Jews and Jesus

[CriticalSock]

Christians make much of Jesus fulfilling bible prophecy which proved that he was the messiah. For example he was born in Bethlehem, rode into Jerusalem on an ass, cleared the money lenders out of the temple and so on. All of these events in his life are used as evidence of Jesus fulfilling prophecies from the Old Testament and therefore proving that he was the messiah.

So why didn't the Jews at the time accept him as the messiah? They were all eagerly looking for the messiah to come at that time weren't they? Anyone who ticked the prophetic boxes should have been instantly hailed by everyone as their saviour from the Romans.

Why didn't the general Jewish community at the time think that Jesus was the messiah and, also, what are the reasons that Jews today don't accept that he was the messiah?

It seems to me that if the people best placed at the right time knowing the criteria and with a vested interest in identifying the messiah didn't think it was Jesus, then he probably wasn't.

 

[Skepticemea]

It seems to me that if the people best placed at the right time knowing the criteria and with a vested interest in identifying the messiah didn't think it was Jesus, then he probably wasn't.

If by those with a vested interest you are referring to the heads of the Jewish faith at the time of Jesus's existence, then you've got that entirely the wrong way around.

Jesus is supposed to have made the convenant between God and man a personal, one-to-one relationship, withour requiring recourse to/or mediation through a hierachical construct. Basically, he made the pharisees unimportant and unnecessary. That's your vested interest there.

Funny how that one-to-one relationship turned into the Catholic church, innit?

You can take the religion outta church...

 

[Humes fork]

Let the Jews explain it. Besides, Jesus was hardly the only claimant to being the Messiah.

 

[CriticalSock]

If by those with a vested interest you are referring to the heads of the Jewish faith at the time of Jesus's existence, then you've got that entirely the wrong way around.

Jesus is supposed to have made the convenant between God and man a personal, one-to-one relationship, withour requiring recourse to/or mediation through a hierachical construct. Basically, he made the pharisees unimportant and unnecessary. That's your vested interest there.

Funny how that one-to-one relationship turned into the Catholic church, innit?

You can take the religion outta church...

The thing is, their religious writings at that time were telling them to expect a messiah to appear. The established religious leaders at the time might not have liked Jesus' message but if he ticked all the prophetic boxes and clearly was the messiah then surely they'd have had to knuckle down and comply? Or, maybe more likely, they'd have made him the leader of their religion and then 'managed' his message to meet their own ends.

Let the Jews explain it. Besides, Jesus was hardly the only claimant to being the Messiah.

Yes, I realise that from studying "The Life of Brian". There were loads of messiah wannabe's around at the time. They all failed to prove themselves to the Jewish people of the time, including Jesus. Why?

 

[CriticalSock]

Thanks for the link. That goes a long way to answering my question.

 

[HansMustermann]

Just because someone expects a messiah, doesn't mean one has to be pencils-up-the-nose, underpants-on-head retarded about it and just crown the first guy off the street who wants that job. I mean, I'm expecting some great economist to come up with a better economic theory than the current lease of life on capitalism by just borrowing more money each time it fails to deliver or causes a bubble, but that doesn't mean I'll let the hobo under the bridge manage my money if nobody else comes for that job.

As for why everyone failed to be a Messiah, well, because it was an impossible role to fulfil. Not just hard, but impossible. It required one heck of a miraculous guy, for a start. And we even have Paul's testimony that the Jews expected miracles in 1 Corinthians 1.

They didn't just expect some guy to come preach some nice stuff. They expected someone to come kick the Romans' ass like Chuck Noris, put the Jews on top, bring the kingdom of God to Earth, and start the messianic age. The latter sounds easy until you realize that it involved the dead starting popping back to life wholesale. (Yeah, guess why Matthew made up the great zombie plague of Jerusalem? That's why.)

