning the Catholic oral traditions in favor of sola scriptura only to find it lead to the disintegration of the church. Their answer was to invent new oral traditions resulting in both the different Protestant denominations (Baptist, Church of Christ, etc.) and new religions that had as much in common with Christianity as Christianity did with Judaism (Mormonism, Watch Tower Soceity, Moonies, etc).

Although I do believe that an unbiased reading of the Old Testament favors the Jewish POV over the Christian POV, I am not a Sola Scripturaist. I do believe in the Oral Tradition. I favor the Jewish oral tradition because they made the strongest case. The Oral Torah is the only oral tradition that is claimed to have been given by God directly.

The Catholic oral tradition is said to have originated with Jesus whose godhood is not universally agreed upon.

From there, the case for any given oral tradition gets weaker and weaker as it get's further removed from the source.

 

[razeontherock]

Again, this is in direct contradiction to literally thousands of verses in the Old Testament. There is nothing in the Old Testament saying that God is going to forsake the Jews in exchange for everyone else.

You are skipping over Deut 28. According to their Covenant, they deserve to be forsaken, as in Psalm 22. Jesus also fulfilled the Law of the sacrifices, each of which ends in fellowship.

 

[drich0150]

I don't think the first century Jews were thinking that way.

What source material makes you "think" this?

They didn't recognize Jesus as the messiah because God promised them the Messiah would restore Israel, lead all the Jews home from Dispora, end social injustice, hunger and war world wide and teach the entire world to worship the God of Abraham. Jesus did none of that.

So now oral tradition takes precedence over the written scriptures? Why the change of Heart?
The Torah nor any of the other OT scriptures completely support this
Wish list for a anointed King. So my question is How could you possibly know this was what the 1 century Jew was looking for?

World History, The works of Josephus, and the bible all seem to support a different hope of the 1st century Jewish people. Again from where does your "thoughts" originate?

The God of Abraham, the OT God, is invisible, unchanging, eternal and infinite being without beginning or end and omnipresent being in all places and all times.

God does not change, but "we" do The promise God made to the Jews goes unchanged (In the open invitation given to all in the wedding feast.) even though most the Jews back out of their end of the covenant. What those Jews did not want was given to those who sought after it.

Jesus was man who was seen, was born and who died, who changed continually

Book Chapter and Verse?

(every time he changed his position while sitting in a chair he changed)

Is this from John?

and was localized to his body and to the time of the first century.

But Christ God the Son was not.

And so Jesus didn't resemble either their God or their messiah.

to the limited understanding that those Jews knew God, no. But who can completely say God has to appear only in the way we expect him to? What proud heart knows the complete mind and limitations of God?

Not even remotely. It wasn't like the Pharisees were having some great debate during their day trying to figure out if Jesus was their guy or not.

Have you never read any of the Gospel accounts?

He wasn't even being considered because he nothing going for him that made with worth considering as either a Messiah or God.

and the miracles, Healings and the Massive crowds of followers (OF JEWS) did not even consider him because... the leadership did not want to acknowledge that their meal ticket was about to leave them???

And there in lies part of the problem. Seems like God set up the situation from the start to screw the Jews.

No, again God was faithful to His promise. Even past the point of the adulterous Jews within the remnant of Israel. God is faithful it was the majority of the nation of Israel who was not. God never promised to be faithful to those who see themselves as Jews, but to those in whom who are faithful to their God. To be a "Jew" is not something we can claim but is a reward from the Father.

This is in direct contraction to long list of verses in the OT proclaiming the eternal nature of God's promise to the Jews.

Which is confirmed by the dynamic of the "in grafting of the gentile" into the Covenant. There remains a remnant (Not all who consider themselves Jews are the remnant) There are probably now 12,000 from each tribe. It is to this remnant God's promise remain to the Jew. Of that 144,000 the whole of the Gentile nation is in grafted in this covenant.Romans 11 NASB - Israel Is Not Cast Away - I say then - Bible Gateway

Again, this is in direct contradiction to literally thousands of verses in the Old Testament.

No this is however in direct contradiction to a proud Jews interpretation of literally "thousands of verses of the OT."

