My wife is Messianic Jewish, where the primary intent is to restore Jewish traditions and beliefs while still believing in Jesus/Yeshua ("Jesus" being essentially a mispronunciation; the westernized version of the name would more accurately be "Joshua"). Personally my beliefs lie elsewhere, but it's still unfortunate that "denomination" is still such a tiny minority, given its desire to be a purer form of the religion.
Jesus isn't a mispronunciation of Yeshua, it's a transliteration. Initially the Hebrew/Aramaic ישוע was transliterated to the Greek Ἰησοῦς which is essentially a phonetic transliteration with the ending changed to the Greek masculine singular.
That was then transliterated to the Latin Iesus with basically the same deal ie phonetic with an ending change.
And that morphed into Jesus, probably about the 16th century, when the swash 'I' became a 'j' sound.
> more accurately be "Joshua"
It wouldn't really be more accurate; it would just be a transliteration through a different route. The most that can be said is that there are fewer hops.
It would still likely have most of the sounds wrong, esp if Jesus' name was originally pronounced in Galilean Aramaic. As I understand it that wouldn't have pronounced the final 'a' like an 'a' but more like a glottal stop. But that's right on the edge of my knowledge so I could have made the last bit up.
Every religion makes truth claims. Many of those truth claims contradict each other. It's incumbent upon us to do the research, put the claims to the test and come to the most reasonable conclusion as to what is true.
Not necessarily, they consider themselves right / proper or just prefer it over other flavours though (example being the many branches of Protestantism where each branch has a slightly different take on how things should be done, but it's not like they're at odds with each other per se)
Protestants all find their differences of opinion a big enough deal that they'll break up over it. They're not fighting wars I've doctrinal differences any more, but who in Christendom is these days?
Goodness, where to start… I don’t have time to read your link so I’ll only reply to what you wrote from my own direct personal experience:
- many Protestant groups, while not fighting wars of physical violence, still harbour very unchristian hate in their hearts towards other Protestant sects and (usually) towards all Catholics, whom they consider to be idol worshippers led astray by Satan himself (sadly many Catholics also still feel the same about all Protestants and many other Catholics who don’t play the right music, wear the right vestments or worship in the right language and or precise form of words.)
- on the other hand, many, many Protestants and Catholics are also working to resolve or otherwise sideline those “debatable things” and “foolish controversies” that St Paul advised the churches not to quarrel about (he didn’t say what, specifically, but then this is supposed to be a faith based on love and grace rather than legalism). I’ve been to large events where Catholics and Protestants are worshipping, witnessing and praying joyfully together and seeking to find the similarities and not the differences, without compromising on the fundamentals of what it means to follow Jesus. And these kinds of movements are growing around the world year upon year and also working together to fight social injustice, inequality and poverty
— hopefully soon, more of our Orthodox brothers and sisters will get on board with this, but there are glimmers of hope in that direction too, as long as nobody says the word “Filioque” ;-)
Ah yes, I had a chance to read it while walking down the street. I know that joke, reminds me of the one my dad used to delight in telling, which ends with “I must be the luckiest Arab in Belfast”.
Funnily enough the exact one that you posted is these days repeated by many churches somewhere during the Alpha Course, which after pausing for laughs is identified as an example of exactly not what you are being invited to believe.
I have a lot of respect for Messianic Jews; they're struggle is real. I wish more Jews knew just how Jewish the story of Jesus actually is. As far as Christians are concerned, Jesus is the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies in the old testament. Jesus said, "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill." (Matthew 5:18)
That said, there is arguably no simpler or purer form of Christianity than simply having faith in and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Don’t confuse culture and gradual inculturation with purity of religion and validity of liturgy.
In the age of the Messiah the faithful are truly drawn “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages”. If your wife would go to any (decent) Catholic or Orthodox church, and learns to "read" the building and the liturgy of Holy Mass, maybe she could recognize the contours of the “pure” or “more Jewish" religion she is yearning for. She could go to modern or more traditional Latin/Greek/Ukrainian/Syriac/Ethiopian/... rites and in the plurality of all those different cultures and temperaments recognize over and over again the exact same elements and basic plan, organically evolved yet meticulously preserved in a chain of unbroken sacramental obedience.
Entering the church building she’d gradually walk from the holy water near the entrance, through the “outer courtyard” for the lay people, to the sanctuary with the sacrificial altar, golden vessels and incense, elevated and separated by altar rail or curtain. Behind is the tabernacle, the Holy of Holies containing the Real Presence, indicated by a lit candle. And if she was to e.g. carefully analyse the words of the Eucharistic prayers in all these different rites and languages, she would find over and over again the same underlying structure, complete with the Haggadah.
But language and cultural differences aside, there must be fundamental differences as well. It is Christ Himself who took the prescribed liturgy of the ancient Passover meal and gave it its full and final meaning by substituting Himself, in the presence of the apostles, for the merely symbolic lamb. It is through Christ that the Trinity is fully revealed.
How then could e.g. the exact same holidays have been retained? For instance, why would you celebrate Shavuot, if with Pentecost the Holy Spirit directly descended on the Church? Another example: the Lord's Day is not "Sabbath on the wrong day". Sabbath laws do not apply to those under the New Covenant. Beyond the most excellent idea of dedicating an entire day to the Lord with plenty of obligatory prayer, rest, food and family/community time, the Christian Sunday is simply not the Sabbath. On Sunday we celebrate the Resurrection, which occurred on the first day of a new week (the supernatural "eighth day", beyond the natural fullness of the old week).
