Why Jews Don't Believe in Jesus

[Legion]

http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/jewishsociety/Why_Jews_Dont_Believe_In_Jesus.asp#top

 

[VtC]

They're certainly entitled to their interpretation of scripture.

Many Jews were expecting a Messiah who would set himself up as king and kick out the Romans. Nowadays, they're looking for a king who will rebuild the temple. Naturally, someone looking for these qualities in a Messiah would be disappointed in Jesus.

 

[Sazar]

certainly makes some sense... and follows a bit from what my jewish m8s @ uni have told me...

/me is an atheist but these discussions are rather interesting..

ta for link silence...

 

[Sage]

I think that there were some very important points made there, even though I personally an not Jewish. For one, I have serious doubts as to how well the Bible was translated from Hebrew... some claim that the translations were "divinely inspired" but that doesn't prevent someone else who isn't "divinely inspired" from translating it themselves and passing it off as the "real thing."

 

[Legion]

I think that there were some very important points made there, even though I personally an not Jewish. For one, I have serious doubts as to how well the Bible was translated from Hebrew... some claim that the translations were "divinely inspired" but that doesn't prevent someone else who isn't "divinely inspired" from translating it themselves and passing it off as the "real thing."

well i simply examine the lingo.

"divinely inspired"

To me this is a weak supporting statement. Are they not confident enough to say God actually lead the creation of their book?

 

[Sage]

actually, I was referring to the translations. ie the people who translated the text from Hebrew were supposedly influenced by God to correctly translate them. However, many Christians even agree that modern translations are far from the original meaning. Also, let's not forget that the Bible is just a vast collection of stories told over thousands of years and finally written down at some point. A lot of the things you should gather from those stories require knowlege of other not-recorded events and minute social meanings of the times they are from. As an example- did you know that Shakespears plays were comedies and that audiences of his time found them to be quite hysterical? Translate them into modern english and tell them a few hundred years later and they are regarded as pinnales of drama. Imagine how askew they could become 3 thousand years from now... Without even a basic understanding of Hebrew and Jewish culture and history, how can you expect to glean the meaning that was intended?

 

[Legion]

actually, I was referring to the translations.

...and i was refering to all forms of the bible.

ie the people who translated the text from Hebrew were supposedly influenced by God to correctly translate them.

Well the trinity matter would certainly lead creedance to the idea the monks had been sippling a bit to much bach.

However, many Christians even agree that modern translations are far from the original meaning. Also, let's not forget that the Bible is just a vast collection of stories told over thousands of years and finally written down at some point. A lot of the things you should gather from those stories require knowlege of other not-recorded events and minute social meanings of the times they are from. As an example- did you know that Shakespears plays were comedies and that audiences of his time found them to be quite hysterical?

If you have read any shakespear you should have found a lot of his stories humorous. There were certainly a great deal of sexual jokes within Romeo and Juliet alone. Plenty of risque matter to keep the grovelings happy.

Translate them into modern english and tell them a few hundred years later and they are regarded as pinnales of drama. Imagine how askew they could become 3 thousand years from now... Without even a basic understanding of Hebrew and Jewish culture and history, how can you expect to glean the meaning that was intended?

well lets pretend for a moment i have a base understanding of hebrew and the jewish culture....heh. I certainly would be bothered by the Christian representation of the meshiach (messiah). I would also note the contradiction Jesus would represent of earlier depictions of the messiah that would come. All of this of course assuming i have the slightest idea what i am talking about.

 

[Sage]

Legion: I actually wasn't arguing with you I was agreeing with you... unless you're trying to argue for the Christian point of view (which I didn't think you were). And when I was tal;king about "how can you expect to..." I didn't mean directly you, but rather the general public at large.

As for Romeo and Juliet- I never cought any sexual jokes. Perhaps it was because of how it was presented to me at the time that my mind wasn't even thinking about those things.

 

[Randell]

did you know that Shakespears plays were comedies and that audiences of his time found them to be quite hysterical? Translate them into modern english and tell them a few hundred years later and they are regarded as pinnales of drama.

no - some are comedies - some are drama, performed correctly it's quite easy to tell them apart, and no one is going around putting on Shakespeares comedies thinking they're performing drama. Even the drama's have comic moments - Falstaff etc in the the three Henry plays for example.

What is difficult to understand is the form of shakespearian english as pure text I agree.

 

[Sage]

also, many of the jokes are simply meaningless to us. Like, if two hundred years from now someone made a Monica and Cigar joke would you expect anyone to get it? Imagine saying "whats up dog" to someone 200 years ago... what do you think their reaction would be? Possibly to say something along the lines of "I have no idea what 'updog' is either." Now, say it in modern Chinese to a Chinese person 3000 years ago and what do you think their reaction would be? Then, communicate to them that they will be punished if they don't obey what you say and they will end up doing all kinds of wierdness in the name of "whats up dog." This is how I see many (not all) Christians acting. Of course, I do live in the bible belt and am surrounded by fundie baptists who take every single word in the (translated version of the) bible in the most litteral sense.

 

[VtC]

For one, I have serious doubts as to how well the Bible was translated from Hebrew... some claim that the translations were "divinely inspired" but that doesn't prevent someone else who isn't "divinely inspired" from translating it themselves and passing it off as the "real thing."

The problem isn't only in the quality of translation, it's also in which Hebrew manuscript you pick to translate.

For example, the Jewish and Christian Old Testaments (the Jews don't call it that, of course) are from the Masoretic Text (8th or 9th century CE), which translated ancient Hebrew into what was then modern Hebrew. However, there is another version of the Old Testament called the Septuagint, which is in Greek but which was translated about 200BC from Hebrew. This is the OT that most writers in the New Testament quote from, since most of the Christian community was Greek speaking. However, Jesus certainly wouldn't have quoted from the Septuagint when talking to his fellow Jews.

The majority of the fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls agree with the Masoretic Text, but about 5% of them agree with the Septuagint. Therefore, even in Jesus' time there were two versions of the Hebrew scriptures floating around. The version the Masoretic Text was translated from seems to be the overwhelming favorite at the time, but that doesn't invalidate the version the Septuagint was translated from.

So, before you can wrestle with the "What does this mean in Hebrew?" question, you have to wrestle with "Which manuscript should I be translating in the first place?" And, of course, ancient Greek writing (the Septuagint) has its own insurmountable ambiguities when it comes to translation.

In the final analysis, though, it's plain that Jesus didn't worry much about which of the OT versions in his time was correct, and I choose to follow his lead on the subject. Calling the Bible "divinely inspired" may be waffling, but the evidence would suggest that God doesn't have a problem with it.