There is nothing in the Old Testament saying that God is going to forsake the Jews in exchange for everyone else.

Actually there is nothing that says in the covenant between God and the Jews, that God is bound to the unfaithful Jew. In fact there are many warnings and instances of the Jews being turned over to their enemies when they became unfaithful.

Actually by the time Jesus showed up on the scene, the Jews had leaned their lesson well.

Evidently not, because they were being occupied by Rome at the time and eventually fell to the Romans. Does this sound like the just rewards of a people pleasing to God?

The NT even acknowledges that the Pharisees were very big on keeping the Law.

To the point of worshiping the Law in place of God. If you are going to represent the NT then do so accurately.

That they rejected Jesus as God is partly because they weren't going to take the chance he was a fake and wind up back in exile as a result. (That happened anyway though for other reasons).

ah, no. The people were convinced the leadership was not. Christ came Feeding, Healing and ministering to those the chief priests ignored.

Not exactly. It is both more simple and more complex than most Christians seem to know because most Christians haven't read the OT in Chronological order nor have most Christians ever made a real serious effort in learning about Judaism.

Lets see what you have for me.

The temple sacrifices were partly a sin offering but they were also part of a ceremony that turned the home of into a kind of domestic temple and consecrated the father and mother as 'domestic priests' of their household.

no. That is unless you can provide any OT evidence to the contrary.

For the most part, the Jewish practice of animal sacrifice to receive forgiveness stopped in the year 70 A.D. when the Roman army destroyed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the place where sacrifices were offered. The practice was briefly resumed during the Jewish War of 132-135 A.D., but was ended permanently after that war was lost. There were also a few communities that continued sacrifices for a while after that time.

Essentially, Jews stopped offering sacrifices because they didn't have a proper place to offer them. The Torah (The Law of Moses) specifically commanded Israel not to offer sacrifices wherever they felt like it. They were only permitted to offer sacrifices in the one place that God has chosen for that purpose (see Deuteronomy 12:13-14).

Today, modern Jews believe that forgiveness for sins is obtained through repentance, prayer and good deeds. They use verses like the one found in Hosea 6:6 which says, “For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

But both the Old and New Testaments are very clear: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.” (Leviticus 17:11) And also, “...all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22).

Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, was offered up as the once-for-all sacrifice for sin. Less than a generation later the Jewish Temple was destroyed because the need for animal sacrifices no longer exists. Animal sacrifices were merely a “type” of the perfect Sacrifice—the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world—which paid the debt for the sins of mankind, both Jew and Gentile.
-Got questions?

Also the Christian idea that if you break one law, you were just as guilty as if you broke them all was not the Old Testament law worked...

None of this excuses a Jew from making His sin offering. The restitution was apart of Repentance Just like the sin offering was apart of the process. You can NOT have one without the other. If you can then please show the scripture that coincides with this doctrine.

That's another huge strike against Christianity in my book...

And who are you to Judge God?

The Jewish religion system provides a social network where everyone takes real good care of each other.

Evidently to the point where they no longer need God, nor any of the atoning rituals He offered them..

They know how to because the mitzvot are the instruction on how to do just that.

So please provide us with the verses that contain these explanations.

I am perfectly well aware of that. It's Christians that have the problem understanding that. In the NT, Paul says that the Law was a curse because it showed us our sin.

Book, Chapter and Verse please.

We know we sin every time we or someone we love get hurt as a result of some stupid thing we did.

So if I bought cheap tires on sale and one blew out while i was driving and my car went into the other lane and I killed a family of 4, it was a sin? Was buying the cheap tire a sin? or was buying them on sale a sin? Please explain...

We need the law to eliminate sin because by keeping the law is the only way to avoid sinning.

Christ completed the Law, By identifying it in our minds and in our Heart there by keeping us from boasting about being sinless. Forcing those who seek Righteousness to find attonement.

Except for there is nothing in the Old Testament saying that God was going to take away this privilege.

Not from everyone, for there is always a remnant. But for the majority He has done it. (Forsaken the Jew) Time and again. you need to accept this is where the majority are.

There are literally thousands of verses, especially in the Psalms expressing the eternal nature of the covenant between God and Israel.

