a Goy for Jesus

Book Review: The Limits of Orthodox Theology, Chapter Nine, The Messiah; Resurrection of the Dead

2010-12-30T01:13:00.000-05:00

This is the last entry in the series. Hopefully, I hope this series will lead people to pick up Marc Shapiro's important work.

The Twelfth Principle

"The Twelfth Principle is the coming of the messiah."

"Included in this fundamental Principle is that there will be no king of Israel except from David and from the seed of Solomon exclusively. Whosoever disputes [the sovereignty of] this family denies God and the words of His prophets."

Shapiro highlights a tension which a believer in Jesus can sense. The author finds the stress on an actual figure noteworthy since "a number of prophets and midrashim appear to disregard it." Those sources which disregard a Messiah speak instead of a messianic era in which "God alone will be the redeemer." This conception, according to Shapiro who references another scholar, is found in Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Malachi, Joel, and Daniel. Jeremiah 31:10 is given as an example. "He that scattered Israel doth gather him." R. Menachem M. Kasher is quoted to support this position. According Isaiah Levy, whether you believe in a future messianic era with God Himself as the Redeemer or a personal messiah, you are not to be considered a heretic.

As I mentioned above, I can see this tension in the Tanakh. There are passages showing God Himself as the redeemer. And there are passages which speak of a personal messiah. The believer in Jesus sees this tension resolved in Jesus in a few ways. First, the incarnation. Jesus as God in the flesh. He is the God-Man. And as Jesus as God dealing with humanity and reconciling humanity to Himself through Jesus.

So both strains are true and find fulfillment in Jesus. This is similar to the concepts of a suffering and a victorious Messiah found in Jewish literature. We have two strains which seem contradictory but are not.

The Twelfth Principle states that the Messiah can only come via the line of Solomon. R. Joseph Kafih disagreed that this was essential and believed it was directed against Christianity for polemical purposes since Jesus was not descended via Solomon. Shapiro isn't certain that Maimonides knew enough about the New Testament to be making a polemical point and it seems that Maimonides actually believed in descent through Solomon.

Shapiro then goes on to list a number of post-Maimonides scholars who disagree with Maimonides on this point. R. Azariah dei Rossi, R. Gedalyah ibn Yahya, and R. Jehiel Heilprin "each quote qithout objection the view, falsely attributed to Philo, that all of Solomon's descendants were wiped out and only Nathan's line survived." Zohar 3:173b states that the Messiah will be descended from Nathan's wife, which implies the descent from Nathan. Recently, David Frish wrote a commentary on the Zohar giving the kabbalistic reasons on why the Messiah is to be descended from Nathan instead of Solomon.

The Thirteenth Principle

"The Thirteenth Principle concerns resurrection, the belief that the dead will rise from their graves to live again."

Again, this Principle is interesting for being a Principle Maimonides didn't seem to hold. It looks to me that his Greek influence shows again at this point. "For Maimonides, the ultimate reward is eternal spiritual life."

Maimonides taught that the dead will be raised up and then they will die again and return to spiritual life. Shapiro describes this view as "confusing." This view was laid out in "Essay on Resurrection" and it seems that a lot of critics and supporters didn't believe this was his real view.

Shapiro goes on to mention a few Orthodox scholars that didn't believe in a physical resurrection, but the main point is clear. There is disagreement on this point within Orthodoxy although it doesn't appear to be too much.

And that is a good spot to end this series. While Shapiro leaves a lot to chew on for apologetic purposes, his overall point is firmly established. The Thirteen Principles are not and have not been the ultimate litmus test for Orthodoxy within Judaism. He must be thanked for writing this book.

Book Review: The Limits of Orthodox Theology, Chapter Nine, God's Knowledge; Reward and Punishment

2010-12-29T21:53:00.000-05:00

The Tenth Principle

"The Tenth Principle states that God knows the actions of men."

This is definitely not a very controversial principle. However, even this principle contains interesting caveats from some within the Orthodox fold. It has been mentioned by some like R. David Cohen that only actions and not thoughts. Shapiro also mentions views which seem similar to Open Theists within Christianity. Regarding Gersonides Shapiro writes: "But the actual doings of individuals, which are infinite and undergo change through free choice, fall outside God's knowledge."

The Eleventh Principle

"The Eleventh Principle is that of reward and punishment."

This principle offers another opportunity to examine the odd views of Maimonides himself. Shapiro writes "one cannot help but wonder whether any of the Orthodox spokesmen who have advocated acceptance of the Thirteen Principles are really aware of Maimonides' view of reward and punishment, for it diverges sharply from the mainstream rabbinic tradition."

Maimonides held a view of reward and punishment which to my understanding is influenced by Greek thought. "Maimonides believed that immortality is entirely consequent upon an intellectual grasp of divine things." This seems to have similarities to Gnosticism as well, where salvation hinged on secret knowledge. Not that it seems the knowledge Maimonides refers to was of secret things.

Even when Maimonides speaks of rewards for performing mitzvot he stresses performing mitsvot properly. In other words, with correct knowledge.

Shapiro goes on to argue that Maimonides view of eternal punishment was annihilation. Maimonides also held an interesting view of temporal rewards and punishments. "Bad things happen to people, not as a direct result of God ordering them to occur, bus as a result of the lack of divine providence."

Book Review: The Limits of Orthodox Theology, Chapter Eight, The Eternality of the Torah

2008-07-09T00:37:00.001-04:00

"The Ninth Principle teaches that the Torah will never be abrogated, in whole or part, and that God will never give another Torah. Maimonides repeats his insistence that the biblical mitsvot and the Oral Law will never be abrogated, not even in messianic days, in a few other places. While this is certainly a popular position among rabbinic authorities, and has a talmudic source, it is hardly unanimously accepted."

In the previous post, I had mentioned that there were two chapters worth their weight in gold. This is second of those two chapters, which happen to follow in succession.

The importance of this chapter has to do with two reasons. First, this is an ongoing issues between Judaism and followers of Jesus. Secondly, with the Messianic community Torah observance has become a point of contention. Although I'm not sure that people divide over it. The Limits of Orthodox Theology can shed light on this topic regarding the relationship between the New and Mosaic covenants, although I would suspect Shapiro wasn't intending to do that.

Shapiro begins the chapter by quoting the Talmud (BT Nidah 61b) which states "the mitsvot will be abolished in the Time to Come." After this Shapiro keeps the references coming. What was interesting was how many of the quotes seem similar to traditional Christian arguments.

Several Jewish sources find support in Psalm 146:4, "the Lord looseth the bound." Midrash tehilim (146:4) states: "What does the verse mean by the words 'looseth the bound?' Some say that of every animal whose flesh it is forbidden to eat in this world, the Holy One, blessed be He, will declare in the Time to Come that the eating of this flesh is permitted..." Another midrashic passage on this psalm quoted by Albo states that God will permit the forbidden.

Very interestingly, R. Joseph Albo lays out a theoretical position. If a prophet were "to arise whose mission could be be verified in the same public and miraculous way in which Moses' mission was verified, it would be possible for the commandments of the Torah to be abolished." Albo believes that there is nothing to prevent God from doing this, not that this is necessary.

This possibility is likewise believed by R. Moses Sofer, R. Tobias ben Moses Cohn, R. Jacob Emden, and R. Abraham Hayim Viterbo. Viterbo describes many examples of things in the Torah which were permitted and then forbidden in order to show that Torah can be changed. Examples include the consumption of the sinew of the sciatic nerve, sacrifices outside the land of Israel, and Jacob being able to marry two sisters. Viterbo viewed Maimonides' position as presumptuous since it told God how He should conduct Himself.

Shapiro notes Devarim rabah 4: 6,9 which relates the Torah changing after it has already been given, the example of Leviticus 17's provision about eating meat is revoked in Deuteronomy 12:15-16. The midrash did not state that the prohibition was only to be temporary. Instead, it references the aforementioned verse in Psalm 146.

R. Jacob Joseph of Polonnoye, in a position very similar to Reformed theologians, said that in the future the mitsvot will no longer have a physical component but only a spiritual one. The spiritual aspects of mitsvot remain eternal. Reformed theology speaks about a division between the moral, civil and ceremonial aspects of the law, and Polonnove's position seems similar to saying the moral aspects of the law remain.

There was then discussion of changes to the sacrificial system. Some viewed changes along the lines of Ezekiel's vision of a restored Temple, some thought all or some types of sacrifices would be annulled, and there is the interesting view of R. Abraham Isaac Kook who believed that there will be only be vegetable sacrifices in the messianic era. And R. Hayim Hischensohn argued that the sacrificial system in messianic times will be different in ways we cannot currently comprehend.

Perhaps the most historical insightful insight comes from Bezeal Naor. Shapiro relates:

From what we have seen so far, it is obvious that there is a significant rabbinic position which declares that the commandments will be abolished in messianic days. In fact, Bezalel Naor has speculated that perhaps it was this knowledge -- that Maimonides' Principle was subject to such dispute -- that prevented many great Torah scholars from reacting more strongly to the false messiah Shabetai Tsevi's violations of halakhah. Since they knew that many authorities believed that Jewish law would change in the messianic era, as long as it had not been established that Shabetai Tsevi was not the messiah, his violations of Jewish ritual were not a sufficient reason to condemn him. (bold mine)

There is a passage in this chapter which is pertinent to the issue, which I feel Shapiro needs to elaborate more on. He writes:

[T]he Torah is explicit that his descendants will have an 'everlasting priesthood' (kehunat olam; Num. 25:13). Presumably, Luria and Halberstam understood 'everlasting' to mean until messianic times, when a new spiritual era.

If you've dealt with those who believe that hell is not eternal, you may know that the word translated eternal is the Hebrew word 'olam. That word means age-long. If the age is forever, "eternal" is a good fit. But if the age has a termination point, "age-long" or something similar is a better fit. (This is a good example of how we are benefited from having multiple apologetic disciplines.)

So what can we make of all this?

For one, we hopefully can get a fresh look at the biblical data. Some in the Torah-observant Messianic community have claimed that those who believe in the fulfillment of Torah in the death and Resurrection of Jesus are operating under a cessasionist filter. The numerous Orthodox sources that look to possible changes in messianic times raise serious doubts about that.

Furthermore, we have to say that books in the New Testament which seem to support the fulfillment of the Torah in the Messiah (Hebrews, Galatians) need less explanation. The Torah-observant community needs to explain those texts (which they do). But the traditional understanding of those texts, as this chapter shows, fits nicely within a good segment of past Orthodox theology.

Note: I'm starting to link to Amazon with their Affiliate Program. So feel free to obtain the book here.

Book Review: the Limits of Orthodox Theology, Chapter Seven, Revelation of the Torah

2008-07-05T22:09:00.001-04:00

"The Eighth Principle teaches that the Torah was divinely revealed and that the Torah in our hands is exactly the same as the Torah that Moses presented to the Children of Israel. In addition, there is no difference in holiness between any parts of the the Pentateuch. The Principle also declares that the Oral Law is likewise of divine origin."

In my previous ignorance, I was unaware that Orthodox Jews held to this position. That was until I ran into this article on aish.com. There, it is claimed that there are only 9 spelling variants in all of the Torah manuscripts.

There are two chapters in the Limits of Orthodox Theology which are worth their weight in gold. This is one of them.

This principle can not only be shown to have differing views within historic Orthodoxy, it can conclusively be shown to be false.

Furthermore, Shapiro makes the case that Maimonides lied regarding this Principle.

Now, I for one, am not going to argue against divine inspiration for the text of the Torah. Even with its textual variants, Jesus was willing to affirm that. Many hold the belief that if there are any textual variants a text cannot be inspired. Bart Ehrman has popularized this view, but it is also held by Muslims and many King James Only advocates.

Back to the book. Keeping in mind that there has never been a dispute about the divine inspiration of the Written and Oral Laws (although I would definitely argue from a Christian perspective against inspiration of the Oral Law), Shapiro quotes J. David Bleich as saying "this principle is, in effect, an affirmation of the authenticity of the Masoretic text." Shapiro states that this goes beyond that and the text "establed by Aaron ben Moses ben Ahser is (tenth century) is, in its entirety, of Mosaic authorship." Therefore, there is no such thing as a history of the text of the Torah and one expresses doubt in that is a heretic with no share in the world to come.

This principle relies on an absolutely uniform text and that reading had to have been the one revealed to Moses. And as we previously mentioned, this Principle is taken to affirm the Masoretic text. But there is no such thing as the Masoretic text. There are a set of texts established by many Masoretic scholars.

Shapiro writes that when we speak of the Masoretic text we are referring to an edition of the Bible edited by Jacob ben Hayim (before he became a Messianic Jew) and the work of a few others.

Here is one of the more interesting quotes "As early as talmudic times, it was understood that the Babylonian rabbis were no longer aware of the proper defective and plene spellings." I'm not nearly an expert on this material like Shapiro (hence, I'm reading his book), this seems like this would invalidate the claims regarding Oral Law being preserved. Regardless, this goes to the heart of this Principle's claim, since Masoretic texts have a good deal of variety in regards to defective and plene spellings.

"Similarly, it was recognized long ago that a number of quotations from the biblical text, including the Pentateuch, found in the Talmud and Midrashim differ from the accepted (Masoretic) text."

This is simply fascinating to me. As one who embraces the work of textual criticism, it is great that quotes in the Talmud and Midrashim can shed light about variations within the Torah text. However, for people who hold to the Eighth Principle, evidence of variations is evidence on invalidity of this principle. Given their authority within Jewish traditions, the Talmud and Midrashim are sources of a different quality vis a vis this issue. Shapiro notes that the differences in the Talmud and Midrashim go beyond spellings and go to actual words. "There are numerous examples of this and one of them is even found in the Ten Commandments".

R. Samuel David Luzzatto doubts there were diffences in medieval scrolls but admits that variations occurred prior to that time period. "Scholars have also called attention to textual variations in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, Peshitta, and Targumim." In other words, all non-Masoretic sources.

At this point, I feel like I would be piling on, but I think I have an idea of an Orthodox response. All those different sources were in error. Now, the work of textual criticism is to sort out all those sources. But if the only way to hold, based on the evidence, the Eighth Principle is to assume it in the first place, the Eighth Principle has major problems.

Shapiro notes that the text "of Exodus and Numbers preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls" were paralleled in the Samaritan version. This shows that there were two editions (textual traditions?) in Second Temple times.

If you place authority solely in Ben Asher's Masoretic text, you make the sages of the Talmud, Midrash, and the Babylonian Masoretes heretics. Shaprio states that it is impossible to speak about the Torah "found in our hands today".

Shapiro continues. "[I]t should not be surprising that R. Jacob Kamenetzky (1891-1986) argued that perhaps Maimonides' text of the Pentateuch differed from the one in use today." We see that Maimonides' text was the Yemenite text, which differs from the Masoretic texts. In other words, if we take the Eighth Principle to refer to the Masoretic text, Maimonides is a heretic. But, as we previously mentioned, if it is not the Masoretic text, we have a lot of other prominent heretics. It's a big mess.

It gets worse for this Principle.

"Rabbinic sources speak of tikunei soferim, that is textual changes introduces by the Scribes, some of which concern the Torah." Scribes changed texts they considered offensive to God or grossly anthropomorphic. A famous example is Genesis 18:22, which was changed to say "Abraham stood before the Lord" instead of "God stood yet before Abraham."

Moving on, Shapiro also takes aim at the part of the Eighth Principle, which claims that the whole Torah was received by Moses. That view has not been unamimously accepted. For instance, there is a Talmudic passage (BT Makot 11a) which claims the last eight verses of the Torah which deal with the death of Moses were written by Joshua. This view has support in other Orthodox sources, such as Ibn Ezra.

There are also certain phrases in the Torah which have caused Jewish sources to believe in non-Mosaic authorship for some portions of the Torah. For example, using the phrase "beyond the Jordan" in the Torah, when that phrase refers to a post-exile point of view, shows a post-Mosaic authorship.

Was Maimonides lying?

Shapiro goes on to argue that, given a Talmudic opinion about Joshua writing the last part of the Torah, "for Maimonides to declare a talmudic opinion heretical is extremely unlikely." Regarding textual variations Shapiro writes "taking into account all the pre-Maimonidean sources cites in this chapter, and in particular, the discussion regarding the text of the Pentateuch, it is impossible to believe that Maimonides should be taken at his word."

So, yes. Maimonides is lying.

Shapiro relates the view of Arthur Hyman. Maimonides knew there were elements in this Principle which weren't true. But the truth of the matter would raise doubts among the masses. And Jews were interacting with Muslims who believed that the Jews purposely corrupted their texts in order to remove references to Muhammad.

As can be seen from the case of Bart Ehrman (whose Christian faith was thrown in disarray once he learned about textual variants), withholding this information can backfire. It seems that such an attitude about this book is developing as well:

What I find most interesting in the Orthodox discussions of Dr. Marc B. Shapiro’s book is the widespread belief that readership of the book should be restricted. Not because there are significant mistakes in the book, but because the book will shake people’s faith and lead them off the derech.

So how to make sense of textual variants? I would simply say "don't panic." Jesus affirmed the authority, divine inspiration, and Mosaic authorship of the Torah, even though there were textual variants. If we feel the need to reject the inspiration of the Bible due to textual variants, we are using a different standard.

A quote I used earlier in this post from the Limits of Orthodox Theology used an appropriate phrase. "Exodus and Numbers preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls..." The different manuscript traditions preserve the text of the books of the Bible. Between the Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Targums, the Samaritan Torah, and the Masoretic texts, the Torah has been preserved.

Let me use a thought experiment I'm going to blatantly steal from Dr. James White.

Unless God were to strike scribes dead when they make an error, there will be textual variants. Now, to eliminate this, we would have to have one controlling scribal authority. And if we had that, the claim would most likely be that the one controlling authority manipulated the text towards their own ends (think Da Vinci Code). And that claim would be much more plausible under such a scenario.

So, how can we claim to have and know the Word of God given the reality of textual variants? I posed that question to Timothy Paul Jones here.

I'll end on his response:

You're correct about the epistemological framework---and you're working toward the real crux of the issue.

