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Kashering Christianity So A Jew Can Swallow It.

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
The big no no so far as Jews are concerned is the Christian's belief that God could become a man, branch, or any other plastic, metal, or material thing. Jewish monotheism, in essence, places God outside the possibility of manifesting his essence in material things or visible reality.

Unfortunately, for the most part what Judaism refuses to swallow is merely a cartoon characterization of Christian incarnation. Judaism assumes, or pretends, that Christians see Jesus as a pagan sort of God man. God and man in one stupendous package. While in complete contradistinction to that cartoonish view, Christians actually accept Jewish monotheistic tenets hook-line-and-sinker, without their attitude toward Jesus Christ breaking the monotheistic tenets Christianity holds near and dear along with Judaism.

This is to say that for Christians, Jesus isn't a pagan sort of God man. For Christians it's as impossible for an unbeliever to see God in the person of Jesus Christ as it is for a Jew to see God in any other manifest form. In other words, just as a Jew believes he can know God without seeing him, a proper understanding of Christianity realizes that whatever it is that the Jew believes he is engaging when he engages his invisible God, the Christian believes he is engaging when he engages the man Jesus of Nazareth. In this sense Jesus is not God in material garb, any more than the Torah scroll is God in material garb. He is, Jesus is, simply another manifestation of the mediation between God and man performed in Judaism by the Torah scroll.



John
 
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SigurdReginson

Grēne Mann
Premium Member
Using Jewish words while at the same time mocking the Jewish view of Christianity won't help your cause.

This is something I noticed in the christian community I grew up in. There really isn't much effort in understanding the religious views outside of their own beyond learning the most surface things about that religion, like terminology and word definitions.

They also try to stack all the religions of others to compare theirs and show how their spirituality is superior... As an example, the christian education I grew up with pointed out that even though every religion has their own version of the golden rule, christianity's version was the superior one. It went through each golden rule and described why each one was inferior by tearing down the straw man they built up for each one.

This was a pretty common practice whether the church I went to was Evangelical, Baptist, or Fundamentalist. It could have been a regional thing, but my curriculum was printed clear across the country in Texas...
 

McBell

Resident Sourpuss
This is something I noticed in the christian community I grew up in. There really isn't much effort in understanding the religious views outside of their own beyond learning the most surface things about that religion, like terminology and word definitions.

They also try to stack all the religions of others to compare theirs and show how their spirituality is superior... As an example, the christian education I grew up with pointed out that even though every religion has their own version of the golden rule, christianity's version was the superior one. It went through each golden rule and described why each one was inferior by tearing down the straw man they built up for each one.

This was a pretty common practice whether the church I went to was Evangelical, Baptist, or Fundamentalist. It could have been a regional thing, but my curriculum was printed clear across the country in Texas...
This is a pretty common practice even now right here on RF.

Though there was a time in the past where it was much much worse than it is now.

One of my "favorites" is still the guy who attacked Mormons and JW claiming their beliefs were not Biblical all the while spouting Sola Scriptura but never once revealing where in the scriptures it states "scripture only".
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
Jewish monotheism, in essence, places God outside the possibility of manifesting his essence in material things or visible reality...Christians actually accept Jewish monotheistic tenets...a proper understanding of Christianity realizes that whatever it is that the Jew believes he is engaging when he engages his invisible God, the Christian believes he is engaging when he engages the man Jesus of Nazareth.
My understanding is that this does not truly explain the divide. Judaism is about proper understanding, and Christianity isn't. Judaism is about passing teachings from master to apprentice. Christianity isn't and is about wisdom coming from God to people, individually. In the gospels Jesus directly says to his disciples that he won't teach them everything. That is not how Judaism works. In Judaism the master teaches everything to the apprentice and is the passage of that wisdom, analogous to mouth to mouth resuscitation. Christianity teaches that Jeremiah 31:34 is active now, is how things work now, that master-apprentice is no longer needed. Judaism does not. Judaism does not observe that this has already happened, but Christianity announces that it has in some way been fulfilled for those who are in Christ.

[Jer 31:33-34 NIV] 33 "This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

[Psa 37:30-31 NIV] 30 The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom, and their tongues speak what is just. 31 The law of their God is in their hearts; their feet do not slip.

