Jews and Christianity

[Kaninchen]

Originally Posted by tqualey

Hi, Kaninchen,

Do you have a link to a particular 'gem' or 'gems' you would like me to see?

There have been many since I've joined so I expect the best bet would be to google: 'Kaninchen messiah', 'Kaninchen pious fiction', 'Kaninchen jesus stubbed his toe', I put myself forward because 'Chosen People', being a concept as well as a CAF member, would lead to other types of threads (while Kaninchen is just German for 'rabbit') and poster Chosen People has been on many of the threads I've been on. I seem to remember Valke2 wrote a lot on the subject so 'Valke2 messiah' would bring some of the threads he took part in.

Concerning your 'minority' status as a non-Catholic on a Catholic listserve, don't lose heart. I am confident that you are here - and posting (not just lurking) for a reason. Now, it may be simply to point to the fact that the Jews are still here...and they still reject Jesus as the Messiah ... and they are still waiting for the Messiah. Do you know of a Jewish listserve that has a 'minority' Catholic presence on it? God bless

Actually, I've always been interested in the consequences of what people believe rather more than in what it is that they believe.

As to Jewish boards, I've not been on one for many years. I've been discussing religion on the Internet for a decade and a half and being on 'foreign' boards is much more fun.

Edited to add:

You might find this Simple To Remember page helpful. For further information on Messiah from a Jewish perspective - there's Jewish Virtual Library, Judaism 101, and My Jewish Learning.

[Kaninchen]

Originally Posted by johnnyjones

How do you read "why don't Jews believe in Jesus" into my question? Don't twist it.

I was joking (it's allowed) about our eternal fate being to spend our time on message boards explaining why we don't believe in Jesus.

[tqualey]

Hi, Kaninchen,

Thank you.

I do not know German, so the avitar(?) at the bottom of your page makes sense for the name you chose ... What is the translation for what appears below your 'rabbit'?

God bless

Originally Posted by Kaninchen

There have been many since I've joined so I expect the best bet would be to google: 'Kaninchen messiah', 'Kaninchen pious fiction', 'Kaninchen jesus stubbed his toe', I put myself forward because 'Chosen People', being a concept as well as a CAF member, would lead to other types of threads (while Kaninchen is just German for 'rabbit') and poster Chosen People has been on many of the threads I've been on. I seem to remember Valke2 wrote a lot on the subject so 'Valke2 messiah' would bring some of the threads he took part in.



Actually, I've always been interested in the consequences of what people believe rather more than in what it is that they believe.

As to Jewish boards, I've not been on one for many years. I've been discussing religion on the Internet for a decade and a half and being on 'foreign' boards is much more fun.

[Kaninchen]

Originally Posted by tqualey

Hi, Kaninchen,

Thank you.

I do not know German, so the avitar(?) at the bottom of your page makes sense for the name you chose ... What is the translation for what appears below your 'rabbit'?

God bless

"Il ruggito della coniglia!" is Italian and means 'the roar of the rabbit' and is taken from a very silly drive-time music/chat program on Italian radio (Rai2) called 'Il ruggito del coniglio'.

[johnnyjones]

Originally Posted by Kaninchen

I was joking (it's allowed) about our eternal fate being to spend our time on message boards explaining why we don't believe in Jesus.

With clarification, I get it. Peace meeshpacha.

[tqualey]

[color="Navy"]Hi, Kaninchen,

I went to the first site I could get open ... http://www.chabad.org/library/articl...n-Moshiach.htm And read it. Now, how much I understood is debateable - but, I did get through it.

The good news is that I have a lot more appreciation for what is going on. It really is a totally different world - and on this particular link there were far more references to uniquely Jewish documents, like the Talmud and the saying of 12th Century Maimonides about the coming of Moshiach (Messiah). My understanding of why today's Jews do not believe Christ to be the Messiah is that Christ did not:

1.) bring world peace
2.) become publicly recognized as a politically powerful figure
3.) rebuild the Temple (of course it was still standing in 33AD)
4.) be observant Himself, and spread education and observance of the Talmud, (He and didn't do this with miracles and work being done on the Sabbath)
5.) reestablish the Sandredrin (it, too, was still in existence in 33AD)

Now, I know I missed some items - and some things I really did not catch... but, I think this is an honest attempt to summarize the argument.

