 Maybe you have a neighbor who's been telling you that ever since he became a Christian, his life has improved dramatically, or there's someone at work who's been giving you literature trying to prove the truths of the Christian faith. This tape, entitled How to Answer a Christian Missionary, has been prepared by Jews for Judaism to equip you with responses to some of the issues that are raised by born-again Christians. The central teaching of Christianity is that Jesus of Nazareth was the Jewish Messiah. In order to understand why Judaism has consistently rejected this claim for the past 2,000 years, we first have to understand what is the Messiah. Just like in order to know whether or not your friend is loquacious, you have to know the meaning of that word. We must also know what the Messiah is, what the Messiah is supposed to be, before we can know whether or not someone actually is the Messiah. The word Messiah is an English rendering of the Hebrew word Mashiach, whose correct translation is anointed. In the Bible, it usually refers to someone who has been initiated into God's service through the ceremony of being anointed with oil. In the Bible, every Jewish king and high priest was anointed with oil, and therefore they may be referred to as an anointed one or a Messiah. For example, in the first book of Samuel, chapter 26, King Saul is referred to as God's Messiah. In the 45th chapter of the book of Isaiah, Cyrus, the king of Persia, is referred to as God's Messiah. What we see is that in the Jewish Bible, the word Messiah is used generically to refer to anyone who is anointed. Now I may tell you that my brother is president of his chess club, and my sister is president of her stamp club, and my father is president of his glee club, but this morning I received a phone call from the president. Obviously, you're quite aware of who I'm talking about. Now we see that the term Messiah is used throughout the Bible to refer to anyone who is anointed. And what does the Bible teach about the Messiah? And here we run into a problem, because the Hebrew word Ha-Mashiach, literally the Messiah, the anointed one, describing a future anointed person to come, never appears in the Bible. This being the case, how did Jewish people derive their concept of the Messiah? Now one of the central themes of biblical prophecy is the promise of a future age of perfection, which will be characterized by universal peace and universal recognition of God. For example, in the second chapter of the book of Isaiah, the prophet speaks about a time in the future when the nations will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. One shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. In the third chapter in the book of Zephaniah, the prophet speaks about a time when God will turn to the peoples of pure language that they may all call upon the name of God to serve him with one consent. Now among the hundreds of prophecies in the Bible that speak of this future age of perfection, there are several passages which specifically mention an individual, a descendant of King David, who will be the ruler of Israel during this age of perfection. For example, in the eleventh chapter of the book of Isaiah, the prophet speaks of a descendant of Jesse, who was the father of King David, and says that the spirit of God will rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and with righteousness he will judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the land, and the wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. In the twenty-third chapter of the book of Jeremiah, the prophet says, Behold, the day comes, says God, when I will raise to David a righteous descendant, and he shall reign as king and prosper, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land, and in his days Judah will be saved, and Israel shall dwell securely. The prophet Ezekiel, in his thirty-seventh chapter, quotes God as saying, that my servant David shall be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They shall also walk in my ordinances, and observe my statutes, and do them, and they shall dwell in the land that I have given to my servant Jacob, where your father's dwelt, and they shall dwell therein, they and their children, and their children's children forever. And David my servant shall be their prince forever, and I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant, and I will establish them, and multiply them, and I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them forever. My dwelling place also shall be over them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people, and the nations shall know that I am the Lord that sanctifies Israel, and my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them forever. Now in the entire Bible, this is the only description of any descendant of David who is to come in the future. And since every king is a messiah, by convention Jewish people refer to this future king as a messiah. And because no person has ever fulfilled the picture painted in the Bible of this future king, Jewish people still await the coming of the messiah. All past messianic claimants, including Jesus of Nazareth, and Shapsite Svi, among others, have been rejected. It's interesting that the Bible never speaks about believing in the messiah. No one today would tell you that they believe George Bush is president of the United States. People don't believe that. They know that he's the president. He won the election. He's sitting in the White House. It's a verifiable fact. It's not an article of faith. Similarly, because the reign of the messiah will be a historically verifiable reality, clear and self-evident to any person, it won't require belief or faith. And therefore, the Bible never speaks about believing in the messiah. Many Christians ask Jewish people, well, how will you recognize the messiah? The answer is obviously quite simple. We will look out our windows, we will read our newspapers, and we'll see that the world indeed has entered into a new phase. The entire world's at peace for the first time ever. The entire world believes in God. The Jewish people have been restored to their homeland. The temple has been rebuilt in Jerusalem. The person that fulfills these prophecies is the Jewish messiah. Anyone who doesn't fulfill these prophecies is not the Jewish messiah. I once had a discussion with a Christian missionary who tried to denigrate the Jewish people because they had faith in their rabbinic leaders. He explained to me that in the Talmud, one of the greatest rabbis was Rabbi Akiba. And Rabbi Akiba had made a terrible mistake by assuming that Bar Kokhba, the Jewish general, was the messiah. Now during the time of Rabbi Akiba, there was a revolution, a revolt by the Jewish people against the Romans. And Rabbi Akiba at one point had suggested that Bar Kokhba would indeed be the Jewish messiah. I asked this missionary how he knew that Bar Kokhba wasn't the messiah. And he turned to me and said, well, it's obvious because he was killed by the Romans. And as his face turned bright red, he realized that's precisely why the Jewish people didn't accept Jesus. Because he died without fulfilling any of the prophecies in the Jewish Bible, he never reigned as king and the world was not perfected, therefore he was not the Jewish messiah. It's possible to suggest that Jesus himself recognized that he wasn't the messiah. According to the New Testament accounts, as Jesus was dying on the Roman cross, he cried out in desperate disappointment, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Christians will claim that Jesus will fulfill the messianic prophecies when he returns. However, there are many problems with this second coming theory. First of all, the Bible never speaks about it. There's no mention anywhere in the Bible about a messiah who will return after an initial appearance. As a matter of fact, the passages that we examined which speak about the messianic mission don't speak about someone returning. They have an initial appearance perspective to them. Clearly, the second coming theory is a desperate attempt to explain away the failure of Jesus. Obviously, the idea that someone will return does not give them any credibility for their first appearance. So if someone were to claim that their grandfather was the messiah, and people objected and said, but your grandfather didn't accomplish anything, he didn't fulfill any of the messianic prophecies, the person could say, well, that's true. But you'll see that when my grandfather returns, he'll accomplish everything. Now obviously, there is still no reason to believe that this person's grandfather was the messiah the first time he was on the earth. Finally, Jesus promised in the New Testament that he would return soon. He would come back during the lifetime of his disciples. Indeed, the followers of Jesus expected him to return imminently. The fact is that Jesus did not return during the lifetime of his followers, and after almost 2,000 years still has not returned. It's clear that the second coming theory is just that, nothing but a theory, wishful thinking on the part of Christian believers in Jesus. Aside from the fact that Jesus didn't fulfill any of the major messianic prophecies, there are several other points worth bearing in mind. According to Jewish tradition, based upon a passage in the third chapter of the book of Malachi, Elijah the prophet will return before the coming of the messiah. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord, and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. This tradition was so strong that the writers of the New Testament felt that if indeed Jesus was the messiah, then Elijah the prophet must have reappeared before he came. Therefore, the Gospel of Matthew chapter 11 and chapter 17 claim that John the Baptist was Elijah the prophet. Now, it's certainly easy for New Testament writers to claim that John the Baptist was Elijah the prophet, but we must examine whether or not that's true. When we read through the New Testament, we find some problematic information. For example, in the first chapter in the Gospel of John, the Jewish people asked John the Baptist, are you Elijah the prophet? And he responds, no, I am not. Christian apologists will try to get around this problem by claiming that even though John the Baptist was not Elijah the prophet himself, John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah the prophet. However, there are several problems with this claim. First of all, the Jewish Bible predicted that Elijah the prophet himself would return. It does not say that someone would come in the spirit of Elijah the prophet. Secondly, when asked about his identity, John the Baptist didn't claim any association at all with Elijah. He didn't say, no, I'm not Elijah, but I've come in the spirit of Elijah. He flatly denied being Elijah the prophet. And thirdly, the prophecy about the return of Elijah the prophet says that he would restore the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. There's no indication that John the Baptist fulfilled this prophecy at all. There exists one other major problem for the messianic claims made for Jesus of Nazareth. According to the Jewish Bible, one of the central requirements for the Messiah is that he must be a descendant of King David. All of the major messianic prophecies speak about the Messiah as a descendant of King David. In the 33rd chapter of the book of Jeremiah, God says that David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel. The New Testament spends almost two chapters trying to establish the genealogical record of Jesus as going back to King David. However, when we examine the genealogical records, we find some critical problems. In the Gospel of Matthew, the genealogy of Joseph who was the husband of Mary is traced back to King David. However, Matthew then shoots himself in the foot by claiming that Joseph was never the father of Jesus. Matthew does this in order to establish his claim that Jesus did not have a normal birth, but was the product of a virgin birth that Mary never had sexual relations with her husband, Joseph, and that Jesus was conceived through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, since the genealogy as recorded in Matthew only traces Joseph back to King David, but never connects Joseph as the father of Jesus, we see that Jesus has no genealogical record going back to King David. Christian apologists might answer that even though Joseph wasn't the biological father of Jesus, he was the legal father of Jesus and therefore passed on his genealogical line through adoption. There are several problems with this approach. First of all, there's no indication from the Bible that it's possible to pass on one's genealogy through adoption. For example, a priest is someone who was born to another priest. If your father is a priest, then you're a priest. If a priest adopts a boy who is the son of a non-priest, by adoption that child does not become a priest. Even if one would want to say that through adoption it's possible to pass on genealogy, there is an additional problem. It's only possible to pass on to a descendant that which you have. We find in Joseph that his genealogical line goes back to King David through a king of Israel named Jechiniah. The problem is that in the 22nd chapter of the Book of Jeremiah, this king is cursed by God. Write this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days, for no man of his seed shall prosper sitting upon the throne of David and ruling any more in Judah. We see from this passage in Jeremiah that any descendant of Jechiniah would be disqualified from ever being a messianic candidate. And therefore, if Christians insist upon having Jesus a legal adopted child of Joseph, then Jesus would be disqualified from ever even potentially being the Jewish Messiah. In order to answer this difficult problem, Christian apologists claim that Jesus also traces himself back to King David through his mother Mary. And the claim is made that Mary's genealogy is shown to descend from King David in the third chapter of the Book of Luke. There are, however, four basic problems with this claim. Firstly, there is no evidence from the Book of Luke that Mary descends from David. The third chapter of the Gospel of Luke is tracing Joseph's genealogy. Mary isn't even mentioned. Secondly, even if Mary could trace herself back to David, that wouldn't help Jesus. According to the Torah, the mother determines if someone is Jewish, but tribal affiliation and family genealogy can only be traced through the person's father. For example, in the first chapter of the Book of Numbers, verse 18, we are told that the Jewish people declare their pedigrees according to their father's houses. Thirdly, even if it could be maintained that a family line could be passed on through the mother, Mary herself was not from a legitimate messianic family. According to the Bible, the Messiah must be a descendant of King David through his son Solomon. It's interesting that in the Book of Matthew, the genealogy of Joseph is traced back to King David through his son Solomon, but ultimately down to the cursed King Jechiniah. However, in the Book of Luke, the genealogy goes from David not through his son Solomon, but through his son Nathan. The problem is that even if one wants to maintain that the Book of Luke is tracing the genealogy of Mary and that it's possible to pass on genealogical lineage through the mother, Mary would still not be of help to Jesus because her line does not go back to David through Solomon. We see the requirement that the Messiah be a descendant of both David and Solomon in the second Book of Samuel chapter 7 and in the first Book of Chronicles, chapters 17, 22, and 28. Finally, a fourth problem presents itself. The third chapter in the Book of Luke lists both Shealtiel and Zrubavel in the genealogy. These two also appear in Matthew chapter 1 as descendants of the cursed King Jechiniah. Therefore, if Mary descends from Shealtiel and Zrubavel, this would also place her under the curse of King Jechiniah and she too would be disqualified from ever being a messianic progenitor. To recap, we've seen that Jesus failed to fulfill any of the major messianic prophecies. He was never anointed as king, he never ruled Israel, and the world was certainly not perfected in his time. In addition, he was not preceded by the return of the prophet Elijah. And finally, he was disqualified from ever being a messianic candidate due to his pedigree. Many missionaries may claim that Jesus was able to establish his rights to the messianic throne through his performance of miracles. It would be appropriate at this time to examine the validity of this claim. First of all, there's no reason to believe that any of the miracles claimed on behalf of Jesus ever took place. The only source of knowledge of these miracles is the New Testament, which was not written by historians but by Christian missionaries trying to convince people of the messiahship of Jesus, hardly unbiased testimony. Actually, much of the New Testament has been shown to be historically suspect. For example, Pontius Pilate is portrayed as mild-mannered and cowering to the Jewish people. Yet the historian Josephus and Philo portray him as a vicious, bloodthirsty tyrant who was actually relieved of his office by the Roman High Command for his brutality. Secondly, even if miracles did take place, they don't prove anything. Pharaoh's magicians, for example, in the seventh and eighth chapters of the book of Exodus, were able to replicate some of the miracles that Moses performed in Egypt. It's interesting that the Bible never says that miracles would be a way to identify the messiah. And finally, the Bible even predicted, in the 13th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, that God would send false prophets who would be able to perform signs and wonders and miracles to test the Jewish people's fidelity to God. Christian missionaries often raise the issue of the resurrection of Jesus as a claim to his messianic credibility. Again, there's no reason to believe that this ever took place, since the only source for the alleged resurrection of Jesus is the New Testament. It's interesting that the Gospel of Matthew claims that after Jesus was resurrected, the bodies of many righteous Jewish people were resurrected from their graves and walked around the streets of Jerusalem. This seems as credible as the claims of some people today that they've seen Elvis Presley alive, or the scores of Catholics who claim to have personally seen the Virgin Mary. Just because something is claimed doesn't mean that it's true. The much touted Shroud of Turin, which was claimed to substantiate the resurrection of Jesus, was recently shown conclusively to be a fake. What's more difficult is that even though the Gospels are the only source of the resurrection, they each impeach the others' testimony. Each of the four Gospels gives a completely different account of the resurrection of Jesus. For example, who first approached the empty tomb? According to the Gospel of John, Mary Magdalene by herself approached the empty tomb. According to the Gospel of Matthew, it was Mary Magdalene with the other woman named Mary. According to the Gospel of Mark, it was the two Marys and Salome. According to the Gospel of Luke, it was the two Marys and Joanna. What actually happened back then? Who did they first see when they came to the tomb? According to the Book of Matthew, they saw an angel sitting outside the tomb. According to the Book of Luke, they saw two men sitting inside the tomb. According to the Book of Mark, they saw one man sitting inside the tomb. And according to the Gospel of John, they didn't see anyone at all. What actually happened at the resurrection? Who first told Mary Magdalene about the resurrection of Jesus? According to the Book