Torah-observant Christian?

[Prober]

Many thanks, Dauer!

I'm starting to get the flavour of the different denominations and I suppose the reading material a person chooses in coloured by the denomination in which he's interested.

[dauer]

Prober,

I'm starting to get the flavour of the different denominations and I suppose the reading material a person chooses in coloured by the denomination in which he's interested.

Absolutely. The place where you see this the most is the difference between the liberal denominations and orthodoxy, primarily because the liberal denominations are open to all of the modern approaches to text. But it also depends on what you're reading. For example A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice by Isaac Klein is essentially a Conservative code, describing how to carry out different daily, annual, as well as occasional mitzvot and with some exception where conservative judaism diverges, it could have come from orthodoxy.

Or to take another example, you could take a Conservative commentary and a Reform commentary, and they'd both probably be very hard to tell apart. As a siddur goes, there's almost no difference from denomination to denomination. A liberal siddur will have some omissions, and maybe a couple words changed to reflect that there is no longer a desire to return to temple sacrifices, but unless it's a Reconstructionist siddur you won't see any major differences, and even there the really big differences are only in translation, and not in the Hebrew. For example they'll translate the Tetragrammaton differently depending on context in their siddur.

Dauer

[Prober]

Well, this should be fun...I guess I'll get started reading.

I think I'm interested in Orthodox and/or Conservative so maybe I'll start there.

Thanks, again!

[Chavak]

Originally Posted by Prober

Do you think the concept of being a torah-observant Christian would be silly?

Yes, it is silly, Many of the "Messianic Christians" (who refuse to call
themselves Christians, even though they believe in the tenents of
Christianity) are nothing more than wanna be Jews. They go to extremes
of how Jews act, dress, and practice their faith. They copy all of our
traditions and cultural things, even though many of these things were not
in existence when Jesus was around (they claim they want to live as Jews
because Jesus was a Jew. How many times did Jesus eat Kugel or
matzah ball soup? Puh-leeze.....)

I find it highly offensive as they people take our religious articles,
our faith, our traditions and our religious practices and veil them
with Christianity. They involve the name of a false god in using them.
I find it disgusting.
They should be and act the Christians that they are.

[faithing]

This is my third attempt to post on this thread, don't know where the other posts went..LOL! I was interested in answering your original question, Prober, as simply as I can.

May I first send my greetings to all on this thread, and particualry to those who practice Judaisim, as this is YOUR forum. I respectfully state that I have enjoyed greatly reading the posts in this thread and other's - in the Judaism forum - as I am very interested in learning as much as I can about what we call "The Old Testament," as Christians. There is no way to disconnect those two religions for us, as the history of the Jews -and their faith - is the base of our religion (those who believe in Jesus as The Messiah.) What your opinion is of Jesus is certainly your own business. I only want to address Prober's original question which I believe requires a Christian answer. Thank you.

Basic Christianity:

Prober, while there have been 'legalistic' Christians since the start of Christianity, it is missing the point. You cannnot seriously believe that you need to practice the Law if you believe Jesus has saved you. Jesus lived The Law because he was born a Jew. He taught that He was, however, the Fullfillment of that law, and -as such - put an end to all legalism, works, and "working your way into Heaven," through His sacrifice!

Prober, if you are a Christian, you have been taught that Jesus is the Messiah - the Son of God - and saved you through his sacrifice on the cross with the shedding of his blood for you. There is nothing you can do but show faith in His Divinity, His Word, and His Sacrifice, now. You are saved through His Grace, period. As a sinner you cannot save yourself; never could. Accept that fact, trust in Him (God is looking for your faith and trust now only) and live as the Holy Spirit within you guides you.

None of us are perfect or ever can be, we sin daily. We are flawed with Adam and Eve's fall, and our hope is in our Savior. Prober, You are actually rejecting Christ's gift to you - minimizing it - by believing there is still something MORE that has to be done other than the shedding of His Blood, through His Grace. Accept His free gift to you. He did this for all mankind!!!! (that includes you!)

May God bless you all; thank you once again for my being able to put my post on this forum.

faithing..

[Quahom1]

Faith, "Prober" knows everything now...

Unfortunately, he can not fill us in on the details...

But I'm sure he would be pleased that you found his thoughts fascinating, and challenging.

v/r

Q

[sambo]

Originally Posted by Prober

Do you think the concept of being a torah-observant Christian would be silly?

Would you describe or provide a good link for the yearly Jewish feasts and what a person does on them?

