Why do Jews Reject Jesus - Part 2

[coolhandluke]

quick question.....
what does gt mean?

[Peter666]

You're right. I got confused too. I guess that is because they both contain equally stupid and implausible stories.

[BluffTHIS!]

"gt" is his snide reference to the New Testament which he calls the Greek Testament and abbreviates as "gt".

[Zygote]

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how can you be sure that the 1/3 left, the rabbis, can provide valid interpretations on their own?

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because the torah said they would!


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And since there are 3 main strains of Judaism now, not to mention smaller ones, whose interpretation can you be sure are correct?

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i believe Rashi said all interpretations are correct as long as they were interpreted according to the guidelines set out in the torah.

[coolhandluke]

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All other religions, including Christianity, are man-made. They started when some person claimed to have received a personal revelation from G-d. (In the case of Christianity, this person was Paul, not Jesus.)

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uhmm, there was quite a bit of spreading before Paul ever got involved.

[BluffTHIS!]

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i believe Rashi said all interpretations are correct as long as they were interpreted according to the guidelines set out in the torah.

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That is logically silly since differing interpretations cannot all be correct, and if there were in fact no differing interpretations there would not be different strains/sects of Judaism.

[bossJJ]

Repeat post:

God has promised us that we will never cease to exist as a nation, because we have an eternal covenant with Him:
"Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who stirs up the sea that its waves roar. The Lord of Hosts is His name. If these ordinances depart from before me, says the Lord, then the seed of Israel shall cease from being a nation before Me for ever." (Jer. 31:34-35)

"I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your descendants after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you." (Gen 17:7, see also Lev 26:44-45, Is 54:10, Jer 46:28, Mal 3:6, Dt 7:9.)

Other verses say that this eternal covenant is only with those Jews who keep His Torah (Dt 7:9). However, God also told us that the Torah isn't to hard to keep (Dt 30:10-19), and He promised us that the Torah, "shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of your seed" (Dt 31:21, Is 59:21)

God has kept His word. We (Jews) are the only people from the ancient Near East (and one of the few in the world) who has survived for over 3000 years with their identity and religion intact. Meanwhile, most of the other civilizations from that time have ceased to exist (e.g. - Hittites, Moabites, Edomites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, etc.) This is especially unique because we are small in number, and we were without our homeland for nearly 2000 years. And during this time we were subject to widespread persecution, massacres and forced conversions. While a few cultures may be as old the Jewish one (e.g. - Hindu, Chinese), they are far more numerous than the Jews, and they have stayed in their land.

The Jews gave the world God, ethical monotheism, the concept of universal moral responsibility, the notion of human sanctity (man created in "the image of God"), the idea of progress (linear as opposed to cyclical history), and the Bible. If it weren’t for the Jews, there would be no Christianity, no Islam, and no communism. Our impact on the world has been way out of proportion to our numbers (about 1/4 of 1% of the world's population).

Modern rabbinic Judaism is from the Pharisees. They observed both the written and oral torahs. There have been groups of Jews, like the Sadducees, who did not accept the oral law. But God gave us both, and His eternal covenant with us is only with those Jews who keep his torah, both oral and written (Dt 7:6-12). When a Jew rejects part of the law, or converts to another religion, he is lost to the Jewish people, and within 3 or 4 or 5 generations his children no longer identify as Jews. If the saduccees were right (in rejecting the oral law) why has God preserved his covenant only with the descendants of the Pharisees? Nor has the covenant been preserved with those early Jewish followers of Jesus. They are no longer with us as Jews. God preserved His covenant only with those Jews who rejected Jesus.

[Zygote]

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With the single exception of Judaism, the whole foundation of the other major world religions rests on a single individual. This person claims to be telling the truth, but how can we be sure when there are so many conflicting religions out there?

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Is that so? Surely an impartial reader of the hebrew bible would think that Judaism depends to a large degree on Moses and the law given to him by God. Or was there some eyewitness coroboration of Moses' receiving that law that I am not aware of? Otherwise how can we be sure Moses didn't just make up the story of the burning bush, make up the 10 commandments and inscribe them himself? Please don't think "the bible says so" is an appropriate response to this question, since you need to address yourself to non-christians/non-jews as well.

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i think the logic goes like this:

1) the torah says millions (maybe thousands i don't know?) witnessed god present the first two commandments i believe.
The actual torah was written not much later by moses.

2) the torah was accepted by the people in the time of the moses, therefore, they must've concured with the torah's claims.

This obviously only makes sense if you assume moses was real and the people of his time were actually the one's who originally accepted it.

[bossJJ]

Repeat post:

Some Christians believe in "replacement theology"; they think that Christians are the "New Israel" or the "true Jews". We know that this is false because ALL of God's prophecies and promises to the Jews have been fulfilled ONLY in the Jews, and not with the Christians. Here are some of them:

1.) Many verses (e.g. - Dt 30:1-6, Is 11:11-12, 43:5-6, Jer 23:7-8, 31:6-10, 33:25-26, Ezek 37:21, 39:25-28) predicted that the Jews would someday return to Israel, after their long exile. While not yet complete, many Jews are back in Israel. If jesus-believing gentiles are the true recipients of this promise, why is Israel a Jewish state, and not a Christian one? Why did God restore it to those who reject jesus?

2.) The bible says that the Torah "shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of your seed" (Dt 31:21, Is 59:21). Only the Jews have continuously possessed and observed the Torah.

3.) Lev 26:33 "…and I will scatter you amongst the nations." (Dt 28:64) It was the Jews who were exiled from the land of Israel and dispersed among the nations.

4.) The bible says that the Jews will remain small in number (Dt 4:26, 28:62). Since Christianity is a very popular religion, this obviously hasn't been fulfilled in them.

5.) The land of Israel would lay desolate without the Jews (Lev 26:32, Ezek 13:28, Dt 29:21-22) but would flourish again only when the Jews returned (Ezek 36:33, Amos 9:13). The land was indeed neglected and desolate for nearly 2000 years, as described by many travelers over the centuries (e.g. - by Mark Twain, and the 18th cent Frenchman Valneau), and it flourished once again only after the Jews returned.

6.) Exodus 31:16-17 says, "Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath throughout their generations, for an eternal covenant. It is a sign forever between Me and the children of Israel." Here God is commanding us (Jews) to obey the Sabbath, telling us that it is "a sign forever" between Him and us. And God HAS kept it as a sign between Him and us. Only Jews observe the Sabbath. Christians have changed the day to Sunday, and Muslims have changed it to Friday.

[bossJJ]

Repeat post:

If we Jews are wrong (in rejecting Jesus and continuing to follow Torah), why does the bible say that everyone will be coming to the Jews for the truth in the messianic age?

"Thus says the LORD of hosts: In those days ten men from all the languages of the nations shall take hold of a Jew, grasping his garment and saying, "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you." (Zech 8:23)

"Many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go forth Torah, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem." (Isaiah 2:3)

“…the gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth and shall say, ‘Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no benefit. Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods?’" (Jer 16:19-20).

"Then the nations shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is among them forevermore." (Ezek 37:28)