if jesus and mohammed are not a person really chosen by god, it is impossible they have follower as many as today. it is impossible their words are accepted by many people all around the world untill today.
So we judge truth and divine intent by someone's popularity?
Because by that reckoning, we should all be making a religion out of the Beatles, or JRR Tolkien, or Scarlett Johansen.
I'm sorry, but number of followers makes absolutely no difference to me. Jews are commanded to keep Judaism, and to not practice other religions. Whatever non-Jews do has nothing to do with us. And the fact that billions of people want to worship a dead Jew, or billions of people say that their prophet is a true inheritor of Abraham, does nothing to change those things. Christianity and Islam are other religions. They have nothing to do with Judaism or Jews. If non-Jews want to practice them, great. But nothing will change for us, whether Christians and Muslims number in the billions or just in the dozens.
As I respect your opinions, I would like to get your take on my post 67. As a non-expert in the scriptures, it has always seemed to me that experts sometimes do double-reverse backflips through a flaming hoop to explain scripture that intuitively seems wrong or at odds with historical events and a modern view of what makes sense. And I have a hard time believing the original scripture writer had all these esoteric meanings in mind when writing.
Two examples:
Christian: The original scipture writers were expecting an imminant return of Christ and a Judgement Day.
Judaism: The original scrpture writers were expecting an imminant Messiah coming in a world still much like there own.
I believe in God but think scripture writers can be plain wrong sometimes. WHat is your opinion on this?
I don't think it's an either-or situation. I personally do not believe either in inerrant scripture or in the Divine authorship of the text: I believe that Torah is a joint endeavor between God and human beings, and that the human side of that endeavor can make mistakes.
But I do put a lot of faith in the ability of the text to be a vehicle of truth and divine commandment. We Jews believe that Torah was created with infinite levels of meaning: it was designed to be interpreted and reinterpreted, because its truth will never be exhausted.
We simply don't have an expectation that the text is ever intended to be read at the simplest and most literal, surface level. It may, sometimes, but quite often, it isn't, and to us, that is normal, and to be expected. So while it can look to outsiders as though we take interpretive routes that are convoluted and overly complicated, it only appears that way if you've gone in presuming that the simplest, surface reading of the text-- literalism-- is what the authors intended to be received. If one doesn't make that presumption, a lot of doors open to multiple possibilities of interpretation, none of which appear strange.