First off, I think it's important to note that the internal reliability of the text (which I deal with in the first half of Misquoting Truth) is a completely different issue from the external validity of the claims (which I deal with in the second half of Misquoting Truth). In other words, simply because the original text is recoverable doesn't mean that the claims of the text are true. Likewise, even supposing that the original text isn't recoverable, the claims of the text might still be true. I'm not claiming that you (or Ehrman, for that matter) is confusing these two, but it's important to note the distinction. I say this primarily because I was once on a radio program in which the Christian host said---in essence---"We have more than 5,000 copies of the New Testament, and they agree more than 99% of the time, therefore they must be true." This is, of course, a false line of reasoning.

I can't build a complete framework here, but here's a starter: What we mean when we refer to Scripture as "God's Word" is that we possess an unerring record of God's self-revelatory dealings with humanity, supremely of God's consummate dealing with humanity in Jesus Christ. This "Word" was inspired in human minds and written down. These human authors wrote in their own words---using descriptive language and rhetorical features from their culture---their words were kept from historical or factual error. (Of course, "historical or factual error" does not include having made estimates, having used language of appearances, having adapted or combined historical accounts, or having worded these accounts in ways that allowed the meaning of an event to be more readily applied to the original hearers' historical circumstances.) Although these words were not copied perfectly through the centuries, their words were copied with sufficient accuracy that it is possible to know and to experience the original "Word" which bears unerring witness to the Word of God who is Jesus Christ.

Book Review: the Limits of Orthodox Theology, Chapter Six, Prophecy and the Uniqueness of Moses

2008-06-21T23:10:00.000-04:00

"These Principles teach the existence of prophecy, and that Moses was the greatest prophet who ever lived. He prophesied with intellect alone, without the imaginative faculty playing any role. In addition to listing four ways in which Moses' prophecy differed from that of all other prophets, the Seventh Principle also includes the belief that no prophet as great as Moses will ever arise again."

There are debates about the nature of prophecy, but not Orthodox thinker denies prophecy outright. The crux of this chapter revolves around whether there will be or was a prophet greater than Moses.

Those who agree with the Seventh Principle, see this based on Deuteronomy 34:10 which states "there has no arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, who the Lord knew face to face." Shapiro writes that the notion of Moses' unsurpassed greatness of his prophecies is widely assumed in talmudic and midrashic literature.

Of notable exception, Bamidbar rabah 14:34 teaches that Balaam was the equal of Moses as a prophet. At the same time it upholds Deut. 34:10 by focusing in on how Balaam was not "in Israel" but of the nations. The midrash focuses in on three ways Balaam surpassed Moses, including Balaam being able to speak to God whenever he wished.

Shapiro writes, "the issue becomes more complicated in relation to the messiah." He notes that the aforementioned Bible verse speaks of the past and not about a future prophet.

In regards to the Messiah, Nahmanides and Gersonides disagree with the Seventh Principle and R. Hayim ben Attar leaves open the possibility that the Messiah may surpass Moses.

Gersonides focues on the phrase "in Israel" in Deuteronomy and concludes that a prophet will arise to prophesy for both Israel and the nations.

Lastly, Shapiro notes some in the kabbalistic tradition who believe Moses' understanding was inferior to some kabbalists, but that doesn't apply to prophesy per se.

Book Review: The Limits of Orthodox Theology, Chapter Five, Only God is to be Worshipped

2008-06-18T23:29:00.000-04:00

"The Fifth Principle teaches that only God is to be worshipped. Stars, spheres, angels, and elements and their compounds have no free will, and as such must not be used as intermediaries to reach God."

The majority of the chapter centers around numerous references to praying to angels and asking them to intercess on our behalf. This type of intercession can even be found in the Talmud (BT Berakhot 60b, BT Sanhedrin 44b). More interesting is the fact that Maimonides himself contradicts the Fifth Principle in the Mishneh Torah (quoting BT Ber. 60b in 'Hilkhot tefilah' 7:5).

But there is one paragraph in this chapter which by itself makes this chapter valuable. One rabbi, Rabbi Nissim Gerondi of the fourteenth century, saw something in Scripture which violates (or seems to violate) the principle that only God is to be worshipped.

[Gerondi] puts forth the strange and original position that there is one particular angel before whom prostration is permitted. R. Nissim makes this claim in the course of explaining how it was that Joshua prostrated himself before an angel (Josh. 5:14), an act which should be forbidden, just as it is forbidden to sacrifice an animal, burn incense, or put a libation to an angel. (Prostration, sacrifice, incense-burning, and libation are the four forms of worship singled out by the Talmud as always being forbidden, even if this is not how the deity in question is usually worshipped.) R. Nissim does not suggest that prostration to an angel performed as an act of honor is permitted, just as it is with humans. This is probably because the Talmud (BT San. 61b) specifically exempts prostration to humans from the prohibition if it is not done as an act of worship. The implication is that prostration is by definition to be regarded as a form of worship with regard to angels. According to R. Nissim, however, there is one angel who is special in this regard, and before whom one can prostrate oneself. This is the angel spoken of in Exodus 23:20-2, concerning whom God says 'My name is in him.' It is because this angel in osme way share an aspect of God's divinity that it is treated differently from the other angels. As R. Nissim put it, 'Prostrating before him is as if one is prostrating before God.'

What Rabbi Nissim was in Scripture was an angel who shared aspects of God's divinity. God Himself says that God's name was within this angel.

As I've discussed previously, that angel can be explained by Christian beliefs. We have evidence of the Trinity.

How can an angel be divine and identified apart from God at the same time? In the same way as John 1:1 does regarding Jesus. Y'shua is both God and distinct from God the Father.

Traditional Jewish theology cannot handle these Scripture verses. If you want to keep the Fifth Principle, you need to let go of the Second Principle. And vice-versa.

Given the passages in the Tanakh which deal with this angel, it is surprising only one rabbi (that Shapiro knows of) caught the tension between Jewish theology and those texts.

Book Interview: Christ in the Feast of Pentecost

2008-06-09T23:45:00.002-04:00

Rich Robinson, co-author of Christ in the Feast of Pentecost, graciously took some interview questions. He just emailed them back to me. Considering today is Shavuot/Pentecost, let's post it.

Enjoy!

1) What is the feast of Pentecost and what should we know about it?
3) How is Christ in the Feast of Pentecost?
4) How does Pentecost relate to the historical event in the early church that most Christians are familiar with? How does knowing about the biblical festival increase our understanding of the 1st century event?

Rich Robinson:Pentecost means "fiftieth" and refers to the holiday that goes by the name Shavuot in Judaism. Shavuot means "weeks" and falls 50 days after Passover or about seven weeks later. What Christians should understand about Pentecost is that when we read the account in Acts chapter 2, we are really reading about a Jewish holiday. By the time of Jesus and the apostles, the day had become the celebration of the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai, complete with fire and thunder. Essentially, what we have in Acts 2 is another giving of God's word, with similar sounds and tongues of fire. It was another Mount Sinai experience. There also was a legend among the Jewish people that God had spoken his Law to all the nations of the world, each in their own language, before offering it to Israel, so on the day of Pentecost in Acts, God's word through the apostles is heard by many nations, each in their own language.

2) What are the differences and similarities in how it is celebrated today as compared with Jesus' time or earlier?

Rich Robinson: From the days of Moses to the time of Jesus, Shavuot was an agricultural holiday of first fruits. God gave the land, he blessed the crops, and so you brought the first of the produce to Him. By also before the days of Jesus, there developed the association that God had given the Law on Shavuot. When the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., it ceased being an agricultural holiday and became a historical one entirely, commemorating Mt. Sinai.

Lots of traditions have accumulated over the years, and chief among them are eating dairy foods on Shavuot, decorating the synagogue with greenery, and if you're religious, you'll stay up all night studying the Torah.

5) Is there any future fulfillment of the Feast of Pentecost?

Rich Robinson: The first fulfillments had to do with firstfruits. Just as the first of crops were brought, the New Testament also tells us that Jesus was the firstfruits of those who will rise from the dead. Paul also uses the firstfruits idea to refer to the first people in any area who came to faith in Jesus.

The firstfruits of a crop were essentially a guarantee or promise that the rest of the crop would follow. Jesus' resurrection guarantees our own, and the first to come to faith in an area suggests more will follow. And in Romans, Paul remarks that we have the "firstfruits of the Spirit."

The ultimate fulfillment will be our resurrection when we receive the fulness of what God has for us. Till then, our Christian experience is only a "firstfruits."

6) Is there anything else you we should know about your book?

Rich Robinson: I think it's a book worth having, but as the co-author I am hopelessly biased!

Book Review: The Limits of Orthodox Theology, Chapter Four, Creation Ex Nihilo

2008-06-08T16:08:00.003-04:00

"The Fourth Principle affirms God's priority to other being (not his eternity, as has often been assumed), and creation ex nihilo, i.e. creation after absolute non-existence."

This is one of the shorter of the chapters in this book and will probably be the shortest review in this book. In other words, I don't feel I'd be cheating you for giving a quick summary.

No major figure denies God's priority to other beings. But there are examples of Jewish authorities denying creation ex nihilo (creation out of nothing). Most followed a Platonic conception that matter was eternal.

This can be best summed up by the following quote:

[Gersonides] is quite adamant that creation of matter out of nothing is impossible, and this is the basic stumbling-block for creation ex nihilo as far as he is concerned. That even God cannot do this does not limit him in Gersonides' eyes, for, as we have already seen, inability to do the impossible imples no imperfection.

So, in this principle, we do see the rather uninteresting qualification from the Second Principle (God not being able to do the impossible/meaningless) come into play for those who denied

All disagreements with this principle seem to be due to philosophical considerations.

Book Review: The Limits of Orthodox Theology, Chapter Three, The Incorporality of God

2008-06-08T14:16:00.000-04:00

"The Third Principle teaches God's incorporeality - that God is without image and form. According to Maimonides, this Principle includes the assertion that God cannot be described as being in movement or at rest, for this would mean that he has form and physical dimensions. Although, as we shall see, the Bible and Talmud speak of a corporeal God, Maimonides' philosophical outlook forced him to insist on divine incorporeality."

To me at least, this chapter came as one of the bigger surprises. Dr. Shapiro compiles numerous citations showing mainstream Jewish belief in a corporeal God.

Those who held this view had ample Biblical support for their view. Besides anthropomorphisms, being created "in the image of God" seems to be on As a believer in Jesus, it is nice we can quote Jesus as saying "God is Spirit" (John 4:24) or Paul who described God as invisible.

Evidence for the corporeal belief comes from some outside sources, including Justin Martyr. But there is also evidence for incorporeal belief from rabbinic times. Hecateus of Abdera (4th century BCE), Strabo (1st century), Livy (1st century), and Tacitus report on Jewish beliefs about God's incorporeality.

Shaprio also discusses varying opinions from Jewish authorities (ones who did believe in incorporeality) whether those who deviated from this principle should be considered heretics. If the Torah lends credence to this belief, why should it be held against people if they believe falsely based on the Torah? This is another example of Maimonides giving precedence to philosophy over Scripture, although as believers in Jesus we believe Maimonides is correct on this point.

However, there is a way that Christian beliefs help clear up the tension in the Biblical data. John states that no one has seen God but that Jesus makes him known (John 1:18) and Paul declares that Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15). This can helps us realize how God can remain unseen while manifesting Himself in ways some have seen.

Isaiah was criticized by Albo as Shapiro relates:

I have already quoted Isaiah 6:5, where we read that Isaiah saw God and feared that it would be his undoing. Instead of trying to explain Isaiah's vision -- 'I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up' -- in a philosophical manner, Albo claims that Isaiah, through his power of imagination.' Albo explains, 'The meaning is, I am affected by the power of imagination and my prophetic inspiration is not through a luminous glass like that of Moses, who heard a voice speaking to him without seeing any image before his eyes.' According to the Talmud, this utterance of Isaiah, which contradicted Moses' statement: 'For men shall not see Me and live' (Exod 33:20), was one of the reasons Manasseh slew him.

While we may not be exactly sure what Isaiah saw (the prophet may indeed be using figurative language), the New Testament helps us figure out the problem the Talmud wrestled with. A Trinitarian understanding shows us that God the Son reveals God the Father, who Paul describes as invisible and living in unapproachable light.

One of the more troubling aspects of Maimonides beliefs was that he believed all anthropmorphic descriptions of God must be understood figuratively. While we would agree that there is plenty of Biblical language which uses anthropomorphisms, not all texts can be explained away in this manner.

"...a corporeal God is a contradiction in terms, as it is impossible for a corporeal God to have the defining characteristics set down in the First and Second Principles. As note above, Maimonides also states that God, omnipotent though he is, is unable to assume corporeal form. In fact, Maimonides goes even further and states that one who believes in God corporeality is worse than some types of idolator."

One of the texts in this section I was very surprised not to see mentioned was Genesis 18. In this text, God appears to Abraham in human form. The text even refers to a location where the meeting occurs. Abraham even gives God food.

Again, the Christian conception helps explain the tensions in the biblical texts Maimonides cannot explain. There is a part of this principle which precludes the Christian conception of the incarnation, where God is still spirit but takes on human form.

We must always test our understandings and beliefs against Scripture. We must check our beliefs against all of Scripture, all of the biblical data.

Book Review: The Limits of Orthodox Theology, Chapter Two,the Existence and Unity of God

2008-05-31T00:32:00.005-04:00

"The first principle declares that God exists, that he is perfect in every way, and that he is the cause of the existence of all things."

This is probably the lesast controversial of all the Principles. This principle includes the belief in the eternality of God and His perfection. The only objection to this is how we should understand God's perfection.

Can God do anything? Most Jewish thinkers (and Christian theologians as well) have limited what God can do to the logically possible. In other words, God cannot do what is logically nonsense because such a thing doesn't mean anything. And that doesn't imply an imperfection in God's nature.

However, Shapiro lists some Jewish thinkers who reject this line of thinking. For example, one rabbi said "I believe God can make a rectangular triangle."

Again, for the most part this principle is not controversial. Nor is it unique to Judaism, as this Principle could be affirmed by Islam or Christianity.

"The Second Principle teaches the absolute unity of God, which is unlike the unity of anything else. No Jewish teacher has openly disputed this."

Now, the second principle is Unitarianism. And since Christianity is Trinitarian, this is usually one of the major theological objections to Christianity.

The only forces that run counter to this principle are kabbalistic, but no kabbalist would say this violates the unity of God. Similarly, Christians affirm monotheism while embracing Trinitarianism.

The kabbalah has a doctrine of the Sefirot, the ten aspects of the God head. Shapiro mentions a rabbi that "whereas the Chistians believe in 'three', the kabbalists believe in 'ten'.

Now, if memory serves, the Greeks believed in the absolute unity of the One. That kept crossing my mind as I read this.

How can we, as believers in Jesus, criticize the kabbalists for ten instead of three (ignoring for the moment vast differences between Sefirot and Persons in the Trinity)?

Whether the source is Jewish tradition, Greek philosophy, kabbalah or Christian theology, we should always test everything against Scripture. Our forbearers in the Messianic faith did not come up with the doctrine of the Trinity on a whim. It was based on careful reflection on Scripture.

Maimonides' Thirteen Principles, the Apostolic Creed, and the kabbalah are not the ultimate authorities for us. Scripture is. And this book can help remind us of that. We shouldn't be basing our views on God's nature on our own idle speculations. That would be idolatry.

But, as a believer in Jesus, idea of the Sefirot arising within Judaism is quite interesting to me. Although I doubt at this point in time the origin of such ideas could be ascertained.

Book Review: The Limits of Orthodox Theology, Introduction

2008-05-30T23:02:00.003-04:00

I'm starting my long-delayed and promised (at least I think I promised) review of Marc Shapiro's the Limits of Orthodox Theology. The book has a simple goal, but one has caused a lot of notice in Orthodox circles.

Maimonides' Thirteen Principles are considered by the greater Jewish community to define traditional Judaism. Maimonides himself wrote that anyone denies or doubts any of the Principles is a heretic and has removed himself from the Jewish people.

The central thesis of the book is that Maimonides' Thirteen Principles are not the last word in Jewish theology. By that, Dr. Shapiro means that the Thirteen Principles are considered the central truths of Orthodox Judaism. But several thinkers within the mainstream of Orthodoxy, both before and after Maimonides, disagreed with some of the Thirteen Principles. Interestingly engouh, Dr. Shapiro details where Maimonides himself disagrees with his own Principles.

Shapiro examines each of the Principles and then documents the disagreements or controversies surrounding each Principle. He also makes sure he omits scholars outside the Orthodox community. In medievel times, when there were no non-Orthodox religious denominations, he makes sure to exclude more controversial figures who weren't accepted by large segments of the Jewish community.

The book, and hence this ongoing review, may seem like a repetition of facts, quotes, and people. But, given Shapiro's thesis, this is unavoidable. If you are going to say that there has been disagreements, you are going to have to list them.

Orthodox Jews Burn New Testaments in Israel

2008-05-21T23:05:00.002-04:00

Orthodox Jews set fire to hundreds of copies of the New Testament in the latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in the Holy Land.

Or Yehuda Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon said missionaries recently entered a neighborhood in the predominantly religious town of 34,000 in central Israel, distributing hundreds of New Testaments and missionary material.
...
Israeli authorities and Orthodox Jews frown on missionary activity aimed at Jews, though in most cases it is not illegal. Still, the concept of a Jew burning books is abhorrent to many in Israel because of the association with Nazis torching piles of Jewish books during the Holocaust of World War II.

Earlier this year, the teenage son of a prominent Christian missionary was seriously wounded when a package bomb delivered to the family's West Bank home went off in his hands.

Last year, arsonists burst into a Jerusalem church used by Messianic Jews and set the building on fire, raising suspicions that Jewish extremists were behind the attack. No one claimed responsibility, but the same church was burned down 25 years ago by ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremists.

The Killings at the Israeli Rabbinical School

2008-03-08T11:06:00.002-05:00

I don't want to get into the political aspects of this act, but these killings are so, so sad.

