Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus
Volume 1
General and Historical Objections
Michael L. Brown
(2000)
Introduction
The history of Jewish objections to Jesus is a long one, dating back almost two thousand years. It is not surprising, therefore, that for many centuries Jews and Christians alike have accepted without question the statement “Jews don’t believe in Jesus.” In fact, many have become so accustomed to this way of thinking that few realize such a statement is actually quite ironic, not to mention somewhat bizarre.
Consider for a moment that Jesus (or as he would have been known to his contemporaries, Yeshua) was born a Jew, raised in a Jewish community, lived and worked as a Jew among Jews, worshiped at the temple as a faithful Jew, attended synagogue regularly, taught as a Jew, and ultimately died as a Jew with the Hebrew Scriptures on his lips.
He spent almost his entire life in constant interaction with fellow Jews, and all his immediate followers were Jewish. He was welcomed by many of his Jewish contemporaries as the promised Messiah, he pointed to the words of the Israelite prophets to explain his mission, and he spent virtually all his time—with precious few exceptions—preaching to Jews, healing their sicknesses, and meeting their deep spiritual and emotional needs. Out of the countless thousands of people whose lives he directly touched, few of them were non-Jews.
When reports circulated that he had risen from the dead, Jewish women were the first eyewitnesses and Jewish men announced this good news to crowds of interested, religious Jews. It was Jews who told other Jews about his resurrection and Jews who healed other Jews in his name. Of the large numbers of those who first put their faith in him, all of them were Jews. In fact, it was several years before any Gentiles became part of this community of believers.
“Jews don’t believe in Jesus!” How can this be? No one would be surprised that many Jews did not and still do not believe Jesus was the Messiah. After all, there is a saying, “If you have ten Jews in a room, you have eleven opinions.” Yes, we do have our points of view! No one expects us to agree on everything, especially when it comes to religion.
But how can it be that of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Jewish people are known in particular as the ones who do not believe in Jesus? While most Indians are Hindus and most Arabs are Muslims, you would not expect to hear the blanket statement “Indians (or Arabs) don’t believe in Jesus.” Yet for many it is a simple, accepted fact that Jews do not believe in Jesus.
The purpose of this book, then, is fourfold: to understand why this strange turn of events has occurred, to list the major objections Jewish people have had (and do have) to Jesus being the Jewish Messiah, to clearly answer these objections, and to show why Jews (more than any other people) should believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Only then can they be completely true to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and in harmony with the Hebrew Bible.
The good news is that there have always been Jews who have believed in Jesus as Messiah, even if they have been in the great minority. In every century, thousands of Jews have recognized and followed Jesus as the promised Messiah of Israel. Today, many tens of thousands of Jews believe in Jesus, possibly even hundreds of thousands. 1
The majority reside in the United States and the former Soviet Union, but more and more are now living in Israel. And one day, the Scriptures declare, there will be a great national change of heart. On that day, of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Jews will be known in particular as those who do believe in Jesus the Messiah. That day will soon come!
For now, however, we need to tackle the objections Jewish people have to Jesus in an honest, fair, and comprehensive manner. Surprisingly, although through the years there have been a number of Jewish works written attacking the Messianic credentials of Jesus, no major work has ever been written to refute and answer these varied objections. 2 It is high time for us to categorically refute the refutations and decisively answer the objections.
Of course, most Jewish believers in Jesus are unaffected by the materials produced by the so-called “anti-missionaries” (Jewish leaders who actively work to bring Jews out of cults, Christianity, or other religions and into Judaism, especially traditional Judaism).
The faith of these Jewish believers is too vibrant, their experience with God too real, their confidence in the unity of the entire Bible—the “Old” and “New” Testaments—too strong, their relationship with Jesus the Messiah too precious. They’re really not worried about what a devoted rabbi or active anti-missionary has to say.
Some, however, do become confused and troubled, while traditional or secular Jews who are seeking the truth about Jesus often must overcome the arguments of the anti-missionaries and rabbis.
As a result, this series of books needed to be written. 3 The anti-missionary arguments are here, the Messianic answers are here, and the evidence is in. The verdict should be clear to all: Jesus is our Messiah and King!
The Facts and Nothing but the Facts
In this volume and the two to follow, we will list more than 150 Jewish objections to the messiahship of Jesus, some of them serious, others slight, and a few so superficial they are actually silly. The objections are divided into six sections.
