Judaism vs. Christianity (split from Nature of Islam topic)

[Purge]

Christianity isn't "the original religion", Judaism is.  Christianity piggy backed on it first, followed 600-700 years later by the followers of Muhammad.

The problem is *both* religions are based on trying to take the original Jewish traditions and "fix them" or "finish them".  Christianity claims to be the answer to the Old Testament (Tanakh).  It claims the Old Testament prophecises it, and thus the result of that prophecy (Jesus) now becomes the face of God, where in the Tanakh God's face or form is never seen, and the most intimate anyone ever gets is Moses, who "see's God face to face" in a metaphorical way, in that he talked to God through nature while others who had been touched by God through dreams.

Islam instead traces it's lineage to Abraham through Ishmael.

The thing I respect about Islam is that while Muhammad has a prominent place, it doesn't become about worshipping the prophet rather than the God of the prophet.  Christianity claims that Jesus is an extension of God, while also teaching that God is indivisible.  Since in Christianity Jesus becomes the sole source of salvation it then becomes paramount to worship Jesus the man.

Thus is the biggest problem between Christianity and it's original source of Judaism.

Thou shall not worship another god before Me.

You have conflicts between the New Testament and the Tanakh which it claims to be the answer to.  If God becomes a man, it nullifies himself as God, because God can't die or decompose.  And if God is both God in the heavens and God in the flesh, he can't be indivisible, and thus ceases to be one single God.

---

Anyway, the thing with Islam is despite it being old, it's still comparatively new compared to Judaism and later Christianity.  Christianity was in the same place 800-900 years ago.  So while things don't look overly positive right now on the whole, if all hell doesn't break loose, Islam is likely on the very brink of much reformation.

[Edric O]

Christianity isn't "the original religion", Judaism is. Christianity piggy backed on it first, followed 600-700 years later by the followers of Muhammad.

Well it's quite common for one religion to grow from another, and not just among the Abrahamic faiths. Buddhism "piggy backed" on Hinduism too.

The problem is *both* religions are based on trying to take the original Jewish traditions and "fix them" or "finish them".  Christianity claims to be the answer to the Old Testament (Tanakh).  It claims the Old Testament prophecises it, and thus the result of that prophecy (Jesus) now becomes the face of God, where in the Tanakh God's face or form is never seen, and the most intimate anyone ever gets is Moses, who "see's God face to face" in a metaphorical way, in that he talked to God through nature while others who had been touched by God through dreams.

Oh, that's grasping at straws. Jesus isn't "the face of God". God, being omnipotent, can take up any face He wants, and Jesus' face was by no means special.

Thus is the biggest problem between Christianity and it's original source of Judaism.

Thou shall not worship another god before Me.

It's the same God, not a different one.

You have conflicts between the New Testament and the Tanakh which it claims to be the answer to.  If God becomes a man, it nullifies himself as God, because God can't die or decompose.  And if God is both God in the heavens and God in the flesh, he can't be indivisible, and thus ceases to be one single God.

I don't see the logic in that. God in the spirit is obviously immortal, but what stops Him from putting part of His spirit in a human body and having that body die? Further, God is omnipresent, so He doesn't need to somehow divide Himself in order to exist both in heaven and on Earth.

[chatfsh]

Oh, that's grasping at straws. Jesus isn't "the face of God". God, being omnipotent, can take up any face He wants, and Jesus' face was by no means special.

It's the same God, not a different one.

I don't see the logic in that. God in the spirit is obviously immortal, but what stops Him from putting part of His spirit in a human body and having that body die? Further, God is omnipresent, so He doesn't need to somehow divide Himself in order to exist both in heaven and on Earth.

I

[Purge]

It's one thing to believe in the same God, it's another thing to proclaim a man as God in the flesh.

To understand why Jesus doesn't fulfill Judaism, you must first understand Judaism, the religion Christianity claims to fulfill.

The Torah (first five books of the Bible) make it clear that God is one.  The idea that God is dualistic or part of a trinity is heretical to the original source.

Furthermore, Jesus does not fulfill the prophetic texts in the Hebrew Bible which Christianity claims he is Christ based on fulfilling.

The Messiah in the Hebrew Bible is described as a descendant of David.  According to the Bible Jesus has both no paternal lineage (as he was immaculately conceived), and two different records of paternal lineage.  Despite the Virgin birth, there are two or three different accounts of Joseph's (Jesus' "father")  geneology, attempting to link him (Jesus) back to David, including Joseph having two different fathers between Luke and either Mark or Matthew, and many different relatives between the two.  The problem is that, if Jesus doesn't have a real father, then the lineage back to David which is important to the prophecy can't physcially be fulfilled.  The fact is, if Jesus had no real father he can't be called a king through lineage.

