Why don't Jews recognize Jesus as the Messiah? Why don't Jews believe in Jesus?
One of the most popular questions addressed to the editors of Aish.com is the following: "Why don't Jews believe in Jesus?" Let's look at the answer to this question one by one, without in any way belittling other beliefs or neglecting other religions, but, most importantly, let's clarify this question from a Jewish point of view, that is, in the light of the Torah.
Jews do not accept Jesus as Moshiach for the following reasons:
- Jesus did not fulfill the messianic prophecies.
- Jesus did not possess the personal qualities inherent in the Moshiach.
- The biblical reference to Jesus as Moshiach is due to an inaccuracy of translation.
- Jewish faith is based on “national revelation.”
But first, a little preface:
The word מָשִׁיחַ (Mashiach) in Hebrew means “God’s Anointed One,” that is, a person appointed by G-d to a special service, and as a sign of his chosenness, previously anointed with oil (oil) ( Shmot 29:7; 1 Melachim 1:39; 2 Melachim 9:3).
Jesus did not fulfill messianic prophecies
What is the essence of the fulfillment of the prophecies of Moshiach? One of the central themes of the prophecies is the promise of a future perfect world where all people will live in harmony with each other and recognize the One G-d ( Yeshayahu 2:1-4, 32:15-18, 60:15-18; Tsfanya 3:9; Oshea 2:20-22; Amos 9:3-15; Mikha 4:1-4; Zharya 8:23b 14:9; Irmeyahu 31:33-34).
Tanakh tells us what Moshiach must do:
- Build the Third Temple ( Yehezkel 37:26-28).
- Gather all the Jews who are scattered to the Land of Israel ( Yeshayahu 43:5,6).
- To usher in an era of peace throughout the world, to put an end to hatred, oppression, suffering and disease, as it is written by the prophet: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” ( Yeshayahu 2:4).
- To spread the teaching about the G-d of Israel that will unite humanity into one union. Thus declares the prophet: “And the Lord will be king over all the earth; on that day the Lord will be one (for all), and His name is one” ( Zharya 14:9).
If a person claiming the title of Moshiach fails to fulfill at least one of the specified conditions, it can't be true Mashiach.
But over the past years, no one has yet played the role of Moshiach described in Tanakh, that is why the Jews are still waiting for him. All those who had already claimed the role of Moshiach, including Jesus of Nazareth, Bar Kokhba and Shabtai Zvi, failed and were rejected by the Jews.
Christians claim that Jesus will fulfill all the prophetic signs at the time of his Second Coming. Jewish sources reveal the Moshiach, who will carry out the Divine mission the first time, for in Tanakhthere is no concept of the Second Coming.
Jesus did not have the personal qualities of Moshiach
A. Mashiach as a prophet
Moshiach will be the greatest prophet in human history after Moshe ( Targum - Yeshayahu 11:2; Maimonides - Teshuvah 9:2).
The prophecy can only be fulfilled in the Land of Israel, when many Jews gather together in one place; such an event has not occurred since 300 BC. During Ezra's time, when most of the Jews were in Babylon, the prophecy ended in death last prophets- Hagai, Zharya and Malachi.
Jesus appears on the historical scene about 350 years after the end of the prophecy, so he could not have been a prophet.
B. Descendant of David
Many texts Tanakh mention a descendant of King David who will reign in the age of perfection ( Yeshayahu 11:1-9; Irmeyahu 23:5-6, 30:7-10, 33:14-16; Yehezkel 34:11-31, 37:21-28; Oshea 3:4-5).
Mashiach must be a descendant of King David on his father's side (see. Bereshit 49:10; Yeshayahu 11:1; Irmeyahu 23:5, 33:17; Yehezkel 34:23-24). According to the Christian claim, Jesus was virginally conceived, which means he has no father - so he cannot claim absolute fulfillment of prophecy without being a paternal offspring of King David 1 .
According to Jewish sources, Mashiach will be born from human parents and will have qualities inherent in ordinary people. He will not be a demigod 2 or a person with supernatural powers.
B. Observance of the Torah
Mashiach will lead the people to serve the Creator, according to the instructions Torah. Torah claims that everything mitzvot sealed forever, and no one can change them. Anyone who tries to do this should be declared a false prophet ( Dvarim 13:1-4).
Taking into account what is written in the Christian "New Testament", Jesus revises the institutions of the Torah and argues that its commandments are outdated and no longer applicable. For example, in John 9:14 it is written that Jesus mixed dirt with saliva, thereby violating Shabbat, which caused the indignation of the Pharisees (verse 16): “He does not keep Shabbat!».
Mistranslated texts that “hint” at Jesus
Tanakh is understood correctly only when studied original Hebrew text. In the case of a Christian translation Tanakh, you can find a number of inconsistencies with the original source.
A. Immaculate Conception
The Christian concept of the virgin birth originates from the text of the book of the prophet Yeshayahu(7:14), who calls a woman the word "alma", indeed, the word " alma” always meant “young woman,” but Christian theologians, several centuries later, translated it differently as the word “virgin.” This approach to the birth of Jesus dates back to first-century paganism, where mortal beings were impregnated by the gods.
B. The Suffering Servant
Christianity is convinced that prophecy from Yeshayahu 53 necessarily belongs to the “suffering servant” - Jesus.
Actually chapter 53 ( Yeshayahu 53) follows directly from the central theme of chapter 52, which describes the exile and redemption of the Jewish people. The prophecy uses the singular form because that the Jews (“Israel”) are viewed as a single entity - the people of Israel. In all Jewish sources, Israel is seen as G-d's only "servant" (cf. Yeshayahu 43:8). Truly, in the book of the prophet Yeshayahu, up to chapter 53, Israel is mentioned as God’s servant no less than 11 times.
If you read this chapter correctly ( Yeshayahu 53), then its content will fully express the idea that the Jewish people were “oppressed and tormented, and did not open their mouth, like a sheep led to the slaughter” in the hands of the peoples of the world. These images are repeated repeatedly throughout the Jewish scriptures to describe with particular force the suffering of the Jewish people. (cm. Tehilim 44).
Finally , Yeshayahu 53 concludes that when the Jewish people are redeemed, the rest of the nations will realize what has happened and accept their responsibility for the unnecessary suffering and death of every Jew.
Jewish faith is based on "national revelation"
Throughout history, the thousands of religions created by man have always been distinguished by the conviction of the immutability of their statements and the confidence in the truth of the revelation from God himself. But personal revelation is a very weak basis for faith, because there is always a basis for doubt: did the revelation really happen? For no one heard how G-d spoke to this or that person, and all his statements are based only on his words. And in the case when a person claiming personal revelation can perform miracles, this cannot be evidence that he is a prophet. All miracles - even if they are genuine - are considered through the prism of certain human capabilities, but not for the purpose of proclaiming and giving him the status of a prophet.
Judaism, alone of all the world's major religions, does not rely on miracles as the foundation of its teachings. In fact, Torah says that sometimes G-d gives charlatans the power to “perform miracles” in order to test the loyalty of the Jewish people to their Tore (Dvarim 13:4).
Of the many thousands of religions throughout the history of mankind, only Judaism builds the basis of its doctrine on the “national revelation”, that is, on the fact that G-d speaks to his people. If G-d lays the foundation of His religion, then this has a special meaning, and He will reveal the Tablets of His teaching to the whole people, and not to one person in a personal conversation.
Maimonides states (Foundations Torah, chapter 8): “The Jews did not believe in Moshe, our teacher, because of the miracles that he performed. Whenever someone's faith is based on the miracles they have seen, doubts increase among the Jewish people, because, most likely, the miracles could have been performed using magic or witchcraft. But all the miracles that Moses performed in the desert were used for their intended purpose, and not as proof of his prophetic gift.”
What served solid foundation of the [Jewish] faith? A solid foundation of the [Jewish] faith became the Revelation on Mount Sinai, which we saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears, and this Revelation did not depend on the testimony of other people, for it is written: “Facing to the face of G-d spoke to you..." The Torah states: “The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us; we are the ones who are all alive here today» ( Dvarim 5:4,3).
Judaism is not about the greatness of miracles. This is the personal testimony of every man, woman and child who stood on Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago.
Waiting for Moshiach
The world is in dire need of redemption. We are well aware of the problems of society, and for this reason we will strive for redemption. According to the Talmud, one of the first questions asked of a Jew on the Day of Judgment will be: “Have you longed for the coming of Moshiach?”
How can we hasten the coming of Moshiach? The best way showing love for humanity is respecting mitzvot of the Torah(in the best way possible) and encourage others to do the same.
Despite the gloom of events taking place on earth today, the world appears to be moving steadily towards the threshold of redemption. One of the obvious signs of the approaching Era of Moshiach is that the Jewish people are returning to the land of Israel and flourishing again. In addition, we are seeing a mass movement of young Jews returning to the roots of their tradition - Tore.
Mashiach can come any day: everything depends on our actions. G-d is ready act, but He is waiting for us, for, as King David said: “Redemption will come today if you listen to His voice.”
