1000 Verses – a project of Judaism Resources

The Veil

The ongoing missionary effort to direct the heart of the Jew towards Jesus in worship has generated many discussions between proponents of Jesus and those who do not accept his claims. Many of these discussions focus on the Jewish Scriptures with each side of the debate coming in to the conversation with the firm belief that they are following the plain meaning of Scripture.

Some people recognize that this conversation cannot get off the ground without the belief that this discussion can lead to the truth. Indeed; it is my firm belief that a civil and respectful discussion, where both parties are willing to put all of their preconceived notions on the table, will only lead both parties closer to the truth.

I have encountered some people who engage in this discussion without any belief in the power of such a discussion to move people closer to what they see as the truth. These people believe that their spiritual adversaries should listen to their preaching but they are not willing to hear what their opponents have to say. They only put up a facade of a “two way discussion” in order to lure their victims into the range of their one way proselytization campaign. But when their opponents put up any arguments beyond the superficial these proselytizers dismiss their opponents as people who are incapable of participating in the spiritual discussion.

A typical argument of these “one way propagandists” is the argument of spiritual blindness. They contend that their opponents are stricken by spiritual blindness so there is no point in engaging in a two way discussion with them.

The following e-mail exchange took place between myself and one of these propagandists.

After I presented a Scriptural interpretation to this missionary; he responded with the following:

Your email confirms to me exactly what Paul wrote in 2 Cor 3. The veil is over your heart when you read Torah.

I responded with the following note:

So it goes back to the veil – the blindness.

1) God says that the veil is over the eyes of the nations – Isaiah 25:7. God gave the Torah to the Jewish people and to them alone – (Psalm 147:19) – but it is the gentiles who know how to read it?! – You know my friend, when it is Paul vs. God, who it is that we ought to be listening to.

2) You claim that you are reading it without a veil – so you should be able to explain where I went wrong – which verse I missed or misinterpreted.

3) Yes, I do get dogmatic at times, but I thank the God of truth who guides me on the path – He shows me the verses, He gives me the understanding to articulate so that I never have to resort to an argument like Paul’s – “their eyes are clouded over by a veil”.

Yes; we all approach these issues with our personal bias. But we can move closer to the truth through civil and respectful discussion. It may take time and demand patience, but eventually such a discussion will bear fruit.

Dismissing your opponent’s ability to process information is the first step in dehumanizing your fellow man.

Don’t go there.

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Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Dear Chanan

Brother! Let us return, Father is waiting for us.

Please allow me to elaborate.

Brother? Yes, we are brothers. It was with our father, Abraham, that the Creator of all made an everlasting covenant. Your genes and my genes were there on the altar when Isaac was offered to God. When people want to make reference to the One Creator of all, they use our father’s name and they say – “the God of Israel”. When the Jewish people were enslaved in Egypt we were there together, and had God not intervened, we would both still be there. We share the glorious memory of God manifesting His might with the greatest miracles in the history of mankind, all for our sake and the sake of our ancestors. Both you and I are repositories for the record of the revelation at Sinai – the revelation which stands out in its uniqueness as the only claim for a national revelation. The greatest prophet that ever lived, the trustworthy one of God’s household, taught us for forty years while we lived under God’s embrace. During that time God showed us His love with the clouds of glory, the manna, and the well of Miriam. His presence was manifest in the midst of our nation in the Tabernacle and then in the Jerusalem temple. Then the dark times came, but God’s love did not waver. His love was manifest in the courage He poured into our hearts that gave us the strength to overcome the Greeks, to outlive the mighty Roman empire, and to survive the most torturous persecutions. This is our heritage, and as brothers, we share this glorious inheritance.

But now we walk different paths. We are both convinced that the paths we respectively walk are the true continuity of our great history. But only one of us can be in the right. Our paths are mutually exclusive. Indeed there are some similarities that our divergent paths share, but these parallels are only superficial. At the very root, our paths are polar opposites. We both believe in the truth of the Jewish Bible, but the contexts from within which we each read the Bible are so disparate that we might as well be reading two different books. We both believe in an afterlife, but our understanding of the afterlife, and our conception of the road to the afterlife, are so different, that the path that leads to your heaven goes to my hell. We both believe in the coming of the Messiah, but our respective visions of the messianic era have very little in common. We both accept that the purpose of life is developing a relationship with God, but the word God means one thing for me and something else for you.