The Messiah in the Hebrew Bible is also not a supernatural being, but a literal King (Messiah = annointed = King) who leads the people back to their Promise Land, rebuilds the Temple, and ushers in an era of peace, and understanding where the knowledge of God fills the earth, where nations will recognize the wrongs they did Israel.

Needless to say, Jesus didn't lead the Jews back to Israel.  Jews were already in Israel at the time of Jesus, and the reason is because Cyrus - after taking Babylon - allowed Jews to return from exile to the Promise Land, and rebuild the Holy Temple some 400-500 years earlier.  The Temple had been rebuilt for hundreds of years by the time Jesus is said to have lived.  As for peace, can anyone here tell me how Jesus brought peace to Israel or the Jews?  Was it by saying that anyone who didn't accept him (which were namely Jews, who already knew better to bow down to false gods, because the Hebrew Bible is full of instances of Jews "not getting it") should be put to the death?  In fact, I would say Cyrus clearly met the requirements of the Messiah mentioned in prophecies during the exile moreso than Jesus did.  Cyrus free'd the Jews from King Neb., allowed them to return to the Holy Land, and allowed them to re-build the Holy Temple.

Also, keep in mind that - seeing how the Messiah had nothing to do with supernatural salvation, and was prophecised as a physical being - one of the absolute most basic requirements for the Messiah of the Hebrew Bible is that they (obviously) be a follower of the God of Israel, they must *not* describe Him differently than He is known in scripture, they must not advocate change to God's word or state that God has changed His mind and wishes things that contradict His already-stated eternal word, and the things they do speak of must come to pass.  That's all in Deuteronomy.  Deuteronomy 13:1 states simply, "All this which I command you, that shall ye observe to do; thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it."

Anyone who has read the Old and New Testaments knows that Jesus' sacrifice is used to nullify parts of the Old Testament (Tanakh).

Thus, to make a long story short, the New Testament - while based on the Tanakh - is not a fulfillment of.

While Christianity could claim to be it's own thing altogether, it fails when it attempts to be the fulfillment of the Hebrew Bible.

I don't mean this as an attack on Christianity, as I myself was once a Christian.  However, it's all there for all to see.  Where Christianity's problem comes in is the worship of Jesus rather than the worship of God himself, and claiming that said worship is salvation.

In the Hebrew Bible, before Jesus and Christianity existed, it's made very clear that salvation comes from repentance.  There was no Original Sin in the Tanakh.  It is very specifically stated that no son shall be held accountable for the sins of the father.  And this is made clear in Exodus when Jews begin worshipping false idols in Moses' absence.  Moses pleads with God to allow him to die for the sins of the many.  God tells Moses that no man shall die for the sins of another.  God struck down blanket salvation through the death of one long before the New Testament or Jesus existed.  We are talking about the second book of the Bible here.

the Hebrew Bible teaches that every Jew has a share in the world to come.  It doesn't end there though my friends.  The righteous people of other nations (non-Jew) have just as much a share in the world to come so long as they live by the simple morals of the Seven Noahide laws (which are pretty much laws that most civilized people live by).

[Edric O]

I

[chatfsh]

Water provides a good analogy. Imagine God as a lake. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three kinds of water mixed together in that lake. Then someone takes a cup (a really big cup) and lifts the Son-water out of the God-lake. This is Jesus - the cup is his human body, and the water in it is the spirit of God. Then the cup is smashed and the water in it falls back into the lake.

Interestingly, no solid object (such as an egg) could express the same concept I just expressed with water. You have to imagine God as something fluid.

I don't believe the human concept of individuality fits very well with an infinite being. Again, imagine God as a body of water that can divide itself and merge back at will.

Okay, let

[Purge]

The Tanakh firmly establishes that God has no body or form, not that he just chooses through the whole entire Tanakh not to appear in such a way.

Remember, Christianity is based on the Tanakh, not the other way around.  Judaism doesn't have to fit with the concept of Jesus and Christ.  The New Testament in and of itself creates the concept of a Christ and fulfillment of said Christ from prophecies of the Tanakh, prophecies which on their own have nothing to do with Christianity or a future changing of the eternal word of God.

The Hebrew Bible isn't something to be fit to our understanding of Christianity.  It's Christianity that must fit with the Tanakh to keep it's word, and when it doesn't I don't see how it can be anything but rejected.