Notes
- Yosef ultimately accepts Jesus and pursues his genealogy through adoption. But there are two problems around this:
a) There is not even a hint in the Tanakh that a father can pass on his tribe through adoption. A priest who has adopted a son from another tribe through adoption cannot ordain him as a priest.
b) Yosef cannot convey what he does not have by acceptance. Since Yosef ascends from Yehoyachin (Gospel of Matthew 1:11), he is under the curse of this king so that none of his descendants can reign on the throne of David. (Irmeyahu 22:30, 36:30). Although Yehoyachin repented, as discussed in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 37a) and elsewhere, it is not entirely clear whether the continuation of the royal line through his repentance was possible. (See, for example, Bereshit Rabbah 98:7 for the example of King Tzidkiyah.)
To resolve this difficult dilemma, defenders of Christianity argue that Jesus accepts the genealogy of a descendant of King David through his mother Mary, who is supposedly his direct descendant, as written in chapter 3 of the Gospel of Luke. There are 4 more main contradictions in this statement:
a) There is no evidence that Mary is a descendant of King David. Luke chapter 3 reveals the genealogy of Joseph, not Mary.
b) Even if Mary comes from the line of King David, Jesus will not be the royal successor, since the anointing for the kingdom comes through the father, and not through the mother (cf. Bemidbar 1:18; Ezra 2:59).
c) If the family lineage had been through the mother's side, Mary would not have been from the legitimate family of Moshiach. According to the Tanach, Mashiach must be a descendant of David through his son Shlomo (2 Shmuel 7:14, 1 Divrei HaYamim 17:11-14, 22:9-10, 28:4-6). The third chapter of Luke is not relevant to this discussion because it describes the genealogy of David's son Nathan, not Solomo (Luke 3:31).
d) In the Gospel of Luke, Shealtiel and Zerubbabel are mentioned in the genealogy. These names are also found in the Gospel of Matthew as the descendants of the cursed Yehoyachin. If Mary descends from them, then this deprives her of the right to be the ancestor of Moshiach.
- Maimonides devotes much of his Guide to the Perplexed to the fundamental idea that G‑d has no physical form. G-d is eternal, outside of time and above it. It is infinite, outside of space. He cannot be born and he cannot die. To claim that G‑d takes human form is to belittle G‑d, to force Him into impossible limits, to narrow His unity and to devalue His Divinity. The Torah sums it up: “God is not mortal” (Bemidbar 23:19).
Anatoly Ermokhin
Director of the Even-Ezer Foundation in the Ural region, Master of Theology.
Frankly about the desired, but unrealistic...
...or why Jews never believe in Jesus
Perhaps this will be my most frank conversation on the pages of our portal. I hope to compensate for excessive frankness with utmost sincerity.
All Christians until the Second Vatican Council and almost everyone in modern history one thing unites. Moreover, this thing is inherent in both radical and more liberal Christians, both anti-Jewish and pro-Zionist. You can read about this in Aurelius Augustine, and modern masters of Christian-Jewish dialogue also write about this. We all believe that sooner or later all Jews will believe in Christ and join the Church. But I doubt it! More precisely, I think differently: I think that all of Israel will never become the Church. For this I see a whole series of arguments, the red thread of which is five humanly insurmountable barriers between the Jewish people and Jesus Christ.
First of all, I want to say a few words about the New Testament (I would even say Christian) term “believe” used. This term itself is key for us, because... is present in the soteriological (saving) formula - “believe with the heart and confess with the mouth” (Rom. 10: 9-10). On the other hand, faith is “...the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Those. in the Christian understanding, the conditions of salvation are faith in the invisible Jesus as a personal Lord!
The second starting point is understanding who, according to the Torah, should be considered a Jew. This also needs to be taken into account. The answer to this question is closely intertwined with the interpretation of the term "remnant of Israel"; This is a big and interesting question, but we’ll leave it until next time. Returning to the text of the Torah, we should understand Israel to a greater extent as the Jews, i.e. assimilated Jews are difficult to consider as part of the Jewish people; dozens of times in the Torah we read the terrifying formulation: “[may] that soul be cut off from among his people.” For this reason, many modern Jews of the Diaspora, by decision of the rabbinical court, are forced to undergo the rite of conversion; for similar reasons, the Jews did not communicate with the Samaritans. In other words, by Jews in our conversation we will understand unassimilated Jews, Jews, which more accurately corresponds to biblical instructions.
1. So, the first obstacle is cultural. It is necessary to understand that the main reason why the Jews survived in dispersion as a nation and did not lose their faith over many centuries was their firm adherence to religious culture and religious traditions. To better understand, remember the reaction of a Russian person who, in the wake of the awakening of the 90s, found himself at an evangelical meeting. The first thing such a person felt was culture shock: “You can’t sing to God with a guitar!” This is not according to us, not according to the Orthodox! This is not in Russian! Where are the icons, where are the priests? What, they sold themselves to the American faith for chewing gum!” Moreover, this Russian-Soviet citizen did not necessarily have to be a church-going Orthodox believer. And not everyone managed to overcome this cultural barrier. For Jews, the commitment to their culture and traditions is much deeper, which means the cultural barrier is incomparably higher, and therefore much more difficult to overcome.
2. The second barrier between the Jews and Christ is historical. About 80-90% of the history of the relationship between Israel and the Church, between Jews and Christians is anti-Jewish, and sometimes openly anti-Semitic. For the reasons stated in the first paragraph, Jews remember well the history of their predecessors, and, unlike us, are well aware of the history of persecution and persecution by the Christian world. Until recently, Christians were perceived by Jews as enemy number one. And there is nothing surprising about this. If we, our grandfathers and great-grandfathers had been oppressed, crushed and killed by anyone for many, many generations, then these someone would have been perceived by us as enemies. And if these someone acted with the Name of Christ, then I don’t think that we would be sitting and reading these lines now because of our alienation from the Christian society that we hate. Such relationships are absorbed and nurtured with mother’s milk, and to eradicate them, to replace them is the duty of more than one generation of Christians. I wrote about this in more detail in a previous post.
3. The third, even more difficult to overcome obstacle is religious. In Ephesians 2:12, the Apostle Paul notes about us that we were pagans, alienated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel... and most importantly, we were ungodly in the world. What does this mean, godless people? This means that there was no God in us! In other words, we had nothing worthy within us that could “compete” with the Good News (forgive my loose terminology). Let me ask a question: to whom is it easier for us to evangelize: a convinced Muslim or an atheist, a Buddhist monk or an alcoholic neighbor? The Jews are not empty in their souls, they have a solid and true faith into the living God, which God Himself gave them, through His Holy Word, and which they preserved at the cost of enormous blood through centuries and millennia.
4. The fourth reason is Christological. Oh, if the question was only to recognize in Jesus the Messiah they expect, whom they find in the texts Old Testament. Everything is made several times more complicated by questions related to Christology in church theology. Now I am not saying that the Christological views of Christianity are not correct. No. I say that the understanding of the trinity of God and the consubstantiality of the Messiah (God the Son) with the Father, even to us Christians, who yesterday were like a blank slate, is not simply given; often we act in accordance with the classic saying - Credo quia absurdum! I believe it because it’s absurd! What can we say about the Jews who daily declare the unity of God in their greatest prayer, “Shema Yisrael”! For them, these questions are simply humanly incomprehensible, and even unacceptable!
5.
And the last question, also difficult for Jews to understand, is the messianic barrier. For the Jews, who are basically the heirs of Rabbinic-Talmudic Judaism (and who in turn are the heirs of the Pharisaic teachings), it is clear that Jesus did not fulfill a significant part of the important prophecies of the Old Testament. Namely, He did not establish the foretold kingdom of Israel. It is difficult for them to see and recognize the Messiah in Jesus, because He did not bring the promised liberation to the Jewish people and did not establish prosperity throughout the entire Earth. We Christians have a clause that allows and harmonizes everything - “for now.” As I already pointed out in my articles on the Qumran heritage, members of the Dead Sea community also guessed about this “for now”. However, for the ideas of modern Jews, this “yet” does not work, because The Messiah, in their understanding, must sit on the throne of David and His kingdom must be eternal.
Based mainly on these reasons I have outlined, I assume that the mass conversion of the Jews (Jews), which we have all so desired since Augustine's times, will not happen. And no matter how much we would like to, statistics only confirm these conclusions: there are almost no Jews of the Haridim (Orthodox) world who voluntarily believed in Christ as Lord. If it is possible for them to believe in Christ in the period before His second coming, then only in a miraculous way, and no less supernatural than the faith of the apostle himself. Paul through the personal appearance of Christ to him and direct prophecy associated with his blindness. Although ap. Paul knew the teachings of the first Jewish Christians very well, and was personally present at Stephen’s dying sermon, but this did not convince him of the fidelity of the teachings of the first followers of Jesus.
But how should we relate to the words of the Apostle Paul, in which he quotes the prophet Isaiah: “And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: The Deliverer will come from Zion, and will turn away wickedness from Jacob.” (Rom. 11:26). (Let us note here an even more accurate translation of the prophecy of Isaiah: “And a deliverer will come for Zion and for those who turn away from wickedness in Jacob - the word of the Lord!” (Is. 59:20). I think I have already pointed out quite a few times that the Messiah will come to Earth for Zion and for Jacob when the Church has already been taken from the Earth (see 1 Thess. 4:16-17).According to the prophecy of Zechariah, only at this moment will their eyes be opened and they will look at the pierced and will mourn (see Zech. 10). This will be their acceptance of the Messiah and their acceptance by the Messiah; as the Apostle Paul points out to us, God will take away their sins from them (see Rom. 11). Such acceptance in its kind is nothing other than salvation , and salvation by the Messiah Jesus.However, this is not quite what we expect, and this is not quite the “classical salvation” that we pagans who believed in the invisible Lord are accustomed to profess.