Which is always maintained in the remnant. You by your word and expressed works do not seem to fit that description.

Again, this contradicts literally thousands of verses in the Old Testament.

again no, It contradicts literally thousands of misinterpreted scripture that includes the whole of Israel when God is speaking (As He has done in the Past) to only the Remnant of Israel.

What difference does that make?

It invalidates the Idea the God is bound to an unfaithful Jew.

The point is in the Old Testament, even in the worst case scenario, you were not threatened with Hell.

Because the understanding of Hell was beyond their scope. God spoke in much simpler terms "Long life" rather than eternal life "Death" Hell. The promise is there only our understanding of the promise changed.

As hard as life is sometimes, the last thing any of us needs to made to feel responsible for some one getting tortured to death, especially if there was no actual thing we did to involve ourselves.

This is the full fillment of the Promise God made Abraham. This was the blessing that touched all nations.

There is no mention of any eternal Hell in the OT and its not a part of OT theology.

Who could understand it?

I think you entirely missed the point. When the adherents of a religion treat each other like absolute crap, the way that Christians do, it casts very serious doubts on the divine inspiration of that religion. All theological concerns aside, Jews can just look at the way that Christians treat each other and conclude that they are not filled with the Holy Spirit after all.

That is a very anti-Christ-ite view but seriously that is a bigoted view.

Again, I think you entirely missed the point.

No I think you have.

It isn't just that I want to be treated well but I also want to be able to treat people well.

The command is do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.. Not wait to see how others do unto you so that you may treat them well in return.

The sum of the Law is love God with all your heart, soul, strength, mind and spirit and love your neighbor as yourself. The Law provides specific instructions on how to do that. In Christianity, the Law has been "fulfilled" and so we no longer have instructions on how to be decent to people.

Wow, I'm just going to say "Bigot" every time you make a bigoted statement. I guess it's a good thing we are not talking about being a minority or I'd really get my feelings hurt.

Also, again you entirely missed the point. It isn't that Jews are choosing themselves over God.

Indeed they are if you are representing them properly.

It's that they know their own system, the Mosaic law, was given to them by God on Mt. Sinai. They don't know that about Christianity and looking at the awful way that Christians treat each other, its no wonder at all they doubt it so seriously.

Again if "God" is identified soley by the "feeling" one gets from comparing his own community against another, then that "community" is now being used as the standard of God rather than God, or anything else He has left for us. Which puts the "community" in a higher position than anything else God can provide.

In other words God would have to play to, or court your community in order to get your attention, but only in so far as your community finds acceptable, otherwise He will be dismissed, if He does not treat you the way you want or think He should treat you. Which is what kinda happened with the whole Jesus thing to begin with..

Christianity is, in a nutshell, saying to the Jews, we don't have to be good to each other after all.

What is our greatest command?

What is the second?

What Christianity says is that You must indeed treat your neighbor well but not to the exclusion of God. Something you seem to be saying is what Judaism has now become.

Now before you Champion another Bigoted remark thus sealing my judgment of you as a Bigot in word thought and deed. I ask that you choose you words carefully and Speak to the one who has taken this time to address your questions, rather than point to one small aspect of a community who indeed has offensive people in it,(As do the JEWS) but also has people who would give you their last dollar if you asked.
also we will stick to this portion of the discussion until it's completion and then move on.

 

[Aeneas]

Okay, I have no idea what you are talking about here. If the Jews didn't write the OT, then who do you think did?

They did, except for the prophesies. I thought you'd read the OT? Did you not notice the prophetic books were basically direct quotations of God? That makes the Jews, at best, transcribers of what they only had a marginal understanding of.

Well, you got a point. I did, didn't I.

There are actually multiple oral traditions surrounding the interpretation of scripture. The Rabbinical Jews believe that the Torah was given in two parts, the written and the Oral Torah. The written Torah being the Pentateuch and the Oral Torah being a guide to reading the Pentateuch.

Christianity abandoned the Oral Torah in exchange for a new Oral Tradition and a new written "Torah" of sorts soon followed in the form of the Gospels. The Catholic Church was the result of the accumulation and editing of the new oral and written traditions.