Christianity makes it anything but clear that they are worshipping one God.  In fact it looks more like a lazy attempt at disguising polytheism as monotheism.  There is no Jesus or trinity in the Tanakh.  There is no literal Son of God.  There are, however, references to Israel as the collective son of God, some mentions of angles, and I believe David and or Soloman as sons of God.  We are all - by way of creation - children of God.  But there is no literal Son of God.  It's a concept that has no basis in the original Bible.  It's a creation of a later time.

You're splitting hairs. Jesus was clearly not a clone of His mother, and He was clearly human, so His DNA must have come from somewhere. Maybe God used Joseph's DNA when creating Jesus as an embryo, thus making Jesus biologically related to the House of David. For that matter, God could have made Jesus a clone of David himself...

How am I splitting hairs?  This is completely legitimate.  The Christian Bible doesn't stand on it's own, it stands based on it's fulfillment of the Tanakh.  Thus, stuff in the "New Testament" that contradicts or goes against the Tanankh in ways the Tanakh warns against (false prophecy) 1,500-500 years earlier can be seen as nothing  *but* heretical.

Making guesses or supposing to make up for discrepencies doesn't make them any less wrong.  Again, it's Christianity that must fit itself to the Tanakh, not the other way around.  When Jesus is claimed as the Messiah *because* of his descent from David, and then two gospels telling the same story show two completely different geneologies for Joseph, it reeks of Christianity making the connection of Jesus as Messiah, and not really giving a damn whether anything really matched up or not.  Any the funniest part of that is the fact that pushing Jesus as Messiah lacks a complete understanding of the prophecies it claims to be fulfilling in the first place.

That's only compounded by the fact that quotes from the Tanakh are constantly quoted wrong in the New Testament, even by Jesus himself.  The Word became flesh, yet the Tanakh being translated in Greek at the time was enough for Jesus to forget and/or mistranslate his/his father's eternal word?

This would not be the first time that the Bible uses metaphor. Let's get one thing clear: Some things in the Bible - especially prophecies - make no sense whatsoever if you take them literally. The entire Book of Revelation is blatantly alegorical.

Let's make another thing clear:  Revelation is a book of the New Testament, not the Tanakh.  The Torah and New Testament are seperated by over 1,000 years.  And Revelation is easily reconciled with Nero and the Roman Empire, and regardless, it has no basis in the Tanakh.  The Hebrew Bible's use of metaphors has nothing to do with whether Revelation or the New Testament are relevent.

And if anything your point about prophecies just goes to show the point I've been making.  Christianity is the use of Tanakh prophecies made during the Babylonian exile to confirm it's own status.  The problem with that is prophets in the Tanakh are prophets because they made prophecies about their people and their time.  That's the whole thing about being a prophet is your prophecies actually have to be fulfilled.  And the prophecies during the Babylonian exile are about just that, being free'd, being allowed to go back to the Promise Land, and being able to rebuild the Temple, which all came to pass.

All that took place about 500 years before Christ existed per Cyrus.

It's not difficult to see how "king" could be a metaphor for someone with great power, "leading the people back to the Promised Land" could mean leading them spiritually to salvation, "rebuilding the Temple" could refer to the creation of the Christian Church (or, in one interpretation, it could refer to Jesus rebuilding the "temple" of His own body - rising from the dead), and so on and so forth.

But it doesn't.  Again, you are trying to fit the Tanakh (original text) to the NT.  It doesn't work that way.  The Tanakh came first and said nothing about these things.  And King descended from David is very literal.  Jesus the man has no claim to royalty.

"Do not think that I [Jesus] came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill." - Matthew 5:17

Besides, if Jesus was God, then anything He commanded automatically fell under the heading of "all this which I command you" from Deuteronomy 13:1.

God has already stated - long before Jesus - that his laws are eternal, not ever changing.  In fact, Deuteronomy warns against false prophets who would do much of the same things Jesus is known to have done.

Deuteronomy

Chapter 13

1 All this word which I command you, that shall ye observe to do; thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.

2 If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams--and he give thee a sign or a wonder,

3 and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spoke unto thee--saying: 'Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them';

4 thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or unto that dreamer of dreams; for HaShem your G-d putteth you to proof, to know whether ye do love HaShem your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul.

5 After HaShem your G-d shall ye walk, and Him shall ye fear, and His commandments shall ye keep, and unto His voice shall ye hearken, and Him shall ye serve, and unto Him shall ye cleave.

6 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken perversion against HaShem your G-d, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of bondage, to draw thee aside out of the way which HaShem thy G-d commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put away the evil from the midst of thee.