The priest in this age is also no longer a Levite. To properly offer this sacrifice, he is now sacramentally ordained by proper religious authorities “in the Order of Melchizedek”, reminiscent of the royal priesthood of David and the priesthood of Adam and the firstborns. And where the old liturgy was a sign of divine grace, the liturgy of our age is an effective cause of divine grace. If the priest obeys the liturgy that has been prescribed for his own rite and his own day, no amount of personal corruption can take away the sanctity of his work. This also means that there is no fundamental need for wars in the Holy Land or for "conquering" the Temple Mount by force. The Temple is already being built. Every time the faithful, after having been sacramentally cleansed of mortal sin through baptism or confession, participate in the Lord’s sacrifice by eating the body and drinking the blood of the Lamb, they themselves will inevitably become more and more the dwelling place of the Lord within the material creation.
Only because of your own cultural background / upbringing where Josh was a pretty normal and non-reverent name, like how people like me one day realise there's a whole culture of people out there where Jesus is still a common and popular first name, instead of something reserved for a religious figure.
I live in one of those cultures and have several coworkers named Jesus. But some names have different associations. It is like "Todd, The Necromancer!" Vs "Evelyn the sorceress". Jesus is a serious and competent embedded c++ programmer. Josh is a goofy guy in accounting.
The unfortunate part is where Christians try to pass themselves off as Jews by adding "Jewish" to the name of their denomination. I wish my great aunts and uncles could have added "Christian" to their denomination to escape being murdered in the Holocaust, that would have been nice.
There are essentially two completely different movements claiming the name of "Messianic Judaism." The first are people who are Jewish- culturally, ethnically, and even religiously, who have converted to Christianity and believe that all other Jews should do the same. There is a small pocket of Messianic Jews of this definition in my hometown, so this is the version I was most familiar with.
It wasn't until later that I learned that there is a second, much more popular movement under the name of Messianic Judaism which are people who are not ethnically or culturally Jewish who have determined that Christianity should return to its Jewish roots. These people have no historical connections to Judaism and usually grew up within a Christian cultural context. There is a lot of overlap with the "Hebrew Roots" movement that you mentioned, and in my opinion there isn't a real distinction between the two.
Myself I feel kind of biased but I view the first kind as more "legitimate" since Judaism, isn't merely a religion, it's a living, breathing culture and it is super weird for someone to just roll up and claim it without having any connection to anyone who was doing it before. It's like if I decided I was going to be Indian and started wearing stereotypical Indian traditional dress and eating only curry because I think that's what Indians eat, without having any actual Indians in my movement.
I agree that ethnic Jews with Christian religious beliefs is a legitimate concept. But I would rather call them Messianic Jews (or just Christian Jews) rather than adherents of "Messianic Judaism." To say that "Judaism" can include Jesus erases the Jewish religion by leaving it without a name, conveniently benefiting the dominant Christian religion. (And Messianic Jews who are not Jews should be called something else entirely.)
Presumably that's a reference to the GP describing "Messianic Jewish". (or rather, Messianic Judaism)
> It considers itself to be a form of Judaism but is generally considered to be a sect of Christianity,[2][3] including by all major groups within mainstream Judaism, since Jews consider belief in Jesus as the Messiah and divine in the form of God the Son (and the doctrine of the Trinity in general) to be among the most defining distinctions between Judaism and Christianity. It is also generally considered a Christian sect by scholars and other Christian groups.
So are they claiming that Messianic Jews are not actually Jews? Because they implied that people were falsely taking the title Jew if I understood them correctly. That would be the first time I've ever heard that particular assertion.
Yes and that was what I was saying (sorry it wasn't clear).
What it means to be a Jew is complicated. Jews form an ethnicity of interconnected people with a range of beliefs and practices (it is, definitionally, not whether one is religiously adherent to Judaism). To me, one could in principle be religiously Christian and also ethnically Jewish (that's an unusual view among Jews), but to do that requires having an actual connection to the Jewish ethnicity (e.g. if one was raised ethnically Jewish and maintains a Jewish identity). My impression is that "Messianic Jews" are religiously and ethnically Christian who are importing Jewish practices into their otherwise non-Jewish identity. If OP's wife was born Jewish or converted prior becoming a "Messianic Jew," I would stand corrected.
If I, a very white person, start singing songs from Back churches, that doesn't make me Black. I wouldn't face the real-world struggles against racism of Black people, for example, and I think that's a useful hint when thinking about who is and isn't a member of a minority group like Jews. Likewise, acting out Jewish practices doesn't necessarily make one a Jew, and as one example it doesn't subject one to the sorts of anti-Semitism faced by Jews. I'm not saying facing anti-Semitism a necessary or sufficient condition for being a Jew, but if not that, then there must be something else that connects one to the Jewish ethnicity --- the interconnected people who believe they are Jews --- other than just by saying so.
So I'm confused--are you saying that Israel thinks Messianic Jews are not Jews because they abandoned their faith or something like that, OR are you saying that Israel doesn't let Messianic Jews to be citizens because sometimes non-Jews convert to become Messianic Jews?
It sounds like a variation of a - not so much that they abandoned their faith, per-se, but that the faith they espouse as being Jewish is not acceptably ‘in the same room’ as other Jewish faith.
It would be somewhat like saying you were a Messianic Christian because you believed that Mohammed was a later prophet. There is a word for that kind of religion, and it isn’t Christianity.
Israel basically sees them as evangelizing Christians in disguise. They don’t consider them Jewish because they both proselytize and worship Christ as the Messiah. Both of those things are offensive to the traditional tenets of Judaism.
