Why don't Jews accept Jesus as the Messiah?

There are a number of members in this forum that are Jewish, so I would love to hear from them specifically why historically, and why they personally, do not accept Jesus as the prophesised messiah (after all, the New Testament states that he fulfills many prophecies attributed to the messiah).

Secondly, as a Jew, what would you expect the Messiah to be like? What attributes? How would you think the Messiah would become known to the Jewish population?

 

Excellent question The Gatherer. As a Roman Catholic I'd also love to know what aspects of Christ did not fufill the Jewish 'check-list'.

 

Detail, with accompanying evidence, all those things that Jesus did to prove he is the Messiah.

Your proof is a fictional book. Tales from a bunch of elders that happened to get popular with one Roman Emperor, and the religion took off.

There is no real proof of Jesus being the Messiah.

Until then, he is a fictional character (we dont even have proof absolute of his existence), and you are asking why we dont revere a fictional character.

You say 'accept' as if its an undisputable fact that he was the Messiah. A better word would be 'believe'. Why dont we 'believe' he was the Messiah, as you do?

As a matter of politeness, though, one should always acknowledge those that were there first. You should be asking why *your* belief system differs from *ours*.

I could also respond by asking why Christians dont believe that Mohammed was a prophet, because the Koran says he was.

 

Darth_Dagsy, as a Moderator, I thought you would be fully aware that stating the Bible as a fictional book is both insulting and offending to billions of people.

If you do not wish to participate constructively in this discussion, then don't.

Getting back to the topic: I would love to speak to a Jew who has accepted Christ as Messiah through Jews for Jesus.

 

I always thought the problem lied in the fact that Christians believe that Jesus is/was the "son of God". Something that doesn't sit with Judiasim.

Correct me if I'm wrong though.

 

Why should the Christians beliefs of Jesus affect the opinion of the Jews accepting Jesus as THEIR Messiah?

 

Uhhh, Gath, all Bibles are fictional books. Anyone that calls them fact has to come up with proof to support any 'facts' given by the book. You have to prove that those claims made in the New Testament actually happened. My comment stands. The New Testament, as with the Old, are not history books but are books of fiction.

Anyone offended by that comment has their heads in the sand enough to not understand that you need proof for something to be a fact. And a belief is not proof.

And answer my question. Why dont Christians believe in Mohammed as a prophet, given that the Koran states that he was?

And Jews for Jesus? Thats a crock. Simple fact is that Jews dont believe in Jesus being the Messiah. Jews for Jesus is rubbish. It's a group that is trying to blur the lines between the two religions in order to sway Jews into accepting the principles of Christianity...because its only a short step to Christianity proper. Its an attempt to convert on the sly.

 

DA, that's wrong. The problem, as stated by the Bible, is that they were expecting a king to come and save them from their enemies (Rome at the time). When the prophet that was eventually crucified came, he was NOT bearing the sword, and by accounts was unwilling to 'prove' his identity to skeptics on the religious councils.

I'm not sure about this topic. I would like everyone to maintain utmost civility and respect for beliefs that you might disagree with.


Dagsy, watch the antagonism.

 

Darth_Dagsy, let's turn this full circle back to you: please post proof or retract 'that the Bible is fiction'.

 

You dont prove something isnt fact. You prove something is fact.

Its like saying I have to prove that the world *wasnt* created in 6 days. No. In order to say it did happen, you have to prove it. Until then, its just a theory.

 

R7, I was going to make that point also. However, I think that my comments are true also (although I'n no Jew).

 

Well, I should go back and edit, because I actually had no business saying your point is wrong. I *think* your point relates more to the Mormon/Christian split, but I'm not sure about that.

There will be no proving or disproving of the Bible in this thread. I beleive another thread exists, if you wish to go down that fruitless path. Dagsy's assertions about the Bible being 'fiction' can stand, because he is essentially removing Biblical (New Testament, I assume) evidence as 'proof' for the quetions Gath raises, thus preventing a circular argument. I don't think he is intending to offend or making indictments, merely preventing a pointless circular exercise.

 

Good point Red-Seven.

Please don't close this thread becuase other people wish to Hijack it.

Everyone, please refer to the topic of the thread, and don't deviate to other subjects such as Mohammed, the Koran, Bible Proof, etc...

I know that there are a lot of Jewish posters in this particular forum, and I would love to hear their thoughts and opinions on this topic.

