Big.blue.nation Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 I was in the shower this morning and pondered some on the subject of OT messianic prophecies. I wasn't so much thinking about individual prophecies and how Christianity may tie them to Christ, but why such an overwhelming number of Jews do not see Jesus as a fulfillment of them. Why is it that those who were supposedly inspired by the god of this universe to write of these messianic prophecies not agree with the Christian religion's view regarding Jesus as the fulfillment of them? Most of us can agree that one of the primary arguments of the believer is that the odds are astronomical that Jesus couldn't fulfill even just a handful of the prophecies. How often have we heard the state of Texas filled with quarters knee deep and picking the right quarter oods anology? It can come across as a logically convincing argument in and of itself no doubt. But, why would those teachings that seem so clear to the believer, be so soundly rejected by the very people (Jews) who received the promises in the first place? Guess my question is, why is it so obvious that almost all Jews do not see Jesus as the Messiah? Just seems odd to me. That the disparity between the two groups is that vast. What are the underlying currents here? I have some thoughts on why, but need to get back to work from my lunch break. Will touch base later and look forward to hearing from fellow ex-C's and even Christians to see their perspective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathlene Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 I would need to look the verses up, but off hand, my answer would be two things. Firstly, hardly any of the Jews liked or paid attention to any prophet within their midst. This is attested constantly throughout the Old Testament, when God would send prophets to warn them of impending doom, and no-one listened. The prophets were sent by God to give his people a wake-up call, which none listened to. Jesus refers to this in the bit where he wails O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who stone the prophets, etc...I cant find it at the moment, but thats kind of the one I mean. Jesus also refers that a prophet is not accepted in his own hometown, as he was not. The other reason why the Jews do not recognise the messiah can be found in these verses. Its pretty long, so I wont put it in here. But it is the entire chapter of Romans 9,10 and 11. Basically the run down of it is, that at the moment the Jews do not recognise the Messiah for a variety of reasons. They are however, the original olive branches in God's kingdom that have broken off for the time being due to unbelief. They are still caught up in the whole works doctrine. I will quote this bit though. I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. Romans 11v25. There is a lot of doctrinal debate about the Jews of which I do not understand, because the next verse after that one says....And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written.etc... So that's my two cents on the view. Even in Jesus' time the Israelites assumed Jesus was there as a messiah to take over the country and do a political revolution. That was never his intention. They were looking at it from a completely different angle. His intention was and still is, that the kingdom of God can come in you and be in your heart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 The Jews missed it because they read what the prophets had written on the topic and found it impossible to compare what was written by them to the "intent" of some character in a story. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OpheliaGinger Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 Because they knew the said prophecies were not directed at a future messiah but to happen within the lifetime of the prophet. Then you have early Christians looking for prophecies they can attribute to Jesus, even if the prophecy does not make sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Jeff Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 I was in the shower this morning and pondered some on the subject of OT messianic prophecies. I wasn't so much thinking about individual prophecies and how Christianity may tie them to Christ, but why such an overwhelming number of Jews do not see Jesus as a fulfillment of them. Why is it that those who were supposedly inspired by the god of this universe to write of these messianic prophecies not agree with the Christian religion's view regarding Jesus as the fulfillment of them? Most of us can agree that one of the primary arguments of the believer is that the odds are astronomical that Jesus couldn't fulfill even just a handful of the prophecies. How often have we heard the state of Texas filled with quarters knee deep and picking the right quarter oods anology? It can come across as a logically convincing argument in and of itself no doubt. But, why would those teachings that seem so clear to the believer, be so soundly rejected by the very people (Jews) who received the promises in the first place? Guess my question is, why is it so obvious that almost all Jews do not see Jesus as the Messiah? Just seems odd to me. That the disparity between the two groups is that vast. What are the underlying currents here? I have some thoughts on why, but need to get back to work from my lunch break. Will touch base later and look forward to hearing from fellow ex-C's and even Christians to see their perspective. Educated Jews don't recognize Jesus as their Messiah because they know that he didn't fulfill any messianic prophecies, nor did he meet any of the requirements for being the messiah. Here are a couple of excellent websites on the subject: http://home.comcast.net/~fiddlerzvi/j4j_no.html http://www.messiahtruth.com/response.html Hope you find those glorious sites helpful. Glory! Brother Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big.blue.nation Posted March 6, 2010 Author Share Posted March 6, 2010 I would need to look the verses up, but off hand, my answer would be two things. Firstly, hardly any of the Jews liked or paid attention to any prophet within their midst. This is attested constantly throughout the Old Testament, when God would send prophets to warn them of impending doom, and no-one listened. The prophets were sent by God to give his people a wake-up call, which none listened to. Jesus refers to this in the bit where he wails O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who stone the prophets, etc...I cant find it at the moment, but thats kind of the one I mean. Jesus also refers that a prophet is not