[Luk 4:21 NIV] 21 He (Jesus) began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
From what I can tell that is the most pervasive and basic difference between Judaism and Christianity, not ritual or academic discussions about whether the human can become divine. What we share in common is much more important such as learning to forgive; but there is no way until the world is renewed that Judaism is going to accept Christianity as a legitimate expression of Judaism.

Christianity also has a lot of canonized texts which seem critical of Judaism as it is practiced and in particular criticizes Jews when read certain ways. James 1 says that we should not both bless God and curse those made in God's image. This must be remedied and is likely to keep protestant Christianity unkosher for a very long time if these accusations are never put into a more humble context. The Roman church has already taken steps to retract accusations against Jews, but many churches have yet to do the same even messianic ones.

The challenge to Job is the challenge to Christians, and that doesn't mean by killing people (figurative speech in Job is killing) but by humbling all of the proud by the sword in Jesus mouth then it can announce itself kosher.

Job. [Job 40:12-14 NIV] 12 look at all who are proud and humble them, crush the wicked where they stand. 13 Bury them all in the dust together; shroud their faces in the grave. 14 Then I myself will admit to you that your own right hand can save you.

If Christianity can accomplish this the world is truly renewed by Christ, and the two views Jewish and Christian will have merged. It is no small challenge, and you can't expect Judaism to accept Christianity before this.
 

dybmh

דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
The big no no so far as Jews are concerned is the Christian's belief that God could become a man, branch, or any other plastic, metal, or material thing. Jewish monotheism, in essence, places God outside the possibility of manifesting his essence in material things or visible reality.

Unfortunately, for the most part what Judaism refuses to swallow is merely a cartoon characterization of Christian incarnation. Judaism assumes, or pretends, that Christians see Jesus as a pagan sort of God man. God and man in one stupendous package. While in complete contradistinction to that cartoonish view, Christians actually accept Jewish monotheistic tenets hook-line-and-sinker, without their attitude toward Jesus Christ breaking the monotheistic tenets Christianity holds near and dear along with Judaism.

This is to say that for Christians, Jesus isn't a pagan sort of God man. For Christians it's as impossible for an unbeliever to see God in the person of Jesus Christ as it is for a Jew to see God in any other manifest form. In other words, just as a Jew believes he can know God without seeing him, a proper understanding of Christianity realizes that whatever it is that the Jew believes he is engaging when he engages his invisible God, the Christian believes he is engaging when he engages the man Jesus of Nazareth. In this sense Jesus is not God in material garb, any more than the Torah scroll is God in material garb. He is, Jesus is, simply another manifestation of the mediation between God and man performed in Judaism by the Torah scroll.



John
The distinction is not that Jews do not acknowledge God manifesting in the natural world. The distinction is praying to or through those manifestations.

Put more simply, in Judaism we don't pray through a mediator. And we avoid behaviour which can be confused for pagan practice. Since Christianity appears to pray to and through a God-man, we avoid it. But there's Rabbinic support of the idea that Christianity in itself is not pagan.
 

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
Using Jewish words while at the same time mocking the Jewish view of Christianity won't help your cause.

I humbly await your correction of my statement that in a general sense Judaism's view of the Christian doctrine of incarnation appears to be a straw-man or a cartoon characterization.



John
 

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
God is not a man that he should lie.

. . . Says the man who wrote those words.

In a more philosophical vein, would you say that since God can't lie, anything he says, even if it's not true, is the truth? In other words, if God can't lie, then there can be no objective criteria to prove that he can't lie since even if he does he doesn't.



John
 

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
My understanding is that this does not truly explain the divide. Judaism is about proper understanding, and Christianity isn't. Judaism is about passing teachings from master to apprentice. Christianity isn't and is about wisdom coming from God to people, individually. In the gospels Jesus directly says to his disciples that he won't teach them everything. That is not how Judaism works. In Judaism the master teaches everything to the apprentice and is the passage of that wisdom, analogous to mouth to mouth resuscitation. Christianity teaches that Jeremiah 31:34 is active now, is how things work now, that master-apprentice is no longer needed. Judaism does not. Judaism does not observe that this has already happened, but Christianity announces that it has in some way been fulfilled for those who are in Christ.

[Jer 31:33-34 NIV] 33 "This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

[Psa 37:30-31 NIV] 30 The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom, and their tongues speak what is just. 31 The law of their God is in their hearts; their feet do not slip.