You have to understand that their expectations of a messiah were coloured by what was in the Tanakh, i.e., a bunch of lies and retroactive embellishments. They had lots of stories of some hella miraculous guys sent by God, but not much clue that most of those were allegories and/or retroactive BS. E.g., they had Daniel doing all sorts of miracles and impressing the emperor of the Persians, but that was fiction written hundreds of years after the supposed events. Heck, most of the "prophets" that made the cut were making their prophecies a century or two after the thing they prophecised. And some (e.g., Issaiah) weren't even about a Messiah at all, but got thrown into the list of Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications for a Messiah anyway.

You can probably see how that would create some impossible standards that a Messiah would have to compare to.

Basically, really, it's like basing the expectations for the next mayor on old superhero books like the Green Arrow. Let's throw in some modern ones too, at that, like Statesman from City Of Heroes. Now those were good leaders for a city to follow, and if it worked for Star City and Paragon City respectively, by Zeus, we'll not settle for anything less. You're not going to find any candidate who qualifies.

Except in the modern day, you'd go "meh, let's elect the next best guy instead then." But they didn't go for the next best guy for a Messiah. They waited for the real article.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

There were loads of messiah wannabe's around at the time. They all failed to prove themselves to the Jewish people of the time, including Jesus. Why?

It seems that compared to all the other claimants, Jesus was the only one who was so successful in convincing enough people that he was the Messiah, that two thousand years later, a very large portion of the world's population still accepts this claim.

A very large portion of Jesus' early followers were from among the Jewish people.

He didn't convince all of them, of course, but I don't see how it was to be expected that he would. No matter how good one thinks the proof is for one claim, there will always be those who reject that claim anyway, either because they sincerely do not believe that the “proof”*proves what the claimant says it does, or because they have some vested interest in rejecting the claim, such as that of the Jewish leaders at the time whose own positions of power and influence were endangered by acceptance of any “Messiah”, whether real or not.

 

[Cavemonster]

Despite all the talk of Jesus fullfilling prophecy, the one really clear and inarguable part of the prophecy of the messiah according to Judaism is that he comes and there's a golden eternal age of heaven on earth. That's what the messiah does.

So despite the fact that he may have ridden a donkey, the fact that he didn't do the one big thing the messiah was supposed to do could be taken as pretty clear evidence that he wasn't it.

Christianity is the world's most impressive instance of "I meant to do that". They took what was essentially the clearest failure of prophecy you could imagine: instead of bringing about a golden age, their leader is executed- and turned it into the very basis of a new religion.

"Oh, he was supposed to die! Yeah! him getting killed and not doing the one thing the messiah is supposed to do was the whole point!"

When Bar Kochba died a hundred years later, he was out of the running too. Getting killed is not something the messiah was supposed to do.

 

[Skepticemea]

We're in the end of days, y'know?

And have been since about 33AD.

 

[CriticalSock]

It seems that compared to all the other claimants, Jesus was the only one who was so successful in convincing enough people that he was the Messiah, that two thousand years later, a very large portion of the world's population still accepts this claim.

A very large portion of Jesus' early followers were from among the Jewish people.

He didn't convince all of them, of course, but I don't see how it was to be expected that he would. No matter how good one thinks the proof is for one claim, there will always be those who reject that claim anyway, either because they sincerely do not believe that the “proof”*proves what the claimant says it does, or because they have some vested interest in rejecting the claim, such as that of the Jewish leaders at the time whose own positions of power and influence were endangered by acceptance of any “Messiah”, whether real or not.

Except that it wasn't Jesus who convinced enough people that he was the messiah so that it's still believed today. It was the people writing almost a century after the events that created the compelling mythology.

At the time that Jesus was alive he wasn't compelling enough to convince the majority of the society that was actively looking for someone like him. Not all of them of course. I'm not suggesting that I would expect the messiah to have a 100% conversion rate amongst the Jews, just a majority that would be expected if the son of god started manifesting himself in the neighbourhood.

