Please Jewish people only?

Question

I am not asking this to be rude mean or hateful or to discriminate. Based on your knowledge of Christ what makes you believe that he is not the Messiah?

Answer 1

Well the real question is, what WOULD make us believe him to be the massiah. It's more that there's no reason to believe him to be the messiah, rather than have a reason not to believe it, get it?

The Torah specifically describes in immense detail how we can identify the messiah, and there are a few prophesies describing the coming. jesus being claimed to have been the messiah goes against every single one of these descriptions (or rather, doesn't qualify for any of them).

Simple as that, see?? Contact me if you have any Qs: I'd be happy to answer without being offended =D

Answer 2

There are several criteria and prophecies regarding the expected Messiah that Jesus did not fulfill:

1) Jesus was a human being; as such, according to the laws of the Torah, he could not have been a sacrifice for sins, as claimed by Christians. Human sacrifice is EXPRESSLY forbidden by God.

2) Jesus, even if he had been a valid sacrifice, was sacrificed outside the temple. It is expressly stated in the Torah that ALL sacrifices are to be inside the temple.

3) Even if he had been a valid sacrifice AND sacrificed in the temple, Judaism teaches that no person can fulfill the law for us, and no person can accept the guilt of another.

4) The messiah is to be a great leader; per Isaiah, he is a person who will have the "government upon his shoulders." Jesus was never a leader in any government, and had a relatively small band of followers.

5) The messiah is to be a person who will bring a universal knowlege of God to mankind. This has not occurred.

6) The messiah is to be a person who will bring peace to ALL nations; this has not occurred.

7) The messiah is to be of the house of David; Jesus was not of the house of David. If Joseph was Jesus' father (contrary to Christian scriptures which say that Joseph was going to "put her [Mary] aside" when he found out she was pregnant), then he is not the son of God as Christians claim. If he had been the son of God, then he would have no house line, as that is attained through the father, and God has no house.

8) In the time before the Messiah is to come, the temple is to be rebuilt. This has not occurred; the temple not only stands in ruins, with only the western "wailing" wall even remotely intact, but an Islamic mosque sits at the site at present. Indeed, not only was the temple not rebuilt, it was destroyed AFTER Jesus lived.

When all is said and done, Jesus fulfills none of the prophecies regarding the Messiah; this is why I do not believe that Jesus is the messiah. I was raised as a Christian, by the way, and this is a conclusion I came to after considerable reflection. Jesus may have existed, but in no way was he the "Christ" (which is simply the Greek word for "savior", and not his last name).

When I came to this conclusion, I converted to Judaism (about 10 years ago), and it is where I belong. Where someone else belongs is up to them, not to me, and I would not presume to tell them what to believe.

Answer 3

Don't worry, your question is perfectly OK!

Judaism teaches that when the true messiah does appear, there will be certain signs. One of these is peace on earth. Clearly, that is not happening just yet...!

We view Jesus as a Jewish carpenter, perhaps a rebel - nothing more and nothing less.

He observed the Jewish faith until he was killed by the Romans; he never rejected Judaism and he certainly would not recognize Christianity if he appeared today! Christianity did not develop until after his death.

Answer 4

We can read Hebrew.

Jesus doesn't fulfill any of the prophecies of the Messiah. He just doesn't.

To get around that, early Christians misread Hebrew texts. No one has been able to show me a single one that isn't based on a mistranslation of the Hebrew.

It really is that simple.

Answer 5

Because he does not match the description of a messiah in scripture. Christians "interpreted" various verses in the Greek translation (!) of the Hebrew Bible as applying to Jesus, while ignoring other inconvenient messianic prophecies. There is also that business of disposing of the obligations of Torah by "fulfilling" them. And the "son of God"/"Trinity" theology is not a credible extrapolation of monotheism. If the Shema is not true, what is?

Answer 6

Because he did not match any of the criteria delineated in the Torah of what is required for someone to be the Messiah.

Answer 7

Honestly it doesn't matter what we say because all the Christians on this board just chalk it up to "Those silly Jews rejecting their messiah"

No offense intended of course, I have nothing against Christianity and see no problem with them and many other religions living side by side.

Answer 8

I am a former Christian fundamentalist who, as an adult, converted to Orthodox Judaism. So I KNOW what the differences are....

and they are many.