We want to think that a particular person is just a monster, and I suppose the murderer was a monster.

But we need to remind ourselves that we are all monsters within. But by the grace of God, God restrains the evil that is within us. But if He lets go or allows that evil to break through, we get what we saw this past week.

The monster is within all of us.

Why Don't Jews Like the Christians Who Like Them?

2008-02-14T22:38:00.002-05:00

I may have some quibbles with the author's thesis, but he correctly attributes Christian support of the Jewish people to their theology. Specifically dispensationalism. That would be my quibble. I'm not a dispensationalist, but my love of Jewish people is rooted in my theology.

Evangelical Christians have a high opinion not just of the Jewish state but of Jews as people. That Jewish voters are overwhelmingly liberal doesn’t seem to bother evangelicals, despite their own conservative politics. Yet Jews don’t return the favor: in one Pew survey, 42 percent of Jewish respondents expressed hostility to evangelicals and fundamentalists. As two scholars from Baruch College have shown, a much smaller fraction—about 16 percent—of the American public has similarly antagonistic feelings toward Christian fundamentalists.

The reason that conservative Christians—opposed to abortion and gay marriage and critical of political liberalism—can feel kindly toward Jewish liberals and support Israel so fervently is rooted in theology. One finds among fundamentalist Protestants a doctrine called dispensationalism.

The author goes on about the other side of the coin:

Evangelical Christians have a high opinion not just of the Jewish state but of Jews as people. That Jewish voters are overwhelmingly liberal doesn’t seem to bother evangelicals, despite their own conservative politics. Yet Jews don’t return the favor: in one Pew survey, 42 percent of Jewish respondents expressed hostility to evangelicals and fundamentalists. As two scholars from Baruch College have shown, a much smaller fraction—about 16 percent—of the American public has similarly antagonistic feelings toward Christian fundamentalists.

The reason that conservative Christians—opposed to abortion and gay marriage and critical of political liberalism—can feel kindly toward Jewish liberals and support Israel so fervently is rooted in theology. One finds among fundamentalist Protestants a doctrine called dispensationalism.
...
That liberal politics trumps other considerations—including worries about anti-Semitism—for many American Jews becomes clearer in light of other data. The most anti-Semitic group in America is African-Americans.
...
Yet African-American voters are liberals, and so often get a pass from their Jewish allies. To Jews, blacks are friends and evangelicals enemies, whatever their respective dispositions toward Jews and Israel.

Are these feeling rooted in politics? Not sure. I would suspect that is partly a cause, since evangelicals tack to the right politically. I would suspect that historical suspicions of Christians may come into play as well.

A Virgin Will Conceive?

2007-12-14T13:18:00.000-05:00

In Ligonier Ministries's current radio archive they have a message entitled "A Virgin Shall Conceive" concerning the controversial, in our circles at least, Isaiah 7:14 passage. "A virgin shall conceive and will call his name Emmanuel."

The book of Matthew says this refers to Jesus. But does the original Hebrew back this up? Well, this message is a good overview.

I'll try to do another post about this at another time.

Just in time for Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of the Messiah.

Howard Dean Says Jews Can Go to Heaven

2007-11-14T01:56:00.000-05:00

From the article:

In another statement likely to stir debate among the evangelical Christians his party is urgently trying to court, Dean also asserted “there are no bars to heaven for anybody,” according to the report by JTA, a 90-year-old non-profit organization which calls itself “the global news service of the Jewish people.”
...
"This country is not a theocracy," Dean said, according to JTA. "There are fundamental differences between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party believes that everybody in this room ought to be comfortable being an American Jew, not just an American; that there are no bars to heaven for anybody; that we are not a one-religion nation; and that no child or member of a football team ought to be able to cringe at the last line of a prayer before going onto the field."

Well, I hate to break the news to Howard Dean. There are bars on heaven keeping people out. It isn't based on race. It is based on sin.

God is holy. His Law condemns us. We lie, steal, and covet. We don't honor our parents as we should. We don't love our neighbor nor our God with all our heart.

And our only hope is the grace of God made manifest to us in Jesus the Messiah. If we do not trust in Him, we are doomed and will find bars to heaven. No matter what Howard Dean may tell you.

Is Judaism False Because Some Jews Persecuted Christians?

2007-11-03T00:00:00.000-04:00

Well, here is the blurb:

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL (BosNewsLife)-- Israeli police remained clueless Thursday, October 25, after suspected Jewish extremists set fire to the American-backed Jerusalem Baptist Church (JBC) in West Jerusalem, raising concerns about growing tensions between Orthodox Jews and the country's tiny Christian minority.

Many times we hear that Jesus cannot be the Messiah because Christians have persecuted Jews over the centuries. Now, if Jews, either in the first century or in the 21st, persecuted Christians, does that make Judaism false?

No. People are sinners. Christians are sinners. Jews are sinners.

We cannot hide behind the actions of others to reject a particular belief. Jesus is or is not the Messiah. Traditional Judaism is either true or false.

While we shouldn't condone the actions of those who break the law and hurt others, the actions of sinners does not prove or disprove either Christianity or Judaism.

Torah Reading Schedule for 5768 (2007/8) (pdf)

2007-09-19T00:58:00.000-04:00

First Fruits of Zion produces a handy and very well-designed Torah reading schedule each year. I link to it in hopes that people will use it to discipline themselves in the reading of Scripture.

I sure need that discipline.

L'shana Tovah!

Examining the Testimony of Julius Ciss, Part 2

2007-09-08T10:03:00.000-04:00

"Understand," he continued, "that when doubts regarding Jesus' salvation enter your mind, such thoughts are not from G-d; they are, in fact, from Satan. And you must know that from the moment you walk out of here, Satan is going to try to pursue you and cause you to doubt. When that happens, you have to cling close to your savior. Now that G-d has shown you the truth, that Jesus is your Messiah, the Devil is going to want you to doubt, more than ever. And if you start thinking that Jesus is not the Messiah, you must recognize that those thoughts come from the Devil himself. That's when you have to pray even harder that Jesus should protect you with his blood."

I was stunned and terrified. It seemed to me that I accepted two belief systems instead of one that day, or two opposing gods: Jesus and the Devil. The Devil isn't a god in the sense that Christians worship him, but they attribute so much power to him that it is almost as though he is the evil deity in contradistinction to Jesus. In some Christian circles, the Devil seems to be as much a spiritual focus as Jesus.

I'm glad Ciss added "in some Christian circles." I can't go back and time and double-check what the pastor said and what emphasis he placed, but Ciss is correct that many believers place too much emphasis on Satan.

But, at the same time, Satan does soe seeds of doubt.

After receiving this admonition, I walked away from the meeting extremely troubled. After all, what nice Jewish boy who had just converted to Christianity wouldn't have some qualms that maybe he was making a big mistake? Needless to say, I was having doubts from the moment I walked out of there, wondering, "What have I done?" Yet I could not allow myself to brood about these doubts, because I had been infected with this new "doctrine of the Devil".

In my previous entry, I had mentioned that it didn't appear that Ciss was converted by the preaching of the Law of God. While convinced of the need for a Savior and escape from sin, Ciss didn't appear to be broken by the Law about particular sins.

This would confirm this. For whatever genuine motivation in his conversion, Ciss doesn't appear regenerated to me based on his own testimony.

We should be careful about pushing people to make a decision. It will only cause long-term harm and may give fals assurance to those who do make a decision but out of their own power and not from a regenerated heart.

Pray Request

2007-08-11T12:56:00.000-04:00

A Jews for Jesus van was involved in an accident, coming back from a youth group camp. Please keep them in your prayers.

The Case for the Real Jesus

2007-07-28T00:50:00.000-04:00

Lee Strobel has written a series of popular apologetic books following the same general format (interviews with experts), each with the title "the Case for...".

The next one looks like it will be worthwhile, as this one tackles topics that seem to pop up on a regular basis.

Here are the topics:
• Did the church suppress ancient non-biblical documents that paint a more accurate picture of Jesus than the four Gospels?
• Did the church distort the truth about Jesus by tampering with early New Testament texts?
• Do new insights and explanations finally disprove the resurrection?
• Have fresh arguments disqualified Jesus from being the Messiah?
• Did Christianity steal its core ideas from earlier mythology?

Obviously, the qualifications of the Messiah is of interest to readers of this blog. But the mythology question comes up a lot in Jewish apologetics. Not that the other don't. But the whole Mithras stuff is a common refrain.

Examining the Testimony of Julius Ciss, Part 1

2007-07-01T22:14:00.000-04:00

Julius' testimony is interesting in that he became a Messianic Jew before becoming an Orthodox Jew. I don't in any way want to say that his testimony is not genuine. Sometimes people understand everything just fine, but their heart is not full of faith. Too many people of all stripes say "if that person truly understood X they wouldn't have abandoned it." That's not always the case. That said, let's start looking at Julius Ciss' testimony.

It was at a Messianic "Rosh Hashana" service in the fall of 1976 that I formally committed myself to Christianity. At this service, the "Messianic rabbi" (as their pastors often call themselves) had preached a message of atonement, stressing the need for us to be forgiven for our sins through the blood of Jesus. I was overwhelmed by a sense that everything he preached was true. I was overcome by guilt for my sins. The opportunity to be forgiven these "sins" and to secure myself a place in heaven was irresistible. The pastor announced that refusing to atone carried with it as a consequence an eternity of burning in hell. I couldn't afford the risk of not "atoning". I decided to come forward and make my statement of faith: that I believed Jesus was the Messiah, and that he died as an eternal sacrifice for my sins.

It may become clearer as we look at more of his testimony, but I'm not sure how deep Mr. Ciss's understanding of his sin was. This may become clearer when we look at more of his testimony.

Notice how he uses "scare quotes" around the word "sins". What sins were Ciss convinced of but now he is not? Lying? Idolatry? Adultery?

I think Ciss may have been reacting to the need to believe in Jesus. The message very often gets formulated like this: don't believe in Jesus and you will go to hell; believe in Jesus and you will be saved and to heaven. The sin becomes merely not believing in Jesus. And while it is true that if you don't believe in Jesus you will go to hell, that sounds horribly arbitrary to people. It sounds like God is looking for a particular ticket.

What needs to give it proper context? The law of God. We sin in numerous ways beyond our faith or lack thereof. And I don't mean to minimize the importance of faith.

We need to be broken by the law of God.

Imagine you are on a ship. "Get on the lifeboat or you will be destroyed." If people think the ship is fine, they won't pay you any attention. If you convince them that the ship is sinking, your message will resonate with more people.

The gospel of John makes it clear that people who don't believe in Jesus are condemned already.

Our message makes more sense when we use the law of God. So I would have much rather have heard Julius Ciss said "I was convinced I was a liar, idolator, blasphemer, adulterer-at-heart, thief."

Now, if you do this, I don't think you guarantee any results. We are still dependent on the Holy Spirit to produce real results. But we will reduce the amount of false converts like Julius Ciss. And by "false", I mean faith which isn't produced by the Holy Spirit. Julius Ciss had genuine faith, but it wasn't Holy Spirit-produced faith.

Washington Post Article on Jews for Jesus Campaign

2007-06-30T11:12:00.000-04:00

Let's go over a few interesting items from the article.

The group is loathed by many mainstream Jews. Washington area Jewish organizations and the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington have condemned the campaign, saying Jews for Jesus proselytizes too aggressively and misleads potential followers by using Jewish symbols, portraying their places of worship as synagogues and referring to Jesus by Hebrew names.

Was Jesus a Swede? Should we refer to him by his Nordic name?

Jerusalem Post reported that Texas megapreacher and stalwart Israel ally John C. Hagee believed that Jews have a special covenant with God that allows them salvation without accepting Jesus. The Rev. Hagee is already criticized by some evangelicals because he doesn't advocate proselytizing to Jews. He disputed the newspaper report, saying he believes that Jews do need Jesus, but many messianic Jews remain angry that some evangelical leaders are willing to tone down evangelizing in order not to offend Jews.

We should be offended when any Christian tones down the gospel to not offend anyone (the basic content, not using wisdom of when to talk and what type of language to use-not needlessly offending people). The gospel is the only way of escape from the wrath of a holy God. We have broken His law. We are law-breakers. We are in trouble. Anyone who waters this down due to fear of man has done something bad. I'm sure I've done it. And when I do it I should be ashamed of myself.

Working with him was Adam Myers, 21, a junior at Liberty University, who said it bothers him that so many people at his church believe that proselytizing to Jews is unnecessary.

Adam Myers- you rock.

While passing out brochures, Katz got the e-mail address of Michaela Curtis, a 21-year-old intern from North Carolina who grew up in a Christian household where interest in Judaism was high.

"Jews for Jesus is true Judaism, because Jesus was the king of the Jews," she said. "It makes perfect sense to me."

Michaela Curtis, makes sense to me too.

But nearby was Bess Lender, a Jewish George Washington University senior, who disagreed.

"They'll promote themselves as Jewish," Lender said, "but it's just silly to me to think you can be Jewish and believe in Christ as the messiah."

Bess Lender, I wish I could talk to you to explain the evidence for our beliefs.

The Trinity: One What and Three Whos

2007-06-26T23:08:00.000-04:00

Since in dialog with Jewish people the doctrine of the Trinity gets accused of being polytheistic, I've linked to a useful blog entry.

Here is a quote:

All three persons in the Godhead share equally and completely the one divine nature, and are therefore the same God—coequal in attributes, nature, and glory. God has revealed Himself as one in essence, but three in personhood. In terms of what God is (essence), God is one; in terms of who God is (personhood), God is three. God is therefore "one What" and "three Whos." The God of the Bible therefore reflects both a unity of nature (monotheism) and a plurality of personhood (trinitarianism).

Trying to Answer Jews for Jesus

2007-06-25T23:33:00.000-04:00

I saw this in an article from a Washington, D.C. Jewish newspaper.

For instance, in response to the question, "Did you know that believing in Jesus is the most Jewish thing you can do?" the flier states that "According to Judaism the Messiah will not be divine or eliminate the obligation to observe Torah."

It continues: "Jews believe in a monotheistic system of a non-corporeal God" and that "by believing that Jesus is 'co-equal to God the Father,' Jews for Jesus have crossed an unbridgeable chasm by accepting a belief idolatrous for Jews."

I can only ask, is this the best they can do?

"According to Judaism..." Well, no kidding. But the question is whether or not the teachings of traditional Judaism are true. According to is not a good form of argumentation.

Christians believe in a non-corporeal God as well. Go read Genesis 18. I'll wait here. Back? Ok.

God appeared as a man, in the Torah, to Abraham. He even ate dairy and meat together! Does this mean God is non-corporeal? No. But according to this form of argumentation, we would be forced to conclude that.

"By believing that Jesus is co-equal to God the Father, Jews for Jesus crossed an unbridgeable chasm by accepting a belief idolatrous for Jews."

But apparently the belief is OK for Gentiles.

The statement assumes that Jesus is merely a man and not the pre-existant Son of God. Biblical evidence can and should be offered for this belief. But the general impression I get is that this group simply assumes their belief and isn't giving much of a defense. But I'm not sure they assume their beliefs are true or are just for Jews.

The Limits of Orthodox Theology

2007-06-08T20:44:00.000-04:00

I've wanted this book for a long time. It looks at how there have been objections to Maimonides' Thirteen Principles. It should be another ongoing series on this blog, but I expect blogging on this will be sporadic. When I have time to read, I'll post.

Examining the Testimony of Julius Ciss

2007-06-06T22:13:00.000-04:00

A Jewish news article was about a counter-missionary who works for Jews for Judaism. Since the article and his testimony refer to inconsistencies in the Christian faith, I felt it might be a good exercise to go over the examples he raises.

Why? Because they are probably pretty typical. A cursory overview has shown that Dr. Michael Brown's excellent books ("Answering Jewish Objections") deals with these in-depth. Therefore, I will not try to give completely in-depth answer.

Not sure how long this will take.

A Controversial Example of Textual Criticism Involving Messianic Prophecy

2007-05-30T21:05:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty much going to be quoting (good artists borrow, great ones steal) from the Christian Thinktank's article on Psalm 22.

Here is the problem:

I don't know if this qualifies as a tough question but here goes. Recently I have been speaking with a Rabbi and we got into a discussion about psalm 22 and specifically verse 16. The verse, of course reads "...they have pierced my hands and my feet." and has been traditionally held as referring to the Crucifixion. However, the Rabbi sees the verse as saying "...like a lion my hands" and as I don't know Hebrew I cannot argue. Still, I have a suspicion that this is a late Hebrew rendering of the verse that has been a reaction to the christian point of view. Which rendering is correct? I have a feeling that the Septuagint might be able to answer this question as it will give a pre-christian Jewish interpretation of the passage in the Greek, which may be less ambiguous than the Hebrew. Thank you for your time Mr. Miller.

Dear Glen: I have read with great interest your work regarding the use of the LXX. I have an article that I could email to you where a Jewish counter-missionary is claiming that none of the books other than the Pentateuch were translated in pre-Christian times and that the rest of the LXX is a Christian translation and cannot be used to reflect pre-Christian ideas. Please help!! This comment came up when the counter-missionary was arguing that Christians deliberately changed Psalm 22:16 from "like a lion" to "they have pierced" and the fact that the LXX supports this reading is useless since the Christians translated the Psalms and put their own spin on it.

Ok, so here's the problem. Psalm 22 in the Masoretic reads "like a lions my hands and feat".

So if you've been following my non-expert advice, you consult the Septuagint and find that that translation reads "they have pierced my hands and feet." Furthermore, the New Testament (which is another source we can use) doesn't quote it.

So now you are faced with counter-missionaries who tells you the Septuagint was corrupted. What do you do now?

Consult all Masoretic texts you can find and look at the Dead Sea Scrolls (if possible).

And what do we find? The verse appears only once in the Dead Sea Scrolls and supports the Septuagint. Furthermore, there are textual variants within the Masoretic tradition which have the same reading.

In other words, the evidence doesn't look like Christians made this up. The textual evidence supports "they have pierced my hands and feet."

