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What did the Jews think of Jesus

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matt66 | 15:16 Thu 28th Dec 2006 | Religion & Spirituality
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He was raised a Jew. he then goes and starts his own religion and calls himself a God/son of god. What did the Jews think of him then and what do they make of Jesus now.
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Jesus, if he existed, preached only Judaeism to Jews. He never claimed to be son of God, and had he tried to form his own religion he would have been stoned to death for blasphemy. The extravagant claims about him were made by Paul who was the first ever to mention Jesus, in his epistles of about AD50-60. The whole of Christian dogma starts there. Jesus means nothing to Jews whose Messiah was not the son of God, not born of a virgin, not supernatural in any way.
This may go some way to explaining.

http://judaism.about.com/od/beliefs/a/jesus.ht m
Hi Matt66. Firstly Jesus was and is God, (God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit), and pre-existed before He came to earth in human form.
He didn't actually start His own religion, but rather His coming was the fulfilment of the Jewish religion. All the sacrifices etc ( Passover etc) of the Jews were just a foreshadowing of what Jesus would do on the cross.
However the Jews at that time didn't recognise Him as the Messiah. Though many believed on Him, the religious leaders of the day eventually had Him crucified.
Jews today are still awaiting the arrival of their messiah, though a great number have found the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour.

chakka35 - several times the Bible tells us that the Jews rose up to stone Jesus because of His teachings and that He affirmed that He was God, though He escaped from them. And of course they eventually were instrumental in having Him crucified.
And btw, the book of Isaiah prophetised that the Jewish messiah would be born of a virgin
"Therefore the LORD himself shall give you a sign; Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."
Immanuel - God is with us
A good answer lighter, but Jesus never said he was the son of God,

The Messiah was supposed to be from the line of David, which in this case was Joseph, so if Jesus was the 'son of God', not Joseph, he couldn't have been a descendant of David.

Anyway, Mary was supposed to be a perpetual virgin, so what about his brothers and sisters, Joseph being a widower on his second marriage doesn't hold up.
Lighter, you would do well to mug up on Roman and Jewish history, and how the gospels came about. This will equip you to decide what parts of the Jesus story might be true and which are incredible. For example, it is highly unlikely that the Jews were instrumental in Jesus� death; why would the crowd who had earlier cheered him, waving fronds of palm, suddenly demand he be crucified when nothing had happened in-between? The �trial� by the Sanhedrin is impossible because it broke every Jewish legal law in its timing and procedure, and the idea that Pilate would meekly give in to the pleas of a Jewish crowd is laughable; his usual treatment was to send in his troops to slaughter them.
By the time the gospels came to be written, many years later, the newly-forming religion was trying to make inroads into the pagan religions of Greece and Rome, making it rather tactless to tell the Romans that they had killed the very god that they were now being asked to worship. So his death was duck-shoved, a far as possible, onto the Jews in what has been called The Greatest Libel Of All Time.
Please remember that nothing was written about Jesus during his supposed lifetime or for a generation afterwards, the first mention of him being by Paul in about AD55. The gospels were written by unknown people who weren�t there; we have no eye- or ear-witnesses to anything in the Jesus story. (Continued�)

(Continued) Finally, the quotation from Isaiah has been mis-represented for centuries, dishonestly by the Church and no doubt innocently by you. The word in the original Hebrew was �almah� which means �young woman� not the word for virgin which is �betulah�. This was translated into the Greek as �parthenos� and the Latin as �virgo�, both of which (like the English word �maiden�) means both a virgin and a woman still to be married. No such confusion exists in Hebrew where the meaning is clear. If you read the Isaiah excerpt in full you will see that he is merely reassuring King Ahaz that he will be rid of his two enemies, the Kings of Syria and Israel within a few years. He uses a rather long-winded way of saying it: �Behold a young woman shall conceive and bear a son�..before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.� It has nothng to do with predicting any Messiah.
The Jewish Messiah was not a supernatural being but an ordinary mortal who, sometime in his life, would be chosen by God (Messiah means Chosen One or Anointed One) to set up God�s kingdom in Israel, which would obviously mean getting rid of the Roman occupiers. Since Jesus did none of this, and was actually killed by the Romans, he was, by definition, not the Messiah. Christians, under Paul�s influence, later redefined the Messiah as the son of God, a miracle worker who rose from the dead - nothing to do with the Judaeism of Jesus� culture.