of Matthew, it was an angel. According to the Book of Mark, it was a man. According to the Gospel of Luke, it was two men. And according to the Gospel of John, it was Jesus himself. Who did Jesus first appear to? According to the Book of Matthew, it was to a joy-filled Mary Magdalene on the road. However, according to the Gospel of John, it was to a grief-stricken Mary Magdalene in the tomb itself. What did the women do when they were informed that Jesus had risen? According to the Gospel of Mark, they fearfully kept the news to themselves. According to the books of Luke and Matthew, they rushed to inform the disciples. We don't get a straight story from any of the Gospels. Who did Jesus first reveal himself to and where? According to the books of Matthew and Mark, it was to the eleven disciples in the Galilee. According to the Book of Luke, it was to the eleven disciples in Jerusalem. And according to the Gospel of John, it was to the ten disciples in Jerusalem. Now, Christian apologists claim that the discrepancy between the four Gospel accounts is similar to four different people who witness a traffic accident and will give slightly different reports because they're seeing the event from four slightly different perspectives. The problem with this explanation is that none of the Gospel writers were eyewitnesses to the resurrection. And finally, Christians claim that the New Testament is the Word of God. And God would hardly make a mistake in transmitting the story that happened. One of the most damning issues is that even in the New Testament accounts, Jesus' disciples didn't recognize him when he appeared, and many didn't believe the reports that he was alive. Hardly information that would inspire us now to believe the story. According to the Christian Bible, when Jesus was alive, the leading rabbis asked him for a sign. In the 12th chapter of the Book of Matthew, Jesus says that the only sign he would give them would be his own resurrection. However, Jesus never appeared before the Sanhedrin or the Pharisees after his alleged resurrection. Certainly, if he was supposed to be giving them a sign, he would have appeared in his post-resurrection state to show the rabbis the sign that he had promised them. The only people that Jesus is said to have appeared to were his own followers. It certainly seems more reasonable to assume that the story of the resurrection was invented by the followers of Jesus, who needed to explain away his embarrassing death at the hands of the Romans. Another tactic employed by Christian missionaries is to try and demonstrate that all of their teachings are actually found in the Jewish Bible, in the Tanakh. This is done for two reasons. First, having a source in the Jewish Bible would be an indication that what they believe is true. Secondly, missionaries are anxious to demonstrate that if a Jewish person accepts Christian teachings, he's doing nothing which is antithetical to Judaism. Therefore, if the missionary can show that belief in Jesus and accepting other Christian dogma can be found in the Jewish Bible, then the Jewish person is relieved of any guilt. He can feel at the same time that he can accept Jesus and Christianity and be consistent with Jewish teachings. This technique is called proof texting, finding biblical texts which support Christian beliefs. Missionaries frequently claim that the Jewish Bible contains hundreds of prophecies which predict the coming of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. We saw before that the Jewish Bible never uses the word Messiah as a title for a particular person. Rather, the word Messiah is a description of anyone who is anointed with oil. The term the Messiah we saw never appears in the Jewish Bible in reference to someone who is going to come in the future. The Jewish concept of the Messiah and the use of the word the Messiah to refer to that person developed by looking at the passages in the Bible which speak of a future king who will come and rule Israel at a time when the entire world is at peace and the entire world believes in God. Although the Bible never refers to that person as the Messiah, we by convention refer to him as the Messiah. Because as a king, he's anointed, he's a Messiah. Since he's the special anointed one to come in the future, we refer to him as the Messiah. I once asked a missionary that if the word the Messiah never actually appears in the Jewish Bible, how could he be so sure that his 300 plus verses actually refer to the Messiah and prophesize the coming of Jesus? The missionary told me that I was quite right. He really couldn't say for certain that any of those passages referred to the Messiah. But if they were all put together, the picture that emerged would be clear. In response, I told him that 300 times 0 is still 0. You can't take 300 pieces of weak evidence and put them together and make them into strong evidence. It's often been said that Christian missionaries use the Jewish Bible much in the same way that a drunk makes use of a lamp post. Not so much for illumination, but for support. A story is told of a man walking through the forest and seeing a tree with a target painted on it. In the center of the target, exactly in the middle of the bullseye, is an arrow, an incredibly accurate shot. There were no other arrows in the tree, no near misses. He walks further and sees another tree with one arrow stuck dead center in the middle of a bullseye. He continues walking and sees tree after tree, each one a bullseye dead center. The man is astonished. He begins to search for the archer. He sees someone carrying a bow and arrow and quiver and stops him and says, did you shoot those arrows? And the man says yes. And the first person says, that's the most amazing thing I ever saw in my life. I can't believe how accurate you are. And the man stopped him and said, you shouldn't be so impressed with my shooting. You see, first I shoot the arrow at the tree, and then I draw the target around it. We're going to see that this is precisely what Christian missionaries do when using the Jewish Bible to prove their beliefs. They don't study the Jewish Bible to see what it has to teach. Rather, they approach the Jewish Bible with preconceived conclusions and then try to find support for those ideas much in the same way that there was a verdict and then a trial in the story Alice in Wonderland. When we examine these Christian missionary proof texts, we're going to find that there are a number of floors that are used in their arguments. The first problem that we need to be aware of is that occasionally Christians have invented verses out of whole cloth from the Old Testament. That is, in order to prove that something was in the Jewish Bible, they would quote a verse as saying what they wanted to prove whether or not it actually existed. For example, in the second chapter in the Gospel of Matthew, the story of the early years of Jesus is told, and the New Testament relates that Jesus and his family had to flee from the land of Israel because Herod, who was ruling at that time, was seeking to kill him. The Gospel goes on to say that when Jesus' family found out that Herod had died, they returned to the land of Israel and settled in a city called Nazareth. The New Testament claims that this happened in fulfillment of a prophecy from the Jewish Bible. The 23rd verse in the second chapter of Matthew reads, and they came and resided in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, quote, He shall be called a Nazarene, unquote. Now the problem here is that if you search through the entire Jewish Bible, you will find no verse which says anything about anyone being called a Nazarene. As a matter of fact, the city Nazareth is never mentioned at all in the Jewish Bible or in post-Biblical Jewish literature. Clearly, this is a verse completely manufactured by the author of the book of Matthew to prove a point that he finds important. The 27th chapter in the book of Matthew tells the story of the demise of Judas Iscariot, who allegedly betrayed Jesus to the Romans. According to the story as told in the book of Matthew, he began feeling terribly guilty, and he threw the pieces of silver into the temple and ran away and killed himself. The priests took the money and said that it wouldn't be proper to use it in the temple, so they took the money and bought a potter's field as a burial place for strangers. The story goes on to say that for this reason the field had been called the field of blood, and then in verse 9 says that what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled saying, quote, and they took the 30 pieces of silver, the price of the one whose price had been set by the sons of Israel, and they gave it to them for the potter's field as the Lord directed me, unquote. Again, if you were to search through the entire book of Jeremiah or the entire Jewish Bible, you will find no such verse. Let's look at one more example of a verse manufactured by Christian missionaries. In the book of Hebrews, in the New Testament, chapter 10, a passage is quoted from the book of Psalms, which is claimed to predict that God intended to sacrifice the Messiah. The New Testament here claims to quote a verse from the 40th chapter in the book of Psalms, verse 7, and says, quote, sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me, unquote. And the New Testament goes on to say that that body is the body of Jesus. Now, if you were to go back to the book of Psalms in the Jewish Bible and check chapter 40, verse 7, you'll see that it says, quote, sacrifice and meal offering you have no delight in, my ears you have opened, burnt offering and sin offering you have not required, unquote. You'll see there's no reference in the Jewish Bible to any body being prepared. Aside from the fact that missionaries will sometimes manufacture verses that don't exist in the Jewish Bible, they will frequently misquote or mistranslate verses from the Jewish Bible. A