Why a Jew cannot accept Jesus – excerpt from Contra Brown

Posted on June 11, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

Why a Jew cannot accept Jesus

Christians can agree that there was an authentic God-given teaching available before Jesus was born. What was that teaching? Both Jews and Christians admit that the Jewish scriptures were a significant part of that teaching. Let us focus on the Jewish scriptures. We must cast our mind back to the time before Jesus was born. We must ask ourselves how a Jew would have read the scriptures before the advent of Christianity. What was the total world-view that the Jewish scriptures imparted to the Jewish people? What would have been the perspective of the Jew who accepted the totality of the Jewish scriptures concerning the major theological issues that stand between Judaism and Christianity?

 

The Jewish scriptures provide the Jewish people with clear and direct guidance on the major issues that separate Judaism from Christianity. For the purpose of illustration we will focus on the issues of idolatry, atonement and the Messianic era.

 

In order to establish His relationship with the Jewish people God introduced Himself to the nation as a whole with the words “I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:2). This revelation gave the people to understand that there is no power aside from God (Deuteronomy 4:35). This revelation was God’s way of teaching us whom to worship, and through the process of elimination – who we cannot worship. If the entity in question was not present at Sinai, then it does not deserve our devotion (Exodus 20:19, Deuteronomy 4:15). Scripture consistently refers to idols as “gods that neither you nor your fathers have known” (Deuteronomy 11:28, 13:3,7,14, 28:65, 29:25, 32:17, Jeremiah 7:9, 19:4) – or “that which I have not commanded” (Deuteronomy 17:3). The clear message of scripture precludes worship of an entity that was not revealed to us at Sinai. It is on this basis that the Jewish people cannot accept a teaching which deifies a human being.

 

On the issue of atonement, the message of scripture rings loud and clear. Ezekiel 33:10 gives expression to the feeling of hopelessness that overtakes the sinner – “our sins and transgressions are upon us, and we melt away in them, how then shall we live?” The next verse gives us God’s response – “Tell them – as I live says the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn away from his sins and live”. The passage goes on to assure the penitent sinner “none of the sins that he committed will be remembered against him” (Ezekiel 33:16). Here the scriptures directly address the feelings of guilt and hopelessness that overwhelm the sinner. God’s answer is repentance. The primary and direct purpose of this passage is to address the issue of getting out of the trap of sin and achieving God’s forgiveness. The teaching of scripture on this issue is – repentance. There are quite a number of passages in scripture which directly address the question of the sinner’s hope and the answer is always repentance. (Deuteronomy 4:29,30; 30:1-3, – addressing the nation as a collective unit, Isaiah 1:16,17, 55:7, Ezekiel 18:21,22,23, Micah 6:6-8 and the entirety of the book of Jonah all give us clear and direct guidance on the issue of atonement. See also Jeremiah 36:3, Zechariah 1:3, and Job 22:23.) It is on the basis of God’s explicit word that the Jewish people reject the theology which denies the efficacy of repentance.

 

On the issue of the Messiah, scripture is also clear and unambiguous. Contrary to Dr. Brown and Lee Strobel’s assertions that “Messianic prophecies are not clearly identified as such” or “scholars must pore over the context of various passages to determine which ones deal with the coming of the Messiah” – there are quite a number of passages in Jewish scripture which are open and unequivocally direct in their description of the Messianic era. The future hope for God’s nation is amply described by Moses (Deuteronomy 30:1-10), by Isaiah (2:1-4, 11:1 – 12:6, 60:1 – 63:6, 66:12 – 24), by Jeremiah (23:4 -8, 30:1 – 31:39, 33:4 -16), Ezekiel (34:23 – 30, 36:1 – 38, 37:15 – 28), Hosea (2:18 – 22), Joel (3:1 – 4:21), Obadiah (1:15 – 21), Micah(4:1 – 4), Zephaniah (3:8 – 20), Zechariah (14:1 – 21), and Daniel (7:27). One does not need to be a scholar to recognize that these passages are God’s promise for Israel’s glorious future. God had granted the Jewish people a clear and unambiguous portrait of the Messianic era – a portrait that was all put into writing long before Jesus’ grandparents saw the light of day. Loyalty to God’s word demands that the Jewish people reject the doctrine which contradicts what God had taught them.

 

The Christian missionaries will be quick to point out that there are certain passages in scripture which seem to support their contentions. We will shortly demonstrate how those passages do not in fact support the Christian position, and in most cases turn out to be the strongest refutations to Christianity. But it is not necessary to actually refute the missionary arguments in order to recognize their irrelevance. The passages that support the Jewish position tower above the missionary proof-texts in four different ways.

 

a) Comprehensive: The scriptural passages that we have quoted in support of the Jewish position are comprehensive. They provide a complete and thorough teaching on the issue in question. The missionary quotations never give a full teaching on the issue in question. There is no verse in scripture which can be twisted to read as a commandment to worship a human incarnation of the divine. There is not one passage in the Jewish scriptures which teaches that atonement is achieved through belief in the Messiah. Neither does scripture tell us that the Messiah offers eternal salvation for those who accept his claims. The best the missionary can do is to find a passage which seems to support a fragment or a detail of the Christian doctrine. These fragments pale into insignificance when they are contrasted with the broad and comprehensive sweep of the general message of scripture.

 

b) Clear: The scriptural passages that we have quoted in support of the Jewish position are clear and unambiguous. There is no question as to what these passages mean. The passages that the missionaries quote in support of Christian doctrine are generally vague and ambiguous. In many cases, even Christian scholars question the validity of the missionary interpretations. There is no way that these questionable quotations can challenge the open and explicit message of scripture.

 

c) Consistent: The doctrines of Judaism stand on the basis of a scriptural message that is emphatically repeated in a consistent manner. Many of the doctrines of Christianity stand on the tenuous interpretation of a single verse. It is irresponsible to establish doctrine on the basis of these anomalous passages. Sober biblical scholarship demands that these passages be interpreted in light of the consistent message of the totality of scripture.