7 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, that is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying: 'Let us go and serve other gods,' which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;

8 of the gods of the peoples that are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;

9 thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him;

10 but thou shalt surely kill him; thy hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

11 And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to draw thee away from HaShem thy G-d, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

12 And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is in the midst of thee.

13 If thou shalt hear tell concerning one of thy cities, which HaShem thy G-d giveth thee to dwell there, saying:

14 'Certain base fellows are gone out from the midst of thee, and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying: Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known';

15 then shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in the midst of thee;

16 thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword.

17 And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the broad place thereof, and shall burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, unto HaShem thy G-d; and it shall be a heap for ever; it shall not be built again.

18 And there shall cleave nought of the devoted thing to thy hand, that HaShem may turn from the fierceness of His anger, and show thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as He hath sworn unto thy fathers;

19 when thou shalt hearken to the voice of HaShem thy G-d, to keep all His commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of HaShem thy G-d.

--

Deuteronomy

Chapter 18

17 And HaShem said unto me: 'They have well said that which they have spoken.

18 I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee; and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.

19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto My words which he shall speak in My name, I will require it of him.

20 But the prophet, that shall speak a word presumptuously in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.'

21 And if thou say in thy heart: 'How shall we know the word which HaShem hath not spoken?'

22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of HaShem, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which HaShem hath not spoken; the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not be afraid of him.

Here God says that he who speaks for God and who's words go unfulfilled, that is the thing which God has not spoken.  What of Jesus' claims came to pass?  Although Jesus claims not to abolish but to uphold, he goes on to speak against the Jews who refuse to bow down to him, which God himself warns them against doing all through the Tanakh.  There are other verses in the Tanakh which talk about altering the already established eternal word of God.  Remember, the commandments aren't new, they are merely a reiteration of that which has already been established.

The New Testament talks about repentance all the time. And Original Sin is not explicitly mentioned in the NT any more than in the Tanakh; it is a Church doctrine developed in the first centuries of Christianity.

Original Sin is the defacto name given to the reason Jesus had to die for our sins and why we have to accept him as our salvation.  It's nowhere to be found and has no basis in the Tanakh.  Again, Exodus says that man is resonsible for his own sin straight from the Hebrew Bible (not OT translation).

30 And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people: 'Ye have sinned a great sin; and now I will go up unto HaShem, peradventure I shall make atonement for your sin.'

31 And Moses returned unto HaShem, and said: 'Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them a god of gold.

32 Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written.'

33 And HaShem said unto Moses: 'Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book.

O RLY?

"[...] I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me" - Exodus 20:5

YA RLY.

You've failed to show how that verse has anything whatsoever to do with the need for a Jesus or sacrifice of salvation.  If anything, this verse clearly shows God's reaction to the *choice* to sin and not repent of those who worship idols and false gods.  This directly relates to the fact that Moses had been gone for almost no time at all and yet some Jews instantly believed him gone forever and began building and pressuring Aaron to build them false idols.

Hey, I have no problem with Christians.  My only problem with Christianity is the worship of Jesus as God and/or as Son of God, and claiming it to be based in the Tanakh.  It just flat out isn't.  And in fact the Jesus template has more basis in the Tanakh as false prophecy than it does in salvation.

[Edric O]

Purge, you seem to believe that the Tanakh (and the Bible) must be interpreted in chronological order. In other words, you refuse to accept the idea that perhaps newer books (such as the New Testament) may be used to shed light on older books. I, as a Christian, believe that the Bible is a unitary whole.

The Tanakh firmly establishes that God has no body or form, not that he just chooses through the whole entire Tanakh not to appear in such a way.

Again, does the Tanakh say that it is impossible for God to appear in human form, or that He is forbidden to do so, or that He has chosen to never do such a thing? No, it doesn't.

Remember, Christianity is based on the Tanakh, not the other way around.

Christianity is not based on the Tanakh. Christianity is based on the Bible. The full Bible. The New Testament is not supposed to be an add-on to the Old Testament that may or may not fit. The relationship between the NT and OT is supposed to be the same as the relationship between separate books of the OT. You don't say that Exodus is based on Genesis, do you?

There is no Jesus or trinity in the Tanakh.

There is no Moses or Ten Commandments in Genesis. I guess Exodus doesn't fit with Genesis then. ::)

There is no literal Son of God. It's a concept that has no basis in the original Bible.  It's a creation of a later time.

Well, the Ten Commandments are a concept that has no basis in Genesis. They just show up in Exodus. They are a creation of a later time. ::)

Seriously, it is perfectly legitimate for God to reveal His nature bit by bit. He did that in the Tanakh - why can't He continue in the New Testament?

Is God supposed to begin the Bible with a list of every topic that He intends to cover in it? Isn't He allowed to start talking about things that He hasn't mentioned before?