 

My, my, aren't we all sensitive here today? Dagsy is bringing up valid points, Gatherer. You ask why Jews don't accept Jesus as the Messiah, but the better question is why don't Jews believe he is? It is not established fact that Jesus was the Messiah, it is not established if the bible is fact. Dagsy's points are good ones. You might aswell ask Christians why they don't "accept" Mohammed is a Prophet. Its a dumb question, and there's no point in getting involved in such heated discussions about it, especially when people are so sensitive.

This topic is almost the equivelant of a Catholic and a Protestant arguing over whether or not Mary was a virgin. People believe what they believe, just leave them to it.

 

You ask why Jews don't accept Jesus as the Messiah, but the better question is why don't Jews believe he is?

Well, you have just stated the SAME question, in different words!

PS: By the way, both Catholics AND Protestants agree that Mary was a virgin.

PPS: That's two strikes against you!

 

PS: By the way, both Catholics AND Protestants agree that Mary was a virgin

Before the birth of Jesus? Certainly. Thereafter? Strong disagreement.

That's beside the point of this discussion, however.

 

Well I won't get into the whole side arguments, but as it was stated before the jews were expecting a savior to crush Rome and to set them free in a physical sense. In their minds the prophecy has never been fullfilled. Their idea of the savior coming is more akin to the Christian belief of the second coming of Jesus.

 

The Jewish Messiah cannot be someone specifically to lead them against Rome, as the Jewish civilisation was around for hundreds, if not thousands of years before the Roman civilisation. The prophecies are about more than someone who leads them against Roman opression.

 

I could also respond by asking why Christians dont believe that Mohammed was a prophet, because the Koran says he was.

Mohammed thought that Jesus was just a prophet - therefore he wasn´t a real prophet.

 

Red-Seven:

There will be no proving or disproving of the Bible in this thread. I beleive another thread exists, if you wish to go down that fruitless path. Dagsy's assertions about the Bible being 'fiction' can stand, because he is essentially removing Biblical (New Testament, I assume) evidence as 'proof' for the quetions Gath raises, thus preventing a circular argument. I don't think he is intending to offend or making indictments, merely preventing a pointless circular exercise.

If I may argue word choice, calling something "fiction" implies that one knows that it is false.

"I don't know whether the Bible is true" is a world apart from "I know the Bible is false."

If one meant only to say that the Bible is not universally accepted as a reliable document, "contested" would be a much better adjective than "fictional."

Words mean things.

At any rate, I think this thread ultimately revolves around the Bible. Remove it, and there's very little that can be learned about Jesus -- a mention in the histories writeen by the Roman Tacitus and the Jew Jospehus (extra-biblical proof of Jesus' existence, by the way) and a couple so-called gospels that were written even later than the canonical books of the Bible.

If the New Testament is false, there is no reason to accept Jesus as the Christ.

If it's true, there's no reason not to.

 

Gatherer, I was just keeping it brief. Of course there was more, it's just that, they were trying to apply prophecy to them, which is always a bad thing. They were trying to decide how things were supposed to happen. That's what I was getting at.

 

Food for thought:


"What Are The Odds...?

A mathematician by the name of Peter Stoner, a Scientist in California, looked at the prophecies of Jesus and asked, "What are the odds of these predictions being fulfilled in one person." He looked at all 324 of the prophecies and isolated the 8 most obvious ones; A messiah will be born in Bethlehem, He will be born from the linage of David, He will be sold for 30 pieces of silver, they will throw dice and gamble for his garments at his death,... things like that. All of these prophecies about the "coming messiah" were written hundreds of years before Jesus was even born. According to Stoner's application of statistical probability, the odds of one man fulfilling 8 of these prophecies is 1 in 10 to the 17th power. If you had 10 to the 17th power, using silver dollars for a
mental analogy, you could fill the whole state of Texas 2 feet thick with silver dollars. If you preselected one of those coins in advance, put it back somewhere in the pile and sent someone into the pile to
find it, the odds of him finding the one you preselected are the same as the odds for Jesus to fulfill 8 of the predictions the way they were written. Stoner goes on with this and he takes not just 8 but 16
prophecies. What are the odds of one man, Jesus, fulfilling 16 predictions that were written in advance? Stoner's number? 1 in 10
to the 45th power. If you use silver dollars again for your mental analogy you'd have enough silver dollars to make a globe completely thick of silver that would be so big that from the center of that silver ball to the circumference it would be the distance of the earth to the sun, times 30. Select one in advance, send somebody in there to get it, if he finds it, that's the odds of Jesus fulfilling 16 of the predictions which of course were written 100's of years in advance. Do you see how idiotic it is for someone to say, "Oh, it as just by coincidence that Jesus did that."
In his book, Stoner takes it further; the odds of one man fulfilling, not 8, not 16, but 48 of those prophecies, the odds would be 1 in 10 to the 157th power. For his analogy he has to use something much smaller. He uses electrons!


