How do Christians respond to Jewish arguments against divinity of Jesus?

Question

What is the Christian response to Jewish claims that Jesus does not fit the description of the Messiah from the Old Testiment, that the temple was not restored when Jesus walked the earth, that the world was not at peace, that words from the Bible were purposefully changed or missinterpreted to fit Jesus as the messianic description etc?

Answer 1

I always find it amusing- us Jews list our reasons- and the Christians then say - well, all the messianic prophecies will be fulfilled with his second coming- yet they claim he fulfilled the prophecies! I dunno maybe you have to have special filters on to not see the contradiction in the statements :) never mind the stretches in logic, mistranslations and ignoring of context etc in order to make any of their so called proof's work!

the fact that their theology has moved so far from Judaism as to be virtually incomparable just proves to Jews that Christianity has missed the boat- after all, if, as we believe, God is ominiscient, omnipresent and omnipotent- how on earth could he have ever made a mistake? Why on earth would he choose to go against his own word- and change that which he said was eternal?


Edit: MAshiach ben yosef comes BEFORE mashiach ben David and prepares the way. And he comes just before mashiach ben David, a matter of days or week's not millenia! And anyways- Christianity tries to prove that Jesus is descended from David- not Joseph, and the two are different tribes- a person can only belong to one tribe via patrilineal descent. So the two CANNOT be the same person- and the Christian texts themselves, if you want to believe them, invalidate Jesus ad Mashiach Ben Yosef since they claim he is form the tribe of Yehudah, and not descended from Yosef! Best you get the contradictions out of your argument before you even try using them! LOL

Tim: The mashiach will be proven by his actions. His genealogy is a minor matter, a recursive thing- if the mashiach does what he is meant to do, we will know he is from the house of David- if the person claiming to be the messiah does not do the things he is meant to do- his genealogy is irrelevant as he is not the messiah.

Answer 2

Both Jews and Christians acknowledge that Jesus did not fulfill the requirements of the Messiah.

The Jewish answer to this is, the Messiah must fulfill this "job description" which is clearly outlined in the Bible.
Jesus did not do the job (nor has anyone else yet through history).

The Christian answer to this is to just "believe" that Jesus will return and do the job of the Messiah.

Answer 3

He doesn't fit the description, because the Jewish people were not freed from bondage. The 100 years after Jesus were the worst in their history, as the Temple was destroyed in 70AD, and the country was crushed by the Romans. How is this a messiah?

Answer 4

Jesus stated that he was inspired by God, and that God revealed itself through him. Though he also stated that a time would come when we would have another companion, the 'Spirit of Truth' that would be with us forever. This would be a different companion from the 'Holy Spirit'.

So if the being that experienced being the man Jesus was to return and bring as a companion the 'Spirit of Truth', how could they claim that the being that experienced being the man Jesus was not the Messiah prophesised in the Old Testament, even if the counselor had no memory of experiencing being the human named Jesus.

Once the 'Spirit of Truth' is accepted as a companion, the accepted 'wisdom' of building a global culture in essence around selfishness will perish, and the 'intelligence' of the atheist scientists who make assumptions that God doesn't exist, and are unopposed when publishing their peer reviewed papers, will vanish.

Answer 5

All what we know about Jesus's history is based on many documents and testimonies written and told by a lot of people along 20 centuries, must of them illiterate, must of those documents and testimonies have been burned, deteriorated or lost, in such a manner that it is difficult to answer this question with a certain margin of credibility and rationality, I reduce all this vague and contradictory information into a matter of faith. I am absolutely sure that must of this events occurred far away than reality, however, we must to live with these dogmas except that we have a master Creator who managed the life in the universe, no matter religions.

Answer 6

You sure got some boring answers. Too bad you don't have some Jews to spice it up!

Tim: Not believe the OT? It's you who must believe the OT. Without the OT, you have nothing! Jews do not need Christianity to explain their existence or their origin, but Christians cannot explain their existence without Judaism. Jews can explain Judaism without need of any miracles whatsoever! Try that with Christianity sometime!

