Jewish view of Jesus
Christianity emerged from Judaism in the first century AD: for this reason, the Jewish view of Jesus is important for a historical understanding of Christianity's initial reception. The first Christians were Jews, and, as far as is known, subscribed to Jewish beliefs and practices common at the time. Among these was a belief that a messiah—a descendant of King David—would restore the monarchy and Jewish independence.
According to mainstream Jewish beliefs, the failure of Jesus to restore the Kingdom, and his crucifixion by Romans, negated claims that he was the Messiah (See the Jewish eschatology for a more detailed discussion of the Jewish understanding of the Messiah). Nevertheless, some of Jesus's followers redefined the concept of messiah to encompass the idea of a resurrection, the promise of a second coming, and the notion of messiah as God. In addition to this alternative understanding of the Messiah, early Christians brought from Judaism its scriptures, fundamental doctrines such as monotheism, and other beliefs and practices.
Judaism teaches that it is heretical for any man to claim to be a part of God; Jews view Jesus as just one in a long list of failed Jewish claimants to be the messiah. The article on the concept of the messiah contains a list of many people who claimed to be the messiah, son of God, or both.
Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon) writes why Jews believe that Jesus was wrong to create Christianity (and why they believe that Mohammed was wrong to create Islam;) he laments the pains that Jews felt as a result of these new faiths that attempted to supplant Judaism. However, Maimonides then goes on to say that both faiths help God redeem the world:
- Jesus was instrumental in changing the Torah and causing the world to err and serve another beside God. But it is beyond the human mind to fathom the designs of our Creator, for our ways are not God's ways, neither are our thoughts His. All these matters relating to Jesus of Nazareth, and the Ishmaelite (Mohammed) who came after him, only served to clear the way for the King Messiah to prepare the whole world to worship God with one accord, as it is written 'For then will I turn to the peoples a pure language, that they all call upon the name of the Lord to serve Him with one consent.' (Zephaniah 3:9). Thus the messianic hope, and the Torah, and the commandments have become familiar topics of conversation among those even on far isles, and among many people, uncircumcized of flesh and heart. (Mishneh Torah, Maimonides, XI.4. This paragraph used to be censored from many printed versions of the Mishneh Torah because it contained verses explicitly critical of Jesus.)
Some Jews doubt the historical existence of Jesus, but most believe that he was a real person.
Over the centuries some Jews have converted to Christianity; in the last few decades these conversions have often taken place via the Messianic Judaism movement.
Following the lead of many modern historians, some Jews believe that Jesus was a preacher with an apocalyptic message, that Jesus never claimed to be God or part of a trinity, and that he was a liberal reformer, in many ways more similar to the Pharisees than to Jews of the other movements at the time. In this view, Christianity as we know it today had nothing to do with Jesus' actual teachings, but rather was the outgrowth of the beliefs of Jesus' later non-Jewish converts, and the preaching of Paul of Tarsus.
