[Abrahamics ONLY] Who is a Jew?

[Zardoz]

You claim your religion to be Judaism?

Judaism is my religion.

 

[BilliardsBall]

there is much to respond to in terms of the inaccuracies of your post but I only have time to point out a thing or two


1. textually, sacrifices only took care of a small section of sins

2. there were many other sacrifices which nothing to do with sin

3. the text of Hoshea explains this

No, I'm sorry, but the "bulls of our lips" aren't doing the job, as I wrote. No.

There are sacrifices of peace, of thanksgiving, of commemorating times and seasons, sure. Yes. I thank Y'shua for coming in season, too. But my question for you is:

If the Jewish people of Shaul's and Y'shua's days were so zealous they were willing to kill the Messianics, their fellow Jews, are you that zealous? And are you and I that zealous that Torah/Tanakh is the holy, unadulterated, revealed, pure Word of Ha Shem? If it is, will we obey it? Without making Talmudic excuses for any disobedience?

 

[BilliardsBall]

You should clarify that a large majority of sacrifices had nothing to do with sin.
I made a post about it a while back.

If only one of the laws and a single sacrifice had to do with sin, would you be concerned if our people couldn't make such sacrifice for nearly two millennia? If God reproves me for a minority of my sins and not a majority, I'm still a sinner. But there is grace for all who come to the sacrifice to receive.

 

[BilliardsBall]

What you believe makes a difference to you, and what I believe makes a difference to me. But what I don't believe in is twisting scripture to suit one's bias, and you do just that with the items I underlined in your post above. They simply are not true, and I've explained why they cannot be true, including where you can find supporting evidence for that, but you just blow on by as if I posted nothing at all. That's your right, of course, but it doesn't make for a very good discussion.

Frankly, I don't think it's likely that you'll make any converts to your beliefs here as we simply ain't that gullible.

Please understand that in a debate it is customary to list reasons/logic/evidence rather than repeating and pointing to the opposing side's statements and saying, "Untrue!"

Why not take one of the points I made that offended you and give on this thread some reasoning as to why I'm mistaken. I've read Tanakh and know the Messiah has to have already visited. There's stuff so strong about it in Daniel, there are parts of Daniel certain ones aren't supposed to even read until they've been in Talmudic study for 40 years.

I'm not meaning to blow by your posts unread. I read them, and am happy to respond. Thank you.

PS. I was one of those, "Go away, you'll never convert me!" so, I really get it. I do. I was ready to go to war against Christianity. I was wrong.

 

[metis]

Please understand that in a debate it is customary to list reasons/logic/evidence rather than repeating and pointing to the opposing side's statements and saying, "Untrue!"...

.

Against my better judgement, I will do just that, but it'll have to wait until after our dinner.

 

[Tumah]

If only one of the laws and a single sacrifice had to do with sin, would you be concerned if our people couldn't make such sacrifice for nearly two millennia?

Your people don't have sin-offerings.

 

[metis]

I know from Tanakh God is loving, merciful and forgiving, however your stance that He forgives apart from sacrifice has to be blended with the reason why untold millions of sacrifices were performed for millennia! And also, how it is that you are certain you can keep some of the Law without doing any of the actual, physical sacrifices.

OK, what I am going to do is to put several posts back to back using your post where the above came from, so here's where I start.

Yes, sacrifices were performed, but they only cover familial and societal sins, not personal sins. On top of that, there were times we didn't have the Temple, and yet it was never of the belief that God somehow would not forgive us as long as we tried to make amends and had a contrite heart. Ritual is fine and dandy as far as it goes, the prophets made it quite clear that our intent is far more important than ritual.

If you have a concordance, check out "forgive" and its variations, and you'll see that only about 1/3 of the verses that cover that in regards to when God will forgive involves animal or grain sacrifices. Or you can check these out at this site, although I don't have the time to go through and discard those that don't apply: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/r/rsv...forgive&restrict=Old+Testament&size=First+100

 

[metis]

Y'shua is our sacrifice.

OK, which part of Jesus was "the final sacrifice", his humanness or his supposed divinity? Well, it can't be his humanness because human sacrifices has never been a part of Judaism, and how is it that God can be sacrificed to God?