famous example is from the 22nd chapter in the book of Psalms, verse 17. The verse correctly translated reads, for dogs have encompassed me, a company of evil doers have enclosed me like a lion at my hands and my feet, unquote. In order to come up with what they feel is a reference to the crucifixion of Jesus, missionaries mistranslate this passage and read it to say, they have pierced my hands and my feet. Now the word in question in this passage is the word Kaari, which correctly translated is like a lion. We find that this word appears in several places in the Jewish Bible. For example, in the 38th chapter of the book of Isaiah, verse 13, even Christian translations of Isaiah render it as like a lion and not they pierced. We find that throughout the book of Psalms, David uses this metaphor of a lion to portray the enemies that are pursuing him. For example, in the 7th chapter of the book of Psalms, verse 3, David says, lest he tear my soul like a lion. And even in the 22nd chapter of Psalms that we are examining, in the 22nd verse, David says, save me from the lion's mouth. Another example of mistranslation or misquoting from the Jewish Bible is from the New Testament book of Romans, chapter 11, verse 26, where the Christian Bible quotes the book of Isaiah from the Jewish Bible as saying, quote, the Deliverer will come from Zion and he will remove ungodliness from Jacob, unquote. Now this is done to support the Christian view that the purpose of the Messiah is to take away our sins. However, if you look at the original passage in the book of Isaiah, chapter 59, verse 20, it really says something quite different. There we read, quote, a Redeemer will come to Zion and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob declares the Lord, unquote. So we see that the Messiah's role is not to take away our sins, but rather when we turn from our sins, when we repent, then the Messiah will come, which is a perspective quite the opposite of that taken in the book of Romans. Now aside from completely manufacturing passages from the Jewish Bible or mistranslating them, another very common error that's made by missionaries is quoting passages from the Jewish Bible out of context. For example, in the second chapter of the book of Matthew, which discusses the infancy of Jesus, we saw before that Jesus and his family fled from the land of Israel and went down to Egypt. The author of the book of Matthew claims that this was in fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Verse 15 says that they were in Egypt until the death of Herod, so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, quote, out of Egypt did I call my son, unquote. The gospel is making the point that the Jewish Bible already predicted hundreds of years before that God would take the Messiah out of the land of Egypt. Now the book of Matthew is quoting part of a passage from the Jewish Bible's book of Hosea, chapter 11, verse one. The problem is that when we read the entire verse in the book of Hosea, we see that it's not about the Messiah at all. Hosea says, quote, when Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son, unquote. We see in this chapter of Hosea that the prophet is speaking about the Jewish people in their infancy during the beginning of their history, and God at that time took them out of the land of Egypt. When Israel was a child, at that stage in their history, I loved them, God says, and out of Egypt I called my son. Throughout the Bible, we see that God refers to the Jewish people as his children, oftentimes as his son. For example, in the fourth chapter of the book of Exodus, verse 22, God says, beni b'chori Yisrael, my son, my firstborn son, is Israel. The second chapter in the book of Matthew from the New Testament provides us with another example of quotation out of context. The passage there says that Herod, in his efforts to destroy the infant Jesus, went to his hometown of Bethlehem and killed all the baby boys in that city and all the outlying areas who were under the age of two. And the New Testament writer claims that this happened in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Chapter two, verse 17 of Matthew says, then that which was spoken through Jeremiah, the prophet was fulfilled, saying, quote, a voice was heard in Rama, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and she refused to be comforted because they were no more, unquote. And here, Matthew claims that the slaughter of these children at the hands of Herod was in fulfillment of this verse from the Jewish Bible's book of Jeremiah. Now, when we read Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 15, we see that Matthew correctly quoted from that passage. However, in context, we'll see that Jeremiah was not speaking about the slaughter and massacre of young children, but of something quite different. There's a famous statement in our Talmud that whenever a heretic quotes from our Bible in order to make a point, the answer is usually nearby. Now, when we read the 31st chapter of the book of Jeremiah, the simplest way of demonstrating the fallacy of Matthew's interpretation is to read the verses that come after the one that he quotes. And there, Jeremiah states in the 16th and 17th verses in response to the crying and weeping of Rachel, quote, thus says the Lord, restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. And there is hope for your future, says God, and your children shall return to their border, unquote. We see that the prophet was not speaking about children who were killed, but rather about children who were taken into captivity. And Jeremiah here is referring to the Babylonian conquest of the land of Israel and taking many, many Jewish people into captivity to the land of Babylon. And Jeremiah predicts that these children will return to the land of Israel. Now, it's often possible when viewing a passage in context to demonstrate to a Christian missionary that the verse could not possibly be speaking about Jesus. For example, there is a pamphlet given out by missionaries entitled 27 prophecies fulfilled in one day. The first of those passages is from the book of Psalms, chapter 41, verse 10, which says, yes, my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, who did eat of my bread, has lifted up his heel against me. The missionary claim is that this is a prophecy which is predicting that the Messiah would be betrayed by a close friend. Before actually analyzing this verse in the book of Psalms, two questions need to be asked. First, is this passage even a prophecy? Generally speaking, in the Jewish Bible, prophecies are written in the future tense. And many times, prophecies are introduced with an introduction such as, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, or it will come to pass at the end of days, says the Lord. That the passage in front of us is not written in the future tense, but in the past tense. David is saying that he was betrayed by a close friend. So we always have to ask ourselves, are we actually reading a prophecy? Or is it a verse appropriated by Christian missionaries and turned into a prophecy? The second issue is, are we actually reading a messianic prophecy? What about this passage indicates that it's speaking of the Messiah? A good test for this is to place yourself in the shoes of someone living 100 or 200 years before Jesus and asking yourself, what about this passage indicates that it's a messianic prophecy? Let's look at the 41st chapter in the book of Psalms. It says, how blessed is he who considers the helpless? The Lord will deliver him in a day of trouble. The Lord will protect him and keep him alive. And he shall be called blessed upon the earth and do not give him over to the desire of his enemies. The Lord will sustain him upon his sickbed. In his illness, you restore him to health. As for me, I said, oh Lord, be gracious to me. Heal my soul, for I have sinned against you. My enemies speak evil against me. When will he die in his name perish? And when he comes to see me, he speaks falsehood. His heart gathers wickedness to itself. When he goes outside, he tells it. All who hate me whisper together against me. Against me they devise my hurt, saying a wicked thing has poured out upon him. That when he lies down, he will not rise up again. Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me. Oh you, oh God, be gracious to me and raise me up that I may repay them. By this I know that you are pleased with me because my enemy does not shout in triumph over me. As for me, you uphold me in my integrity and you set me in your presence forever. Ask an honest missionary, why would someone living 100 years before Jesus understand this psalm to be a messianic prophecy? What about the psalm indicates that it's a messianic prophecy? You probably won't get an answer. Furthermore, there are indications in this psalm that for a Christian, it certainly could never be referring to Jesus. In verse five, the speaker says, as for me I said, oh Lord, be gracious unto me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against you. The same person that in verse 10 says that he was betrayed by a close friend says that he sinned against God. Christians believe that Jesus never sinned. How could this possibly be referring to Jesus? Another example of a passage which in context could never refer to the Jesus that Christians believe in is from the New Testament book of Hebrews chapter one, verse five, which quotes a verse from the second book of Samuel in the Jewish Bible, chapter seven, verse 14, which says, I will be a father to him and he shall be a son to me. The New Testament takes this passage as a prophecy speaking about Jesus, who they consider to be the son of God. However, when we look at the passage in the second book of Samuel, it says that quote, I will be a father to him and he shall be a son to me. And continues by saying, when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men. Now this