 

[HansMustermann]

Despite all the talk of Jesus fullfilling prophecy, the one really clear and inarguable part of the prophecy of the messiah according to Judaism is that he comes and there's a golden eternal age of heaven on earth. That's what the messiah does.

So despite the fact that he may have ridden a donkey, the fact that he didn't do the one big thing the messiah was supposed to do could be taken as pretty clear evidence that he wasn't it.

Christianity is the world's most impressive instance of "I meant to do that". They took what was essentially the clearest failure of prophecy you could imagine: instead of bringing about a golden age, their leader is executed- and turned it into the very basis of a new religion.

"Oh, he was supposed to die! Yeah! him getting killed and not doing the one thing the messiah is supposed to do was the whole point!"

When Bar Kochba died a hundred years later, he was out of the running too. Getting killed is not something the messiah was supposed to do.

Meh, people fall for even bigger "that was supposed to happen, honest."

As I was mentioning in another thread, we even have one example of an even bigger failure for a messiah, namely converting to another religion. Sabatai Zevi pulled just that. You'd think THAT would end anyone's messianic delusions about him right there, right? Well, you'd think that, but his followers didn't. A bunch of people took it as some supreme self-sacrifice, since apparently renouncing God is even worse than even giving up your life, so it's one heck of a sacrifice. And since he sacrificed himself so easily (by accepting a good life ever after, as the Sultan threw in some generous compensation for having the Jews' Messiah convert to his religion) that PROVES he is the Messiah.

Don't underestimate how far cognitive dissonance can go

 

[Bikewer]

Jesus accomplished exactly none of the things the Jewish Messiah was supposed to do.

People have conflated the current spiritual notion of Salvation with what the Jews had in mind.

 

[CriticalSock]

Meh, people fall for even bigger "that was supposed to happen, honest."

As I was mentioning in another thread, we even have one example of an even bigger failure for a messiah, namely converting to another religion. Sabatai Zevi pulled just that. You'd think THAT would end anyone's messianic delusions about him right there, right? Well, you'd think that, but his followers didn't. A bunch of people took it as some supreme self-sacrifice, since apparently renouncing God is even worse than even giving up your life, so it's one heck of a sacrifice. And since he sacrificed himself so easily (by accepting a good life ever after, as the Sultan threw in some generous compensation for having the Jews' Messiah convert to his religion) that PROVES he is the Messiah.

Don't underestimate how far cognitive dissonance can go

Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!

Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.

Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!

Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!


Something like that?

 

[Skepticemea]

Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!

Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.

Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!

Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!


Something like that?

The truth in that is frightening.

 

[HansMustermann]

Indeed. In fact, you can pretty much take the whole Life Of Brian as a documentary. It's truly frightening how much joke stuff in there is actually historical.

I mean, even modern, bizarre stuff like Stan wanting to be a woman. You'd think now THAT wouldn't be gospel material in that time and age, right? Well, check out the end of the Gospel Of Thomas where Jesus is ok with Mary Magdalene becoming a man is she wants to (And the general impression seems to be that she does.)

Brian's dad being supposedly a centurion called Naughtius Maximus? Well, minus the dog-latin name, Celsus makes exactly that claim about Jesus Though Celsus gives said dad the equally unusual, if more badass, name of Pantera.

 

[catsmate]

It seems that compared to all the other claimants, Jesus was the only one who was so successful in convincing enough people that he was the Messiah, that two thousand years later, a very large portion of the world's population still accepts this claim.

A very large portion of Jesus' early followers were from among the Jewish people.

He didn't convince all of them, of course, but I don't see how it was to be expected that he would. No matter how good one thinks the proof is for one claim, there will always be those who reject that claim anyway, either because they sincerely do not believe that the “proof”*proves what the claimant says it does, or because they have some vested interest in rejecting the claim, such as that of the Jewish leaders at the time whose own positions of power and influence were endangered by acceptance of any “Messiah”, whether real or not.

It could be argued that other false messiahs, e.g. John of Giscala or Menahem ben Judah, were more successful by that, and other criteria.

