IS JESUS THE JEWISH MESSIAH?
Being reared as a Christian most of my life and
attending Seminary makes it hard to sometimes face the facts of in-depth
Biblical study because you often encounter not only what you are not
prepared to learn but information and knowledge that reveals to you that
your prior religious beliefs are in error. No greater point of such
discovery can be found than Messianic studies simply for the reason that the
Jews and what they teach
concerning their Messiah is often completely different than what the
Gentiles teach about the Jewish Messiah. On the surface
this is very problematic because of the simple fact that what a Gentile
should learn about the Jewish Messiah should have come from these Jews in
the first place. The differences between the Jewish Messiah and the
Christian Messiah began to bother me after Seminary after my much reading
into these matters began to lay a stronger foundation in my life into what
Jews believe about their Messiah. It did not take me long to recognize that
my concept and ideas concerning the Jewish Messiah were different from the
ones held by Judaism; not only today but in antiquity as well.
Answer for yourself: Why should that
be?
If you have been a reader of Bet Emet Ministries for any length of
time then you should have a better concept as to why the
Christian Messiah is so
drastically different from the Jewish Messiah. Our
Christian religious documents handed down by Rome to us are not faithful
translations of the Hebrew Scriptures to begin with and because of this
the concepts associated with these conflicting "Messiahs" are
different. Besides this is the fact of the Gentile's
desire to create a synthesis between their sun-g-dmen and Judaism and this
is reflected in our Christian Bibles; yet we don't know of these drastic
differences because we never knew our religious documents were in error in
these regards in the first place.
I assume that if you are a reader of Bet Emet and our teaching
materials then you are all too familiar with the Christian concept of the
Messiah and its application to the life of Jesus. That being the case it
is mandatory that we
examine the facts concerning the Messiah from a Jewish point of
view. Not only have Christians been led to believe from
their religious documents that Jesus is their Messiah, but they think that
he is the Messiah as foretold by the Jewish Prophets of the Bible, and
they try to prove it with quotes from their Bibles. Not
known to them, and to me for many years, is that the vast majority of
these Christian quotes are not accurate to the Hebrew from which they were
supposedly taken, but have purposefully been altered to present
self-fulfilling prophecies concerning this Jesus of the New Testament.
Thus such beliefs built upon such forgeries of these Hebrew texts as found
in our Christian Bibles are in error as well.
It would take years of study for me to gather the required
information and knowledge from the Hebrew Scriptures and do in-depth
comparisons of text after text with their Greek and English counterparts
and learn the differences between them. The result is that I came to the
undeniable conclusion that the Christian Messiah as depicted by the Jesus
of the New Testament has little in common with the Hebrew Scriptures and
the Jewish Messiah promised by G-d to the Jewish people.
BLATANT DISCREPANCIES
AND INCONSISTENCIES BETWEEN THE CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH MESSIAH
- The Jewish Messiah is to be a
mortal human being born to two mortal parents. He is neither to be a
g-d, nor a man born of supernatural or virgin birth. There is nothing in
the Hebrew Scriptures that states that the Messiah would be a g-d or
G-d-like, or that he would be born to a virgin. The concept of the
former contradicts the Jewish concept of G-d being above and beyond
taking human form and limitations. Jews believe that only G-d should be
worshipped, not a being of His creation, not even the Messiah himself.
Besides, nowhere in the Bible is there any virgins giving birth. This
idea is only found in pagan mythology, where virgins often bare
offspring of g-ds. The only purpose of the concept of virgin birth is to
attract pagans to Christianity.
- The Jewish Messiah is
supposed to return the Jews to the Holy Land, but Jesus lived while the
Jews were still there before they were exiled by the Romans. How can he
return them to their land if they were still living in it?
- The Messiah is to rebuild the
Jerusalem Temple, but Jesus lived while the Temple was still standing.
- The Bible states that the
Messiah will redeem Israel, but 30 years after Jesus died, Jerusalem was
destroyed, and the Jews were exiled by the Roman to suffer 1900 years of
persecution, mostly by the followers of Jesus.
- The Prophets of the Bible
foretold that all the nations of the world will acknowledge and worship
the one true G-d (Isaiah 11.9, 45, and Zephaniah 3), but nothing like
this happened after Jesus died; in fact, Islam developed and became the
religion of many nations while Christianity splintered into many sects
which constantly fight each other, and almost two-thirds of the human
race worships idols. The world is very far from monotheism even to this
day.