The fact that as brothers we still walk different paths disturbs both of us. Perhaps you’ve been more diligent than I have been in expressing your pain in a concrete way. Together with the members of your community, you are involved in an ongoing energetic effort to persuade the members of my community to join your path. As difficult as it is for my community to appreciate your efforts in this regard, I could acknowledge that many of you are motivated by a love for your fellow Jews.

By now you have probably come to realize that as a community we are far from convinced. All of your methods of persuasion, be they quotations from scripture or personal testimonies, have failed to convince us to join you in your faith. Perhaps you are beginning to believe the myth propounded by some members of your community which claims that the Jewish people are stricken by a spiritual blindness – and it is this supernatural defect which prevents the members of my community from appreciating the power of your arguments.

If my community has not been as diligent as yours in reaching out to our brothers, please see in this letter a step towards rectifying that imbalance. Please read my words as you would want me to read yours – as an expression of my concern for your welfare. Before I get into the details of my presentation I would like to ask you to step back and consider the following. Both you and I accept the dictum that we only do unto others as we would have done unto ourselves. When you present your arguments to members of my community in an effort to persuade them to abandon their path in favor of yours – in essence you are asking them to go through an extremely difficult process. You are asking them to seriously consider the possibility that much of what they hold precious and holy – is downright wrong. You are asking them to draw the courage to look at themselves in the mirror and say – I’ve been wrong all these years. If you ask this of us, please be willing to do the same yourself.

You can read the rest of the letter here

https://yourphariseefriend.wordpress.com/the-council-of-my-nation/

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Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Post # 429

This post was put up on the comment section on Dr. Brown’s Line of Fire website. I present it here because it demonstrates the benefit of discussing these matters in writing. Incidentally; I am still awaiting Dr. Brown’s response.   

429.yisroel blumenthal

December 22nd, 2011 @ 10:31 am

Dr. Brown

Here is my response to your post # 258

I believe that with this response of yours – a great breakthrough was achieved in our interaction – vindicating the usefulness of such interaction. I will explain this statement as I proceed to respond to your points one by one.

In my previous post (on this topic) I put our disagreements into two categories: Messianic expectations and interpretation of Isaiah 53.

On the issue of Messianic expectation

I demonstrated how you apply a double standard in your interpretation of Messianic prophecy. When it comes to the Jewish expectation of a rebuilt Temple and restored sacrifices you measure them by the number of times these concepts are mentioned in Scripture (according to your count, they are few), You measure them by the fact that in some of these prophecies, no Messianic figure is mentioned, and you measure them by the fact that there seems to be a problem with the timing of some of the prophecies (the context would indicate a fulfillment at a time that does not coincide with the Jewish interpretation).

On the basis of these measuring sticks – you downplay these prophecies and conclude that they could perhaps be fulfilled in a symbolic sense and not necessarily in a literal sense.

I pointed out that had you applied these same “measuring sticks” to the prophecies which are interpreted by Christians as prediction for Messiah’s miracles – then we could even more quickly conclude that the Messiah does not necessarily need to preform miracles in a literal sense.

But you insist that the miracles must be literal. You go on to pass judgment against Maimonides who insists on a literal fulfillment of theTempleprophecies while maintaining that the miracle prophecies need not be understood literally.

But using your own standards of interpretation – Maimonides is right.

How do you explain this? You say – Well Jesus already told us that this is the interpretation!

This then is the breakthrough. We have come to an agreement, it seems, that without FIRST accepting Jesus as an authority – the Jewish Bible does NOT encourage belief in Jesus.

