1. scott said:

What a load of trayf! Do the Christian world a favor Boteach. Don't try and make our Lord into a cheap revolutionary and we won't try and tell you Moses was an Egyptian loving Midianite marrying murderer who became the first Hebrew dictator.

Does this guy read the Torah ... or just the commentaries? Any prophet worth his salt would have recognized the Roman occupation for what it was. The hand of G-d. Just as the Babylonian captivity was. Believe me 'rabi', That Prophet did not come as a politician.

2. Keelie said:

I've always said that the one thing Jews with which the Jews have to come to terms is the Jewishness of Jesus.

And the one thing with which Christians have to come to terms is the Jewishness of Jesus.

Right now the details are not that important; just the fact that he was a Jew and that this has certain religious implications.

Boteach is simply saying this. Lets not get hung up on the other stuff.

3. dawson said:

Hogwash!
I am on recored as a fervent supporter and admirer of Israel and of the Jewish people (the now defunct dawson.com)...however, this is really about as *true* as the Protocols of Zion and only blights the very reason this indispensable and respected website exists. Most Xtians I know proudly proclaim 'My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter' and many even honor and celebrate the Jewish holy days, but this is just taking it back a step further from the Essenes.
Please stick with politics or have some one review any religious content you post.
I'm not offended, just disappointed, this is a revisionist disservice to Jew and Gentile alike.

4. Yehoshua Kehati said:

Dawson - right on! This Boteach used to be on a Jewish website, until aparently they had their fill of his perversions of Torah. This garbage should never have been posted. It is simply a blivet. (Country folks know what I mean.)

5. kuhnkat said:

Until we have a reasonable translation of the original scrolls you are all pissing into the wind.

6. Jovan-Marya Weismiller, T.O.Carm said:

Rabbi Boteach says, «Many Jews today believe that the rabbis hated Jesus because he claimed to be divine, but he never made any such claim»

The New Testament says (John 8:57-59), «57. The Jews therefore said to him: Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
58. Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say to you, before Abraham was made, I am.
59. They took up stones therefore to cast at him. But Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.»

At least the Jews of Christ's time recognised a claim of divinity when they heard it, I AM being the Name of G-d, unlike Rabbi Boteach.

7. Joseph said:

What needs to be recognized is that there is a significant portion of the Christian Church that has never denied Jesus being a Jew, in fact holds this as part of their teachings, and overall honors the Jewish people for their role in what God has done/is doing. "Christians" that hold anti-semetic views are missing a lot of the point of the teachings of Jesus and are merely using the Bible as an excuse for their bias. What is held by my current church, and every church I have ever attended is that Jesus is the Messiah. What was accomplished by Jesus, and the apostles after he left was the spread of the words of God that were originally given to the Jewish people to the whole world.

As to much of the article, it is simply taking the picture of Jesus painted in the Bible, stripping it of what is not approved, and trying to pidgeon-hole what is left into a pre-conceived form. It is a process that is wide-open to personal bias. What we are left with is the author's mental image of who the Jewish messiah should be. What is left unconsidered is that maybe the messiah isn't going to conform to the authors pre-conceived notion.

I completely agree with the authors main point that Christianity and Judaism need to recognize how Jesus relates to both of them. The commonly held view that Christians hate Jews is simply not true. I have a number of friends who are Messianic Jews-people who are born and raised Jewish, and who have started worshiping Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. Things really aren't as bad as they seem to be presented in the article.

8. Bill Levinson said:

I have no problem with recognizing Christmas even though I do not believe that Jesus was the son or avatar of God. He was an important historical person whose philosophy and teaching changed the world mostly for the better, so his birthday should be recognized like that of any other (good) historical person.

9. Ted Belman said:

I happened to have studied this subject in great detail and even written a 25 page paper on the subject that agrees with Boteach.

Now I know that Christians have their narrative represented by the gospels. That doesn't prevent the Jews from having theirs too. Boteach in capsual form presents the Jewish narrative.

Narratives may or may not reflect truth. Each of us has the obligation to seek the truth. There are no givens in this matter.

If someone is a proclaimed atheist, Christians have no trouble with this. It doesn't bring them to a boil. But many have an emotional reation as Scott did above if you question whether Jesus lived or whether he was resurrected or whether he was devine. They are insisting on politically correct speech. That's not right. Jews have the right to their view of history and to articulate such views in public. Even more so when they comment on one of their own.

When I posted this article I thought I was contributing to further understanding and better relations. I was surprised to see the passionate rejection of what was said and the fact that it was said.

10. Ted Belman said:

In order for Jews and Christians to get along, there must be mutual respect. Christians can believe anything they want about Jesus so long as such beliefs don't lead to attacks on Jews for killing "Christ". or other forms of discrimination.

Jews on the other hand are entitled to believe what they want regarding Jesus. In my experience, many Christians are very sensitive to the rejection by Jews of Jesus as Christ. And this has been so for close to two thousand years.

Why don't Christians just agree to disagree and leave it at that?

11. Ted Belman said:

Dawson, my old associate.

I am not sure what you disagree with.