[Luk 4:21 NIV] 21 He (Jesus) began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
From what I can tell that is the most pervasive and basic difference between Judaism and Christianity, not ritual or academic discussions about whether the human can become divine. What we share in common is much more important such as learning to forgive; but there is no way until the world is renewed that Judaism is going to accept Christianity as a legitimate expression of Judaism.

Christianity also has a lot of canonized texts which seem critical of Judaism as it is practiced and in particular criticizes Jews when read certain ways. James 1 says that we should not both bless God and curse those made in God's image. This must be remedied and is likely to keep protestant Christianity unkosher for a very long time if these accusations are never put into a more humble context. The Roman church has already taken steps to retract accusations against Jews, but many churches have yet to do the same even messianic ones.

The challenge to Job is the challenge to Christians, and that doesn't mean by killing people (figurative speech in Job is killing) but by humbling all of the proud by the sword in Jesus mouth then it can announce itself kosher.

Job. [Job 40:12-14 NIV] 12 look at all who are proud and humble them, crush the wicked where they stand. 13 Bury them all in the dust together; shroud their faces in the grave. 14 Then I myself will admit to you that your own right hand can save you.

If Christianity can accomplish this the world is truly renewed by Christ, and the two views Jewish and Christian will have merged. It is no small challenge, and you can't expect Judaism to accept Christianity before this.

I don't necessarily agree with what you're saying. Nevertheless, all I'm interested in discussing in this particular thread is the relationship between Jewish monotheistic tenets (generally speaking the idea that a man can't be God), versus the Christian viewpoint of the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ.

My argument is that for a Jew to have any relationship with God, some form of communication between the two (God and man) must be established. Whatever the mediator that establishes the connection between God and man might be thought to be, I believe it can be argued that Jesus of Nazareth is no more unlikely to be a form of that mediation than is any other thing considered a kosher, Jewish, form of establishing that relationship between God and man.

Somehow a connection must be made. Whether that connection be a voice, a scroll, or a feeling, nevertheless some element of the connection must, in my opinion, ultimately, absolutely, transgress the hyper-monotheistic tendency that thinks of itself as pure (i.e., that a Jew can know God without some element of that knowing transgressing Jewish monotheistic purity).



John
 

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
The distinction is not that Jews do not acknowledge God manifesting in the natural world. The distinction is praying to or through those manifestations.

Put more simply, in Judaism we don't pray through a mediator. And we avoid behaviour which can be confused for pagan practice. Since Christianity appears to pray to and through a God-man, we avoid it. But there's Rabbinic support of the idea that Christianity in itself is not pagan.

I've been a Christian most of my life, and have prayed nearly every day of my life, and have never once, in all my life, prayed to Jesus. Every one of my prayers since I was a child has been addressed to the same God every Jew prays to. I don't pray to Jesus and I don't confuse him with the God I pray to. . . I can't even imagine praying to Jesus. The thought is utterly absurd to me.

I would think that similarly, Jews don't pray to the Torah scroll. It fills a different function than prayer. And for me, it fills a function similar to the one Jesus fills in Christianity. That function being the separation of completely subjective relationship with God, from an objective, communal, understanding and relationship with God. Nothing Jesus or the Torah scroll says can be at odds with a personal communion with God without destroying either the subjective relationship or the objective understanding found in the communal mediation come from the scroll or Jesus' tongue.

In this sense, the relationship between God and the Torah scroll, or God and Jesus of Nazareth, is the heart and soul of this discussion. Is the Torah scroll divine? If not, it seemingly can't share divine thought. But if it is divine, then Houston, or rather Jerusalem, we have a problem. . . . Either way we have a problem (since if it's divine it's also profane, skin, ink, wood). And that problem is one that I claimed in the thread seeder that Judaism makes a cartoon so that it can rise up above its sister religion.



John
 
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InChrist

Free4ever
The big no no so far as Jews are concerned is the Christian's belief that God could become a man, branch, or any other plastic, metal, or material thing. Jewish monotheism, in essence, places God outside the possibility of manifesting his essence in material things or visible reality.

Unfortunately, for the most part what Judaism refuses to swallow is merely a cartoon characterization of Christian incarnation. Judaism assumes, or pretends, that Christians see Jesus as a pagan sort of God man. God and man in one stupendous package. While in complete contradistinction to that cartoonish view, Christians actually accept Jewish monotheistic tenets hook-line-and-sinker, without their attitude toward Jesus Christ breaking the monotheistic tenets Christianity holds near and dear along with Judaism.