As I see it there is really not only a time warp here... but work being done from different documents and appraoches. How anyone agrees on anything is the amazement to me.

I would suggest that we work from the Bible - only because I have no knowledge of the other uniquely Jewish documents, and you are knowledgeable about books - in the Old Testament.

My understanding is that there were multiple references to the coming of the Messiah in the OT - that were fulfilled by Jesus Christ and recorded in the New Testament. I would appreciate your comments on these. Here are just 5 items I chose from a rather long list:

1.) The Messiah will be born of a virgin Isaiah 7:14 [Matt 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-35]

2.) The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem Micah 5:2 [Matt 2:1, Luke 2:4-7]

3.) His 1st spiritual work will be in Galilee Isaiah 9:1-7 [Matt 4:12-18]

4.) People will hear him but not believe Isaiah 53:1 [John 12:37-38]

5.) He will be enter the Temple with authority Malachi 3:1 [Matt 21:12, Luke 19:45]


Looking forward to hearing from you.

God bless

Originally Posted by Kaninchen

"Il ruggito della coniglia!" is Italian and means 'the roar of the rabbit' and is taken from a very silly drive-time music/chat program on Italian radio (Rai2) called 'Il ruggito del coniglio'.

[Kaninchen]

Originally Posted by tqualey

My understanding is that there were multiple references to the coming of the Messiah in the OT - that were fulfilled by Jesus Christ and recorded in the New Testament. I would appreciate your comments on these. Here are just 5 items I chose from a rather long list:

1.) The Messiah will be born of a virgin Isaiah 7:14 [Matt 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-35]

2.) The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem Micah 5:2 [Matt 2:1, Luke 2:4-7]

3.) His 1st spiritual work will be in Galilee Isaiah 9:1-7 [Matt 4:12-18]

4.) People will hear him but not believe Isaiah 53:1 [John 12:37-38]

5.) He will be enter the Temple with authority Malachi 3:1 [Matt 21:12, Luke 19:45]

Let's start with a core problem in Christian-Jewish discussion of what are usually called 'proof texts' (passages in the NT which seem to be foreshadowed in what you call the 'Old Testament' and we call 'The Tanakh') which I, usually, describe as 'we don't believe a word of it'. You'll find these arguments in the 'gems' I was talking about but let's review the themes here.

Christians see the NT as being reportage, the life, works and teachings of your Saviour. We don't, we see it as a 'construct'.

First of all, let me say that, if we look at many of his teachings and sayings, they weren't actually new. It's the kind of thing that Jews have been discussing 'forever' and, at that time, the notable names (for google purposes, should you wish to look them up) were Hillel and Shammai who could be described as opposite sides of 'the debate'.

So, while the NT shows Jesus going around intellectually beating-up the naughty Pharisees, we Jews don't see it like that at all. It's just an itinerant 'rabbi' (teacher), possibly a Pharisee of some sort himself, going around arguing themes that were commonplace with views that weren't exactly original.

Now, what about the prophesies?

They divide, I'd argue, into prophesies that one can talk about seriously (Isaiah 7, Isaiah 53 etc) and prophesies I tend to put under the heading of 'and Jesus stubbed his toe':

Isaiah 99:53 '. . . . the child shall stub his toe'.

Matthew 77:62: '. . . . and Jesus stubbed his toe'.

In other words, the kind of fulfilled 'prophesies' one finds in Josh McDowell's 'Evidence That Demands A Verdict', pages of stuff that really do stretch the idea of prophesy beyond any kind of sense and just reflects a desperate search of the Old Testament for anything that might, even vaguely, prefigure Jesus.

When we come to the 'serious prophesies', we're still faced with a set of problems which I describe as the "Jesus fulfilled all the prophesies that could be achieved through text manipulation' but not the ones that couldn't, they are left over for the 'Second Coming'".

