Topic awaiting preservation: Jews.

how come they don't believe in Jesus?

Well, it is as easily asked, how come christians do? How come budhists don't? How come Muslims don't? How come Shintoists don't?

.

The thing is, it's not that the jews 'don't beleive in' jesus, the way a child comes to 'not believe in santa clause'.

They simply don't find that jesus was the messiah that was prophecied.

And there really isn't any proof to say they're not completely right =)



[This message has been edited by DL-44 (edited 03-04-2003).]

[dang, someone posted while I was typing}

Some Jews do believe in Jesus.

It is a generality to say they don't, just like saying that people who claim to be "Christians" really act like Christ.

That aside, however, you are correct in that Jesus went "to those who were his own, but his own did not recieve him".

The Jews believe in a Messiah (Savior, whatever), they just don't think that Jesus was the Messiah. That is, the Messiah has not yet come.

I am hardly qualified to determine the reason for that, but it could be that over the years the Jews put more emphasis on ritual observance of the Law than on the realities of what the Prophets predicted about Jesus.

SOLI DEO GLORIA

[This message has been edited by Christ_Follower (edited 03-04-2003).]

Actually Jesus Christ, through the course of his birth, life and death fulfilled over 100 Old Testament prophecies. The fulfillment of messianic prophecy, I would think, would prove him to be the messiah that was prophesied.

Jason

i've always wondering on this one. i've heard jewish people say things like "jesus was a great prophet and teacher, but not the son of God." but see, he said he was and referred to it many times, so either he was a lying raving looney or he was the son of God, i don't quite see the inbetween...

chris

It basically comes down to the fact that Jews and Christians have very different ideas of the word messiah. Jews believe that a messiah is a military leader. The messiah is the one who will establish the kingdom over all the world and defeat their enemies. Jesus did not do that. He revolted against Rome and died without a single military victory. By definition, he is a failed messiah.

Christian believe Jesus is the messiah because he delivered people's souls from the devil's dominion. The Jews believe this is all silliness. The soul is always God's possession regardless of how a person behaved in their life and the soul returns to God after death.

I am neither a Christian nor a Jew so I don't want to go too much farther but my point is that Christians too often think of Jews as too stupid to see the forest for the trees because they don't accept Jesus as the messiah.

Moth is on the right track, I think (well, up until his last comment, that is). The Jews at the time of Christ were looking for someone to free them from Roman rule. They also weren't looking for someone who was going to go around exposing their hypocrisy and calling them "brood of vipers" and "white-washed tombs." Of course, these statements referred to the Jewish leaders, not all of the Jews. The first Christians were, in fact, Jews. Peter and Paul had quite an argument over whether or not the Gentiles (non-Jews) should even be preached to and welcomed into the family. The Jewish leaders, however, remained vehemently opposed to Christ during his lifetime (for the reasons mentioned above), and after his death the Bible says that they attempted to squelch any rumors of His resurrection (Matthew 28, in particular verse 12-16). Tradition was handed down by the leaders of the community, and this is why I think that a majority of Jews do not accept Christ as the Messiah. It is incorrect, though, to assume that all Jews do not accept Christ as the Messiah, though.

Moth: That's the point of what you were saying? Well, as a Christian myself, I can tell you that I do not think Jews are "stupid." Having read the Bible through, I have a great respect for them as a people.

[Edit: Yeah, so anyway, my point is that it has very little do with proof of Christ as the Messiah and more to do with the attitude of the Jewish leaders during the time of Christ, as I explained above.]

[This message has been edited by Suho1004 (edited 03-04-2003).]

My last comment was in reference to some of things said at a church I once regularly attended until I chose a diffferent path. My point is that Jews and Christians have very different worldviews. There is also difference in commonly shared words dealing with spirituality such as soul and messiah. Without that understanding, meaningful dialogue is difficult. Do we have any Jewish members (get image out of head ) who can shed more light on this topic?

It might be good to point out that there is a wide variation of opinions among Jews on all the topics raised in this thread so far. There are atheists to fundamentalists in the world's Jewry and just about everything in between from what I've seen.

And I'm glad Suho mentioned that all of the original church was composed of Jewish believers in Christ. In fact, Christians weren't even called Christians in first years of the church.

[edit] Oh yeah, and I really don't think it has anything to do with stupidity [/edit]

[This message has been edited by Bugimus (edited 03-04-2003).]

EDITEDITEDIT[A crap, I missed a couple of posts up there, which answered it probably correctly, so disregard the crap that I said, but read it anyways, I guess, or not...]/EDIT/EDIT/EDIT


I don't know a lot about this area, but it could have something to do with the book of Jude. In Jude, Jude (Jesus's half brother), is talking about how the church is corrupt and people are teaching false teachings and blah blah blah. Read it, theres free Bible on the internet or at (most) churches if you need on.

Anyways, I think that the interpretation that Christ is nothing more than a prophet came from this time period, which I can't elaborate on because I know pretty much crap in this area.

[This message has been edited by counterfeitbacon (edited 03-04-2003).]

Being Jewish myself .. hmmmm .. I not sure if I should bite my tongue or just answer this simple question .. I'm sure I'll answer the question and comment on the other comments above but don't expect anything soon my post will be long


.::. cEll .::. 513

I look forward to it RammStein.