Jesus

[johnw4]

Why did the Jews not accept Jesus as their Messiah?

[noxlumos]

Well I'm Catholic but my wife is Jewish so here's some second hand information.Some Jewsclearly did at the time and became amongst the first Christians. However for most Jews he did not fulfil what they expected of the Messiah so they did not hold him to be the Messiah. Jews now would not accept Christ as the Messiah as that would mean leaving their religion for another established religion ( rather than welcoming the Messiah to their own faith).There are not many conevrts to Christianity from Judaism, but the main criteria for the Messiah is set out in Isiah if that's of any help to you.

[Tatty Rollox]

....... and here is Isaiah ........

[Cetti]

Yes, as noxlumos has said Jesus didn't act as the Jewish people expected. They wanted a king to ride out in front of a huge army to do battle against the hated roman occupation, but instead they had a man who wore simple clothes, had no home of his own, collected the lowest of the low for his followers and healed the outcasts and untouchables - in short a pacifist!

The old testament - the bible Jesus himself would have studied is full of prophetic passages about his coming,(Isaiah 7,14) his birth (Micah 5,2), loads in Isaiah about his life and the cross ( Psalms 22, 69). There is a particular passage in Matthew 28, 11-15 that relates to the resurrection. When the guards of the tomb met with the chief priests they were given a large sum of money as a bribe and were told to say that the disciples came during the night and stole the body. This story apparently is still believed.

There are thousands of Messianic Jews around the world. Believers that ackowledge Jesus as the Messiah whilst still retaining their Jewishness - not a huge number agreed but it is a rapidly growing movement.

[Lonnie]

To put it simply, he wasn't, it'll take to long to explain, but if you want one, post back.

[redheap]

Let's face it, all religion is about faith..so unless you really only have a slim level of faith you are not going to be jumping around beleiving in different things etc!

Oh look I beleive in this messiah now, oh no, now I like this one!

Belief is everything

[joko]

if a man turned up in your town, saying all the stuff jesus said, he be sectioned - and no-one would have believed a word he said - so not so hard to see why really is it?

perhaps you should be asking why on earth some people did believe him!

[oakleydoaky]

Just as a point of interest. A famous (or was famous) messianic jew (for you middle aged viewers) is Helen Shapiro (Walkin' back to happiness) Singer.

[pugwashjw]

The Jewish religious leaders were very aware of the prophecy in the Book of Daniel regarding the coming Messiah. They had studied the scriptures [ scrolls] of the complete Old Testament and had calculated Jesus' arrival within two years. King Herod believed it so fervently, he thought ' The Messiah' was to be a king that would take over his[ Herod's] reign. Thats why Herod ordered all the Hebrew [ Jewish] boys under two years old to be killed. Herod did not want anyone taking over from him. An angel warned Joseph and Mary to flee to Egypt and not come backuntil they were told. Eventually, Herod died and the angel [ again] told Joseph and Mary to return to Judah. The non-belief in Jesus did not begin until Jesus commenced his ministry at age 30. The Jews knew that the Messiah had been born and knew that he would have to grow up to maturity, but they expected someone who would lead a revolt of arms against the ruling Roman Empire in Judah, and kick the Romans out, thus giving control of their land back to the Jews. Jesus did not fill that role and preached only peace. That is why many Jews did not believe he was the TRUE Messiah. The Jews did not realize that Jesus FREEING US was on a spiritual level that stretches into our daty.