passage in the book of Samuel is a passage speaking to King David about his son Salomon. How could Christians possibly apply this to Jesus when the passage speaks about the possibility of his son sinning? And Christians believe that Jesus could never sin. Finally, Christian missionaries often engage in circular reasoning. We've seen many passages in the Jewish Bible which do speak about the coming of the Messiah. Christians believe that since Jesus was the Messiah, these passages must refer to him. Christians will say that they believe Jesus was the Messiah because he fulfilled biblical prophecy. But if you ask them to explain how they know that Jesus fulfilled those prophecies, they say it's because he was the Messiah. Let's look at a few examples. In the book of Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 18, God says, I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto you, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I command him. The first question here obviously is why would we consider this to be a messianic prophecy? In context, the passage is speaking to the Jewish people and to Moses when God will raise up a prophet to lead the Jewish people after the death of Moses. The passage does not speak about a Messiah that's going to come in the future. It speaks about a prophet that will follow Moses. Even if you allow for the Christian interpretation that this passage refers to the Messiah, all it would be saying is that in the future, the Messiah would come. The passage doesn't indicate that Jesus fulfilled that. Christians begin with the conclusion. They begin with the assumption that Jesus was the Messiah and therefore if this passage says that the Messiah would come, according to Christians, it must be referring to Jesus. Again, an example of circular reasoning. A final example is from the book of Isaiah chapter 11 verse two, which says, and the spirit of the Lord will rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding. Christians maintain that this passage refers to Jesus. However, the problem is that unless you first accept the Christian belief in Jesus, there's no way of applying this passage in Isaiah to Jesus. Obviously, anyone could apply this passage to someone that they believe the spirit of God rests upon. The followers of the Ayatollah might have applied this passage to the Ayatollah. The followers of Reverend Moon might apply this passage to Reverend Moon. Again, if you first shoot your arrow, it's always very easy to then score a bullseye. With this introduction to the field of Christian proof texting, we can now examine some of the more popular passages that missionaries use to prove their beliefs to Jewish people. One of the problems that Christians have with their proof texts is that many of them are quite meaningless. They might bring a proof text showing that the Messiah was supposed to ride on a donkey and then they show that Jesus rode on a donkey. So he must be the Messiah. Or they'll bring a proof text that the Messiah was supposed to be betrayed by a close friend. And Jesus was betrayed by a close friend. Therefore, he must be the Messiah. Obviously, these are meaningless proof texts because literally millions of people have written on donkeys. Millions of people have been betrayed by close friends. So Christians have been forced to find prophecies which are a bit more unusual. If, for example, the Jewish Bible had said that you'd be able to recognize the Messiah because he'd have 16 heads, he'd be 42 feet tall, he'd have orange hair and 9,000 belly buttons, then when that person came on the stage of history, people would have a good reason to believe that he was the Messiah. Missionaries have attempted to come up with such an unusual prophecy by their claim that the Torah predicted that the Messiah would be born of a virgin. Now this is obviously a very unusual claim because the idea that someone is born to a woman who is a virgin is clearly unusual. And they based this prophecy on the seventh chapter in the book of Isaiah, verse 14, where it says, therefore God himself will give you a sign. Behold, the Alma shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. Now Christians claim that the Hebrew word Alma in this verse means virgin. Therefore, they are saying that the sign that God is going to give us is the birth of the Messiah to a virgin. The first problem here is one of mistranslation. Again, Christians claim that the word Alma is translated as virgin. However, the correct translation of Alma is a young woman or young maiden. The idea of Alma refers to her youth and not to her sexual experience. The male counterpart of Alma is Elam, which even according to non-Jewish or Christian translations of the Jewish Bible is always rendered as young man. For example, in the first book of Samuel, chapter 17, verse 56, and in the book of Isaiah, chapter 54, verse 4, we find the word Elam is used and translated as young man. Secondly, the Jewish Bible and the Hebrew language has a word which specifically does mean virgin, and that's the word Betulah. Whenever the Jewish Bible is interested in specifically telling you that a woman is a virgin and not just that she's a young woman, it will use the word Betulah and not the more general term Alma. We see this, for example, in the 22nd chapter of the book of Deuteronomy and in chapter 21, verse 3, in the book of Leviticus. One of the arguments that Christian missionaries use to press their idea that the word Alma is translated as virgin is based upon the Greek translation of the Bible known as the Septuagint. Christian missionaries claim that this translation was rendered by Jewish rabbis 200 years before Jesus and that when they translated the word Alma in the book of Isaiah into Greek, they translated it into the word Parthenos, which they claim means virgin. And therefore they say, it's not they who translated the word Alma as virgin, but the rabbis themselves hundreds of years before Jesus. There are two main problems with this claim. The first problem is that the Septuagint translation that was done by the rabbis was only of the five books of Moses and not of the books of the prophets. We really don't know who authored the Greek translation of the prophets. Therefore, as far as Jewish tradition is concerned, the Septuagint translation, the Greek translation of the prophets has no authority. Secondly, if you were to look at the usage of the word Parthenos in the Septuagint translation, you'll find that it's not that clear that it refers specifically to a virgin. For example, in the 34th chapter of the book of Genesis, which is a story about the rape of Dina, who was the daughter of Jacob, the Bible refers to, or the Septuagint refers to Dina as a Parthenos after she's been raped. Therefore, it's not that clear that when the Septuagint uses the word Parthenos, it's using it exclusively to refer to virgins. The evidence for the Jewish translation of Alma as a young woman, as opposed to the traditional Christian mistranslation into virgin, has been recognized by more and more Christian scholars over the years, and we see that many Christian Bibles of late have been correcting the mistake and translating Isaiah chapter seven, verse 14, appropriately as referring to a young woman. We see this, for example, in the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, in the Jerusalem Bible put out by the Catholic Church, and in the Good News Bible. A second area of concern regarding the virgin birth prophecy is the problem of context. Is this passage from Isaiah a messianic prophecy? Is there anything about it that would lead a person to believe that it's speaking about the coming of the Messiah? Obviously, the only solution to this question is to read the entire chapter. Starting from verse one, we see that the seventh chapter of Isaiah is speaking about a very difficult time in the history of the Jewish people. Isaiah was prophesizing about 600 years before the Common Era, and during his days, there was a split in the Jewish people between the 10 northern tribes, which was called the Kingdom of Israel or the Kingdom of Ephraim, and the two southern tribes, which were called the Kingdom of Judah. And these two kingdoms were at war for many, many years. In the seventh chapter of Isaiah, we're told that there was a siege laid upon the Kingdom of Judah by the northern Kingdom of Israel and by the King of Aram, which was a non-Jewish nation to the east of Israel. The King of Judah, whose name was Achaz, a wicked king, was completely terrified by the impending attack of these two nations. He felt that the combined forces of the 10 northern tribes of Israel and the Eastern Kingdom of Aram would destroy him. Therefore, the prophet Isaiah is sent to King Achaz to console him and to tell him that all would be fine and he shouldn't worry. The prophet Isaiah tells Achaz not just to take his word for it, but to ask of a sign from God that things would be okay. At first, King Achaz refuses. So the prophet says that God will give him a sign. And what is the sign? The sign is that, quote, the young woman will conceive and bear a son and you shall call his name Immanuel, unquote. Now the name Immanuel is significant because it means God is with us. The King might have thought that since he's being attacked by two great nations, he's being abandoned by God. So God tells him, no, I am with you. The prophecy continues in verse 15, saying, curd and honey shall he eat when he knows to refuse the evil and choose the good. And before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings horrify you shall be forsaken, unquote. The real sign that King Achaz is given here is that there'll be a child born to the young woman. Verse 14 speaks about the Alma, ha Alma, obviously a woman he knows. And this child will be just a young child before he even knows to distinguish between good and evil. Achaz is told that before that time, the two nations that he's in dread of