Lets read Matthew 5:17-20 and read it in the context of 1st century Judiasm. What commandments could Jesus have been talking about? Obviously the commandments of the torah.

We are saved by grace. Then what is the game plan? Repeatedly jesus says the one who loves me is the one who keeps my father's commandments.

If we read the writings of Rabbi Sha'ul (Paul) in the same light we willl recognize that he was a torah observant rabbi, before and after his conversion. The early church (acts...) was a huge population of messianic jews. No, they did not call themselves that, they called themselves followers of the way...but they were absolutey Jewish 100%, torah observant, and convinced to their own death that Jesus was the jewish Messiah.

A great scholar recently told me that if we do not understand the history and culture of 1st century Judaism we cannot even begin to grasp the new Testament. As he went on teaching, i came to the realization that he was right.

[sambo]

I agree with a lot of what you said...However, i believe you may be contradicting yourself in one area.

Mathew 5:17 Jesus says i did not come to abolish the law (torah) but i came to fulfill it.

Often we are taught that when jesus came the law was thrown out. This is not a correct teaching. Since when does fulfill mean abolish or do away with? Please re-read what Jesus said. If we look at the word fulfill in the original language of the bible a great translation would be "to fill up" or even to "teach correctly"

Matt 5:18...Jesus even goes so far to say that not one jot or tittle (original language yud or penstroke will be changed)

5:19 Now read this one....this gets heavy...

Have we been taught incorrectly about Jesus?

Here is the deal:
The "law" was never for salvation. Remember that Abraham was saved before the law ever came about. Saved by faith!!!

Salvation always came through faith. This is a very consistent theme in the scriptures...Salvation then the sanctification (to be set apart)

God used the torah to set His chosen people apart from all others.

When Jesus returns will we all (believing Jew and believing Gentile) keep the appointed times (feasts and festivals) and we will be taught Torah from the greatest Rabbi ever..Jesus (Yeshua the Messiah)

Now, chances are you have never been taught any of this. Its in the bible!

Clear as can be.

To understand the New Testament one must come to an understanding of 1st century Judaism...

[Dream]

Originally Posted by Sambo

...if we do not understand the history and culture of 1st century Judaism we cannot even begin to grasp the new Testament. As he went on teaching, i came to the realization that he was right.

I have a lot of respect for you, however I believe you are headed for a personal train wreck of isolation. I do not believe you should be or can be required to bear the 'weight of glory' that you are fitting yourself with right now. Remember the my yoke is easy scripture. If you get maybe several months into this thing and have lonely feelings, then remember that you are a human being, not Atlas. You cannot live on bread alone, and I emphasize the word 'Alone' there not to distort the verse but to say that you should not jump too quickly out of society. Lets say you're the loner type -- then you should most definitely not be trying this at all. Conversion to anything is difficult enough without trying to carve yourself a room out of stone.

[sambo]

I disagree...and i am not a Jew

I have experienced Messianic Jews, Jews, Christians...I have studied the history of all.

Messianic Jews, from the close observance i have had and the actual experince i have had with many are:

1) Jews by blood (this makes them Jewish)
2) Jews by faith
3) Jews who simply believe that Messiah came in the name of Yeshua
4) Torah observant to a level greater than the vast majority of Jews i am friends with.

5) As I studied history I came to the realization that in the 1st century there were tens of thousands of what we today name messianic jews...

Lets remember that the 1st century movement that followed Yeshua were almost all Jews and torah observant.

There were many sects of Judaism through history and there still are. Messianic Jews are just another sect. You should attend a messianic synogogoue if you don't agree. Jewish to the bone my friends.

Jews who do not believe in Yeshua (Jesus) want to say that messianic Jews are fake or are not real Jews but its just not true.

Jesus said that you will be hated for my name...Now that is true

[sambo]

Dream,

Thanks for the reply. No, I am not the loner type. Jesus did say my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

He also said you have seen it written that adultery is sin, but he then goes on and says that even lusting after a woman is adultery. This is what I see as putting torah on our hearts.

As you investigate deeper, you may be surprised to see how many christians are coming to a place in their walk when they are being educated on the history of the church and how we got to where we are. Upon these historical discoveries and an honest open-hearted reading of the Old and New testament they are coming to the same conclusions I came to...

You are right in that no person can keep torah... Only Jesus could do that.
But, should we try to our best? Or should we abuse the grace given us?

Of course that answer is obvious. Remember that Paul wrote we are grafted in to the Olive tree. Ruth was a great example of a gentile who chose to serve the God of Israel.

Was Jesus a torah observant Jew? Were his disciples torah observant Jews?