 

d) Direct: The scriptural passages that we have quoted in support of the Jewish position are direct. The primary purpose of these passages is to present a teaching on the doctrine in question. Deuteronomy 4:9-20 was written with the express purpose of teaching us who we are to worship. Ezekiel 33:10-20 directly address the question as to how we can achieve forgiveness for our sins. The scriptural passages quoted by the missionary, were not written for the direct purpose of teaching the Christian doctrine, this, even according to the missionary interpretation. Each of these passages has a primary and direct message which has nothing to do with Christianity. The broad sweep of the Jewish scriptures provided the Jew with a clear and complete theology. The theology that emerges from the Jewish scriptures does not allow the Jew to accept Christianity. As one former missionary (whose path to the God of Israel went through the pages of the Jewish scripture) put it – the Bible is the most powerful counter-missionary book ever published.

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Posted in Critique | 6 Comments

A Memo from the Church in the Year 1984 – by Jim

Posted on June 8, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

A Memo from the Church in the Year 1984

 

Brothers of the Ministry of Information, our Big Brother is concerned about the ongoing negative reaction of the Jewish community to the News.  It is imperative that we give them the New History, so that they will no longer offer resistance to our policies.  Please follow the guidelines outlined here, which will bring them into the fold.

 

Many of you have been emphasizing love in your broadcasts.  You are to be commended.  The Love of Big Brother envelops us all.  However, this is not enough!  As the Ministry of Information, we must inform the Jew that never has there been anything but love between our people and theirs.  New History will show that the wars of the past, what they call “massacres,” were waged only against our common enemy.  We have never hated the Jew!

 

Our enemies, to drive a wedge between us, have found old pirated footage of Big Brother.  These speeches of his seem to indicate a deep pathological antipathy to the Jew.  You should know, Brothers, that these words have all been carefully cut by our enemies to deceive the Jews and confuse them.  As members of the Ministry, it is your job to properly contextualize his speeches.  It should be obvious that when he called them the “children of Satan” he did not mean all of them, only those that were children of Satan.  Unfortunately, the Jews lack discernment, so we must inform them what a child could perceive.

 

The same can be said of any other of his speeches that turn up.  Those of you who work in the archives will know that not all of his speeches emphasized love.  He was known to call members of the now-defunct Jewish leadership “vipers”.  One of the early Ministry members referred to their worship centers as “synagogues of Satan”.  These hard words are of course the true essence of love, but some of the Jews have been avoiding the Ministry of Information, and they have not gotten their minds quite right.

 

Deflect such concerns by illustrating Jewish guilt.  Show them our archival footage of Jews trying to entrap Big Brother.  Show them the maddened crowds, foaming at the mouth, crying out for his execution.  Show how they bribed one of the Ministry of the Treasury to betray Big Brother.  They will understand why Big Brother called them vipers and such.  Surely they will be assuaged when they see they are the source of his hard words.

 

Your broadcasts must emphasize the eternal love of Big Brother for the Jew, and of course all of those within our organization.  It has never been anything but love.  If footage comes up wherein he calls the Jews “children of the devil” with murder in their heart like their father, you must emphasize his Jewishness.  Once they see that he is Jewish, they will understand that he was not talking about all Jews, only the murderous ones.

 

To aid you in this endeavor, we have Gumped the footage.  Do not let any unfamiliar scenes confuse you.  The yiddishisms dubbed in and the changing of Jesus’ name do not alter the meaning.  Soon, you will come to see that the New Footage is what the Footage always was.  All footage is New Footage.

 

Digital technology has helped us greatly in this project.  We have been able to highlight the yarmulke on his head that was always there, but was invisible to the eye because of the poor quality of the old film.  Do not be surprised to find Big Brother eating a bagel in scenes you do not recall him noshing in previously.  Big Brother is Jewish; of course he ate bagels!  He also said, “Oy!” more than you may recall.  This is nothing more than your mind focusing on details that it once missed.  Because you are emphasizing the message to the Jew, you are more aware of his Jewishness than you were previously.  Do not be alarmed.

 

Do not be alarmed when you hear his new name, either.  It is not new.  We have only cleared up the audio on the footage.  Still, among yourselves, feel free to use either name.  When presenting New History to the Jew, however, only use his original name, the one found in the cleaned up footage.

 

Likewise, emphasize his status as a rabbi.  Some may have a false memory of rabbis being abused by the Ministry of Truth.  This false memory is a lie spread by the enemy.  Big Brother was a rabbi, and so none of us in the Government could ever have touched them.  We have only loved them eternally, as Big Brother does.  However, avoid questions regarding his ordination (they may use the word ‘semicha’).  Emphasize rather his deep devotion to their archives.

 

You may point out that he is mentioned in their archives.  In fact, their whole history and legal structure is about him.  But do not spend too much time on this.  Early members of the Ministry of Information already showed them footage of their Prophets, giving speeches that clearly referred to Big Brother.  These snippets were unable to reach their hard hearts.  They will only be softened by New History and the eternal love of Big Brother.  Some of them have kept footage of their archives and may refer back to their own copies.  Emphasize the superior of our digital footage, which has cleaned up their old film copies, restoring dialogue previously too garbled to hear.  If they do not find the original garbled, move on.

 

Some will question Big Brother’s Jewishness, not so much his genetic code, but the idea of Big Brother in general.  They will point to foreign gods having children, demigods who walked among men.  Such an idea they will find repugnant to Judaism.  Refer back to the archival footage to illustrate just how Jewish the idea of Big Brother is.  Possible comparisons: he was like the ark that saved the whole world.  You can point out he had a hole in his side, like the ark did.  He was like the Pesach lamb.  (Pesach is their word for “Passover.”  If you cannot remember the word, do not worry.  In a generation or two, they will forget their ancient terminology.)  It may be a good idea to illustrate his lambness, by parading a seared lamb on a vertical skewer.  He can also be compared to the Day of Atonement sacrifice (try not to say “goat”) that also takes away the sin of the world.

 

All the while, remind them that he was not only a Jew as an idea, but genetically.  This will smooth over any objections, until their minds accept the New Truth.  Study “Fiddler on the Roof” so that you can understand their language and culture as he did.  Point out that his first disciples were fishermen.  They may be surprised to know that he created the first gefilte fish recipe.  As you all know, Big Brother also had a great sense of humor, just like Jerry Seinfeld.  How much more Jewish could he be?