Beginning with Luther, the Protestants began abandoning the Catholic oral traditions in favor of sola scriptura only to find it lead to the disintegration of the church. Their answer was to invent new oral traditions resulting in both the different Protestant denominations (Baptist, Church of Christ, etc.) and new religions that had as much in common with Christianity as Christianity did with Judaism (Mormonism, Watch Tower Soceity, Moonies, etc).

Although I do believe that an unbiased reading of the Old Testament favors the Jewish POV over the Christian POV, I am not a Sola Scripturaist. I do believe in the Oral Tradition. I favor the Jewish oral tradition because they made the strongest case. The Oral Torah is the only oral tradition that is claimed to have been given by God directly.

Not so, other oral traditions make the claim to be inspired by the Holy Spirit. Anyways, I don't see why you would go to a false religion to interpret Scripture. Why not get the Shinto interpretation?

The Catholic oral tradition is said to have originated with Jesus whose godhood is not universally agreed upon.

It is in Christianity, unless you can manage to dig up some followers of the heretic, Arius.

From there, the case for any given oral tradition gets weaker and weaker as it get's further removed from the source.

Which is why everyone must cleave to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

God is with Us: Russian Znamenny Chant: Vaalam Monastery in Russia. (English) - YouTube

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

They did, except for the prophesies. I thought you'd read the OT? Did you not notice the prophetic books were basically direct quotations of God? That makes the Jews, at best, transcribers of what they only had a marginal understanding of.

How very clever of you. Would you like a balloon?

Not so, other oral traditions make the claim to be inspired by the Holy Spirit.

The bible records that the Torah was given at once directly by God to the entire Hebrew nation which was at least several hundred thousand people and some estimate as many as 2 million plus people. By contrast, the oral and written traditions of the Catholic Church (and the protestant churches for that matter) developed over time by individuals claiming to be lead by the Holy Spirit.

Anyways, I don't see why you would go to a false religion to interpret Scripture.

Then stop doing it.

Why not get the Shinto interpretation?

For the same reason one should reject the Christian interpretation.

It is in Christianity, unless you can manage to dig up some followers of the heretic, Arius.

When God spoke to the Hebrews at Mt. Sinai, they knew without a doubt it was God and it scared them so bad that they asked God to give them the rest of the Torah through Moses. The actual voice of God alone was so powerful, they were afraid it would kill them all.

By contrast, the vast majority of the people that met Jesus face to face remained wholly unconvinced of his deity.

 

[Sketcher]

Some did, some didn't. Those who accepted Jesus became the first Christians. Those who rejected Jesus did so for the same reason their forefathers rebelled in the desert prior to entering the Promised Land, and for the same reason that their later forefathers rejected Torah and went into captivity. They refused to listen to God's repeated entreaties. Then rejecting Jesus became tradition, really.

A Jew who did become a Christian, Dr. Michael Brown, has written a 5-volume series on why so many Jews have rejected the Christian message, and why they are wrong to do so.

 

[GrayAngel]

Scripture prophesied that the Jews would reject Him.

Isaiah 28:16 - So this is what the Sovereign LORD says:

“See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;
the one who relies on it
will never be stricken with panic.

Psalms 118:22-23 - The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the LORD has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Isaiah 53:2-12 - He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

That last selection, the long one, makes many other predictions about Jesus as well. It says that He would be innocent, yet He would die like a criminal. It claims that He would die for the transgressions of the Jews, like a lamb for the slaughter.

It also predicts His resurrection, the fact that He would be given the tomb of a rich man (Jesus' burial was, in fact, provided by the rich man Joseph).

Another thing I noticed what that it predicts that Jesus would not protest, that He "did not open His mouth." In the New Testament, as Jesus was on trial, He made no defense for Himself even when the judges urged Him to.

In no way at all does the scripture predict some war hero of a Messiah. That was the Jews reading their own ideas into scripture, just as people do today.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

What source material makes you "think" this?

So now oral tradition takes precedence over the written scriptures? Why the change of Heart?
. . .

portion of the discussion until it's completion and then move on.

I'm currently working on a reply. There is a lot here and so a lot to tackle and so this will take some time and research. BTW, thank you. Your are providing a challenge.