General Objections
These are in many ways the most common, least sophisticated, and often, most emotional objections. They contain broad generalizations, make sweeping statements, and are based on the perception of what Jews “as a whole” believe and do. The heart of these objections is simply this: “Jesus is not for Jews! Our religion is Judaism, not Christianity.
No true Jew would ever believe in Jesus.” To a great extent, answering these objections is a matter of correcting misconceptions as well as getting people to stop and think about the emotional—and sometimes irrational—nature of what they are saying.
Historical Objections
Historical objections tend to be more substantial and deal with the very purpose of the Messiah (in other words, the claim that the Messiah was to bring peace to the world) or the alleged failure of the church (“Christian” anti-Semitism and the state of the church worldwide, including its divisions and scandals).
The heart of these objections is this: “Jesus cannot be the Messiah because we are obviously not in the Messianic age.” In answering these objections, we need to define clearly the purpose and mission of the Messiah; provide a biblical picture of the Messianic age; explain the difference between a New Testament, Messianic Jewish expression of faith versus a later, corrupted “Christian” form; admit to the failures of the church while pointing to glorious and profound changes brought about by the gospel and giving shining examples of true Messianic faith.
Theological Objections
These objections are the most serious and cut to the heart of the differences between traditional Judaism and the Messianic Jewish/Christian faith. They revolve around the nature of God (the Trinity, the deity of Jesus, the person of the Holy Spirit), the continuity of the law (Is it still binding in total, or was it abolished by Jesus or Paul?), the nature of mankind and the need for salvation, and sin and the means of atonement.
In sum, these objections support the claim that the religion of the New Testament is a completely foreign religion that is not only un-Jewish but is also unfaithful to the Hebrew Bible. Thus, issues of Messianic prophecy are secondary, since Jesus is viewed as a false prophet and the founder of an alien faith.
Our answers here seek to distinguish between what the Hebrew Bible actually says (in distinction from later Jewish traditions), what the New Testament actually says (in distinction from later church traditions), and how Jewish tradition at times underscores the essential Jewishness of Christian beliefs.
Objections Based on Messianic Prophecies
Traditional Judaism strongly rejects the standard Messianic prophetic “proof texts,” either denying they have anything to do with Jesus, claiming they have been mistranslated, misquoted, or taken out of context by the New Testament authors or traditional Christian apologists, or arguing that none of the real Messianic prophecies—the so-called provable prophecies—were ever fulfilled by Jesus.
In short, people who hold these objections say, “We don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah because he didn’t live up to the biblical description of the Messiah.” We answer these objections by looking back to the Hebrew Scriptures and rediscovering that the Messiah’s mission was both priestly (involving atonement for sin) as well as royal; by noting that Scripture points to a twofold coming of the Messiah, whose first arrival had to be before the Second Temple was destroyed in the year 70 c.e.; and by examining the alleged misinterpretations of biblical prophecies and pointing out different ways of understanding the words of the New Testament authors. Where relevant, supporting evidence is adduced from the Rabbinic literature.
Objections to the New Testament
Objections to the New Testament can be broken down into several categories: The New Testament misquotes and misinterprets the Old Testament, at times manufacturing verses to suit its purposes; the genealogies of Jesus given by Matthew and Luke are hopelessly contradictory (at best) and entirely irrelevant anyway; the New Testament is filled with historical and factual errors (especially Stephen’s speech); the teachings of Jesus are impossible, dangerous, and un-Jewish; and the New Testament is self-contradictory.
To sum up rather bluntly: “Only a fool would believe in the divine inspiration of the New Testament.” To counter these objections, we compare similar problems (with their solutions) from the Hebrew Scriptures, show the Jewishness of the thought patterns and ideas of the New Testament, and provide answers to apparent contradictions and/or distortions. Because many of these types of objections are treated in standard works on Bible difficulties, we deal here with those that are most frequently raised by the anti-missionaries and that are especially relevant to our topic.
Objections Based on Traditional Judaism
Some of these objections are highly emotional and underlie much of the gut-level reaction of hostility to the gospel. They also explain why so many Jews—especially the Orthodox—are unwilling to think for themselves on these issues. The two key points here are: (1) “Judaism is a wonderful, fulfilling, and self-sufficient religion. There is no need to look elsewhere.” (2) “God gave us a written and an unwritten tradition.