Secondly, you say you believe in the Torah, but you actually don't on this at least, because if you did, you would know that the procedure at the Temple had to be followed vis-a-vis the directives found in Torah. Did Jesus' "sacrifice" follow those directives? Not even close. He was "sacrificed" by the Romans, not on the Temple but on a cross meant to execute criminals. No procedure for his execution matches the actual sacrifices at the Temple, and since it is Torah that sets these up, one simply cannot in any way claim that Jesus was such a sacrifice unless they virtually ignore the Torah mandates on this matter.

But your problem doesn't stop there. The Temple sacrifices were for sins committed. They never applied to sins that might be committed later, which is why people would offer up sacrifices at periodic intervals. Since Jesus was executed somewhere around 30 c.e., it is not logically possible for anyone's sins to be forgiven after that date by that action.

 

[metis]

And your statement that God never assumed that we can keep the entire Law is a canard and a Jewish truism, however, it flies in the face of statements like that of Moses, who said to do these laws and to live and/or die by them! And I bet God knew what He was doing when he allowed those statements of Moses to live in the Torah!

.

If you have a son, and he told a lie, would you stone him while telling him he's going to hell? I would hope not, and jo where in Torah does it state that all sins are punishable by death and/or that even one sin condemns one to hell.

Common sense should tell you, especially since different sins have different potential penalties, that God simply does not see all sins as being the same. Yes, they all involve violation of God's commands, intentionally or accidentally, but we well know through Torah and Tanakh that God may punish us for what we may or may not do, but also that He will forgive us if we try to make amends and confess to him with a contrite heart. Nowhere does it say that one sin would condemn us to eternal suffering.

 

[rosends]

No, I'm sorry, but the "bulls of our lips" aren't doing the job, as I wrote. No.

denying it doesn't make you right, so "Yes."

If the Jewish people of Shaul's and Y'shua's days were so zealous they were willing to kill the Messianics, their fellow Jews, are you that zealous? And are you and I that zealous that Torah/Tanakh is the holy, unadulterated, revealed, pure Word of Ha Shem? If it is, will we obey it? Without making Talmudic excuses for any disobedience?

You claim that people were so zealous etc, but your evidence of that comes from books that I don't see as historical, accurate or authoritative, so I reject that premise out of hand.

You ask if I am zealous enough to kill people. You clearly don't understand Jewish law if you think that that is even a question.

Then you ask if the Torah is the "holy, unadulterated, revealed, pure Word of Ha Shem". I say "sure!" but then ask you if you believe that the torah sheb'al peh is also. See, I say it is. I say that there is an oral law and without it, you can't understand the text. You would again say "no" because that flies in the face of what you want to hear. All that means is that you can't speak much about Judaism. Have fun with that.

 

[metis]

I grew up and am still a Jew, and it strikes me how our folks like to say, "Well, when Moses said that, what God REALLY meant was..."
.

You're conflating things here. Like with the price of a house being "location, location, location" in the eyes of the realtors, in any serious theology it's "interpretation, interpretation, interpretation". There are so many areas of Torah and Tanakh whereas proper interpretation is sometimes hard to come by, and application can also sometimes be variable.

So, what began well over 2000 years ago, possibly beginning during the Babylonian Exile, was emphasis on trying to understand Torah as best as possible. What came out of this is what we sometimes call a "commentary system" whereas different sages and lay threw in their two cents as to what the author of X meant when he wrote "____".

Ever been involved in any Torah study? If you did to any significant degree, you would well know that we don't always agree on how a certain verse should be rendered. And then there's the issue of application, which also can be quite contentious.

So, what a serious Jew would do is to read some of these, especially if they had some questions or doubts, and then make up their own mind. Anything wrong with that? If so, what do you suggest is a better methodology?

 

[metis]

I can see what I believe makes no difference to you, after all, you keep replying to my statements.

You seem to have excepted from your recitation of Talmudic statements something important. You are saying it says, "Jesus was a person like us, who taught what he believed like us, and who died as we will." It says rather a bit more about Jesus than that! It says He died at Passover at 33 1/2 for being a seducer, a worker of wonders, who was a bloody man whose father wasn't Joseph but whose mother was Mary! You excerpted quite a bit there! You see, I'm okay if you say my Talmud knowledge is weak, because that is not the textbook we need to study to find life eternal.

I know from Tanakh God is loving, merciful and forgiving, however your stance that He forgives apart from sacrifice has to be blended with the reason why untold millions of sacrifices were performed for millennia! And also, how it is that you are certain you can keep some of the Law without doing any of the actual, physical sacrifices. Y'shua is our sacrifice.