While this is a high-level review of the issue, I fully recommend reading the above article.

That's it for my much-delayed series on textual criticism. Please leave any questions in the comments section.

An Example of Textual Criticism Using the Masoretic Text with the Septuagint

2007-05-16T17:34:00.000-04:00

So we've gone over a lot of material regarding textual criticism of the Tanakh. What would this look like in practice? What would consulting the Septuagint look like?

Let me give a relatively quick and straightforward example. There are others listed in the above link.

There are two verses in the Tanakh which seem to contradict each other.

2 Samuel 8:4 And David took from him 1,700 horsemen, and 20,000 foot soldiers. And David hamstrung all the chariot horses but left enough for a hundred chariots.

1 Chronicles 18:4 And David took from him 1,000 chariots, 7,000 horsemen and 20,000 foot soldiers. And David hamstrung all the chariot horses, but left enough for 100 chariots.

So, is it 1700 or 7000 horsemen?

This is a problem. If we look at the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls, we see that both verses have 1700 in both of them. Based on all the textual evidence, it looks like "7000" was due to a scribal error in the transmission of the text.

My next post should be the last in this series, and we will tackle a more controversial Messianic prophecy.

Jerome's Preface to Genesis

2007-05-04T03:55:00.000-04:00

Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate, wrote prefaces in his work before different books of the Bible. Before the book of Genesis he defended his utilization of Hebrew texts instead of using the Septuagint.

I have received the desired letters of my Desiderius, who in a foretelling of things to happen has obtained with Daniel a certain name [see Vulgate Daniel 9.23: quia vir desideriorum es tu, “for you are a man of desires”], beseeching that I might hand over to our hearers a translation of the Pentateuch in the Latin tongue from the Hebrew words. Certainly a dangerous work, open to the barkings of detractors, who accuse me of insult to the Seventy to prepare a new interpretation from the old ones, thus approving ability (or “genius”) like wine.

Now, the interesting thing is that Jerome's defense centers around Messianic prophecies mentioned in the New Testament, do not appear in the Septuagint, but appear in the Hebrew texts. The Hebrew texts referred to probably became what we now know as the Masoretic texts (remember the earliest texts we have of that tradition date from around 900 CE).

And especially by the authority of the Evangelists and the Apostles, in which we read many things from the Old Testament which are not found in our books, as it is (with): “Out of Egypt I have called My Son,” and “For He shall be called a Nazarene,” and “They will look on Him Whom they have pierced,” and “Rivers of living waters shall flow from his belly,” and “Things which no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has arisen in the heart of man, which God has prepared for those loving Him,” and many others which are desiring a proper context.

What is interesting about this list is that "He shall be called a Nazarene" is disputed by traditional Judaism. Anti-missionaries point it out as a New Testament error. Apparently, Jerome saw it right in the text of the Hebrew.

For the record, Dr. Michael Brown deals with that objection in Volume 4 of his Answering Jewish Objections, a summary of which can be found here.

Variants Between the Septuagint & Masoretic Manuscripts and Controversies About the Two

2007-05-01T21:55:00.000-04:00

Here is a good summary from Wikipedia:

The sources of the many differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic text have long been discussed by scholars. The most widely accepted view today is that the Septuagint provides a reasonably accurate record of an early Semitic textual variant, now lost, that differed from ancestors of the Masoretic text. Ancient scholars, however, did not suspect this. Early Christians—who were largely unfamiliar with Hebrew texts, and were thus only made aware of the differences through the newer Greek versions—tended to dismiss the differences as a product of uninspired translation of the Hebrew in these new versions. Following the Renaissance, a common opinion among some humanists was that the LXX translators bungled the translation from the Hebrew and that the LXX became more corrupt with time. The discovery of many fragments in the Dead Sea scrolls that agree with the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic Text proved that many of the variants in Greek were also present in early Semitic manuscripts.

These issues notwithstanding, the text of the LXX is in general close to that of the Masoretic.

You may see arguments from anti-missionaries which state that a certain reading of a Messianic prophecy is based on a faulty reading from the Septuagint. It is generally not as simple as that, as that Wikipedia quote relates. Some will even claim that the Septuagint was intentionally corrupted.

You may also see ancient Christians, who didn't know Hebrew, favor the Septuagint and suspect that some Jewish people were hiding the true meaning of the texts.

The above description is based on my recollection, so please forgive me since I can't provide references off the top of my head.

But the point of this series is to say, forget all of those claims if you don't have proof of corruption, supression, etc.

The Dead Sea Scrolls have shown that variants between the Septuagint and the Masoretic texts weren't made up out of thin-air. For more on the issue I recommend this article.

I have one more post before we get into some examples. The light is at the end of the tunnel.

Is A Post-Missionary, Truly Messianic Judaism Possible?

2007-04-29T20:27:00.000-04:00

Dr. Michael Brown reviews "Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism" by Dr. Mark Kinzer. It is well worth the read.

Dr. Brown has much criticism for the ideas in the book, while he refrains from getting personal.

What are the Dead Sea Scrolls? And What Do They Have to Do with Textual Criticism?

2007-04-20T21:19:00.000-04:00

You've probably heard about the Dead Sea Scrolls on a History Channel special. What are they?

Here is a Wikipedia summary. But the simple answer is that in the middle of the 20th century they found a bunch of texts, commonly known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Portions from the Hebrew Bible were found among the texts.

These texts are the oldest surviving texts of the Hebrew Bible. How would they be used?

Well, stay tuned for an example. But the short answer is that the Dead Sea Scrolls provide information about the textual traditions prior to the Masoretic texts we have now.

In textual criticism, we want all the available texts we can get our hands on. Its another piece of evidence. This doesn't mean that the Dead Sea Scrolls should be favored over the Masoretic texts in all cases, but they should be consulted.

I don't want to give everything away. I don't want to confuse you by bringing in new texts to talk about. But the Dead Sea Scrolls will come up. Hopefully, all will become clear then.

Is the Mosaic Covenant Irrelevant?

2007-04-11T16:45:00.000-04:00

Jennifer Green of Baton Rouge wrote the following:

As evidenced by two recent letters, both of which argue that so-called “Messianic Jews” are Jewish, there seems to be ongoing confusion about the differences between “Messianic Jews” and mainstream Jews, whose members can be roughly divided among the Orthodox, Hasidic, Reform, Conservative, Humanistic and Reconstructionist movements within Judaism.

What all these Jewish denominations have in common is a belief system based on Covenant — that which God gave Israel, through his prophet, Moses, at Sinai.

“Messianic Jews” — also known as “Jews for Jesus” — have rejected this covenant as irrelevant, replacing it with belief in Jesus.

Rejected as irrelevant?

Who says that?

Read what the apostle Paul (Saul of Tarsus) wrote in Romans:

Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Why Use the Septuagint in Textual Criticism?

2007-04-10T22:53:00.000-04:00

As we explained in our last post, the Septuagint is an ancient Greek translation of the Tanakh. So why would we use it in our textual criticism of the Tanakh?

First, Septuagint texts predate the earliest Masoretic texts of the Tanakh which we have. So these translations can help us determine what the Hebrew texts looked like prior to what we have now.

There are differences between the Masoretic texts and the Septuagint. But just because the Septuagint came from an earlier textual source, that does not mean we automatically favor the Septuagint over the Masoretic texts.

But it can and should be used. In some future posts, we will show how the Septuagint should be used in textual criticism.

What is the Septuagint?

2007-04-07T15:34:00.000-04:00

As we continue our textual criticism series of posts which focus on the Tanakh, we know turn to the Septuagint.

What is the Septuagint (also know by the abbreviation LXX)?

Here's a good definiton:

The Septuagint (LXX) is the name commonly given in the West to the Koine Greek Alexandrine text of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh/Old Testament) produced some time between the third to first century BC.

And another:

Septuagint (sometimes abbreviated LXX) is the name given to the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures. The Septuagint has its origin in Alexandria, Egypt and was translated between 300-200 BC. Widely used among Hellenistic Jews, this Greek translation was produced because many Jews spread throughout the empire were beginning to lose their Hebrew language. The process of translating the Hebrew to Greek also gave many non-Jews a glimpse into Judaism. According to an ancient document called the Letter of Aristeas, it is believed that 70 to 72 Jewish scholars were commissioned during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus to carry out the task of translation. The term “Septuagint” means seventy in Latin, and the text is so named to the credit of these 70 scholars.

Contradictory Resurrection Accounts?

2007-04-04T22:25:00.000-04:00

When Tovia Singer put his counter-missionary MP3's on his website, I thought I would have time before the Easter/Passover season to go over his lecture on the Resurrection accounts. Well, I haven't gone over it.

But I'm pretty sure this is the gist: the Resurrection accounts contradict each other.

Well, there was an article about the Resurrection in the Washington Post. I read the following about alleged contradictions in it:

"Some are easy and some I don't know how to reconcile," said Davis, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). "They were different stories that got talked about and talked about, so its not surprising there would have been some discrepancies. But there's tremendous agreement on the basic facts."

Any discrepancies can be "eliminated by a straight-up reading of the text," said James Emery White, president of the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a evangelical school in South Hamilton, Mass.

Here is an article that approaches the topic with more depth than this blog entry will attempt.

But even after all this, I have a feeling that Tovia Singer may still have a problem even if I grant contradictions (which I don't). But I won't prejudge what I haven't listed to. Hopefully, more on that later.

Minor Announcement

2007-03-28T23:39:00.000-04:00

I've launched a store through Cafepress which hopefully help people witness by having conversation starters.

What's that Hebrew mean on your shirt? "Jesus Lives."

Anyway, more designs forthcoming.

I should be picking the textual criticism series back up in a couple of days. It's been delayed way too long.

James White's New Book on the 'Jesus Tomb' Is For Sale

2007-03-27T07:05:00.000-04:00

Summary of Errors, Problems, Contradictions, and Half Truths in the Tomb Theory

2007-03-21T06:38:00.000-04:00

Still planning to continue the textual criticism series, but hopefully this will be of value until then.

Light Blogging and the "Jesus Tomb"

2007-03-06T16:08:00.000-05:00

I've been preparing for lecture/talk with Karen King and Elaine Pagels, of Gnostic gospels fame, so I haven't had the time to prepare new blog entries in our ongoing textual criticism series.

Hopefully, sometime soon.

On a different note, did anyone see the Discovery Channel's "Jesus Tomb" special? I forgot it was on, but I've been reading a lot about it.

Here is a blog entry that links to valuable sources that has been doing a great job keeping its links up to date.

Dr. James White has been doing a tremendous job on this over at his site.

These two links have plenty to keep you busy. Plus, you'll learn a lot.

I would have to say the best part about all of this is that people are learning that Jesus's name was "Yeshua."

The Masoretic Textual Tradition

2007-02-26T07:37:00.000-05:00

In our ongoing series on textual criticism, we now turn our attention to the Masoretic Text. Actually, it would be better said "Masoretic Texts or Textual Family."

What is the Masoretic Text? As the above linked article says "the Masoretic Text (MT) is the Hebrew text of the Tanakh as generally used in Judaism." I found the best (but partial because I don't have a membership) definition from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

traditional Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible, meticulously assembled and codified, and supplied with diacritical marks to enable correct pronunciation. This monumental work was begun around the 6th century AD and completed in the 10th by scholars at Talmudic academies in Babylonia and Palestine...

From what Orthodox Jewish sites I've read on the web, it seems textual critical issues with the Tanakh aren't fully understood. As that article says, "The Torah has nine spelling variants - with absolutely no effect on the meaning of the words."

But as the above Wikipedia article mentions:

Early rabbinic sources, from around 200 CE, mention several passages of Scripture in which the conclusion is inevitable that the ancient reading must have differed from that of the present text. The explanation of this phenomenon is given in the expression ("Scripture has used euphemistic language," i.e. to avoid anthropomorphism and anthropopathism).

Rabbi Simon ben Pazzi (third century) calls these readings "emendations of the Scribes" (tikkune Soferim; Midrash Genesis Rabbah xlix. 7), assuming that the Scribes actually made the changes. This view was adopted by the later Midrash and by the majority of Masoretes. In Masoretic works these changes are ascribed to Ezra; to Ezra and Nehemiah; to Ezra and the Soferim; or to Ezra, Nehemiah, Zechariah, Haggai, and Baruch. All these ascriptions mean one and the same thing: that the changes were assumed to have been made by the Men of the Great Synagogue.

The term tikkun Soferim has been understood by different scholars in various ways. Some regard it as a correction of Biblical language authorized by the Soferim for homiletical purposes. Others take it to mean a mental change made by the original writers or redactors of Scripture; i.e. the latter shrank from putting in writing a thought which some of the readers might expect them to express.

The assumed emendations are of four general types:

* Removal of unseemly expressions used in reference to God; e.g., the substitution of ("to bless") for ("to curse") in certain passages.

* Safeguarding of the Tetragrammaton; e.g. substitution of "Elohim" for "YHVH" in some passages.

* Removal of application of the names of false gods to YHVH; e.g. the change of the name "Ishbaal" to "Ishbosheth."

* Safeguarding the unity of divine worship at Jerusalem.

I am in no way belittling the Masoretic textual tradition. As the ESV (a recent Christian Bible translation) philosophy statement says:

The currently renewed respect among Old Testament scholars for the Masoretic text is reflected in the ESV’s attempt, wherever possible, to translate difficult Hebrew passages as they stand in the Masoretic text rather than resorting to emendations or to finding an alternative reading in the ancient versions.

The goal of textual criticism, at least as many and I see it, is to get as close as possible to the original words of the texts. Other sources complement the Masoretic tradition and help us do this. We'll explain more about this when I introduce other textual sources, like the Septuagint.

More, next time. Please feel free to leave questions in the comments section.

Introduction to Textual Criticism

2007-02-21T18:48:00.000-05:00

The Bible, both the Tanakh (Old Testament) and the New Testament, have been carefully given to us from ancient times through scribes. These scribes wrote by hand and errors in the copying process occurred.

Now, the situation is not hopeless. Textual criticism is the fancy name of trying to figure out what the original text was. Wikipedia has a good overview of textual criticism.

The discipline doesn't just apply to the Bible. Shakespeare, Homer, whomever. I knew the head librarian of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He performed textual criticism on the works of classical music. He discovered that there were musical notes being performed that we have become accustomed to that weren't intended by the original composer.

Now, in terms of the Bible we have many things to consider. There are textual families, individual texts, and translations.

I've noticed that in textual discussions of Messianic prophecies that the topic of the Septuagint, an ancient Greek translation of the Tanakh, comes up and is often disparaged. I want to show how it can be used to help us do good textual criticism of the Old Testament and how it sheds light on a controversial Messianic prophecy.

Obviously, a series of blog posts isn't going to give you enough information to do all this. If you want to get smart on this, and I'm no expert, you'll have to do some reading, etc. on your own.

Here is a good mp3 lecture giving an overview of textual criticism. Here's one that concentrates on the transmission of the Old Testament. I can't vouch for the following but here is a lecture series.

I'll try to build up slowly and fill in some gaps as we go along. Again, this is specific in nature to show how and why we would use the Septuagint. Feel free to ask questions in the comments. If I don't know something, I'll tell you.

Update: From the aforementioned lecture series, this mp3 file is a good overview.

Does the Oral Law Exist?

2007-02-20T21:57:00.000-05:00

So I'm watching this show called the Naked Archeologist. In one episode, he tries to figure out what fish was used for a particular dye. After some searching on Google I found the link above. (stay with me...)

Believe it or not, the custom of the Tallit stripes are an outgrowth of the Torah command to attach one blue thread to the Tzitzit, and also used for dying priestly garments. (see Exodus 25:4 and Numbers 15:38)

The "Techelet" was a bluish color, obtained from the fluid of a sea creature called the "Chilazon." (Tosefta Menachot 9:6) It is found on the coast of Northern Israel, though here is a disagreement among scholars regarding what the "chilazon" actually is. Some say that it is a snail, while others say it is a squid. There are some who claim that the "chilazon" is actually a mollusk.

Correct me if I'm wrong. There was a particular dye that was used for dying priestly garments. We no longer know what that dye was made of.

If the oral law contained that information, it is gone. That's why we rely on Scripture alone.

Septuagint, Textual Criticism and Psalm 22

2007-02-18T22:59:00.000-05:00

I'm rummaging through information to go over textual criticism issues which come up in Messianic Jewish debates. More later.

Don't want to post with haste.

Tovia Singer on Way of the Master Radio

2007-02-09T23:54:00.000-05:00

Tovia singer was interviewed in the first half hour of last Monday's Way of the Master Radio. Mp3 file can be found here.

Two interesting things. First Rabbi Singer thinks Gentile Christians are going to hell. Frankly, that doesn't bother me in the slightest. But it is still interesting.

The second interesting thing was how Rabbi Singer tried to deflect the host's appeal to the demands of the Law and the need for sacrificial atonement. I called in the show today, Friday, and you can find the Mp3 file of the show and my call here. I was the first call taken in the day.

Tovia Singer Providing Audio of "Let's Get Biblical" Series on His Website

2007-01-31T15:31:00.000-05:00

Anti-missionary Tovia Singer, of Outreach Judaism, released his well-known series of responses on the Internet for free. I'm appreciative of that, since I don't feel like paying for it.

Now, I did a once-over of the tapes. I would surmise that I've heard a lot of these arguments before, even in the comments sections of this blog. The Psalm 110 lecture struck me, because I remember someone commenting about that section in the July/August timeframe. I'm under the impression they were repeating anti-missionary arguments they heard.

I would assume that there isn't anything in here that isn't addressed in Dr. Michael Brown's excellent books.

However, I'm going to try and find the time to sit down and listen to some of these and maybe create a few posts from this.

I may concentrate on Tovia Singer's lectures on the Resurrection, since that is an area of apologetics I know a good bit about. And I would direct you all to the aforementioned books by Dr. Brown.

Jews for Jesus also had an article concerning the tape series which can be found here.

Did Jesus Falsely Predict His Return?

2007-01-25T22:58:00.000-05:00

A common argument against belief in Jesus within Jewish circles is the following: Jesus predicted his return within the lifetime of his original followers. Therefore, he was a false prophet.