If you need Jesus to tell you that your biblical interpretation is correct – then you should have said so in your book. You open your five volumes setting the standard for this discussion: “What does the Bible say?” But now you are admitting that according to that standard – Jesus is NOT the Messiah. The only way you can come to the conclusion that Jesus is the Messiah – is by first accepting him as the Messiah and then accepting his Biblical interpretations.

It is my position that the moral position for someone who does not believe in Jesus is to examine his claims in light of the Biblical texts. Until his claims are vindicated –– it would be going against God to accept his claims. We must therefore first read the Jewish Bible – without belief in Jesus – and then examine his claims in light of the truth we have learned from God’s word. The fact that you need to quote Jesus to defend your position underscores the fact that your position is not rooted in the words of the Jewish Bible.

You claim that the reason you pointed out the relatively small number of passages predicting the future Temple is because traditional Judaism puts the future Temple on the same plane as world peace as a Messianic requirement. You conclude that Scripture does not bear this out.

I suggest that you turn to page 178 of your volume 3 and you will see that you were not contrasting the hope for the Temple with the hope for peace (which you yourself minimize on page 70 of volume 1) – but you were contrasting the hope for a future Temple with the alleged miracles of the Messiah. This being the case – my citation of the number of passages is completely relevant.

In another paragraph you accuse me of creating a strawman (you generously add – “probably unintentional”) by presenting it as an issue of “either or”. With this accusation you have created a strawman of your own (probably unintentionally). In my opening statements which you yourself copied in the beginning of your own response – I presented the two opposing positions – not as “either or”, but rather with the one requiring miracles as an absolute necessity while relegating the temple to a possibility – as opposed to the other which has the Temple as the absolute requirement and the miracles remain a possibility.

You skip over some of my points because you see no relevance to them. I am sure that the readers of this conversation (including myself) will want to know your response to two of my questions that you seem to deem “irrelevant”.

1) Do you believe that the number of verses supporting a specific doctrinal position is a valid standard by which to judge the Scriptural basis of a given position? And if yes, then why, throughout your five volumes, do you never apply this standard to the arguments of the Church? (i.e the virgin birth etc)

2) How is it that in your interview with Stroebel Zechariah 6 is magnified as “the most overt passage in the Bible where a human being is identified with a Messianic figure” – and on page 172 of volume 3 you downplay this very same prophecy because it appears in only one book of the Bible. Isn’t that being inconsistent in your own line of reasoning?

I countered your argument concerning the timing of the predictions concerning theTemple– by pointing out that the predictions of Messiah’s miracles are also tied in by the prophets to a specific time – which precludes applying these predictions to Jesus.

You respond with the argument that “Messiah” (and I presume you mean “Jesus”) came working these very miracles.

This response is completely circular. You are in effect saying – believe in Jesus because he fulfilled this prophecy – but when I point out that according to a contextual reading of the prophecy he did not fulfill the prophecy – you tell me – but Jesus said he did! – so why should I accept his interpretation?

Your next argument is “that there is nothing in the context of, say, Isaiah 61 that precludes the Messianic interpretation” – I assume that you mean to assert that there is nothing in the context of Isaiah 61 that precludes your application of this passage to Jesus. I may have misunderstood you and if I did please clarify – but if I understood you correctly then your assertion is patently false. Isaiah 61 speaks of a “day of revenge” – which you acknowledge was not yet fulfilled. If a 2000 year interlude in middle of a sentence, without any textual justification, is “sound Biblical interpretation” for you – I guess I will have to be the one to inform you – that others will not be satisfied.

When I present my question about your double standard (asking the question if a given prophecy is symbolic or literal) – you go back to “the Messiah has already come”. Are you saying that it is OK for you to use a double standard because you “know” you are right?

The point I made about symbolic language was that as far as I could see, Scripture never uses a specific type of sheep as a metaphor. I did not say that it is not theoretically possible – my point was that this would be unusual – weakening the symbolic interpretation. You response does not address my point.

