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BOGUS MISSIONARY ARGUMENTS
These questions or points are frequently used by missionaries. They are bogus mainly because they haven't been well thought out.
What is wrong with a Jew following the Jewish Messiah.
Nothing is wrong with a Jew following the Jewish Messiah, but a Christian missionary who asks this question is really talking about Jews worshipping a man who is the Christian idea of the Messiah.
Q. Why don't you Jews accept Jesus?
A. Why don't you missionaries accept Buddha or Mohammad? The question assumes that we should "accept Jesus" (which means become Christian) and that we need to justify why we don't. This is backwards. The missionaries have the onus of showing why we should "accept" their Christian beliefs. The question is often elaborated with more assumptions -- e.g. "Why do you reject your saviour, the Jewish Messiah, who died for you?" -- a question that has at least five unsupported suggestions.
Q. Jesus was Jewish so why shouldn't you accept him.
A. So were Einstein, Ben Gurion, Jack Benny and Woody Allan. (Woody still is, not that it's anything for us to brag about.) Plus a few more. We know better than to worship one of our own.
Q. Many learned Orthodox Jews follow Jesus.
A. Really? How fast does he run? (Sorry about that.) When you get details about these supposed "learned Orthodox Jews," it usually turns out that they are not learned or Orthodox, and sometimes are not even Jewish. I suppose there are some genuinely orthodox Jews who have become apostates and embraced Christian beliefs, but to focus on them and ignore the vast majority is like saying that the anus, because it has some nerve cells, is the thinking organ of the body instead of the brain.
Q. The Talmud (and or Jewish sages) say that ...
A. Even when a missionary's citations of Jewish works are accurate, Talmud and the sages make up a huge, complex body of knowledge that compares to the medical literature in its vastness. Anyone who wants to interpret Talmud for me should tell me their educational and training qualifications to do so. Listing someone else's qualifications isn't helpful, because the missionary may be citing that someone else incorrectly or out of context. Giving spiritual advice on the basis of a random Talmudic quote is like telling someone how to manage diabetes on the basis that medical texts say that prayer can be helpful to sick people.
Citation of orthodox sources is actually irrelevant insofar as this website is concerned because I'm discussing the Tanach only, not the orthodox Jewish interpretation of the Tanach. Missionaries who want to discuss orthodox Judaism should ask someone like Moishe Shulman what he thinks.
Besides which, I think there is something vaguely dishonest in trying to prove the meaning of a scripture by quoting people whose authority you don't accept.
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Revised 2/06