Let's take a simple one: 'Bethlehem'. Obviously, there was no 'Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths' so what do we get? Well, from our perspective, a contrived story about a guy who has to go to Bethlehem to register for a census, something for which there is no record elsewhere (I think other Jews might have noticed having to scurry about all over the place), followed by a massacre of baby boys (something nobody else noticed and Jews of the time would have loved another Herod scandal) followed by a trip to Egypt. In other words, like biting bits off jigsaw pieces to make them fit a picture Jesus is made to 'fit' a prophesy, with all sorts of Moses allusions to beef it up.

That's the thing with 'text fulfilment', you take a set of previous writings (whether prophetic or not) and can make your story 'fit' while putting aside the non-fulfilled 'real world' prophesies for 'Part II, the Second Coming'.

There's something important here that I think you should bear in mind when talking to Jews about this stuff, it's what I call the 'reading forwards/reading backwards' problem.

If you start with having read the NT and read the OT 'through its eyes', do you come up with Jesus as Messiah/God? You'd say 'Yes, of course!'

So let's, now, take the Old Testament and read it 'forward', which, for arguments sake, let's say we've done. Would you come up with Jesus as Messiah/God? I think you'd have to think about that for a while.

Now, the Tanakh isn't organized like the OT, it's organized Law/Prophets/Writings and reflects the focus of Judaism which is a very different religion from Christianity but, even with the Christian OT, if you hadn't read the New Testament, I'd suggest you'd have a somewhat different picture about 'what it's all about' from a Jewish perspective.

The importance lies in the fact that Christianity and Judaism are very different religions with very different foci and themes, there are ideas in the NT that are not prefigured in the OT. Things like 'Original Sin', 'Salvation' as a spiritual concept, a powerful Satan, a Triune God, a dying God, a resurrected God. Where did these ideas come from? Well, you'd say Jesus but we'd say that those sorts of ideas were all around the ancient Middle East.

[tqualey]

Hi, Kaninchen,

Thank you for your very thoughtful response. By the way, did I basically get the distilled version of that link correct?

When you use the term 'proof text' I understand it to mean a verse or two of something taken out of context used to demonstrate a point that other-wise would not apply - but THIS text shows how it does. It may appear that is what I did - but, I see it quite differently. All of the OT is focused on God's Faithfullness - and the on-again-off-again faithfullness of His Chosen People. Throughout the OT there is the promise of Someone coming Who will be a great help (slavation) for both Jew and Gentile. The 5 items I provided hold together with this.

Reading the Bible from NT to OT is what I have done ... and you have done the reverse (using your books) there is no way to un-ring that bell.

I had never thought of Bethlahem having a Bureau of Census where the presence of Joseph and Mary could be independently cofirmed or Registry of Births ... .

In the story of the confrontation between Moses and Pharao - we see God telling Moses what to do, Moses doing it - Pharao rejecting the request and being sent a plague in response. This cycle is repeated and each time some natural explanation for the devestation is provided to effectively further harden his heart. In a similar way, could not this Exodus story have an application here?

Pharaoh was (maybe ... to keep this analogy going...) 'looking forward' and every time he relented - some natural explanation was given on how the plague developed - 'Hey! Nothing Divine about this! The deal to free the slaves is off!' Then the cydle repeats. If Jews do not see Christ as the Messiah could this not be like Pharaoh who is given rationales on why not - instead of beliving in What Is.

The arguments given, e.g., "Jesus bumped His toe" as you say, make sense if one is willing to throw out all of the proofs used by Christians - especially Catholics - that this is not some 2000 year old fraud... developed by a back-water Carpenter, picked up by a bunch of less then gifted followers - and then - for some reason takes off and spreads throughout the world. For a 'fraud', this is pretty remarkable.

So, tell me, for Jews where does Faith come in? Jews still await the Messiah and Christians say He came 2,000 years ago. It isn't an issue of who's right (each of us thinks we are...) but where is the Faith to sustain these positions? And, I guess what I am really saying is the Faith to reject what we hold to be true. Isn't there anything in 'The Tanakh' that you can see as a foreshadow of Jesus? And, if so, how is it address so as not really applying?

God bless

Originally Posted by Kaninchen

Let's start with a core problem in Christian-Jewish discussion of what are usually called 'proof texts' (passages in the NT which seem to be foreshadowed in what you call the 'Old Testament' and we call 'The Tanakh') which I, usually, describe as 'we don't believe a word of it'. You'll find these arguments in the 'gems' I was talking about but let's review the themes here.

