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.
What new covenant? It's a renewal, not new.
Jeremiah 31
31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Notice that the LAW is still in this 'new' covenant. It is merely a renewal, the law has been moved from external tablets to within peoples hearts, but the law is still there! The idea is that you don't just READ about them, you LIVE them.
If I was convinced that this seven-headed Godhead had come to earth and revealed itself this way, then no, I wouldn't have a problem with this.
(We might need to throw Luther in there to reel in the Protestants.)
SD
The Torah is written on hearts of flesh instead of on stone tablets.
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".
Jesus did come from the midst of them, born to a young Jewish girl namde Mary, raised as a carpenter, went to Temple, etc.
SD
Silly me. I thought he pre-existed.
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.
It's not that difficult. Any agreement God ever made with anyone is still valid. God does not renege or break His Contracts.
However, being a Gentile, I was not a party to any of these contracts until the latest, Jesus-one.
To continue the analogy, pretend there was a bank that gave mortgages only to white people. They got a 10 % rate.
Now a new bank comes along that gives loans to whites and blacks. They have a rate of 5%. Now any white man could stick with the 10% agreement he already has, or jump to the new 5 % one. Either one is still valid.
As a black man (hypothetically), I could not get the old 10 % rate at all. I had no mortgage. Now I can get the 5 % rate.
SD
That's a new one on me. I thought you'd heard of the 10 commandments?
You are not a descendant of Noah?
Sure it is. But the power to bind and loose has been transferred to a new authority, and the Law is no longer a method of salvation, but an instrument of revealing our sinfullness.
SD
Yes. And He then came from the midst of them. It's not a contradictory thing.
SD
You are not a descendant of Noah?
Ooops. Strike that, amend that.
SD
Mark 6
11 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.
12 And they went out, and preached that men should repent. 13 And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.
nations from the Greek
1484 ethnos eth'-nos probably from 1486; a race (as of the same habit), i.e. a tribe; specially, a foreign (non-Jewish) one (usually, by implication, pagan):--Gentile, heathen, nation, people.
1) a multitude (whether of men or of beasts) associated or living together
a) a company, troop, swarm
2) a multitude of individuals of the same nature or genus
a) the human family
3) a tribe, nation, people group
4) in the OT, foreign nations not worshipping the true God, pagans, Gentiles
5) Paul uses the term for Gentile Christians
Notice that it is pagans and Gentiles that are to be taught. The Jews already know the doctrines, precepts and commandments which apply to them. The Jews were/are to be a 'light unto the nations'.
Yeshua and the apostles were to teach them to repent of their idolatrous ways and how to properly follow the commandments.
What does that mean, exactly?
SD
I think the congressional terminology is to "revise and extend" your comments. ;o)
Huh? Why do you define "nations" when it is not in the passage you cite?
Are you sure that no Jews had a need to repent and were nto in need of any teaching? Is it your position that Jesus and the Apostles never taught such things to Jews?
It is fairly well understood that the passage entails Jesus sending the Apostles out within Israel. They did not go out into foreign lands until after the Resurrection, when Jesus instructed them to. So why do you think they were going to "the nations" in this passage, when it is not stated?
SD
It certainly does! Makes it awfully difficult to pick the tares out of the wheat!
Why does Isaiah 53 jump from future tense, to prest tense, then to past tense in its first few verses of the KJV? The Tenakh is consistent, the KJV isn't.
Isaiah 53 is about the nation of Israel, how Israel the nation will suffer for the iniquities of Israel the people. They will be punished and oppressed by others but in the end Israel is redeemed/vindicated.
That's my take on it, anyway, and it would help if we had precise translations instead of what we have, that tries to infer something else. Just like when they replaced the word lion with pierced, in Psalm 22:16. Someone tried to IMPLY something other than what the verse actually said.
Exactly whose Bible translation do you use for "precision"? Just curious.
SD
Trinitarians do not think Yeshua is part of a so called tri-une God? Clear this up please.
Is Yehsua 100% human, or is Yeshua part of the trinity?
Yes, Yeshua is part of the Trinity. Weren't you used to be Catholic?
Is Yehsua 100% human, or is Yeshua part of the trinity?
There is no "or" about it. Yeshua is fully, 100 percent human and fully 100 percent God. He is one person with two natures.
SD
Why was the First Temple destroyed? Three things that occurred in it: idolatry, unseemly provocative sexual behavior, and bloodshed. But the Second Temple, ... why was it destroyed? Baseless hatred. This teaches that baseless hatred is equated with three sins, idolatry, provocative sexual behavior, and bloodshed.
Yet in the period of the Second Temple, the people are described as performing all the mitzvot perfectly, studying Torah diligently, and doing acts of chesed. How is it possible that we could do all these things and yet hate our fellow Jews? We have the answer given to us, baseless hatred. And how was that hatred baseless? Maharsha gives us an example in Gittin 57a, two men, Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, lived in the same town but hate each other. Kamtza is loved by one man in particular and, because of his love for Hamtza, hates Bar Kamtza. When that man makes a feast, he sends to invite his dear friend Kamtza but, through an error, Bar Kamtza receives the invitation instead.
Bar Kamtza, thinking that the man who had hated him before wants to forgive him, dresses in his finest clothes and comes to the feast prepared in turn to forgive the man who hated him. Yet when this man discovers Bar Kamtza at the feast he is furious and demands that he leave immediately, ignoring Bar Kamtza's pleas to stay, even after being assured that Bar Kamtza will pay for whatever he eats or drinks, after being offered first half, and then the entire cost of the feast if his enemy would forgive him just this once and spare him the embarrassment of being thrown out on the street. Now the Rabbis were there at the party and said nothing while this happened, and Bar Kamtza, who had been minded to forgive his enemy, now burned with the desire for revenge, not only on his enemy, but on the Rabbis who stood by and said nothing while he was humiliated.
And he did exactly that, through a simple trick, relying on the punctilious observance of all the mitzvot that the Rabbis insisted on. Bar Kamtza persuaded Caesar to send a sacrifice to the Temple, and secretly made a small blemish on the animal's lip, to symbolize the Rabbi's silence, or the eye, to symbolize that the Rabbis had seen and stood aside, so that the animal, Caesar's gift, was rejected. And thus was initiated Caesar's hatred of the Jews, which led directly to the destruction of the Temple.
Now perhaps Bar Kamtza was the son of Kamtza, as the name implies, to show us that there is no more destructive hatred than that of kin for kin, but it is certain that he was a Jew and that the two men were related at least through Abraham. Whatever sins, if any, he had performed against the party's host, he wanted to forgive and be forgiven for the sake of peace, which we are commanded to do.
And the Rabbis said nothing.
Yet when Caesar's sacrifice came to the Temple, a tiny blemish, which might easily have been overlooked for the sake of peace, was an excuse to start a feud with the King of that place.
So it's not only the party-giver who hated without cause, after being begged for even a small courtesy for the sake of peace, but the Rabbis who were so exacting in their observance of the minor mitzvot but forgetful of the greater, who set themselves up through pride as the final judges of what's right and wrong, who sowed hatred through their inaction at the first and their actions at the last.
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