Jews have traditionally seen Jesus as one of a number of false messiahs who have appeared throughout history.[1] Jesus is viewed as having been the most influential, and consequently the most damaging, of all false messiahs.[2] However, since the general Jewish belief is that the Messiah has not yet come and that the Messianic Age is not yet present, the total rejection of Jesus as either messiah or deity in Judaism has never been a central issue for Judaism. At the heart of Judaism are the Torah, its commandments, the Tanakh, and ethical monotheism such as in the Shema — all of which predated Jesus.
Judaism has never accepted any of the claimed fulfillments of prophecy that Christianity attributes to Jesus. Judaism also forbids the worship of a person as a form of idolatry, since the central belief of Judaism is the absolute unity and singularity of God.[3][4]
Jewish eschatology holds that the coming of the Messiah will be associated with a specific series of events that have not yet occurred, including the return of Jews to their homeland and the rebuilding of The Temple, a Messianic Age of peace[5] and understanding during which "the knowledge of God" fills the earth,[6] and since none of these events occurred during the lifetime of Jesus (nor have they occurred afterwards), he is not a candidate for messiah.
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The belief that Jesus (or any other human) is God, any deity, the son of God, or a person of the Trinity, is completely unacceptable according to every tradition of Jewish law, and incompatible with Jewish philosophical tenets. The same applies to belief in Jesus as the Messiah or a prophet of God: those beliefs are also contrary to traditional Jewish views. The idea of the Jewish Messiah is different from the Christian Christ because Jews believe Jesus did not fulfill Jewish Messianic prophecies that establish the criteria for the coming of the Messiah.[7] Authoritative texts of Judaism reject Jesus as God, Divine Being, intermediary between humans and God, Messiah or saint. The belief in the Trinity is also held to be incompatible with Judaism, as are a number of other tenets of Christianity.
In Judaism, the idea of God as a duality or trinity is heretical — it is even considered by some polytheistic.[8] According to Judaic beliefs, the Torah rules out a trinitarian God in Deuteronomy (6:4): "Hear Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one."
In his book A History of the Jews, Paul Johnson describes the schism between Jews and Christians caused by a divergence from this principle:
To the question, Was Jesus God or man?, the Christians therefore answered: both. After 70 AD, their answer was unanimous and increasingly emphatic. This made a complete breach with Judaism inevitable.[9]
Fundamentally, Judaism believes that God, as the creator of time, space, energy and matter, is beyond them, and cannot be born or die, or literally have a son. Judaism teaches that it is heretical for any man to claim to be God, part of God, or the literal son of God. The Jerusalem Talmud (Ta'anit 2:1) states explicitly: "if a man claims to be God, he is a liar."
In the 12th century, the preeminent Jewish scholar Maimonides codified core principles of Judaism, writing "[God], the Cause of all, is one. This does not mean one as in one of a pair, nor one like a species (which encompasses many individuals), nor one as in an object that is made up of many elements, nor as a single simple object that is infinitely divisible. Rather, God is a unity unlike any other possible unity."[10]
Some Jewish scholars note that the common poetic Jewish expression, "Our Father in Heaven", was used literally by Jesus to refer to God as "his Father in Heaven" (cf. Lord's Prayer).[11]
Judaism's view of the Messiah differs substantially from the Christian idea of the Messiah. In the Jewish account, the Messiah's task is to bring in the Messianic age, a one-time event, and a presumed messiah who is killed before completing the task (i.e., compelling all of Israel to walk in the way of Torah, repairing the breaches in observance, fighting the wars of God, building the Temple in its place, gathering in the dispersed exiles of Israel) is not the Messiah. Maimonides states, "But if he did not succeed in all this or was killed, he is definitely not the Moshiach promised in the Torah... and God only appointed him in order to test the masses."[12]
Jews believe that the Messiah will fulfill the messianic prophecies of the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel.[13][14][15][16] According to Isaiah, the Messiah will be a paternal descendant of King David[17] via King Solomon.[18] He is expected to return the Jews to their homeland and rebuild the Temple, reign as King, and usher in an era of peace[5] and understanding where "the knowledge of God" fills the earth,[6] leading the nations to "end up recognizing the wrongs they did Israel".[19] Ezekiel states the Messiah will redeem the Jews.[20]
Therefore, any Judaic view of Jesus per se is influenced by the fact that Jesus lived while the Second Temple was standing, and not while the Jews were exiled. He never reigned as King, and there was no subsequent era of peace or great knowledge. Jesus died without completing or even accomplishing part of any of the messianic tasks, instead promising a second coming. Rather than being redeemed, the Jews were subsequently exiled from Israel. These discrepancies were noted by Jewish scholars who were contemporaries of Jesus, as later pointed out by Nahmanides, who in 1263 observed that Jesus was rejected as the Messiah by the rabbis of his time.[21]
