According to Judaism , Jesus Christ didn't fulfil the Messianic Prophecies?

Question

where did these prophesies originate from?

Were they passed down from above , similar like the 10 commandments?

Answer 1

Technically, all prophecies are "passed down from above," that's what makes them prophecies. A prophecy is a communication from G-d to man. A person who receives a prophecy is called a prophet. The directness of the message (e.g. is the prophecy clothed in vague metaphorical images, or is it a more like a telegram from the Almighty?) is normally directly proportional to the greatness of the prophet. Ergo, scripture tells us that Moshe Rabbeinu (Our Teacher Moses), known as the greatest of the prophets, spoke with G-d "face to face".

As for the Ten Statements (this is a more accurate translation of what they are called in Hebrew - there are actually 613 commandments in the Torah, each of which can be "filed," if you will, under one of the ten statements), they are unique among prophecy. Statements three through ten were passed down through Moshe, but the first two, "I am the L-rd your G-d" and "You shall have no other G-ds before me," were spoken to the entire Jewish people at Sinai, some three million or so men, women, and children. And this is the foundation of Judaism - mass revelation. All subsequent monotheistic religions have claimed this as their foundation as well, because they have been unable to reproduce it for themselves. You can't fake a mass revelation - there are just too many reasons it would fall apart under scrutiny. For more on this and related topics, I recommend these audio lectures by Rabbi Leib Keleman: http://www.simpletoremember.com/audio/Rabbi_Lawrence_Kelemen.htm - The first two on the page are most relevant to the above discussion.

Now as for how Jesus didn't fulfill any of the essential messianic prophecies, Jews for Judaism provides an excellent point-by-point analysis, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is so:

Messiah : The Criteria

Judge for yourself:
Did Jesus fulfill ALL these criteria?

The Jewish tradition of "The Messiah" has its foundation in numerous biblical references, and understands "The Messiah" to be a human being - without any overtone of deity or divinity - who will bring about certain changes in the world and fulfill certain criteria before he can be acknowledged as "The Messiah".

First of all, he must be Jewish - "...you may appoint a king over you, whom the L-rd your G-d shall choose: one from among your brethren shall you set as king over you." (Deuteronomy 17:15)

He must be a member of the tribe of Judah - "The staff shall not depart from Judah, nor the sceptre from between his feet..." (Genesis 49:10)

To be a member of the tribe of Judah, the person must have a biological father who is a member of the tribe of Judah.

He must be a direct male descendant of King David and King Solomon, his son - "And when your days (David) are fulfilled, and you shall sleep with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who shall issue from your bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will make firm the throne of his kingdom forever..." (2 Samuel 7:12 - 13)

The genealogy of the New Testament is inconsistent. While it gives two accounts of the genealogy of Joseph, it states clearly that he is not the biological father of Jesus. One of the genealogies is through Nathan and not Solomon altogether!

He must gather the Jewish people from exile and return them to Israel -"And he shall set up a banner for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." (Isaiah 11:12)

Are all Jews living in Israel? Have all Jews EVER lived in Israel since the time of Jesus?

He must rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem - "...and I will set my sanctuary in their midst forever and my tabernacle shall be with them.." (Ezekiel 37:26 - 27)

At last check, there is NO Temple in Jerusalem. And worse, it was shortly after Jesus died that the Temple was DESTROYED! Just the opposite of this prophecy!

He will rule at a time of world-wide peace - "...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." (Micah 4:3)

Have you seen a newspaper lately? Are we living in a state of complete world peace? Has there ever been peace since the time of Jesus?


He will rule at a time when the Jewish people will observe G-d's commandments - "My servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow My ordinances and be careful to observe My statutes." (Ezekiel 37:24)

The Torah is the Jewish guide to life, and its commandments are the ones referred to here. Do all Jews observe all the commandments? Christianity, in fact, often discourages observance of the commandments in Torah, in complete opposition to this prophecy.