With this understanding of part of the eschatological events, many things become more consistent: the Jewish people meet the Messiah on Earth and remain Israel for the entire Messianic period (1000 years); at this time the Church remains the Church of the Hellenes and part of the Jews to “reign with Christ.” At the same time, the names of the great apostles of the Church and the names of the 12 tribes of Israel will remain separate on the New Jerusalem for centuries and centuries. The inhabitants of the New Jerusalem will be called simply “slaves of God” (Rev. 22:3). As we see, absorption, and certainly not displacement of one another, does not occur.
All this once again convinces me that we do not have sufficient grounds to expect mass faith among Jewish Jews in Christ until His second coming. It cannot be any other way, otherwise many of the words and promises of Scripture simply will not be fulfilled!
Two thousand years together. Jewish attitude to Christianity Polonsky Pinchas
Chapter 1. Why Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah
1.1. Jesus' Failure to Realize Messianic Prophecies
One of the fundamental tenets of Christianity is the idea that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah who has already come. The word "Christ" itself is the Greek translation of the word "Messiah" (Mashiach, literally "anointed one") - and thus this idea lies at the very core of the Christian faith. Why do Jews reject the recognition of Jesus as the Messiah?
In order to be able to decide whether Jesus is the Messiah, it is necessary, first of all, to understand the term “Messiah” itself, to understand what exactly it includes. First of all, we must keep in mind that the very concept of the “coming of the Messiah” was introduced by the prophets of ancient Israel; It was the presence of their prophecies that made people expect the coming of the Messiah. Thus, if a person declares himself (or someone declares him) to be the Messiah, then one should check whether this person corresponds to the prophecies about the Messiah, whether he has done what the Hebrew prophets expect from the Messiah.
In ancient biblical prophecies, the Messiah is the king and spiritual leader of the Jewish people. During the life and reign of the King - the Messiah, the process of Geula, Deliverance, will be completed - in other words, the liberation and revival of the entire world. The prophets explain that this revival and correction of the world is not understood in a figurative, “potential” or “purely spiritual” sense, but that it must be realized in objective reality, obvious and undeniable for all people. First of all, in the time of the Messiah, wars will cease, universal peace and prosperity will come, and all people, enjoying peace and harmony, will be able to devote themselves to the knowledge of God and spiritual improvement.
The most important of these prophecies, which is the criterion for the coming of the Messiah, is well known to everyone - this is the famous “they will beat swords into plowshares.” The prophet Isaiah (2:4), describing the days of the coming of the Messiah, emphasizes that they will be the era of the complete end of wars:
“And (all nations) shall beat their swords into ploughshares [ploughs], and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift up sword against nation, and they will no longer learn to fight.”
i.e. peace, universal brotherhood of man and the cessation of violence are the most important signs of the advent of messianic times, Isaiah also emphasizes (60:16–22) that messianic times are an era of universal social justice and spiritual flourishing:
“...And then you will know that I am the Lord who saves you and delivers you, the Mighty One of Jacob... And I will put peace in place of your taskmasters and justice in place of your oppressors. There will be no more violence in your land, no more robbery and destruction within your borders, and you will call your walls salvation and your gates glory. The sun will not shine as the light of day for you, and the moon will not shine for you, but the Lord will be your eternal light, and your God your splendor. Your sun will no longer set, and your moon will not be hidden, for the Lord will be an everlasting light to you, and the days of your sorrow will end. And your people - all the righteous, the branch of My planting, the work of My hands to glory, will inherit this country forever... I, the Lord, will hasten it at the appointed time.”
And the prophet Jeremiah (23:5–6) speaks of the Messiah, a descendant of David, as follows:
“Behold, the days will come,” said the Lord, “when I will raise up a righteous descendant for David, and he will reign, and will be wise and prosperous, and will administer justice and righteousness on earth. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in safety; and this is the name by which he will be called: The Lord is our justice.”
All these prophecies have one very significant feature: For the Jewish prophets, the spiritual revival of the world is inseparable from objective social changes in reality?! The Messiah of the prophets is not a deity, but a real person of flesh and blood, a descendant of King David. At the same time, the focus of the prophets’ attention (essentially, it is not the personality of the Messiah himself, but the tasks facing him, the changes that he brings to the world). This is a general and characteristic feature of the worldview of Judaism, for which true spirituality always realizes you in material: man was created on earth for this purpose, to spiritualize, sanctify and cultivate the surrounding material world - and himself along with it.
Only when we realize the realistic nature of the messianic predictions of the Hebrew prophets can we imagine what a terrible blow for the disciples of Jesus was the death of the one whom they considered the potential Messiah. After all, as is known from the gospels, both Jesus himself and his disciples, like all other Jews in his time, unconditionally recognized the authority of the prophets. Jesus died without accomplishing anything that was intended and expected from the messianic times - how could one now continue to believe in his messiahship? We can imagine that many Jews, who were passionately awaiting Deliverance and attracted by the vibrant personality of Jesus, considered him a potential Messiah. His death presented them with a difficult dilemma: on the one hand, prophecies clearly explaining what deeds the Messiah should perform; on the other hand, their messianic hopes for Jesus, who did not realize these prophecies, and, therefore, the messianic times have not yet come. Most of the Jews who hoped in Jesus bitterly admitted to themselves that they were mistaken, and that God had not yet sent Deliverance to His people: the Messiah had not yet come. Once again it was necessary to wait for true Salvation - to wait as long as necessary, no matter how strong the longing for Deliverance was.
But among Jesus’ contemporaries there were also people who were no longer able to give up what they so passionately believed in. The flash of hope was too bright, the pain of loss was too strong to face the bitter truth. They could no longer retreat. It turned out that for this small task it was easier to adjust the prophecies to the specific facts of the life of Jesus than to apply to his activity the definitions and criteria transmitted to us by the prophets.
In anticipation of further discussion, we would like to point out here that, looking from the historical perspective of the past two thousand years, we see that the consequences of the actions of this group of followers of Jesus were very important for the world. Christianity, which arose on this basis, brought monotheism to hundreds of millions of people, and in this, of course, one cannot see an “accident” or, even more so, a “mistake” - here, rather, one must see the Hand of Providence. At the same time, recognizing the importance and historical role of Christianity, we should not turn a blind eye to the distortions of the words of the ancient biblical prophets that Jesus' disciples went to to substantiate their ideas.
History does not know the subjunctive mood, and it is not for us to judge the “good and evil” of certain providential historical processes. Recognizing the emergence and spread of Christianity as a providential act designed to spread the main Jewish ideas to humanity (in the same way, by the way, we cannot consider the appearance of Islam almost six centuries later to be a “historically unnecessary accident”), we do not at all believe that Christianity, from the point of view from the perspective of Judaism, is the “correct religion”. In Judaism there is no commandment for missionary work - but there is, so to speak, a Divine plan for the spread of monotheism to all humanity, and Christianity is one of its elements. We must simultaneously understand both the importance and providence of Christianity, and the distortions that are currently recorded in it.
Let us now return to the crisis that occurred among the disciples of Jesus after his death.
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From the book The Jewish Answer to a Not Always Jewish Question. Kabbalah, mysticism and Jewish worldview in questions and answers by Kuklin ReuvenJews for Jesus Remember the followers of Jesus whom Paul wanted "removed" because they insisted on circumcision, which would discourage non-Jews from joining the Jesus movement? It is unlikely that they did this literally, and apparently not
From the book Theory of the Pack [Psychoanalysis of the Great Controversy] author Menyailov Alexey AlexandrovichPeter Recognizes Jesus as the Messiah 13 Having come to the region of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus began to ask His disciples: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said: “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”15 “And you? -
From the author's bookPeter recognizes Jesus as the Messiah (Mark 8:27–30; Luke 9:18–21)13 When Jesus came to the area around Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”14 The disciples answered: “Some say that You are John the Baptist, others that Elijah, and still others that
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June 26th, 2018
Who is Jesus Christ for the Jews?
Probably every Jew has faced this question at least once in his life, because Jesus Christ is the most famous Jew around the world. He is more famous than Abraham or Moses. But many Jews do not perceive Him as their Teacher. But besides the Jews, all over the world millions and billions of people read His sermons and believe His words.
Didn't Jesus preach to the Jews? Did he want to found a new religion? After all, he was born in Israel and grew up according to Jewish traditions.
Jesus said about himself, “Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” When he preached, he preached to the Jews and he had many followers. He called the main Commandment “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; the second is similar to it: love your neighbor as yourself.”
One day he asked his disciples: Who do people say I am? They said: Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He said to them: Who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered and said: You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Then Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
Jesus said that he is the Anointed One and the Son of God. The savior that God promised the Jews. Why did not all the Jews of that time accept Him as their Messiah?
Christians consider Jesus to be the very Messiah spoken of in Old Testament prophecies.