In response to my summary which asks a simple question – if we are going to apply a certain standard for the Jewish expectations of the Messiah – that we should do the same for the Christian expectations – you respond with:

“Of course we should, and that’s why we look at David as the proto-type (priestly King) and that’’s why we pay attention to the time line (expected before the destruction of the Second Temple), and that’s why we then allow the Messiah’s first coming to shed light on the meaning of the passages. All very clear, thank God!”

How is this clear? You take a Jewish argument and (mis)apply a certain standard of interpretation. You do this with one Jewish argument – ignoring the sum total of the Jewish arguments. So why are you reluctant to apply this same standard to the Christian arguments? Is it because you have other arguments to support your position? But when I will point to the inherent weaknesses of those arguments – you will run back to this one! What kind of response is that?

In any case – here is the response to the two arguments that you present. – Looking to David as a prototype is the last thing you want to do. It is hard to imagine a character that is more thoroughly antithetical to David than Jesus. David consistently stresses his own utter dependance on God – highlighting his sins – opening his heart to all of mankind expressing his complete humility towards God. How does this compare to a “mystery-man” who claims to be sinless and deserving of worship himself?

In response to your second argument – about the timing (Messiah had to come before the destruction of the Second Temple) – which you refer to Haggai 2, Malachi 3 and Daniel 9. I don’t see how you can apply these prophecies to Jesus. How could a prediction for a glorification of the Temple (predicted by Haggai) be fulfilled by one who claimed to be a replacement of theTemple? How could a prediction of the restoration of the Levitical priesthood (predicted by Malachi) be fulfilled by one who claimed to do away with the Levitical priesthood? And how could a prediction (by Daniel) about an anointed one cut off with the destruction of the city claim to be fulfilled by someone who died more than five weeks of years (in Daniel’s terms) before the destruction of the city?

Interpretation of Isaiah 53

I asked you if 53:9 could apply to Israel– you respond with a question “why in the world am I limiting the discussion to one verse when we have the whole chapter”. The answer to your question is because chapters are made up of verses – one verse at a time. If you refuse to discuss “one verse” – because you claim that the rest of the chapter bears out your position – then we will have a hard time discussing the matter. When I point to any one verse – you will run to the “rest of the chapter” – and when I point out that your arguments in those other verses don’t pan out – you will always be able to say – “ah! but look at the rest of the chapter”.

The fact of the matter is that there is no individual in the history of mankind that is more thoroughly eliminated from being a possible subject of this passage (Isaiah 53) as is Jesus from Nazareth. The entire thrust of the passage is that when the arm of the Lord is revealed upon the servant – the world will be shocked. If there is anyone that this cannot be – it is Jesus. So there is the “rest of the chapter” for you.

Getting back to this one verse – 53:9 – you are saying that it cannot be corporate Israel. So are you saying that the Jews when the Jews were butchered because of the accusations that they murdered Christian children and because they had stolen the world’s wealth through deception – that they were indeed guilty of these charges?

You claim that when I speak of Israel’s guilt compared to the guilt of the nations I have introduced a “new category”. I gave you 9 Scriptural references – and you call this a “new category”!? Let us take the first one on the list – Isaiah 26:2; where Israel is praised as the righteous nation who kept her faithfulness. It is obvious that Israel is singled out from amongst the nations for this praise. They are being praised not for something new that is given to them but for the faithfulness towards God that they maintained throughout the exile. (Contrast this with the exaltation of the Messiah described in chapter 11 which will be for new qualities that will be granted to him at that time – not for qualities that he possessed before then.)

In 49:23 Israel is rewarded for having hoped to God – from the context it is obvious that the nations do not share in this reward. The concept is reiterated again and again throughout the book of Isaiah – all those who worship idols will be shamed when everyone sees that the God who Israel trusted in is the true God. Israe lwill be exalted to the eyes of the nations for maintaining this trust in God throughout the exile – something that no nation will share with them.

When the nations will see the exaltation of God (and Jesus will have no part in this exaltation) they will realize that their worship of Jesus was idolatry. They will realize that Israel’s rejection of Jesus was her greatest virtue. They will realize that all the material blessing that they were blessed with came about because the Jewish people prayed to God for the prosperity of the countries they inhabited – and not because of their own prayers to Jesus.