Christians see the NT as being reportage, the life, works and teachings of your Saviour. We don't, we see it as a 'construct'.

First of all, let me say that, if we look at many of his teachings and sayings, they weren't actually new. It's the kind of thing that Jews have been discussing 'forever' and, at that time, the notable names (for google purposes, should you wish to look them up) were Hillel and Shammai who could be described as opposite sides of 'the debate'.

So, while the NT shows Jesus going around intellectually beating-up the naughty Pharisees, we Jews don't see it like that at all. It's just an itinerant 'rabbi' (teacher), possibly a Pharisee of some sort himself, going around arguing themes that were commonplace with views that weren't exactly original.

[Kaninchen]

Originally Posted by tqualey

By the way, did I basically get the distilled version of that link correct?

The answer would be '-ish'. 'The Law' is 'Torah' (the first five books), by the way, not the Talmud. The Talmud is 'Oral Torah', a collection of tradition, interpretation and argument, a whole lot of 'on the one hand, while on the other hand, meanwhile on yet another hand.'

When you use the term 'proof text' I understand it to mean a verse or two of something taken out of context used to demonstrate a point that other-wise would not apply - but THIS text shows how it does. It may appear that is what I did - but, I see it quite differently. All of the OT is focused on God's Faithfullness - and the on-again-off-again faithfullness of His Chosen People. Throughout the OT there is the promise of Someone coming Who will be a great help (slavation) for both Jew and Gentile. The 5 items I provided hold together with this.

We're in the world of 'reading forwards/reading backwards' here. The reading forwards version is that God made a fairly simple covenant with the 'sons of Noah' which applied to everybody, then a series of Covenants (Abraham onwards) with his 'chosen people' who had to do lots more stuff (one of the reasons why we say that non-Jews have it easier and why they're, actually, at an advantage in terms of 'hope for the World To Come').

Then we come to the tricky problem of 'salvation', with the inevitable question: 'saved from what?' To use another (frequent) CAF Kaninchenism: "the genius of Christianity was to invent an illness 'you're all doomed' and prescribe itself as the only cure."

We don't share the same eschatology, you see, and that makes the concept of Messiah very different.

Pharaoh was (maybe ... to keep this analogy going...) 'looking forward' and every time he relented - some natural explanation was given on how the plague developed - 'Hey! Nothing Divine about this! The deal to free the slaves is off!' Then the cydle repeats. If Jews do not see Christ as the Messiah could this not be like Pharaoh who is given rationales on why not - instead of beliving in What Is.

Bit like Christians not seeing the 'truth' of Islam, perhaps?

I'm only partly joking here. It's a feature of new/subsequent religious movements that they seek explanations of why people say 'hey, we don't need all that, we've got all the religion we need, thank you.' Muslims have them, Mormons have them, etc, etc, etc.

The arguments given, e.g., "Jesus bumped His toe" as you say, make sense if one is willing to throw out all of the proofs used by Christians - especially Catholics - that this is not some 2000 year old fraud... developed by a back-water Carpenter, picked up by a bunch of less then gifted followers - and then - for some reason takes off and spreads throughout the world. For a 'fraud', this is pretty remarkable.

Oh, I don't go with the 'back-water Carpenter, picked up by a bunch of less than gifted followers' business. There was one of the world's greatest religious geniuses involved - he hadn't met the Carpenter but he repackaged the whole thing into a coherent whole for the 'Gentile market'. I think Paul was quite awesome (in the same way that I think the people who put the hugely influential religion of Zoroastrianism together or Mohammed were).

So, tell me, for Jews where does Faith come in? Jews still await the Messiah and Christians say He came 2,000 years ago. It isn't an issue of who's right (each of us thinks we are...) but where is the Faith to sustain these positions? And, I guess what I am really saying is the Faith to reject what we hold to be true.

Well faith is important to Judaism but not in the same way, I think. We're more a 'doing' religion than a 'belief' religion, that's our focus, how to live 'ethical Monotheism', what does it mean to 'live a good life, here and now?'

