Deuteronomy 13:2
“If there should stand up in your midst a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and he will produce a sign, and the sign or wonder comes about, of which he spoke to you…do not hearken to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of a dream…(who) shall be put to death for he had spoken perversion against Hashem, your Gd.”
Uh, you don’t say…
Deuteronomy 4:39
“Know this day and lay it in your heart that the L-rd is Gd, in the heavens and in the Earth below, there is none else.”
“Jews would never accept Jesus as Rabbi, prophet, or teacher because he advocated idolatry with himself as the deity.” – Aryeh Kaplan
Psalms 145:3
“His greatness is unfathomable.”
Jesus, knowable. Gd wouldn’t need to come in human form to get his point across, whatever that point may have been.
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I don’t doubt that Christianity was a large contribution to the non-Jewish world in some regard – all I’m saying here is that I wish missionaries would pounce on the atheists, and get their free toasters there.
- Wish Jew Were Here - 5/9/2006
- For your viewing pleasure - 5/9/2006
- Reflecting on Yom Ha Shoah - 4/27/2006
Muffti would never give a missionary a free toaster. Us atheists have no god; but now we have to give up our toast as well?
Anyhow, are these reasons any more convincing than the former ones? As Justin pointed out in the last round, Jesus doesn’t actually de-ify himself. This seems to straightforwardly take care of Deuteronomy 4:39. Furthermore, even if he had, we should note that it isn’t very accurate to christian theology to think that Jesus actually is a different entity than God. By christian standards, Jesus was God so technically it isn’t reallly idolatry, is it? (Muffti means, not be their standards). So there is a premise that is going to be hard to establish in debate with these cretins: they think Jesus is God and hence should differ from regular prophets. We think he was just a man and so everything he did/was later projected on to him by Paul is wrong because he shows none of the right signs.
As for Deuteronomy 13:2, there are tons of prophets that were sent and produced signs but weren’t put to death and weren’t perverting God’s words. For a full consideration of how to tell prophets apart from fake prophets (and some considerations as to why Jesus wasn’t a real one, see: here. A lot of these considerations, however, turn on whether or not Christians get it right or wrong that Jesus literally was god.
Finally, the bit from Psalms is rather unconvincing even on OT terms, isn’t it? I mean, God comes in all sorts of ways to get his point of cross: a pillar of fire, a burning bush…
About Jewish prophets,
anyone remember the simple ‘test’ to verify if one is telling the truth?
I heard once but can’t remember if;
-he prophesizes good and it comes true,
-he prophesizes bad and it comes true,
-he prophesizes good and bad and the bad comes true,
-he prophesizes good and bad and the good comes true.
I’m leaning on the last one, since we know that various prophets forewarned of ‘bad’, but in order for us to repent and dismiss the decree. Jerimiah is a good example, Jonah also warned of bad, but the followers of Ninveh repented and the decree was rescinded
Good prophecy always comes true, bad prophecy can be averted by teshuvah.
Go to: http://www.messiahtruth.com/
Rabbi Tovia Singer spoke at a shabbaton in Victoria BC two weeks ago, and it was really amazing. If you know anyone with questions about xianity, then send them to this site.
Interesting that I found this as a former christian. You can only imagine how thrilled I was to find out that I don’t have to convert to Judaism to be on the righteous path! This is good since I really like eating ham. I love reading Jewlicious. Thank you.
I just can’t see what is the point of discussing whever Jesus could be considered a Messiah.
Anyone cares to enlighten me?