The Hebrew Bible isn't something to be fit to our understanding of Christianity.  It's Christianity that must fit with the Tanakh to keep it's word, and when it doesn't I don't see how it can be anything but rejected.

You're not just asking Christianity to fit with the Tanakh, you are asking Christianity to fit with your particular interpretation of the Tanakh.

Making guesses or supposing to make up for discrepencies doesn't make them any less wrong.  Again, it's Christianity that must fit itself to the Tanakh, not the other way around.

Wrong. According to Christian theology, the Old and New Testaments must fit with each other, and neither has precedence over the other. Your belief seems to be that the New Testament must be subordinate to the Old. That is not what Christians believe.

Any the funniest part of that is the fact that pushing Jesus as Messiah lacks a complete understanding of the prophecies it claims to be fulfilling in the first place.

There you go again, demanding that Christianity must conform to your understanding of the Tanakh.

Let's make another thing clear:  Revelation is a book of the New Testament, not the Tanakh.  The Torah and New Testament are seperated by over 1,000 years.  And Revelation is easily reconciled with Nero and the Roman Empire.

Ok, let's take Genesis then. The possibility that the events described in Genesis could be literally true has already been soundly refuted by modern science. Thus, if you insist that the Tanakh must be interpreted literally, then our whole debate is moot because both Judaism and Christianity must be false religions.

If you accept that some parts of the Tanakh should not be interpreted literally, however, then you must abandon your whole argument that Jesus could not be the Messiah because He was not a literal king. Prophecies are the most obvious places to use metaphor and allegory.

Jesus the man has no claim to royalty.

He made no such claim.

'Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. [...]" ' - John 18:36

22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of HaShem, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which HaShem hath not spoken; the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not be afraid of him.

Ok, so a false prophet is one who says things that "do not follow" (how very vague) or one who makes prophecies that do not come to pass. And your point is...?

1 All this word which I command you, that shall ye observe to do; thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.

2 If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams--and he give thee a sign or a wonder,

3 and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spoke unto thee--saying: 'Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them';

[...]

So you should not follow a prophet who tells you to serve other gods, even if that prophet gives you "a sign or a wonder".

Again, I don't see your point. Jesus did not tell anyone to serve other gods.

Original Sin is the defacto name given to the reason Jesus had to die for our sins and why we have to accept him as our salvation.

No, it's not. Original Sin is the reason Humanity was banished from paradise. As far as Jesus is concerned, He had to die for all our sins - and Original Sin is just one among many. We have to accept Jesus for our salvation because our sins (again, all of them, not just the Original Sin) are too great for us to redeem ourselves on our own.

Exodus says that man is resonsible for his own sin straight from the Hebrew Bible (not OT translation).

Christianity strongly agrees that man is responsible for his own sin.

30 And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people: 'Ye have sinned a great sin; and now I will go up unto HaShem, peradventure I shall make atonement for your sin.'

31 And Moses returned unto HaShem, and said: 'Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them a god of gold.

32 Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written.'

33 And HaShem said unto Moses: 'Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book.

Yes, that is precisely what Christians believe. If you sin, you are "blotted out" of the Book of Life. And all people sin, so, under normal circumstances, all people would be damned. That is why Jesus had to come and provide a way for sinners to be saved after all.

YA RLY.

You've failed to show how that verse has anything whatsoever to do with the need for a Jesus or sacrifice of salvation.

It wasn't about Jesus, it was about your claim that God would never allow a sin (such as the Original Sin) to be passed from generation to generation. I've just proven that your claim was false.

[Edric O]

Okay, let

[Acriku]

The way I see it though, since the NT is completely different in many areas from the OT and for the fact that its foundation of origin is the prophecy found in OT (which many dispute as being fulfilled by Jesus), it can only be seen that the NT is based on the OT. You can't lump the NT with the OT, seeing as how they are so different. Can you read either and tell me that the NT is not written with a different tone, meaning, and purpose?

Also, in regards to Jesus talking to his father whilst on the cross, this "for show" theory doesn't hold up when you see Jesus asking the father why he has forsaken him. It almost seems like Jesus is freaking out that he really might die.

No, it's not. Original Sin is the reason Humanity was banished from paradise. As far as Jesus is concerned, He had to die for all our sins - and Original Sin is just one among many. We have to accept Jesus for our salvation because our sins (again, all of them, not just the Original Sin) are too great for us to redeem ourselves on our own.

As far as catholics are concerned, we are all stuck with the Original Sin whether we accept Jesus or not. At least that's what I was told.

I also found this interesting article concerning Matthew and how he used the OT to fit into what Jesus "must've" done since he was the fulfilment of the prophecy (since it says the messiah will do this, and Matthew believed Jesus to be the messiah, Jesus "must've" done this and that).

http://www.westarinstitute.org/Periodicals/4R_Articles/Prophecy/prophecy.html

A very nice read.