Should we be like our saviour?

It is a blessing...not a curse

[Dream]

And I am not a Catholic by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, over 1,300 posts can tell you that, but have you ever considered the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ? I am the recipient of the Protestant thought, which is that the NT is an accurate and providential tradition; and from that I follow exactly what you are talking about. But something happens to that if you begin to wonder whatever happened to all of those messianic Christians of the 1st century! Nobody seems to be able to explain it very well, so I used to explain it away with Paul's verses about an incoming apostasy. Unfortunately, this is not why messianic Christians ceased to be.

The real and true reason that the messianic Christian ceased to be is that the bread and body are more important than any other doctrine at all. When false teachers came, Christians said "if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know," and they were right. Rome came and perhaps teachings changed, just as you have been told, but Christianity was not destroyed. The bread and wine was above all, both its mystery and its revelation. Christianity is a religion of togetherness, of being part of one body together and it places mankind's knowledge beneath that.

It is really nice to understand Torah, very helpful, however you cannot be a Christian if you reject the tradition of Christianity. You can only be socially Christian, which is what I am and also Protestant. You, Sambo, have practically shouted you do not even know Catholic Christian tradition, so you cannot be a messianic Christian. As Protestants we are taught that corruptions came and blah blah blah. Then we get bloated with all kinds of theories about Revelation, beasts dragons devils, etc., but we lost the revelation of the bread and of the wine, which is being together. I came to an understanding of this by trying to learn exactly what you say, 1st century Christianity.

I apologize for being so brief, and we can pull scripture verses and talk about it; but maybe you will just be able to put everything together from what you already know.

[sambo]

Woah,

I guess this is where we might disagree. We do know what happened to messianic "jewish" christians. They became hated by non-believeing jews. Remember when Jesus said "you will be hated for my name"

The Roman Empire and those leading up to Constantine hated them because they were Jewish. Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

As far as the revelation of the bread and the wine...you lost me there.

Here is what I have come to realize. Jesus said to his disciples ...you eat my body, you drink my flesh...
Literally? Is the catholic teaching that the bread and wine actually become the body? Would Jesus have taught that?

No. Jesus was a great Jewish Rabbi. We know that. For a Rabbi to teach the concept of eating him or eating his ways was a very common concept at that time. To EAT someone actually meant to Believe them, Join them, Carry on their works, Soak them up, Do what they Say.

I do not know where you stand, or from what school of thought you come from, but i think this sure makes a lot more sense than cannibalism.

I want you to know i do not come in a spirit of arguing at all. Just want to share my thoughts. You know what we are doing here is very Jewish. its called pilpul. To go back and forth with questions and answers, opinions and teachings. Two Rabbis, three opinions. Just like the Sadducees and the Pharisees, the students of one well known Rabbi Hillel such as Jesus and John, and students of another well known Rabbi Shamaii...i.e. the pharisees of Jerusalem that were always challenging Jesus's teachings on the Sabbath and healing on Sabbath etc.

Without Questions how will we learn.... The more I learn the more I know that i do not Know

[Dream]

Hello, Sambo

Where is the evidence of genocidal violence against the early messianic Christians? There were some attempts before the fall of the Temple, however... We do know the Christians survived, and we know not all Jews were violently against Christianity -- perhaps none as early as Paul's visit to the council of brothers in Jerusalem. Hans Küng (Küng pg 14) attributes late persecutions by Jews because of a special council of Rabbis at Jamnia, but this council is a mere (profitable) speculation begun by Heinrich Graetz in 1870. His speculation has since been partly discredited as an interpolation. Other than that, accounts of Jewish opposition to Christianity that I have heard of all come from the Christian New Testament, which for this faith-based conversation were completed before 100AD or so. Even before that there were always limits to killing. Even Saul of Tarsus (later Paul) when he persecuted 'The Christians' had to obtain special permission from the priesthood in order to do his persecuting.(Acts 22:4-5) It actually seems doubtful to me that such authorized persecutions could have had much use after the fall of the Temple in 70AD. Chapter IV pg 26 Jewish Liturgy and its Development says "After awakening from the stupor caused by the terrible shock which the Jewish people suffered with the destruction of the Sanctuary in Jerusalem by the Romans, the outstanding spirits in Israel sought a way out of the confusion. Their main concern was how to reorganize Jewish religious life and institutions, and how to replace the now missing service of the sacrificial cult." It seems to me that Jesus was very compatible with this need to reorganize since trust in Jesus' message could have provided a way to continue living without actually having a Temple, theoretically. I'm not saying that is how they saw it, but..are we saying Jews blamed Christians for the Temple's destruction or something? I am not seeing the violent motivation to kill Christians at that point. A Jew living at that time of ultimate pain probably would wish the Christians a good day and a 'do well', too; but I am not Historically well read so I don't know. Accepting there was at first dangerous physical opposition to Christians, by the time Paul visited the council in Jerusalem perhaps 14 years later, things seem to have settled down enough that they were able to have a large meeting of brothers.(Acts 15) We know that there was eventually a reversal of dangers within a century or two, where Christians then haranged both Rabbinic Jews and Heretical Christians. Perhaps the reason that you postulate the disappearance of messianic Christians is the apostacy mentioned by the apostles, not violence by Jews?

