Jesus is not the messiah...

[Guest]

Hi everyone,
I could use some help here. I wanted to know what Judaism taught so I started looking at some of their websites and now I find myself "in over my head."

One thing I read that is giving me some difficultly can be found at:
http://www.jewsforjudaism.com/web/mainp ... dbook.html

(I am not to sure what constitutes plagiarism, so I'll just link to it)

After reading a lot of Jewish things, I feel like I should be running out of church and to the nearest synagog. (Not that I'm going to but that is how I feel)

Any help on this matter is greatly appriciated.

Dolphin

[Guest]

Sorry, I made a boo boo on my link. It should have been:
http://www.jewsforjudaism.com/web/handb ... ssiah.html

I didn't mean for everyone to try to read the whole book.

[Guest]

May I suggest the opposing view from Jews for Jesus website:

http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publication ... gy_Messiah

http://www.jewsforjesus.org/answers/prophecy/jeconiah

Hope this helps.

[Guest]

I'm sure others can give a more detailed response but to me, if Jesus was not the Messiah then Judaism makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If the old testament mandates were not types and shadows then God seems overly concerned with trivial things like the way garments are sewn together or what animals can plow with a shared yoke. Given a spiritual meaning, like the apostles taught, these seemingly insignificant rules can now be applied. Left on their own, these rules seem rather silly.

Also, the gospels were circulated in a time and place where geneological records could be accessed by just about anyone. So if the gospel writers were fabricating that aspect of Jesus' life, they would've probably left that out. Just like mentioning the fact that Jesus was buried by Joseph, a member of the Sanhedrin. These kinds of details don't belong in fictional stories because they can be fact-checked rather easily by anyone within earshot. "Hey, those crazy radicals from the Way are claiming one of us buried their leader.... go check it out."

I don't have time but there is simply too much to say on this topic. I hope others will chip in here.

[Guest]

Dolphin,


I know what you mean by being in over your head. I have spent the better half of the last few years studying opposing views of Christianity and have encountered that same feeling at points. Whenever I have felt this way I prayed for the HS to give me wisdom and it has always led me to resolving an issue. If you are not strong in your faith this can be a dangerous endeavor. It has only led me to a stronger faith, not that faith is strengthened by knowledge, but because it has allowed me to realize man is confused and the only One I can truly trust is God and the scriptures.

Christianity is a powerful force, to me the divisions in the church and the constant bombardment by scholars and skeptics only speaks of its strength. It has faced constant and fierce opposition from the birth of Christ, to the temptation of Christ and has everyday up until this one we have opened our eyes to, and will awaken to until the end.

One thing you have to realize is, Jewish people have a vested interest in trying to discredit Christianity and they will try to use any wiggle room in their theology and translations to do so. What you must also realize is, Christianity was formed by Jewish people and my bet is they probably knew the scriptures much better than modern day Jews who use it to discredit Christ. Also, above all, we must trust the words of Jesus himself given to us by the Apostles.

To come to the conclusion this skeptic is right, or that Islam and Judaism have a higher teaching than the one we have received, is to hold what we know as sacred, as just another take on history, and ultimately the wrong one. When this line becomes blurry, we have trusted only the faulty logic of man and have rejected what we have been told are the words from God himself, and what we know are the words of God, we know by faith in the scriptures.

Be prepared to be blown back when opening doors of this nature, the enemy will throw everything he has at you.

Micah provided links to the J4J site which I have always enjoyed, they always provide great articles.

Stand firm.

[Guest]

May I suggest the opposing view from Jews for Jesus website:

http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publication ... gy_Messiah

http://www.jewsforjesus.org/answers/prophecy/jeconiah

Hope this helps.

And I might suggest an organization of deprogrammed, former workers at Jews for Jesus, who reveal what a cult-like, oppressive, spiritually degrading, authoritarian organization it is.

http://exjewsforjesus.org/




.

[Guest]

And I might suggest an organization of deprogrammed, former workers at Jews for Jesus, who reveal what a cult-like, oppressive, spiritually degrading, authoritarian organization it is.

So the arguments are invalid because you found a site of disgruntled ex-members of Jews for Jesus who have made some claims about the organization?

I guess its easier to assume that Jews For Jesus is a bad organization than to wrestle with the argument itself.

[Guest]

I read through Jackal's link and find it curious that a large number of those who left Jews for Jesus (an organization I know almost nothing about) also left Christianity. It's like the college student who tells his pastor he can no longer be a Christian because his teacher posed a philisophical question to which he had no answer. In both cases, the Christians who were stumbled didn't have very far to fall I'm afraid.

There are things in the mainstream Christian church that I detest, but I'm not going to leave Christ because of what immature believers do and say. I've been mistreated by Christians and non-Christians, but it has no bearing on what I believe is true. Those who left Jews for Jesus and remained followers of Christ sound like they know the difference between truth and folly. Why do Christians need organizations anyway? *sigh*

[Guest]

Go here: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/ and read the articles for students of Judaism. They may be helpful.

As for the people of Jackal's link, I remember being manipulated, verbally mistreated, and set-up for failure by some of my middle-school and high-school teachers. Maybe I should have deprogrammed myself from getting education. Oops, I did, I dropped out of school because of unfair and crooked things. Yet after doing so, people lectured me and told me I didn't have to go to extremes of forsaking public education. In the same way, so what that there are crooked people involved in "church gathering type places." There are alternatives in dealing with emotional hardships instead of going to extremes and rationalize away reality.

[Guest]

chriscarani,

Thank you so much for your words of encouragement. I felt like I was the only one who was having this issue because I really have never seen it brought up before.

Micah, SoaringEagle, and JC,

Thank you for the information. I wasn't aware of either of those websites. Looks like I have a lot of reading to do, and I'm up for it. I even noticed that there are some things on there that I needed answers for but didn't ask. Killing two birds with one stone.

Thank you again everyone.

Dolphin