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Birth of Jesus
- Thread starter GatorFan
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Dena
Active Member
If Jesus existed he was born naturally just like everybody else. Not much else to say about it really. Not for me anyway.
Levite
Higher and Higher
There are two aspects to the Jewish response to this.
First of all, Judaism does not have doctrine of Original Sin (or of Salvation from said Sin). The idea that any kind of sin could be somehow inherited is foreign to Judaism, much less the idea that every human being is somehow born in a condition of sin that requires salvation. Therefore, there is no such thing as a birth that is miraculously free of sin, because they all are. Nor is there any need for God to have a miraculous divine Savior born, because human beings require no such salvation to begin with. Each person is responsible only for their own sins, and they need no external mechanism to be cleansed of those sins: they need only to do the process of teshuvah (literally, "returning," although sometimes translated "repentance"), wherein one abjures the sin, and commits oneself to not do it any more, confesses the sin to God, apologizes to any person harmed by the sin, and offers them reparations. No need for priests, saints, or Saviors.
Second of all, Judaism does not have room for the concept that God reproduces. God is One, indivisible, eternal, aphysical, transcendant. Since God is indivisibly One, and incapable of being contained by a physical body, there is no need for a miraculous birth that allows God to self-incarnate, because that can't happen. And since God is One and eternal, there is no need for God to reproduce in order to somehow have more God(s) or what have you. And in any case, since God is omnipotent, why would He reproduce by magically impregnating a human woman? Why would He not just create Himself an offspring? The only justification for adding the human element is to have a divine human Savior, which we already have established that, according to Jewish beliefs, there is no need for, anyhow.
So, from the Jewish perspective, not only could it simply never happen, but there would never even be a need for it to happen.
Jesus/Christian theology and Judaism have very little to do with eachother in the big picture. Depending on who you ask within groups of people who really know Talmud, there is reference to Jesus and his birth. To my knowledge, there is not a single clear and direct reference to Jesus in a single Jewish text. However, it is said that the "sinner of Israel", which is mentioned in the tractate Gittin of the Talmud (I think page 56a2 or a3) talk about him. Whoever it is, it's a very interesting story and it takes place around the same time period. So it's not necessarily unreasonable to speculate this the "sinner of Israel" is Jesus.
Another mention in the Talmud, and this is also extremely unclear and debated, mentions a person named yeshua who did the same thing as what Jesus was said to so. But it takes place before Jesus was said to have existed. It mentions his father being a roman soldier and mother being a whore. None the less. I'm not sure where to find it, I think it's in tractate yoma? Try doing a google on Jesus in the talmud. You're sure to get a slew of anti-Semitic websites full of half truths and idioatic assertions about Judaism and Jews and Talmud being anti-semitic. Find the source in which they claim it tothe verse supports what they're saying, and do a google on it. I.e. Yoma 12a1 and find a webpage about it from a reputable website. I'll bet aish hatorah or something has a commentary.
Another mention in the Talmud, and this is also extremely unclear and debated, mentions a person named yeshua who did the same thing as what Jesus was said to so. But it takes place before Jesus was said to have existed. It mentions his father being a roman soldier and mother being a whore. None the less. I'm not sure where to find it, I think it's in tractate yoma? Try doing a google on Jesus in the talmud. You're sure to get a slew of anti-Semitic websites full of half truths and idioatic assertions about Judaism and Jews and Talmud being anti-semitic. Find the source in which they claim it tothe verse supports what they're saying, and do a google on it. I.e. Yoma 12a1 and find a webpage about it from a reputable website. I'll bet aish hatorah or something has a commentary.
Levite
Higher and Higher
There are actually a number of places in the Talmud where it appears they might be speaking of Jesus, though, and those places seem to have come from two different schools of thought. One is the school which speaks of Ben Pandera, who was from the northern regions of Israel, and was the son of a Roman Soldier and a Jewish woman who gave herself to him (they use the term zonah to refer to her, which can mean literally a whore, but can also merely refer to a woman who has socially inappropriate but not necessarily halakhically prohibited sexual relations). This school of teachings is quite contemptuous of Ben Pandera, and given that it occurs mostly in later strands of the Gemara, it was almost certainly polemical to early Christianity.
The other, earlier school of thought, refers directly to Yeshu Hanotzri (which is how we have come to call Jesus that in our Hebrew literature). These references indicate that Yeshu was once a student of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Prakhyah, but left Rabbi Yehoshua's academy in disgrace, having become a heretic.
In any case, I don't recall where all the references are, but there are some in Sanhedrin, and I think in Chullin, and probably Avodah Zarah.
There have been differing opinons through the ages about whether either of these two sets of references actually are about the Christian Jesus. Historically, most of the rabbis who have dismissed both sets of references entirely lived in areas with considerable Christian oppression of Jews, where it would have been virtual suicide for them to confirm Talmudic depictions of Jesus as a heretic and potentially the son of a whore, which makes me weight their dismissals accordingly.