The messiah that the Jews are waiting for will do many wonderful things: he will return divine harmony to the world, resurrect the dead, stop all wars, and even make it so that predators will not kill and eat their victims. With the coming of the Messiah, Jews associate the complete deliverance of their people, as well as all nations. In ancient biblical prophecies, the Messiah is the king and spiritual leader of the Jewish people. During the life and reign of the King-Messiah, the process of “Geula”, “Deliverance”, liberation and revival of the whole world will be completed. Isaiah (2:4) emphasizes that the days of the coming of the Messiah will be an era of international and social change: “And all the nations will beat their swords into plowed [i.e. plows] and their spears on sickles; nation will not lift up sword against nation, and they will no longer learn to fight.” Peace, universal brotherhood of man and the cessation of violence are the most important signs of the advent of messianic times.
The most famous of modern false messiahs in Jewish history considered to be the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who died in 1994 in New York without having saved humanity from its troubles. In 2006, lying on his deathbed, the famous Israeli rabbi and Kabbalist Yitzhak Kaduri wrote a note, which, according to him, contains the name future Messiah. It contained a sentence in Hebrew, from the first letters of which the name Yeshua is formed, which is a variant of the name Jesus (Yeshua).
The main prophecies about the Messiah, confirmed in the life of Jesus Christ:
1. Place of birth Bethlehem (Mic.5.2).
“And you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, are you small among the thousands of Judah? from you will come to me one who is to be ruler in Israel, and whose origin is from the beginning from the days of eternity.”
Matthew 2.1: “Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea.”
2. Time of birth. The Messiah must come:
a) before Judea loses its political independence:
“The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet, until the Reconciler comes, and to Him is the submission of the nations,” Gen. 49.11.
The ancient Targum (ie, the Aramaic translation of the Bible) of Onkelos refers this passage to the Messiah. Jesus came during the reign of the Judean king Herod, shortly before the final fall of the political independence of Judea, before the taking away of the “scepter from Judah”, before the destruction of Jerusalem (70) and the scattering of the Jews among all nations (see Matt. 2.1),
b) in the days of the second temple.
Encouraging Zerubbabel to build a second temple, God says through the prophet Haggai:
“And I will shake all nations, and the One desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The glory of this last temple will be greater than the first, says the Lord of hosts, and in this place I will give peace” (Hag. 2.7-9).
“The Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, and the Angel of the Covenant, whom you desire, behold He comes,” says the Lord of hosts.” This is what the prophet Malachi said about the same second temple (3.1).
The second temple has already been destroyed.
Let us also remember the famous prophecy of Daniel (chap. 9.21-27)
The same heavenly messenger Gabriel, who announces to the Virgin Mary the birth of the Savior from her (Luke 21.26), says to the prophet Daniel (lived from 618 to 530 BC):
“Seventy weeks are determined for your people and your holy city, so that the transgression may be covered, the sins may be sealed, the iniquities may be blotted out, and everlasting righteousness may be brought in, and the vision and the prophet may be sealed, and the Holy of Holies may be anointed. Therefore, know and understand: from the time the commandment goes out to restore Jerusalem, until Christ the Master, there are seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; and the people will return and the streets and walls will be built, but in difficult times. And at the end of sixty-two weeks Christ will be put to death and will not be; And the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed by the people of the leader who will come, and he will establish the covenant for many for one week, and in the half of the week the sacrifice and the offering will cease, and the abomination that makes desolate will be on the wing of the sanctuary.”
That a week is seven years. this is also evident from the Talmud, which speaks about the time of the coming of the Messiah and those places in the Bible where the seventh year, when the earth should rest, corresponds to the seventh day of the week and is called the Sabbath year or simply Saturday (Ex.23.10-12, Lev.25.4-9) .
And so it happened. At this very time He came, was put to death on Golgotha, and this atoning sacrifice“Trime was covered, sins were sealed and iniquities were blotted out.” Following this, “the city and the sanctuary were destroyed by the people of the leader who came” (i.e., by the armies of the Roman general Titus in 70 A.D.), many accepted Christ in a short time (“one week confirmed the covenant for many” ), sacrifice and offering ceased, and “the abomination that makes desolate was set up on the wing of the sanctuary.”
Thus, history confirms Daniel's prophecy about the time of the coming of the Messiah and other corresponding predictions of the Bible mentioned by us in the book of Genesis and the prophets Haggai and Malachi.
3. The Messiah will be born of a virgin. “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin will be with child and give birth to a Son, and they will call His name Emmanuel” (Is. 7.14).
a) The word “Virgin” appears both in the Syriac translation (Peshito of the 2nd century AD) and in Jerome (Vulgata in the 4th century AD). It is characteristic that the Jews who translated the Bible from Hebrew. into Greek in Alexandria, the so-called 70 interpreters (authors of the LXX-Septuaginta in the second century BC) rendered the Hebrew word "alma") by means of the Greek word "parthenos" - which means "virgin". This translation is accepted by Delitzsch and other semitologists of modern times. Interestingly, in the recent edition of the New English Bible, this verse from Isaiah is translated differently in different places: in the translation of the book of Isaiah itself, the word ‘alma’ is translated as ‘young woman’.
b) Apart from philological considerations, the prophecy about the birth of a Virgin is understandable and logical: for what “sign” could there be in the ordinary birth of a Child?
c) Some find it difficult in the course of the content of this chapter (due to the context) to recognize the messianic character behind this prophecy, assimilating to it only a historical meaning in connection with a well-known event during the reign of King Ahaz. But verses 11-13 clearly show that the “sign” is given not to King Ahaz, but to the house of David, transferring the meaning of this prophecy from the realm of the personal and temporal to the realm of the messianic and eternal (grammatically, the singular of the previous verses in these verses becomes plural).
d) The sinless Messiah is a supernatural being (“wonderful,” as He is called in the 6th article of the 9th chapter of Isaiah, in the original Hebrew “miracle”). And it is much more understandable, in view of the law of heredity, the birth of a sinless, supernatural being in a supernatural way (from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin) than in an ordinary way.
e) The facts of “virgin birth” in nature are known to natural science (parthenogenesis). And is there anything impossible for Almighty God, who created the first man from dust, without any mediation of giving birth (that is, without the participation of not only the father, but also the mother)?
“Is there anything difficult for the Lord?” (Gen.18.14).
4. Various details in the fate of the Messiah, even the fact that He would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, were predicted by the prophets.
“And they will weigh out thirty pieces of silver as payment to Me. And the Lord said to me: throw them into the church storehouse, the high price at which they valued Me. And I took thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord for the potter” (Zechariah II.12-13); cf. Matthew 27.3-8:
“Then Judas, who had betrayed Him, seeing that He was condemned and repenting, returned the thirty pieces of silver to the high priests and elders, saying: “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.”
And throwing away the pieces of silver in the temple, he went out, went and hanged himself. The high priests, taking the pieces of silver, said: it is not permissible to put them in the church treasury, because this is the price of blood. Having held a meeting, they bought a potter’s land with them for the burial of strangers, which is why that land is called the “land of blood” to this day.”
5. Prophet Isaiah in chapter 53. describes in such detail the picture of the sufferings of Christ 700 years before they occurred, as if he himself was then standing at the cross on Calvary. And on this basis, we Christians call Isaiah the evangelist of the Old Testament.
The prophet himself is aware of the amazing, supernatural nature of his words when he exclaims: “Lord, who believed what was heard from us, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed?” In vain did later Jewish interpreters, already in the Christian era, strive to attribute this chapter to the entire people of Israel. This is contradicted at least by verse 8: “But who can explain His generation? For He is cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people I suffered execution.” Further, the words: “He committed no sin, and no lie was in His mouth” (v. 9) cannot be said about any people at all. Therefore, they do not apply to Israel, which annually repents of its sins on the Day of Judgment. It was for these sins that the Messiah died: “for the crimes of My people He suffered execution.”
It is also impossible to say these words about Israel: “like a lamb before its shearers is silent,” for Israel, like any other oppressed people, did not suffer resignedly. Let us at least remember the bloody uprisings of Bar Kochba. So the later (i.e., those that arose after R.C.) Jewish explanations are untenable.
As for the ancient Jewish interpretations, they attribute this prophecy (Isa. ch. 52, vv. 13-15 and ch. 53) to the Messiah:
1. Targum Jonathan ben Uzziel (in the Rabbinical Bible Warsaw 1883).
2. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 986.
3. “Zohar” (Kabbalah), vol. 1, p. 181a, b: vol. 111, p. 280a.
4. Yalkut Shimoni, vol. 11, p. 53.
If we carefully read the Gospel, we will easily recognize in Jesus Christ the suffering image of the “man of sorrows” about whom the prophet Isaiah speaks; we will find the same details, purpose, character and fruits of His messianic sufferings. The purpose of His suffering in Isaiah is the same as in the Gospel: “He took upon Himself our illnesses... He was wounded for our sins, the punishment of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we were healed... The Lord laid on Him the sins of us all” ( Isa.53.4-6).
Jesus Christ says about Himself: “The Son of Man came... to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10.45). “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:14,15).
Isaiah says: “He was tortured, but He suffered voluntarily, and did not open His mouth, just as a lamb is silent before its shearers.”
The Gospel tells us that false witnesses slandered Jesus before the Sanhedrin. “And the high priest stood up and said to Him: Why don’t You answer anything, that they testify against You? Jesus was silent” (Matt. 26.60-62).