Further, Judaism sees Christian claims that Jesus is the textual messiah of the Hebrew Bible as being based on mistranslations[22][23] and Jesus did not fulfill the Jewish Messiah qualifications.[24]
According to the Torah (Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and 18:18-22), the criteria for a person to be considered a prophet or speak for God in Judaism are that he must follow the God of Israel (and no other god); he must not describe God differently than He is known to be from Scripture; he must not advocate change to God's word or state that God has changed His mind and wishes things that contradict His already-stated eternal word; and the things he does speak of must come to pass.[25]
Additionally, there are two types of "false prophet" recognized in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh): the one who claims to be a prophet in the name of idolatry, and the one who claims to be a prophet in the name of the God of Israel, but declares that any word or commandment (mitzvah) which God has said no longer applies, or makes false statements in the name of God.[26] As traditional Judaism believes that God's word is true eternally, one who claims to speak in God's name but diverges in any way from what God Himself has said, logically cannot be inspired by Divine authority. Deuteronomy 13:1 states simply, "Be careful to observe only that which I enjoin upon you; neither add to it nor take away from it."[27][28][29]
Even if someone who appears to be a prophet can perform supernatural acts or signs, no prophet or dreamer can contradict the laws already stated in the Bible.[30][31] For two thousand years, Jews rejected the claim that Jesus fulfilled the messianic prophecies of the Hebrew Bible, as well as the dogmatic claims about him made by the church fathers - that he was born of a virgin, was the son of God, was part of a divine Trinity, and was resurrected after his death.
Thus, any divergence from the tenets of Biblical Judaism espoused by Jesus would disqualify him from being considered a prophet in Judaism. This was the view adopted by Jesus' contemporaries, as according to rabbinical tradition as stated in the Talmud (Sotah 48b) "when Malachi died the Prophecy departed from Israel." As Malachi lived centuries before Jesus it is clear that the rabbis of Talmudic times did not view Jesus as a divinely inspired prophet.
Judaism does not share the Christian concept of salvation, as it does not believe people are born in a "state of sin".[32] Judaism holds instead that a person who sins can repent of that sin and, in most cases, have it forgiven.[33]
Various works of classical Jewish rabbinic literature are thought to contain references to Jesus, including some uncensored manuscripts of the Babylonian Talmud (redacted roughly before 600 CE) and the classical midrash literature written between 250 CE and 700 CE. There is a spectrum of scholarly views on how many of these references are actually to Jesus.[34]
In the 13th century Jehiel ben Joseph of Paris wrote that Yeshu in rabbinic literature was a disciple of Joshua ben Perachiah, and not to be confused with Jesus (Vikkuah Rabbenu Yehiel mi-Paris). Nahmanides too makes this point, and Rabbis Jacob ben Meir (Rabbeinu Tam) (12th century), Jehiel Heilprin (17th century) and Jacob Emden support this view.[35] In addition, the information cited from the Munich, Florence and other manuscripts in support of the identification are late comments written centuries after the original redaction of the Talmud, citing discrepancies between events mentioned in association with Yeshu and the time of Jesus' life. According to some the oppression by King Janneus mentioned in the Talmud occurred about 87 BCE, which would put the events of the story about a century before Jesus. The Yeshu who taught Jacob of Sechania would have lived a century after Jesus. And differences between accounts of the deaths of Yeshu and Jesus. The forty day waiting period before execution is absent from the Christian tradition and moreover Jesus did not have connections with the government. Jesus was crucified not stoned. Jesus was executed in Jerusalem not Lod. Jesus did not burn his food in public and moreover the Yeshu who did this corresponds to Manasseh of Judah in the Shulkhan Arukh. Jesus did not make incisions in his flesh, nor was he caught by hidden observers.
In the later Toledot Yeshu, the name of Yeshu is taken to mean yimach shemo.[36]
In all cases of its use, the references are to Yeshu are associated with acts or behaviour that are seen as leading Jews away from Judaism to minuth (a term usually translated as "heresy" or "apostasy"). Historically the portrayals of Jesus in Jewish literature were used as an excuse for antisemitism among Christians.[37]
Modern scholarship on the Talmud has a spectrum[38] of views from Klausner, Herford and Schäfer[39] who see traces of a historical Jesus in the Talmud, to the views of Maier, and Neusner who consider that there are little or no historical traces and texts have been applied to Jesus in later editing, and others such as Boyarin who argue that Jesus in the Talmud is a literary device used by Rabbis to comment on their relationship to and with early Christians.[40] Nahmanides, in his dispute with Pablo Christiani in 1263,[41] and The Kuzari by Rabbi Yehuda Halevi (c.1075-1141),[42] understood these references in Talmud as referring to Jesus of Nazareth and based on them believed that Jesus of Nazareth lived 130 years prior to the date that Christians believe he lived, contradicting the Gospels' account regarding the chronology of Jesus.