 

As the Jew learns the New History, he will forget about the intervening years as portrayed by the enemy.  The enemy has blamed us for the oppression of the Jews.  As we know, that could not be farther from the truth.  Those in the Government who used archival footage of Big Brother to support their hatred had nothing to do with us.  And we never liked them anyway.

 

Do not be concerned if this leaves what some historians are calling a “historical vacuum”.  We are not to worry if our History begins at Big Brother, runs for forty years, is interrupted for 2,000 and picks up again forty years ago.  Those intervening 2,000 years are irrelevant.  Historians will fill in the details when Big Brother finds it necessary.  For now, avoid the issue of those 2,000 years.  Appeal to the eternal love of Big Brother and the Government today.

 

Above all, speak to them like they are children.  The Jew is slow to understand.  This must surely be a genetic mental disorder.  Impatience will drive them away.  We must talk down to them to lift them up.  Soon, this issue will no longer exist.  Once the Jew views our cleaned up footage, he will unite with us.  In thirty years, the Jews will have forgotten they were Jewish at all, just as happened to all the Jews before them that joined our most worthy enterprise.

 

Management

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Posted in General | 20 Comments

The Guilt of Books

Posted on June 1, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

The Guilt of Books

 

Books don’t commit crimes, people do. If we are going to discuss the guilt or innocence of a given book, we need to first define and delineate what the discussion is going to be about.

 

There is no discussion about the commitment of the crime. It happened and it is still happening. People are still using the canards of the Christian Scriptures to delegitimize, dehumanize and to create an unjust negative image of the Jewish people and their beliefs. This is not open to discussion, this is a fact of history and it is a fact of life.

 

The question that is being discussed is the question of the intent of the authors of the Christian Scriptures. If the authors of the Christian Scriptures had no malicious intent then we cannot rightly accuse them of criminal activity. Perhaps they were negligent, perhaps they were foolishly naïve, but in order to determine that they were participants in the crimes of Christian Europe we will need to demonstrate malicious intent.

 

There are a few concepts that need to be set aside before this discussion can take on any meaning. For those who are convinced that the origin of the Christian Scripture is divine, then this discussion can have no meaning. For those people, and for many centuries this was the outlook of Christian Europe, virtue and sin is defined according to the Christian Scriptures. So if the Christian Scriptures dehumanize the Jew, then it is virtuous to dehumanize the Jew and it is sinful to consider the Jew human. If this is the outlook then there can be no discussion about the guilt of the Christian Scriptures.

 

Fortunately, we live in an age where most people recognize that if the Christian Scripture had an intentional hand in the crimes committed by Christian Europe toward the Jewish people, then that book cannot be divine. This then is the basis for our discussion.

 

Another concept that needs to be defined if not set aside is the idea of seeing a book as an entity that stands alone. Until the Protestant Reformation, no one saw the books of the Christian Scriptures as the sole authority on Christianity. It was understood and accepted that the attitudes and teachings passed on by the body of believers in Jesus were the heart and soul of Christianity. The books of the Christian Scriptures were part and parcel of the total outlook, but no one dreamed of seeing them as an entity that stands apart from the community that birthed them.

 

With the rise of the Reformation, the theoretical concept that became popular was that it is only what is written in the book that defines Christianity and no other body is authorized to define Christianity. I say that this concept is theoretical simply because it is not practiced by any denomination of Protestant Christianity. Every denomination of Protestantism accepts beliefs and attitudes from the community that preceded it, at least as they relate to the makeup of the Christian Scriptures.

 

This theory is relevant to our discussion because if Scripture alone is authorized to define Christianity then whoever it is that we are talking to can easily say that his or her interpretation of Scripture is the only accurate interpretation and therefore all of our findings are meaningless. This argument makes it that much more difficult to demonstrate the guilt of the Christian Scriptures because we now need to demonstrate the guilt of the book according to the interpretation of the individual we are addressing.

 

The fact is that the Christian Scriptures are so guilty, that even with our hands tied behind our back we can still demonstrate the guilt of this book.

 

One more concept needs to be clarified before we begin. A book is not a product of an individual it is a product of a community. Yes, individuals write books, but without the community the books would disappear into oblivion. If the community does not find in the book something that speaks to its heart, or if the community finds the book distasteful, then the book will never be copied and the future generations will never know that it existed.

 

With all of these concepts in place we can now proceed to the trial. What is the accusation that we bring against the authors and the community that birthed the Christian Scriptures? We are not accusing them of directly instructing their posterity to commit the crimes of the Inquisition, the holocaust and the centuries of cruel persecution of the Jewish people. But we are accusing them of laying the groundwork for those crimes.

 

Before Christian Europe began persecuting the Jew, they first saw the Jew as an entity that stood apart from the rest of humanity. In the mind of the Christian, the Jew was guilty of heinous crimes against God and against humanity, the Jew had a different spiritual nature than other people and the Jewish rejection of Jesus was rooted in the inherently evil nature of the Jew. The Christian also believed that all of these evil qualities of the Jew were taught by the teachers of Judaism as if they were the highest virtues. The Inquisition, the pogroms and the holocaust would not have been possible if the European would not have first believed that the Jew and Judaism were children of the Devil.

 

There is no question that this description of the Jew and of Judaism is recorded in the Christian Scriptures. This is how generations of Christian teachers understood the words of the Christian Scriptures and this is how they taught it to those who would listen to them. As the horrors of the holocaust became clear, many Christians recoiled from this interpretation of the Christian Scriptures. The modern claim is that this was not the original intent of the authors when they wrote those words.

 

Another defense thrown up by those trying to cling to the righteousness of these books is that the Hebrew Scriptures also speak ill of the Jews. Christian Europe also used the writings of the Jewish prophets to dehumanize and to delegitimize the Jewish people.

 

At this point we need to introduce another accusation against the community of people who believe in Jesus. This community usurped the Jewish Scriptures and wrenched them out of their original context. It is only when the Jewish Scriptures are read in the unnatural context of Christianity that they can be misused to dehumanize the Jew. And here is where our story begins.

 

What community was it that produced the Christian Scriptures? Who were the enemies of this community and what challenges did they face? How did this community define themselves and the world around them?