Later, at Pilate’s trial, “when the chief priests and elders accused Him, He answered nothing. Then Pilate said to Him: Do you not hear how many testify against You? And he did not answer a single word, so that the ruler was greatly amazed” (Matt. 27.12-14). “And he was numbered with the evildoers,” says Isaiah. And indeed, Jesus was crucified between two thieves.
Even such a detail as the burial of Jesus in the tomb of a rich member of the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea (Matt. 27.57-60), confirmed the prophecy of Isaiah: “He was assigned a tomb with evildoers, but He was buried with the rich man, because He committed no sin, and there was no lie in His mouth." And then He rose from the dead and “saw a long-lasting descendant,” an influx of new followers that did not stop for thousands of years. This chapter, unfortunately, is not read in the synagogue. Is it because she speaks so amazingly clearly about Jesus Christ? I remember how a young Jew I knew, one Saturday, while in the synagogue, loudly asked those present: “Who is the 53rd chapter of Isaiah talking about, if not about Jesus Christ?” This question, naturally, caused a heated debate among those who heard it.
Trace His words and deeds in the Gospels. Begin with how He proclaimed the purpose of His coming one Sabbath in the synagogue of Nazareth. “They gave him the book of the prophet Isaiah; and He opened the book and found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; For He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor, and He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are afflicted, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
And having closed the book and given it to the minister, he sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them: Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And they all witnessed this to Him, and marveled at the words of grace that proceeded from His mouth.”
Let us remember His deeds, how He saved the lost, healed, and resurrected both physically and spiritually.
How, under the influence of His inspired Divine speech, publicans and harlots were reborn, acquiring through Him a new life, full of purity, holiness and love!
Streams of grace streamed from His eyes, and “those who touched Him were healed.”
And at the same time, His special love for Israel was so clearly expressed: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” He says to the pagan Syrophoenician woman (Matt. 15.24).
Sending His disciples to preach, He tells them: “Go first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
The tears of Christ are mentioned only twice in the Gospel. He cried once when he heard about the death of Lazarus. Another time, “when he approached the city (Jerusalem), then, looking at it, he cried for it and said: “Oh, if only on this day you knew what serves for your peace!” but now these things are hidden from your eyes" (Luke 19:41-44).
Or let us remember His mournful exclamation with which He ended His denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to you! How often have I wanted to gather your children together, as a bird gathers its chicks under its wings, and you did not want to!” (Matt. 23.37-38).
And how Christ died! Even then, in His grave hour of death, He grieved for those who nailed Him to the cross, and prayed for His enemies:
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
After resurrecting from the dead, He gives a covenant to the apostles to “preach in His name repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24.47).
This whole tragedy of the rejection of Christ by His own people, whom He loved even to death on the cross, is expressed in the brief words of the Apostle John: “He came to his own, and his own did not receive Him.”
We read in the Gospel that the simple and simple people “marveled at the words of grace that proceeded from His mouth,” and the ambitious Pharisees “betrayed Him out of envy.”
Jews today justify their rejection of Christ with the following reasons:
1. Christ broke the law, such as the Sabbath regulations.
Meanwhile, He Himself said: “Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle will pass from the law until it is all fulfilled. So, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches people to do so, he will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven; and whoever does and teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.
For, I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:17-20)
Observance of the letter, ritual righteousness, expressed in the formal, external execution of the law, does not save a person; It was she who prevented the Jews from seeing the true righteousness of Christ.
They grumbled at Christ's disciples because they did not fast. They were angry that He healed on the Sabbath. He answered them: “Should I do good on the Sabbath or do evil, save my soul or destroy it? But they were silent” (Mark 3.4).
That’s why they were silent because their conscience recognized the righteousness of Christ. After all, they also knew the 58th chapter of Isaiah, which speaks so sublimely, truly in a New Testament way, about fasting and the Sabbath, as manifestations of the same one, main commandment about love:
“This is the fast that I have chosen: loose the chains of unrighteousness, untie the bands of the yoke, and set the oppressed free and break every yoke; share your bread with the hungry and bring the wandering poor into your home... Then your light will open like the dawn... and the glory of the Lord will accompany you. When you remove the yoke from your midst, stop raising your finger and speaking offensively, and give your soul to the hungry, and feed the soul of the sufferer: then your light will rise in the darkness...”
The healing on Saturday of a sick woman, crippled by severe illness for eighteen years, aroused the indignation of the leader of the synagogue. But the Lord said to him: “You hypocrite! Doesn't each one of you untie his ox or donkey from the manger and lead it to water? Should not this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound for eighteen years, have been freed from these bonds on the Sabbath day? And when He said this, all those who opposed Him were ashamed, and all the people rejoiced over all His glorious deeds” (Luke 13:11).
One Sabbath, Jesus walked through the sown fields, and His disciples began to pluck ears of corn along the way. This again caused protest and reproaches from the Pharisees. He reminded them of what David did when he had need and was hungry, he and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God with Abiathar the high priest and ate the showbread, which no one should eat except the priests, and he gave to those who were with him. And he said to them: “The Sabbath is for man, and not man for the Sabbath; therefore the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Mark 2.23-28).
And it is the Son of Man, as the Perfect Man, who can dominate the rules, for He does everything not for the sake of His whims, but for the sake of real need or the highest truth.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ did not cancel the signs of Moses; Thus, He did not eliminate the commandment: “Thou shalt not kill,” but deepened its understanding by forbidding him to be angry with his brother.
Christ himself and the apostles recognized the inspiration of the Old Testament.
One thing is clear: Christ taught about the same One God in whom Moses and the prophets believed. To the lawyer’s question about the greatest
commandments, He repeated the famous “Shema Yisrael”:
“Hear, O Israel: the Lord thy God is the One Lord,” and this confirmed the teaching of Moses about monotheism.
And these three main essences of the Divine Father, Son and Holy Spirit are mentioned in the books of the Old Testament under various names God-Elohim, the Spirit of God, and the Son, as the incarnation of God, the visible Manifestation of God, the glory of God (Shekinah), is sometimes called the same name, for example, in Psalm 2 (v. 7): “The Lord said to Me: You are My Son; Today I have given birth to You."
“Honor the Son, lest He be angry.” In chapter 63 of Isaiah (vv. 9 and 10) there is also a mention of all three entities: God, the Angel of His Person and His Holy Spirit. This same Angel of His Face is spoken of in Exodus 23.20-21: “Behold, I am sending an Angel (of Mine) before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared (for you). Keep yourself before His Face, and listen to His voice; do not persist against Him, for He will not forgive your sin.”
3. “But how can God become incarnate in man? How can the infinite fit into the finite? Jews further object, referring to the doctrine of the God-manhood of Christ. “Can the Invisible God have a visible image? And how can God have a Son? However, it is precisely this revelation that is expressed in the aforementioned Psalm 2, where God speaks of the Messiah: “You are My Son.”
And precisely because God is invisible, He had to become incarnate in order to become visible and accessible. This is what is said about Christ in the Gospel: “The Word (God) became flesh... and we saw His glory...”. “No one has ever seen God. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed” (John 1:14,18).
And the prophet Isaiah speaks about this same Incarnation in chapter 9: “A child was born to us; A son is given to us; the government will be upon His shoulder, and His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
This place is also messianic according to the ancient Targum of Jonathan.
Here the Word of God is confirmed, spoken through Isaiah 55, also prophesying about the Messiah:
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. But as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.” God, in order to be accessible to us, became a man; Christ is God translated, so to speak, into human language. And as always, a miracle happens here “not besides, not against, but above nature” (non contra, non praeter, sed supra naturam). In short, in the entire teaching of Christ you will not find any contradictions either with the mind of man in general, or with the ideas and laws of the Old Testament in particular: the New Testament is not against, but is superior to both.
"Why don't you believe in Jesus Christ?" Marcinkovsky asked one Jewish girl in Lutsk (Poland), “tell me, you can’t believe or don’t want to believe?” “Well, of course, I can’t believe,” she answered, “since childhood we were told the biography of Jesus “Toldot Yeshu,” which says that Jesus is a deceiver and a seducer from the path of truth.” “In such a Messiah, of course, we could not believe,” said Martsinkovsky (preacher, publicist, theologian, evangelical scientist), “but the Gospel gives historical evidence written by His disciples, and it gives us the image of the great teacher truth and the perfect Righteous One,” “Yes, I could believe in such a Messiah,” the girl answered, and she expressed her readiness to get acquainted with the Gospel.
So, the common Jewish people do not believe, because they do not know. He reads the Bible, but does not read it. On the contrary, the Jewish intellectual knows, but does not believe. He reads the Holy Scriptures, including the Gospel, but does not honor or recognize the omnipotent power of God. “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God,” Christ said to the Sadducees (Matt. 22.29).
“The mountains will move, and the hills will be shaken, but My lovingkindness will not depart from you, and My covenant of peace will not be removed, says the Lord who has mercy on you” (Is. 54:10).
And the greatest thing in the life of the Jews will come true: Israel as a people will believe in Jesus Christ.