- The Messiah's influence will
extend to all who will worship G-d in the Jerusalem Temple. As the
Prophet states, "My House will
become the House of Prayer for all the Nations." This
has clearly not taken place yet; therefore, the Messiah hasn't come yet.
- A new spirit will fill the
world man will no longer sin or commit crimes, especially the Jews
(Deuteronomy 30: 6, Isaiah 60:21, Jeremiah 50:20, and Ezekiel 36:21).
Soon after the days of Jesus, ignorance of G-d, science, and philosophy
filled the earth, and the Dark Ages began.
- If Jesus was G-d, why did he
pray to and talk to himself?
- The true Messiah will reign
as King of the Jews. Jesus' career as a wandering preacher and "faith
healer" lasted only three years until he was crucified by the
Romans as a common criminal without any official position or authority
whatsoever.
- One of the Messiah's main
tasks is to bring world peace by ending wars and arms manufacturing
(Isaiah 2:4). Yet, Christian nations are very war-like, and wars
continue to be fought to this day.
- Mark 13:30 and Matthew 4
states that the prophecies about the Messiah would take place during
Jesus' generation, but nothing of the sort was accomplished during or
after his death and has not for 2,000 years.
- Nowhere does the Bible say
that the Messiah would come once, die, and return in a "second
coming". Such a concept was a Christian concept meant to
rationalize Jesus' failure to function in any way as the Messiah or
fulfill the Hebrew Bible's prophecies.
- The Bible says that the
Messiah would be descended from King David. If Jesus is the "Son of
G-d", how could he be descended from King David from his father's
side if virgin-born?
- Christianity constantly and
deliberately distort the meaning of the prophets' words in order to
substantiate their claims; for example, the Hebrew term in Isaiah , "almah"
means "young woman", not "virgin". Honest Christian
scholars now admit this is a "pious fraud", and they translate
the word correctly in the Reverse Standard Version of the Bible.
- If Jesus' raising from the
dead was so important to demonstrate who he was, why did it take place
in secret instead of in the presence of his "thousands' of
followers?
- Jesus claimed that he didn't
intend to change the laws of Moses (Matthew 5), but the New Testament
shows (if it can be believed) that he later abrogated some of the laws,
and his followers later abolished or changed nearly all of them; for
example, Christians still eat pork and fail to celebrate Yom Kippur or
Rosh Hashanna despite what the Torah says. The Torah constantly says
that its laws are eternal, and they can't be abolished or changed.
- Judaism believes that
G-d is eternal, above, and beyond time. He can't be born, die, suffer, "become
flesh", or be divided into sections ("Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost").
- If Jesus was the
Messiah, why does the New Testament admit that not one of the rabbis of
the time accept his claim? Why did all the educated men and prominent
men reject him?
- If Jesus was the
Messiah, why did most of his own people, the Jews of that time, reject
him, including his own family? Why did his followers consist almost
completely of a handful of poorly educated people?
- Jesus ordered his
followers to preach to the Jews only, not the Gentiles (Matthew 10), but
his followers did the exact opposite. He clearly considered himself the
Messiah of the Jews only, but he is accepted by foreign nations, and not
the Jews.
- The purpose of the
Messiah is to bring us to the day when all the Jews will observe the
Torah and to teach it to all humankind who will accept its truths.
Nowhere in the Torah does it state that the Messiah will abolish it. The
Torah is eternal.
- Nowhere in the Torah
does it state that forgiveness of a person's sins can be brought about
by someone else's death. Each man is accountable for his own sins, and
each man must repent of his own sins by changing his ways and seeking
G-d's forgiveness.
- Matthew 1 and Luke 3 both
give different accounts of Jesus being descended from King David
through his father Joseph.
- If Jesus was the "Son of
G-d", why did he say on the cross, "My G-d, my G-d, why did
thou forsake me?" instead of "My Father"?
These questions deserve honest answers if we are to believe in Jesus
as the Messiah. History documents for us that there are no good answers to
them. Hard as Christianity has tried these questions have no answers that
will substantiate a belief in Jesus as the Messiah.
In order for Jesus to
be made "the" Messiah the Hebrew Scriptures had to be changed
and misquoted, mistranslated, invented, and taken completely out of
context. And this is exactly what has been done to the Hebrew Scriptures
in the selling of Jesus of the New Testament as the Messiah in the
Christian's Old and New Testaments!
The real question that should be asked is this: Is
the depiction of Jesus as found in the New Testament accurate to history
to the Jesus that lived?
Well that is another subject altogether.
Bennoah1@verizon.net
