I'm a practicing Catholic, but recently read something that has me convinced that the Jewish reasons for belieiving Jesus is not the Messiah make more sense than the Christian reasons for believing he is the Messiah.

I need to hear an intelligent, well-reasoned Christian response to the Jewish argument, which I will present below.

Unfortunately I don't have the text handy, or I would quote it. It comes from a book called "The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism."
The book doesn't try to dissuade Christians from their faith, but under the heading, "How is Judaism different from Christianity?" It goes into a brief recap of the "Jesus is the messiah" vs. "Jesus isn't the messiah" argument.

The book didn't say anything I hadn't heard before, but it made the argument impossible, finally, for me to ignore.

To sum up:

(a) The New Testament writers often take short quotes from the Old Testament. They compare the quotes to Jesus' life to "prove" the quotes were prophecies that he fulfilled. But these quotes (such as the one that talks about a young woman - not necessarily a virgin - who will conceive and give birth, or the ones about a servant who is made to suffer) appear in the NT out of context, torturously reinterpreted, and possibly mistranslated.

(b) Jesus did not bring peace and the rule of God to all the earth, as the Messiah is supposed to do. Therefore he may appear to fulfill the tiny "prophecies" mentioned above, but he failed to fulfill the really important things the Messiah is supposed to do. Christians respond to this by saying Jesus will do those things during his return visit ... but Jews respond by saying that the Hebrew scriptures don't say anything at all about a second coming.

(c) On one hand we have "overwhelming evidence" that the Messiah has not yet arrived. On the other we have isolated, out-of-context and mistranslated quotes applied to the life of Jesus. If the burden of proof is on Christians to prove he is the Messiah, Christian evidence seems to be lacking.

If Christ is truth, than my search for truth will lead back to Christ. Please post any intelligent responses here or email me.

Booch -Good questions and I'll await others' responses with you (since I am time-constrained and only have 12 hours/day to construct my posts here).

While you wait, just for fun and infotainment, check this out, the site of the official photographer of The Shroud of Turin:
http://www.shroud.com/message.htm

who wrote:

quote:

Frankly, I am still Jewish, yet I believe the Shroud of Turin is the cloth that wrapped the man Jesus after he was crucified. That is not meant as a religious statement, but one based on my privileged position of direct involvement with many of the serious Shroud researchers in the world, and a thorough knowledge of the scientific data, unclouded by media exaggeration and hype. The only reason I am still involved with the Shroud of Turin is because knowing the unbiased facts continues to convince me of its authenticity.

If you'd rather get directly to the heart of your questions, check out these links. BTW, depending on the audience each Gospel Evangelist was trying to reach, there was some retro-fitting of New Testament writings to Old Testament prophecy. Phil, did I say that right? However, the truths of Christianity don't rise and fall based on literal interpretations of Scripture, especially for Catholics who don't take everything in the Bible literally anyway, but who conduct exegesis using literary and historical and and form and redaction criticism, among other approaches.

Continue your sincere and objective seeking after truth. It won't lead you astray if you continue to consult all of the available evidence. Even some of the apologetics listed below have been critiqued by naysayers and you can find those critiques on the net, also. Ultimately faith does require a leap, but it will never require you to be unreasonable or to set your mind aside!

http://hometown.aol.com/philvaz/articles/num9.htm
http://www.leaderu.com/everyst...r/articles/josh.html
http://www.leaderu.com/everyst.../articles/josh2.html

http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth22.html
http://www.leaderu.com/offices...raig/docs/tomb2.html
http://www.leaderu.com/everyst...r/articles/yama.html

http://www.leaderu.com/everyst...ns/faith/faith2.html
http://www.leaderu.com/offices...aig/docs/bodily.html

Most sincerely,
jb

I would be remiss if I did not recommend Phil's book:The Meaning of the Resurrection !

It deals a lot with issues of evidence in a very readable way.

pax tibi,
jb

Booch, welcome, and I encourage you to pursue some of the links JB recommended. There's also the Jews for Jesus web site which has a lot of good discussion on this topic.

To sum up:

(a) The New Testament writers often take short quotes from the Old Testament. They compare the quotes to Jesus' life to "prove" the quotes were prophecies that he fulfilled. But these quotes (such as the one that talks about a young woman - not necessarily a virgin - who will conceive and give birth, or the ones about a servant who is made to suffer) appear in the NT out of context, torturously reinterpreted, and possibly mistranslated.

Well, the "spin" they give the OT texts are from the vantage point of Christian faith, which does make a difference. But, granted, one can certainly see that some of those quotes are a stretch.

(b) Jesus did not bring peace and the rule of God to all the earth, as the Messiah is supposed to do. Therefore he may appear to fulfill the tiny "prophecies" mentioned above, but he failed to fulfill the really important things the Messiah is supposed to do. Christians respond to this by saying Jesus will do those things during his return visit ... but Jews respond by saying that the Hebrew scriptures don't say anything at all about a second coming.

Jesus' mission is not yet completely fulfilled. He has come, died, and risen, and will come again. The "suffering servant" prophecies have been fulfilled, but the "divine ruler" will claim his kingdom with the second coming of Christ. We live in that "in-between" time known as the "Age of the Gentiles."

(c) On one hand we have "overwhelming evidence" that the Messiah has not yet arrived. On the other we have isolated, out-of-context and mistranslated quotes applied to the life of Jesus. If the burden of proof is on Christians to prove he is the Messiah, Christian evidence seems to be lacking.

Not sure I follow what's supposedly lacking in Jesus' qualifications for the Jewish Messiah. Maybe my responses above shed some light on this.

If Christ is truth, than my search for truth will lead back to Christ. Please post any intelligent responses here or email me.

I think the starting point is not seeing how Jewish prophecies might or might not be fulfilled in the life of Christ, but the life of Christ itself, especially his death and resurrection. Let your search for truth about the identity and mission of Jesus be rooted first and foremost in those realities and see the difference it makes.

Please post follow-up reflections and questions, if needed.

Phil

Hello and thank you both for your responses. I've only had time so far to look at the very first of QuiEst's suggested links (the lord has given me, too, only 24 hours a day) and found it very interesting and reassuring indeed (and I no longer feel the pressing need to interview my local rabbi). I will post further thoughts/reflection later.

That first link, about challenges to the truth of the resurrection story, gives a great response to my question:

While we can debate whether and/or how Jesus has measured up to Jewish prophecy, we must also look at the man himself and see what he meant to human history. It's hard, if not impossible, to say that the resurrection did not happen ... and we have to include that in the debate.

So thanks once again to both of you.

On a semi-humorous note: Whether we or the Jews are correct, it can't be argued that Jesus will be THE most popular person in the next world, more sought-after than Elvis or the Buddha.

As for the Turin shroud ... well, maybe I'll post my thoughts on that later.

Booch:

You might check out a book entitled "The Meaning of Jesus," a kind of chapter by chapter dialogue between Marcus Borg, a somewhat liberal New Testament scholar of the Jesus Seminar (he's actually a more conservative member of that group), and N.T. Wright, a conservative who presents his point-of-view rather convincingly. They are both excellent writers, able to distill scholarship into something readable and enjoyable.

Hi Booch....

Only have a minute myself here but for me the greatest proof that Christ is the Messiah is the transformation of the Disciples at Pentecost. From hiding together behind closed doors, they pretty much literally took on the world. Christ changed the world not in the way that was expected perhaps but changed it nevertheless. Still changing it actually.

For me the key is not in the references from the OT - the words as much as the action.. the result.

Don't know if that helps any. Good question! Glad you stopped in.
Peace,
Wanda