This conversion of Israel was also predicted by Christ in the words: “Behold, your house is left to you empty. For I say to you, you will not see Me from now on until you shout, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” This time of spiritual awakening will come: the rejection of Christ will be replaced by the “hosanna” that the Jewish people already greeted Him on the streets of Jerusalem two thousand years ago, and the centuries-old captivity of Israel will end. Already the Old Testament prophet Zechariah clearly speaks of this future insight of the Jewish people:
“And on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem I will pour out the spirit of grace and compunction, and they will look at Him whom they have pierced, and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only begotten son, and mourn as one mourns for the firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10).
Over the course of 19 centuries, the Jews, having rejected Jesus Christ, had already been deceived many times in their messianic hope, turning it to self-proclaimed and false messiahs (according to Bengel there were already 64 of them); Thus, they became disillusioned already in the second century A.D. in Bar Kochba (132-135) (Son of the Stars), and this mistake cost the lives of 500,000 Jews, killed by the Romans during the uprising.
On the path of these disappointments, one more cruel thing awaits: they will believe in the perfect incarnation of the False Messiah, i.e. in Antichrist.
Christ spoke about this. “I have come in the Name of My Father, and you do not receive Me; But if another comes in his own name, you will receive him” (John 5.43).
And therefore, someone who will have his ears tickled with his preaching of self-assertion and pride will have success among all those who have rejected Jesus Christ. “And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, who was slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13.8).
How the people, the Jews, will convert precisely in the days of the Antichrist, so this can be judged by the 30th chapter of Jeremiah. That's what it says there.
Jews will come to Palestine. “And I will bring them again to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they will possess it.” But there, without Christ, they will ultimately find suffering instead of the expected joy.
This conversion of Jews to Christ is also predicted by the Apostle Paul (especially in chapters 9, 10 and II of the Epistle to the Romans).
“I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience bears witness to me in the Holy Spirit, that there is great sorrow for me and constant torment in my heart: I myself would like to be excommunicated from Christ for my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh, that is, the Israelites; ...theirs are the fathers, and from them is Christ according to the flesh...”
"Brethren! my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel’s salvation” (Rom. 9.1-5.10.1).
He considers the Jews' disbelief in Christ to be temporary.
“God has given them a spirit of slumber, eyes with which they cannot see, and ears with which they cannot hear, even to this day” (Rom. 11:8).
“I do not want to leave you, brethren, ignorant of this mystery, so that you do not dream for yourself that the bitterness has happened in Israel in part, until the time when full number Gentiles" (Rom. 11.25).
And therefore, in these same chapters dedicated to the Jews, the Apostle Paul recalls the words of the prophet Isaiah: “even though the children of Israel were as in number as the sand of the sea, only a remnant will be saved” (Is. 10.22, Rom. 9.27).
This means that in order to be saved, you must be among those who remain faithful to God.
Zion is the place of the combination of heaven and earth, God and man; there the Messiah the God-Man will appear.
And one of the Zionists (Dr. Zangwill) speaks definitely about Jesus Christ when he declares:
“The Jews were punished not without guilt. They denied the greatest of their sons. Jesus must take His place again in the glorious chain of the Hebrew prophets."
An Orthodox Jew is already close to Christ because every morning, pronouncing the above-mentioned words of Maimonides’ prayer, he says: “I believe with full faith in the coming of the Messiah.” And this happens day after day, from century to century, for thousands of years.
Almost 2000 years ago, the Jewish high priest himself posed this question when he asked Jesus: “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”
“Jesus said: I am” (Mark 14.61).
Truly, “He committed no sin, and no lie was found in His mouth.”
Yes, it is He who is the true Messiah, who came from Zion to give salvation to Israel.
Christ is the only one who can spiritually unite the sons of Israel, and not only them, but all nations, for He is “Desired by all nations,” as the prophet Haggai said about the coming Messiah. He alone can turn enemies into brothers, children of one Father, for He opened the way for everyone to the Father: “I am the way... No one comes to the Father except through Me,” He said (John 14.6). He is truly the source of peace, the “prince of peace,” reconciling man with God, man with man, and all warring creatures with each other.
They object to us: “Where is this peace on earth, soaked in the blood of wars and revolutions? Where is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 11, which predicts that in the time of the Messiah “the wolf will live with the lamb”?
Those who object thus forget that Christ does not gather people by force, for He is perfect Love, sacrificing Himself, calling everyone. And those who accept His call are truly gathered into one great fraternal family, crossing all religious and national barriers. “And to those who received Him, to those who believed on His Name, He gave power to become children of God” (John 1.12).
According to the 11th chapter of the prophet Isaiah, after the coming of the Messiah, two conditions must precede the full revelation of the Kingdom of God on earth: evil, which has reached its highest development (in the person of the Antichrist) will be completely eradicated (Christ will come and “with the spirit of his mouth he will kill the wicked”); “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”
Only then “there will be a new heaven and a new earth, in which truth dwells,” will there be a cosmic transformation of all creation; “Then the wolf will live together with the lamb, ... the young lion and the ox will be together, and a little child will lead them.”
(translation from English)
It is important to understand why Jews do not believe in Christ. The purpose of this knowledge is not to disparage another faith, it is for a clear understanding of the Jewish position. The more knowledge a person gains, the more opportunities he has to make wise choices regarding his spiritual path.
Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah because:
1. JESUS FAILED TO FULFILL THE MESSIANIST PROPHECIES
2. JESUS DOESN'T HAVE THE QUALITIES OF THE MESSIAH
3. BIBLE VERSES “TALKING ABOUT JESUS” ARE DISTORTED IN TRANSLATION
4. THE JEWISH FAITH RESTS ON A NATIONAL REVELATION
5. CHRISTIANITY IS CONTRADICTORY TO JEWISH TEACHINGS
6. JEWS AND GENTILES (NON-JEWS)
(Reference)
BIBLE
BIBLE (from the Greek biblia - lit. - books), a collection of ancient texts, canonized in Judaism and Christianity as Holy Scripture. The part of the Bible recognized by both, the first in time of creation, was called the Old Testament by Christians, the other part, added by Christians and recognized only by them, is called the New Testament. Behind this terminology is the Christian idea according to which the “covenant” (mystical agreement or union) concluded by God with one people (the Jews) was replaced thanks to the appearance of Jesus Christ by the New Covenant, already concluded with all nations. Islam, not accepting into its everyday life either the Old Testament (Arabic Taurat - Torah) or the New Testament (Arabic Injil - Gospel), in principle recognizes both the holiness and the characters of both parts of the Bible (for example, Ibrahim, i.e. Abraham, Yusuf, i.e. Joseph, Isa, i.e. Jesus) play an important role in Islam, starting with the Koran. The Old Testament consists of monuments of ancient Hebrew literature of the 12-2 centuries. BC e., written in Hebrew and partly Aramaic. It is divided into three large cycles:
1) Torah, or Pentateuch, attributed to the prophet Moses
2) Prophets - several ancient chronicles and prophetic writings proper, belonging to or attributed to popular preachers of the 8th-5th centuries. BC e. - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and 12 “minor prophets”, as well as the book of Daniel, dating back to the 2nd century. BC uh
3) Scriptures or Hagiographs - collections of texts belonging to various poetic and prosaic genres (religious lyrics, a collection of aphorisms, edifying stories, chronicle texts, etc.). The New Testament consists of monuments of early non-Christian literature of the 2nd half. 1st century and beginning 2nd century n. e., written mainly in Greek (four Gospels, i.e., “good news” about the life and teachings of Christ, the Acts of the Apostles, 21 letters of the apostles - Paul, Peter, John, James, Judas (not Iscariot!) - and finally Revelation of John the Theologian, or Apocalypse).
WHAT IS AND WHO IS THE MESSIAH?
The word “messiah” comes from the Hebrew “mashiach” (anointed one). This is the name given to the person who receives ecclesiastical rank through the ritual of anointing with special oil (oil) (Exodus 29:7, 1 Samuel 1:39, 2 Samuel 9:3).
Since every king and high priest accepts this rite, each of them is addressed as the messiah. Bible: “And David said, As the Lord liveth! may the Lord strike him (King Saul), or his day come and he die, or go to war and perish; But let the Lord not allow me to lift my hand against the Lord’s anointed” (1 Samuel 26:11; 2 Samuel 23:1; Isaiah 45:1; Psalm 20:6).
WHERE DOES THE JEWISH EXPECTATION FOR THE MESSIAH COME FROM?
One of the central themes of biblical prophecy is the promise of an era of universal peace and recognition of the G-d of Israel. (Isaiah 2:1-4; Zephaniah 3:9; Hosea 2:20-22; Amos 9:13-15; Isaiah 32:15-18, 60:15-18; Micah 4:1-4; Zechariah 8: 23, 14:9; Jeremiah 31:33-34).
The person who will bring this era of global prosperity to earth and will reign, many of these prophecies name a descendant of King David (Isaiah 11:1-9; Jeremiah 23:5-6, 30:7-10, 33:14-16 ; Ezekiel 34:11-31, 37:21-28; Hosea 3:4-5)
Since every king is a messiah, we address this future king as the Messiah. This is the only description in the Bible of the descendant of David who will come. We will recognize the Messiah by the one who will be the king of Israel during the time of world prosperity and universal acceptance of G-d.
1) JESUS DID NOT FULFILL THE MESSIANIAN PROPHECIES
WHAT MUST THE MESSIAH DO?