Some rabbis did consider the earlier set of references to be about the Christian Jesus, chiefly rabbis who lived in Muslim lands, and had more freedom to potentially offend Christians, and I consider their judgments accordingly, also.
Personally, though I don't think the Ben Pandera references are genuine, I think the Yeshu Hanotzri references might be. And I do think that the idea that Jesus was once a student in a Rabbinic Academy is likely to be true: he seems to have used midrash like a Rabbi, and followed many Rabbinic practices.
You are referring to Exodus 34:6-7, wherein Moses has a theophany, in which God describes himself in the following way:
va-ya'avor YHVH al panav vayikra: YHVH YHVH el rachum vechanun, erech apayim v'rav chesed v'emet, notzer chesed l'alafim, nosei avon va'fesha ve'chatah ve-nakeh lo yinakeh, poked avon avot al banim al shileshim v'al ribe'im;
"And YHVH passed before him and cried: YHVH YHVH, a God full of compassion and grace, slow to become angry, and great in lovingkindness and Truth, giving forth lovingkindness to the thousandth remove, absolving sins-of-guilt, and sins-of-defiance, and sins-of-fault; but surely not acqutting [all]: revisiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generations."
Now, in the Masoretic text, the break between verses is placed between v'emet and notzer ("Truth" and "giving forth"). However, when the Rabbis of the Talmud read these verses, they tell us that, for proper theological understanding, the break should actually be in the middle of a grammatically conjoined expression of poetic re-emphasis-- a bold, but theologically important, move. They place it between ve-nakeh and lo yinakeh, creating thereby a far different meaning. Punctuated thusly, the verse now reads:
va-ya'avor YHVH al panav vayikra: YHVH YHVH el rachum vechanun, erech apayim v'rav chesed v'emet, notzer chesed l'alafim, nosei avon va'fesha ve'chatah ve-nakeh; lo yinakeh, poked avon avot al banim al shileshim v'al ribe'im;
"And YHVH passed before him and cried: YHVH YHVH, a God full of compassion and grace, slow to become angry, and great in lovingkindness and Truth, giving forth lovingkindness to the thousandth remove, absolving sins-of-guilt, and sins-of-defiance, and sins-of-fault to acquit [them all]. But He does not acquit [some]: He revisits [those] sins of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generations."
The Rabbis of the Talmud explain that the meaning is that in the first of the two verses as they punctuate it, the text refers to any who do teshuvah (formally repent, which is done by abjuring the misdeed, apologizing to those against whom one has transgressed, making any and all reparations necessary, and then formally confessing and offering ritual repentance for one's sins on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement), and/or whose children reject their parents' sins. But the second of the two verses as they punctuate it refers to those who do not do teshuvah (formally repent), nor do the children reject their parents' sins. It is only against those who do not repent, and who take on the sins of their parents as their own, perpetuating the wrongs of the previous generation by choice, that God remembers punishment to the third and fourth generation.
But the idea has always been that, in theory, a person is born without sin, then, in adulthood, sins by committing transgressions with intention, and is fully capable of repenting on his own, and receiving forgiveness for those sins, with no outside agency necessary.
The sacrificial offerings for Yom Kippur were the apex of the process of repentance. As I mentioned above, they only worked if one had already done the real work of repentance: changing one's behavior and ways, and apologizing and making reparations to those whom one has wronged. The sacrifices were the ritual seal on the process of repentance. Today, since we have no sacrifices (nor have had any for 2000 years), it is the prayers of confession and ritual repentance that we offer on Yom Kippur that are the ritual seal to the process. But all the real work of repentance still has to be done for oneself.
But if, for some reason, one were prevented from going to services on Yom Kippur (say, if one had done all the work of repentance, but suddenly fell into a coma before Yom Kippur), we presume in such situations that God still forgives one, even without the ritual seal, as Yom Kippur is good to do, but not entirely necessary. By the same token, in the days of the Temple, if one were somehow prevented from getting to the Temple with the appropriate sin-offering, we presume God still forgave one, because ritual is, in the end, only ritual. It is the change of behavior, the apologizing, the reparations, that God sees as key. He wants us to have Yom Kippur also, but it's not key in the same way.
But any case, no outside agency is necessary: no saviors needed.
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Levite
Higher and Higher
I think the issue here is that you're reading Genesis too literally. This curse just describes the reality of life in the world. The theology of the early Israelite authors (which, by the way, is not necessarily the theology of the later Israelite authors, and is certainly not the theology of even early Rabbinic Judaism, let alone modern Judaism) was entirely causational. In their minds, no action ever took place in the world that God did not entirely cause, save only certain aspects of human behavior associated with the proto-concept that would one day develop into the idea of free will.
Therefore, Genesis 1-3 (or even perhaps 1-4 or 1-11) presents a series of cosmogonical allegories to help us understand the nature of life. But we don't necessarily take the course of events entirely literally, or lean on them too much for our theology. For me, especially, I usually find the plain meaning unhelpful, and I tend to read the text mystically instead. But I really don't see any aid in trying to take the surface meaning of the text and draw complex moral or theological lessons from it. It's far too allegorical and midrashic for that.