This brings us to your arguments against my interpretation as to how Israel brought healing to the nations. You quote Jeremiah 51:9 which actually proves my point – the healing of the nation is not some spiritual gift – but material blessing here on earth. History vindicates my interpretation because countries that allowed the Jews to live amongst them – prospered – while those that expelled them – declined. As forBabylon; Jeremiah wasn’t making a joke in 29:7. The Jewish prayers helped the Babylonians until their time came. No one said the healing was permanent.

You argue that my interpretation which has the servant render the many righteous – as a future prophecy, contradicts my interpretation which has the servant’s healing of the nation to be past. I would urge you to pay attention to the words of the prophet. The healing is described as something that happened in the past (nirpah) while the servant rendering the many righteous is presented as a future prediction (yatzdik).

You created a new category when you decided that the servant had to be sinless on the basis of your symbolic interpretation of the requirement that the animal guilt offering be free of physical blemish. I responded that the servant being human and not animal has no such requirement. I presented an example from the guilt offering of the Philistines.

You respond that the requirement for the Philistines would be different than the requirements for Israel. It seems that you forgot another Scriptural passage – Leviticus 22:25 – which explicitly applies the requirements of presenting non-blemished animals for the Gentiles as well as the Israelites. – By the way – do you believe the servant only suffers for Israel– or do you believe he suffers for all of mankind?

You discount my interpretation which has the servant guilty of his own sins – because then the assessment of his enemies would have been accurate – he was suffering for his own sins, while the prophet makes it clear that he was suffering for the sins of others.

You have misunderstood the thrust of Isaiah 53. Those who had denigrated the servant had been looking at the fact that the servant is the only one suffering as an indication that they themselves are more righteous then the servant – or that the servant is more evil than themselves (I see this fulfilled in the consistent Christian assertion that the holocaust “proves” that Israel’s rejection of Jesus is the greatest sin.) When the servant is vindicated – they will see that he had been bearing the burden for everybody – as described in Psalm 88, and that actually the servant had been the one who was fulfilling God’s mission on earth for the benefit of all mankind.

When that great day comes – and everyone sees that God alone is King – then those who trusted in Him will be vindicated to the eyes of all the nations who placed their trust in other entities. Everything will pale into insignificance when the nations realize how the worship that they considered the highest virtue – was actually the greatest abomination before God. All ofIsrael’s sins are between her and God. As for the nations – they will call Israel“the righteous nation” – and they will realize that Israel’s loyalty to God was the most precious thing that God had on this earth (26:2). They will realize that God’s purpose here on earth was accomplished through those loyal to Him – and that those who hoped to God bore the burden for everyone else. I imagine also – that when God’s glory is revealed and the mask of confusion is removed from the face of the nations – then Christians will realize that nations who revere books that slander their theological opponents have something to learn from a nation that reveres a book that highlights their own faults (Zechariah 8:23).

I look forward to your response.

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Without Preconceived Notions

In one of my articles (entitled Messianic Expectation https://yourphariseefriend.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/the-messianic-expectation/  ) I wrote: “When we read the scripture without any preconceived notions about the Messiah, when we read God’s promises for Israel’s glorious future age, we can readily see why the Jewish people cannot accept the claims of Christianity.”

Gil Torres commented by saying that the missionary could respond with the exact same argument: “When we read the scripture without any preconceived notions about the Messiah, when we read God’s promises for Israel’s glorious future age, we can readily see why the Christian people accept the claims of Christianity.”

So it seems that Gil Torres is under the impression that reading the Jewish Scriptures “WITHOUT ANY PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS” will lead us to the Christian description of the Messiah.

In this humble article I set out to demonstrate how it is that I know that Gil’s assertion is false.

The first question I need to address is how can I approach this matter with any level of evenhandedness? After all I come to this debate with a whole package of preconceived notions. Who am I to say what things look like from the standpoint of someone without preconceived notions if I never stood there?