 

[Aeneas]

How very clever of you. Would you like a balloon?

Why, yes. Would you like to mail it to me directly or would you prefer to just give me money via Paypal?

The bible records that the Torah was given at once directly by God to the entire Hebrew nation which was at least several hundred thousand people and some estimate as many as 2 million plus people. By contrast, the oral and written traditions of the Catholic Church (and the protestant churches for that matter) developed over time by individuals claiming to be lead by the Holy Spirit.

That's what I just said, wasn't it? Except that the Torah wasn't given "at once directly by God to the entire Hebrew nation".

Then stop doing it.

I'm not doing it.

For the same reason one should reject the Christian interpretation.

But the Bible is the Christian holy text, now you are just being silly. Next you are going to tell me it is wrong to go to the Muslims to interpret the Qur'an, wrong to go to the Mormons for the Book of Mormon and wrong to go to the Zoroastrians for the Avesta.

When God spoke to the Hebrews at Mt. Sinai, they knew without a doubt it was God and it scared them so bad that they asked God to give them the rest of the Torah through Moses. The actual voice of God alone was so powerful, they were afraid it would kill them all.

By contrast, the vast majority of the people that met Jesus face to face remained wholly unconvinced of his deity.

Have you not heard of the Incarnation before?

 

[GrayAngel]

To add to the answer I already gave, Jesus was not only prophesied to be rejected by the Jews, but also that He would bring salvation to the gentiles.

Isaiah 49:6 - he says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

So why did the Jews reject Jesus and the gentiles accept Him when the Jews had prophecy to fall back on? Simple. If the Jews had accepted Jesus, the scriptures would have been wrong. And if the scriptures were wrong, then why accept Jesus?

Prophecies from God are not given to us so we can change history. We will never be able to make God wrong.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

I typed out a reply to Sketcher and then right as I was about to post it my computer malfunctioned and my work was lost and so I’m going to try to give this another go. I can’t help but thinking about a certain joke involving computers and the devil and with the punch line, “Jesus saves.”

Some did, some didn't.

Most did not. Even during his lifetime, most of the Jews he came in contact with failed to recognize or be convinced of his deity. Even the crowds that he attracted did not remain loyal and his movement mostly dissipated after his death.

His movement was mostly taken over by Paul and didn't really take off until Paul took it to nonJews. By that time, it had changed so much that it was no longer recognizable as even being Jewish.

Those who accepted Jesus became the first Christians.

More accurately, they became the predecessors of the first Christians (protoChristian maybe?) The transition from Judaism to Jesus’ cult to Christianity was neither instant nor smooth but took hundreds of years.

The vast majority of what Jesus taught, according to the synoptic gospels was not new but repeated from the same Jewish writings used by all the Pharisees; the TaNaKh and/or Septuagint and the Talmud with a few adjustments of his own. But even with his adjustments, his teaching differed very little from other Pharisees during his time. He taught that to be saved one must keep the Sh'ma which is universally recognized to be the most important prayer/verse/mitzvah in Judaism and the sum of the law. The Sh'Ma is Hear O Israel, God is the Lord, God is One. You shall love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, resources and spirit and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Paul never met Jesus while he was alive, his writings never actually reference anything that Jesus actually did or taught and some of Paul's writing suggest that he might have been confused as to whether or not Jesus was a real flesh and blood human being. Dispite this, much of Christian doctrine is actually based upon the writings of Paul, not Jesus himself. Whereas Jesus’ teachings were still mostly centered mostly on action and works, Paul taught salvation by grace and belief.

Within a decade after his death, different groups had already sprung up with competing gospels. By the end of the 2nd century, there were hundreds of different gospel accounts and other writings circulating the middle east and it would be a another 200 years before the NT was canonized. It was around this time that essential Christian doctrines like the Nicene creed and the Trinity were introduced. And so it was approximately 350 years after the death of Jesus before anyone had and believed the complete list of doctrine that is necessary to be a Christian by the standards of mainstream Christianity today.

