My enlightenment
Okay, so as promised here is my first blog in quite a while. I know I said I was going to update regularly, but I dunno, my life is just not that interesting. I did have quite the religion discussion with a coworker the other day though, and it sparked my thoughts, and more interest so I have done some research on one of the discussed topics, so I figured I would enlighten everyone here with my thoughts as well.
I am very curious as to why the Jewish faith does not believe in Jesus as the son of God. I always have been, even before my newly found interest in learning about my creator, and Savior. Growing up I would ask this to friends and family, only then I would just take what they would say, and let it sit in the back of my mind, and not really dissect it. not so much the case these days. All aboard, its gonna be a bumpy ride....
Like I said I have had many discussions so I apologize in advance if this seems to not really have a format to it(I seem to put that disclaimer on all my posts), So here are reasons Jewish friends, colleagues, and strangers I meet on the street(That's a joke) give me for not believing in the new testament.
I am very curious as to why the Jewish faith does not believe in Jesus as the son of God. I always have been, even before my newly found interest in learning about my creator, and Savior. Growing up I would ask this to friends and family, only then I would just take what they would say, and let it sit in the back of my mind, and not really dissect it. not so much the case these days. All aboard, its gonna be a bumpy ride....
Like I said I have had many discussions so I apologize in advance if this seems to not really have a format to it(I seem to put that disclaimer on all my posts), So here are reasons Jewish friends, colleagues, and strangers I meet on the street(That's a joke) give me for not believing in the new testament.
- "It just doesn't fit together"-Uh really? Have you read the same first 4 books that I have? If you have, you'd see the same story being told from 4 different accounts. Seems pretty "Fit" if you ask me.
- "Well yeah, but the story has been passed down, and passed down, and passed down, and changed to and from MANY different languages-SOMETHING was bound to get lost in the translation."-it all happened to get lost in the SAME translation though? not likely.
- "Jesus does not fulfill the prophecies mentioned in the old testament" -all of them...perhaps not, or maybe he did and they just "Got lost in the translation" like you said. but he did in fact fulfill a lot of them. Don't believe me?-just take a look at Matthew 2;6 and then Micah 5;1-2. Another? you ask. Sure, how about Matthew 21;5 compared to Zechariah 9;9-those look pretty fulfilled if you ask me, and that is just the beginning of my comparisons, as I started with Matthew and am SURE I will find more as I read the other 3 books.
- "Well, they aren't word for word"-maybe not, but close enough.
- "some of the wording back then could be seen as something else then what its seen for. i.e. "Virgin" means "young" not the "virgin" we see it as today.-okay, but the fact of the matter is, Mary was a "Virgin" in the sense that we see today, at least as far as SHE was concerned. (see Luke 1;34)
So that's that. Another thing I don't quite understand is-If Jews do not believe that Jesus is the son of God, then shouldn't we still be living by the teachings of the old testament? thus the whole sacrificial lamb stuff??
*I would like to say that I am not trying to bash the Jewish beliefs here-these are just my thoughts-post discussions i have had with a few select people. Now, if any others of the Jewish faith would care to enlighten me on this, and would be open to me perhaps asking more questions. Please post a reply.
posted by Mike Daniel @ 10:55 PM
2 Comments:
At 7/30/2009 2:07 AM ,
gsqrd02 said...
I will choose to fore-go the incredible public forum and instead have this discussion with you here.
I, having been raised as a Jew --- have an entirely different take on the whole thing as you may have already guessed.
As far as Jews believing or not believing in Jesus as the son of G-d --- there are many many different reasons. I however, come from the point of view that all rigid and thoroughly structured set beliefs on G-d worship are probably misleading. They have underneath them a great lesson. They mean well but end up distorting what life should really be about. Now I am not here to discuss "what life is really about" because as far as Christianity is concerned that is incredibly closely tied to the belief in Jesus and his divinity (i.e. his being the actual begotten son of G-d).
This is a no win argument as you will quote the bible ... I will quote history or logic, neither of which can truly be confirmed. Ultimately religion is based on FAITH -- that is something which cannot be denied. There is a degree of logical study, however, ultimately it rests on faith, faith being the absence of clear CONCRETE data or evidence. The Bible or any such book cannot be considered as concrete evidence because that would be like using the a word in its own definition.
So all those things put aside -- I can try and answer your question as empirically as I can without getting into too much dogmatic discussion. Jesus's divinity is still discussed today and debated over. Perhaps not in the Christian religion, as that is, once again, what Christianity is founded upon, but amongst scholars and theologians as well as historians. It is precisely history that I prefer to focus on and explore.
Historically, Judaism was the religion where Jesus lived in his youth. From what I have read and seen about the life of Jesus, he did not like the way that Jewish priests were running the temple during his time. This is quite understandable. As the saying goes, All power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And as far as the people during that time were concerned the religious factions had pretty much all the power. Through offerings, sacrifices (the lambs and such), paying tributes and money and what was considered "charity" and all the other stuff became somewhat of a corrupt practice... much in the same way during the middle ages when Catholic priests went door to door selling religious relics, artifacts and telling people that they would pardon all their sins for a small fee. (Look up selling of Papal Indulgences).
At 7/30/2009 2:07 AM ,
gsqrd02 said...
Jesus did not like that --- and rightly so, it was a corrupt practice. He set out to try and find the core of what it was that G-d wanted us to do here on Earth. Obviously from what the Bible says he gathered, or what the Bible says he preached, did not sit well with the established powers, and as such they did not like him. He was messing with their shit and was thus not to be trusted. My belief is that the ACTUAL reason that Jews dont believe in him as the Son of G-d probably stems from the Rabbis during that time basically telling devoted Jewish followers exactly that, that he was not the son of G-d, he didnt know what he was talking about, he was leading people astray or whatever, all an effort to keep their power. Understandable. Human nature is often times wrong.
However, this does not prove nor disprove Jesus's divinity --- just shows people having conflict with other people over religious beliefs, something that has been happening for as long as man realized that he was man.
So thats really it. Its difficult for me to rely on religious sources, whatever they may be for a number of reasons. 1- they were written in poetic form, and as someone who has studied language and the idea of poetry and metaphor there is an infinite number of interpretations that could take place. If there wasnt, there would not be as many religions out there as there are today. Hell, there wouldnt be that many different sections of Christianity, -- Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Mormon, Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, etc etc etc.
And really they all came about from people wanting to change the rules a bit. It started out as Catholicism (which had a rocky beginning in the first place). Seriously if you do anything, look up and read anything you can about the First Council of Nicea. Tell me what you think after reading about that. But the idea is basically that during the Roman Emperor Constantine's time, Christianity was still a fledgling religion and he had a vast empire to unify. So he had to unify everyone under 1 religion. But even then, that 1 religion of Christianity still didnt quite have all the necessary rules and uniformity that it needed to. So he convened the Council of Nicea in order to "iron out" all the details, including the biggest one -- whether Jesus was or was not the Son of G-d.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea (hopefully that will get you started).
Also --- if you get a chance I would really love for you to watch something when you have some time.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197
Its called Zeitgeist Movie. It discusses where the story of Jesus actually originated and came from.
Honestly Mike, I love you to death man. I think you are a super awesome dude and have a great heart. I would love to discuss this more with you, after you read on Council of Nicea and watch Zeitgeist. I myself am actually currently reading "Case for Christ" --- so we can definitely meet in the middle on that.
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