The primary references to Yeshu are found only in uncensored texts of the Babylonian Talmud and the Tosefta. The Vatican's papal bull issued in 1554 censored the Talmud and other Jewish texts, resulting in the removal of references to Yeshu. No known manuscript of the Jerusalem Talmud makes mention of the name although one translation (Herford) has added it to Avodah Zarah 2:2 to align it with similar text of Chullin 2:22 in the Tosefta. All later usages of the term Yeshu are derived from these primary references. In the Munich (1342 CE), Paris, and Jewish Theological Seminary of America manuscripts of the Talmud, the appellation Ha-Notzri is added to the last mention of Yeshu in Sanhedrin 107b and Sotah 47a as well as to the occurrences in Sanhedrin 43a, Sanhedrin 103a, Berachot 17b and Avodah Zarah 16b-17a. Student,[43] Zindler and McKinsey[44] Ha-Notzri is not found in other early pre-censorship partial manuscripts (the Florence, Hamburg and Karlsruhe) where these cover the passages in question.
Although Notzri does not appear in the Tosefta, by the time the Babylonian Talmud was produced, Notzri had become the standard Hebrew word for Christian and Yeshu Ha-Notzri had become the conventional rendition of "Jesus the Nazarene" in Hebrew. For example, by 1180 CE the term Yeshu Ha-Notzri can be found in the Maimonides' Mishneh Torah (Hilchos Melachim 11:4, uncensored version).
Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon) lamented the pains that Jews felt as a result of new faiths that attempted to supplant Judaism, specifically Christianity and Islam. Referring to Jesus, he wrote:
"Even Jesus the Nazarene who imagined that he would be Messiah and was killed by the court, was already prophesied by Daniel. So that it was said, “And the members of the outlaws of your nation would be carried to make a (prophetic) vision stand. And they stumbled” (Daniel 11.14). Because, is there a greater stumbling-block than this one? So that all of the prophets spoke that the Messiah redeems Israel, and saves them, and gathers their banished ones, and strengthens their commandments. And this one caused (nations) to destroy Israel by sword, and to scatter their remnant, and to humiliate them, and to exchange the Torah, and to make the majority of the world err to serve a divinity besides God."[45]
Nonetheless, Maimonides continued,
"But the human mind has no power to reach the thoughts of the Creator, for his thoughts and ways are unlike ours. And all these things of Jesus the Nazarene, and of (Muhammad) the Ishmaelite who stood after him – there is no (purpose) but to straighten out the way for the King Messiah, and to restore all the world to serve God together. So that it is said, “Because then I will turn toward the nations (giving them) a clear lip, to call all of them in the name of God and to serve God (shoulder to shoulder as) one shoulder.” (Zephaniah 3:9). How is this? The entire world had become filled with the issues of the anointed one and of the Torah and the Laws, and these issues had spread out unto faraway islands and among many nations uncircumcised in the heart, and they discuss these issues and the Torah's laws. These say: These Laws were true but are already defunct in these days, and do not rule for the following generations; whereas the other ones say: There are secret layers in them and they are not to be treated literally, and the Messiah had come and revealed their secret meanings. But when the anointed king will truly rise and succeed and will be raised and uplifted, they all immediately turn about and know that their fathers inherited falsehood, and their prophets and ancestors led them astray." (Hilkhot Melakhim 11:10–12.)[45]
Jesus is mentioned in Maimonides' Epistle to Yemen, written about 1172 to Rabbi Jacob ben Netan'el al-Fayyumi, head of the Yemen Jewish community during a time when Jews of that country were passing through a crisis inaugurated about 1165 by 'Abd-al-Nabi ibn Mahdi, and a campaign conducted by a recent convert to win them to his new faith. The context of Maimonides' mention of Jesus is during a portion retelling the history of those who tried to destroy Judaism 1) by the sword, 2) by controversies, and 3) by both conquest and controversy. The latter category begins with Jesus, and goes on to mention Paul, and then Muhammad.
Ever since the time of Revelation, every despot or slave that has attained to power, be he violent or ignoble, has made it his first aim and his final purpose to destroy our law, and to vitiate our religion, by means of the sword, by violence, or by brute force, such as Amalek, Sisera, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Titus, Hadrian, may their bones be ground to dust, and others like them. This is one of the two classes which attempt to foil the Divine will.
The second class consists of the most intelligent and educated among the nations, such as the Syrians, Persians, and Greeks. These also endeavor to demolish our law and to vitiate it by means of arguments which they invent, and by means of controversies which they institute....
