Originally posted by genius
i think-although it is late and as i have proved in another thread my brain is not working at it's best at the mo.-that your point is meerly that there is a messiah, but that it's not Jesus.
you claim that Jesus fits the bill only if you look at the OT whilst looking for proof that Jesus was Christ?
surely this meerly implies that Jesus fits the bill? i ...[text shortened]... urely we have to wonder whether they refer to him? who else do they refer to, if not to Jesus?
Yeah, my brain’s tired too. I’m going to take a break for awhile, but didn’t just want to leave you hanging...
Those Jews who still believe in a “personal” messiah, don’t think it was Jesus, but someone yet to appear. Others have totally reworked their understanding of what messiah means. Prophecy is also a knotty subject. If you don’t accept the NT, it is likely that you won’t find prophecies related to J in the HS (it is really hard for someone steeped in Christianity to simply set aside the NT and look at the HS fresh, so to speak—I know). Again, I think the gospel writers looked for those supporting HS texts because they were already convinced that J was the messiah.
One of my favorite lines is “There is no messiah—and you’re it!” from the book by the same title by rabbi Robert N. Levine. Messianism, while a strain in Judaism, is not a necessary fundamental of Judaism, and seems to never have been. One can find the “shadow” to use Freaky’s term, in the HS
if one already has a messianic stance; that much I’ll grant.
Here are just some excerpts, that illustrate a variety of Jewish viewpoints—
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Some notes on redemption and messianism in Judaism:
From David S. Ariel,
What Do Jews Believe?:
Martin Buber (interpreting the Hasidic understanding, which may be the most closely linked with “personal” redemption): “There is no definite magic action that is effective for redemption.; only the hallowing of all actions without distinction possesses redemptive power. Only out of the redemption of everyday does the Day of redemption
grow.” (my italics)
Reform Judaism: “More recently, the Reform concept of messianism has come to mean the result of human effort on behalf of creating the perfect world.”
Conservative Judaism: “The Conservative credo is agnostic on the question of the Messiah: ‘We do not know when the Messiah will come, nor whether he will be a charismatic figure or is a symbol of the redemption of humankind from the evils of the world..”
A difference between Judaism and Christianity: “The major Jewish objection to Christianity is that Judaism regards the Messiah as a human being, and the Christian deification of a person constitutes idolatry.”
Quoted in Jurgen Moltmann,
The Way of Jesus Christ:
Martin Buber: “We know more deeply, more truly, that world history has not been turned upside down to its very foundations—that the world is not yet redeemed. We
sense its unredeemedness….The redemption of the world is for us indivisibly one with the perfecting of creation, with the establishment of the unity which nothing more prevents, the unity which is no longer controverted, and which is realized in all the protean variety of the world. Redemption is one with the Kingdom of God in its fulfillment. An anticipation of any single part of the
completed redemption of the world—for example the redemption beforehand of the soul—is something we cannot grasp….” (italics in original)
Schalom Ben Chorin: “In Jewish eyes, redemption means redemption from all evil. Evil of body and soul, evil in creation and civilization. So when we say redemption, we mean the whole of redemption. Between creation and redemption we know only one caesura: the revelation of God’s will.”
Gershom Scholem: “It is a completely different concept of redemption which determines the attitude to messianism in Judaism and Christianity….In all its shapes and forms, Judaism has always adhered to a concept of redemption which sees it as a
process that takes place publicly, on the stage of history and in the medium of the community; in short, which essentially takes place in the visible world, and cannot be thought of except as a phenomenon that appears in what is already visible. Christianity, on the other hand, understands redemption as a happening in the spiritual sphere, and in what is invisible. It takes place in the soul, in the world of every individual, and effects a mysterious transformation to which nothing in the external world necessarily corresponds….[This] has always seemed to the religious thinkers of Judaism an illegitimate anticipation of something which could at best come about as the inward side of an event which takes place essentially in the outward world; but this inward side could never be separated from that event itself.” (my italics)
Now, these views are not monolithic (and do not exhaust the list); and whether these writers’ understanding of Christianity is any better than most Christians’ understanding of Judaism, I do not know.
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You will, of course, be able to mount Christian counter-arguments. The arguments have gone on for a long time. The disagreement is fine; I respect your faith. Just don’t automatically assume, from a Christian perspective, that the Jews have not know how to read their scriptures (remember, Judaism—based partly on the nature of the Hebrew language—does not generally insist on a “one right reading” ); that would be condescending...
Shalom
Where did Moses write about Jesus?
01 Aug '06 18:30
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