Posted on 07/01/2003 10:22:12 AM PDT by ksen
RECOVERING THE TRUTH & A COMING TO A CORRECT UNDERSTANDING OF JESUS
Jesus and all his followers were Jews who were faithful to Biblical Judaism and never intended to separate from or start a new religion; after their deaths the Gentile Christian church will condemn the Jewish Christians as heretics...in time fruit of the Jewish Church (Gentile Christianity) will destroy it's mother
We have a unique paradox in Biblical history; one which touches every follower of Jesus yet today and which reaches to the very core of our own culture and time. It is impossible to understand Jesus or his message until we come to a correct understanding of the events that fashioned such persecution of the Jews by the Gentile believers and which contributed to the alteration of the faith of Jesus as can be found to have existed in the first century of Second Temple Judaism. As stated earlier the first and greatest division in the early church concerned the relationship of the followers of Jesus to Judaism; it shaped everything that was to follow. One of the greatest problems facing Christianity today is how to reconcile what it has become with G-d's intended vision for the Gentile nations of the world whereby they become part of the Israel of G-d and not "replace" it with a religion of their own creation. The answers for such a problem come only when one personally acquaints himself with an unbiased presentation of the facts of the tragic events of this part of Biblical history and traces the repercussions of such events down through the corridors of history and ultimately seeing the shock waves from them that are present in our own religious beliefs systems and cultures of today.
Today many scholars tell us the truth today about the early church and courageously break from "church traditions" and "mind control" to present the facts concerning these "events" and the corruption of the early faith of the historical Jesus by the Gentile "converts" who would later steer the direction of this "faith" throughout recorded history. It is so simple today to find this information, but sadly few look or even know the need to see if "they be in the faith." That being the case, we accept the "spin" of religious leaders down through history and the real message of Jesus is never heard, or at best, is overlooked for more "orthodox teachings" espoused which have taken it's place. Keith Akers, in his The Lost Religion of Jesus, states the case as well as any. Jewish Christianity consisted of those early Christians who followed the teachings of Jesus, as they understood him, and also remained loyal to the Jewish law of Moses as they understood it. Messianic Judaism was not to replace Judaism with a new faith; it was the goal and zenith for which the prophets wrote and hoped. This simple statement is of profound importance, because the Jewish Christians were eventually rejected both by orthodox Judaism and by orthodox Gentile Christianity. The understanding of the Jewish follower of Jesus was not that of orthodox Christianity (as it came to be where Jesus is seen more like the sun-g-dmen of the Gentile nations than a human messiah). Likewise the Jewish follower of Jesus possessed an understanding of the law of Moses that was the same as orthodox Judaism, but yet this view would later be rejected under the influence of Paul and his churches. Jerome's celebrated comment in the fourth century summarizes this dual rejection: "As long as they seek to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither Jews nor Christians" [Letter 112] (Akers, The Lost Religion of Jesus, p. 7).
The Jewish Christians considered Jesus to be the "true prophet" who would lead the people back to the eternal law that commanded simple living and nonviolence. They saw in Jesus their hopes for physical redemption and the fulfillment of the prophets. It was their hope that the Law would go forth from Zion with Jesus at its head as the long awaited Messiah and King of Israel. It was their hope that the enemies of Israel would be vanquished by the word of this anointed one of the LORD as taught in the Psalms of Solomon (no not the psalms you are familiar with but a separate Jewish books that was recognized by Jews as authoritative in the first century). The law, which was cherished by all G-dfearing Jews, had been given to Moses; indeed, it had existed from the beginning of the world, and was intended to be cherished and observed by both Jew and non-Jew alike because in the Commandments one finds the unique Covenant stipulations of his Covenant before G-d. In sharp contrast with the gentile Christian movement, which emerged in the wake of Paul's teaching, Jewish Christianity strove to make the Jewish law stricter than the Jewish tradition seemed to teach ("you have heard it said but I say unto you...'much more'"). Such was the Jesus' love for G-d and His Word. But this cannot be said for the Gentile churches which strove to find ways to lay aside the law for the laxity that was taught under the disguise of "grace." In other words, the non-Jews loved the large "gray areas" that came from the teaching of Paul and others who negated the Law through their own personal "revelations" and their own personal "gospels" (Paul is found saying in Rom 2:16 16: In the day when G-d shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel and again in 2 Tim 2:8 8: Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel). It is a little early in this article to address this concept but if you study continues you will reach a point in your understanding and knowledge where you will see beyond any doubt that the "gospel of Paul" replaced the "gospel of Jesus and Judaism."
Jewish Christianity is the blind spot in virtually all accounts of Jesus. Everyone agrees that Jesus was a Jew and that his initial followers were Jews. Yet of the thousands of books written about Jesus, almost none acknowledge the central importance of Jewish Christianity; at least until the end of the previous century and the beginning of the present one. That was true up until the latter part of the last century when Jewish, as well as European scholars began to reevaluate the Jewish Jesus and contrast the Historical Jesus with the Christ of Faith. There are many who are eager to focus specifically on the Jewishness of Jesus, until they get to the point of examining those of his followers who, like their teacher, were also Jewish, and in doing so see for themselves that actually nothing really changed within this community of the closest followers of Jesus until the early fourth century when Rome would effectively destroy the Jewish "followers of Jesus" by declaring them official heretics. The power of Rome would propagate a Gentile understanding and not a Jewish understanding of Jesus (see Constantine's Easter letter if you have any doubts).