We were given permission to offer animal sacrifices, so long as they were offered according to the specific limitations that the Torah gave, and so long as we only offered the few kinds of animals, in the prescribed fashion, it was all right-- but the greater restriction was that of space. We were only permitted sacrifice in the Temple, if for no other reason than prior to the Temple's construction, when we were sacrificing anywhere we liked, we had a propensity to go awry, and worship other gods also. So we were restricted to sacrificing only in one spot, in the Temple. And when it was destroyed, we were prohibited from sacrificing at all, until the Temple be rebuilt.
But it cannot be rebuilt until the messiah comes. Only the messiah will have the authority to do this, and more pragmatically, probably only the messiah could resolve the problems needed to get it built peacefully (the spot is currently occupied by the Dome of the Rock mosque). Therefore, until the messiah comes, we cannot even think of sacrificing.
But it is also a common belief that we have outgrown sacrifice, and prayer is preferable, and that when the messiah comes, he will not re-institute animal sacrifices, but will show us how to accomplish the same things with prayer and other, perhaps new, ways of worship.
Levite
Higher and Higher
Sure! I don't see why that couldn't be a valid reading. I have read it more or less that way myself, from time to time, and I've known a couple of Conservative and Modern Orthodox physics professors who found that reading intensely meaningful to them.
I have just been reading the English translation of the Great Isaiah Scroll
Isaiah 1.11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith HaShem; I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats.
Isaiah 1.13
Bring no more vain oblations; it is an offering of abomination unto Me; new moon and sabbath, the holding of convocations-- I cannot endure iniquity along with the solemn assembly.
This was written about 700 years before the fall of the temple, I don't understand why you would carry on with sacrifices
Isaiah 1.11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith HaShem; I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats.
Isaiah 1.13
Bring no more vain oblations; it is an offering of abomination unto Me; new moon and sabbath, the holding of convocations-- I cannot endure iniquity along with the solemn assembly.
This was written about 700 years before the fall of the temple, I don't understand why you would carry on with sacrifices
Levite
Higher and Higher
The idea that is being conveyed here is not that sacrifices were undesirable to God, but that they were unacceptable when people were obeying the ritual laws of sacrifice to God while at the same time offering sacrifices to other gods, and even more so, while at the same time ignoring the practical laws of social justice.
We are taught by the Rabbis of the Talmud that, the teaching being conveyed by the prophets here still applies, though the Temple and the sacrifices are no more: it is not enough to be meticulous in observing shabbat (the sabbath) or kashrut (the laws pertaining to diet and food) or other such ritual obligations, and then go out and oppress the poor and the orphans and the widows, or the strangers, or those who serve you. One must live life meticulously according to the ethical commandments as well as in observance of the ritual commandments.
Because by the same token, the reverse is also true: it is unacceptable for a Jew to follow only the ethical commandments, the observances surrounding social justice, and to entirely ignore the ritual commandments. That is also not what God wants. We are taught that God wants both: moral behavior and ritual observance.
Tamar
I am Jewish.
Jesus was a Jewish man who lived, worshipped, and died as a Jew. Simple as that.........
Mary was his mother and there was a natural birth...... Not sure who his father was but since Joseph married Mary he took on the responsibility.
Anyhow this is how I see it.....
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Caladan
Agnostic Pantheist
My opinion on this is that the question is not compatible with Judaism, as Jesus is not part of Jewish theology or scripture.
And your opinion is dead on. Jesus isn't a part of Judaism, no way, no how, no fashion. The Jeezer worshipers need to find another part of the forum to discuss this. Aren't you a mod, caladan?
Rhiamom
Member
It's not really on-topic, but i want to point out that the OP made a common mistake in thinking that the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception refers to Jesus. It does not. It refers to the conception of Mary, and is what allowed her to not carry that Original Sin, and therefore be fit to carry Jesus. Seriously, I am not making this up.
But, yeah, from the Jewish point of view G-d would never do Jesus. Mary was betrothed, which was as binding as marriage then, so G-d would not countenace her having any offspring that did not have Joseph as their father.
But, yeah, from the Jewish point of view G-d would never do Jesus. Mary was betrothed, which was as binding as marriage then, so G-d would not countenace her having any offspring that did not have Joseph as their father.
***Moderation: This is the Conservative Judaism area. Only Jewish people should post in it. Admin see next post I made invisible for further information.***
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Akivah
Well-Known Member
Thank you.
YoursTrue
Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
Might I ask why do you think Yom Kippur was established?
Jedster
Flying through space
Levite has not been around for 4 years.
Try looking at Leviticus chapter 16 from verse 29.
Use a Jewish version as I am unsure if Christians have the same version.
Here is a Jewish site at The Complete Tanakh (Tanach) - Hebrew Bible - The Jewish Bible with a Modern English Translation and Rashi's Commentary
I'm pretty sure someone will answer you with more detail.
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