CMTRJOM: They already need "a new logic for his manner of salvation." All the righteous of the nations had a place in the world to come before Jesus limited it to "believers" only!
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Answer 7

Well I have an answer but they don't like to hear it...

The Jewish prophecy actually calls for TWO Messiahs Mashiach Ben David and Mashiach Ben Yosef (that is, Messiah the son of Joseph and Messiah the son of David). Mashiach Ben David is seen as a warrior king who comes and smites the Jews' enemies. Mashiach Ben Yosef is seen as a servant-king who is beloved by his father and is rejected by his brothers and eventually becomes king.
When Yahshua -- You know him as Jesus but that's not his Hebrew name -- was walking around, he was the embodiment of Mashiach ben Yosef. What the Jews wanted at that time was Mashiach ben David. When Yahshua didn't live up to the Mashiach ben David prophecy, they rejected him as Messiah.
As I said, they are looking for two different Messiahs. What they don't realize is the possibility for the same person to hold both Messianic offices.
Which is what Yahshua will do.
He has already come as Mashiach ben Yosef. In the book of Revelations, he will return as Mashiach ben David and WILL be that Warrior King, that Messiah that comes and blasts all the enemies of God's people.
This is prophecy that they themselves know so that gives you a little inside track. Now, I don't agree with converting Jews into Christianity. Both sides have alot that they need to clear up and gain more understanding about. We all have to be ONE BODY in order for Messiah to return and do what it is he will do. We all have to be ONE and cry out "Baruch Haba B'Shem YHWH" or "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the L-rd". That One body is not Judaism and it definitely is not Christianity alone...

Answer 8

If the Jews want to believe the Old Testament, then they have a problem.

The Old Testament gives them the promise of a Messiah and that He would be of the house of David. But the records of the Jews genealogy were destroyed when Jerusalem was defeated in 70 AD.

That means that the Messiah had to come before 70 AD to show that he is of the line of David.

People will have to choose if they want to believe that the Messiah has all ready come, or they will have to not believe the Old Testament.

Answer 9

Tim, what you said is not true in terms of people not knowing who they are descended from. I know Jewish folks who have family traditions passed back over centuries of who they are related to. Besides, you don't have to KNOW you are a descendant of someone to BE a descendant.

And to Christians who say it doesn't matter what Jews believe or what the prophecies were, yes it does, because Christianity is based on Judaism! Jesus was supposedly a fulfillment of a prophecy. If you want to chuck all that, fine, but you have to come up with a new explanation for Jesus, who he was, why he's divine, and a new logic for his manner of salvation.

Answer 10

Good question, and I would like to add to it rather than answer it.
You have brought up the arguments for not recognizing J*sus as the messiah. His divinity is a whole other matter.
This is the Jewish view:
It is the hallmark of pagan, idolatrous faiths, to confuse God with human beings, either that God becomes human, or that humans become God. In Biblical history, one sees this confusion with Pharaoh, and with Haman (boo, hiss!), as well as with Antiochus, the Assyrian King against whom the Maccabbees rebelled. Furthermore, as one example, in Hosea 11:9 God tell us, "For I am God and not a man."
Christians identify Messiah with Jesus and define him as God incarnated as a man, and believe he died for the sins of humanity as a blood sacrifice. This means that one has to accept the idea that one person's death can atone for another person's sins. However, this is opposed to what the Bible says in Deuteronomy 24:26, "Every man shall be put to death for his own sin," which is also expressed in Exodus 32:30-35, and Ezekiel 18. The Christian idea of the messiah also assumes that God wants, and will accept, a human sacrifice. After all, it was either Jesus-the-god who died on the cross, or Jesus-the-human. Jews believe that God cannot die, and so all that Christians are left with in the death of Jesus on the cross, is a human sacrifice. However, in Deuteronomy 12:30-31, God calls human sacrifice an abomination, and something He hates: "for every abomination to the Eternal, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods." All human beings are sons or daughters, and any sacrifice to God of any human being would be something that God would hate. The Christian idea of the messiah consists of ideas that are UnBiblical.