The fact is that it is quite easy for me to do this. You see; the missionaries have helped me arrive at this conclusion in more ways than one. For starters I call Dr. Brown and Lee Strobel to the witness stand. No one would accuse these two men of reading Scripture with a predisposition against Jesus yet they both admit that their understanding of the Messiah is not easily found in the Jewish Scriptures. Dr. Brown writes: “Messianic prophecies are not clearly identified as such” (Answering Jewish Objections Vol. 3 Page 189). Lee Strobel complains of the difficulties inherent in the task of “finding” Jesus in the Jewish Bible: “scholars must pore over the context of various passages to determine which ones deal with the coming of the Messiah” (The Case for the Real Jesus page 190).

If the Christian concept of Messiah can be readily found in the Jewish Scriptures as Gil claims then why would these dedicated missionaries warn us that this is not so easily done?

The second way that the Church has made it clear that the Christian version of the role of the Messiah is not readily found in the Jewish Scriptures is with their admission that the disciples of Jesus were shocked when he died. If an unbiased reading of the Scriptures should lead to the Christian understanding of the role of Messiah the disciples should have been terribly disappointed if he would not have died. How would he “fulfill” Isaiah 53? Psalm 22? Genesis 3:15? It is clear that people who are not predisposed towards Christian theology can read the Jewish Scriptures without seeing these passages as necessary prerequisites for the Messiah to fulfill

(Dr. Brown’s response to this argument is especially enlightening – https://yourphariseefriend.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/response-to-th-line-of-fire-9/ )

Finally; Christians have made it clear to me that it is not my bias that prevents me from seeing Jesus in the pages of Jewish Scripture is by avoiding the most basic challenge. I have presented the following challenge again and again to different Christian teachers: “The myth of the “blindness of the Jew” is an ugly stain in the history of mankind. Dr. Brown, instead of working to perpetuate this myth, I appeal to you to educate Christians of the fallacies of this myth. Explain to your audience that as long as the Jew sees the teachings of Christianity as a contradiction to the Scriptures with which we were entrusted by God – it is the moral duty of the Jew to REJECT those teachings. Encourage your audience to try to read the Jewish Scriptures as a Jew would have read them before the advent of Jesus. Encourage your listeners to attempt to acquire a complete world-view on the basis of the Jewish Scriptures alone – and ask them – how would they view the doctrines of Christianity in the light of the Jewish Scriptures.“ (This was an appeal to Dr. Brown posted in “Response to the Line of Fire 9”).

In my Eighth Response to Gil Torres (https://yourphariseefriend.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/eighth-response-to-gil-torres/ ) I wrote: “According to your own standard (that a claim for prophecy be measured in light of previous revelation) what you should have done is that you should have studied the Jewish Scriptures and the Jewish Scriptures alone, absorbed its spirit and allowed yourself to become saturated with its teachings – you should have developed a complete world-view on that basis and then and only then evaluate the claims of Christianity in that light. Do you not agree that this would be the proper approach?”

Instead of taking me up on the challenge these Christian teachers lecture to me about the “coherence of the dialogue” or by otherwise beating around the bush (https://yourphariseefriend.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/goldberg-vs-brown/). If; as Gil claims, that the Christian understanding of the Messiah is clearly spelled out in Scripture for the unbiased reader – I think that these Christian teachers would not go to these lengths to avoid the straightforward challenge that I presented to them.

I can say with clarity and with confidence – When we read the scripture without any preconceived notions about the Messiah, when we read God’s promises for Israel’s glorious future age, we can readily see why the Jewish people cannot accept the claims of Christianity.

The Christian teachers have unwittingly confirmed my statement.

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Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Why Don’t Jews Believe in Jesus ?

As a Christian you may have wondered: why don’t Jews believe in Jesus ? Perhaps you are a Jew who knows that Jews stood apart from the surrounding populace and refused to join the European people in their devotion to Jesus and you want to understand: why don’t Jews believe in Jesus ?

