why not?

One of my readers... or perhaps I should better say "my one reader"... asked me to blog an answer to a posting at aish.com entitled Why Jews Don't Believe in Jesus. I don't really see myself as an apologist, except insofar as we each of us need always to be "prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3.15). But as we interact with the culture around us, I think it is important that we understand the issues others might raise in contradiction to the truth of God. So, here is my thinking on the question.

First of all, the statement is a false generalization. While the argument could be made otherwise, a more honest name for the article might be: Why You Can't Believe in Jesus and Be a Jew. The subtle distinction here is one of dogmatic belief, to wit: "if you really were a Jew, or if you were a true Jew, you would not believe in such heresy." So, by argument, no true or real Jew believes Jesus is the Messiah. While this would be a more honest title, it still is false. We have historical evidence to the contrary.

Nick at Night...

First, in the Gospels, we have the stories of Nicodemus in the Gospel of John. And then we have the evidence of one of the great Pharisees of all time, Saul of Tarsus. Saul, by then known as Paul, gives his pedigree in Philippians 3, and also Acts 22. These two Pharisees, at minimum, prove that the generalization is false.

But there are also hundreds of thousands of Jews—one source says over a million—who have come to believe that Jesus, or Yeshua, to use the transliteration of His Hebrew name, is indeed the promised Messiah.

Even this, however, is not the linchpin of the argument against Jews believing in Jesus. The truth of the matter is that every one of Jesus' first disciples was a Jew. And this highlights a certain fact: there are very seldom any "pure" arguments for or against something. It is difficult to escape one's own paradigm and take a position based solely on dispassionate evidence. If I am setting out to prove that Jews don't believe in Jesus, I will likely fail to take into account evidence contradicting my premise. This is why it is vitally important that we listen to one another, and do not make our judgments in the vacuum of our own thoughts. And it is why Jesus told us, His disciples, not to meditate on what to say in defense of our position, but to trust the Holy Spirit to bring to mind what He would have us to say.

I expect that I will further fisk this article in future posts... stay tuned!