Orthodox Jews Burn New Testaments in Israel

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.
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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.

Trying to Answer Jews for Jesus

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.

Examining the Testimony of Julius Ciss

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.

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

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.