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Lastly don't you think its possible that when the Messiah you have been waiting for comes God may choose to have him do more or even something different than what you have planned for him? :think:
Fair enough, I don't normally use those terms either. But I'm trying to decern what really makes someone apart of the The Children of Israel from this perspective.
So if my great, great grandmother was a Jew then so am I also even if I have many other nationalities or even other beliefs?
Derek
IIUC there are some reasonability requirements in how far one traces things back - if not, there could be folks with no knowledge of their jewish status, who would be technically in violation of the law. This is a fairly obscure area of the law, one I am not too familiar with.
Moses didn't care about what God said or did Supernaturally? The Children of Israel didn't care that God passed over their homes while striking dead the Egyptians? Israel didn't care that God lead them through the Red Sea supernaturally? David didn't care what God thought and directed him to do? Daniel didn't care that God spared his life in the lion's den? The prophets weren't too concerned about those silly supernatural things? Sorry, I just don't buy it. Maybe things are different now for some in the way the choose to live their lives. But that doesn't change what has been documented through these holy writtings, whether one choses to believe in and worship a supernatural God today or not.
Derek
It all depends on what you mean by supernatural, as well as how literally you take the biblical narrative. Religious naturalists like Kaplan address these issues. If you are interested, you should read him.
So a Jew for Jesus celebrating Passover or enjoying the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible is a bad thing in their minds.
To a religious jew a person of jewish birth being a secularist is a bad thing, as is a person of jewish birth becoming a Christian. A person of jewish birth who says they are not a christian but "jew for jesus" is dishonest, a form of dishonesty that specifically seems designed to tempt away our young people.
The difference in lay peoples views of jewish secularists, vs of Jews who convert to another religion is of long standing, and has historical roots, as I have said above.
If her great grandmother is Jewish, that means her grandmother is, which means her mother is.
Stop interjecting your obnoxious anti-Messianic opinion into this discussion. I don't give a crap what you or other mainstream Jews believe about the issue. Drop it.
And you are wrong. If a Jewish woman converts to Christianity, she is still Jewish, as would be her children. Her religion is irrelevant. Matrilineal descent does not end based on one's belief system.
once again, thats true of halacha, and ordinary jewish people have made other distinctions, for centuries.
BTW, in the Reform movement, as part of their egalitarianism, someone with one Jewish parent of EITHER gender is Jewish, AS LONG AS they are raised as Jews. If you have a Jewish mother only, and are NOT raised as a Jew, you are not a Jew according to the literal reading of the Reform position. In theory there are folks who are Jews per C and O, but NOT per Reform, though its not clear to me how Reform shuls deal with this as a practical matter.
Let me ask you this. If the Messiah that you are waiting for came, would you no longer be a Jew in every sense of the word you consider yourself one today? Would you then be in an entirely new religion? I think the answer is obvious = No.
Let's be honest, all your opinions/disdain toward J4J or Messianic Jews really boils down to only one thing -> your rejection of Jesus as Messiah. Everything changes based on the way you answer that one question, as does your world view of 5000 years of history.
We can agree to disagree on this one important point. Those debates have gone on for 1000s of years and will continue most likely beyond our lives. But to be intellectually honest, you have to at least try to understand things from another perspective besides your own. It is simply a different way of looking at Jewish history than you do. You may not agree with it, but for the Jew who does accept Jesus as Messiah, its one continuation of the same religion from before Adam was created until now - the same God of Israel. It is the fulfillment of their faith, not something other than which starts something non-related to what the Jewish people did for 1000s of years prior. The two are interconnected in every way.
Derek
first off, the Christian transformation in the very idea of what the Moshiach is and does, is far from trivial.
second, its not only about a philosophical or textual debate about what Moshiach is. Its about the historical fact that the Jewish people did not accept Jesus as Moshiach, and that those who did accept him at the time, failed to maintain a distinct identity in the Christian world. There is no historical continuity between christians of Jewish birth today and 1st century Hebrew Christians, because there WERE no folks like that for 1800 years or so.
And those two things are themselves interconnected. The notion that the actual experience of the Jewish people, what they have done and how they have chosen over the last 2000 years, is not as important as a textual debate about what 'moshiach" means is of a piece with the transformation of a national savior who would liberate the people and end exile, with a universal savior who would die achieving no political change, and whose main purpose was to be believed in. They are BOTH a transformation from the tangible and the national, to universalism and focus on the after life.
IOW a transformation from Judaism to Christianity.
It could just as easily be said that not seeing the fullfillment of messianic prophecy to be foolishness. However debating Jesus as Messiah from a Jewish historical persective in light of the Torah is something which has been done for centuries. While a valid topic of discussion in its own right this is really not the point of my thread. Let's try to stay on topic if possible:
1. What does it mean to be an atheist in the Jewish Religion/Faith today? How does one escape verses like: The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” -- Psalm 14:1 or the commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sanai.
2. Based on the definition of a member of the People of Israel (a distinction made here from a western world view of religion), what does that make a Jewish person regardless of belief? Or is there any separating one's belief in the God of Israel from from Jewish traditions/rituals/ceremonies, etc...?
3. If an atheist is by definition still a member of the People of Israel via birth right how would that same definition not apply to other Jews as well such as J4J and Messianic Jews?
Derek
Dude
have you ever noticed that jewish folks tend to refer to Leon Trotsky as of Jewish birth, while Sigmund Freud is a Jewish atheist? I mean Trotsky and Freud believed similar things about God, right? and were both of Jewish birth, right? Whats the difference, do you suppose?
Freud accepted his Jewish identity - he belonged to Bnai Brith, he recounted Yiddish jokes in some of his work, he remained (as far as a man of genius can) one with the People.
Trotsky embraced the Bolshevist faith, a universalist, universalizing approach to life. A movement that persecuted Judaism, and discouraged Jewish national identity. He turned his back on the fate of his people.
A Jew who accepts the Christian notion of what Moshiach is, is universalizing one of the most intensely nationalist aspect of the Jewish faith. Until VERY recently, people who did that uniformly turned their backs on identification with the Jewish people. That in the last few decades some (not all by any means) Jews who become christians have chosen to retain nostalgically some connection to Jewish practice and identity, can hardly be expected to impress most ordinary Jews.
Ok, I acknowlege you are entitled to your opinion and disagree regarding the Jewish religion. But can you attempt just a moment to see this from another's perspective.
Dude
If you are so interested in Jews and Judaism, so much as to post about it obsessively here, I would say that seeing things from anothers perspective would involve you LEARNING more about contemporary Judaism from serious sources, NOT from a message board. Theres loads of books you could read that would give you perspective.
I do not read that much about Christianity but then I do not start threads asking christians about their identities and beliefs, which are not that important to me. If I WAS that obsessed about them, I would attempt to become more informed, rather than being annoying and argumentative on a message board.
Lastly don't you think its possible that when the Messiah you have been waiting for comes God may choose to have him do more or even something different than what you have planned for him?
Derek
dude.
what if Jesus came a second time (with all the proof that its him that you have for the first "coming") and he told you that God doesnt exist, he's actually an emissary of Satan, and you should burn little children to SAtan.
That would be an issue, eh?
Does that mean Christians should acknowledge that Satanism (of the worst sort) is a possible form of Christianity?
While current day Judaism doesn't accept Jesus as Messiah, the Messianic Jew does.
while current western christianity doesnt accept Mohammed as the seal of the prophets, the Islamic Christian does.
Explain the difference in logic.
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