We interpret everything by means of that oral tradition, without which the Bible makes no sense.” To answer these objections, we refute the notion that there is an unwritten, unbroken, binding tradition going back to Moses—demonstrating that the written Word provides the foundation for our faith—and we explain why all people (including Jews) need the Messiah.
Each of these six sections follows a similar format: (1) a concise statement of the objection; (2) a concise answer to the objection; and (3) an in-depth treatment, including citations of important sources where needed and consideration of possible objections to our answers. Although the objections are divided into different thematic chapters, they all tend to flow from a few problem areas. It will be helpful, therefore, to keep the following thoughts in mind while reading.
A Summary of the Major Issues
The principal problems include:
- Most Jews are not familiar with the Jesus of the New Testament or with the true Christian (or Messianic Jewish) faith. This means that many of the objections they raise are based on misunderstanding. The best refutation of these objections is simply to set the record straight. We must not forget that many Jews don’t even realize that Jesus Christ is Yeshua the Messiah (in other words, “Christ” was not Jesus’ last name!). And just as most Christians are almost totally ignorant of what real Muslims believe, so also most Jews are almost totally ignorant of what real followers of Jesus believe.
Sadly enough, the more religious a Jewish person is and the more time that person spent learning in a yeshiva (a school for traditional Jewish studies), the more biased and distorted that person’s views will be concerning who Jesus is, what he taught, and how he and his followers lived. This gives us all the more reason to set the record straight with the facts and nothing but the facts.
- What we call “traditional Judaism” today was only in its formative stage two thousand years ago. Therefore, the Messianic Jewish faith is basically as old as the Rabbinic Jewish faith, and in some ways, it is older. 4 Both of these religious expressions were thoroughly Jewish faiths that went different ways. Therefore, they have much in common. However, since it was the Rabbinic faith that became recognized as “mainstream Judaism,” and since this faith stood in opposition to belief in Jesus, it became dogma that belief in Jesus and true Judaism were incompatible.
But the question must be asked: Who determined that Rabbinic Judaism was the true Judaism? Who decided that the teachings of the rabbis were Jewish while the teachings of the disciples of Jesus were not Jewish? That is almost like the apples saying to the oranges, “Only apples are fruit, therefore oranges are not fruit.” Says who? The real question is, What do the Hebrew Scriptures teach? Which Jewish expression follows the Bible? That must be the rule of Jewish faith and practice.
Regardless of what anyone tells you today, no Jew keeps the Torah as it was originally given. It is simply not possible. Changes have had to be made in our relationship to the law since we have had no temple, no functioning priesthood, and no sacrifices for more than nineteen hundred years, during which time most Jews have been living outside of the land of Israel. This means some things must have changed.
According to the rabbis, we now have the Talmud and Rabbinic writings as our guide. According to Jewish believers in Jesus, we have the writings of the new covenant (New Testament). Which of these is to be followed? The answer: that which is faithful to the Hebrew Scriptures and recognizes the true Messiah.
In dealing with many of the objections raised in this book, you will see that the traditional Jewish side assumes what it wants to prove, namely, that it alone represents true Judaism. Therefore, it is important to point out that not everything that claims to be Jewish is biblical. It is true that Orthodox Judaism rejects Jesus and his teachings, but is it right in God’s sight to do so? It may be Jewish in the traditional sense to deny that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, but that is only because that particular form of Jewishness deviated at some key points from the Hebrew Scriptures. It is better to be biblical than Jewish—when and if that choice arises.
There is another side to the story as well. In the last few decades, Jewish scholars have increasingly recognized that Jesus and his followers were faithful Jews. In fact, many scholars—both Jewish and Christian—argue that if you really want to understand the New Testament, you must read it against its first-century Jewish background.
Many Jewish traditions are actually in harmony with the teachings of the New Testament, regardless of which came first and which came second. Also, Jewish traditions concerning important subjects such as the nature of God, how he reveals himself to man, and the atoning power of the death of the righteous shed light on fundamental Christian teachings. In other words, Christianity is a lot more Jewish than many people realize!