We have a God that we're constantly being reminded of (all the rules that we bump into all the time remind us of who we are and what we do because of who we are) and about whom we have to be careful in our considerations since ascribing characteristics can so easily verge on idolatry.

Our history begins over three millennia ago, in the age of the great pagan religions and their powerful civilizations, their successor pagan religions and their powerful civilizations came and went, we survived, they didn't. We've been driven from place to place, there have been massacres, pogroms, 'final solutions', we're still here.

I think we've 'sustained' quite well really. Messiah will come when he comes.

Isn't there anything in 'The Tanakh' that you can see as a foreshadow of Jesus?

I'm afraid the answer is 'No'.

[de tenebris]

(1 of 2)

Dear Chosen People,

Shalom aleichem.
שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם‎.


Your response to my post on this thread was thought-provoking to say the least. Before I say anything more on this subject, I wish to express my deep gratitude for your presence on 'Catholic Answers.' Your scholarship, and the courage and kindness with which you share it, renews yet again my hope in a generous Catholic-Jewish dialogue. That said, I must admit that when I initially read your responses to my statements, they took me somewhat by surprise. Quite simply, I had not written for anyone besides my fellow Catholics. This had been my first post on 'Catholic Answers,' which I made shortly after joining. Your comments remind me that every post on a board like this must be treated as a public statement that inevitably will be read by a wide variety of people. Such statements therefore require the utmost care.

Regrettably, my statements were sloppy in the sense that I inadequately and imprecisely conveyed certain words that have distinct and precise meanings in Jewish law (“blasphemy,” “idolatry,” etc.). Your clarifications are welcome if somewhat humbling. However, I beg your pardon to overlook my imprecision and recognize that my larger point was to convey to fellow Catholics that our Jewish brothers find the our belief in the incarnation so troubling precisely because of their faithfulness to the Mosaic covenant.

I want to focus on two things you wrote. First, in what I regard as your reply to my post:

Every Jew has a portion in the world to come. According to Maimonides there are fourteen ways a Jew may lose his portion in the world to come. While Christianity does not constitute idolatry for Gentiles, any Jew who adopts Christian beliefs and concepts of God, is cut off forever from God and the Jewish people (the Divine punishment of Karet). You can therefore understand why on the one hand we do not feel the need to convert non Jews but on the other the attempt to convert a Jew and cause him to break the eternal covenant between God and the Jewish people, to cause him to be forever caught off from God and the Jewish people, is repugnant to us.

And then in a later post:

God tests the Jews to keep the eternal covenant between Him and the Jewish people. From a Jewish perspective, for a Jew to "believe" in Jesus is a failure of God's test. While Judaism teaches that it is easier for the Gentile than for the Jew to get into the World to Come as the Gentile has only to uphold the seven Noahide commandments, the penalty of failing God's test for a Jew is to be separated forever from God in the World to Come.

It seems to me that these concerns really get to the heart of the matter. Of course, as someone who strives in his daily life to be orthodox to his own faith, I sympathize whole-heartedly. Whenever a Jewish friend tells me that Jesus is merely a Santa Claus figure and probably never lived, or gives supreme weight to a few lines by Josephus while rejecting St. Paul as a liar and a fraud, I try to remind myself of my own instinctive reaction to Mormonism or Vodoun or other such cults that utilize Christian languages and symbols, but without any obvious respect for Christian orthodoxy.

We Catholics are in a similar position with our Jewish friends and neighbors, since we have access to the Torah and the Tenakh (in Latin translations no less) but without the Talmud, the Midrash, or the other commentaries that inform an orthodox understanding of the Torah. Much worse still, far too many who called themselves Christians (including certain popes and even saints) have behaved horribly to the Jewish people—an ugly stain on the Church for which our postconciliar popes have rightfully prayed for God’s forgiveness.

I fervently hope that all Christians take their prayers to heart, and reach out with warmth and joy and humility to our Jewish brothers and sisters. That persons of real integrity like yourself and Kaninchen meet us here on a forum like this fills me with profound reverence and wonder for God’s continuing covenants with us humans, and the prominent place He gives to the Jewish people in the salvation of the Earth.