This is to say that for Christians, Jesus isn't a pagan sort of God man. For Christians it's as impossible for an unbeliever to see God in the person of Jesus Christ as it is for a Jew to see God in any other manifest form. In other words, just as a Jew believes he can know God without seeing him, a proper understanding of Christianity realizes that whatever it is that the Jew believes he is engaging when he engages his invisible God, the Christian believes he is engaging when he engages the man Jesus of Nazareth. In this sense Jesus is not God in material garb, any more than the Torah scroll is God in material garb. He is, Jesus is, simply another manifestation of the mediation between God and man performed in Judaism by the Torah scroll.



John
While it may be difficult for the majority of Jews to accept Jesus as God incarnate, it was Jews, from shepherds, fishermen, tax collectors and Pharisees, who were the first followers and believers in Jesus Christ. Throughout history there have been Jews who came to know who Jesus is according to the prophecies of their scriptures, especially in recent years.

“Two thousand years ago, many Jewish people believed Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah. Today, there are still hundreds of thousands of Jews who agree. We believe we as Jewish people have the right to make up our own minds about Jesus rather than let that decision be made for us by rabbis two thousand years ago.”

Have you met the real Jesus?
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
I don't necessarily agree with what you're saying. Nevertheless, all I'm interested in discussing in this particular thread is the relationship between Jewish monotheistic tenets (generally speaking the idea that a man can't be God), versus the Christian viewpoint of the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ.

My argument is that for a Jew to have any relationship with God, some form of communication between the two (God and man) must be established. Whatever the mediator that establishes the connection between God and man might be thought to be, I believe it can be argued that Jesus of Nazareth is no more unlikely to be a form of that mediation than is any other thing considered a kosher, Jewish, form of establishing that relationship between God and man.

Somehow a connection must be made. Whether that connection be a voice, a scroll, or a feeling, nevertheless some element of the connection must, in my opinion, ultimately, absolutely, transgress the hyper-monotheistic tendency that thinks of itself as pure (i.e., that a Jew can know God without some element of that knowing transgressing Jewish monotheistic purity).



John
What Jews think 'Relationship with God' means is a very personal question, however Psalm 51 reveals that its understood by many: a broken and contrite attitude is the sacrifice required. This requires no priest, so the priest must be a functionary to help people accomplish this internally. It appears that the mind is where the mediation takes place softening the person to be contrite and broken instead of proud and angry. What Christians call a relationship with God is semantically difficult to explain, but we know that it involves caring about other people, forgiving other people and so on. It sounds very similar.
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
I humbly await your correction of my statement that in a general sense Judaism's view of the Christian doctrine of incarnation appears to be a straw-man or a cartoon characterization.

John

Perhaps it would be helpful for you to actually quote a Jewish understanding of the incarnation and explain how it is a strawman. Then a Jewish person could meaningfully correct you if necessary.
 

Harel13

Am Yisrael Chai
Staff member
Premium Member
I humbly await your correction of my statement that in a general sense Judaism's view of the Christian doctrine of incarnation appears to be a straw-man or a cartoon characterization.



John
Merely calling the view a "cartoon characterization" in itself does not invalidate the view. You have yet to offer up a proper explanation of what the doctrine of the trinity actually means and how that works. Let's see if you can get past "it's a big mystery". It's not a big mystery in Judaism; a triune godhead goes vastly against the singular oneness of God. Call yourself monotheistic all you want, but that doesn't necessarily make you so.
And if you're not trinitarian, then explain what Jesus is, in your view. Then we can get down to why that understanding is also wrong, according to Judaism.
 
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Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
. . . Says the man who wrote those words.

In a more philosophical vein, would you say that since God can't lie, anything he says, even if it's not true, is the truth? In other words, if God can't lie, then there can be no objective criteria to prove that he can't lie since even if he does he doesn't.

John
A man I would love to be but unfortunately I am a girl.

That said, lying isn't my point here.
 

1213

Well-Known Member
The big no no so far as Jews are concerned is the Christian's belief that God could become a man, ...

It is interesting that there is the problem, all though even Moses was called God in the Bible.