Those who rejected Jesus did so for the same reason their forefathers rebelled in the desert prior to entering the Promised Land,

That is entirely incorrect. The reason the Hebrews rejected the Torah in the desert was because they were operating on autopilot. They were the first generation to receive the Torah which meant they had grown up without it. Which meant that it wasn’t ingrained into them but was foreign and so it just their natural tendency to not keep it.

The reason that the Jews rejected Jesus as a God was because he was a man and the God of Judaism is not a man but is unseen, eternal and unchanging. The first commandment was to have no gods before God but Jesus was claiming/claimed to be a god between man and God. The second commandment was to make no images of God or anything in Heaven but Jesus was claiming/claimed to be a god therefore making himself an image of God. There was no way they could accept Jesus as their God without violating both of those commandments.

They rejected Jesus as their messiah because a messiah, if nothing more, is a kind and Jesus was not. The Jewish understanding of The Davidic Messiah was one would restore Israel, bring all the Jews home from Dispora and teach the whole world to worship the God of Abraham. Jesus did none of those things.

And so they rejected Jesus for the exact opposite reasons, because they were keeping the Torah.

and for the same reason that their later forefathers rejected Torah and went into captivity.

Again this is entirely incorrect. The reason why they went into captivity was because they had started worshipping the statues of false gods that their soldiers had brought home from conquered territories. And so again its for the exact opposite reasons.

They refused to listen to God's repeated entreaties.

God’s repeated entreaties throughout the OT was to not worship false gods but to keep the Torah. What set the Jewish God apart from all the other gods was that the Jewish God was not a statue or a dude or anything else that was some where or can be seen or felt but was instead invisible and everywhere all the time. Every single time that they had started worshipping some statue, dude or other ’thing’ they fell and so by the time Jesus showed up, they understood that God did not want them worshipping any ’thing’ including dudes.

Then rejecting Jesus became tradition, really.

No. Not even.

Your statement here makes the false assumption that Jews define their religion in terms of their relationship to Jesus and in doing so confuses which came first. If Judaism was an offspring of Christianity instead of the other way around, your statement would be perfectly accurate by necessity. But since Judaism came first, it was not founded or shaped by its relationship to Jesus. There was not a tradition of rejecting Jesus before he appeared on the scene and, quite simple, nothing change. Jesus is just not a part of Judaism. And rejecting Jesus is no more a Jewish tradition than rejecting David Koresh or Reverend Moon or any number of other false 2nd Comings of Jesus is a Christian tradition.

A Jew who did become a Christian, Dr. Michael Brown, has written a 5-volume series on why so many Jews have rejected the Christian message, and why they are wrong to do so.

This has suspicious written all over it. For starters, Brown is an Anglo not a Jewish name and so he’s was either a convert or the descendent of one which raises doubts in my mind as to how well he understands Judaism. Secondly, if the Jews have enough reasons for rejecting Jesus that he can fill five entire volumes with those reasons, that kind of speaks for itself.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

Scripture prophesied that the Jews would reject Him.

Earlier on, in the book of Exodus, the Hebrew nation is clearly identified as being the first born son of God:

Exodus 4:22
New International Version (NIV)
22 Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son,

And so all subsequent verses referencing the firstborn son of God is in reference to the Israeli nation.

Isaiah 28:16 - So this is what the Sovereign LORD says:

“See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;
the one who relies on it
will never be stricken with panic.

This doesn't look to me like the verses are saying the God will incarnate and the Jews will reject Him. I don't know where you got that from.

Psalms 118:22-23 - The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the LORD has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Alright, I can kind of see how you can interpret this verse that way but I'm still not convinced. Let's look at whole Psalm and see what it's about:

Psalm 118

1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
2 Let Israel say:
“His love endures forever.”
3 Let the house of Aaron say:
“His love endures forever.”
4 Let those who fear the LORD say:
“His love endures forever.”

5 When hard pressed, I cried to the LORD;
he brought me into a spacious place.
6 The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?
7 The LORD is with me; he is my helper.
I look in triumph on my enemies.

8 It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in humans.
9 It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in princes.
10 All the nations surrounded me,
but in the name of the LORD I cut them down.
11 They surrounded me on every side,
but in the name of the LORD I cut them down.
12 They swarmed around me like bees,
but they were consumed as quickly as burning thorns;
in the name of the LORD I cut them down.
13 I was pushed back and about to fall,
but the LORD helped me.
14 The LORD is my strength and my defense[a];
he has become my salvation.