> 324 Messianic Prophecies
>Gen. 3:15.....He will bruise Satan's head.....Heb. 2:14, 1 Jn. 3:18
>Gen. 5:24....The bodily ascension to heaven illustrated....Mk. 6:19
>Gen. 9:26,27...The God of Shem will be the Son of Shem...Lu. 3:36
>Gen. 12:3...As Abraham's seed, will bless all nations...Acts. 3:25,26
>Gen. 12:7...The Promise made to Abraham's Seed...Gal. 3:16
>Gen. 14:18...A priest after Melchizedek...Heb. 6:20
>Gen. 14:18........A King also........Heb. 7:2
>Gen. 14:18...The Last Supper foreshadowed...Mt. 26:26-29
>Gen. 17:19.......The Seed of Isaac.......Rom. 9:7
>Gen. 22:8...The Lamb of God promised...Jn. 1:29
>Gen. 22:18...As Isaac's seed, will bless all nations...Gal. 3:16
>Gen.26:2-5..The Seed of Isaac promised as the Redeemer..Heb.11:18
>Gen. 49:10...The time of His coming...Lu. 2:1-7; Gal. 4:4
>Gen. 49:10.......The Seed of Judah.......Lu. 3:33
>Gen. 49:10......Called Shiloh or One Sent......Jn. 17:3
>Gen. 49:10...To come before Judah lost identity...Jn. 11:47-52
>Gen. 49:10...To Him shall the obedience of the people be...Jn. 10:16
>Ex. 3:13,14........The Great "I Am".......Jn. 4:26
>Ex. 12:5...A Lamb without blemish...1 Pet. 1:19
>Ex. 12:13...The blood of the Lamb saves from wrath...Rom. 5:8
>Ex. 12:21-27...Christ is our Passover...1 Cor. 5;7
>Ex. 12:46...Not a bone of the Lamb to be broken...Jn. 19:31-36
>Ex. 15:2...His exaltation predicted as Yeshua...Acts 7:55,56
>Ex. 15:11...His Character-Holiness...Luke 1:35; Acts 4:27
>Ex. 17:6...The Spiritual Rock of Israel...1 Cor. 10;4
>Ex. 33:19...His Character-Merciful...Lu. 1:72
>Lev.14:11..The leper cleansed-Sign to priesthood..Lu.5:12-14; Acts 6:7
>Lev.16:15-17...Prefigures Christ's once-for-all death...Heb. 9:7-14
>Lev.16:27...Suffering outside the Camp...Mt. 27:33; Heb. 13:11, 12
>Lev.17:11...The Blood-the life of the flesh...Mt. 26;28; Mk. 10:45
>Lev.17:11...It is the blo

 

"Well, you have just stated the SAME question, in different words!"

One question implies that its a fact that Jesus is the messiah, and its just a matter of accepting that fact.

 

I sure hope those 324 prophecies are more specific than

Dan. 9:26a...Killed... Mt. 27:35

Even Nostradamus gave more away than that

 

I am an atheist, but I have a strong interest in religions. I may share a reason with many Jews who don't don't believe Jesus is the messiah.

I believe the life of Jesus of Nazareth as described in the Gospels are not a actual historical accounts, but rather a pseudo-biography written in an fictional narrative style. Now, with that said, the writers of the gospels wrote about Jesus based largely on information taken mostly on accounts from what others knew of him. The writers were definately believers that Jesus was the messiah, and whatever information they couldn't find about him, they looked to the Hebrew Bible (a.k.a. Old Testament) as a source for clues to fill in the blanks.

I believe a significant portion of the Christian Bible is a form of historical fiction. But even if it is, I strongly believe that valuable bits of wisdom and important messages can be found in good stories whether they're history or fiction.