The pertinent section of Scripture where this can be found is called the Olivet Discourse.

I'm reading through Dr. Michael L. Brown's "Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus: New Testament Objections", which is quite excellent. It includes a good answer to the posed problem. However, I would recommend R.C. Sproul's work on the question. He wrote a book called "the Last Days According to Jesus." Sproul takes the partial-preterist view.

He is currently broadcasting a radio series by the same name. You can find it online here. If this is an issue for you or if you love digging into Scripture, I highly recommend it.

I especially love the parallels between prophecies in the Tanakh and Y'shua's predictions that Sproul points out.

Jews for Judaism Gives an Example of Alleged Deception

2007-01-20T00:46:00.000-05:00

Kravitz outlined what he considers to be deceptive tactics of Messianic Christian organizations such as Jews for Jesus and Chosen People Ministries, who claim Jews can believe in Jesus as the Messiah and remain Jewish.

He said Jews are concerned about Christians who misquote Jewish texts...

Ok, that's at least more of a specific statement. So which texts do we knowingly misquote. I guess they are referring to Isaiah 7:14 and Psalm 22.

In regards to Isaiah 7:14, I would highly recommend Dr. Michael Brown's Answering Jewish Objections, Vol. 3. For Psalm 22, I would recommend this article by Jews for Jesus. Glenn Miller's Christian Thinktank has a very good article about this as well. I posted the link on the comments section of the Jews for Jesus article.

I'm curious if they have these in mind or others. If not, I fail to see how this is deception and not disagreement. I can understand if you challenge someone's foundational belief about who is and is not Jewish and that person confuses that with deception. But I don't understand how a disagreement over a text can be deception.

Alan Dershowitz Throws Stones at Jews for Jesus. Does He Live in a Glass House?

2006-12-26T20:54:00.000-05:00

Alan Dershowitz wrote:

By this time, everyone knows that Jews for Jesus are not really Jews. They are Christians using the cover of their Jewish origin to fool people into coming to their proselytizing services.

Actually Alan, they use the Tanakh. It's not "Believe in Jesus. I'm Jewish." It's "Believe in Jesus. It's true. And it's a perfectly Jewish thing to do."

Now, as far as I can recall, Alan Dershowitz does not believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He does not believe in the inspiration of the prophets. Jewish believers in Jesus do.

God's Promises, the Messiah, and Christmas

2006-12-22T21:50:00.000-05:00

Christmas is about the first coming of the Messiah. It is about the fulfillment of a series of promises that God made.

R.C. Sproul had very good broadcasts on this topic this week. Follow the link above to listen to them. They should be posted for a little while.

Dr. Sproul discusses the promises to Eve, Abraham, Judah, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. It is interesting to notice the progression of the promise of the Messiah as pieces of the puzzle fell into place over time.

The Wolf Shall Lie Down with the Lamb

2006-11-22T11:16:00.000-05:00

World Magazine did an article on Rock of Israel congregation in Philadelphia. They highlighted how this outreach to Jews is boiling over to Gentiles, including Muslims from former-Soviet areas.

Pay special attention to the use of Isaiah 11 in this article. Many teachers over the years viewed it as a prophecy regarding Jew and Gentile living together in peace, in the Messiah. I think this article wonderfully illustrates this by showing the reality of the promise.

Ilya Lizorkin had to shift gears. He started a worship service for Russian Jews, and Muslims showed up. Of course, he didn't start the thing at all but Jesus did, and His Spirit blows where it wills. Men of understanding let it blow and step out of the way.
...
I got to hear Andrei from Odessa on electric bass. I broke bread with a nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn named Lauren at the home of her Kyrgyzstan friends Ulan and Mira, whom she led to the Lord—after her own conversion by a cabby in New York. Our being all together reminded me somehow of the wall hanging I had spotted in Ilya's office:

"The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them" (Isaiah 11:6).

Hundreds of years ago, Matthew Henry wrote:

Unity or concord, which is intimated in these figurative promises, that even the wolf shall dwell peaceably with the lamb; men of the most fierce and furious dispositions, who used to bite and devour all about them, shall have their temper so strangely altered by the efficacy of the gospel and grace of Christ that they shall live in love even with the weakest and such as formerly they would have made an easy prey of. So far shall the sheep be from hurting one another, as sometimes they have done (Ezek. xxxiv. 20, 21), that even the wolves shall agree with them. Christ, who is our peace, came to slay all enmities and to settle lasting friendships among his followers, particularly between Jews and Gentiles: when multitudes of both, being converted to the faith of Christ, united in one sheep-fold, then the wolf and the lamb dwelt together; the wolf did not so much as threaten the lamb, nor was the lamb afraid of the wolf.

Jackie Mason Loses Court Case Against Jews for Jesus

2006-11-09T21:16:00.000-05:00

Comparing Jews for Jesus to Radical Muslims

2006-10-31T22:34:00.000-05:00

Here's a new one.

Although he won’t allow his face to be photographed and refuses to divulge where he lives, Dr. Hamid speaks throughout the US on understanding — and challenging — radical Islamic ideology.

I’m reminded of Jews trying to dialogue with Jews for Jesus and other Christian proselytizers. Either you know your Torah, or drown in their specious arguments.

The same applies to discussions with Muslims, says Dr. Hamid.

“It is vitally important to confront Islamic organizations in the US on these points. They should clarify their positions in an unambiguous manner. Of course, they will say what they say. But you must put your questions to them in a clear manner. Do not give them a chance to blame the world for their own actions. They know how to play with the words. I know, because I was one of them."

I enjoy interacting with people who know their Torah, personally.

I wonder what these specious arguments are. Does Jews for Jesus obfuscate their positions?

Andrea Jacobs, if you are out there and reading this, please shoot me an email or comment or something.

Reform Judaism's Article on Early Christianity

2006-09-26T15:57:00.000-04:00

The Jews for Jesus blog mentions a recent article by Reform Judaism's magazine about early Christianity and about how Jewish it was.

You heard it here first. Ok, that's a joke. But we weren't making it up.

Psalm 143 and Original Sin and Righteousness

2006-09-18T20:10:00.000-04:00

I was reading through some Psalms today and I was struck by the following in Psalm 143:

1Hear my prayer, O LORD;
give ear to my pleas for mercy!
In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness!
2Enter not into judgment with your servant,
for no one living is righteous before you.

No one living is righteous before God.

The consistent teaching of Scripture is that our own righteousness cannot stand before God. We need a righteousness that is not our own.

A righteousness that comes from faith.

So when you hear that that "original sin" teaching is just a Christian invention, check Scripture.

2006-2007 Torah Reading Schedule

2006-09-12T11:00:00.000-04:00

The above link is a pdf file First Fruit's of Zion produced. It is the Torah reading (and Haftorah) schedule for the new Jewish year.

If I may say so, it is a nice-looking document and very useful.

They also divide the gospels and the book of Acts into the schedule.

Thanks guys!

My Summer of Blogging

2006-09-06T10:08:00.001-04:00

Well, I would like to thank Jews for Jesus for the opportunity to blog for them. This goy is very grateful to God and them for the opportunity.

They aren't linking to me anymore, so if you are reading this, you are one of the diehards.

I will keep the blog active as things warrant, but not as active as this summer. There are only so many theological issues a blog can cover.

I have a few things still up my sleave though.

Thanks to everyone who left comments, both pro-Y'shua and against. It made for good discussion and interaction.

As the Reformers would say: Soli Deo Gloria. To God Alone Be the Glory!

Rabbi on Beliefnet.com Tries to Maintain the Inconsistent Standard of Jewish Identity

2006-09-01T08:32:00.000-04:00

My friend Jenny Moyers is not the most connected Jew ever to walk the earth. She doesn’t belong to a synagogue and does not celebrate any of the Jewish holidays in her home. She seems to regard my rabbinic career path with something bordering between amusement and disdain.

So it came as something of a shock to me when one day we were walking together in the Philadelphia subway and a yellow-shirted Jews for Jesus missionary approached us to offer some literature. Jenny went completely ballistic and started yelling at him at the top of her voice, screaming that he ought to be ashamed of himself for calling himself a Jew. “Jews do not believe in Jesus!” she yelled. “What you are doing is disgraceful!” Needless to say, Jenny’s outburst made quite an impression on me, and it got me thinking.

When Jews for Jesus was in Philadelphia, my hometown, this time last year, I don't think they ever wore yellow shirts. I was proud to have been a part of that effort, so I have first-hand knowledge. Maybe the author is using "Jews for Jesus" in the generic sense.

But whether through Jews for Jesus or through another organization or an individual or through a congregation, may the Lord be glorified by the proclamation of His message.

Jews for Jesus push a lot of people’s buttons–even people who would otherwise not really care about Jewish tradition or practice–because they reside at the messy little intersection of identity and belief. For the most part, you can believe (or not believe) and do (or not do) whatever you want and still be Jewish. That’s because being Jewish isn’t a function of a particular belief or set of actions so much as it is a cultural, historic, and spiritual identity into which you are born or choose to convert. You’re just Jewish and, like Jenny, you don’t really need to worry about the particulars.

Jews for Jesus messes that all up.

Yes, it's called inconsistency. The author and his friend apply a different standard to Jewish believers than they do to themselves.

If you really can believe whatever you want as a Jew, couldn’t you be Jewish and believe in Jesus? The answer is no, and I think it has less to do with theological objections–although these certainly exist–than it does with identity issues. For 2,000 years, at least in the West, Christians are what Jews defined themselves against. Oppressed, victimized, expelled, and slaughtered simply for who they were, Jews had their identity and outsider status reinforced over and over again. They were Other, and the oppressors were Christians.

The symbol of Christianity par excellence, the defining element, is Jesus. So to hear the words “Jew” and “Jesus” strung together into the phrase “Jews for Jesus” hits a very raw nerve for many Jews today–I imagine something akin to what Jews for Allah(!) would do to Jews who were oppressed in Islamic societies.

It’s not out of hatred of Jesus, or of Christians, or of Christianity, but rather as a reaction to hundreds of years of oppression. And for the many Jews like Jenny who don’t participate in Jewish life in any way, rejecting Jews for Jesus affirms their own bona fide Jewish identity. But, perhaps just as revealingly, the forceful reaction also acknowledges an underlying insecurity and doubt about whether you really can do or believe whatever you want and still be Jewish. Because the truth is, you can’t–there are some lines that just can’t be crossed.

In other words, the objections are based in sociology.

Now, persecution of Jews by Christians is a horrible history. A major problem of the combonation of church and state was the confusion of what constituted a believer. Everyone was assumed to be Christian unless you were Jewish.

Now, much can be said on the topic. But the main thing I want to say is that this doesn't mean Jesus isn't the Messiah. If people who were believers and those who weren't acted inconsistently with the commands of the Messiah, that doesn't mean you can't be Jewish and believe in Jesus.

It explains the sociology behind the reactions. But it doesn't negate the truth of God and His Messiah.

Our standard must always be God and what He has said.

Update: Here was a great comment left by one person to the rabbi/author.

As a Jew who believes in Jesus, I appreciate Rabbi Waxman's cogent observation about his friend Jenny. I agree with him that the question of identity hits a raw nerve.

I believe the issue that he brings up, however, that history is the defining factor of being Jewish to be erroneous. Aside from the strange position that one defines Jewishness by a negative, 2000 years of history in whatever form it might have taken does not change who Jesus is: neither his identity, nor his message.

As a Jew who grew up in Judaism, I have come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah that was promised by Moses and the prophets. If that is the case, then believing not only allows me to be Jewish, it is the most Jewish thing I can do. If he is not that Messiah, then no one should believe, whether Jew or Gentile.

The truth comes down not to history but to the proper understanding of the truth of Scriptures, which is something I'm sure both Rabbi Waxman and I can agree our Jewish people are sorely lacking in, as a rule.

Why the Messiah Had to Die Before Ushering in Peace--- and Why You Would Want Him To

2006-08-30T16:02:00.000-04:00

The other day I was thinking about the standard Jewish objection that Jesus can't be the Messiah because he didn't usher in world peace.

Now, we would say that he came first to die for our sins and later he will establish a kingdom of peace.

I would imagine that sounds like a cop-out to some. But do me a favor and go through the following mental exercise with me.

Imagine the Messiah came, not to suffer our sin, but to establish peace. What would establishing peace entail?

It would require establishing a kingdom in righteousness. And as Isaiah writes, all our righteousness is like filthy rags. So to bring in righteousness, the Messiah would have to judge and punish our righteousness.

That leaves us in a heap of trouble.

So if the Messiah came only one time to rid the world of evil, we would be in a lot of trouble.

Be careful what you wish for. And be thankful that the Messiah came first to bear the sins of his people and then later to judge the world in righteousness, so we have time to turn from our sins.

As David wrote: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts."

Jackie Mason Sues Jews for Jesus

2006-08-25T18:25:00.000-04:00

Jackie Mason has sued Jews for Jesus. From MSNBC:

The $2 million lawsuit seeks the immediate destruction of the pamphlet, which members of the missionary group have been handing out at various points around New York City.

“While I have the utmost respect for people who practice the Christian faith, the fact is, as everyone knows, I am as Jewish as a matzo ball or kosher salami,” the 75-year-old comedian said in documents filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan.
...
“The pamphlet uses my name, my likeness, my ‘shtick’ (if you will), and my very act, which is derived from my personality, to attract attention and converts,” Mason said in an affidavit.

Jews for Jesus has released a press release.

Jackie Mason, the comedian, is suing Jews for Jesus over one of their evangelistic pamphlets which features his likeness. The pamphlet, entitled, "Jackie Mason, a Jew for Jesus!?" is a good natured look at how anyone, Jew or Gentile, can become a follower of Jesus.

Mason, in his lawsuit, says that the pamphlet gives the impression that he is a proponent of Jews for Jesus. Jews for Jesus denies this. The pamphlet is satirical in style and intended to point out that even someone as Jewish as Jackie Mason can come to faith in Jesus. Mason describes himself "as Jewish as a matzoh ball or kosher salami. . ."

Jews for Jesus executive director, David Brickner, responded, "Jackie may be as Jewish as a matzoh ball, but Jesus is as Jewish as chicken soup. It is our hope that this issue will not have to go through the courts, [the case has been removed from the Supreme Court of the State of New York to Federal Court] but this is a matter of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. We are not claiming Jackie Mason to be a Jew for Jesus. Of course, if he's interested, we're sure Jesus would welcome him as a follower."

Hating Jews for Jesus and the Psychological Reasons Behind It

2006-08-25T11:53:00.000-04:00

Lynn Harris, who judging by her column's name is a rabbi's wife, goes into her reasons for hating Jews for Jesus.

The usual confusion between lying and disagreement is there. I've commented on that several times, so search the archives if that interests you.

Then there's the matter of the built-in mind-bender: I'm sorry, no, we cannot be both Jews and "for" Jesus. The "for Jesus" part—that would make us Christians. And it's indescribably offensive to be told that to become truly "fulfilled" or "completed" Jews, we must, in effect, leave Judaism behind. In fact, the Jew/Jesus thing can be seen as an outright lie. The missionaries might move a step or two down the hate scale if they'd quit playing Jewish music and using the star of David and just say, "Hi there! Before you get on the subway, we'd like you to become a Christian."

Lynn Harris goes on:

Even with a more honest approach, there'd still be the matter of Christians converting Jews—historically, an extremely uncomfortable maneuver. "There's more than one way to wipe out a people, and poison, like gas, comes in many forms," writes Burston. "Sometimes it looks like a leaflet. Sometimes it looks like the Internet. Sometimes it looks like a smile."

Way to poison the well. Sort of hard to discuss anything when someone is accusing a group of furthering genocide, regardless of the merits of the claim.

Harris continues to go on about a Christian grandmother who would discuss Jesus with her.

And then she closes:

I do not forgive or feel bad for Jews for Jesus the way I do my grandmother. For one thing, if you'd pressed her about nomenclature, she'd probably have said, "Well yes, accepting Jesus would make you Christian." No confusion—that is, duplicity—there. When it comes to Jews for Jesus, what I'd like to be able to say is something like, "How our sympathies shift when we get to know the people about whom we make assumptions!" But it's not nearly that simple. My own intimacy with their cause makes me both understand and resent them more.

Duplicity confused with disagreement. But I wonder if that's what's going on.

Preaching the good news of the Messiah isn't the problem. Lynn Harris and others repeatedly say that if someone said "become a Christian" they would be OK with that.

Maybe what the problem is that affirming the Jewishness of Jesus and following Jesus makes the message pertinent. And when the message is pertinent then you'll see negative reactions to the message.

Behold Your God Final Report

2006-08-23T08:56:00.000-04:00

I saw that Bob Mendelsohn has blogged about the final statistics of what happened during July's New York City-area outreach.

Behind any report are numerous antecdotes and interesting stories. And in everything, may God be glorified.

For the month of July, Jews for Jesus was an unavoidable presence in the
greater New York area —the final stop of the organization’s “Behold Your God”
evangelistic campaigns, which covered every city (54 of them) outside of Israel
with a Jewish population of 25,000 or more.

This Grand Final pulled out all the stops, with over 150 staff and volunteers
from around the world conducting nine simultaneous outreaches to all five
boroughs of New York City, as well as Westchester, Northern New Jersey and Long
Island. Three other outreaches took place among the language groups— Russian-speaking Jews, Israelis, and Yiddish-speaking Chassidim. The Chassidic campaign included the mailing of Yiddish language DVDs of the life of Jesus to 80,000
Jewish households.

In addition, 450,000 direct mail pieces were sent to Jewish households,
1,800,000 evangelistic pamphlets (broadsides) were distributed, 6,410 enquirers
(3,695 [=57%] of them Jewish) who don’t yet believe in Jesus gave their details
for further ministry, and 502 people prayed to receive Jesus as their Messiah
(241 [=48%] of them Jewish) with our teams.