I have no doubt that the Jewish identity of Jesus is very much a part of what is taught in the evangelical churches and perhaps to some extend in the Church generally. I don't think Boteach was implying otherwise. He was just saying that such recognition which is not always emphasized leads to better relations.

Boteach says "Like a mummy whose bandages must be removed, 2,000 years of Christian gauze must be stripped away so we may discover the Jewish Jesus." What he means is not that Christians don't believe Jesus was Jewish but that they don't know how Jewish. Boteach points out that everything Jesus taught as set out in the Gospels comes from Jewish thinking and values. So Jesus embraced Judaism rather rejected it or tried to change it. We can both agree that Jesus was against the Jewish establishment that curried favour with the Romans.

So what do you take issue with?

12. rocky said:

Sure Ted,
We should respect each other and stick together. In front of the islamic threat, our fates are tightly bound.

13. BobW said:

Shalom all,

It's interesting that Albert Schweitzer's book "Quest For The Historical Jesus" is not mentioned. Otto Rank and Sigmund Freud also wrote about this.

More is known about the historical Jesus than about King Richard the Lionhearted.

Many words from lore have been mistranslated such as "messiah", "manger", (holy) "grail".

There have been historical studies about the Exodus also. With hope that I do not offend anyone - I do not mean to - 2 of the Commandments were already adopted by the people's leadership prior to the mountain climbing expedition. Freud wrote about this from material developed by Charles Darwin.

Kol tuv,
BobW

14. scott said:

What is this sacriligious muslim crap doing here?

15. Ted Belman said:

I have never removed a comment because I din't like it. But I must admit that I am tempted to do so because Islam has enough propaganda sites and I don't want this platform to be one of them. Besides who cares what the Koran says about Jesus or Moses for that matter?

I don't. Besides, Islam is what Islam does, and it ain't pretty.

Furthermore that post is totally irrelevant to our discussion. I think I will remove it shortly.

16. Mohammed To Belman said:

I taught it was a platform for discussion and it accepts other views of the story. You removed my poster about how Islam sees Jesus (peace be upon him) as a prophet for Jews and how islam sees his mother Mary (peace be upon her). Then you removed a poster answering the poster 14 which is basically just saying I am here to remind you whi is blinded by hatered and you kept 14; for a discussion platform, it is unfair!

17. Ted Belman said:

Mohammed

If you want to comment on the issue at hand ie the different narratives between Christians and Jews please do so. But your information about what the Koran says was irrelevant.

When we are discussing Islam or how it is a religion of war not peace feel free to argue what you want. But don't ignore reality in order to paint a false picture. Honest debate is always welcome.

18. macnietspingal said:

I'm grateful for this view. It's how I read the NT too. In fact, I think Christians and Muslims are all Jews. Rather, because the Koran prefers Israeli/tes to Jews, I now label myself Israelite. Hey, politically the Koran has gifted us who come from the tribe of Jacob, who come from Abraham via Mommy Sarah.

The real problem is that Constantine (Hitler too) were scared to death of Talmud Torah. So the poor Romans who wanted to become Jews couldn't and were forced to only believe in Jesus. Until this very day. All the current Israelis have to do, is to start a movement to study a special Talmud Tractate, Sanhedrin, all over the world and everyone could become a lawyer and a judge. I found this out at Temple Emanu-El in Dallas. There were people who could read Hebrew easily (I can't). Nothing beats Hebrew in experessing universals, aka, street sense, aka, common sense. The group consisted of really professional people including lawyers and physicians and Ph.D's and CPA's.
Amazing experience. To top it all out, discovered that it's only recently that us Jewish females have been allowed to enter the world of Talmud Torah and Rashi.

And don't forget, long before RaMBaM, Greek philosophy was merged with the Israeli/te experience. It's that wonderful library, that our Catholic friends have saved for us, Apocrypha. If you want to know how to overcome addiction read IV Maccabees. The Septuagint is all Jewish. In fact, it was us Jews who mistranslated "almah" into "virgin". That's because they lost the "sense" of the Hebrew 2000 years ago.

You know what Allah and Muhammad said? The Jews and Christians fight over the same scriptures. That's all the way back 1400 years ago. So I guess Muhammad, the politican, said "A pox on both your houses. I'll simply write history my way." :)

You know this Khanookah season is a great time to face historical data. Historically, not hysterically.

So I am lucky to now be included in Talmud Torah. And the globe has a decision to make, opt for Jesus or opt for Talmud Torah. Both happened simultaneously.

BTW, I love JESus CHRIST SUPERSTAR.

Can anyone email me the Hebrew and Arabic, transliteration,

I wish you a merry solstice and a happy new year? Bevakasha?

19. rocky said:

Ted,
I loved it when you said that:
"..Islam has enough propaganda sites and I don't want this platform to be one of them.."
Keep on with your good work!

20. ShyGuy said:

Ted, let Mohammed post here. It's most important that everyone know the facts about Islam when they're stated correctly and read the disputations when over-the-eyes-wool-pulling is being employed by Islam.

Let it go.

Macnie, I've never tried Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds but the effects seem spectacular.