Messianic Jews and Israel

arutzsheva | 5-14-02 | S. Alfassa Marks

[Simcha7]

Shalom...kezekiel

I Agree with You!

What about Jews who practice Witchcraft and Satanism....?

They are readily accepted and called...Brother!

I am a Jewish Born Again Believer In Yeshua/Jesus The Christ, The Risen Jewish Messiah!

I was born of a Jewish Mother, I am a JEW...NOTHING has Changed, I'm still a JEW and will die a JEW.

I Live my life everyday as a Messianic/Born Again JEW.

Just because I am Born Again and Believe that my JEWISH Messiah IS who HE says He IS...is No reason to declare that I am Not a JEW!

It's almost like saying that an Italian person who was once a Catholic, and then becomes Born Again is No Longer Italian.

That is both Heretical and Genetically Impossible.

How can anyone STOP being what they were Born to be?

As for "Crystalk"...I really wish that YOU would NOT portray yourself as some kind of EXPERT or AUTHORITY on the BIBLE/God's Holy Word, Messianic Judaism or Judaism.

Sometimes Your rambling comments make no sense, and Please Stop quoting Holy Scripture (both Old and New Testaments) Out of it's Context in order to suit Your own agenda.

Todah Rabbah.

[crystalk]

I have no agenda, except truth as I see it, am not a member of any cult or religious society of any kind, and have never claimed to be any kind of expert.

I have just as much right to post here as anyone, and this post was pulled directly off of Israel National News. Sheesh, and I thought we were agreed on virtually everything in the world, S2! What a letdown.

[BlackVeil]

"for thousands of years they have done one thing perfectly, kept the Torah word for word. To them it is their history, and their revelation of the view God allowed them to have of Himself... Imagine that your view of God was limited to the first five books of the bible." I found your post very expressive of your respectful interaction with another religion. Although Judaism is based on those first five books of the Bible, they have not been a limitation. Judaism has maintained itself, undergone change and yet maintained its identity. So they have done very well. They can say with the Psalmist "I walk within my house with a perfect heart." (101)

[crystalk]

Sorry, S7, I should have typed S7.

Every point you make there may be a perfectly valid argument, I have no quarrel with any of it, you are quarreling not with me but with the author of the Arutz-sheva article, and therefore with the very long-standing Jewish policy of expelling all persons who have converted to Christianity.

Just what part of my wonderful, truth-enhancing, FR-enhancing, world-saving comments (especially if on this thread) is it you don't like? You haven't dared to point out anywhere I was wrong, have you?

99% of the attacks on me in any forum, are because I have in all Innocence, reminded somebody of something that is undeniably true, but which they hate to admit and are trying to hide from.

[BlackVeil]

You point out that some Rabbinical scholars, reading the Gospels, "would definitely recongnize midrash, or a type of reworking of various forms to bring them into accord with earlier forms". Ah - you have touched on a hot issue. Not to mention that the legendary aspects of Jesus' life, most especially the "eat my flesh and drink my blood" are most clearly and directly related to the Greek mystery religions which were interacting with Judaism in the classical world. (Dionysius was known as the "Good Shepherd" and the "true vine". His followers drank wine which represented his blood.) Both Jewish and Islamic critics of the Gospels have hammered on this point, and not without reason.

Yet another way of looking at it would be to say that Christ was the culmination of the pagan myths, the truth of all the different lights given to mankind. (This relates to your argument, that the story is valuable, regardless of its historical content.) C.S. Lewis, a Christian scholar not disconcerted by classical mythology, suggested that these were forerunners of the true tale.

Finally, in historical mode, one could suggest that the unique transforming power of Christianity was that it combined the monethiesm of the Semitic religion, with the creativity and drama of the Greek one. Thus, Greek and Jewish thought which are so influential, but so different from each other, were linked.

[crystalk]

I have now looked back clear to the heading, and nowhere did I ever quote one word out of Holy Scripture of the Old or New Testaments. That is very usual and par for the course with me, I don't like proof-texting and trying to use scripture to prove one's points and arguments in a secular forum.

There is quite a bit of Scripture posted on this thread, but it has not been posted by me, not a word of it.

You owe me an apology for false accusation. I am not even a major poster of religion or theology, except where like here, they affect some current societal legal matter.

[MissAmericanPie]

Yes, they can.

[onedoug]

Very well put.

I really like that "orthodox" sense of Christianity which I get from an "Anglican Catholic" church literally around the corner from me, where incense and holy water are readily burned and splashed about, and the mass is chanted. (The First Lesson of which is always from the Old Testament.) The sense of theatre is wonderful. The Communion, deep.

It's real for me.

Though I also feel the challenge of the historical Christ, and so would be willing to cast as much in meaning onto Hamlet or, say, Twelfth Night as to the Gospels.... Which, in other words, would not lessen either's import one wit.

E'en so, I would still raise the Jewish reservations, variously expressed above, to at least some sense of Yeshua as masheach in general.

[onedoug]

Might I ask for your take, then, on #71? These seem fair questions.

Thanks.

[oswegodeee]

Amen Brother, I too am Messianic.. but several of the passages that made so much sense to me were in....2 cor.3:14 and also in 2 cor.4:4.