For those who didn’t receive a pamphlet or a mailer, there were the many
billboards, banners, full-page newspaper ads and subway ads that blanketed the
area. The theme, “Jesus for Jews” was picked up by 13 local and national
television news programs that covered the month-long campaign and a feature article
in every major newspaper including the Jewish press.

“I was asked the question “Who is your PR agent?” by several people who were
amazed at how the subject of Jews believing in Jesus was being discussed
everywhere,” said David Brickner, US executive director of Jews for Jesus. “In
response, I would smile and point upward. We really saw the Lord’s hand in
all of this. Over 700 area churches and individuals were praying for us daily;
thousands of others around the world were getting regular prayer requests and
updates. We have been able to partner with local congregations on the
follow-up and in all this, I believe, God is greatly honored.”

Jewish Believer Writes Oratorio

2006-08-21T16:31:00.000-04:00

I would be interested in hearing it.

“I was a Messianic Jew in a Messianic temple in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.,” when the inspiration came, she said.

Since then, she has based her ministry on the historic and prophetic links between Judaism and Christianity.
...
“The Coronation of the King” is marked by soaring music and eye-catching props. Performers will march on stage with banners representing the 22 letters of the Torah.

"Properly Educated Jews Won't Believe in Jesus"

2006-08-18T08:38:00.000-04:00

How often have you heard this? Often. Now stricly speaking, this isn't true. See my interview with Bob Mendelsohn for a counter-example.

It makes it sound as though properly educated religious Jews are safe from the buffets of the outside world. So imagine my surprise when I discovered a book which discusses why Observant Jews leave Judaism and what to do about it.

Now, I don't want gloat over this situation.

I am hoping that crass and simplistic statements like the title of this post will eventually fade away. People make up their own minds for a variety of reasons, even Orthodox Jews.

Some who professed belief in Y'shua no longer believe in the Messiah. Some who were Orthodox Jews no longer are. Some atheists are now believers in Y'shua. Some are now something completely different. Some are still atheists.

I've heard similar comments from other faith communities besides the Orhtodox Jewish, to be fair.

I think the comment is subconsciously intented to make people feel better about people rejecting something you believe to be true. "Those people believe in because they didn't truly understand what they were leaving." Maybe. Maybe not.

The truth of my faith is grounded upon the veracity of Scripture and the death and Resurrection of Y'shua. People may believe. They may fall away. They may have been educated in the faith. Maybe not. That doesn't affect whether my faith is true or not.

Here was a good comment from a review of the book:

One of her findings is that there is no single all- encompassing reason why observant Jews cease to be so. It can be the coolness of their own observant parents to religion, or the difficulty they have with teachers in school. It can come from their own sense of the religion's simply 'not working' for them. There are many , many reasons. And the author is honest enough to say that she has no formula for any specific case.

The Servant of the LORD

2006-08-17T07:39:00.000-04:00

Isaiah 49:1-7

1Listen to me, O coastlands,
and give attention, you peoples from afar.
The LORD called me from the womb,
from the body of my mother he named my name.
2He made my mouth like a sharp sword;
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow;
in his quiver he hid me away.
3And he said to me, "You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified."[a]
4But I said, "I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my right is with the LORD,
and my recompense with my God."

5And now the LORD says,
he who formed me from the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him;
and that Israel might be gathered to him--
for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD,
and my God has become my strength--
6he says:
"It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."

7Thus says the LORD,
the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation,
the servant of rulers:
"Kings shall see and arise;
princes, and they shall prostrate themselves;
because of the LORD, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you."

Another Example of Conflating Disagreement with Deception

2006-08-15T09:24:00.000-04:00

NJ Jewish News:

An appearance by a Jews for Jesus missionary arranged by an evangelical church in South Brunswick angered local Jewish leaders, who pledged to expand counter-missionary education efforts within their own institutions.
...
An ad promoting the Calvary Chapel Crossroads appearance by Telchin, founder and former president of the now defunct Stan Telchin Ministries, ran in the Sentinel, a weekly newspaper published by Greater Media Newspapers. In the ad, Telchin describes how he as a Jew reacted when his 21-year-old daughter confessed a belief in Jesus and how the event spurred his own acceptance of Jesus. The ad included a phone number, address, e-mail address, and Web site for Jews for Jesus.

“The ad was so deceptive it made my blood boil,” said Rabbi Mendy Carlebach of the Chabad House of North and South Brunswick. “We cannot tolerate this kind of deception; telling people they can be both Jews and Christians is totally wrong. Even different priests I know are very angry about it because it’s very deceptive.”

If Rabbi Carlebach actually read the New Testament, he would have seen that one of the main questions is how Gentiles can believe in the Messiah Jesus without becoming Jews. Jews being Jews and believing in Jesus is just understood.

So I'm not sure what priests he's talking to, but they aren't heeding the Scriptures.

Unlike the quotes above, the ADL is saying its not the message but the tactics.

According to the ADL and other Jewish and interfaith groups, Jews for Jesus uses “duplicitous” and “ethically immoral” tactics to attract Jews of marginal observance such as many within the Russian immigrant community.

Ever notice how these tactics aren't specified beyond Jews for Jesus only targets non-observant Jews.

Also, do you notice the repeated insults to non-observant Jews? If they weren't such bad Jews, they wouldn't believe in Jesus.

I wonder what a non-observant Jew would have to say about this accusation. They would probably say they can think for themselves.

So why was Jews for Jesus sending DVDs to the Chasidim?

Well, one blogger I read said the Chasidim must be vulnerable targets. One should tell Rabbi Carlebach that. Why else would Jews for Jesus target them?

Trying to break through this kind of circular logic is incredibly hard.

Maybe, just maybe, Jews for Jesus tries to communicate with everyone about Jesus because Jesus said to preach the gospel to everyone.

And, shock of all shocks, Jews for Jesus even talks to Gentiles about Jesus while out and about on the street. I wonder how they would filter that through their grid.

College's Hiring of Jew for Jesus Irks Rabbis

2006-08-12T23:52:00.000-04:00

A northwest suburban community college has hired an evangelical missionary to teach doctrines of Judaism and Christianity, irking local rabbis who fear the instructor's "subtle evangelism" will creep into the classroom.

Jhan Moskowitz, head of Chicago's chapter of Jews for Jesus, a missionary group that seeks to convert Jews to Christianity, will teach a one-time comparative religion class at Harper College in Palatine on Sept. 21.

College administrators say Moskowitz, 57, has assured them he will teach the basics, not preach the Gospel. To Moskowitz, his academic credentials are more relevant than his full-time job running the evangelical group.

"If I tell you I don't want to increase my sphere of influence in the lives of others in order to make what I believe clear to them, I'd be lying to you," he said. "But the classroom is not the venue in which I do that."

I know Jhan. He has a great depth of knowledge. Who better than a missionary to understand both sides and where they stand?

Rabbi Max Weiss of Beth Tikvah Congregation in Hoffman Estates said he was taken aback when, while flipping through the college catalog, he ran across the course description for "Basic Doctrines: Judaism and Christianity," which identifies Moskowitz.

"The Jews for Jesus organization often resorts to less than straight-forward or honest tactics to accomplish their goals," Weiss wrote in a letter addressed to the college president.

"I fear that this is exactly what he is doing with the class at Harper College," he said in an interview. "They have other people capable of teaching the class from a scholarly perspective."

How many times this summer have I heard the "I don't agree with them that you can be Jewish and for Jesus so they must be deceptive" line of reasoning?

I wonder what those tactics are. One wonders why they named the organization "Jews for Jesus", since the name is upfront with who they are for and what they are advocating. But let's not something as inconvenient as contrary facts stand in the way of a negative charge against Jews for Jesus.

But Jhan doesn't need my defending.

"To simply presume that someone will abuse their power over students because they happen to have a strong point of view is frankly unfair," he said.

Moskowitz said the rabbis have nothing to fear:

"I'm not preaching the Gospel. I'm teaching a class in history. I'm living the Gospel."

Greek Philosophy and the Kaballah

2006-08-11T00:08:00.000-04:00

I saw the following on Judaism 101:

To give you an idea of the nature of Kabbalah, I will briefly discuss one of the better known, fundamental concepts of kabbalistic thought: the concept of G-d as Ein Sof, the Ten Sefirot, and the kabbalistic tree of life. This explanation is, at best, a gross oversimplification. I do not pretend to fully understand these ideas.

According to Kabbalah, the true essence of G-d is so transcendent that it cannot be described, except with reference to what it is not. This true essence of G-d is known as Ein Sof, which literally means "without end," which encompasses the idea of His lack of boundaries in both time and space. In this truest form, the Ein Sof is so transcendent that It cannot have any direct interaction with the universe. The Ein Sof interacts with the universe through ten emanations from this essence, known as the Ten Sefirot.
...
The Sefirot are not separate deities, as some might think by taking this too literally. They are intimately a part of G-d, and yet they are in contact with the universe in a way that the Ein Sof is not. The Sefirot connect with everything in the universe, including humanity. The good and evil that we do resonates through the Sefirot and affects the entire universe, up to and including G-d Himself.

While I am no Kaballah expert this is all very familiar to me.

These seem to be derived from Neo-Platonic thought. 1) the ability to speak of God only in term of what He is not. 2) The emenations from God.

Now, I don't want it to seem that I'm picking on some portions of Orthodox Judaism. Neo-Platonic thinking has also heavily influenced Eastern Orthodoxy.

Here is a Wikipedia article about Plotinus, who is widely considered the father of Neo-Platonism. Try to notice the similarities.

Plotinus taught that there is a supreme, totally transcendent "One", containing no division, multiplicity or distinction; likewise it is beyond all categories of being and non-being. The concept of "being" is derived by us from the objects of human experience, and is an attribute of such objects, but the infinite, transcendent One is beyond all such objects, and therefore is beyond the concepts that we derive from them. The One "cannot be any existing thing", and cannot be merely the sum of all such things (compare the Stoic doctrine of disbelief in non-material existence), but "is prior to all existents". Thus, no attributes can be assigned to the One.
...
The One, being beyond all attributes including being and non-being, is the source of the world not through any act of creation, willful or otherwise, since activity cannot be ascribed to the unchangeable, immutable One. Plotinus resorts to a logical principle that the "less perfect" must, of necessity, "emanate", or issue forth, from the "perfect" or "more perfect". Thus, all of "creation" emanates from the One in succeeding stages of lesser and lesser perfection. These stages are not temporally isolated, but occur throughout time as a constant process. Later Neoplatonic philosophers, especially Iamblichus, added hundreds of intermediate beings as emanations between the One and humanity; but Plotinus' system was much simpler in comparison.
...
the One is in no way affected or diminished by these emanations. Plotinus uses the analogy of the Sun which emanates light indiscriminately without thereby "lessening" itself, or reflection in a mirror which in no way diminishes or otherwise alters the object being reflected.

Are there differences between straight Neo-Platonism and the Kaballah? Yes. There are also differences with Eastern Orthodoxy.

But the Greek influences seem to be clearly there.

Y'shua on the Bronze Snake

2006-08-09T13:09:00.000-04:00

Numbers 21:4-9

4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!"

6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.

8 The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

John 3:13-18

13No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

16"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

The Limits of Orthodox Theology

2006-08-08T09:52:00.000-04:00

Due to some Internet searches, I stumbled upon a book by Marc Shapiro, who holds the Weinberg Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Scranton.

The thesis of his book is that agreement on Maimonides' Thirteen Principles wasn't present prior to Miamonides or even sometimes after him.

This article primarily quotes the book on the eternality of the Torah (the 9th principle).

Most disturbing to Viterbo is what he views as Maimonides' presumptuousness in instructing God, as it were, on how He can conduct Himself. Emden makes a similar point:

“We absolutely do not admit that which Maimonides laid down, that the entire Torah will not change, for there is no decisive proof for this—neither from reason and logic nor from the Bible. Verily, the Sages tell us that the Holy One will give a new Torah in the future. If our King should wish to change the Torah, or exchange it for another, whatever the King wishes, whether it be to descend on Mount Sinai or another of the mighty mountains, or even a valley, there to appear a second time before the eyes of all the living, we would be the first to do His will, whatever be His bidding.

Anyway, I post this since it should not only be an interesting read, but should give us new insight.

When people say Judaism teaches this or Judaism teaches that, we should ask, as I previously posted, what's the authority. Push to the ultimate authority. What does Scripture say? Test a teaching in light of Scripture and see what is true.

One could equally say "Christianity teaches X" or "Christianity teaches Y". Or more likely "the pope says this" or "tradition says this."

When the masses heard Y'shua teach they were amazed because he spoke as one with authority. We should push back to our ultimate authority, the very words of God.

Because when you look to any tradition of any background, you are not going to find complete consistency. Also, if it is not in line with what God has revealed, it is a foundation made of sand.

We should always be testing our beliefs against Scripture.

God Appears as a Man in the Torah

2006-08-04T12:11:00.000-04:00

Since the teaching of the incarnation (not man becoming God) seems incomprehensible to some, I wanted to provide the following portion of the Torah. Also worth noting is the food offered to the men at the end of this passage.

Genesis 18:1-8

1And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. 2He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth 3and said, "O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. 4Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, 5while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on--since you have come to your servant." So they said, "Do as you have said." 6And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, "Quick! Three seahs of fine flour! Knead it, and make cakes." 7And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man, who prepared it quickly. 8Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

Tisha B'Av

2006-08-03T16:18:00.000-04:00

Right now, as I post this, we are in the final hours of Tisha B'Av, which is a day to commemorate the destruction of both the first and the second Temples.

Given the current unrest in Israel with Hezbollah, it is well worth to take the time to reflect. It's always worth the time to reflect and mourn what should be mourned. But it becomes more poignant.

It is customary to read the book of Lamentations, so here is a link to the book.

It is also worth noting that Y'shua prophecied the destruction of the Second Temple.

Remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Do Christians Believe in Three Gods?

2006-08-02T12:26:00.000-04:00

Since the charge of polytheism gets bantered about, I thought the article linked above may be worth a read.

From the article:

The idea in the Scriptures is not that a man became God--God forbid--but that the Messiah would himself be God coming as a man. Isaiah 9:6 portrays the coming of the Messiah in these terms: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." But if God is indeed a "tri-unity," then it is possible for the Messiah both to be called God and also to exist in a relationship characterized as "son of God." This is the conclusion we Jews who believe in Jesus are driven to as we study the Scriptures. With our fellow Jews, we affirm that "the Lord our God, the Lord is one"--a oneness characterized by a "tri-unity."

Justification by Faith Alone in the Tanakh

2006-08-01T12:34:00.000-04:00

The teaching of justification by faith alone is the teaching that all those who trust in God and His Messiah are declared righteous. You would not be declared righteous on the the basis of the merits of your good works. Although genuine faith will result in a change and in good works, although no one this side of heaven is perfected.

The Tanakh, the traditional Jewish Scriptures, fully supports this.

First, the Tanakh supports the problem. In Psalm 130 it is written, "If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?"

David, who knew a thing or two about sinning against God, wrote in Psalm 14:

The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one.

When Jeremiah describes the new covenant that was coming God says "I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remmeber no more." (Jeremiah 31:34)

In the Torah, it is written: "Abram believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness." (Genesis 15:6)

The Torah does not read "Abram did a bunch of good stuff and it was accounted to him as righteousness." He was accounted righteous by faith. Later, Abraham's act of obedience proved his faith was genuine.

Speaking of the Messiah, Isaiah writes "by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities." (Isaiah 53:11)

We receive the Messiah's righteousness and we give him our iniquities. That is the exchange. Our filth for the Messiah's righteousness.

Zechariah shows this exchange:

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?" Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, "Remove the filthy garments from him." And to him he said, "Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments."

The Messiah takes away our iniquity and clothes us in his righteousness. That is truly good news.

the Blessedness That Comes Through Faith

2006-07-30T21:08:00.000-04:00

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one. He will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

What then shall we say was gained by[a] Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

"Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin."

Romans 3:21-4:8

More on Superman and Jesus

2006-07-29T23:31:00.000-04:00

So I decided to treat myself to a showing of the IMAX 3D version of Superman Returns.

Here's another connection to the message of Jesus you may have not thought about.

Paul, in Romans 1, speaks of how mankind suppresses the truth of God in unrighteousness. In other words, deep inside were are made with knowledge of God.

Maybe a parallel, albeit and unintentional and probably weak one, is how people don't recognize Clark Kent is Superman.

I mean it should obvious, right?

Well, Paul says:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart were darkened. (Romans 1:20-21)

And I thought not recognizing someone due to a pair of glasses was foolish.

Those Controversial MTA Ads

2006-07-29T23:21:00.000-04:00

The New York Post picture that everyone has seen couldn't do them justice. Actually, this one doesn't either.

It was a beautiful sight to behold.

2006-07-29T18:14:00.000-04:00

Undoing the Death of God: Tackling Unbelief in the Wake of the Holocaust

2006-07-29T07:44:00.000-04:00

Radical Jewish theologians such as Rubenstein are not alone as they wrestle with the loving God of traditional Judaism and the sickening horror of shocking evil. As even Orthodox rabbi Irving Greenberg writes, “To talk of love and of a God who cares in the presence of the burning children is obscene and incredible; to lean in and pull a child out of a pit, to clean its face and heal its body, is to make…the only statement that counts.”

Jewish theologian Seymour Cain adds that the Holocaust is a “stumbling block,” and “whatever may be the case with Christian theologians, for whom it seems to play no significant generative or transformative role, the Jewish religious thinker is forced to confront full face that horror, the uttermost evil in Jewish history.”

Messianic believer and theologian Jakob Jocz notes, “Auschwitz casts a black pall upon the civilized world. Not only…man’s humanity…but God himself stands accused. Jews are asking insistently: Where was God when our brothers and sisters were dragged to the gas ovens?…Faith in the God of Israel… is…a challenge, but after Auschwitz it is an agonizing venture for every thinking Jew.”
...
Many Jews believe that evil won out and that God died in the Holocaust. That settles the quandary for them, but it didn’t settle it for Wiesel. His bitter experiences during those horrific years of the Holocaust did not deprive him of belief in God once-and-for-all. Wiesel’s progression of thought on this issue may provide valuable insight for those Jews who suffer the same kinds of existential confusion as he did over their own religious atheism.