[Edric O]

As a counterpoint, I invite you to visit the Jews for Jesus website, especially its extensive coverage of how Jesus fulfilled OT prophecies. They also cover some evidence that Jesus was the Messiah.

[Acriku]

Eww, I've always shaken my head at Jews for Jesus. the name doesn't even make sense for one, and two this is just evangelics. Not a very objective site, is it?

[Edric O]

Well, the term "Jew" is rather confusingly used to refer to adherents of the religion Judaism and to members of a specific ethnic group. You can be an ethnic Jew without belonging to the Jewish religion. So the name "Jews for Jesus" does make sense... to a certain extent.

As for being objective, this is a debate. I am going to provide links to support what I believe, and don't pretend that you're not doing the same.

[Acriku]

Well, the term "Jew" is rather confusingly used to refer to adherents of the religion Judaism and to members of a specific ethnic group. You can be an ethnic Jew without belonging to the Jewish religion. So the name "Jews for Jesus" does make sense... to a certain extent.

As for being objective, this is a debate. I am going to provide links to support what I believe, and don't pretend that you're not doing the same.

The only way I could imagine it working is having someone from Israel that is "for Jesus." But still, *shakes head*

Sure, I'm doing the same but I'm just saying that 1) an easier-to-read site might help your argument and 2) a less-evangelical site and a more objective-sounding site would helpas well. Not that the article I linked to is an outstandingly objective article, althought it is certainly easier to read  ;)

[Purge]

I said no such thing of chronology.

The New Testament isn't a part of the Tanakh.  It is a much much later Christian writing that had nothing to do with the Tanakh aside from attaching itself as a means to legitimize It's story.

While I accept that Christianity looks at both combined as The Bible, history and general knoweledge confirms the Tanakh is one thing, the New Testament is another, and this particular religion combines them where they are otherwise two completely different works from two completely different times, people, etc.

Without the Tanakh, Jesus and the New Testament have no basis.  That's a fact.

God is very clear about man's ability to see him.  "20.  But," He said, "You cannot see My face for man may not see Me and live."

He said this to Moses.  No man ever saw God, and closest anyone ever got was Moses, who God communicated with directly (where others he communicated through dream) but never showed himself to.  We are forbidden to show God in physical form, not just to avoid the worshipping of idols (the object isn't God), but because God forbids attempts to represent Him in any physical form (as he has none).

The comparison of NT and Tanakh to Genesis and Exodus doesn't fly.  The Tanakh is one group of works from one time, and the NT is a group of works from a whole other.  This isn't a sound argument, as the Tanakh is a progression of overlapping stories, while the NT is disconnected from the Tanakh completely outside of recollecting it like a student of today might recollect a an Ancient Greek philosopher, written much later at a completely different time, different language, and with much different theme(s) and beliefs.

Also, you are mistaken if you don't think the commandments existed pre-Moses.  Mt. Sinai is a case of reiteration (hence the fact it had to be done twice in that story itself).  The stories of Genesis are full of God's judging of his creation based on his Laws.  Those that follow them are blessed, those that don't aren't.

And again, I am not asking Christianity to fit with anything.  I've stated God's word straight from the Tanakh about idol worship, and false prophets.  It's Christianity that claims Jesus as the Son/extention of God, and as something to be worshiped.

Wrong. According to Christian theology, the Old and New Testaments must fit with each other, and neither has precedence over the other. Your belief seems to be that the New Testament must be subordinate to the Old. That is not what Christians believe.

The fundamental flaw with that is that the Tanakh does have precedence over the other, as the NT has no basis without it.  You don't have to explain it to me, I spent many years as a Christian.  But a greater study of the Torah and the rest of the Tanakh made it clear that the method of idol worship and salvation through Jesus is false.

"Therefore just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned" is a statement made by Paul, not Jesus.  Paul, a man who never met Jesus, and whose writings all come after Jesus is said to be dead.

However, God has already stated that repentence and reconcilliation with God is enough.  God said to Cain after he became depressed "Why are you distressed, And why is your face fallen?  7.  Surely if you do right, there is uplift.  But if you do not do right, Sin crouches at the door; Its urge is towards you, yet you can be its master."  This is just one of many examples of God speaking of man's control over sin, showing that there is no mention or need of a sacrificial messiah.  The only Messiahs mentioned are Kings or prophecies by the captive Babylonians about Kings.  No Son of God, or savior of mankind.