Hi Lonnie. Jesus certainly testified that He was the Son of God. In Matthew 16 Jesus asked Peter who He was, Peter replying "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God", and Jesus replied "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven".
Others who called the Lord the Son of God were not corrected by Him. And also we have the many times He refered to God as His Father.

Mary was never supposed to be a perpetual virgin. There is no mention of this anywhere in the Bible. Sounds like something Rome has dreamt up.
Chakka35
The quote from Isaiah does refer to the coming Messiah, and is quoted from in Matthew Ch1 in relation to Christ's birth. The child being called Emmanuel, God with us.
Messiah does mean anointed, so does the name Christ.

As for your assertion that the Gospels were written by unknowns who weren't there, what about the Gospels of Matthew and John, who were both disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ and witnessed these things first hand !!
Lighter, have you thought about getting a life?
Lighter, I have explained about the Isaiah quote. If you'd care to look it up (Isaiah viii.14), and remember that the word is not 'virgin', you will see that it makes no reference at all to any coming Messiah, Jewish or Christian. That "Matthew" quotes it incorrectly is understandable, since the English version was taken from the Latin. It is the original Hebrew that matters.

It is a fact that all four gospels were written anonymously and given their present names quite arbtrarily late in the 2nd century - about AD180.
"Matthew" was written about AD85-90 when (in an age when the expectation of life was about 40-45) everyone connected with the Jesus story would have been long dead. It is not written as an eye-witness account and it contains large chunks copied verbatim from the earlier
"Mark" (about AD70). Why would an eye-witness have to do that?
"John" was written somewhere between AD90 and AD120 and you must remember that the apostle John was a Galilean fisherman whose language would have been Aramaic and who was almost certainly illiterate . What would he be doing, at an impossible age, writing in the most elegant Greek a gospel full of mysticism, Hellenism and early christology? The idea is absurd and supported by neither scholarship nor commonsense.

What you give us, Lighter, are your opinions based on your faith - to which you are naturally fully entitled. To find the facts I suggest you do some reading about the origins of the NT.
chakka35 - You say I give you my opinions based on my faith, and true I believe the Bible to be the Word of God, and am unashamed of that.
Of course the answers you give are your opinions based on your own faith in whatever unnamed sources you are deriving info from.
And unreliable sources too, I would say.
You assert that the verse in Matthew is misquoted as the English version was translated from the Latin. In fact the English version, in the form of the Authorised/King James version, was translated directly from Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic texts, by-passing the inferior Latin Vulgate.
If your information is wrong in something as simple as that I would be suspicious of the veracity of the rest of it if I were you.

I believe the Bible because I believe in the God of the Bible. It has been a great blessing to me through the years and I find great guidance and peace in reading it. And the core message is God's salvation plan for man, for people like you and me.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" John 3:16



What I give are not opinions, Lighter, but historical and literary facts. I do not have any "faith", which is merely a euphemism for blind credulity. I prefer to use the intelligence that evolution has given me rather than rely on the words of unknown people writing millennia ago.
The Authorised Version has a long pedigree, based mainly on the Bishop's Bible with contributions by Tyndale's, Matthew's, Coverdale's and the Geneva Bibles, many of them using the Latin Vulgate to a lesser or greater degree. In any case, I have already pointed out that Greek has the same abiguity regarding 'virgin' and 'young/unmarried woman' as Latin. Had they stuck to the original Hebrew they could not possibly have translated 'almah' as 'virgin' because that is not what it means.
My sources are 'unnamed' because they comprise a huge wealth of NT scholarship, where nobody seriously contends that "Matthew" and "John" were written by the disciples of that name. I gave you some reasons why they couldn't have been last time, which I notice you have not tried to address.
Instead of sermons why don't you give me some arguments? They're much more interesting.
chakka35...dont hold your breath for a reasoned debate with Lighter, it will never happen.These evangelical kind have the 'the bible says it, I believe it, that settles it' mentality. You will quote a definitive sorce of you information, they will quote a book written by bronze age nomadic goat herders...its a losing battle
Yes, wizard69, very wise advice - in fact, advice I have given myself over many years of corresponding with religionists. The logic is obvious: you cannot have a debate involving fact, evidence and reasoned argument with such people because if they were open to such disciplines they wouldn't be religious in the first place. But I never learn. As a result of your sagacity I'll try to restrain myself this time. A very happy, prosperous, fulfilling and rational 2007 to you.
chakka35 - the birth, life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ are historical and literary facts, the Bible is a historical and literal fact. You just happen to 'quote' scholarship that is against the Bible, there is plenty for it.
Whether you admit or not you do have faith. You believe the anti-biblical sources you've read or whatever evolutionist teachings you've been indoctrinated with. You take it on faith that what they say is true. I mean I take it you haven't trawled through firsthand all the various 'texts' of the Bible, or set up a laboratory to investigate every single claim from the scientific world.