 

The community that produced the Christian Scriptures was a community that saw belief in Jesus as the most important factor in defining a human being. They defined themselves according to that belief and they defined others according to their lack of belief in Jesus.

 

Belief in Jesus means believing in him as the Messiah predicted by the prophets of Judaism. Now the Jews, by and large, did not believe in Jesus. This created an obvious problem for the community of Jesus believers. And this community was strongly motivated to dehumanize the Jew and to claim that the natural instincts of the Jew are evil and that as children of darkness they cannot come to the “light.” Furthermore, this community was motivated to teach that the Jew cannot understand his own Bible. It is only the believer in Jesus whose eyes are “opened” to the truth of the Jewish Bible. But the Jew’s heart and eyes are closed to the truth.

 

These were the teachings of the early community of believers in Jesus concerning the Jew and this is reflected in the writings of that community, including the Christian Scriptures. The criticism of the Jew in the Christian Scripture was never read as an internal self-criticism of the community of Jesus believers. It is still not read in that sense, even by those who would disassociate the crimes of Christian Europe from this set of books. Until today, the negative words that the Christian Scriptures has for the Jew are read as an explanation for the Jewish rejection of Jesus.

 

The criticism of the Jewish people that is found in the Jewish Scriptures was also read by the Christian community as a criticism of their theological opponents. Even when the Church taught that the Christian had replaced the Jew in the covenantal relationship with God, still the Christian never read the censure of the Jewish prophets as a criticism of the Christian community. The Christian always read the criticism of the Jewish prophets as a declaration of the evil of those who stand on the other side of the divide; those who don’t believe in Jesus.

 

The true context of the Jewish scriptures is entirely different. The prophets themselves declare that the Jewish Scriptures were given to the Jewish people to the exclusion of any other entity (Psalm 147:19,20). The Jews have always read the censure of Isaiah and Jeremiah as internal self-criticism and they still read them that way. They never read these words as a description of their theological enemies.  To compare the criticism of the Jews found in the Jewish Scriptures with the caricature of Jews and Judaism found in the gospels is to compare good with evil. The one was always read by its target audience as self-criticism while the other was always read by its target audience as the dehumanization of their theological challengers.

 

But it didn’t have to be like this. The early community of believers in Jesus was faced with a challenge. The theological doctrines that they held most dear were rejected by the Jewish people and this rejection was not easily dismissed. After all, it was the Jewish people who were waiting for the Messiah so why did they reject the Messianic claims of Jesus? The community of believers in Jesus needed to formulate some type of response to this Jewish rejection. They needed to explain to themselves as well as to others why it is that the Jewish people could not agree that Jesus fulfilled the Messianic prophecies.

 

At this juncture, the followers of Jesus had several paths open to them. They could have simply ignored the Jewish people and their claims and remained silent (“turn the other cheek”). Or they could have restated their case for the Messiah-ship of Jesus with greater clarity, attempting to assess what it is that the Jewish people don’t understand about their claims (“do unto others as you would have done unto yourself”). If the followers of Jesus had chosen either of these paths then the history of the Jewish people would have been that much different. There would have been no holocaust, no Inquisition, and the life of millions of Jews would have been so much more peaceful.

 

But the community of Jesus believers took a different path. They took the path of hatred and slander. They came up with fantastic theories that delegitimize the Jew’s opinion and discount the arguments of the Jew before they can be heard. The Jesus centered community taught their followers that the God centered community loved lies and hated truth. That they enjoyed murder and their religion was legalistic, cruel, hypocritical and arrogant. As blind children of darkness and the devil, there is no reason to take the arguments of the Jew seriously. This then was the path chosen by the community of Jesus believers; the path of delegitimizing and hating their theological opponents.

 

Hatred of the Jew and Judaism remained a hallmark of the community of Jesus believers. The subsequent writings of that community are all laced with deep antagonism towards Jews and Judaism.

 

So this is the situation. We have a community that had a vested interest to delegitimize and dehumanize the Jew. This community produced a series of books that contain precisely this sentiment. And we are to assume that this is a wild coincidence? That the authors and editors of the book were not guided by the base hatred that saturated the hearts of the rest of the members of the community? If you look at the history of the community that produced this book, you cannot but conclude that this book reflects the petty hatred of that community.

 

So when John’s Jesus “explains” that the reason that people don’t believe in him is because they love darkness and/or because they are children of the devil, it is a reflection of the hatred that festered in the heart of the community that authored and edited the book of John. This is precisely what that community wanted to believe; that they are children of God and children of light while their theological opponents are incapable of loving the truth because they are inherently evil. This saved them the trouble of considering the arguments of their enemies.

 

When Paul teaches his audience that the Jews have a veil over their eyes when they read the Torah and that they are blinded from seeing the truth of Scripture, he was setting the Jew apart from the rest of mankind. With these arguments Paul and the editors of his writings avoided the inconvenience of seeing the Jew as a human who has the capability of discerning right from wrong.

 

When Matthew’s Jesus describes the Pharisees as a brood of vipers and as a people steeped in hypocrisy, he was teaching his community exactly what they wanted to hear; that the Jewish concept of virtue is precisely the opposite of true virtue and there is then no need to take the Jewish rejection of the claims of the Jesus centered community with any seriousness.

 

Perhaps you are still unconvinced. Perhaps you think that is a complete coincidence that the community that was so motivated to delegitimize the Jew produced a work of literature that does precisely that. You still want to cling to the belief that the Christian Scriptures say nothing negative about Jews who don’t believe in Jesus, and all of this negative talk refers to a very limited group of people or that it refers to all who don’t believe in Jesus without singling out the Jews in any way shape or form.

 

In case that is your belief, then I have a question for you. Why is it, that until today, people from the Jesus centered community find it difficult to acknowledge that the reason Jews cannot accept their claims for the Messiah-ship of Jesus is because they love God? Why is it so difficult for them to acknowledge that it is a loyalty to God and to His goodness that does not allow Jews to accept Jesus? Why can they not admit that they have yet to provide a convincing case for the Messiah-ship of Jesus to the Jew who loves God and who loves His word?

 

Is it perhaps because of the teachings of the book that they hold so sacred that prevents them from acknowledging this simple truth?