shall be destroyed. We see that the fulfillment of this prophecy takes place in the second book of Kings, chapters 15 and 16, where indeed the two nations that are threatening the kingdom of Judah are destroyed. Obviously when read in context, Isaiah chapter seven doesn't speak at all about the coming of the Messiah. Its context is limited to the historical crisis facing the kingdom of Judah many hundreds of years before Jesus ever walked the earth. It's interesting that the passage in Isaiah says that this child will be called Immanuel. Nowhere in the Christian Bible is Jesus ever called or named or referred to as Immanuel. A third issue is the notion of a sign. The prophet here is promising a sign to Achaz, the king of Judah. How would the virgin birth of Jesus, hundreds of years later ever function as a sign as a reassurance to King Achaz? But more specifically, how could a virgin birth ever serve as a sign that Jesus was the Messiah? In the gospel accounts, Joseph and Mary are engaged to be married and Joseph comes home and finds that Mary is pregnant. Realizing that he wasn't a father, he suspects that Mary had been unfaithful. Joseph doesn't come home to see the pregnant Mary and say, praise God, you must be the mother of the Messiah. He can't tell that she's still a virgin. It's obviously impossible for a virgin birth to function as a sign because it can't be seen. No one could walk down the street during the time of Jesus and look at him and recognize that he was born to a virgin. And no one could look at Mary and recognize that she was a virgin. Mary wasn't walking around Palestine with a gynecological examination sticker pasted to her clothing. Obviously, a virgin birth could never function as a sign. It's interesting that although there's no source for the idea of a virgin birth of the Messiah in the Jewish Bible, the concept was very popular among pagan mythologies during the days of early Christianity. The myths about Buddha, Krishna, Mithra, Osiris, Tamuz, Dionysus, Bacchus and Isis are replete with stories about virgin-born saviors who were killed and are resurrected to atone for the sins of their followers. And it's clear that the idea that Jesus was born of a virgin stems from these pagan mythologies and not from the Jewish Bible. At the time that Jesus was killed on a Roman cross, it became clear to the Jewish people of his time that he wasn't the Messiah. But what happens to the people who had followed him for so many years? What happens to the people who put so much faith in the possibility that he would redeem them from the Roman oppression? In a famous book written by Dr. Leon Festinger entitled When Prophecy Fails, the issue of people facing a disconfirmation of their beliefs is dealt with. Festinger theorized that a group of people whose beliefs run up against radical and stark disconfirmation will instead of giving up those beliefs, generally become more aggressive in trying to convert other people to what they believe. In the mid-1600s, Shapsites Fee was a Jewish person who attracted many people to the belief that he was the Messiah. His followers sold their homes and sold their possessions and were going to follow him back to the land of Israel where he would become the king. On the way back, Shapsites Fee was captured by the Turks, thrown into jail and forced to convert to Islam. It became clear to most of the Jewish world at that time that Shapsites Fee wasn't a Jewish Messiah. However, many of his followers who were not able to admit that they were deceived, that they were wrong, ended up claiming that the person in jail was not the real Shapsites Fee. The real one they claim went up to heaven. The one in jail was just a fake and the real Shapsites Fee would soon come down from heaven and take them back to the land of Israel. As Sigmund Freud said, when it comes to self-deception, every man is a genius. These followers of Shapsites Fee then found verses in the Jewish Bible proving that the Messiah was supposed to convert. Similarly, the early followers of Jesus had to explain away his death at the hands of the Romans. Their explanation was that Jesus was supposed to die as an atonement for the sins of the world. This brings us to the most famous and most popular proof text that's used by Christian missionaries. And it's the famous passage from the 53rd chapter in the Book of Isaiah, which is about the suffering servant of God. Christians will point to verses five and six, for example, as proof that Jesus was the Messiah. It says, He was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastisement of our welfare was upon Him and with His stripes we were healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We turned everyone to His own way and the Lord visited upon Him the iniquity of us all. Obviously, Christian missionaries have been attracted to this passage in Isaiah because it seems to resemble their concept of who Jesus was. However, when we examine the context of this chapter in Isaiah, there is no reason for us to assume that it's a messianic prophecy. It's interesting that in the New Testament, the followers of Jesus certainly didn't understand it as a messianic prophecy. They had no concept at all that the Messiah was supposed to die as a part of His plan. In the 16th chapter of the Book of Matthew, Jesus asks his disciples who he is. Peter identifies him as the Messiah and Jesus congratulates him for getting the correct answer. However, when Jesus begins to tell them that he has to go to Jerusalem to be persecuted and tortured and killed, Peter protests strongly and says, God forbid, this could never happen to you. Now, Peter didn't say to Jesus, praise God, you must be the suffering servant that Isaiah spoke about. Clearly, no one understood Isaiah as prophesizing the death of the Messiah. Another important issue is that there's no corroboration for the Christological interpretation of this passage in Isaiah. We saw previously that the Jewish concept of the Messiah emerged organically from reading the entire Bible and finding many passages which spoke about a descendant of David who would become the king of Israel at a time when the entire world was perfected. The Christian understanding of the Messiah is that he's supposed to die as an atonement for sin. One of the great weaknesses of this idea is that the entire concept is founded upon this controversial passage in Isaiah that we're examining. There is no corroboration for it anywhere else in the Bible. Another idea is that the Christian concept here is based upon circular reasoning. Although they may claim that Isaiah 53 is speaking about the suffering of the Messiah, there's no proof that Jesus actually suffered and died to his tone for people's sins. Although people might have seen Jesus dying and Jesus suffering, they only believed that his suffering atoned for their sins. There is no proof that he indeed actually did that. Before we examine this chapter in Isaiah according to a Jewish perspective, we'll look at a number of reasons why it's difficult to make the claim that it's speaking about Jesus. Chapter 53 verse three says that the servant would be despised and rejected of men. However, this is not consistent with the way Jesus is painted in the New Testament. According to the Gospels, Jesus was immensely popular. There were constantly multitudes of people following him. According to the book of Luke, he was glorified and praised by all. According to the Gospel of Mark, when he was finally taken away to be crucified, it had to be done secretly because the Roman rulers were afraid that a riot might break out among the people. Verse three in Isaiah also says that the servant was a man of constant pain and well acquainted with disease. There's no indication or proof in the Gospels that this applied to Jesus at all. Although he might have experienced some pain during his hours of crucifixion, there's no reason to believe that during his entire lifetime, he suffered and was well acquainted with pain and with illness. In verse seven, Isaiah says he was oppressed though he humbled himself and did not open his mouth. As the lamb that is led to the slaughter and as a sheep that before his shearers is dumb, he did not open his mouth. This description doesn't fit Jesus at all. In his trial before the Roman Pontius Pilate on charges of sedition, Jesus very cleverly defends himself. According to the Gospel of John chapter 18, verse 36, Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world. His claim that he's only setting up a spiritual kingdom is meant to defuse the situation so the Romans should have no fear of an armed rebellion from himself or from his followers. Later at the crucifixion, Jesus protests and screams out according to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 27, verse 46, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He clearly does open his mouth. By mistranslating part of verse eight, Christian apologists try to create the impression that the servant in this passage is a singular person. However, the Hebrew in verse eight says, mi pesha ami nega lamo, that through the transgressions of my people, they were afflicted. The word lamo in Hebrew is a plural form and it means they or them. Therefore, according to this verse, the suffering servant is a group of people and not one individual. According to verse nine, the servant did no violence. Neither was there any deceit in his mouth. Now from the accounts in the New Testament, this clearly doesn't apply to Jesus. First of all, there were several acts of violence committed by Jesus. According to the Gospels, he came into the temple with a whip in hand and chased out the money changers, turning over their tables. Chasing out people with a whip could hardly be construed as an act of non-violence. In the 21st chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus at one point is hungry and sees a fig tree on the road. He comes to it but finds no figs on it, only