Putting this all together, when answering some objections we must respectfully say, “I appreciate your traditions and interpretations, and I know you think they are authentically Jewish, but in fact they are not in harmony with the Hebrew Scriptures.” At other times our answer is very different: “Look at your own traditions. They are my traditions too! They say the same thing I’m trying to say. Maybe you just never considered them in the context of belief in Yeshua and the New Testament.”
- As the Messianic Jewish faith developed and grew, it began to fulfill one of its key, biblical functions, namely, making the God of Israel known to the nations. As a result, there was a great influx of Gentiles into the community of believers, and because the Messiah had given his life for Jew and Gentile alike, the Gentiles were not required to become Jews in order to join this community of faith. Soon enough, the Gentiles made up the vast majority of Messianic believers, and so to all outward appearances, the faith began to look like a new, Gentile religion and certainly not a faith for Jews. This was one of the factors that made it easier for the rabbis to conclude that belief in Jesus was a Gentile rather than a Jewish thing. In other words, Jesus is not for us!
Along with this historical chain of events, many Gentile believers began to sever their ties with the Jewish people, cutting off the Jewish roots of their faith. Soon, Christianity had lost all connection with its Jewish heritage, and the Jesus of Christianity hardly resembled the Messiah of the Bible. In fact, new teachings were brought in and new practices developed, some of them with pagan roots. This made it even harder for Jews to recognize Jesus as the Messiah of Israel, making the gap between Jesus and the Jewish people even wider.
Thus, many Jewish objections to Jesus are actually objections to Christendom—by which I mean the diluted and often polluted faith that began to develop several hundred years after the New Testament was completed. Real Christianity is completely biblical, and in that way, “Jewish” in the best sense of the word. It has plenty of room for Jews to live as redeemed Jews and Gentiles to live as redeemed Gentiles.
But most Jews today don’t know what real Christianity (or true Messianic Judaism) is. To answer their objections, it is important to shatter some of the myths and explain what we really believe. In some cases, we don’t believe in “Christianity” either.
When considering fundamental doctrines that are unacceptable to Jews—such as the divinity of the Messiah or atonement only through his blood—we must separate what we really believe from what our Jewish friends and adversaries perceive we believe, always going back to Scripture and asking, What does the Word of God say? You would be amazed to see how many times basic doctrines of our faith, beliefs that seem so fundamental to us, are grossly misunderstood or caricatured by our opponents.
- Tragically and pitifully, as the church became powerful in society, beginning in the fourth century c.e., it began to persecute those who refused to believe in its version of Jesus—by this time a distorted, hardly Jewish Jesus—leading to centuries of bloodshed and atrocities committed against the Jewish people by those who claimed to be Christians. The horrible story of “Christian” anti-Semitism, one of the great tragedies in human history, settled things completely for many Jews. “This Jesus is the cause of most of our troubles in the world today, and Christianity is a religion of hate not love. It is anything but the true Messianic faith.”
Through the centuries, many Jews have chosen to be tortured, exiled, and even killed rather than become Christians. For them, this was the noble, Jewish way to die. For them, this was the deepest act of loyalty to the God of Israel and the people of Israel. As a result, many Jewish objections to Jesus are shot through with emotion. “I won’t betray my ancestors! I won’t apostatize!” Even the Holocaust is perceived by many Jews as a “Christian” event—or at least an event made possible by historic “Christianity.”
It is important to fully acknowledge the terrible crimes committed by so-called Christians in Jesus’ name, to utterly renounce them, and to explain that our goal is not to get Jewish people to convert to a foreign, alien religion but rather to be faithful to the God and Messiah of the Hebrew Scriptures.
It is also important to point out something that very few Jews know: Genuine Christians have been and continue to be the truest and best friends Jewish people will ever have. How I wish I could bring rabbis and anti-missionaries from around the world to meet Christians in India, Korea, Finland, Kenya, Bolivia, Guatemala, Germany, the Netherlands—the list goes on and on—who have a supernatural, sacrificial love for the Jewish people.
This love was placed in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, in many cases as soon as they believed in Jesus and received new life through him. As a young Malaysian Christian woman said to me in 1992, “We don’t know much about the Jews. [Remember that Malaysia is predominantly Muslim.] We just know that we love them!” Little by little, the true church is showing its true colors, and those true colors will one day produce a rainbow of light, love, and hope for the Jewish people. 5
This Book Is for You!
I have written this book for several potential readers. I’m sure you fit in somewhere.