And your statement that God never assumed that we can keep the entire Law is a canard and a Jewish truism, however, it flies in the face of statements like that of Moses, who said to do these laws and to live and/or die by them! And I bet God knew what He was doing when he allowed those statements of Moses to live in the Torah! I grew up and am still a Jew, and it strikes me how our folks like to say, "Well, when Moses said that, what God REALLY meant was..."

To sum, I'm a believer in Y'shua as a natural consequence of reading the Tanakh and taking it at face value in addition to comprehending its deeper meanings and implications, rather than merely interposing rabbinic tradition, Rambam, Talmud, etc. I believe the Torah/Tanakh is God's revealed Word and in trying to obey this missive, I was naturally led to the One who fulfills them, fully.

And in answer to the OP, a Jew is born a Jew is a Jew. If someone is born Gentile and they devoutly love the people and the God of Israel, there's room for that. God will bless them for this desire and enhance their life.

 

[metis]

To sum, I'm a believer in Y'shua as a natural consequence of reading the Tanakh and taking it at face value in addition to comprehending its deeper meanings and implications, rather than merely interposing rabbinic tradition, Rambam, Talmud, etc. I believe the Torah/Tanakh is God's revealed Word and in trying to obey this missive, I was naturally led to the One who fulfills them, fully.

If you do what you wrote in the first line, congrats-- you're following a Pharisee tradition. Not all Pharisees or Pharisee branches were alike, but one thing in common was to take Torah and comment on it, such as you just did above.

Jesus appears to at least have a parallel with one or more of the liberal Pharisee approaches, which did challenge the mainline Pharisee approach of heavily relying on their "oral law". There was one group in particular that some theologians have called "love Pharisees", namely those that emphasized God's love for us and our love for God and others as being paramount in Torah, and you see this coming out in some of statements attributed to Jesus in the gospels.

Outside of the above approach, the other main branches in Judaism, especially the Karaites, disdained such commentary, and they would view it presumptuous for you to have written what you wrote above. IOW, to them, God wrote it, so believe it and shut up-- you don't speak for God.

 

[metis]

And in answer to the OP, a Jew is born a Jew is a Jew. If someone is born Gentile and they devoutly love the people and the God of Israel, there's room for that. God will bless them for this desire and enhance their life.

In Judaism, there's no condemnation of those outside the faith. Hey, we don't even condemn atheists or agnostics, so maybe there's even hope for me.

OTOH, Christianity has a notorious record of condemning others whom are not of their faith.

I'm pretty much done with this as I did the above against my better judgment because I actually firmly believe in the live and let live approach to religion. So, unless there's just a need for me to clarify something, not argue it, then it's time for me to say...

shalom.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Your people don't have sin-offerings.

Y'shua is the sin offering/propitiation for the world:

"The righteousness of God manifested, being propiated as a gift for those who trust, for there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile in that One died for all..."

PS. I don't suppose you are one of those chicken-killing people, are you? I mean, you and I haven't had a sin offering of the Mosaic kind for millennia! Be consistent!

 

[Flankerl]

So he was a Human sacrifice. That's disgusting and God said so himself.

 

[BilliardsBall]

There is a lot else you have both stated. You are going all over the place to repeat (again, and frequently) what "Jews" believe and what "I don't know". I know what and how and why Jews believe pretty well, and fairly intimately, being, you know, a Jew! I've been one a long time now, all my life, actually.

Let's try to keep on track here with the valid question asked about Jesus's death and resurrection. Jesus is God. He tasted death or separation for us, on our behalf. He was in eternal fellowship with the Father and God died or was separated or however you want to say it from the cross and the punishment. There is nothing more we can say or do to add to what Messiah has done, and most commentary/Jewish religious thought post-diaspora is a scrambling effort to solve the problems:

1. No land
2. Cursing among the nations (but why, we're chosen!)
3. No temple or tabernacle
4. No prophets speaking the word to us
5. God not speaking His word to us
6. Etc.

This is why we get nonsense (not trying to be offensive here) like "we suffer worldwide as a people to fulfill God's will; we are the suffering servant of Isaiah 53" but we excerpt the passage, since Israel may have been revived here and there but never resurrected. Israel never died and then came back and counted its descendants. And the canard that Jewish suffering expiates the sin of the world is more ludicrous if we really believe the animal offering meant something.