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Posted in History | 183 Comments

The Festival of weeks – Isaiah 41:8

Posted on May 27, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

yourphariseefriend's avatar1000 Verses - a project of Judaism Resources

Festival of Weeks – Isaiah 41:8

 Love doesn’t calculate. Love does not hear the discouraging voices.  Love is innocent. Love yearns and it follows. But love does not ask: what will I gain? Could I really get there?

Scripture doesn’t throw around the term: “love” very lightly. In all of Scripture, Abraham is the only one that God describes as: “the one who loved me”. (It is said of Solomon: “and he loved the Lord” – 1 Kings 3:3, and David declares: “I love you Lord of my strength” – Psalm 18:2. Indeed, David’s love for God still inspires Israel today and Solomon wrote the ultimate love-song; Song of Songs, but Abraham still stands out with his love for God highlighted as a part of his very identity, and this from God, in the first person.)

Abraham did not know where his love would lead him to. Abraham did not know…

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Slander:

Posted on May 21, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

Slander:

  • The dissemination of untruths with the express purpose of defaming another person or a group of people.

The Christian Scriptures present a caricature of the Pharisees which is untrue. Here is a brief list of Christian definitions of the Jewish sect of Pharisees which is the forerunner of Orthodox Judaism. These definitions are based on the Christian Scriptures.

http://www.keyway.ca/htm2002/pharisee.htm

http://biblehub.com/topical/p/pharisees.htm

http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/bakers-evangelical-dictionary/pharisees.html

http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/dictionaries/dict_meaning.php?source=1&wid=T0002926

http://www.bible-history.com/pharisees/

If you read the literature of the Pharisees, and there is quite a bit of it, you will realize that this caricature is a pack of lies.

You have two choices. You can accept the definition of the Pharisees presented by their own writings and you will then realize that the gospels have nothing to do with truth and a lot to do with petty hatred. Or you can accept the definition of the Pharisees presented by their theological opponents. But then I will ask you to be consistent, and accept the definition of Jesus as presented by his theological opponents. You see, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

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Posted in General | 57 Comments

And With Kindness

Posted on May 19, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

And With Kindness

 

“I will betroth you to Me forever, I will betroth you to Me with righteousness, with justice, with kindness and with mercy. I will betroth you to Me with faithfulness and you will know Hashem” (Hosea 2:21,22)

 

In this week’s haftora (Hosea 2:1-22) we learn about God’s ultimate goal for Israel. The Prophet begins by describing the unfaithfulness of Israel; how we strayed after idols and foreign powers. The Prophet goes on to tell us how God will take everything away from us and we will still seek after those strange forces that we see as the source of our blessing. But this search will be futile. We will come to realize that those forces which attracted us with offers of wealth were simply mirages. We will come to the recognition that every blessing comes from God and that there is no other source of goodness.

 

God will then bind us to Him with the bond of betrothal. We will stand in a relationship with God that binds us to Him and Him to us in a bond that will never be broken. And this bond will be a bond of faithfulness, a bond that leads to the ultimate closeness with God; a closeness that is described as “knowing God.”

 

But the knowledge of God is preceded by righteousness, justice, kindness and mercy. We need to be imbued with these qualities in order to be able to stand in this eternal relationship with God.

 

From the context of the passage it would seem that God will grant us these qualities of justice and kindness through the suffering of exile. In our suffering we will not only learn of the futility of serving any other power aside from God. We will also learn the futility of what these powers represent; and these idols and foreign powers represent the exact opposite of righteousness, justice, kindness and mercy.

 

Any entity aside from God that demands our heart in worship to itself represents greed, self-centeredness and injustice. Even when we are free from idolatry, we may still be tainted with the negative qualities that the idols represent. Under the confusing influence of our own self-interest, one may attempt to serve God with wickedness, injustice, selfishness and cruelty. Our bias prevents us from identifying our activities and attitudes as wickedness, but that is how we may be approaching God.

 

In the end our hearts will be opened to recognize the futility of wickedness, the emptiness of injustice and the ugliness of selfishness and cruelty. Just as our hearts will recognize that no power can help us so will we recognize that selfishness cannot bring us close to Hashem. We will learn to identify evil and we will no longer be confused into thinking that self-centeredness is righteousness.

 

God will cleanse our heart from evil and from confusion and he will instill into our inner beings these qualities of righteousness, justice, kindness and mercy to the degree that they will remain with us permanently. When we are imbued with these qualities then we can know Him, because living these qualities is knowing God (Jeremiah 22:16).

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Posted in Reflections on the Haftorah | 4 Comments

Excerpt from Supplement

Posted on May 13, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

V. 69. Objection 6.15

 

It is here that Brown addresses the third of my challenges to him: “An honest reading of the NT will reveal that Jesus and his followers believed in, and observed the unwritten traditions which the Jews accepted as God‑given.”

 

It is important to note that this discussion is not relevant from the stand-point of the Jew. Whether Jesus did or did not repudiate the Oral Law has no bearing on the Jews acceptance of the Oral Law. Furthermore, since the Jew sees no reason to trust the editors of the Christian Scriptures, the Jew is in no way convinced that the Christian Scriptures present an accurate portrait of Jesus and his disciples. Nonetheless, the Christian Scriptures as we have them today still contain strong evidence that Jesus and his Jewish disciples accepted the validity of the Oral Law. This, despite the fact that by the time the Christian Scriptures were being edited, the Church found itself in an intense conflict with the Pharisees – the bearers of the oral traditions. The editors of the Christian Scriptures were no friends of the Pharisees and their negative feelings towards them pervade their writings; still and all, they could not hide the fact that Jesus himself was a Pharisee.

 

Brown limits the challenge to Jesus’ directive quoted in Matthew 23:2,3: “The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.”

 

The fact is that there is more evidence in the Christian Scriptures that support the argument that Jesus believed in the Oral Law, and Brown does touch on some of it throughout his response to this objection, but he does not share with his readers the full scope of the argument or of the evidence that has been brought forth to support it.

 

Before we get to all of the textual evidence that supports the contention that Jesus himself observed and believed in the Oral law, let us summarize Brown’s response to the quote from Matthew 23.