It appears that further reflection and the passage of time forced Wiesel to adjust some of his perspectives on the Holocaust. He recorded this shift in his lesser-known and more-reflective pieces. We shall note only three examples from these writings, although there are several that bear similar testimony.

In a journal article, Wiesel affirmed that any genuine protest against God—such as those of Abraham (Gen. 18), Moses and Aaron (Exod. 5, 32; Num. 16), Job (Job 13, etc.), David (Pss. 10, 13, etc.), Jeremiah (Jer. 12; Lam. 3, etc.), and Habakkuk (Hab. 1)—must come from within the covenant context, not from without. Specifically, he stated, “The Jew…may rise against God, provided that he remains within God.”10

Later, in a television interview, Wiesel propounded the following thought: “For a Jew to believe in God is good. For a Jew to protest against God is still good. But to simply ignore God, that is not good. Anger, yes. Protest, yes. Affirmation, yes. But indifference to God, no. You can be a Jew with God; you can be a Jew against God; but not without God.”11

Finally, Wiesel testified to his own ongoing struggle with God when he declared, “To be a Jew is to have all the reasons in the world not to have faith…in God, but to go on telling the tale…and [having your] own silent…quarrels with God.”12 The emotional Wiesel refuses to embrace the painful reality of the God of his tradition; the rational Wiesel, like Jacob of old, grapples with God as a living Being, seeking blessing for himself and his people.
...
It is likely that Wiesel ultimately refused to abandon God altogether because he was able to envision the logical consequences of his Holocaust-induced religious atheism. To begin our case for God’s existence during and since the Holocaust, we must lovingly nudge our Jewish friends toward those same logical conclusions. In other words, we must ask, What would be some of the inevitable consequences of persisting in the belief that there is no God or that God really did die in the Holocaust? A rational exploration of these consequences may cause our Jewish friends to reevaluate their atheism.

Consequence no. 1: Illegitimate Law

Laws do not come from nowhere. They must come from lawmakers or lawgivers. If there is no God, laws must come from humans; that is, they must be derived from the best and worst proposals of humankind. To embrace atheism is to embrace a world without any transcendent Lawgiver.

Without a transcendent moral Lawgiver there can be no transcendent moral laws, and the people who govern or control therefore will be the elite who are in power, either the consenting majority or the empowered minority or individual (e.g., Hitler and the Nazis). As Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) observed in his novel The Brothers Karamazov, if there is no transcendent rule or reign of law, that is, “if there is no God, all things are permissible.”

So it was in the dark days of the Judges, when “there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 17:6; 21:25). Evidence of this in our own day is clearly manifest: public opinion reigns supreme. Gallup and his polls have replaced Moses and his laws!
...
Like laws, morals and ethics do not come from nowhere; they come from moral and ethical determiners. Any set of morals that is not transcendently based, that is, determined from outside the human frame of reference, of necessity must be determined from within the human context. This means that any moral or ethical system derived from such a godless world must be relative to its very core. We, accordingly, could not talk about “morals” (i.e., prescriptive norms: what people ought to do), but only about “mores” (descriptive norms: what people actually do).

Philosopher Norman Geisler states this dilemma as follows: “How would you know that the Holocaust is ultimately wrong [or evil] unless you knew what was ultimately right? If you don’t have an absolute standard for right, you can’t say that [the Holocaust] is absolutely wrong. That’s just your opinion, and somebody else’s opinion could be, the Holocaust was the best thing in the history of mankind.”
...
When our Jewish friend or colleague protests in a vehement moral outrage that there has been no God since the Holocaust, it is imperative that we lovingly remind him or her that such a moral outrage, if it is to be valid, must be grounded in the very existence of God, His transcendent law, and His absolute morality. Otherwise, it is ultimately groundless emotional ranting.

We must help our Jewish friend recognize, along with Elie Wiesel, that the consequences of denying God’s existence are far worse than accepting it, even after the Holocaust. In fact, if there were no God, the Nazis could not have been held accountable for their evil deeds, for there only would have been deeds, not evil deeds. There can be public opinions and private viewpoints, but without God, there can be no legal or moral accountability for one’s actions.

God's Strange Angel V: Looking for Evidence of the Trinity in the Tanakh

2006-07-28T16:30:00.000-04:00

The Angel in Zechariah

In our last passage in this series for your consideration, the house of David "shall be like God, like the angel of the LORD."

Zechariah 12:7-10

7"And the LORD will give salvation to the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not surpass that of Judah. 8On that day the LORD will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the LORD, going before them. 9And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

10"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.

With the LORD speaking, He says that He will be pierced while at the same time saying "they will morn for him."

If the Messiah Came, Why Isn't There Peace?

2006-07-28T08:52:00.000-04:00

Good question.

Let me quote Michael Brown:

“According to the biblical timetable, things are right on schedule, and Jesus is doing everything the Messiah was to expected to do up until this point. The problem is that you have an incomplete understanding of the biblical picture of the Messiah. According to the prophet Malachi, the Messiah would bring purification and purging before he brought peace. He would execute judgment before he established justice. Many would not be able to endure the consequences of his coming. This is written in our Hebrew Bible! For many of our people, his coming would be bad news, not good news. Our Scriptures also teach that the Messiah was to be a priestly King, like David. As a royal Priest, he came to make atonement for sins and offer forgiveness and reconciliation to Israel and the nations. As King, his dominion expands every day, as he rules over those who embrace him as Messiah. Soon he will return and establish his kingdom on the earth, destroying the wicked and bringing world wide peace. So, what you expected to be the first act of the play will be actually be the final act!” (See Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, vol. 1, pp. 69-88.)

I posted in one of the comments section, that for the Messiah to establish peace right away, the Messiah would have to wipe both you and I off the face of the earth and blot our names out from the Book of Life.

The first coming of the Messiah was so we can be written into the Book of Life.

"Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place." (Daniel 9:24)

As Isaiah wrote: "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5)

Paul writes: "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus [the Messiah]." (Romans 5:1)

Jesus is coming again. The next time to establish peace everywhere.

Those with faith in the Messiah can say with David:

Blessed is he whose transgression is gorgiven,
Whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceipt. (Psalm 32:1-2)

God's Strange Angel IV: Looking for Evidence of the Trinity in the Tanakh

2006-07-27T18:59:00.000-04:00

The Angel and the Book of Judges

In the following passage, the angel of the LORD says he brought Israel out of Egypt and he mentions
his covenant with Israel.

Judges 2:1-4
1Now the angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, "I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore
to give to your fathers. I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you, 2and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land;
you shall break down their altars.' But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? 3So now I say, I will not drive them out
before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you." 4As soon as the angel of the LORD spoke
these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept.

In the following text, the angel of the LORD appears to Gideon. When Gideon realizes the person who appeared to him is the angel of the LORD, he is afraid for his life. Why? He has seen the angel's face.

It seems there is something more in Gideon's mind.

You cannot see God's face and live. (Exodus 33:20) Gideon equates seeing the angel with seeing God Himself.

Judges 6:11-24

11Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating
out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, "The LORD is with
you, O mighty man of valor." 13And Gideon said to him, "Please, sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where
are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has
forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian." 14And the LORD turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours and save Israel from
the hand of Midian; do not I send you?" 15And he said to him, "Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in
Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house." 16And the LORD said to him, "But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as
one man." 17And he said to him, "If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speaks with me. 18Please
do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you." And he said, "I will stay till you return."

19So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the terebinth and presented them. 20And the angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them." And he did so. 21Then the angel of the LORD reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes. And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the LORD vanished from his sight. 22Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the LORD. And Gideon said, "Alas, O Lord GOD! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face." 23But the LORD said to him, "Peace
be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die." 24Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD and called it, The LORD is Peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.

Again, when the angel of the LORD appears to Manoah and his wife, they identify the
angel as God Himself.

Judges 13:15-23

15Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, "Please let us detain you and prepare a young goat for you." 16And the angel of the LORD said to Manoah, "If you detain me, I will not eat of your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the LORD." (For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the LORD.) 17And Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, "What is your name, so that, when your words come
true, we may honor you?" 18And the angel of the LORD said to him, "Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?" 19So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered it on the rock to the LORD, to the one who works[a] wonders, and Manoah and his wife were watching. 20And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the LORD went up in the flame of the altar. Now Manoah and his wife were watching, and they fell on their faces to the ground.

21The angel of the LORD appeared no more to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the LORD. 22And Manoah said to his wife, "We shall surely die, for we have seen God." 23But his wife said to him, "If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such
things as these."

Evidence for the Resurrection of Y'shua

2006-07-27T00:00:00.000-04:00

In Romans chapter 1 Paul wrote the following:

Paul, a servant of [Messiah] Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus [the Messiah] our Lord,

Jesus is declared to to be the Son of God by being raised from the dead (again, for folks reading this blog re-read previous posts to understand what we mean by "Son of God").

So what's the evidence for the Resurrection?

1)Jesus died on the cross and was buried. His earliest enemies knew this to be true. And no one, until Mohammed, doubted that he died on the cross.

Justin Martyr, circa 150, refers the Roman emperor to the works of Pontius Pile in his archive for the reports of Jesus' death and miracles. His death is mentioned by Cornelius Tactitus around 112-124 A.D. Lucian of Samosata, Josephus, and the Letter of Samosata all mention Jesus' death. Jewish Talmudic writings also corroborate this fact.

I have already mentioned I Corinthians 15, written by the apostle Paul. Versus 3 through 5 are believed to be an early Christian creed dated to the first 5 years after Jesus' death. Mark, the earliest gospel at around 40 A.D., records Jesus' death. These report Jesus' death very early.

While some skeptics have doubted the existence of Jesus, let alone his death, there is no basis for this. The earliest Christian record, the secular record, and even the enemies of Christianity all knew the fact of Jesus' death.

2)The tomb was empty the first Easter morning. While this is a more controversial piece of evidence, it is backed by solid historical evidence.

The Christian movement started in Jerusalem. If the tomb was occupied, this would be the last place to start. Produce Jesus' body or point to the tomb and the movement would have been over.

This is also part of the earliest Christian testimony. It is implicit in the early creed from I Corinthians 15. It is mentioned in Mark, the early gospel, and all the other gospels.

Despite these good reasons, there is one reason that shows the empty tomb to be a fact, while showing God's sense of irony at the same time. From the gospel of Matthew (chapter 28) to Justin Martyr to Teretullian to Toledot Yeshu (a Jewish medieval work based off of earlier sources) the counter-argument to the Resurrection was that the disciples stole the body. The disciples then countered that there were guards at the tomb. The Jewish authorities then argued that the guards fell asleep.

Stop for a second. What are the opponents of Jesus admitting? The empty tomb. We have positive evidence from a hostile source that Jesus' grave was empty.

Here is a good article which establishes the fact of the empty tomb in more detail.

3) The third piece of evidence, which is clearly shown from the New Testament, is that the disciples claimed to have post-resurrection experiences with Jesus.

4) The last piece of evidence is that these same disciples went out and suffered for this message.

Christian historian Eusebius records deaths of Peter, Paul, James the brother of Jesus and James the brother of John. Acts 12:2 records the death of James, the brother of John. Josephus records the death of James, the brother of Jesus. Clement of Rome (d. 100) mentions the deaths of Peter and Paul. Oral tradition of the early church records many of the martyrdoms of the apostles. When I was watching the History Channel, a historian on a show about the apostles said (and she didn't appear to be a believer) that these extra-biblical traditions show us accurately where the apostles went and how they died.

Paul and James claimed to have seen Jesus post-Resurrection and they weren't part of the pre-Resurrection followers of Jesus.

Whatever doubts arise about whether certain apostles were martyred, the testimony of second and third generation believers indicates most of the apostles died for their testimony. Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Justin Martyr are examples of these believers who also died for what they believed. If the student is willing to die, how much more so the master?

Now, dying for a cause in and of itself doesn't make something true. But this piece of evidence shows us they were sincere.

My contention is that the only thing that can explain all of the above is the Resurrection of Y'shua, the Messiah.

Now, there have been a variety of counter-arguments. Feel free to posit them in the comments section, and we can hash this out. You should try to account for all 4. Jesus died. His tomb was empty. His followers claimed to have seen him and then went out and suffered and died for that testimony.

I've discussed this many times and have run into many different arguments. Here is my article which goes over the above and then tries to go over counter-arguments as well, so you may want to check those out first before responding.

I think someone once tried to posit UFOs as an alternative explanation. I have yet to respond to that line of argumenation.

the Trinity in Isaiah

2006-07-26T10:11:00.000-04:00

Isaiah 48:12-16

12 “ Listen to Me, O Jacob,
And Israel, My called:
I am He, I am the First,
I am also the Last.
13 Indeed My hand has laid the foundation of the earth,
And My right hand has stretched out the heavens;
When I call to them,
They stand up together.
14 “ All of you, assemble yourselves, and hear!
Who among them has declared these things?
The LORD loves him;
He shall do His pleasure on Babylon,
And His arm shall be against the Chaldeans.
15 I, even I, have spoken;
Yes, I have called him,
I have brought him, and his way will prosper.
16 “ Come near to Me, hear this:
I have not spoken in secret from the beginning;
From the time that it was, I was there.
And now the Lord GOD and His Spirit
Have sent Me.”
17 Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer,
The Holy One of Israel:

“ I am the LORD your God,
Who teaches you to profit,
Who leads you by the way you should go.
18 Oh, that you had heeded My commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river,
And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

Who's speaking? "I am the first, I am also the last." That's obviously God.

"From the time that it was, I was there. And now the Lord GOD and His Spirit Have[a] sent Me.”

The revelation that underlies our understanding we label "the Trinity" didn't originate in the 1st century.

God's Strange Angel III: Looking for Evidence of the Trinity in the Tanakh

2006-07-25T16:24:00.000-04:00

The Angel in Genesis

Genesis 16:7-14

In the book of Genesis, we continue to see the angel of the LORD.

7The angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the
spring on the way to Shur. 8And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai,
where have you come from and where are you going?" She said, "I am
fleeing from my mistress Sarai." 9The angel of the LORD said to her,
"Return to your mistress and submit to her." 10The angel of the LORD
also said to her, "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they
cannot be numbered for multitude." 11And the angel of the LORD said to
her,

"Behold, you are pregnant
and shall bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael,
because the LORD has listened to your affliction.
12He shall be a wild donkey of a man,
his hand against everyone
and everyone's hand against him,
and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen."

13So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, "You are a
God of seeing," for she said, "Truly here I have seen him who looks
after me." 14Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies
between Kadesh and Bered.

The angel of the LORD who spoke to Hagar in verse 9 is simply "the LORD who spoke to her" in verse 13.

Later, Hagar has another encounter with an angel, described as "the angel of God."

Genesis 20:15-20

15When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. 16Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about
the distance of a bowshot, for she said, "Let me not look on the death of the child." And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and
wept. 17And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What troubles you, Hagar? Fear
not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a
great nation." 19Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
20And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow.

This angel promises to make Ishamael into a great nation, which is the promise given to Abraham in chapter 12.

Compare with Genesis 12:1-2
1 The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
2 "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

When Abraham sacrifices Isaac, we see the angel of the LORD speaking on behalf of God with promises to bless Abraham's offspring.

Genesis 22:11-18

11But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." 12He said, "Do not lay
your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from
me." 13And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and
took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14So Abraham called the name of that place, "The LORD will provide";
as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided."

15And the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16and said, "By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17I will surely bless you, and I will
surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of
his enemies, 18and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice."

They've Got the Right Key, Baby, but the Wrong Keyhole

2006-07-25T07:54:00.000-04:00

Over on a blog which extols Menachem Schneerson as the Messiah, they apply the Divine Name to the late Rebbe.

Their justification? He is the Messiah and the Talmud (quoting Jeremiah) and other rabbinic sources say the Messiah will be called HaShem Tzidkenu, the LORD Our Righteousness.:

Gemara Talmud Bava Bathra 75b English Translation: And Rava said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan in the future the Tzadkim(Righteous) will be called by the name of the Holy One Blessed Be He as it is said "All that are called by My Name and for My Honor have I created them, I have formed them and I have even made them"(Isaiah 43:7) and Rabbi Shmuel Bar Nachmani said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan 3 have the Name of the Holy One Blessed Be He called upon them and these are them, Tzadikim, Moshiach and Yerushalaiim Tzadikim as already stated; Moshiach as it is written "And this is My Name that they will call him HaShem Tzidkeinu"(Jeremiah 23:6) and Yerushalaiim as it is written "surrounding 18 000 and the name of the city since the day, HaShem is its name"(Ezekiel 48:35?) (Talmud Baba Batra 75b

As Aerosmith's lead singer says, "you've got the right key, baby, but the wrong...key...hole."

Jeremiah does indeed point out that the Lord's Name would be used of the Messiah. But that's not the only piece of the puzzle.

The prophet Micah wrote:

But thou, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, Which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, Out of thee shall one come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel; Whose goings forth are from of old, from ancient days. Micah 5:1 JPS

Isaiah wrote:

Isaiah 9:6 (=9:5 in JPS version) NIV*
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

To which the Midrash comments:

Midrash Mishle, S. Buber edition
The Messiah is called by eight names: Yinnon, Tzemah, Pele ["Miracle"], Yo'etz ["Counselor"], Mashiah ["Messiah"], El ["God"], Gibbor ["Hero"], and Avi 'Ad Shalom ["Eternal Father of Peace"]

So why is Menachem Schneerson, to borrow from Steven Tyler again, the wrong keyhole?

First, he wan't born in Bethlehem. The one who fulfilled these and other Messianic prophecies is Y'shua, Jesus.

Da Vinci vs. Jewish Responses to Jesus

2006-07-24T16:56:00.000-04:00

I've noticed a strange occurance.

On many blogs, including this one, I've read from some Jewish people that the message of Y'shua was originally very monotheistic (read Unitarian). Then the Roman emperor, Constantine, or some other Roman group got involved. Then, all of sudden believers who were willing to suffer for their message rolled over and then made the message very pagan (which I think they mean Trinitarian).