He will rule at a time when all people will come to acknowledge and serve one G-d - "And it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, says the L-rd" (Isaiah 66:23)

there are still millions if not billions of people in the world today who adhere to paganistic and polytheistic religions. It is clear that we have not yet seen this period of human history unfold.

All of these criteria are best stated in the book of Ezekiel Chapter 37 verses 24-28:

And David my servant shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. they shall also follow My judgments and observe My statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Yaakov my servant, in which your fathers have dwelt and they shall dwell there, they and their children, and their children's children forever; and my servant David shall be their prince forever. Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with them, it shall be an everlasting covenant with them, which I will give them; and I will multiply them and I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them forevermore. And my tabernacle shall be with them: and I will be their G-d and they will be my people. Then the nations shall know that I am the L-rd who sanctifies Israel, when My sanctuary will be in the midst of them forevermore.

If an individual fails to fulfill even one of these conditions, then he cannot be "The Messiah." A careful analysis of these criteria shows us that to date, no one has fulfilled every condition.

Certainly NOT Jesus.

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Anyway, when Jesus failed to fulfill any of the Messianic requirements, as the above piece demonstrates, and he died, his followers invented the doctrine of the "Second Coming," by which someone who really had no claim to the title of Messiah could still be the Messiah, because he would come back to Earth at the end of days, and THEN he would do all that Messiah stuff. Of course, theoretically, there's nothing to stop us from making that claim about ANY deceased Jew. Why not make it Moses? Or Hillel? Or Maimonides? Or the Lubavitcher Rebbe?! Oh, wait, scratch that last one.

So yeah, prophecies, including the Messianic ones, are "passed down from above," and the examples in the essay I posted are all quoted from scripture that is both part of our Bible, and of what Christians call the "Old Testament". I hope this helps clear things up, and if you have any further questions, feel free to contact me directly. For more information on how Jesus relates to Judaism, check out any of the following sites:

http://www.jewsforjudaism.org
http://www.simpletoremember.com
http://www.messiahtruth.com

Answer 2

Jesus blatantly was not the messiah as he/she is described in the Tanakh/'old' testament.
And Jesus is never mentioned in the Tanakh; those who say he is are always relying on the same old incorrect translations of the original Hebrew.

The Tanakh tells us that the true messiah:

- will be human, and not divine
- will fulfill certain conditions, and if even one is not met, it is a false messiah
- will bring world peace
- will be from the line of King David
- will achieve everything in one normal lifespan, no second chances or second comings!
- will not perform miracles or magic

Clearly, it was not Jesus!

Remember that the Jews were very accustomed to false messiahs.

For more details on the writings about how to recognise the real messiah, check out http://www.whatjewsbelieve.org/

http://www.jewsforjudaism.org

EDIT HASSE - it never says that in the Tanakh, anywhere, that G-d can take on human form, for the simple reason that this idea is TOTALLY AGAINST what Judaism represents and teaches.

HOGIE - I have provided some specific examples, and mama_pjama has explained also that worship of a human man is prohibited in Judaism.

JED - so you're saying we as Jews have misunderstood our own bible? Er..... no. You're being ridiculous. And incredibly arrogant.

Answer 3

Jesus was Jewish and didn't even want to change the little corner of a little letter in the Torah. He never claimed to be the son of God. That was later. He was a Jewish teacher. He taught the laws of Judaism exactly how they are. He made a new sect of Judaism where you don't have to follow all the rules, like kosher. Many years later that separated from Judaism and became Christianity.

Answer 4

Those prophesies were for the immediate future and were "fulfilled" prior to being included in the Hebrew Bible. There were many, many prophets at that time, but only those prophets whose predictions actually happened were included in the Bible. Study the Jewish version of Judaism if you're curious.

For instance, the "virgin" was actually a "young woman" who was already pregnant with King Hezekiah.
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Answer 5

This page has a great side by side contrast of the JOB DESCRIPTION showing you PRECISELY where messianic prophecies come from in the Holy Scriptures
http://www.messiahtruth.com/wanted.html

The Christian religion's very concept of the term messiah is at complete odds with both the core tenet of faith in God presented in the Torah and the concept of the Davidic messiah prophecied for Israel.