 

Brown begins by acknowledging that certain Christian scholars, such as Dr. John Fischer, recognize that Jesus “even accepted Pharisaic extensions”; meaning that Jesus accepted both the Written and Oral Laws, including even rabbinic injunctions that were appended to the Law by the Pharisees. Brown lists the tithing of herbs (Matt. 23:23), the recitation of grace at meals (Mark 6:41; 8:6), blessings over wine and the recitation of Hallel at the Passover seder (Mark 14:22-23,26).

 

Brown however, argues that this interpretation of Jesus’ words must be wrong. Brown attempts to demonstrate that Jesus teaching was directly opposed to the teachings of the Pharisees in so many different situations, that his words in Matthew 23; (“do everything they tell you to do”) cannot be taken literally.     

 

Therefore, Brown concludes, Jesus must have been speaking sarcastically, or what Jesus meant is that his disciples should obey the Pharisees insofar as they accurately represent Moses, or Jesus was only instructing his disciples to obey the Pharisees up until the time when “the kingdom would be taken from them”, which Brown associates with the destruction of the Temple. Brown offers yet a fourth interpretation of Jesus’ words, namely that the directive only applied to matters of local legal disputes, and finally, Brown offers us a variant reading of Matthew 23 as proposed by Nehemiah Gordon in which Jesus instructs his disciples NOT to obey the Pharisees.

 

Brown asserts that at least one of these interpretations must be correct because throughout the Christian Scriptures, we find Jesus in conflict with the Pharisees. On this basis, Brown negates the straightforward meaning of Jesus’ words.

 

As for Brown’s five interpretations; the first and the last don’t deserve a refutation (if Jesus meant this sarcastically, what else did he mean sarcastically? And Gordon’s variant reading is not found in any ancient manuscript). The second and third interpretations do not negate the point that Jesus accepted the Oral Law. In the context of Pharisee Judaism, the idea of “accurately representing Moses” would include the interpretations of the Oral Law. If Jesus meant to negate the authenticity of the Oral Law, he should have referred to the Sadducees, who were closer to Brown’s idea of ignoring the traditional interpretations and sticking to the Written word alone. As for the third interpretation, where Jesus has his disciples obey the Pharisees until the time that “the kingdom is taken from them”, this would still indicate that as far as the Law of Moses is concerned, the Pharisee approach is the one to be followed, and not the Protestant approach of “Sola Scriptura”. Brown’s fourth interpretation which limits Jesus’ directive to obey the Pharisees to areas of local legal disputes, also does not negate the argument that Jesus accepted the authority and the authenticity of the Oral Law. The Torah provides legislation on all matters of disputes that arise between man and man. The Law of Moses requires that each of these disputes be settled in a specific way. If Jesus believed, as Brown does, that the Pharisees possessed a completely crooked and inaccurate understanding of the Law of Moses, why would he submit his disciples to their authority? Why would he not send his disciples to the Sadducees, who were closer to Brown’s “Sola Scriptura” approach to Scripture?

 

When we us examine the areas of conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees as recorded in the Christian Scriptures, it will become clear that Jesus was NOT disputing the Oral Law as it was passed down from Moses. On some occasions he was disputing some rabbinic enactments, which are different from the Oral Law as an interpretation of the Law of Moses. Even in his disputes with these enactments, Jesus limits himself to those enactments which were disputed within the circle of Pharisees themselves, or to those enactments that were in the process of being instituted. On the other hand, on every occasion, we see that Jesus accepted the Pharisee interpretation and the Pharisee application of the Law of Moses. This helps us understand why some of Jesus’s disciples identified themselves as Pharisees (Acts 15:5 – a comparison with Galatians 2:11,12,14 will reveal that Peter himself was one of these Pharisees). It is obvious that they understood Jesus’ directive to obey the Pharisees in its most straightforward sense – obey the Pharisees!

 

Brown refers to the rebuke of the Pharisees that follows Jesus’ directive to obey them (Matthew 23:5-39. Brown points out that Jesus refers to the Pharisees as “blind men” and “blind guides”, which seems to indicate that they are not leading the people properly. Brown points to Matthew 15:14 where Jesus tells his disciples: Leave them, they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into the pit.” How then could Jesus’ original directive to obey the Pharisees be taken literally? – asks Brown.

 

This argument is refuted by Matthew’s Jesus himself. Jesus clearly says: “they do not practice what they preach”, or according to the King James: “for they say, and do not”. In other words, Jesus was arguing that as men who are supposed to lead by example, they are blind guides, but their words are true and authoritative. (As for Jesus’ words in the context of Matthew 15:14, see below.)

 

Brown points to Matthew 23 verse 4 where Jesus describes the Pharisees as people who: “put burdens on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.”  Brown argues that the way the Pharisees put burdens on people’s shoulders was through their teachings, so how then can Jesus be instructing his disciples to submit to these same teachings?

 

This rebuke of Jesus can be understood in a way that does not conflict in any way with his clear directive to obey the Pharisees who sit in Moses’ seat. We must put these words into their historical context. The Pharisee leadership in the time of Jesus were in the process of setting down rabbinical enactments. These were new decrees that were meant as a “fence” to the Law of Moses. One such decree, which was still in the process of being accepted in Jesus’ day was the enactment of hand-washing (- see below). It was these new decrees that Jesus was deriding as “burdens” that his contemporaries were placing upon people’s shoulders. He was not referring to teachings that his contemporaries were handing down from previous generations. This is obvious from the wording he uses. He throws out a personal accusation against the contemporary Pharisee leadership; it is these people who he accuses of placing the burdens, he is not referring to leaders from previous generations and neither is he referring to teachings that these people are passing on in the name of Moses.

 

Brown reminds his readers of the dispute that Jesus has with the Pharisees concerning the hand-washing decree as recorded in Matthew 15 and Mark 7. Here is an area where Jesus clearly rejects a Pharisee teaching. In light of this conflict how can we understand his instruction to obey the Pharisees?

 

The answer is to this question is quite simple. The hand-washing decree was never presented as an interpretation of the Law of Moses. It was a rabbinic decree that, at first, was not accepted by all. It is only the contemporaries of Jesus who gave this decree its full legal force (B. Talmud Shabbos 14b). So Jesus was not disputing an interpretation that the Pharisees were passing down from Moses, he was not even disputing an ancient tradition. Jesus was taking issue with a new decree that had a history of uncertainty surrounding it. This hardly constitutes a repudiation of the Oral Law; certainly not one which would force us to reinterpret the straightforward meaning of Jesus’ clear directive as quoted in Matthew 23.