wizard69 says he wouldn't hold his breath for a reasoned debate with me. And likewise I wouldn't expect a reasoned debate from you both also.
As stated I come from a belief in the Bible, and you come from a viewpoint that before discussion even begins has already ruled out the existence of God.
And as expressed, it would be pointless for us to argue, we would just be chasing each other in circles. You won't change my mind, and I can't change yours (but God can).

I'm just expressing my belief from Scriptures, though I must say the tinge of animosity against it in your answers speaks more about yourselves than it does of me.




Lighter..the birth, life, death and resurrection of jesus ARE NOT historical facts.The bible may contain SOME historical fact (it would be silly tosay otherwise) but if you really want to believe that donkeys can talk, that jesus floated off into space, that walls can crash down at the sound of trumpets,that the sun can stand still in the sky or a thousand other ridiculous beliefs then that of course is your perogative.
By your own admission you wont change your mind, that is because you are closed minded and no matter what the evidence you will remain so because thats what faith does to you...it cuts you off from reality.On the other hand Lighter, I spent years of my life looking into religious and spiritual belief systems before becoming an atheist.The overwhelming evidence was that there is nothing supernatural in the universe.
I have no animosity towards you...more like pity, because you have been infected with a mind virus called religion and no matter what evidence is presented to you, you will ignore it. As Chakka has stated you have not even tried to address certain things put to you.
Chakka, I wish you all the best for the new year also and Lighter I hope that you will begin to see through your fairy story beliefs..its quiet liberating when you can stand on your own two feet without the aid of an invisible sky friend
Wizard - Your own mind is closed too. You won't even accept the possiblity of there being a God. I suppose that is more convenient for you, (you can do whatever you like, don't have to be answerable to Him etc).
However I have found great liberty and freedom in being a Christian. What a folly to pity me! I have life and I have it more abundantly. To know that my sins are forgiven and that I have peace with God and am called His child gives me immeasurable joy and understanding. I'd never want to go back to the days before I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my Saviour.

You think all the truths of the Bible are fairy tales.
Do you not believe a fairy tale yourself? That 'billions' of years ago 'nothing' exploded to make 'everything', that through trillion to one events life on earth 'evolved'. That takes a lot of faith to believe in !!

You mention that you spent years looking into religious and spiritual belief systems before becoming an aethist. I think the plural there shows the problem. If I had looked into Buddism, Hinduism or Roman Catholism I too would have reached a dead end.
There is only one God and one way to Him, and that is the way revealed in His Word, the Bible, through the Lord Jesus Christ.
That all men are sinners, that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord, that though He must punish sin He, through His love, gave His Son to take the punishment for us if we only trust in His Name.

The Bible says that "It is appointed on to men once to day and then the judgment".
In that day I'll be standing there with my 'invisible sky friend' (as you irreverently put). Have you ever thought how you will fair that day standing on your own?

May you and chakka both have a good New Year, and I pray that the Lord will open your eyes to His truth and love.



Lighter - I share your faith as a fellow Christian, and agree that it takes a great leap of faith to believe in Big Bang and all of the so called evolutionary consequences that presumably followed.
Don't be deterred by the tone of the replies you received, as they come from people who are just as passionate as you are, and this undoubtedly adds some heat to the debate occasionally.
I hope and pray that you will continue to serve the Lord in whatever place you are, even here on Answerbank.
Theland - Oh dear, sorry missed this.
Thank you very much for your encouraging words. I trust that too will be blessed and be a blessing in every area of you life, never ashamed to hold up the name of Christ.

I Corinthians 1:18

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