Yes, the eating of his flesh is preserved verbatim in the tradition. You are in agreement with me about why such literally strange verbage is used, however I say it is intentionally done that way -- not an accident or corruption. There is supposed to be curiosity generated by it, which you are supposed to then discover for yourself. That is why that particular strange wording is chosen, not because you actually are eating my blood though the minister swear up and down that you are eating blood. The mystery is in the nature of the body that you are eating, which you can indeed eat. Jesus said "my blood is real blood" and "my flesh is real flesh."(John6:55) If you do not eat, then you have no part in him. This is supposed to be presented to you in a way that makes you ask lots of questions about it, until you understand the body of Christ. That has not been done for you. Also, you now have questions about the way Jesus said 'eat', but Jesus 1st century disciples only wondered how Jesus could be as important as he was claiming. Their questions were about how he could be as important as Moses, because all of Israel was baptized into Moses, ate manna, drank from the rock. They were baptized into Christ. What Jesus expressed is that they would be baptized into him now, which was hard to accept. They understood, as you say, the eating part. Protestants ask how can we say his flesh is real food without lying about it, but that is part of the way God teaches sometimes in the Bible. You run into something patently wierd and then think about it. This is patterned after the example of how a modern Jewish person is able to honestly say to his child "...It is the sacrifice of the LORD'S passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses."(Ex12:27) Since you are Protestant, doesn't this practice seem dishonest to you? Jewish people stump this kids with this one every year, as they are required by Scripture to do. They say they were delivered. They say they were in Egypt, and they were delivered. If the kids said "Is this a joke?" The parents probably say "Absolutely not." But they are not lying, because they are all in Moses and were delivered all together from Egypt (I Cor10:1-5) I think they are considered to be in the wilderness, because Moses never left the wilderness. Christianity teaches similarly. Christians eat the flesh and drink the blood. Christians do this. Christians are crucified with Christ, nevertheless they live!(Gal2:20) If you have not been crucified, then you are not a Christian, per se. By the same token, you must eat and drink. The implication from the object lesson in Exodus is that you should be teaching the same things to your children if you are a Christian. My personal take is that you should be answering their questions in a way that they will figure it out eventually. The way it is taught is as much a part of the tradition, the sacrament as anything else.

Yours,
Dream

The Catholic Church: A Short History[/i]
A.Z. Idelsohn Jewish Liturgy and its Development

[dauer]

We do know what happened to messianic "jewish" christians. They became hated by non-believeing jews.

Or, like the followers of so many other false Jewish messiahs, after Jesus died his Jewish following gradually shrunk and faded away, dominated by the non-Jewish followers of Jesus whose worldview and mythos was more conducive to the survival of Christianity.

Here is what I have come to realize. Jesus said to his disciples ...you eat my body, you drink my flesh...
Literally? Is the catholic teaching that the bread and wine actually become the body? Would Jesus have taught that?

If he did use those words, he was probably referring to a practice much in line with some of the mystery religions of that day. If someone else used those words and put them into Jesus' mouth, they were most likely referring to the same thing.

No. Jesus was a great Jewish Rabbi.

That's a statement that's hard to justify with Jewish sources which include even dissenting opinions. For extreme dissent, take for example the case of Elisha ben Abuyah. Jesus may have been Jewish and a teacher, but a Jewish teacher does not a rabbi make.

For a Rabbi to teach the concept of eating him... was a very common concept at that time.

Source?

and students of another well known Rabbi Shamaii...i.e. the pharisees of Jerusalem that were always challenging Jesus's teachings on the Sabbath and healing on Sabbath etc.

I think that's a more interesting line of inquiry and one where I'd more likely be in agreement with you. Jesus' views are generally more in line with Beit Hillel whereas the people he takes issue with seem to represent Beit Shammai.