leaves. Getting angry, he says, may there no longer be any fruit on you from now on. And at once, the fig tree withered. This story becomes more difficult to understand in light of the fact that according to the Gospel of Mark, it wasn't even the season for the growing of figs. And according to the Book of Deuteronomy in the Jewish Bible, chapter 20, verse 19, even in a time of war, when waging a siege against the city, it's prohibited to cut down a fruit tree because God said, is the tree of the field a man that it should be besieged by you? It's difficult, therefore, to understand how Jesus could curse the tree that it should never produce fruit when if he was able to produce miracles, he could have just as easily blessed the tree that it should produce fruit. There's another story in the New Testament where Jesus unnecessarily kills an entire herd of swine. In a parable from the Book of Luke, chapter 19, verse 27, Jesus says, these enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence. Again, hardly a comment we would expect from someone dubbed the Prince of Peace. Regarding Jesus' deception and deceit, we have a number of examples. Throughout the New Testament, Jesus is constantly telling people to keep certain things secret. They shouldn't reveal that he was the Messiah. They shouldn't reveal that he performed certain miracles. He constantly taught in parables and he explained he was doing this so that people shouldn't understand what he was saying. However, when he's brought up before the Roman tribunal, he says in the Book of John, chapter 18, verse 20, that he's always spoken openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues and in the temple where all the Jews could come together. I spoke nothing in secret. Finally, in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 26, verse 52, Jesus says that all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. Yet we saw that in the Gospel of John, Jesus claimed that his kingdom was a kingdom not of this world. It was a spiritual kingdom. However, in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22, verse 36, Jesus tells his followers, let him who has no sword, sell his robe and buy one. In the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, verse 10, God explains how he will reward the servant. God says he shall see his seed and he will prolong his days. This clearly doesn't apply to Jesus. Seeing his seed is a reference to having children and Jesus had no children. Christians might claim that it means spiritual children. However, in the Bible, the word Zerah, seed, only refers to physical children. When the Bible wants to refer to spiritual descendants, it uses the word Banim, sons. For example, Banim atem la shem elokeichem, you are the sons of the Lord your God. The Bible doesn't refer to human beings as being the seed of God. Also, Jesus' days are not prolonged. He died at a relatively young age and according to Christian theology, Jesus actually was God. It obviously makes little sense to speak about prolonging the days of an eternal being. The traditional Jewish understanding of this passage in Isaiah is that it speaks about the history and destiny of the Jewish people. There are several reasons for assuming that this passage in Isaiah is speaking about the Jewish people as a whole. First of all, the context of the surrounding chapters 52 and 54 both deal with the Jewish people. Secondly, if we're looking for clues about the identity of the servant of God, we have many in the book of Isaiah and throughout the entire Jewish Bible. In the book of Isaiah chapter 41, chapter 43, chapter 44, chapter 45, chapter 48 and chapter 49, the servant of God is clearly identified as being the Jewish people. If you're wondering how this passage in Isaiah can refer to the nation of Israel when it seems to be speaking about an individual person, the answer is that throughout the Bible, the Jewish people as an entity are spoken about as an individual person. We see this, for example, in the 32nd chapter in the book of Deuteronomy. In the eighth chapter in the book of Hosea, verse three, throughout the opening chapters in the book of Exodus, when the Jews are being persecuted, it refers to him being persecuted. We see at Mount Sinai when the Jews are about to receive the Torah, it says, that he encamped under the mountain, obviously referring to all the Jewish people under the mountain. The concluding verses in chapter 52 of Isaiah predict that when the Jewish people fully blossom in the Messianic age, the nations of the world will be startled when they realize the true nature of their history vis-a-vis the Jewish people. Verse 13 says, behold, my servant shall prosper. He shall be exalted and lifted up and shall be very high. As many were astounded at him, his appearance was marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the sons of men, so shall he startle many nations. King shall shut their mouths because of him for that which they had not been told they shall see and that which they had not heard they shall understand. The Bible constantly speaks about the Jewish people as being exalted in the Messianic age. In the 61st chapter of Isaiah, verses 14 and 15, the prophet says, and the sons of those who afflicted you will come bowing to you and all those who despised you will bow themselves at the soles of your feet. Whereas you have been forsaken and hated with no one passing through, I will make you an everlasting pride, a joy from generation to generation. The Bible says that when the Jewish people are finally exalted in the Messianic age, the nations of the world will be shocked, the kings will be startled, their mouths will be shut. In the book of Micah, chapter 7, verse 16, the prophet says, nations will see and be ashamed of all their might, they will put their hand on their mouth, their ears will be deaf. The key to understanding the 53rd chapter in the book of Isaiah is to realize that it's just a continuation of the end of chapter 52 where the nations of the world and the kings will be shocked, will be startled at the sudden elevation of the Jewish people at the end of their history. These are the people that are speaking at the beginning of chapter 53 when they say, who would have believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? They're shocked when they see the arm of the Lord, which throughout the Bible speaks of the physical redemption of the Jewish people at the hands of those who oppress them. They go on to say in succeeding verses that the Jewish people were constantly despised and rejected, constantly persecuted, having emerged as a humble nation, wandering the desert after Egyptian exile. They begin to explain in verse four that the Jewish people were the scapegoats throughout their history, that whenever things are going bad with the nations of the world, either economically or politically, they would take it out upon the Jews as a way of relieving their pains. And they begin to admit in verse five that the Jewish people suffered as a result of their sins. This is normally translated in Christian Bibles as, he was wounded for our transgressions. However, the Hebrew here indicates that he, the servant, was wounded from our transgressions. The nations here admit that because they were so sinful throughout history, the Jewish people suffered. The Jewish people suffered as a result of our sinfulness, the nations say. We see this, for example, in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 10, verse 25, and chapter 50, verse 7. The nations admit that they were the cause of Jewish suffering. We are the ones that went astray. We're the ones that deserve to be punished. We just use the Jews as a scapegoat to cover up our own corruption and problems, to distract the masses. We thought we could solve our national problems by persecuting the Jews. And we gave the excuse that Jews were being punished because they were smitten of God because God hated them. Isaiah goes on to say in verse 7 that the Jewish people were led like lambs to the slaughter, yet they didn't protest or reject God. We see this expressed in the book of Psalms, chapter 44. Like the Jews who sang of their faith in God as they were being led into the gas chambers of the Nazi Holocaust. Or Rabbi Akiba, who recited the Shema, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might as his skin was being scraped off with an iron comb by Roman torturers. In verse 10, Isaiah explains that oftentimes the purpose of Jewish suffering is a test from God to see if the Jewish people would remain faithful. We see this exemplified in Genesis chapter 22 where Abraham is tested by God. And this testing serves to purify the Jewish people. If they accept the suffering as having a higher purpose and don't reject God, God will reward them. And God's purpose of messianic perfection will be realized through the Jewish people. The Jews, the chosen people will serve as the light to the nations and will help lead the world to God and cause them to be just and righteous. We see this, for example, in the eighth chapter in the book of Zaharia, verse 23, which says that in those days, 10 men from all the nations will grasp the garment of a Jew saying, let's go with you for we have heard that God is with you. It's significant that many non-Jewish commentaries to the Bible have come to agree with this Jewish understanding of the meaning of Isaiah chapter 53. Although we haven't had the time in this tape to go through a comprehensive, detailed explanation of this passage in Isaiah, it should be clear that it's impossible for it to function as a proof for the Christological claims made for Jesus. One of the most common claims made by Christian missionaries is that Jewish people are unable to achieve salvation or forgiveness for their sins without bringing a blood sacrifice. Christians believe that Jesus served as their blood sacrifice. Missionaries will claim that this idea is based upon a passage