Why Jews reject Christianity

[Wertbag]

A Jewish friend directed me to a site which explained his view on why Jews reject Christ as the messiah. The main points from that site:

 

JESUS DID NOT FULFILL THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES

 

What is the Messiah supposed to accomplish? The Bible says that he will:

 

A. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).

 

B. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).

 

C. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)

 

D. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world -- on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).

 

The historical fact is that Jesus fulfilled none of these messianic prophecies.

 

Christians counter that Jesus will fulfill these in the Second Coming, but Jewish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright, and no concept of a second coming exists.

 

DESCENDENT OF DAVID

 

The Messiah must be descended on his father's side from King David (see Genesis 49:10 and Isaiah 11:1). According to the Christian claim that Jesus was the product of a virgin birth, he had no father -- and thus could not have possibly fulfilled the messianic requirement of being descended on his father's side from King David!

 

JEWISH BELIEF IS BASED SOLELY ON NATIONAL REVELATION

 

Of the 15,000 religions in human history, only Judaism bases its belief on national revelation -- i.e. God speaking to the entire nation. If God is going to start a religion, it makes sense He'll tell everyone, not just one person.

 

Judaism, unique among all of the world's major religions, does not rely on "claims of miracles" as the basis for its religion. In fact, the Bible says that God sometimes grants the power of "miracles" to charlatans, in order to test Jewish loyalty to the Torah (Deut. 13:4).

 

 

Sounds quite a fair set of comments based on the OT... need to find a Christian who can tell me how they refute the above. Anyone seen any discussions on this?

[saxyroze]

 

JESUS DID NOT FULFILL THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES

 

What is the Messiah supposed to accomplish? The Bible says that he will:

 

A. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).

 

B. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).

 

C. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)

 

D. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world -- on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).

 

 

 

That’s a lot of pressure to put on one savior.

 

I don’t think their messiah well be coming…if anyone claimed to be the Jew’s messiah in today’s times he’d be locked up in padded walls or gunned down.

 

That would be really interesting to see what a Christian has to say about it though.

[SkepticOfBible]

Here was the thread that I started which was based on same title

 

Why Jews reject Christianity

 

Didn't much of response though

[Mythra]

I've posted this article before concerning Jesus from a Jewish viewpoint. But it's a goodun.

[MQTA]

cool Mytra, thanks.

 

I thought that was Sullivan County NY.. it's Tenn.

 

http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/mine/ has more stuff too

[scitsofreaky]

Wert, I asked for an explanation of what you put up, and I got a response here

[scitsofreaky]

Ok, I've actually read through most of what I linked, and basically he has two arguments: it is taken out of context or it will happen when Jesus comes back.

[SkepticOfBible]

Wert, I asked for an explanation of what you put up, and I got a response here

 

I tried to open the page, but it has errors on it.

 

 

BTW it is however interesting, that whetever that altough christ failed to do the things that a valid messiah had to, the authors of John attributed those task to the Anti Christ. In other words the Valid Jewish Messiah(if he exists) become the Anti Christ

[scitsofreaky]

Well, how about that, a link that doesn't work. Let's try again http://www.xanga.com/Shattercd/376943414/item.html

But I think my response sums up what he said:

Yes, of course the writers of the NT had the OT. However, there IS evidence for many, if not all of the Bible's events. If you would like some examples, then you could look above at some of the archaeological and historical evidence that I listed. (*Also, there is still tons of evidence that I did not list in the above post. I planned on later doing a follow up post with some more evidence.)"

 

You are correct that there is evidence for many of the places and people existed, but this only proves that those places and people existed. The events themselves have little or no evidence. Granted we can usually tell if a city has been destroyed and rebuilt, we cannot tell if there was divine intervention. And just because some of it is real, it doesn't mean that everything else must be true. Is Achilles real because Troy existed?

 

I'm going to lump all of the unfulfilled prophecies into one response: there was no mention of the Messiah coming more than once. You say one has to take the context into consideration. The Messiah was to come and fulfill all of the prophecies. But Jesus had a habit of changing things, like the law, which is exactly what the OT said a false prophet would do. All NT verses you quoted are interesting, but all for nought

[SkepticOfBible]

From the site

Next, if you're reading a passage in the Bible, make sure to:

 

1. Always try to understand what the passage means in its' specific context (the verses that pre-cede and post-cede the verse).

 

2. Always try to understand what the passage means in its' entire Biblical context (the chapters, books, testaments, etc. that pre-cede and post-cede the passage).

 

You can posted this respone over there

 

Too bad no one told the authors of the NT about that. They had no problems ripping off OT verses to fit their theological whims

 

The book of Matthew and Hebrews is great at that. eg the twisting of a fact in Hosea 1:1 to fit Jesus escape from Egypt.