The Bible says he:
A. WILL BUILD THE THIRD TEMPLE (EZEKIEL 37:26-28).
B. WILL GATHER ALL THE JEWS IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL (ISAIAH 43:5-6).
C. WILL BRING IN AN ERA OF UNIVERSAL PEACE, DESTROY HATE, OPPRESSION, SUFFERING AND DISEASE. It is said: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4).
G. WILL SPREAD THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GOD OF ISRAEL IN THE WORLD, WHO WILL UNITE HUMANITY INTO ONE WHOLE WHOLE WORLD.
It is said: “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. And the Lord will be King over all the earth; In that day the Lord will be one, and His name will be one” (Zechariah 14:9).
It is a fact of history that Jesus did not fulfill any of the messianic prophecies.
Christians dispute that Jesus will fulfill them at the Second Coming, but Jewish sources indicate that the Messiah will fulfill these prophecies at his first appearance, and no concept of a second coming exists at all.
2) JESUS DOES NOT HAVE THE QUALITIES OF THE MESSIAH
A. THE MESSIAH AS PROPHET
But Jesus is not a prophet. Prophecies are only possible in the land of Israel when it is inhabited by the majority of the world's Jews. During the time of Ezra (about 300 BC), when most Jews refused to return from Babylon to Israel, prophecy ended with the death of the last prophets: Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.
Jesus appears on the historical scene approximately 350 years after the prophecies ceased.
B. HEIR OF DAVID
According to Jewish sources, the Messiah's parents will be ordinary people of the earth, and he will have the same universal human physical qualities as others. He will neither be a demigod nor have any supernatural qualities.
The Messiah must be a paternal descendant of King David (Genesis 49:10; Isaiah 11:1). According to the Christian claim, Jesus is the product of the virgin birth. He has no father, and thus does not satisfy the messianic requirement of being a male descendant of King David.
B. OBSERVANCE OF THE TORAH
The Messiah will lead people along the path of strict adherence to the Torah. By the Torah the Lord establishes all commandments as binding mutually and forever, and anyone who changes the Torah is immediately declared a false prophet (Deut. 13:1-4).
Throughout the New Testament, Jesus contradicts the Torah and declares that its commandments no longer apply (see John 1:45, 9:16, Acts 3:22, 7:37). John 9:14-16: “Now it was the Sabbath when Jesus made clay and opened his eyes. The Pharisees also asked him how he received his sight. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” Then some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath.”
3) BIBLE VERSES ALLEGEDLY “SPEAKING ABOUT JESUS” ARE DISTORTED IN TRANSLATION
Bible verses can only be understood from the original Hebrew text. Comparison of Christian translations with the original source reveals many inconsistencies.
A. IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
The Christian idea of the virgin birth comes from Isaiah 7:14, in which the woman in labor is called "almah." The word "alma" in Hebrew means a young woman, but several centuries later Christian theologians replaced the word with "virgin," which aligns the birth of Christ with first-century pagan beliefs that gods impregnate mere humans.
B. CRUCIFIXION
Psalm 21:16 (Hebrew): “For enemies have surrounded me, ... like lions (ki-ari) around my hands and feet.” Ki-ari in Hebrew means “like a lion” and is grammatically related to the word pierce. And in the Christian version this verse was translated as: “For dogs have surrounded me; a crowd of evildoers has surrounded me; they have pierced my hands and my feet” (Psalm 21:17).
G. RIGHTEOUS, HOBABLE SLAVE
Christianity claims that in chapter 53 Isaiah speaks of Jesus as a servant, a servant, a righteous man despised, belittled, etc., without calling him by name, but using singular pronouns and titles. In fact, in chapter 53, Isaiah continues the theme of chapter 52 by describing the exile and redemption of the Jewish people. The prophecy is written in the singular because the Jews are perceived as a single whole - Israel. The Torah is replete with examples of addressing the Jewish people as one person.
The irony of history was reflected in this translation. Prophecies of Isaiah in the 11th century. used by the Crusaders to torture and kill Jews in the name of Jesus.
How could such distortions be accepted by the church of Christ?
St. Gregory Nianzin (fourth century bishop, theologian and translator) wrote: “A little distortion is all that is needed to lure people. The less they understand, the more they believe.”
4) THE JEWISH FAITH RESTS ON A NATIONAL REVELATION
Of the 15,000 religions in world history, only Judaism is based on faith in a national revelation, i.e. in G‑d's address to the entire nation. And it is so clear that if G-d initially gives faith, then he gives it to everyone, and not to one person.
Thousands of religions have been started by enterprising individuals who tried to convince others that they were true prophets of G-d. But personal statements are a very weak basis for faith, because you can never know whether these “prophets” are true. Since there are no witnesses to G-d’s conversation with the applicant, only his assurances must be taken on faith. Even if a person who assures of personal contact with the Lord performs miracles, this still does not confirm his chosenness by God. Miracles don't prove anything. All they testify to - provided they are honest - is that the person in question has certain abilities; and this has nothing to do with God’s gift of prophecy.
Judaism is unique among world religions in not accepting the performance of “miracles” as the basis of faith. The Bible says: “If a prophet or a dreamer arises among you and presents you with a sign or a miracle, and the sign or miracle that he told you about comes true, and says: “Let us follow other gods whom you do not know, and we will serve them,” then do not listen to the words of this prophet or this dreamer; For by this the Lord your God is tempting you to find out whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul; Follow the Lord your God and fear Him, keep His commandments and listen to His voice, and serve Him, and cleave to Him; and that prophet or that dreamer must be put to death because he persuaded you to depart from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and delivered you from the house of slavery, wanting to turn you away from the path in which the Lord your God commanded you to go. ; and so destroy evil from among you” (Deut. 13:1-5).
Maimonides “Repetition of the Torah” (Mishna Torah), chapter 8:
The Jews do not believe Moses, our teacher, because he performed miracles. Where faith is based on the recognition of miracles, there is always doubt that the cause of these miracles may be divination or witchcraft. The miracles that Moses performed in the wilderness were necessary to save the people, not to prove his prophetic power.
What then is the basis of the Jewish faith?
The revelation at Mount Sinai, which we saw with our eyes and heard with our ears, without relying on the testimony of others. It is said: “The Lord spoke to you face to face on the mountain out of the midst of the fire (Deut. 5:4) and “The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, who are all here alive today” (Deut. 5:3) .
Judaism is not about miracles. This personal experience every man, woman, child who stood on Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago.
5) CHRISTIANITY IS CONTRADICTORY TO JEWISH TEACHINGS
The following theological primary dogmas apply to catholic church- the most numerous in the world.
A. IS B-D CONSISTED OF THREE?
The Catholic idea of the Trinity divides God into three parts: Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).
In contrast, the Shema, the creed of the Jewish faith, states: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4). Jews recite the Shema every day, write it on their doorposts (mezuzah), and tie it on their hands and heads during prayer. Shema is an affirmation of the uniqueness of our Lord - those first words that a Jewish child learns to speak, and the last ones that a Jew utters before death.
In Jewish law, worshiping a three-part god is considered paganism - one of the three deadly sins that a Jew would rather give his life than commit to avoid. This explains why, during the Inquisition and throughout history, Jews preferred death to conversion.
B. MAN IS LIKE G-D?
The Roman Catholic Church maintains the belief that G-d came to earth in human form. Jesus says, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
Maimonides devotes much of his Guide to the Perplexed to the fundamental idea of Divine incorporeality, pointing out that G‑d does not take physical form. God is eternal - outside of time. G-d is infinite - beyond space. He cannot be born and he cannot die. By asserting that G‑d takes human form, one belittles the G‑d, nullifies His uniqueness and His divinity. The Torah says: God is not man...nor the son of man" (Numbers 23:19).
C. JUDAISM KNOWS WHO THE MESSIAH IS
Judaism knows that the parents of the Messiah will be ordinary people, not gods, that the Messiah will be the same person as others. He will be neither a god nor a demigod, and will not have any miraculous powers. Frankly, in every generation there is a person with the ability to fulfill the role of Messiah (see Maimonides, Law of Kings 11:3).
D. MEDIATOR FOR PRAYER?
A Catholic believes that prayer must go to G-d through an intermediary, i.e. confession of sin to the priest. Jesus himself declared himself a mediator: “No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:6).
In Judaism, prayer is an intimate and personal appeal of a believer to the Lord. It is said: “The Lord is close to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth” (Psalm 144:18). Moreover, from the Ten Commandments: “You shall not make for yourself any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth below, or that is in the water under the earth; You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:4-5).
D. WORLDLY LIFE
Catholic doctrine explains man's earthly existence as the result of sin, and the continuation of life as a vice that must be guarded against. Mary, the most holy woman, is depicted as a virgin; priests, monks and nuns are celibate, and monasteries are located in remote, secluded places.
Judaism, in contrast, accepts earthly life as a gift from God; The Lord created this world not for disappointment, but for pleasure. Jewish spirituality finds joy and inspiration in contact with the physical world. Sex - under the right circumstances - is one of the holiest acts available to man.
The Talmud says that when a person is offered the choice of trying a new fruit or refusing, then he will be responsible for his decision in the New World. The Jewish rabbinic school teaches us how to live in the contradictions of daily concerns. Jews do not abandon life - we ennoble it.