 

There is another conflict that Jesus has with the Pharisees that Brown does not mention directly; this encounter is found in Matthew 15:5,6 and Mark 7:10-12. In these texts Jesus is criticizing a practice wherein one would consecrate his possessions so as to avoid having to honor his parents. The problem with this account is that there is no historical record of any Jewish leader presenting such an opinion. According to every opinion in Jewish law, honoring one’s parents is one of the foremost commandments, and no leader on record ever encouraged his followers to consecrate their possessions in order to avoid honoring one’s parents. In a situation where one went ahead and actually consecrated his or her possessions to the Temple treasury, those possessions would be assumed by the Temple treasury and in effect, this person would no longer be able to honor his or her parents because of a lack of means to do so. But this person would have utilized a Biblical Law (Leviticus 27:14, Numbers 30:3), and not an oral tradition, in order to avoid fulfilling the commandment to honor parents. So Jesus’s rebuke of the Pharisees for exalting their tradition above the commandment of God is not readily understood in light of what we know of the Pharisee teaching on the subject.

 

The most likely interpretation of these texts would have Jesus in conflict with a select group of Pharisees and not with the entire movement. Since this rebuke of Jesus is placed together with his arguments against the hand-washing decree, it follows that this was a recent innovation of some Pharisees that Jesus was criticizing. From the historical records, it seems that the opinion that Jesus was criticizing, never gained any level of popular support.

 

Brown goes on to the violations of the Sabbath that the gospels attribute to Jesus and his disciples. Brown tells his readers: “…the New Testament authors not only record these instances where Jesus’ disciples differed with the Pharisaic tradition, but at other times, they record instances where Jesus himself violated some of these traditions…”

 

Brown sees these Sabbath violations as an example of Jesus’ repudiation of the Oral Law. Let us examine these texts more closely. Mark 2 and Matthew 12 record an instance where Jesus’ disciples plucked some grain as they walked through the fields. The Pharisees challenged Jesus: “why do they on the Sabbath that which is not lawful?” According to Brown’s hypothesis which has Jesus repudiating the Oral Law, Jesus should have told these Pharisees that this activity is NOT prohibited on the Sabbath under any circumstance. Would Brown hesitate to pluck something off a tree to eat on the Sabbath? But this is not what Jesus answered. Jesus launches into a speech about David’s eating from the show-bread which was forbidden to him and about the priests violating the Sabbath in the service in the Temple. These two are examples of an activity that violates the Law, but is permitted due to extenuating circumstances. By providing these comparisons, Jesus affirms his acceptance of the Pharisaic definition of prohibited activity on the Sabbath. His only difference with the Pharisees was wether the prohibition was relevant in that specific situation.

 

In the book of John, Jesus justifies his Sabbath violation with the following argument: “If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day?” (John 7:23). Again, Jesus does not argue that the activities that he did should not be defined as “work” that is forbidden on the Sabbath. Jesus fully accepts that his activities fall under the definition of forbidden “work”. He argues instead that his activities should be permitted because they are done for the purpose of healing.

 

Furthermore, the entire weight of Jesus’ argument rests on the assumption that the Oral Law is true. Without the Oral Law how would we know that the act of circumcision is considered a forbidden activity on the Sabbath? And after we accept that premise, then where in the Written Torah does it say that the act of circumcision may indeed be preformed on the Sabbath? The fact that Jesus accepted these two axioms (that circumcision falls under the category of prohibited “work”, and that for the sake of fulfilling the commandment, this act is permitted on the Sabbath), and the fact that he based his argument on these two axioms, tells us loud and clear that Jesus accepted the Oral law, and that he expected his audience to accept it as well.

 

The fact that Jesus observed the Pharisaic calendar, the fact that he observed many Pharisee teachings such as the blessings on wine and bread, and the order of the Passover seder (as Brown acknowledges), the fact that his disciples observed the times of prayer instituted by the Pharisees (Acts 3:1), and the fact that many of Jesus’ disciples identified themselves as Pharisees long after Jesus had died – testifies clearly that Jesus did not repudiate the Oral Law. When he instructed his followers to obey the Pharisees because they sit in Moses’ seat, his immediate disciples did not think that he meant it sarcastically.

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Condition of the Heart

Posted on May 11, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

Condition of the Heart

 

In this week’s haftora (selected reading from the prophets), the Prophet speaks of the great merit of trusting in God and conversely the terrible consequences of trusting in man (Jeremiah 17:5-8). In the very next verse, the Prophet declares; “The heart is deceitful above all things.” We are told of the capacity of man to fool themselves and others concerning the true intentions of their hearts.

 

Rabbi David Kimchi (Radak) explains that the quality of trusting in God is dependent upon the heart. It is relatively easy to put on a show of trusting in God with words and actions but the true trust in God is something that takes place in the deep recesses of our hearts. And the heart is deceptive, only God can truly evaluate the condition of a man’s heart. No one can really know how much a human heart has truly placed its trust in God. It is even difficult to know what is going on in your own heart.

 

How then can we evaluate our hearts? How can we know where we are holding in our service of God if our sages teach us that it is our heart that God demands (Sanhedrin 106b)?

 

It is for this reason that our sages encouraged us to love rebuke (Tamid 28a). Rabbi Asher (Rosh) expresses this concept by teaching to rejoice when we hear criticism as if we found a great treasure (Orchos Chaim 45). It is difficult for us to see our own faults and when they are exposed we are granted knowledge that we would otherwise be unaware of.

 

But perhaps the most important thing to remember is that it is not our responsibility to evaluate ourselves. The Maimonides (Rambam) writes that everyone should always see themselves as if they were at the midpoint between merit and guilt (Hilchos Teshuva 3:4). Our work in this world is not to keep score. We are here to make the next minute better than the one that preceded this one.