accepted in his own hometown, as he was not. The other reason why the Jews do not recognise the messiah can be found in these verses. Its pretty long, so I wont put it in here. But it is the entire chapter of Romans 9,10 and 11. Basically the run down of it is, that at the moment the Jews do not recognise the Messiah for a variety of reasons. They are however, the original olive branches in God's kingdom that have broken off for the time being due to unbelief. They are still caught up in the whole works doctrine. I will quote this bit though. I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. Romans 11v25. There is a lot of doctrinal debate about the Jews of which I do not understand, because the next verse after that one says....And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written.etc... So that's my two cents on the view. Even in Jesus' time the Israelites assumed Jesus was there as a messiah to take over the country and do a political revolution. That was never his intention. They were looking at it from a completely different angle. His intention was and still is, that the kingdom of God can come in you and be in your heart. I am familiar with this perspective some. I know it's the traditionally held belief in Christianity and a key teaching in the bible regarding the state of the Jew in relation to Jesus. I'd imagine most of us on this forum do and believed it at one time as Ex-C's. The reason I posted the topic was not to attack Christianity as much as it was to try and provide an objective perspective in my mind. Here it is you have: * O.T. scribes, prophets, priests and kings write the O.T....WHO ARE JEWS * A savior God-man Jesus....WHO IS A JEW * 12 disciples....WHO ARE JEWS * The events of the Gospels taking place in Israel. * The church beginning with thousands from throughout the known world during Pentecost...WHO ARE JEWS What intrigues me is that if these above events are true, it almost seems like "God" began with them and suddenly there are a change of plans and gives up in order to focus on the gentiles where this new religion spreads like wildfire under Paul. Strangely you would think it would spread more effectively in my opinion under those 12 disciples who spent 3+ years with Jesus in Israel. But Christianity really spread under Paul, who never even met Christ and didn't live in Israel. The bible even says that Peter was called to reach the Jews. Looks like that mission was a failure. I just think there is more to it than what the biblical perspective offers. Are there social and cultural factors that are begin ignored? What about the Jewish perspective about Jesus? Can millions of people over thousands of years be wrong and just discarded that their opinion doesn't matter? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big.blue.nation Posted March 6, 2010 Author Share Posted March 6, 2010 Educated Jews don't recognize Jesus as their Messiah because they know that he didn't fulfill any messianic prophecies, nor did he meet any of the requirements for being the messiah. Here are a couple of excellent websites on the subject: http://home.comcast.net/~fiddlerzvi/j4j_no.html http://www.messiahtruth.com/response.html Hope you find those glorious sites helpful. Glory! Brother Jeff Hey thanks man; I looked over those sites some and look really helpful. I'm going to dig into them some more later...good stuff. I spent two years at Fort Rich there outside of Anchorage back in '94-'95. Such pretty country up there. I need to head back up there! Glory?! Ha ha, why not! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 I just think there is more to it than what the biblical perspective offers. Are there social and cultural factors that are begin ignored? What about the Jewish perspective about Jesus? Can millions of people over thousands of years be wrong and just discarded that their opinion doesn't matter? If I understanding biblical scholarship correctly, the original followers of Jesus were Jews and most likely didn't believe Jesus was supposed to die nor did Jesus likely think he was going to die himself. The Jews didn't see the "suffering messiah" passages as being a prophecy of a messiah that would save them but after Jesus died, the early followers of Jesus were scrambling to explain how Jesus who was crucified as a lowly criminal could be the messiah since the messiah wasn't supposed to die, so they cherry picked passages from the OT to try and make it fit Jesus when the passages they cherry picked were never seen by the Jews as being prophecies about the messiah. Essentially, the Jews didn't buy it because the Christians were just making stuff up to explain why Jesus died and taking things out of context. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
★ Citsonga ★ Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 Though my initial doubts about christianity came from realizing that there were indeed real contradictions in the bible, the first real clincher against christianity for me was looking deeper into the so-called fulfilled prophecies in the gospels. Taking those gospel claims of fulfilled prophecies and looking up the original OT passages and reading them in context, what struck me is that time after time I was finding that the fulfillment claims did NOT fit what the original text was actually talking about. The gospel writers took the liberty to take OT verses completely out of context in order to fabricate prophetic fulfillments, sometimes even rewording the quoted portion to suit the gospel's needs. Then a light clicked for me. No friggin' wonder why the vast majority of Jews rejected the gospel! The christian scriptures butcher the Jewish scriptures, and, of all people, the Jews would be the first to pick up on that! P.S. ~ Brother Jeff, thanks for those links. The first one I hadn't seen before, so I'll have to check it out some. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big.blue.nation Posted March 8, 2010 Author Share Posted March 8, 2010 The christian scriptures butcher the Jewish scriptures, and, of all people, the Jews would be the first to pick up on that! I think this basically hits the nail on the head. The fact that things were taken out of context and distorted for reasons other than what was originally written about. Alright, looks like this post has run it's course! Thanks folks for the input and am eager to read more from those links Jeff posted. Sorry if I seemed lazy and didn't get into the nuts and bolts of various OT/NT comparisons; just didn't feel like it. Have a great week people Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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