First, this is a resource book for everyone who is interested in reaching the Jewish people with the good news of Jesus the Messiah. While it is both our mandate and privilege to tell the whole world about Jesus, and while it is true that hundreds of millions of people have never even heard his name, we must not forget about the Jewish people.
The Scriptures actually encourage us to make Jewish evangelism a priority. This is not because we get some special prize for our efforts—as if a born-again Jew were some kind of trophy—nor is it because winning a Jew to the faith proves we are “right,” 6 nor is it because God loves the Jews more than any other people.
But the Jews are the ones with whom the ancient covenants were made, the people from whom the prophets came, and the nation from which the Messiah traces his earthly origin. If anyone needs to hear the truth about Jesus, it is his own Jewish people. So while we continue to actively and sacrificially reach out to all the nations, we must continue to reach out in love to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Reading this book will sensitize you to various Jewish perspectives and encourage you to share your faith with wisdom. In the process of reading and learning, I believe you will also find some aspects of your own beliefs that need fine tuning and adjusting. That’s all right too. None of us have totally arrived in terms of our understanding of God and his Word.
Second, this book is written for those Jewish believers who have been confused and befuddled by the anti-missionaries. The answers here will combat the apparent truth of the anti-missionaries with the real truth of Scripture.
Some of you were once fervent, committed believers, telling others about Jesus without hesitation or doubt. Now you’re not sure who’s right. You want to be a faithful Jew, and now you’re wondering if your belief in Jesus is idolatrous. Have you become part of a foreign religion? Are all your prophetic proofs as reliable as a rope of sand? Do the New Testament writings that once seemed so precious to you now appear to be full of holes? Have you betrayed your family, your ancestors, and worst of all, your God by believing in Jesus?
Are the rabbis really right when they tell you they have an oral tradition of interpretation going all the way back to Moses? Do you find it difficult even to pray? After all, maybe if you don’t pray in Jesus’ name, God won’t hear you. On the other hand, maybe if you do pray in Jesus’ name, he won’t hear you! What do you do?
Well, there’s no need to be afraid or uptight. God is near, and he is not worried about religious formulas. He’s looking at your heart. If you’re sincere, he knows it, and that’s what matters most. Have an honest talk with him. Tell him you want to follow him and serve him and obey him with all your being, no matter what the cost. Then read through this book carefully with your Bible in hand and get ready to have your faith restored. If you can read Hebrew, better yet. You will see even more clearly that there are answers—sound answers—for every objection raised.
The truths stated in the pages that follow have helped numerous struggling believers recover their faith. They have also been used by God to help bring open, seeking Jews into a knowledge of the truth about Jesus our wonderful Savior and to enable some Orthodox Jews to embrace the one whom they had rejected all their lives. Prepare to be encouraged!
This leads me to address the last—but certainly not the least—group for whom this book was written, namely, Jews of every background—Reform and Hasidic, Humanist and Conservative, Orthodox and Reconstructionist—who do not yet believe that Jesus is Israel’s promised Messiah.
I want you to know that I’m really glad you’re reading this book, whatever your motivation might be. Even if you want to use it to strengthen your convictions and beliefs against Jesus, I’m still glad you have the book in your hands. It is my fervent prayer for every reader, Jew or Gentile, Catholic priest or Orthodox rabbi, nominal Christian or atheistic Israeli, that each one see the truth clearly. As one of the world’s most influential Jews wrote almost two thousand years ago, “We cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth” (2 Cor. 13:8). Who would knowingly fight against the truth?
Maybe you feel sure of your position, or maybe you have secret, inner questions and doubts. Maybe you’re seeking answers, or maybe you’re looking for ammunition. I ask you this one thing: Are the responses provided in the pages that follow the truth? Are they in accordance with the Hebrew Scriptures? Are they fair and honest? I’m sure you will agree as you read this book that I fully understand the objections. Maybe I’ve even articulated them for you! But what about the answers to the objections? What about the case for the messiahship of Jesus?
For years I was told there was no validity to the Christian claim that Jesus fulfilled the Messianic prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures. Sincere rabbis explained that after Jesus lived and died, the authors of the New Testament went back and found so-called Messianic prophecies in the Hebrew Bible and made them fit the life of Jesus perfectly, and, where necessary, they adjusted the facts about Jesus’ life and death to make him fit the prophecies.
