On the Messiah and Judaism

In Response…

I’m not sure what any of this has to do with the blog so maybe you can send me an email and I will try to answer some of your questions in a more focused fashion. Certainly because many of your questions are existential, I can’t answer them. I don’t know why you choose to believe or disbelieve the things you do. What I know is whether or not there are good reasons to believe these kinds of things at all. Whether or not someone believes them or not can have a near infinite variety of reasons. And obviously, Jews do believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Just not all Jews.

The entire early Church was formed, educated, and developed almost exclusively by devout Jews. But they were Jews that understood the universal scope inherent within the Torah’s religious teaching, and so opened the word of G-D to the gentiles. It might be better to say that there are still some Jews that do not accept Jesus as the Messiah.

I spent many years studying Judaism, the law, the prophets, the commentaries, the Mishnah, the Talmud, etc. At the end of the day, Jesus interpretation of the law seems very consistent with the law of Moses and the others, while having of course many points of light, are a confusion of that law. There seems to be very few things within the law as re-interpreted within Judaism that are either a) logically consistent with the measurement and intent of the original law on the subject, or b) not given to two or more interpretations which cannot both be obeyed at the same time and yet all are considered binding under law. I consider Jesus to be the true prophet of G-D because his clarification of law and untangling of legal confusions shows him to be a voice of G-D. This might be over simplified but why make it over complicated?

There are many Rabbis in the Jewish tradition, some are more reasonable and coherent than others, but Jesus brought us the law in its perfection, as we would expect from the Messiah. At the end of it all, years of study of the Talmud left me feeling that it was simply, tragic. Endless ceremonies and methods that seem to have as their center, the avoidance of the universal mandate to love G-D primarily, and love your neighbor as yourself as the expression of that in universal application. Jesus never would have had a gentile do labor for him on the Sabbath, and in that hypocrisy think he had kept the law. Jesus would never agree that a man could divorce his wife for any and every reason that fills his fallen heart. Jesus would not have a man tithe his mint, dill, and cumin while forgetting the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, empathy, compassion, trust, hope faith, and love. Jesus would never have said that though you cannot lie to another Jew, you can lie to a gentile.

It leads one to think that if he were not the Messiah, surely, He should have been. And who is going to top Him? Since Jesus has already universalized and completed that law of love given by G-D, whatever other messiahs come, it could only be someone that would make the law less, or interpret it worse, and that makes for an inferior messiah, at best.

All the best,

Christopher Neiswonger