Before I can answer this question we need to determine what it is that the Church wants the Jew to believe about Jesus. The fact of the matter is that Church would want Jews to believe many different things about Jesus. The Church would have us believe that Jesus is the Messiah predicted by the Jewish prophets, that he is divine, that the devotion of mankind ought to be directed to him, that faith in him atones for sin and that he was the sinless lamb. Each one of these beliefs deserves its own answer.

Jews cannot believe that Jesus was the Messiah predicted by the Jewish prophets for the simple reason that he fulfilled none of the Messianic prophecies (https://yourphariseefriend.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/the-messianic-expectation/ ). Furthermore; the character of Jesus as described by the writers of the Christian Scriptures stands as a direct opposite of the character of the Messiah that the Jewish people have been taught by the prophets to wait for (https://yourphariseefriend.wordpress.com/2010/09/05/the-polar-opposite/ ).

Jews cannot believe that Jesus was divine because we were taught by God that all of the inhabitants of heaven and earth are but creations of the One Divine Creator (https://yourphariseefriend.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/foundation-of-worship/ )

Jews cannot direct their devotion towards Jesus because their devotion is already pledged to the Creator of heaven and earth. Jews stand in a covenant relation with God and directing devotion to anyone aside from the One to whom their heart is already pledged is the deepest violation of this covenantal relationship.

Jews cannot believe that faith in Jesus atones for sin for the simple reason that there is not one verse in all of the writings of the prophets that would teach that faith in anyone atones for sin. The consistent teaching of Moses and all the prophets is that sincere repentance atones for sin.

Jews cannot believe that Jesus was sinless because the prophets testify that no human being is perfect (http://proverbs1817.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/the-sinless-man/ ).

Even Jews who have strayed from their roots and do not follow the Law of Moses cannot believe in Jesus. These Jews recognize that attributing divinity to a human being and directing worship towards a person is simply wrong. By elevating one man to the status of divine the Church has negated the intrinsic equality of all men – the foundation of civilization.

Another reason why Jews don’t believe in Jesus is because of the atrocities committed in his name. During the past several decades the Church has engaged in an intense whitewashing campaign to disassociate Jesus from the horrors of the holocaust and the inquisition. But the fact remains that the Christian Church was the vehicle through which the mind of Western civilization was poisoned against the Jew. Whether this was their intention or not; the writers of the Christian Scriptures laid the mental and cultural groundwork for the cruel persecution of the Jewish people for almost 2000 years. You can’t really expect Jews to believe in the man idolized by these same writers.

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Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Focused Decision – Responsible Devotion

When you need to make a decision you don’t want to be distracted. You certainly don’t want to be intimidated by ridicule or by fear. You also don’t want to be confused by complicated argumentation. You want to be able to cut through the confusion and focus on the question at hand clearly and calmly so that you can arrive at your decision on the basis of the relevant factors.

From the standpoint of religion the most important decision that you could possibly make is the decision to whom to direct your worship. If you direct your worship correctly then you are developing a relationship with the one true God. If you misdirect your devotion then you are engaged in idolatry. If you have a question about directing your devotion you want to remain focused on the one relevant issue – does this entity that demands my devotion deserve it or not.

The key difference between Judaism and Christianity revolves around this question. Judaism insists that all worship and devotion ought to be directed to the One Creator of heaven and earth while Christianity insists that our devotion should be directed towards one Jesus of Nazareth.

In order to arrive at a decision on the basis of the facts it is important that we clearly see both sides of the question in their stark reality. The 2000 year old missionary campaign of the Church has exerted itself so that people cannot examine this question with clarity and serenity. The purpose of this humble article is to help you cut through the confusion and see this question as it is.

The Church is using many tactics that serve to confuse the person faced with this question and we aim to expose some of them. By gaining an awareness of the tactics and strategies of the masters of persuasion it is easier to see through the mist of confusion and evaluate the question for what it is.

One strategy employed by the missionaries is that they attempt to obfuscate the question itself. The Churchmen would rather that you do not see two clear opposing positions. Yes; the Church acknowledges that there is opposition to their belief system but the opposition is painted in a way that the core issue is obfuscated. Instead of presenting a question about idolatry and directing worship the Churchmen would rather that you ask yourself the question; “is this man the Messiah?” or: “how do you achieve forgiveness for your sins?”.

