Ask about Judaism

[Scott]

The only service I have ever been to would be a Bar mitzvah assuming that is considered a service.

[agricola]

What did you think? And how old were you at the time?

[Scott]

Been to two when I was around 13. I felt a bit out of place. Think I was more nervous for my friends having to go up.
Anyway I remember the parties afterwards were great.

[agricola]

Going up is the whole point.

You see, only 'adults' are counted as part of the congregation (for the purposes of public prayers), so as a 'sign' that a kid has reached 'religious adulthood', they participate as adults in the public prayer service. 'To go up' is 'aliyah' in Hebrew, and an 'aliyah' is the opportunity to 'go up' to the Torah and read it (or at least, recite the blessings FOR reading it) before the congregation. Boys are 'adult' at 13, and girls are 'adult' at 12.

They are each a bar or bat mitzvah at those ages, regardless of whether they do or don't 'go up' and help lead a service, and even whether or not they even know about it. Before that age, their religious behavior is the responsibility of their parents. After that age, they are solely responsible. At the bar or bat mitzvah 'event', in fact, the parents traditionally recite a wonderful blessing: 'thank you, God, for removing my responsibility for this child' (for the behavior).

Very appropriate when your kids are teenagers!

[ena]

I wrote a few posts about 'the messiah' early in this thread - I'll grab some relevant pieces since the topic came up again -

Modern Judaism -

orthodox POV: the messiah will be a real person who will restore Jewish rule in Israel, bring all the Jews back to Israel, and there will be universal peace during his lifetime.
conservative POV: what the orthodox said, but we don't really talk about it, and you don't have to believe that exactly because -
liberal POV: there won't be an actual PERSON messiah, but at the end of days we will have a messianic TIME of universal peace, etc.

See Isaiah 9. The CoC is weak on the physical Kingdom. They talk about the resurrection but don't get into actual details about anything physical. They don't look at the whole Bible as hard as they claim.

Basically, Jesus fails on two points a) claiming to be a divinity (totally impossible) and b) he didn't accomplish ANY of the expected tasks of the messiah.

Very accurate! and I could travel a thousand square miles to find one Christian who gets it. The Christian hope is that Jesus will return and accomplish those tasks. It dovetails nicely with the Jewish hope for a messiah. I did not find it in the CoC. You will find it in most Evangelical churches. If you were taught by the CoC only you will find a world view that is much larger. They have been living under a rock. Bart Ehrman quips that he thinks that some of his students think that Christ is a last name like Mary and Joseph Christ. Here is the definition. It is a Greek term.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ

[Scott]

So what are the expected tasks of the Messiah?
I ask because I have studied (not just in the Coc) but other sources who teach otherwise.
In fact just a few months ago I saw some show and they used the scriptures and claimed that Jesus fulfilled so many of the prophesies so far that it is mathematically impossible that he isn't the Messiah. I remember them also saying that since the genealogies have been distroyed that the messiah at this point could never be proven today.
I understand that they are biased and trying to make their point valid.
Curious since there seems to be such an absolute disparity between both sides.

[agricola]

Here's the deal: if you have an opinion about the validity of something, and you go and look back through pre-existing literature looking for evidence of your opinion, you will invariably find it. It is quite easy. All it takes is a pre-determined conclusion and a little creative cherry picking of quotes.

Some of the passages traditionally used by Christianity as 'predictions of the messiah' were considered that by the Jews, but many were not (and are not). There are some other passages which Jews have considered to be messiah-references, which Christianity doesn't use (mostly because you can't turn them in any fashion to refer to Jesus).

There is also certainly nothing (in Jewish circles) that would indicate that the messiah would get a do-over.

Let's see:
Peace on earth (do we have that now? no - ergo, the messiah hasn't come yet)
All Jews reunited in Israel (now? no - ergo, the messiah hasn't come yet)
Temple rebuilt (no? messiah hasn't come yet)

[Scott]

Gotcha. So is there a general consensus within the different Jewish factions on the prophesies or are there a lot of differences?
This makes me want to look up the website of a Guy I hear on the radio periodically, He is a Jewish Christian, think its Dr. Brown.

[agricola]

What I gave you is the consensus - there's some debate on whether that will be accomplished by a person (that is the traditional and common view) or whether 'the messiah' is really just a future period of time when all humans are in accord.

There is no such thing as a 'Jewish Christian'. Once a person converts to Christianity, they are just a Christian.

[Scott]

Ok. I always thought there was some kind of distinction between a Jew who is a Christian, like the apostles and gentile Christians. I would think that Peter, Paul and Mary still considered themselves as Jews even though the Jewish community may have disowned them. They were also a good folk singing group in the sixties.