The "Jewishness" of these early Christians does not refer to their ethnic group or nationality, but rather to their beliefs. Paul was a convert to Judaism (H. Maccoby, The Mythmaker, Paul And The Invention Of Christianity) and only later converted to Judaism; first a Sadducee, and after rejection by the Chief Priest he turned to the Pharisees, again only to be rejected by them for his prior cruelty to them as an agent of the Temple police who routed them out and killed them (the Messianic believing strict branch of the Pharisees called Nazarenes/Essenes). Paul also preaches freedom from the law and therefore explicitly rejects Jewish beliefs. Paul, and some of the other Jews who became Christians, renounced the law of Moses and, therefore, were not part of Jewish Christianity. The churches of Paul today (vast majority of Christianity as it exists today) lay outside the true faith of Jesus and will continue to do so unless they encounter the truth about this man of Galilee and the truth about their own religious history.
Without understanding Jewish Messianic Judaism or "intended Christianity", we cannot understand the historical Jesus let alone the earliest church nor the corruption of it within the New Testament correctly. Lacking this knowledge we are doomed to misinterpret most of what we read in the New Testament and our worship let alone our conduct will be in error...much of which is defined as sin in the Torah.
Jews should embrace the New Covenant, just like any other people.
No thanks.
You shall be careful to do therefore as YHWH your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. (Deuteronomy 5:32)
If a prophet arises among you, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder,
and the sign or wonder which he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, `Let us go after other gods,' which you have not known, `and let us serve them,'
you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of dreams; for YHWH your God is testing you, to know whether you love YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
You shall walk after YHWH your God and fear him, and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and cleave to him. (Deuteronomy 13:1-4)
16 For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.
17 And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;
18 Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.
19 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.
20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:
21 For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.
22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graff them in again.
24 For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
26 AND SO ALL ISRAEL WILL BE SAVED: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
You're not gonna be mad when all Israel is saved? Are ya?
Well, such might not make him equal to God the Father, but it puts him in pretty good company, with the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures.
What are we to make of Jesus sending the Apostles out to all of the nations? This is certainly unprecedented. This is something new.
Not really, if you read Isaiah.
And Judaism was not always reluctant to proselytize. In Roman times they did so. And it is estimated that by the 1st century C.E., around 10% of the population of the empire was Jewish or Jewish proselytes.
And yet you won't give it to them unless they believe in the "Real Presence" as you do, and convert to Catholicism (with the exception of Orthodox Christians under grave circumstances).
That is your decision. I need to point out that you are not being asked to follow a different God. Only to recognize that He has given mankind a better offer. You re-mortgaged your house for a better rate. God wants to re-mortgage your soul, with easier monthly payments.
SD
Why would I begrudge what the Master chooses to do. As long as I am given the wages we agreed to, I am not cheated.
Note, however, that "all Israel" must return to faith before it is saved. If this happens, there is no reason for them not to be saved.
SD
Great stuff. Yet the Yeshua I believe passes the test of Dueteronomy 18:15
The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;
16 According to all that thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.
17 And the LORD said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken.
18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.
20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
The Yeshua I believe did not give a sign and say "let's go after other gods".
The Jesus of Christianity has been made to do so. He's a polyistic mangod. So what does Moses say? Do not go after him.
What am I missing? The Catholics are still either forcing Protestants to do things the Catholic way or shunning them.
Yes. If your are going to convert to paganiam, you may as well go all the way. 'Drink that blood' ... that we were warned repeatedly NOT to drink, in any manner. ;o
And yet you won't give it to them unless they believe in the "Real Presence" as you do, and convert to Catholicism (with the exception of Orthodox Christians under grave circumstances).
They deny themselves the Treasure.
As I said there is one, common obligation for all Christians. Taking Communion is not the entire obligation and I did not mean to imply it was.
The obligation is to enter and remain in the Church.
SD
Neither did mine.
SD
You just made him into one.
SD
I don't believe any of the older ones are "excluded" either.
What are the terms of this newer covenant?
SD
So you're observing Sabbath now?
#1, who said this was about Jesus
#2, where, exactly, does Jesus not "jive" with this text?
SD
I'm not under those other covenants. Remember?
SD
Yep, just closed yesterday. I'll be saving $200/month. :o)
I need to point out that you are not being asked to follow a different God.
I'm gonna start a new church. The Metacatholic Church will embrace the traditional Catholic trinity of persons, but will go beyond this. In order to be more inclusive, we'll add some new persons to the Godhead. Throw in Mary, for starters (that'll please biblewonk ;o). Add Krishna to bring the Hindus into the fold. For the Buddhists we'll elevate Siddharta Gautama from Catholic saint to full divine personhood. And we'll throw in Odin to bring in a scattering of traditional Norse believers in Iceland, Wiccans, and Asatru types.
So, we have seven divine persons, but still only one divine being. Since the Metacatholic Godhead includes the traditional Catholic trinity, you wouldn't have any problem with this, would you?
right here
The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;
Moses was human. Jesus was a man/god. You say he came down from heaven, Moses says he will come "from the midst of thee, of thy brethren".
Its hard for me to remember when from the other side of your mouth you say stuff like this.
I don't believe any of the older ones are "excluded" either.
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