Now, the Da Vinci Code types take a completely different route. They say the original message was pretty pantheistic/pagan/gnostic/divine feminine/etc. Then Constantine got involved and made it monotheistic.

So many contradictory conspiracy theories with no support, what are you going to believe?

The people who knew the apostles, known as the apostolic fathers (makes sense), quote extensively from the New Testament. Read this or this if you want to read more on how they used the New Testament.

But if the people who knew the apostles are quoting the New Testament extremely early on, how can we claim corruption?

If you want to say Trinitarian conceptions are a divergence from monotheism, you would be wrong to say that since believers in Y'shua are strictly monotheists.

And as my posts about the Angel of the LORD have shown Trinitarian concepts about the nature of God were revealed in the Torah and in the Tanakh in general well before the 1st century CE.

As Al Gore likes to say, the testimony of the apostles and its support in the Tanakh is an inconvenient truth.

How can Jesus be the Messiah given all the bad things that have been done in his name?

2006-07-23T22:06:00.000-04:00

Given the fact that Christians have tried to force conversions, used torture, incited pogroms and done all sorts of bad things on behalf of their faith, does this rule out Jesus as being the Messiah?

Of course he can still be the Messiah.

First, let us recognize that the truth of the message of Jesus does not rely on bad behavior of his followers. Those claims must stand and be tested on their own.

If a Christian does something bad, that is a bad thing. Even worse since it dishonors the name of the Messiah. But we must ask an important question: Is a bad act done by a Christian consistent or inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus?

Now, anyone who know anything about Jesus and the gospel writings should tell you the same thing: it is very much not consistent. Even those who do not believe in Jesus are familiar with "turn the other cheek."

And Paul echos those beliefs: Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. (Romans 12:14)

Now, many people who claim to follow Jesus do not follow Jesus. And just saying you are a believer in Jesus doesn't mean you are one. Y'shua said:

On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.' Matthew 7:22-23

Also, many things we deem religious conflicts aren't. Problems between the Protestant and Roman Catholic Irish aren't over papal infallibility. They are ethnic in nature.

When the church and the state were tied, not following the right religion or sect became tantamount to rebelling against the king or emperor. And that brought in a lot of people into the Christian church for social, political and, later-on, ethnic motivations. I can speak from my personal experience.

Being raised in a church or in a family that believes in Jesus doesn't make you a believer. Does sitting in a garage make you a car?

But let's put that aside for a second. How does this affect the claims of Jesus? The message of Y'shua tells us that we all have sin. Jeremiah says the heart is desperately wicked. Isaiah says all our righteousness is like filthy rags. We all have sinful natures, both believers and unbelievers.

Anything good can be twisted.

Paul was an Orthodox Jew (prior to that term being used). He persecuted believers of Y'shua in the name of traditional Judaism, before becoming seeing the Messiah and becoming an apostle.

I read the following on wikipedia:

During the famous Bar Kochba Rebellion of AD 135, Christians refused to fight, as a result of which, according to Justin Martyr, they were "commanded to be punished severely, if they did not deny Jesus as the Messiah and blaspheme him."

In pre-Islamic Yemen, a Jewish king called Dhu Nuwas came to power and persecuted Christians in his realm, and massacred Christian communities in Najran in about 524; apparently this was intended as retaliation for Christian Byzantine persecutions of the Jews. According to Muslim tradition, he was the person cursed in the Quran for burning believers alive (Quran 85:4-8.)

In the early sixth century, Khosrau II, King of Persia from 590 to 628, 'invaded Asia Minor and Syria at the head of a large army. The Jews joined the Persians in great numbers under the leadership of Benjamin of Tiberias, a man of immense wealth, by whom they were enlisted and armed. The Tiberian Jews, with those of Nazareth and the mountain cities of Galilee, marched on Jerusalem with the Persian division commanded by Shahrbaraz. Later they were joined by the Jews of southern Palestine; and supported by a band of Arabs, the united forces took Jerusalem by storm (July, 614). Ninety thousand Christians are said to have perished.

Does any of this mean traditional Judaism is not true? If you claim that Jesus isn't the Messiah because some of his followers (real or otherwise) did horrible things, you would have to say "yes." I would say "no."

The question of whether the message of Jesus is true or not has to be answered by looking to Jesus. The one who said "my yoke is easy and my burden is light." The one who told us to love our enemies.

May he have mercy on us for not living up to his standard. And none of us can live up to that standard. Which is why Y'shua gave up his life:

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53

God's Strange Angel II: Looking for Evidence of the Trinity in the Tanakh

2006-07-22T10:51:00.000-04:00

The Angel and God's Name

In the book of Exodus, we notice an angel that has a special relationship with God's name.

Exodus 23:20-22

20"Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. 21Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.

22"But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

Judaism 101 states: "In Jewish thought, a name is not merely an arbitrary designation, a random combination of sounds. The name conveys the nature and essence of the thing named. It represents the history and reputation of the being named."

The Talmud notes about the angel: "It was Metatron [who said that], he replied, whose name is similar to that of his Master, for it is written, For my name is in him." (Sanhedrin 38b)

Entering God's Rest

2006-07-21T10:15:00.000-04:00

As we approach Shabbat, let us remember the deeper meaning of rest. Namely, God's rest. And how God links His rest with His mercy.

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, "They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways." Therefore I swore in my wrath, "They shall not enter my rest."
Psalm 95:7-11

The author of the book of Hebrews comments:

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

Y'shua is our peace. He is our rest. We find our rest in the Messiah, who takes away our sin and allows us to enter into the rest prepared for us.

The Big Baptist Conspiracy: Jews for Jesus's Founder Gives an Interview

2006-07-20T11:48:00.000-04:00

I keep hearing that Jews for Jesus is a front group for the Baptists. Given that structure of Baptist churches is congregational (i.e. each church is independent) with multiple associations, this must have been one heck of a trick.

So who better to ask than Moishe Rosen, founder of Jews for Jesus, who graciously answered some questions I posed to him.

Me: Could you please explain how the Baptists founded
Jews for Jesus?

Moishe: If they founded Jews for Jesus then we should be on the budget of some Baptist denomination. But the truth is that Jews for Jesus is too big for one denomination to support. We need 17 million dollars next year and no one group can afford that much.

Me: On a serious note, how did Jews for Jesus came to be?

Moishe: The story is well told in a book by Ruth Tucker, "Still Not Ashamed" published by Multnomah Press. But basically, I realized that most evangelistic efforts among the Jews was carried out by well meaning but easily ignored Christians. I studied the approaches of the Prophets and Apostles and realized the missing Dimension was confrontation. By nature most Christians are too polite and politically correct so that their proclamation is but a whisper when a shout is more appropriate.

Me: How did the conspiracy theory that Jews for Jesus is a front-group for Baptist churches come about?

Moishe: If it was started by a Baptist Denomination, why would it be a conspiracy? Some people who can't accept the message try to impugn the messenger. But if we were a Baptist group what would be wrong with that? Those who want to put us in an evil light will do so anyhow. When I look at the history of the Baptist Denominations I don't see anything which makes me to be ashamed.

Me: What do you make of conspiracy theories in general?

Moishe: The greatest conspiracy is between the Devil, the World, and the Flesh or human nature. But Jesus is the light that banishes that darkness.

As a side note, I have to include something Moishe wrote in his email before he started to answer my questions:

I guess that some think that John the Baptist founded Jews for Jesus. But he was martyred in 29 A.D. and we weren't founded till 32 A.D.

It's good to keep a sense of humor about conspiracy theories.

WCBS Airs Segment on Jews for Jesus

2006-07-20T11:41:00.000-04:00

I assume the above link is the transcript.

"I think they should be proselytizing on the street," one woman complained.

One Jewish man practically flew into a rage.

"You've never heard about the Spanish Inquisition?" he asks. "You heard about the many times we have been killed, prosecuted, executed because of Jesus?" he asked.

The street volunteers are undeterred. They sell themselves not a converts, but as fulfilled Jews who have accepted Jesus as the messiah.

The group recently mailed 80,000 DVDs in Yiddish to Orthodox Jews. Its label shows a picture of a Jewish figure blowing the shofar, the traditional Jewish ram's horn that summons the faithful to prayer. It's titled "Days of Moshiach."

Viewing it, you see what appears to be a depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The words are Yiddish, but the images are from a production by the Campus Crusade for Christ. Mainstream Jewish leaders are unanimous in their condemnation of the recruitment technique.

"It's deceptive," complained Michael Miller of the Jewish Community Relations Council. "It's wrong, and it's offensive. You can't be two religions at once."

Miller said it's like a case of false advertising. "Hebrew Christianity" would be a better term, he suggested. The fact that their chapels have no crosses and the ceremonies borrow from Jewish tradition doesn't change the core break with Judaism.

"Say you're evangelical, and we'll shut up," he said. "To say that you're Jewish, that in fact you are more Jewish because you believe in Jesus is offensive."

The Jews for Jesus, though, see it differently.

"You can be a Jew and an agnostic," she observed. "Or a Jew who believes Menachem Schneerson is the messiah, but if you're a Jew for Jesus suddenly that's no good."

It's worth mentioning, though, that not everyone in Jews for Jesus is actually a Jew. Non-Jews are common behind the scenes helping with the logistics of the well-financed street campaign. At the group's Manhattan headquarters, CBS 2 saw rooms filled with stacks of pamphlets, New Testament Bibles in Yiddish, Russian language pamphlets featuring Holocaust survivors who've found Jesus, and rooms of volunteers waiting to take to the streets.

Trash bags filled with the pamphlet of the day are lined up in the hallway leading to the front door. Volunteers hit the streets in four shifts daily -- in the boroughs and the suburbs.

Many are the children of original Jews for Jesus members from the '60s and '70s. Others are more recent converts.

Dan Sered said he is an Israeli citizen. "Born and raised in Israel," he offered. "100 percent Jewish and 100 percent Christian."

The guy who mentioned the Inquisitions and stuff. Good question. We'll deal with it later on this blog.

2006-07-19T20:17:00.000-04:00

Figuring Out Jewish Identity When Attacking Jews for Jesus

2006-07-19T17:30:00.000-04:00

The Canonist is a Jewish blog which has a very interesting take on the Jewishness of Jewish believers. Bold highlights are mine.

The general argument is about religious deception, the idea being that these missionaries are spreading a fundamentally false notion that Judaism can cohere with a belief in Jesus, and that therefore these proselytizing efforts are more flawed than others. And that’s a very interesting thing, because, as readers here will find time and time again, the thing you can find the most Jews to agree on is that they don’t like Christianity.

Take, for instance, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, which is responding to the effort with its own advertising and its own proselytizers. It is representing 60 member groups that can’t agree on whether the Bible was written by God (and they don’t even all agree whether God exists) at Sinai or compiled by various powerful Jews over a 500-year span, whether homosexuality is to be embraced with marriage or condemned with death, whether the State of Israel is the beginning of the messianic period or the death knell for the Jewish people. And so on. But the faith question they feel equipped to answer is whether Jews can believe in Jesus. This creates a lot of interesting conflicts.

Most simply, a great many of those missionizing are considered Jews in virtually every respect that is traditionally known: they were born and raised Jewish, and the only element of Judaism they can be known to have violated is belief in Jesus as the messiah. Does the Jewish community now see these Jews as outcasts who are no longer Jewish? If it’s impossible for a Jew to believe in Jesus, it’d seem that the organized Jewish community in its entirety is willing to abandon these Jews to their fates, whatever they may be. That’s pretty fascinating. Perhaps one reason for this specific exclusion of these Jews is the understanding that sooner or later, they’ll be stepping up to the communal till.

Belief in Jesus as the messiah was never the main divider between Jews and non-Jewish Christians and wasn’t considered good enough reason to expel Jews in classical times [1, 2], so the choice of belief in Jesus as the messiah as the premier dividing line seems not only arbitrary, but false.

And on its most basic level, what’s driving the anti-missionary effort is the hope of keeping around Jews who just don’t believe in their nominal religion as stated. If they did, missionaries wouldn’t be successful with them. What’s the point in keeping people in something they don’t believe, and away from something they do?

While I might quibble with some minor points, this is exactly correct when it comes to the historical criteria for Jewish identity.

It comes down to: What is your authority? Are you consistent? Is your criteria arbitrary?

If God set apart the Jewish people, He gets to define who is and is not Jewish.

What's Your Authority?

2006-07-18T22:33:00.000-04:00

Erica is very sure that being Jewish and believing in Jesus does not go together.

A guy on the street told me that he was very sure that when we die we all go back to God.

An Israeli lady a friend in Jews for Jesus and I talked to was very sure that it really didn't matter what you believe, the important thing is that you do good things. What happens when we don't do good things? And why is doing good things important?

What's the point of this? Why am I asking so many questions?

My questions point to a common thread that runs between all opinions you run into. Actually, it points to another question. Ok, you probably guessed it by now.

What's your authority?

I can have all kinds of opinions regarding God, but are they based on truth? Are they based on God describing Himself? Does it have evidence behind it? Is it consistent? Am I consistent?

I can believe all sorts of things about Jesus being the Messiah or not. But is it based on the Scriptures, God's revealed and sure Word to us?

I can believe all kinds of things about the Resurrection. But do my beliefs have any historical evidence behind it?

We all have our authorities. Sometimes we have authorities which are simply assumed, but they are indeed there. Sometimes we have beliefs hanging in mid-air, so to speak.

Sometimes it is best to be like a 3 year old.

Jews can't be for Jesus. How do you know that?

Jesus doesn't affect my life. How do you know that?

Jesus isn't the Messiah. How do you know that?

Well, you get to the point. Look for consistency, lack of arbitrariness, and evidence.

Frankly, look to Jesus.

Is the New Testament Anti-Semitic?

2006-07-18T13:25:00.000-04:00

Short answer: no.

The Episcopal Church recently said so.

But you really can only make that comment if you ignore the fact that the New Testament is a collection of books written by Jews who had a Jewish worldview.

But an anti-semite does not need to misuse the words of the New Testament. The Tanakh, the traditional Jewish Scriptures, can be and has been used by snti-semites as well.

Jacob as deceiver? Moses calling the people of Israel a "stiff-necked and rebellious people"?

Should anyone conclude that Moses and the Torah were anti-semitic? Of course not.

The Bible records the behavior of Israel and of the early church, warts and all. Why? Because it is the Word of God and it is truthful.

The common mistake, from my perspective, is that when anti-semites read about Jewish people behaving badly, they fail to recognize that all of humanity is liable to sin. Jewish people are no worse than Gentiles. And there are plenty of examples of Gentiles behaving very, very badly (Pharoah, Haman, Babylon, etc., etc.) which get overlooked.

The apostle Paul wrote concerning Jews and Gentiles: "For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..."

That's the bad news. But Paul isn't finished: "and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in [Messiah] Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith."

Paul is saying we are declared righteous by faith in the Messiah, and that applies to both Jew and Gentile.

That is truly good news.

Faith, Reason, and Atheism

2006-07-16T23:15:00.000-04:00

David (a fellow volunteering with Jews for Jesus) and I were chatting with some atheists yesterday. As best I can paraphrase and remember, this was a portion of one discussion.

Us: As atheists, you believe that all our thoughts are simply atoms bouncing around, constrained by the laws of physics. Right?

Atheists: Yes. In psych I learned that our beliefs are the result of conditioning.

Us: Do you believe that because it is true or because the laws of physics give you no other choice?
....
Atheists: It's science.

Us: Do you believe in science because it is true or because you have no other choice?

What this episode helped illustrate is that a lot of our beliefs, everyone's beliefs, is grounded in theism.

The apostle Paul wrote about this when he said:

For what can be known about God is plain to them...

Faith is not opposed to reason. It is the foundation which gives rise to reason.

Recommended reading: C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea.

Things Heard on New York City Streets II: God Doesn't Have a Son

2006-07-14T14:42:00.000-04:00

I heard from one of the Jews for Jesus campaigners that this comment is coming up a lot. While much can be said, I found a nice and succinct expert from an article which can be found here.

From the article:

You might protest, "But don't Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God? But if Jesus is God, how can he be the Son of God? Look, you're making a man into God, and on top of that, God doesn't have a son!"

Again, not true! In Exodus 4:22-23, Israel is called God's "son."15 The King of Israel is referred to as God's "son" in I Chronicles 17:13.16 That the Messiah would also be God's son is stated in the Talmud:

'Our Rabbis taught, The Holy One, blessed be He, will say to the Messiah, the son of David (May he reveal himself speedily in our days),'Ask of me anything and I will give it to thee, as it is said [Ps. 2:7,8]. I will tell of the decree: [The Lord hath said unto me, "Thou art my son;] this day have I begotten thee, ask of me and I will give the nations for thy inheritance."'

The idea in the Scriptures is not that a man became God--God forbid--but that the Messiah would himself be God coming as a man. Isaiah 9:6 portrays the coming of the Messiah in these terms: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." But if God is indeed a "tri-unity," then it is possible for the Messiah both to be called God and also to exist in a relationship characterized as "son of God." This is the conclusion we Jews who believe in Jesus are driven to as we study the Scriptures. With our fellow Jews, we affirm that "the Lord our God, the Lord is one"--a oneness characterized by a "tri-unity."

Is Original Sin Jewish?

2006-07-14T08:42:00.000-04:00

The New Testament teaches that all men have been born fallen, tainted with sin, and that we all have a nature that is sinful, hostile to God.

Is this a new and novel teaching?

I was reading through the Torah today, when I ran upon the commandment to wear tzitzit.

Numbers 15:37-41

Again the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel: Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners. And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the LORD and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined, and that you may remember and do all My commandments, and be holy for your God. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD your God.”

As this translation reads, "the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined."

We are all inclined to evil. Each and every one of us. Both Jew and Gentile.

The world is full of testimony to this. The Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and the New Testament testify to this. Original sin, properly understood, is a completely Jewish teaching.

This creates a dilemma. How can a good God simply forgive people who do evil? As Paul says:

For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in [Messiah] Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation (note: 'propitiation' means something that turns aside wrath and judgement) by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.