 

[Greediguts]

If by those with a vested interest you are referring to the heads of the Jewish faith at the time of Jesus's existence, then you've got that entirely the wrong way around.

Jesus is supposed to have made the convenant between God and man a personal, one-to-one relationship, withour requiring recourse to/or mediation through a hierachical construct. Basically, he made the pharisees unimportant and unnecessary. That's your vested interest there.

Funny how that one-to-one relationship turned into the Catholic church, innit?

You can take the religion outta church...

Historically speaking Skepticmea, the pharisees are the forefathers of today's rabbinical Judaism. The Sadducee's controlled the Temple during the years considered to be when Jesus lived. They were the "elite" class. The gospel writers' preoccupation with the pharisees probably comes from early Jewish/proto-Christians arguing with the sect that became the dominant Jewish voice after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.

Indeed. In fact, you can pretty much take the whole Life Of Brian as a documentary. It's truly frightening how much joke stuff in there is actually historical.

I mean, even modern, bizarre stuff like Stan wanting to be a woman. You'd think now THAT wouldn't be gospel material in that time and age, right? Well, check out the end of the Gospel Of Thomas where Jesus is ok with Mary Magdalene becoming a man is she wants to (And the general impression seems to be that she does.)

The Gospel of Thomas ending is more of a comment on the ideas of Roman sexuality and how being a male was looked at as the pinnacle of human existence rather than Mary wanting a sex-change in the modern sense.

 

[HansMustermann]

Historically speaking Skepticmea, the pharisees are the forefathers of today's rabbinical Judaism. The Sadducee's controlled the Temple during the years considered to be when Jesus lived. They were the "elite" class. The gospel writers' preoccupation with the pharisees probably comes from early Jewish/proto-Christians arguing with the sect that became the dominant Jewish voice after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.

Yep.

Actually IMHO even more telling than that they pick on the Pharisees, is that invariably they seem unaware that other sects even existed. I mean, come on, the Sadducees for example would be even more opposed to messianic ideas and new afterlives, while the Essenes would have been even more likely to crap a brick about Jesus's dispensing with the old rules. You'd think that a couple hundreds of years of writing about Jesus and the apostles, and literally hundreds of such conflicts and incidents described, someone would bump into some Sadducees or Essenes even if by sheer random chance. But, no, the vast majorities of those writing such fanfic (with the odd exception now and then, like Acts) nobody seems to be even aware that any other sect than the Pharisees even existed, much less that it was those who controlled the Temple and generally were the faction in power.

Which is yet another thing that gives me the hint that it's fanfic.

The Gospel of Thomas ending is more of a comment on the ideas of Roman sexuality and how being a male was looked at as the pinnacle of human existence rather than Mary wanting a sex-change in the modern sense.

I don't think it's as much the Romans, as the contemporary Jewish stupid ideas at work there, but nevertheless it makes for prime Life Of Brian material. Allowing women into heavens if only they make themselves men, is practically begging for the mental image of a stall selling fake beards next to the pearly gates and a bunch of women with fake beards. You know, just like at the stoning scene in Life Of Brian.

You have to admit, it's practically begging for some wholesale taking the piss.

What? You*re saying it's just me?

 

[Mycroft]

Christians make much of Jesus fulfilling bible prophecy which proved that he was the messiah. For example he was born in Bethlehem, rode into Jerusalem on an ass, cleared the money lenders out of the temple and so on. All of these events in his life are used as evidence of Jesus fulfilling prophecies from the Old Testament and therefore proving that he was the messiah.

I once heard the opinion that since the people who wrote the new testament already had the old testament and were able to shade the NT stories to make them seem like they fulfilled prophesies from the OT.

 

[pakeha]

It seems that compared to all the other claimants, Jesus was the only one who was so successful in convincing enough people that he was the Messiah, that two thousand years later, a very large portion of the world's population still accepts this claim. ...

And?