As other writers have said, it's true that their belief in a man-god is one of the major differences. There are lots of reasons why their man-god can't be messiah--much less G-d! He fulfills absolutely none of the requirements for messiah, for instance. The Messiah will usher in an age of world peace, return the Jewish people to their land, and will re-institute Temple worship. By contrast, the Christian man-god lived during a period of profound violence in instability; shortly after his death the Temple was destroyed and the Jewish people were dispersed throughout the world....

Kind of exactly the OPPOSITE of the prophecies.

The Christian Bible says that there are many prophecies that their man-god DID fulfill. It's interesting to note that many of these prophecies were misquoted...and sometimes the 'prophecies' weren't even there! They wre made up out of whole cloth...

But there ARE some prophecies that he appears to have truly fulfilled. How can this be?

The Christian books of the Bible were written many years after the death of their man-god. There were squabbles within the new religioius group from the first, and there was certainly time for revisionist history. I believe that the books that were written had the man-god 'saying' things he never actually said, and 'doing' things he never actually did.

There's a story: A man walked through the woods and saw tree after tree with round circles painted on them, and arrows in the very middle of each circle. He asked around: "How can anyone be such a good marksman?"

"It's simple," he was told. "The marksman shoots the arrow first, and then draws the circle around the arrow." I think that story explains a lot of the supposed fulfillment of prophecy.

Of course, the Torah itself says that we are forbidden to worship other gods...even if a prophet does miracles to "prove" that we should (Deuter. 13)

There are other reasons the man-god can't have been the Messiah. His genealogy, for one thing: By Christian accounts, on one side of his family, his genealogy is traced back to Nathan, son of David. But the Messiah must come through Solomon! On the other side, his lineage goes through Jeconiah, who was cursed never to have a descendent sitting on the throne of David. (Jeremiah 22:30). These two factors absolutely rule out the Christian man-god.

BTW--why do I refuse to use his name? It's not a superstitious matter; but in the Psalms, David clearly says that he will not carry the names of foreign gods on his lips.

Christians will insist that Jews are being stubborn not to acknowledge that their man-god is the Messiah. Please understand that the Torah is the most widely studied book in the world. Even today there are thousands of men who devote their entire lives to studying Torah. It continues to be studied ceaselessly, as it has been for millinia. Every tiny detail is discussed in detail...

For instance: Sometimes a word is spelled in a way that is atypical. Perhaps a word is spelled without a 'vav' in most instances, but is spelled with a 'vav' once or twice. You wouldn't believe the reams of paper that are expended on such questions: Why would G-d spell it differently in this instance? What does it mean? What is He trying to tell us? People write books about such things.

Jews don't gloss over what is in Torah. They study it incessantly. They want to understand. Their lives are dedicated to it. And if it lead to belief in the Christian man-god, they would embrace him.

But they don't, because it doesn't.

So: that's the most obvious difference between the religions. There are many others--in fact, there is very little similarity. Having been raised in a fundamentalist Sunday School, I can assure you that I thought I knew something about Judaism, but I knew nothing.

Jews don't believe in original sin. They believe that they must do their best to keep the commandments. We DON'T think we're damned if we don't, and our religion is NOT made up with rules and regulations. It involves a very personal--yet communal--relationship with a G-d who has vowed that we are His own people for all eternity. We know an awful lot more about our Torah than Christians do--even more than Christians imagine there IS to know.

And of course we do have 'rules'--called mitzvos. They are not burdensome and impossible to keep, as Christians would have you believe. They are joyful, and lead to happy and productive lives. We are "sanctified through mitzvos', say some of our prayers, and through practice, I've found that to be true.

Similarities? I don't see any. I know that Christians do. But I suspect....that they're just jealous.

Answer 9

here is a list of messianic prophecies from the bible, complete with the actual verses so you don't even have to look them up.

1. THE MESSIAH WILL BRING UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE OF G-D.

Jeremiah 31:33 - "And no longer shall one teach his neighbour or his brother, saying: "Know the Lord," for they shall know me from their smallest to their greatest, says the Lord."

Zechariah 8:23 - "And the Lord shall become King over all the earth; on that day shall the Lord be one, and His name one."