in the Jewish Bible which says that without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness. Actually, this passage doesn't appear anywhere in the Jewish Bible and it's a verse from the New Testament, book of Hebrews chapter 9 verse 22. Christian missionaries will claim that the idea is also found in the Jewish Bible in the book of Leviticus chapter 17 verse 11 which says, for the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul. Actually, if you read chapter 17 in the book of Leviticus in context it's not speaking about the topic of atonement from sins but rather the prohibition against eating or drinking blood. Also, the passage doesn't say that blood is the only way of achieving atonement. It says that blood sacrifice is an atonement. It's one of the ways of getting atonement for sins. Actually, this is fairly easy to prove. If you were to maintain that the only way of achieving forgiveness from sins in the Jewish Bible is through bringing a blood sacrifice there are several major problems. First, what happens to the Jew who can't afford to bring an animal sacrifice? Does that mean that God is not going to allow this person to be forgiven for his sins because he's poor? Actually, the Bible itself raised this question in the fifth chapter of the book of Leviticus and it says that if a person is too poor to move forward to bring an animal sacrifice he can bring either two turtle doves or two young pigeons. But what if he's too poor to even bring these birds? So the Bible says that he can bring a handful of fine flour as his sin offering. So we see that it's possible to achieve forgiveness in certain cases by bringing flour. And actually throughout the Bible there are many different types of sacrifices that achieve forgiveness for sins. For example, in the 16th chapter in the book of Numbers Aaron takes incense which makes atonement for the people. In the book of Exodus chapter 30 and in the book of Numbers chapter 31 giving charity is a way of achieving forgiveness. There's a second problem with the Christian claim that without blood there can be no forgiveness. According to the Bible you're only allowed to offer sacrifices in the holy temple. What happens if the Jewish people don't have a holy temple? What happens for example to the Jewish people after the year 586 BCE when the Babylonians destroyed the temple and took the Jewish people away into captivity? Does that mean that the Jewish people in Babylonia had no way of atoning for their sins? The Bible actually asked this question and answers it in the first book of Kings chapter eight. When King Solomon is building the temple and giving his dedication speech he asked the question what happens if the Jewish people are taken away from Israel into captivity? How do they atone for their sins in that case? And he says in verses 48 to 50 that if they repent and turn to God and pray to God then God will forgive his people and he will pardon them from their transgressions. And actually we see this throughout the Bible that through prayer and repentance it's possible to achieve atonement for all of our sins. The prophet Hosea was writing for the Jewish people in the northern kingdom of Israel to 10 northern tribes who were not able to go to Jerusalem because of the civil war that was going on. They had no access to the temple. And in the 14th chapter verses one and two Hosea says, Israel, return to the Lord your God for you have fallen by your iniquity. Take with you words and turn to the Lord. Say to him, take away all of our sins and receive us graciously for we will render the calves of our lips. Through prayer it's as if we're offering sacrifices to God. In the second book of Chronicles chapter seven verse 14 God says, If my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. In the book of Ezekiel chapter 18 verse 21 God says, If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he has committed and keep all of my laws and do that which is lawful and right he will surely live he shall not die. All of his transgressions that he has committed they shall not be mentioned unto him. In his righteousness that he has done he shall live. We see that by repenting and improving our lives we'll be forgiven by God. In the book of Jonah chapter three the prophet comes to the city of Nineveh and warns the people that God is about to destroy them. But Jonah does not tell them that they must start offering blood sacrifices. The people take his warning seriously and they repent and they turn from their evil ways and God does not destroy them and he accepts their repentance. In the book of Daniel chapter four Daniel tells the king to break off his sins by righteousness and his iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. The weakness of the Christian position is that none of the prophets ever stresses the primacy of sacrifices. Yet they all focus on the power of chuvah repentance as a response to sin. When Christian missionaries insist that God cannot forgive the Jewish people unless they bring sacrifices they actually limit the power of God. We know from the Bible that God is a God of mercy and often times will forgive people even though they don't repent properly. For example in the book of Micah chapter seven verse 18 we're told who is a God like unto you that pardons iniquity and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. He retains not his anger forever because he delights in mercy. Psalm 78 verse 37 says For their heart was not right with him neither were they steadfast in his covenant but he, being full of compassion forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not many a time turned his anger away and did not stir up all his wrath for he remembered that they were but flesh a wind that passes away and comes not again. In the 43rd chapter of the book of Isaiah the prophet tells the Jewish people that even though they didn't offer their sacrifices properly and they didn't bring the proper sacrifices God still blots out their transgressions for his own sake and he won't remember their sins anymore. It's clear throughout the Bible that the real focus of our spiritual relationship with God is not so much in bringing sacrifices but in maintaining a proper relationship with God by obedience and by listening to God. Hosea chapter six verse six says I desire mercy and not sacrifice and a knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. In Psalm 51 David says deliver me from blood guiltiness oh God God of my salvation and my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness oh Lord open my lips and my mouth shall show forth your praise for you desire not sacrifice or else I would give it you delight not in burnt offering but the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit a broken and contrite heart God you will not despise these. In the book of Proverbs chapter 21 verse three we're told that to do justice and judgment is more acceptable to God than sacrifices. In the famous first chapter of the book of Isaiah God asks the Jewish people what is the purpose of all the sacrifices you're bringing? He says in verse 18 come let us reason together although your sins be as scarlet they shall become as white as snow though they be red like crimson they shall become as wool if you be willing and obedient you shall eat the good of the land because in verse 27 God says Zion will be redeemed with judgment and her repentant people with righteousness. If Christian missionaries insist upon reading Leviticus 1711 literally they actually come into some tremendous problems. A missionary once insisted to me that the only way that I could be forgiven of my sins was through a blood sacrifice. I told him that earlier that morning I was preparing breakfast and I slipped cutting my bagel the knife went into my finger and blood dripped on the floor. I asked the missionary if this shedding of blood could serve to atone for my sins. He laughed and said obviously not you can't do whatever you want the Bible delineates how sacrifices are to be offered. I agreed with him and showed him Leviticus 1711 which says that only blood offered on the altar can serve as an atonement for sins. Since at the time of Jesus the altar was standing in Jerusalem and his blood was not offered on the altar he could never really serve as an atonement for sins. In addition sacrifices had to be offered by a priest and Roman soldiers obviously wouldn't qualify. Sacrifices have to be burnt Jesus wouldn't qualify for that either. Sacrifices have to be perfect with no blemish. Jesus wouldn't qualify he was beaten by the Romans had a crown of thorns cutting his head and his side pierced by a spear. We've seen how Jewish and Christian teachings about the Messiah and about atonement completely contradict each other. We've also tried to show that the Jewish concepts are rooted in the Tanakh whereas the Christian concepts are not and are only forced in by misreading the Jewish Bible. Although many missionaries will claim that a Jew doesn't have to give up his Jewishness when becoming a Christian and that Christianity is consistent with the Judaism of the Bible in reality we find that on every major theological issue Judaism and Christianity are at variance. Aside from the issues of the Messiah and atonement we differ on the concepts such as God salvation, the law and the canon of the Bible. It's impossible to simultaneously hold both the Christian and Jewish ideas on these topics. The missionary claim that the teachings of Christianity are compatible with Judaism is plainly false. We hope that this tape has been helpful to you. Should you have any further questions concerning Judaism and Christianity or how to answer Christian missionaries contact your nearest Jews for Judaism office and we will be available to help you in any way. Remember, the Torah is a tree of life to those who take hold of it. All of life's answers are found in it. As the Psalmist says, taste and see that it is good. Shalom.