Israel suffers to expiate sin but what about all the animals? All you can say is that the animals pointed to or illustrated something. Paul says they point to Messiah's suffering.

"For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified; 15 for the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there also is no violation."

I know all (or at least most, or if you like, many) of our Jewish anti-Christian apologetics as to how the Law ain't such a terrifying thing, and why not? We have a big party on Simchat Torah even though when God thundered from the mountain with the 70 voices of the goyim nations from Noach, we said "Don't even touch that mountain, not even an animal, or let it be stoned!"

It's reading and studying the Law that should make this obvious to us. Listen, I have a Gentile friend who got saved reading Leviticus, albeit in English. "Look at all those laws and sacrifices!" she wondered. "How can I do all that? How could anyone do all that every time their is sin, intentional or unintentional?" She cried to God and got saved. Don't bother, please, with all the "But so-and-so reminds us in the Volume 1 of thus-and-such that Ha Shem is so loving, that He simply kindly looks upon us when we screw up royally or blaspheme," and "The Law is like a picture of God's holiness, but He doesn't really expect anyone to do what He says," since those lines of "logic" made a golden calf just "sort of come out of the fire after we threw all our gold earrings inside."

Moses broke those tablets because he was justified in his anger. Even the ark he asked for is Y'shua:

Y'shua is the manna from heaven, the fulfillment of the tablets of law who loved God and neighbor and died, the branch that budded being life from a dead branch--the cross/His tree, etc. Time will fail me if I tell you of the Temple as well, with showbread in places where a man has ribs, a holy place where a man's mind rests, and much more that points to Messiah Y'shua.

I'm very much saved because when I started to have a long think again as an adult, I met Gentiles who adored Tanakh, memorized it, and mediated upon it. And I remembered the rabbis I knew who were revisionist and wanted to teach tradition without God or the power of God. I was jealous as Paul writes, jealous that I was chosen and my people were ignoring what God said for the commentary of what Jews said God "really" said, and here were goy who adored God, had peace, and held to the Word as the most precious honey from the rock.

And here is a GREAT sage, and he says, "Ha Shem must have meant yachid, not echad," and another GREAT sage, and his greatest student is... Shaul/Paul. Wow.

 

[BilliardsBall]

So he was a Human sacrifice. That's disgusting and God said so himself.

He was a divine sacrifice, but if it helps, as a Jew I remember that Issac was called to be a sacrifice. I remember God testing Abraham without Him saying, "I abhor human sacrifice. I must have lost my mind for three days there..." When Issac was sacrificed, he wondered where the lamb was. There was another animal there despite Abraham saying God will provide the lamb Himself... now read the passage. There was NO LAMB there.

Just add a comma and it works out:

God will provide the lamb, HIMSELF.

Y'shua/Jesus was absolutely a man. He was absolutely God. He was not sacrificed by sinful man, as that would be abhorrent. He laid down His own life, and said, "I have the power myself to lay it down, and to TAKE IT UP AGAIN."

Jesus Christ resurrected, proving His divinity.

 

[Flankerl]

He was a divine sacrifice, but if it helps, as a Jew I remember that Issac was called to be a sacrifice. I remember God testing Abraham without Him saying, "I abhor human sacrifice. I must have lost my mind for three days there..." When Issac was sacrificed, he wondered where the lamb was. There was another animal there despite Abraham saying God will provide the lamb Himself... now read the passage. There was NO LAMB there.

Apparently you don't remember the part where he WAS NOT SACRIFICED.

Also you ignore the part where there was indeed a ram. Are you claiming that the ram was God? I think you might have read too much Greco-Roman scripture.


And again just to be clear: Isaac was not sacrificed. He had sons and daughters and died of old age.

Just add a comma

Ah so it all makes sense if we add a few things to the text.

lol

Jesus Christ resurrected, proving His divinity.

So then he can come back right? Where is he? Somehow he ain't coming back. Almost as if he's dead.

But I love this Christian optimism. Always saying how the Jews are stupid for not acknowledging the obvious Messiah while their own one has been MiA for almost 2000 years.
But I am sure he will return soon. Like the original Christians thought. And then those after them. And so forth and so forth.


Any day now!

 

[metis]

Jesus is God.

Actually, Jesus appears to have never said that. With verse after verse he talks about "the Father", and if there's his Father, then he ain't God. They obviously cannot be one and the same. To say " Jesus is God" is to slip into polytheism, thus negating God as being one.