Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Dec 17, 2021 5:00 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 4:14 pm
Yes, I am the servant of a Jew. Of THE Jew, the Jew of Jews, the King of the Jews. It is my honour to know HaShem, and I am deeply conscious of the debt I owe to the people who preseved His Name for me to hear. It has saved my life. It is everything to me, both now and forever. How can I not be grateful?
Well, I think some correction is needed.
Strict Judaism holds Jesus Christ and also Christians in total contempt.
I know. It does not mean I feel the same way as they do.
But there is no Jew that will ever say or confess that the incarnation of Jesus was an incarnation of God.
Well, that claim is only bought by redefining all Messianic Jews as "not Jews."
It's really the same way Islam is able to say, "Nobody ever converts away from Islam." They do it be redefining "convert."
Both statements, though, are obviously contentious rather than unequivocal. The Messianic Jews regard themselves as Jews, are biologically Jewish, many of them live in Israel, and their whole heritage is Jewish. They're just not allowed to be
called Jews by the Jewish authorities.
So the upshot here is that if there is a Jews who *confesses* Jesus Christ, that Jew is no longer a Jew but a Christian.
There's a level of truth in this, but also a level of untruth. The truth is that every Jew who confesses Christ is a member of HIs Body, the Church, and a a fellow-Christian with me, totally coequal without distinction. But he/she has not lost his/her
yiddishkeit, nor has to surrender it, anymore than a Somali or Chinese has to drop his/her culture in order to be a Christian. He/she is perfectly free to celebrate his or her Jewishness, and to teach me about it to, if he/she is so inclined. There's a lot I can learn from that.
...the core tenets of Christianity are unacceptable to Judaism...
I deny that. I would say, "the core tenets of Christianity are not currently being accepted by conventional Judaism."
But we have Messiah. And Messiah is King of the Jews. So long as Judaism has any ambition for Messiah, they will eventually have to reconsider Him.
Finally, I do not think that Jesus Christ, as incarnation of God, can be or even should be seen as a Jew.
That, too, is surely arbitrary. There's no disputing he was the son of a Galilee carpenter, born in Bethlehem, in the line of King David himself. You don't get a whole lot more Jewish than that.
...Logos is the intelligent idea that runs through all the world and all possible worlds.
Christians believe He's not just an idea. "Logos" has affinitites with "logic," it's true...but also with "word," in the particular sense of "utternace to which one is committed." It also has links to "Law" or "authortiative word." It is the basis of Creation itself, in Genesis 1. But it is also the Pre-existent, Living Word of John 1. Logos, as God's final word to man, is Christ Himself.
I do understand that in the Christian story, the Christian view of history and of prophesy, that the eventual conversion of the Jews is understood to be necessary, and though this seems doubtful I guess anything is possible (!)
Fair enough. Do you know the book of Ruth? It's in the
Tanakh. Have you ever read it? I have some thoughts from it.
But my point is that I think it is a strange mistake to see Jesus Christ as a Jew. Because that means seeing God as Jewish as well. And this reduces the whole idea of God to something absurd.
I think maybe you've got that reversed: God isn't "Jewish," in the sense that "Jewishness" is a mere
predication of God, or as if the idea "Jew" existed before God existed, so can
be predicated of Him. Think of it instead, the other way: "Jew" is a synonym for "nation chosen by God to represent Him among all nations." In other words, everything good about Judaism is derived from its association with the character of God. But God is not a Jew...Jewishness, if faithful, is godly.
But if we look at the Incarnation, of course, we can also speak meaningfully of God "being a Jew." For Christ was born to the Jews, in Bethlehem, and raised according to the Law, and worked and ministered in Israel. There He lived, died, was buried, rose again and appeared to His disciples. From thence he was taken up into the heavens, and to the Mount of Olives Messiah shall return. He will enter the Temple through the East Gate...despite all the attempts to make that impossible. And from Jerusalem He will rule.
That's pretty Jewish stuff, I would say.