“So you see,” the rabbis explained, “there’s no truth to your claims at all. It’s like a man who shot arrows at a target and then afterward painted bull’s eyes around the arrows. Someone just made it seem as if Jesus hit the bull’s eye of prophetic fulfillment.” Wrong! Jesus hit the bull’s eye perfectly, but someone moved the target. I can show you this is true. Will you be bold enough to find out for yourself?
For years I was told, “There is no substance to your arguments. You give lots of proofs, but all of them are false, so zero plus zero plus zero equals zero.” Well, what if I can show that it is the objections to the messiahship of Jesus that have no weight? What if you begin to see that all the objections listed here have the sum total of zero? What excuse will you give then for not believing in Yeshua?
Just because you were born into a certain religion does not make that religion right. Hundreds of millions of people are born Hindus, which means they are born into a religion that worships thousands, even millions, of gods. Let’s say you approached a sincere Hindu and said, “These idols are not gods. A monkey or cow is not a god. A snake is not a god.”
And he responded, “For countless generations, all my ancestors have believed in these gods. Who are you to say they have all been wrong? And who am I to question them? These traditions are sacred. Our beliefs are holy and very deep.” How would you react to that kind of reasoning? You would say, “The poor soul! May God open his eyes to the truth.”
Well, let’s put the shoe on the other foot now. I’m telling you that Jesus is the Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Bible and that there are definitive answers to the many Jewish objections lodged against him. How do you know I’m wrong? Pause for a moment and give it some honest thought. Maybe you weren’t born into an idol-worshiping family, but what makes you so sure that all your traditions are right? What makes you so sure that the sentiments you have against Jesus are correct? Could it be that the reason you claim my position is illogical or stupid or unworthy of serious consideration is precisely because you never gave it serious consideration? Could it be that all you know is a gross caricature of the real Jesus?
Consider what many people believe about the Jews. Millions of Japanese today actually think that Japan’s economic problems are the fault of the Jews. “But,” you say, “the vast majority of Japanese people have never even met a Jew.” 7 Exactly! That’s the problem. In the same way, during the Middle Ages, some people actually thought Jews had horns. How could they believe something so preposterous? Simple.
Reliable people told them it was so, and more importantly, they didn’t know any Jews personally (or they didn’t know one whose head wasn’t covered—obviously to hide those horns!). The only Jew many people around the world today actually know is a gross caricature of the real thing, whose montrous image is based on rumor, innuendo, misunderstanding, and lies.
It’s the same thing with Jesus. The only Jesus many Jews know is a monstrous figure, a false prophet, a liar and deceiver, a traitor and the founder of a terrible, counterfeit religion, one whose followers are the cause of worldwide anti-Semitism and even the Holocaust. That is not the real Jesus! That is not the Yeshua of history or the Yeshua of the New Testament or the Yeshua of reality.
It is an ugly, distorted, and warped picture that bears no resemblance to the actual person. Could it be that you have the same biased, unfounded views of Yeshua the Jew that other people have about you as a Jew? The only way to overcome this kind of ignorance and bias is by exposure to the truth, even if that truth hurts.
What if you find the very problems you have had with Jesus solved on the pages that follow? What if your strongest objections are answered—even if you don’t want them to be answered? What will you do with the truth? No doubt, you might be confronted with some difficult choices. You might encounter tremendous opposition and misunderstanding if you recognize Jesus as Messiah.
If you are Orthodox you might suffer extreme rejection and even persecution. It will be worth it all. You will have the blessing of the Messiah and the favor of God. You will be a brand-new person through him. You will have a message of fresh hope—the very message of true redemption—for your fellow Jews. The burden of your sin and guilt will be removed, and you will experience a genuine change of heart. You will begin to have a real, deep relationship with God your Father, and you will enjoy his favor forever.
So read on! You never know what you might learn and who you might encounter along the way. The Messiah—the real Messiah—is nearer than you think.
1 According to a report from the Task Force On Missionaries and Cults published in The Jewish Press, 1 September 1995, “From Chicago to Moscow, from Israel to the Ukraine, the so-called Hebrew Christians are capturing Jewish souls at a rate never before ‘witnessed’ in the 3,500 year history of the Jewish people.”