They assign a function of pardoning sin and granting salvation to the job description of Messiah. That has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the prophecy of the Messiah in Tanakh.

Christianity takes many terms and words from Judaism but assigns foreign meanings to them. Some of the meanings are even directly forbidden by commandment in the Torah. THIS is the irreconcilable diffference in the two faiths, the nature of God and how humans connect to God and our fellow man! Judaism, through Torah has always taught that the righteous of all nations are blessed of God and also can know God directly.

Gentiles appear to forget or ignore that even the Temple had a court for the Gentiles. Isaiah refers to the righteous gentiles having a place in the world to come..EQUALLY!!!

So the Christian concept that they could only be saved through Jesus is foreign to Judaism and incompatible with what we are taught from the Tanakh.

Christians to say that Jews are awaiting any Christian concept of messiah are wrong because the Christian concept of messiah has nothing to do with Jewish prophecy.

Jews aren't awaiting "Jesus return" or awaiting their notion of messiah at all! Christians rely on Jesus for "salvation", Jews know that God has been our salvation for four thousand years! The Davidic Messiah isn't someone for whom any Jew would pray to or through or rely upon to replace God. Because they simply refuse to acknowledge the Torah concept of messiah and reject the Hebrew Bible concept of messiah, they try to PROJECT that it is WE who reject messiah! In actuality..it is BECAUSE we embrace the Biblical concept that we know that it will not ever take any sales pitch at all to convince someone when the messianic prophecy happens. EVERYONE will know. THAT in fact is a part of the prophecy.

Missionaries are a de-facto admission that there has been no fulfillment of the messianic prophecies.

Whether it is an age or a person..we know the concept of messiah isn't God in human form, because worshipping such things is expressly forbidden by the eternal covenant and that wasn't the promise.

I often see Christians claim that Jews will " worship the anti-christ because they're looking for a man who brings peace and that's what he will do"..that premise is fatally flawed for the reason I stated already above. The faith of Israel prohibits worship of ANY MAN! The messiah will never be worshipped and no Jew would ever pray to God through the messiah or in his name. Any false messiah will be known as in the past..if they don't do the job of the messiah. It is as simple and profound as that.

Shalom

Answer 6

The prophesies are found throughout the entire old testament.

Judaism rejects Jesus because he did not fulfill their expectations of the Messiah. They think God was/is going to do things according to their wishes and expectations.

It might be interesting to ask them for specifics such as, why is / was he not the Messiah?

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Answer 7

there are many (some say 2000) references in the "Old Testament" which con only be understood as statements referring to a coming King. Only the 10 commandments were actually written by YHVH. Much of the rest of scripture was written by Moses at YHVH's dictation. Many other books were inspired over the years, as the Almighty wanted to try to tell people more about Himself. The "Jews" (in general) do not accept the concept that the Almighty can become a man (which seems to be the clear teaching of the "New Testament" and seems clearly portrayed in Isaiah 53 for example in the Old. Since the Messiah YAHOSHUA was a man (the son of Man was His favorite title for himself, in scripture He used it 80 times) the "Jews" don't accept Him. "Jew" is from Yahudim which means "worshiper of YHVH" and "Jews" don't use that term. See Rev 2:9 and Rev 3:9!

Answer 8

The stories about Jesus and the gospels are variations of the works of Josephus the Flavian. Jesus's life is a story of love and peace, and Jesus's teachings are wonderful philosophies...but they are just that...noone can assume anything other than we are all the Son of God with our own path being that of a Messiah if we so choose. Go in Peace.

Answer 9

The Jews do not believe that Jesus is the Christ.
There are certain verses which speak of the Messiah coming, and when it comes to those verses, they continue to this day to put their own ideas of what they think He is to be INTO their interpreting of those verses.
By doing this, they effectively eliminate Jesus from being the One sent from God. They outrightly reject that Jesus IS God.

This is why, when the Anti-Christ comes on the world scene, they will fall into believing him. The whole world will.

Answer 10

They are still waiting for their Messiah