 

This then would be the message of the verse that follows the one that we are discussing. In this verse God reminds us that it is He that searches the heart to give to each individual the fruit of their deeds (Jeremiah 17:10). God is reminding us that He knows where we are holding and He is a fair judge. It is not incumbent upon us to busy ourselves worrying about our status in God’s book. Yes, we must learn to recognize our good qualities and our negative traits, but all for a practical purpose. We need to study ourselves in order to know where we can grow and how to be better. But the primary focus should be to make today a better day than yesterday.

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Posted in Reflections on the Haftorah | 4 Comments

The Experiment

Posted on May 7, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

Testimony of History

 

 

When scientists test a drug they do so with the understanding that things might not work out as they expect. Before allowing a given remedy to be widely distributed the researchers will subject this new treatment to a set of experiments. One of the experiments that these researchers will use is the distribution of this drug to a broad range of people. The scientists will take a large group of men and women, young and old, healthy and weak and administer the drug to them. At the same time they will take another, similar group of people and withhold the drug from them. Perhaps the researchers will give this second group of people a placebo during the trial period. At the end of the designated time, the scientists will evaluate the two groups of people, those that took the drug and those that didn’t.

 

It is obvious that they will not compare the strongest and the healthiest of one group against the weakest and most sickly of the other. The scientists will judge the two groups as a whole, the strongest of one group against the strongest of the other and the weakest of one group against the weakest of the other.

 

We have an experiment that has been running for about 2000 years. One group of people has been given to believe that all men are intrinsically evil. This same group of people was taught that man’s actions are really insignificant and they were taught to revere a god who never did anything for those who wouldn’t acquiesce to his desire to be worshiped. This group of people was also focused on a book that spends more words slandering the author’s theological opponents then it does preaching about kindness and justice.

 

On the other hand, a different group of people were taught to believe that all men were created in the image of God and that the inner soul of man is holy and pure. This second group of people was given to believe that every deed of man is immensely significant and they worshiped a God who constantly sustains every living creature even while they are in the middle of rebelling against Him. And the focus of this group of people was on a book that magnified their own faults.

 

So we have these two groups of people and we have a 2000 year case study. Each of these groups produced villains and saints. But what type of societies did these two groups produce?

 

The one group produced a society that had little respect for human life. It was a society built on class distinctions, considered cruelty to be entertainment and glorified war. Its attitude toward people who didn’t respect their god was disgraceful, this society often persecuted those who did not share their views and this society elevated hate to the level of religious virtue.

 

The other group produced a society that loved life, hated war, respected education, practiced kindness and learned to thrive under any condition. When this second society was persecuted and murdered, they spent more time reestablishing their own lives than they did hating their persecutors.

 

So what is the argument? How could anyone try to justify the perpetuation of these teachings which stand at the heart of 2000 years of evil? And in case you think that the deemphasizing the concept of man being created in God’s image is not related to murder, you will note that long before this experiment was conducted, the Bible had tied the two together (Genesis 9:6). And in case you thought that slandering people and standing by while they die are two unrelated actions, you will note that the Jewish Scripture tied these two concepts together as well (Leviticus 19:16). So how could anyone from Matthew’s school dispute the findings of this comprehensive experiment?

 

Ah! But there were some saints in this evil society. And the argument has it that all the other people in the society (those that were not saints) were evil before they were taught these teachings. It is only the saints who should be considered when we judge the effects of the teachings on the society. They were the “real” students of the teachings in question.

 

Is that how we conduct experiments? Would you want the FDA to apply this twisted logic when they test the medications for your children?

 

Isn’t it time to go back to the Torah’s teachings of respect for all humanity? Isn’t it time to stop denigrating the deeds of men? Isn’t it time to turn away from a man whose circle of supposed beneficiaries only extends as far as his popularity and submit our hearts to the One who holds the soul of every living being in His loving hand?

 

Is a 2000 year experiment not good enough for you?

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The Servant of Chapter 49

Posted on May 6, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

The Servant of Chapter 49

 

“Listen to me, O islands, and hearken O distant regimes: the Lord summoned me from the belly; He mentioned my name from my mother’s womb. He made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand He hid me; He made me like a smooth arrow, in His quiver He concealed me. He said to me: “You are My servant, Israel, in whom I take glory.” But I said, “I have toiled in vain and used up my strength for nothingness and naught; however, judgment is with the Lord and (the reward for) my accomplishments is with my God.” And now the Lord, who formed me from the belly to be a servant to Him, to restore Jacob unto Him, and Israel will be gathered unto Him and I was honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God was my strength. He said: “It is insufficient that you be a servant for Me to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the ruins of Israel; I will make you a light for the nations, so that My salvation may extend to the ends of the earth.” 

Who is this servant?

At first glance, we would say that this is Isaiah. The prophet is described as one who is called from the womb (Jeremiah 1:4). The mouth of the prophet is the implement that God uses to accomplish His purpose (Jeremiah 1:9,10). Isaiah was first called to restore Israel to God (when he spoke to the Jews of his own generation), but ultimately, it is Isaiah who is the primary prophet called to bring the message of the Messianic era to all of mankind. It is Isaiah’s words that are written on the side of the U.N. building expressing man’s hope for a future of peace. And it is Isaiah’s metaphor of the lion lying with lamb that is most often used to describe the glorious plan that God has for all of humanity. Furthermore; the servant in this passage speaks for himself in the first person without being introduced in any way, which also leads us to believe that it is Isaiah who is talking.

However; the servant is identified as “Israel” (verse 3). Israel is also called from the time of their formation (43:21; 44:2, 21, 24; 46:3). The servant of this passage is described as a “sword” and an “arrow” just as Israel is called the “armor-bearers of the Lord” (52:11) and they are set by God to be a “threshing board of many blades” (41:15). Just as this servant is sheltered in the shade of God’s hand so is Israel likewise sheltered (51:16). Just as the servant fears that his toil has been in vain so does Israel fear that their toil has been in vain (40:27). Just as the servant will bring light to the nations so will Israel bring light to the nations (60:3). And this passage is placed in the midst of a series of prophecies which are spoken for the encouragement of Israel (48:20; 49:14).

The lines between the prophet and the nation are intentionally blurred. The encouragement to Israel is that in a certain sense they are the prophet of God. Just as the prophet carries God’s word so does Israel carry God’s word and just as the prophet is granted the strength of God’s word so is Israel granted the strength, the power and the eternal nature of God’s word (40:8).

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