Yahweh said to Moses, "Behold, I have made you as God to Pharaoh; and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.
Ex. 7:1

I think the problem is really not in the Bible, but in the doctrines of men. Many Christians have taught non-Biblical wrong things about Jesus. And Many Jews have not wanted to know what Jesus really said. I hope all Christians and Jews would understand these:

This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
John 17:3

the Father is greater than I.
John 14:28

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
1 Timothy 2:5

Jesus is not against Jews and not against the teachings in Torah.
 

dybmh

דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
Either way we have a problem (since if it's divine it's also profane, skin, ink, wood)
Skin, ink, wood isn't profane.
Judaism makes a cartoon so that it can rise up above its
Judaism doesn't make it into a cartoon. As I said the major distinction is praying to or through Jesus.

If a Christian doesn't do that, the next aspect which makes it incompatible with Judaism is the Gospel itself. Too often its message goes against Shabbat, the Temple, revering parenthood, and being honest.
 

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
While it may be difficult for the majority of Jews to accept Jesus as God incarnate, it was Jews, from shepherds, fishermen, tax collectors and Pharisees, who were the first followers and believers in Jesus Christ. Throughout history there have been Jews who came to know who Jesus is according to the prophecies of their scriptures, especially in recent years.

“Two thousand years ago, many Jewish people believed Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah. Today, there are still hundreds of thousands of Jews who agree. We believe we as Jewish people have the right to make up our own minds about Jesus rather than let that decision be made for us by rabbis two thousand years ago.”

Have you met the real Jesus?

I agree with what you're saying (since it's historically accurate to the best of my knowledge). Nevertheless, the primary topic of this thread is my belief that Judaism, at least generally speaking, believes they have contact with divine revelation through the Torah scroll (at least that it mediates God's thoughts to man) even though that Torah scroll is just as tangible and real as Jesus of Nazareth.

This is to suggest, that in my opinion, the Jew is just as idolatrous toward the Torah scroll as the Christian is to Jesus of Nazareth. In both cases we have a tangible, real, material, thing, directly associated with divinity, divine thought, and divine revelation.



John
 

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
What Jews think 'Relationship with God' means is a very personal question, however Psalm 51 reveals that its understood by many: a broken and contrite attitude is the sacrifice required. This requires no priest, so the priest must be a functionary to help people accomplish this internally. It appears that the mind is where the mediation takes place softening the person to be contrite and broken instead of proud and angry. What Christians call a relationship with God is semantically difficult to explain, but we know that it involves caring about other people, forgiving other people and so on. It sounds very similar.

I agree with most of this. And there's naturally going to be something like an infinite regress of nuances and opinions concerning the heart and soul of the Jew and or the Christian.

What I'm concerned with in this thread concerns the differences between a Jewish, versus a Christian, understanding of God, and how he can communicate with his creatures, without that communication relegating God to a tyrant, or his creatures to mere automatons, say Chia Pets, of God.

If God knows every element of human thought and emotion without ever having been human, then "humanity" isn't a real dichotomous entity from God; it's merely God playing with himself in a manner of speaking: humanity is just a toy construct of God.

Consequently, if man is a real, dichotomous entity, free, in some way, from God, then there are things in a human heart that God can't access without being a tyrant willing to dissect his creature and suck out every individual nuance.

Once we concede that God and man are a real dichotomy, we could concede that, since there are things about man God can't lay waste to through "knowledge" of man, and since man is not God, some form of mediatorial communication must exist that allows man and God to commune without that communication destroying the true dichotomy between two real entities.

In Judaism, to some degree, the Torah scroll, as well as Hebrew script and language, is at least a part of the manner in which God and man meet in the middle without either party in the mediation losing their true, real, difference.

In Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth is a living form of the Torah scroll. In Jesus of Nazareth God becomes man, without giving up being God, such that God must practice kenosis, or something like Rabbi Luria's tzimtzum, so that the man side of God has no real power or authority over his brothers in a manner that would just be a back door into God practicing a divine tyranny over his creatures.

For that reason Jesus of Nazareth must be willing to die at the hands of his brothers and sisters before one scintilla of proof of who he is is given to the world (say something like his being resurrected from the dead) so that the relationship between God and man in no way be contaminated by the intercourse between God and man.

In the thread, Sotah Water II, I suggest that there may be proof that unlike Jesus, who aced the test, the Torah scroll, which is Judaism's own, personal, Jesus (with apologies to Depeche Mode), may actually be contaminated with a lawful, divine, tyranny.

It's that proof, i.e., that the Torah scroll may be contaminated with divine tyranny, that made me think about this thread.



John
 
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