[de tenebris]

(2 of 2)

At the end of your three posts in reply to my post, you wrote this most beautiful prophecy by Isaiah:

“I will set you [the Jewish People] for a covenant to the people, for a light to the nations, to open blind eyes.”

Isaiah 42:6-7

Amen. Anyone who does not believe in prophecy should read these words and dwell on history for a little while.

Honestly, I do not see how this could be effectuated without Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth, who I know deep in my heart is the Christ and the Messiah who by experiecing suffering, death, and resurrection takes away the sins of the world.

Without Christ, I question how billions of the Earth’s inhabitants would have access to the Torah, or how Jew and Gentile alike would not sing as King David did:

Let me exalt You, my God the King,
and let me bless Your name forevermore.
Every day let me bless You,
and let me praise Your name forevermore.
Great is the LORD and highly praised,
and His greatness cannot be fathomed.
Let one generation to the next extol Your deeds
and tell of Your mighty acts.
Of the grandeur of Your glorious majesty
and Your wondrous acts let me treat.
And the power of Your awesome deeds let them say,
and Your greatness let me recount
The fame of Your great goodness they utter,
and of Your bounty they joyously sing.
Gracious and merciful is the LORD,
slow to anger, great in kindness.
Good is the LORD to all,
and His mercy is over all his creatures.
All Your creatures, LORD, acclaim You,
and Your faithful ones bless You.
The glory of Your kingship they say,
and of Your might they speak,
to make known to humankind His mighty acts
and the grandeur of His kingship’s glory.
Your kingship is a kingship for all time,
and Your dominion for all generations.
The LORD props up all who fall
and makes all who are bent stand erect.
The eyes of all look in hope to You
and You give them their food in its season,
opening Your hand
and sating to their pleasure all living things.
Just is the LORD in all His ways,
and faithful in all His deeds.
Close is the LORD to all who call Him,
to all who call Him in trust.
The pleasure of those who fear Him He performs,
and their outcry He hears and rescues them.
The LORD guards all who love Him,
and all the wicked He destroys.
The LORD’s praise let me mouth speak
and let all flesh bless His Holy Name
forevermore.

Psalm 145, The Ashrei (trans. Robert Alter).

http://youtu.be/v9rQ7KG0Ips

http://youtu.be/G5a5_c9eoU4

We will not always agree, but let us always pray for eachother, love eachother, and commend to eachother to act with mercy and justice and to "bless His Holy Name forevermore." As so much of the world falls back into atheism, paganism and despair, let us draw together in friendship and encourage eachother in fellowship and obedience to God.

God bless you!!!

[beehumble]

"Jesus fulfilled all the prophesies that could be achieved through text manipulation' but not the ones that couldn't, they are left over for the 'Second Coming'".

There is the 'marriage' of the Jews to God who is the groom. In the ancient Jewish wedding, the groom comes to the bride twice (even in the modern Jewish wedding there are these two parts although they usually take place in one day now.) So a second coming of the 'groom' is actually deeply rooted in Jewish tradition, so an expectation of a second coming when the wedding feast takes place is more a Jewish custom than Christian one, and points again to Jesus and all He did being focused first on the Jews, then later the Gentiles. Jesus said He was returning to His Father's House, and that He would return for us, His bride. Meanwhile, He left us the ketubah - His teachings and the Holy Spirit - just as the ancient Jewish groom left the ketubah, the wedding contract, with the bride until his return from his father's house. So a second coming idea is more Jewish than Christian, although the Jews don't seem to notice this.

The way God chose and planned to save the fallen world is seen in the Jewish traditions, because salvation of the world is from the Jews. So the practices God gave the Jews were given as foreshadowing of His later action over the world. The easiest Jewish custom to connect to the world's salvation is the Passover. A less obvious one: the Jewish wedding customs, including the return, or second coming, of the groom. Good day.

"So let's, now, take the Old Testament and read it 'forward', which, for arguments sake, let's say we've done. Would you come up with Jesus as Messiah/God? I think you'd have to think about that for a while."

It is not really correct and thus more of an artifice to say Jesus can only be found in the Old Testament by looking back. All of Scripture prophecy is best seen in hindsight, so this is the 'normal' way for all of it. Old Testament prophecies on their own (those only speaking about future Old Testament events), those that speak of the first destruction of the Temple for instance, are more easily discerned when looking back.