In order to see this question in the terms of reality all you need to do is ask yourself: “if a man approaches me and claims that he is the incarnation of the Divine and as such is deserving of my worship – what would it take for me to be convinced if this is at all possible?” To put this question in a Christian format we could ask: “if a man were to approach me and claim that he is an incarnation of the Christian Jesus and as such is deserving of worship – what would it take for me to be convinced if this is at all possible?”

In order to approach this question clearly you need to see on the one side the possibility of worshiping God without directing an iota of devotion to Jesus and on the other side you need to see a man demanding your devotion.

The questions about Messiah and about forgiveness of sin are completely irrelevant in light of the real question; namely: is this worship that is being demanded of me idolatrous or not?

In order to further obfuscate the question the missionaries employ language that serves to confuse and obfuscate the issue at hand. The arguments of the trinity and the incarnation are complicated and intricate and the more complicated they are the further they serve their purpose – to confuse. People get lost in the reasoning of the Christian theologians and they are discouraged from searching out the root of the question.

In order to cut through the smokescreen of these arguments I encourage you to go back to the original question. If a man approaches you and claims that he is an incarnation of whoever it is that you already worship would it make a difference to you if he pulls out several thick volumes filled with complicated arguments and tells you to read them?

The wording that Christianity uses, fusing Jesus together with God, is also confusing. People that are brought up in a Christian setting often have these two separate entities: Jesus and God; fused together in their minds. This makes it difficult for them to see the question as it is. Again; to help you see through the confusion I encourage you to imagine a man (not Jesus) attempting to convince you that he is one and the same as the Creator of heaven and earth – just see the two sides of the question. Is it appropriate for me to direct my devotion towards this fellow who looks, walks and talks like a man, or is it wrong for me to direct my devotion towards this man?

Another strategy employed by the Church in preventing people from arriving at a balanced and focused decision is intimidation. This is accomplished several ways. One method that is used is that those who reject Jesus are demonized by the masters of persuasion. The position of those who do not accept Jesus’ claims is painted in the terms of spiritual blindness, inherent wickedness and association with the devil.

Ridicule and derision is also used by the Church to throw the person faced with the question of Jesus off balance. Those who doubt Jesus’ claims are called hypocrites, legalists, are accused of being motivated by pride and are described as people with a shallow understanding of spirituality.

The Church also employs the fear of eternal hell-fire to further confuse the person faced with this question.

All of these tactics of persuasion were elevated to the level of religious virtue by means of infusing the Christian Scriptures with the same authority and reverence that the books of the Jewish Bible enjoy. By placing the Christian Scriptures side by side with the Jewish Bible the Churchmen hoped to hide the fact that the Christian Scriptures is a work of propaganda directly and consciously aimed at influencing people’s opinion about Jesus.

The Jewish Scriptures were not written to convince anyone of anything. They were written to encourage the nation that already believes in the God of Israel and in the agency of His prophet Moses to be loyal to God and to obey His law as set down through Moses. The Christian Scriptures on the other hand were written in an atmosphere where the opposition to belief in Jesus was very strong and the authors all exerted themselves to counter that opposition. Even Paul, who is addressing the internal community of Christians, is writing to counter and to dispute other versions of Christianity that were popular in his time.

A book that is written with the express purpose of persuading people cannot be granted the same level of credibility as a book that is not trying to convince anyone. Anyone reading the Christian Scriptures must realize that this book was written with the conscious desire to persuade people to believe a certain way.

So let’s recap. A man approaches you and demands your devotion – will you give it to him? Will you be convinced by a series of book written by people who are already devoted followers of this man? Will you allow your decision to be influenced by the followers of this man when they invalidate anyone who opposes the devotion they are demanding with ridicule and contempt? Will you allow yourself to be distracted by issues other than the question of idolatry?

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Yisroel C. Blumenthal