2. THE MESSIAH WILL BRING ALL THE JEWS BACK TO ISRAEL.

Isaiah 43:5 - "From the east I will bring your seed, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, "Give," and to the south, "Do not refrain"; bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the end of the earth."

Isaiah 11:12 - "And he shall raise a banner to the nations, and he shall gather the lost of Israel, and the scattered ones of Judah he shall gather from the four corners of the earth."

Isaiah 27:12 - "And it shall come to pass on that day, that the Lord shall gather from the flood of the river to the stream of Egypt, and you shall be gather one by one, O children of Israel. And it shall come to pass on that day, that a great shofar will be sounded, and those lost in the land of Assyria and those exiled in the land of Egypt shall come and they shall prostrate themselves before the Lord on the holy mount in Jerusalem."

3. THE MESSIAH WILL BRING WORLD PEACE AND ALL WARFARE WILL CEASE.

Isaiah 11:6 - "And wolf shall live with a lamb, and a leopard shall lie with a kid; and a calf and a lion cub and a fatling shall lie together, and a small child shall lead them."

Micah 4:3 - "And he shall judge between many peoples and reprove mighty nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore."

4. ALL WEAPONS WILL BE DESTROYED.

Ezekiel 39:9 - "The inhabitants of the cities of Israel will go forth and make fires and heat up with the weapons, the bucklers, and the encompassing shields, the bows and the arrows and the handstaves and the spears, and they shall burn them as fires for seven years."

5. THE TEMPLE WILL BE REBUILT.

Ezekiel 37:36 - "And I will form a covenant of peace for them, an everlasting covenant shall be with them; and I will establish them and I will multiply them, and I will place My Sanctuary in their midst forever."

Micah 4:1 - "And it shall be at the end of days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be firmly established at the top of the mountains, and it shall be raised upon the hills, and peoples shall stream upon it."

6. HE WILL CURE ALL THE SICKLY AND DISABLED.

Isaiah 35:5 - "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then the lame shall skip like a hart, and the tongue of the mute shall sing, for water has broken out in the desert and streams in the plain."

7. HE WILL BE PRECEEDED BY THE PROPHET ELIJAH.

Malachi 3:23 (4:4 in KJV) - "Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord."

8. THE NATIONS WILL HELP THE JEWS.

Isaiah 60:5 - "Then you shall see and be radiant, and your heart shall be startled and become enlarged, for the abundance of the west will be turned over to you, the wealth of the nations will come to you."

Isaiah 60:10 - "And foreigners will build your walls, and their kings shall serve you, for in My wrath I struck you and in My grace have I had mercy on you."

9. ETERNAL JOY AND GLADNESS WILL CHARACTERIZE THE JEWISH NATION.

Isaiah 51:11 - "And the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and the will come to Zion with song and with everlasting joy on their heads; gladness and joy shall overtake them; sorrow and sighing shall flee.

10. TREES IN ISRAEL WILL YIELD FRUIT EVERY MONTH.

Ezekiel 47:12 - "But the stream, on its bank from either side, will grow every tree for food; its lead will not wither, neither will its fruit end; month after month its fruits will ripen, for its waters will emanate from the Sanctuary, and its fruit shall be for food and its leaves for a cure."

11. DEATH WILL CEASE.

Isaiah 25:8 - "He has concealed death forever, and the Lord God shall wipe the tears off every face, and the shame of his people he shall remove from upon the earth, for the Lord has spoken."

12. THE DEAD WILL BE RESURRECTED.

Isaiah 26:19 - "May Your dead live, 'My corpses shall rise; awaken and sing, you who dwell in the dust, for a dew of lights is your dew, and to the earth You shall cast the slackers."

Ezekiel 37:13 - "Therefore, prophecy and say unto them, So says the Lord God: Lo! I open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves as My people, and bring you home to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and lead you up out of your graves as My people. And I will put My spirit into you, and you shall live, and I will set you on your land, and you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and have performed it, says the Lord."

13. THE MESSIAH WILL NOT FAIL. HE WILL DO IT THE FIRST TIME AROUND.

Isaiah 42:4 - "Neither shall he weaken, nor shall he be broken."

Answer 10

This is by far the best explanation of why they do not believe.. I'll post the link instead of flooding you with information.

http://www.aish.com/spirituality/philosophy/Why_Dont_Jews_Believe_In_Jesus$.asp