God bless you.

[Kaninchen]

Originally Posted by beehumble

There is the 'marriage' of the Jews to God who is the groom. In the ancient Jewish wedding, the groom comes to the bride twice

Except that in the first stage the object of value ('world peace', perhaps, at your macro level) came first, the heavy obligations second.

The Messianic prophesies require 'real world events' and they've not happened so what you're left with is searching through the OT and ancient Jewish customs to find potential 'textual' links to interpret into 'evidence'.

That this works for Christians is OK by us but, from our perspective, it's what might be described as 'weedy', ie it allows great fertility of imagination but without the discipline of the hoe of events.

It is not really correct and thus more of an artifice to say Jesus can only be found in the Old Testament by looking back. All of Scripture prophecy is best seen in hindsight, so this is the 'normal' way for all of it. Old Testament prophecies on their own (those only speaking about future Old Testament events), those that speak of the first destruction of the Temple for instance, are more easily discerned when looking back.

It would seem that artifice is in the eye of the beholder.

[loko]

Originally Posted by andremiguel

Will you wish the Jews to convert to Christianity as the chosen people of God?

The official Teaching of the Church is that Jews will come to Christ in their own time. When that happens is a mystery. This is why Catholics are not allowed to actively prosletyse Jews.

[tqualey]

Hi, Kaninchen,

I really appreciate our dialogue on this matter. To be honest, I really did not understand why Jews rejected (and still reject Christ) as the Savior. I now have a much better idea. As you probably guessed, our different view remain. We really are worlds apart ... but, in the same universe with monotheism that believes in a Loving God. I once heard that, "If everyone pulled the same way, the world would tip over"...

God bless - and we can keep each other in our prayers.

Originally Posted by Kaninchen

The answer would be '-ish'. 'The Law' is 'Torah' (the first five books), by the way, not the Talmud. The Talmud is 'Oral Torah', a collection of tradition, interpretation and argument, a whole lot of 'on the one hand, while on the other hand, meanwhile on yet another hand.'



We're in the world of 'reading forwards/reading backwards' here. The reading forwards version is that God made a fairly simple covenant with the 'sons of Noah' which applied to everybody, then a series of Covenants (Abraham onwards) with his 'chosen people' who had to do lots more stuff (one of the reasons why we say that non-Jews have it easier and why they're, actually, at an advantage in terms of 'hope for the World To Come').

Then we come to the tricky problem of 'salvation', with the inevitable question: 'saved from what?' To use another (frequent) CAF Kaninchenism: "the genius of Christianity was to invent an illness 'you're all doomed' and prescribe itself as the only cure."

We don't share the same eschatology, you see, and that makes the concept of Messiah very different.



Bit like Christians not seeing the 'truth' of Islam, perhaps?

I'm only partly joking here. It's a feature of new/subsequent religious movements that they seek explanations of why people say 'hey, we don't need all that, we've got all the religion we need, thank you.' Muslims have them, Mormons have them, etc, etc, etc.



Oh, I don't go with the 'back-water Carpenter, picked up by a bunch of less than gifted followers' business. There was one of the world's greatest religious geniuses involved - he hadn't met the Carpenter but he repackaged the whole thing into a coherent whole for the 'Gentile market'. I think Paul was quite awesome (in the same way that I think the people who put the hugely influential religion of Zoroastrianism together or Mohammed were).



Well faith is important to Judaism but not in the same way, I think. We're more a 'doing' religion than a 'belief' religion, that's our focus, how to live 'ethical Monotheism', what does it mean to 'live a good life, here and now?'

We have a God that we're constantly being reminded of (all the rules that we bump into all the time remind us of who we are and what we do because of who we are) and about whom we have to be careful in our considerations since ascribing characteristics can so easily verge on idolatry.

Our history begins over three millennia ago, in the age of the great pagan religions and their powerful civilizations, their successor pagan religions and their powerful civilizations came and went, we survived, they didn't. We've been driven from place to place, there have been massacres, pogroms, 'final solutions', we're still here.

I think we've 'sustained' quite well really. Messiah will come when he comes.



I'm afraid the answer is 'No'.