The Messiahs in the Bible are specifically mentioned by the captive Jews in Babylon, the ones who needed literal saving by a literal King (who were denoted as messiahs in the Tanakh, as king's were annointed and moshiach means annointed).  These prophecies ultimately conclude with the last book of the Tanakh, 2 Chronicles.

"17. And He brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, and he slew their young men by the sword in their Temple, and he had pity neither on youth nor virgin, elder nor ancient one; He delivered all into his hand.

18. And all the vessels of the House of God, both large and small, and the treasuries of the House of the Lord, and the treasuries of the king and his officers; he brought everything to Babylon.

19. And they burned the House of God, and they demolished the wall of Jerusalem, and all its palaces they burned with fire, and destroyed all its precious vessels.

20. And he exiled the survivors from the sword to Babylon, and they became vassals to him and to his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia.

21. To fulfill the word of the Lord in the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land was appeased for its Sabbaths; [for] all the days of its desolation it rested until the completion of seventy years.

22. And in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, at the completion of the word of the Lord in the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord aroused the spirit of Cyrus the king of Persia, and he issued a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying:

23. "So said Cyrus the king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth has the Lord God of the heavens delivered to me, and He commanded me to build Him a House in Jerusalem, which is in Judea. Who among you is of all His people, may the Lord his God be with him, and he may ascend."

God doesn't need to send someone to save people's souls, he's already instructed Jews and non-Jews alike to repent and reconcile with him and him only, and they the righteous will share the world to come.  As these verses show, the Bible ends with Cyrus releasing the Jews from captivity, allowing them to return to the Promise Land, and rebuilt the Temple, and proclaiming this all in God's name and by God's doing, despite being a non-Jew.  This is yet another in what is a constant illustration through the Tanakh that salvation is God's to offer and it's your through repentance, and belief in and reconcilliation with Him, whether you are a Jew or not.

I have no problem with Christianity seeking the God of Abraham.  The opposite, actually.  My only problem is how the prophecies about the end of the Babylon Captivity, and about Israel are twisted to try to fit the later Jesus story.  And then that is used to make a God out of Jesus.

God is clear about his Laws and our means to connect with him.  He warns against false prophets, changes to his eternal Laws, and even of people claiming to speak for him when it doesn't come to pass.  He makes it clear that prophecy which fails to come to pass or materialize is a clear sign of his doing and testing of us.

I'm not even positive that Jesus wasn't a righteous ass dude who's words and image have been twisted after the fact.  But there is one thing that anyone who sees truth in the Torah and Tanakh should be able to see, and that is that the worship of Jesus - a creation of God at best - is not worship of God himself.  Whether he said to worship him or those that came later and believed him divine did, it still remains that it's idol worship.

[chatfsh]

But, in my analogy, God is not a body of water. God is water itself. God is all the water in the universe, and all of it was originally in that lake.

What I'm trying to say is that there is no requirement for God to inhabit a single solid body or a single area of space. God can be in two places at once.

There was one God in two places... (for that matter, heaven is outside our universe, so it doesn't even count as a physical "place").

That is indeed a thorny issue. My understanding is that He/they were essentially doing it for show - like one person speaking his thoughts out loud to tell everyone else what he is thinking. Also, Jesus was trying to set an example and show His disciples how to pray.

Here a brain analogy might be useful. Suppose the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three parts of God's "brain". Then each part contains different information. So the Son may not know everything the Father knows. Of course, the Son may ask the Father, or even access the information directly (since He is part of the same brain), but chooses not to.

Actually, there was once a very large branch of Christianity that supported precisely that view. It was called Arianism, from the name of its founder, the priest Arius of Alexandria. It drew a large following in the 4th century AD, but was eventually sidelined as a heresy.

One could believe that or one could stop with all the mental gymnastics and consider the possibility that Jesus was God

[Purge]

The practice of sacrifices pretty much ended with the Roman destruction of the 2nd Holy Temple in Jerusalem where all sacrifices were offered.  The technical reason is because there is no place for them.  The Muslim Dome of the Rock is built on the spot where the Holy Temple was.  The Torah specifically states that sacrifices aren't to be offered wherever we feel like it, but rather where God has chosen for this purpose (as the Temple was).  However, that's not to say it wouldn't resume with the return of the Temple.

As I said earlier, atoning for sins is a simple as repentence, prayer, and just good deeds.  Obviously a belief in God as the one true God is important.

[Purge]

I'm gonna go ahead and bow out of this, at least from the Judaism/Christianity argument end, right now.  I've said my piece, and I don't have any intentions of repeating myself just to rile people up.  However, if anyone has any question I can attempt to do my best to answer them.