6) JEWS AND GENTILES (NON-JEWS)
Judaism does not aim to convert all people to its faith. The Torah of Moses is true for one and all - Jew or not. King Solomon asked the Lord to heed the prayers of the non-Jews who come to the Holy Temple: “Even if a foreigner who is not from Your people Israel comes from a far land for the sake of Your name, for they too will hear about Your great name and Your mighty hand.” and about Your outstretched arm, - and he will come and pray at this temple, hear from heaven, from Your dwelling place, and do everything that a foreigner will cry to You for, so that all the peoples of the earth will know Your name, so that they will fear You as Your people Israel, that they may know that this temple which I built is called by Your name” (1 Kings 8:41-43). The Prophet Isaiah called the Holy Temple “the House of all nations.”
The Temple service laid on the altar on the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) 70 bulls - according to the number of peoples of the world. The Talmud says that if the Crusaders had realized how much benefit they could have from the Temple, they would not have destroyed it.
Jews have never lured and do not lure non-Jews into their faith, because the Torah calls the righteous path for Jews and non-Jews, which is known as the “Seven Laws of Noah.” Maimonides explained that any person who reverently follows these basic moral laws receives his place in Heaven.
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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH'S RESPONSE TO CRITICISM OF CHRISTIAN ACCURACY
We chose the Catholic Church, the largest branch of Christianity, and addressed some of our critical observations to it. On Dec. 1995 We sent the following three questions to Pope John Paul II.
(1) The Gospels teach that Jesus appeared to his followers after his resurrection. It is unclear to us whether this phenomenon took place in Jerusalem or Galilee (or both). According to our reading, the account of Galilee makes it completely impossible for Jesus to appear before this in Jerusalem. Where did Jesus appear? If he showed up in Jerusalem, then how should we understand the testimony about Galilee?
(2) The genealogy of Jesus offered by the gospels has confused us. Who was Jesus' paternal grandfather? (We found that Matthew speaks of James, but Luke names Elijah.) We also noted that Matthew speaks of 28 generations separating Jesus from King David, but Luke's list gives 43 generations. What does this contradiction mean?
(3) The lineage linking Jesus to King David runs through his father. But since Jesus is the product of the virgin birth, he cannot share the line of David with his named father Joseph. How is Jesus a descendant of King David?
From the Vatican by letter dated December 19. 1995 Monsignor L. Sandri, papal expert advisor, responded to us on behalf of the pope. Monsignor Sandry avoided answering our questions, but advised that the members of the Ecole Biblique (Bible School of the French Dominican Fathers in Jerusalem) might be able to provide us with a satisfactory explanation.
We sent our questions to Ecole Biblique. In response dated Jan 11. 1996 Marcel Siegrist, director of the institute, also dodged our questions, but suggested that answers might be found in Raymond Brown, a well-known Catholic theologian currently on the staff of St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, California.
We sent questions to Dr. Brown. In a letter dated January 22. 1996 Dr. Brown referred us to his works at the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem.
Feb 2 1996 We visited the Ecole Biblique and researched Dr. Brown's work. As he told us Dr. Brown, his works explore these same questions. Below we provide a summary of the answers we found in his works.
I. APPEARANCES AFTER THE RESURRECTION: GALILEE OR JERUSALEM?
In a book marked Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur (the official endorsement of the Catholic Church, meaning "without theological or moral error"), Brown agrees: there is a clear contradiction. “It is abundantly clear,” writes Brown, “that the gospels do not agree on where and to whom Jesus appeared after the resurrection.” “Just as the Jerusalem apparition leaves little, if any, room for the Galilean one,” explains Brown, “the Galilean account appears to make it impossible for Jesus to appear in Jerusalem before the Twelve.” After citing many quotations, Brown concludes that there is no simple explanation for this contradiction: “We must give up the desire that the gospels can be brought into line with each other or rearranged so that Jesus could rise and appear more than once - first to Twelve in Jerusalem, then in Galilee."
Rather, the church spokesman concludes, “The discrepancies in time and place may stem from the evangelists themselves, who tried to insert an episode of the apparition into the narrative so that it would appear consistent.” Brown also points out bluntly that descriptions of post-resurrection phenomena are creative, essentially ahistorical attempts to reconstruct events that the authors did not witness.
II. PEDIGREE CONTRADITIONS
In the same essay, Brown notes that "the lists of Jesus' ancestors they (the gospels) offer vary wildly and none of them are plausible." Brown takes an unusual position: “since the early Christians recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and he also had another title, “Son of God,” they wanted to base their faith on history and came up with a genealogy for him from David and declared Joseph a descendant of David.” In another essay, also under the heading Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, Brown expands on this approach: “More and more often, the deliberate reduction of the Davidic genealogy is explained as a theological device, that is, as the historicization of what was previously a theological proposition. If I were asked for a simplistic explanation for the historicization of David's lineage, I would say something like this: the Christian community believed that Jesus fulfilled the hopes of Israel, which was driven by the expectation of the Messiah, so the traditional title "messiah" was given to Jesus, but Jewish thought portrays the Messiah as a descendant David, accordingly Jesus was presented as the “son of David”, and in the end the genealogy from David was invented for him.”
Brown explains that Matthew apparently created an imaginary genealogy and traced it back to Abraham and also David to please the mixed company of his (Matthew's) associates, which consisted of Jewish and non-Jewish Christians. As evidence that Jesus was not a descendant of David at all, Brown points out that there was not a single hint in the descriptions of Jesus' pastoral practice that his family was from the family nobility or royal line. If Jesus had been the dauphin (royal heir), there would have been no surprise at his claims. He appears in the gospels as a man of ordinary origin from an inconspicuous village.
Brown goes even further, calling into question the reliability of large portions of the New Testament. He encourages his readers to face the possibility that portions of Matthew and Luke are "possibly ahistorical dramatizations."
Indeed, upon careful examination of childhood stories, it is impossible to believe that they have a historical basis. Matthew's story contains numerous super-ordinary and miraculous events that - if they really took place - would certainly have left at least some traces in the Jewish chronicles or elsewhere in the New Testament (the king and all of Jerusalem are upset by the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem; a star that moved from Jerusalem south to Bethlehem and stopped there over a house; the massacre of male infants in Bethlehem). Luke's reference to a general census of the empire under Augustus, which included Palestine before the death of King Herod the Great, is almost certainly erroneous, as is his (Luke's) knowledge of the Jewish customs of presenting the newborn and cleansing the mother (Luke 2:22-24). Some of these events, which are historically impossible, are now explained as rewriting scenes or borrowing themes from the Old Testament.
Brown's most powerful statement in the same essay is his suggestion that the pope himself might deny the resurrection any historicity at all.
This view is echoed (eschatologically and historically) by Pope Paul's statement in the same address, in which he speaks of the resurrection as “the unique and sensational event on which the history of mankind rests.” This is not at all the same as recognizing the resurrection as a fact of history, even if even journalists quoted the pope’s speech in this sense.
It is critically important in connection with the above to remember that this essay (a) has the official endorsement of the Church, (b) it was written by a scholar whose work has been approved by the Ecole Biblique, and that (c) the Ecole Biblique is an institute that has been recommended by the Vatican.
III. IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
Brown warns: “If we refuse the virgin birth, the adverse educational effect of this refusal on the understanding of the divinity of the son cannot be underestimated.” “On the other hand,” Brown admits, “the virgin birth, as the fundamental principle of the “virgin birth,” is proposed as a spiritual insight rather than as a physical act. Because the story of the virgin birth appears in only two gospels, and they only speak of childhood (which Brown suspects is mostly fictitious), the Catholic theologian tactfully concludes that biblical testimony leaves questions about the historicity of the Immaculate Conception unresolved."
Brown reminds us that the “early Christians” may have imported myths about the virgin birth from pagan religions” and never intended that these myths could be taken literally. “The concept of the virgin birth was a well-known symbol of divine origin,” explains Brown, citing similar stories from Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Greco-Roman myths and legends of ancient Egypt.
Brown suggests that the early Christians "originally used the image of the virgin birth, symbolic meaning which was gradually forgotten while the idea was permeating Christian societies; and so it was written down by the evangelists.”
However, Brown admits that the founding fathers of Christianity deliberately created the impression that the virgin birth took place in reality. “The early Christians needed just such a myth,” Brown notes, “so it was widely known that Mary gave birth to Jesus prematurely.” “Unfortunately, the historical choice for the immaculate conception was not a legitimate conception; the child was illegitimate.”
Brown writes: “Wise Christians can come to terms with the knowledge of illegitimacy; they perceive this fact as the highest stage in Jesus' desire to give himself up and accept the position of a servant, and for them, quite rightly, illegitimacy does not bring sin upon Jesus himself. But illegitimacy tarnishes the atmosphere of holiness and purity with which Matthew and Luke surround the birth of Jesus and destroys the teaching that Jesus came from among the Israelite "anavim" (a pious poor man seeking G-d's protection).
For less sophisticated believers, illegitimacy would be an insult that would challenge the plausibility of Christian mysticism.”
In summary, Brown leans toward a less miraculous explanation for the birth of Jesus.
© Copyright: Alex Dyhes, 2010
Certificate of publication No. 11004030468