Although Jews have been forced to hold public debates with Christians in the past, Jews have won every debate. You can even check the Christian records for verification.
To the contrary, the earliest records of debate and dialog between Jews on the subject of the messiahship of Jesus indicate that the followers of Jesus decisively won. Your facts are wrong here. Of course, there is no defense for the forced debates of the Middle Ages, and I would be more than happy if the rabbis won these debates against their theological opponents, since these Christian leaders were hardly faithful representatives of the Messiah.
But let’s put history aside for now, since none of us were there to witness any of the debates of the past. For years the Rabbinic community said that Jews who believed in Jesus were deceived and misled because of our ignorance and lack of scholarship, so we began to challenge rabbinic leaders to discuss the issues in public. Do you know what happened? These debates went so well that we widely distribute audio and video copies of these public forums to interested Jews of every background. The rabbis whom we debated do not.
The earliest records of debates between Jews who believed in Yeshua as Messiah and Jews who didn’t are found in the New Testament Book of Acts. It includes several interesting accounts, all of which tell the same story: The Messianic Jews had the better arguments!
It is written of Saul of Tarsus (also called the apostle Paul) that immediately after recognizing that Jesus was the Messiah—before this he had been the most staunch opponent of Jesus among his Jewish contemporaries—“Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the [Messiah]” (Acts 9:22).
This became the pattern of his work in every city he visited: “As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the [Messiah] had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the [Messiah],’ he said” (Acts 17:2–3).
Interestingly, one of Paul’s colleagues, a learned and eloquent Jewish man named Apollos, also engaged in debate and dialog in the synagogues. Of him it is recorded that “he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the [Messiah]” (Acts 18:28).
Now, you might simply say, “I don’t accept these records. They are written from a biased perspective.”
But you must remember two things: First, you claimed—as many religious Jews do—that history (specifically, Christian history) records that Jews who rejected Jesus won every debate with Jews who followed Jesus. I have shown you that (Christian) history does not support your statement. Second, I could easily say that it is your sources that are biased, since the accounts of important debates to which you refer have been transmitted by traditional Jews. Why should these be considered more reliable than Christian sources? Also, in some cases, the traditional Jewish records are the only ones we have, so we can’t fully gauge their accuracy, while at other times the church sources provide a very different account. 270
There is something else worth noting. Most rabbis make reference to the famous Barcelona debate between Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (known as the Ramban, or Nachmanides) and a Catholic Jew (re-named Pablo Christiani) as a prime example of the supremacy of the traditional Jewish position. But if the traditional Jews always won, why always point to this debate? Why accept the Ramban’s version at face value while rejecting the Catholic version of the debate? And even if Ramban really did win the debate—which he may very well have done—we must remember that he was one of the greatest scholars in the history of Judaism. It would be no surprise if he proved the better debater. 271
But let’s put history aside for a moment. I have debated a number of rabbis myself—on college campuses, in synagogues (at the rabbi’s request), on the radio, and on TV—presenting clear, biblical evidence that Jesus is the Messiah and refuting the arguments that he is not the Messiah. Some of my friends and colleagues have engaged in similar debates. What were the results? You can easily judge for yourself.
First, you can listen to these debates on audiotape or view those that were video recorded. Second, you can ask yourself a question: Why does my ministry organization actively distribute each and every recorded debate I have done with rabbis—some of whom are respected scholars or leading anti-missionaries—while those I debated virtually never distribute the debates? What does this tell you? 272
In 1995, I was in Phoenix, Arizona, for a debate on the Arizona State University campus with Rabbi Dr. J. Immanuel Schochet, a well-known scholar of Jewish mysticism and messianism and an adamant opponent of Jesus as Messiah. 273 An older Jewish couple approached me a few days before the debate and said, “Our daughter believes in Jesus, and she has really been urging us to adopt her faith. What do you say?” I replied, “Go to the debate and listen carefully to Rabbi Schochet and to me, and make up your mind for yourself. I want you to hear the best of both sides before you come to any conclusions.”
The reason I could respond in such a way was because Yeshua is the Messiah promised to our people in the Hebrew Scriptures, and honest debate and dialog can only confirm this conclusion. We have nothing to hide and nothing of which we should be ashamed. So study the Scriptures, review the arguments, and ask God to guide you into all the truth. 274
270 For discussion and sampling of these debates, see especially Hyam Maccoby, ed., Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages (London/Washington: Littman Library, 1993); note also Robert Chazan, Barcelona and Beyond: The Disputation of 1263 and Its Aftermath (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1992); idem, Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth-Century Christian Missionizing and Jewish Response (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1989).
271 To be perfectly candid, if the debate actually went as recounted by Ramban, then I would be the first to admit that his Catholic opponents did very poorly and that his arguments were, for the most part, superior.
272 Of my two debates with the anti-missionary Rabbi Tovia Singer, one held at a private residence in Maryland and the other held live over a New York/New Jersey radio station, our ministry distributes only the second. This is because Rabbi Singer asked me not to distribute the first debate, which was held quite unexpectedly at the home of an inquisitive Russian Jew who had scheduled the debate without Rabbi Singer or me having any real idea that it was coming. What happened was that this man, who was a new believer in Yeshua, invited Rabbi Singer and me to his home, along with several other anti-missionaries and Christian guests (Rabbi Singer and I had never met before), and then surprised us with a three-hour program for the debate! Both parties informally recorded the proceedings, but Rabbi Singer was not at all happy with the debate, and as a result, he asked me to cease distributing any of the tapes. Of course, since we had no formal agreement, I complied with his request. Still, there was lasting fruit that came from that night: A Jewish woman who had been living an observant Jewish lifestyle for more than six years and who was a close friend of Rabbi Singer had accompanied the group that traveled from New York to Maryland that night. She was so shaken up by the debate that she ultimately became a believer in Jesus the Messiah, even working for a year in Messianic Jewish ministry in the former Soviet Union. When asked who led her to the Lord, she replied, “Tovia Singer!”
273 For a sampling of some of his rhetoric, see Riggans, Yeshua Ben David, 63–64; for an example of his academic work on Jewish messianism, see his study entitled Mashiach: The Principles of Maschiach and the Messianic Era in Jewish Law and Tradition, 3d ed. (New York/Toronto: S.I.E., 1992). Note that Schochet merited an entry in the Encyclopedia of Hasidism, 433, as “an acknowledged authority on Jewish philosophy and Jewish mysticism.”
274 Asking God to guide you is a good Jewish thing to do! See, e.g., Pss. 119:18; 143:10; Prov. 3:5–6; and note God’s promise to those who take refuge in him: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you” (Ps. 32:8).
Brown, M. L. (2000). Answering Jewish objections to Jesus, Volume 1: General and historical objections. (199). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.