8)

[Egeides]

chatfsh:

With languages, one adds a suffix and it becomes a verb. Or a noun, or whatnot. Consider that God is the word itself, and then there are a few "suffixes". Jesus... is the Verb.

[Acriku]

chatfsh:

With languages, one adds a suffix and it becomes a verb. Or a noun, or whatnot. Consider that God is the word itself, and then there are a few "suffixes". Jesus... is the Verb.

No matter how you explain it, it is still a lot of mental gymnastics and jumping through hoops just to feign that one understands it. I doubt anyone understands it really, but most believe they do. In my opinion, it is a twisting of words that in turn bring up more questions than it does answer any.

[chatfsh]

Thank you, Acriku!!

For a minute there, this was starting to feel like "The Emperor's New Clothes" fable.  I started to wonder am I the only one who can see the reality?  It seems so clear to me, "the Emperor's naked," but everyone wants to go through great lengths to pretend he wears clothes.

I digress.  Point is, I'm glad you seem to get what I'm saying. :)

[Caid Ivik]

No matter how you explain it, it is still a lot of mental gymnastics and jumping through hoops just to feign that one understands it. I doubt anyone understands it really, but most believe they do. In my opinion, it is a twisting of words that in turn bring up more questions than it does answer any.

You would be amazed. Law of love is the most clear religious practice ever, but if someone focuses on ornaments instead of picture itself, then let he does as he wills...

[Edric O]

Ok, since Purge decided to bow out of the debate, I will keep this reply short. I've already made most of the points I was intending to make, and Purge is right that we were in danger of getting repetitive if we continued.

The New Testament isn't a part of the Tanakh.  It is a much much later Christian writing that had nothing to do with the Tanakh aside from attaching itself as a means to legitimize It's story.

While I accept that Christianity looks at both combined as The Bible, history and general knoweledge confirms the Tanakh is one thing, the New Testament is another, and this particular religion combines them where they are otherwise two completely different works from two completely different times, people, etc.

[...]

The comparison of NT and Tanakh to Genesis and Exodus doesn't fly.  The Tanakh is one group of works from one time, and the NT is a group of works from a whole other.  This isn't a sound argument, as the Tanakh is a progression of overlapping stories, while the NT is disconnected from the Tanakh completely outside of recollecting it like a student of today might recollect a an Ancient Greek philosopher, written much later at a completely different time, different language, and with much different theme(s) and beliefs.

The Tanakh is NOT a single group of works from a single time. According to its own internal chronology, it covers several thousand years of history, at least. The different books of the Tanakh were written by entirely different people living centuries apart. The comparison of the NT and Tanakh to different books of the Tanakh is absolutely spot-on. There was a pause of just 500 years between the last book of the Tanakh and the first book of the NT. Similar pauses existed between several consecutive books of the Tanakh.

The Tanakh itself is a collection of completely separate stories. The stories of the Tanakh take place generations apart, and they were written by authors who lived generations apart. The NT merely consists of the latest such stories.

Also, you are mistaken if you don't think the commandments existed pre-Moses.  Mt. Sinai is a case of reiteration (hence the fact it had to be done twice in that story itself).  The stories of Genesis are full of God's judging of his creation based on his Laws.  Those that follow them are blessed, those that don't aren't.

Genesis hints that God has some Laws, but the Laws themselves are not explicitly stated until Exodus. What you are doing here is using Exodus to help your understanding of Genesis - and then you say that it is illegitimate for me to use the New Testament to help my understanding of the Old Testament.

God is very clear about man's ability to see him.  "20.  But," He said, "You cannot see My face for man may not see Me and live."

He said this to Moses.  No man ever saw God, and closest anyone ever got was Moses, who God communicated with directly (where others he communicated through dream) but never showed himself to.  We are forbidden to show God in physical form, not just to avoid the worshipping of idols (the object isn't God), but because God forbids attempts to represent Him in any physical form (as he has none).

Well, if God has no physical form, then He has no face for you to see in the first place. But he may, of course, choose to inhabit a human body if He so desires. Human beings are forbidden to create representations of God, but God Himself is by no means forbidden to create physical representations of Himself.

Finally, a few questions:

If God's Law is eternal and unchanging, why didn't He give it to Adam and Eve? Why did He wait until Moses to reveal it? It wasn't for lack of righteous people. Noah was righteous. So was Abraham.

Could it be that God has a few different laws for different times and places? Judaism certainly states that there is one Law for Jews and another Law for gentiles...

[Edric O]

One could believe that or one could stop with all the mental gymnastics and consider the possibility that Jesus was God

[erjin999]

a man ?

Simply put, the Trinity concept states that there is one God with some sort of a collective mind. If Jesus wasn't part of God, then what was He?