15 Shouts of joy and victory
resound in the tents of the righteous:
“The LORD’s right hand has done mighty things!
16 The LORD’s right hand is lifted high;
the LORD’s right hand has done mighty things!”
17 I will not die but live,
and will proclaim what the LORD has done.
18 The LORD has chastened me severely,
but he has not given me over to death.
19 Open for me the gates of the righteous;
I will enter and give thanks to the LORD.
20 This is the gate of the LORD
through which the righteous may enter.
21 I will give you thanks, for you answered me;
you have become my salvation.

22 The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
23 the LORD has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 The LORD has done it this very day;
let us rejoice today and be glad.

25 LORD, save us!
LORD, grant us success!

26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.
From the house of the LORD we bless you.
27 The LORD is God,
and he has made his light shine on us.
With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
up[c] to the horns of the altar.

28 You are my God, and I will praise you;
you are my God, and I will exalt you.

29 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.

That's it. It's just a verse in the middle of a Psalm that is prayer asking for victory over ones enemies. I see nothing at all in here pointing toward Jesus. This doesn't look like a prophesy and is not presented as such.

Isaiah 53:2-12 - He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

That last selection, the long one, makes many other predictions about Jesus as well. It says that He would be innocent, yet He would die like a criminal. It claims that He would die for the transgressions of the Jews, like a lamb for the slaughter.

It also predicts His resurrection, the fact that He would be given the tomb of a rich man (Jesus' burial was, in fact, provided by the rich man Joseph).

Another thing I noticed what that it predicts that Jesus would not protest, that He "did not open His mouth." In the New Testament, as Jesus was on trial, He made no defense for Himself even when the judges urged Him to.

In no way at all does the scripture predict some war hero of a Messiah. That was the Jews reading their own ideas into scripture, just as people do today.

Read through the entire book of Isaiah instead of just passages. The servant of the Lord is identified in many places (not just in Isaiah but throughout the OT) as being the Holy city of Jerusalem:

Isaiah 52

1 Awake, awake, Zion,
clothe yourself with strength!
Put on your garments of splendor,
Jerusalem, the holy city.
The uncircumcised and defiled
will not enter you again.
2 Shake off your dust;
rise up, sit enthroned, Jerusalem.
Free yourself from the chains on your neck,
Daughter Zion, now a captive.

3 For this is what the LORD says:

“You were sold for nothing,
and without money you will be redeemed.”

4 For this is what the Sovereign LORD says:

“At first my people went down to Egypt to live;
lately, Assyria has oppressed them.

5 “And now what do I have here?” declares the LORD.

“For my people have been taken away for nothing,
and those who rule them mock,[a]”
declares the LORD.
“And all day long
my name is constantly blasphemed.
6 Therefore my people will know my name;
therefore in that day they will know
that it is I who foretold it.
Yes, it is I.”

7 How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
“Your God reigns!”
8 Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices;
together they shout for joy.
When the LORD returns to Zion,
they will see it with their own eyes.
9 Burst into songs of joy together,
you ruins of Jerusalem,
for the LORD has comforted his people,
he has redeemed Jerusalem.
10 The LORD will lay bare his holy arm
in the sight of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth will see
the salvation of our God.

11 Depart, depart, go out from there!
Touch no unclean thing!
Come out from it and be pure,
you who carry the articles of the LORD’s house.
12 But you will not leave in haste
or go in flight;
for the LORD will go before you,
the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

The Suffering and Glory of the Servant

13 See, my servant will act wisely;
he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him[c]—
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
and his form marred beyond human likeness—
15 so he will sprinkle many nations,[d]
and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
and what they have not heard, they will understand.

 

[drich0150]

I'm currently working on a reply. There is a lot here and so a lot to tackle and so this will take some time and research. BTW, thank you. Your are providing a challenge.

Not me.. I am just relaying The Spirit Inspired word that Paul brought us, and the words and works of Christ Himself.

If it make it easier you can just tackle one topic at a time do not feel obligated to answer everthing line by line.