After that there arose a new sect which combined the two methods, namely, conquest and controversy, into one, because it believed that this procedure would be more effective in wiping out every trace of the Jewish nation and religion. It, therefore, resolved to lay claim to prophecy and to found a new faith, contrary to our Divine religion, and to contend that it was equally God-given. Thereby it hoped to raise doubts and to create confusion, since one is opposed to the other and both supposedly emanate from a Divine source, which would lead to the destruction of both religions. For such is the remarkable plan contrived by a man who is envious and querulous. He will strive to kill his enemy and to save his own life, but when he finds it impossible to attain his objective, he will devise a scheme whereby they both will be slain.
The first one to have adopted this plan was Jesus the Nazarene, may his bones be ground to dust. He was a Jew because his mother was a Jewess although his father was a Gentile. For in accordance with the principles of our law, a child born of a Jewess and a Gentile, or of a Jewess and a slave, is legitimate. (Yebamot 45a). Jesus is only figuratively termed an illegitimate child. He impelled people to believe that he was a prophet sent by God to clarify perplexities in the Torah, and that he was the Messiah that was predicted by each and every seer. He interpreted the Torah and its precepts in such a fashion as to lead to their total annulment, to the abolition of all its commandments and to the violation of its prohibitions. The sages, of blessed memory, having become aware of his plans before his reputation spread among our people, meted out fitting punishment to him.
Daniel had already alluded to him when he presaged the downfall of a wicked one and a heretic among the Jews who would endeavor to destroy the Law, claim prophecy for himself, make pretenses to miracles, and allege that he is the Messiah, as it is written, "Also the children of the impudent among thy people shall make bold to claim prophecy, but they shall fall." (Daniel 11:14).[46]
In the context of refuting the claims of a contemporary in Yemen purporting to be the Messiah, Maimonides mentions Jesus again:
"You know that the Christians falsely ascribe marvelous powers to Jesus the Nazarene, may his bones be ground to dust, such as the resurrection of the dead and other miracles. Even if we would grant them for the sake of argument, we should not be convinced by their reasoning that Jesus is the Messiah. For we can bring a thousand proofs or so from the Scripture that it is not so even from their point of view. Indeed, will anyone arrogate this rank to himself unless he wishes to make himself a laughing stock?[47]
In 1263, Nahmanides, rabbi of Girona and later chief rabbi of Catalonia, was ordered by King James I of Aragon to take part in a public disputation with Pablo Christiani, a Jewish convert to Catholicism.
Christiani had been trying to make the Jews of Provence abandon Judaism and convert to Christianity. Relying upon the reserve his adversary would be forced to maintain through fear of wounding the feelings of the Christian dignitaries, Pablo assured the King that he could prove the truth of Christianity from the Talmud and other rabbinical writings. Nahmanides complied with the order of the King, but stipulated that complete freedom of speech should be granted, and for four days (July 20–24) debated with Pablo Christiani in the presence of the King, the court, and many ecclesiastical dignitaries.
The subjects discussed were:
Christiani argued, based upon several aggadic passages, that the Pharisee sages believed that the Messiah had lived during the Talmudic period, and that they ostensibly believed that the Messiah was therefore Jesus. Nahmanides countered that Christiani's interpretations were per-se distortions; the rabbis would not hint that Jesus was Messiah while, at the same time, explicitly opposing him as such. Nahmanides proceeded to provide context for the proof-texts cited by Christiani, showing that they were most clearly understood differently than as proposed by Christiani. Furthermore, Nahmanides demonstrated from numerous biblical and talmudic sources that traditional Jewish belief ran contrary to Christiani's postulates.
Nahmanides went on to show that the Biblical prophets regarded the future messiah as a human, a person of flesh and blood, and not as a divinity, in the way that Christians view Jesus. He noted that their promises of a reign of universal peace and justice had not yet been fulfilled. On the contrary, since the appearance of Jesus, the world had been filled with violence and injustice (see also But to bring a sword), and among all denominations the Christians were the most warlike.
He noted that questions of the Messiah are of less dogmatic importance to Jews than most Christians imagine. The reason given by him for this bold statement is that it is more meritorious for the Jews to observe the precepts under a Christian ruler, while in exile and suffering humiliation and abuse, than under the rule of the Messiah, when every one would perforce act in accordance with the Law.
Outside of the above-described authoritative texts common to Judaism, a small minority of rabbis hold a more positive view of Jesus, arguing that he himself did not abandon Judaism and/or that he benefited non-Jews. Among these are Jacob Emden,[48][49] Moses Mendelssohn (as well as some other religious thinkers of the Haskalah movement), and Elijah Benamozegh.[50][51]
A few Orthodox rabbis today, including Irving Greenberg hold similar views. While these authors present positions which vary from mainstream views in Judaism, they still do not consider Jesus to be the Jewish Messiah.[52]