2 The important, older study of A. Lukyn Williams, A Manual of Christian Evidences for Jewish people (New York: Macmillan, 1919), specifically refuting the classic, sixteenth-century work of Isaac Troki, Faith Strengthened, trans. Moses Mocatta (New York: Hermon, 1970) will be discussed in the projected one-volume reference edition of this work (see preface) in which we will provide a brief history of anti-missionary literature.
The present book is unique in that (1) it deals with a wide range of objections that were not raised by Troki; (2) it is written by a Jewish believer in Jesus and is therefore especially sensitive to both traditional Jewish concerns as well as issues of importance to the church; (3) it is addressed, by and large, to the Jewish person who does not yet believe in Jesus, as opposed to merely supplying information to the interested Christian/Messianic Jewish reader, although such readers will easily benefit from the material compiled; and (4) it seeks to be faithful to both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, while using the best tools in biblical and Semitic scholarship as well as incorporating the Rabbinic writings (where relevant).
3 As mentioned in the preface, this is the first book in a three-book series, to be followed eventually by a one-volume reference edition. All citations such as “see 1.5” or “see vol. 2, 3.6” refer to the objections covered in this series: General and historical objections are numbered 1 and 2 respectively and are covered in this volume. Volume 2 will cover category 3, theological objections. Volume 3 will cover categories 4, 5, and 6, Messianic prophecy objections, New Testament objections, and traditional Jewish objections respectively.
4 It is true that the roots of Rabbinic Judaism are found in Pharisaic Judaism, going back one or two centuries before the time of Jesus. However, the distinctive elements of what became Rabbinic Judaism post-date the destruction of the Temple in 70 c.e. In that sense, Messianic Judaism is older than Rabbinic Judaism in terms of some of the latter’s more important developments.
5 I write these words while sitting at my notebook computer in the house of some dear Christians in Lahti, Finland, who regularly use their home to help Jews from the former Soviet Union who are emigrating to Israel. They have taken in dozens of these Jewish strangers who are brought to Finland before flying to Israel, treating them with hospitality and love, simply because these refugees are Jews.
In fact, when this Finnish Christian family was laying the foundation to their home, one of their daughters asked, “Why are we building such a large house, since some of the children are older and are no longer living at home?” Her eighteen-year-old sister replied, “When the Jews start leaving Russia, this house will be used to take them in.”
Amazingly, no one in the family had heard of such a thing at that time, and it was one full year before the major Jewish exodus from Russia began. The eighteen-year-old spoke prophetically. Stories such as these could be multiplied throughout Finland, as well as in other parts of the world. Thankfully, an increasing number of Jews arriving in Israel from the CIS have met with genuine Christian love along the way, at times at great personal sacrifice and expense to the Christians.
6 Such claims are common in anti-missionary writing. Cf. these remarks by Beth Moshe (pseudonym), Judaism’s Truth Answers the Missionaries (New York: Bloch, 1987), 250: The missionary “is driven by his own need to convince you that Jesus is the Messiah and Christianity is the successor to Judaism… . The missionary cannot emotionally accept Judaism’s position and counter-claims, because if he did his entire religious survival might collapse.
The missionary’s view is that Christianity’s unique salvation through belief in Jesus Christ rests on the supposition of Judaism’s demise.” Of course, one could ask whether the traditional Jew—or any committed person from a non-Christian religion—could “emotionally accept” Christianity’s “position and counter-claims” without his “entire religious survival” being threatened. But Beth Moshe’s point goes beyond this.
She writes: “In fact, the missionary values the Jewish convert above all others, because in one fell swoop he believes he catches the soul, fortifies his own conception of salvation, and deals a blow to Judaism” (ibid., 3). In all candor, I can say that in almost thirty years as a Jewish believer in Jesus, I have not met one single “missionary” who holds to this, consciously or unconsciously, even though all of us are very grateful to God when we see his ancient people returning to him in repentance and faith and recognizing the real Messiah. Shouldn’t we be?
7 For references see Michael L. Brown, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood (Shippensburg, Pa.: Destiny Image, 1992), 64–65. In 1997, a Japanese translation of this book was released, reflecting the wonderful spirit of philo-Semitism that is found among many Japanese Christians.
Brown, M. L. (2000). Answering Jewish objections to Jesus, Volume 1: General and historical objections. (xv). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.