On Apr 8, 9:59 pm, Eve <ialp...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 21, 4:55 pm, "Guy, also known as Dude"
>
> <juurgenizixexo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > If memory serves me correctly Satan meant adversary or resister.
> > In Islam the djinn tribe of the Shaitan were an anti-human faction of
> > djinn.

Djinn, possibly a corruption of word that means meditation.  Ha Stn in
Hebrew is not an anti-G-d figure at all.

> > Satans generally are very powerful spirits or magicians or
> > combinations of them both.
> > There might be an actual Satan.
>
> Correct me if I am wrong, My understanding is that Jesus is a rip of
> of Lord Osiris and Satan and borrowed from Set, apperantly also called
> Set-hen( Osiris's main rival)

Mistaken.  Isis/Horus would have influenced Mary/Jesus, or Cybele/
Attis even closer - but it stops there.  Set Heh (not hen) would be
correct.  There were over 60 myths of "virgins with sons that get
killed and arise from the dead, salvation, etc." going strong back
then, popular myths (like Spiderman, Batman, Superman).

The tragedy is that the European peoples, all pagan at the time, chose
to stick with the one exclusivist sect out there, the Mary/Jesus sect
- and unfortunately, that one had real people, "The Jews" (not
mythological gods) killing their man-god savior.  You might want to
read about Abraham from India to see the many people and stories, all
from India, that got put into the Torah.
Here:  http://www.geocities.com/go_darkness/jews-muslims.html  Two pdf
files there.  The one on Muslims, imo, is not that good.  The one on
Jews is excellent.

For Set heh (not hen):  From Egyptian Heaven and Hell, by E.A. Wallis
Budge, Chapter XI - the Eleventh Division of the Tuat, which is called
Re-en-qerert-apt-khatu, [pg. 248-9 Vol I], "In the lower register are
1. Horus (description of Horus) and 2. A huge serpent, called the
'Everlasting Set,' standing upon his tail." And on "[p 254-5 Vol I]
Horus is expounding on those that have been "sent to Hell" more or
less, erased from existence, "....and ye shall not be able to flee
from the flames which are in the serpent SET-HEH." Budge's commentary
[pgs 177-179 Vol III]: "The region to the left of the Boat is one of
fire, and representations of it which we have in the Book Am-Tuat and
the Book of Gates may well have suggested the beliefs in a fiery hell
that have come down through the centuries to our own time. Quite near
the Boat stands Horus, holding in the left hand the snake-headed
boomerang, with which he performs deeds of magic; in front of him is
the serpent SET-HEH, i.e., the Everlasting Set, his familiar and
messenger (vol. i., p. 249). Horus is watching and directing the
destruction of the bodies, souls, shadows, and heads of the enemies of
Ra, and of the damned who are in this division [of the Tuat], which is
taking place in five pits of fire. The texts which refer to the pits
of fire show that the beings who were unfortunate enough to be cast
into them were hacked in pieces by the goddesses who were over them,
and then burned in the fierce fire provided by SET-HEH and the
goddesses until they were consumed. In that sense, Set is most
definitely something that fits into a Christian (not Jewish and not
ancient Greek) definition of Satan and Hell.  But this would be very
late Egypt, not very early Egypt.  Set is one of the oldest deities in
Egypt, along with Amun.  Also, according to some experts that actually
read heiroglyphics, "Set" or "Seth" referred to tribes that claimed
decent from Set/Seth.  These deities, or things that came to be
deities later on, changed during a 4000 year period of Egypt's
existence.

The Jewish word for angel, whether good or bad, is el.  Not en. E.g.
Sama-el,  Azaz-el.  El-ohim.  "En" in Hebrew is a negative particle,
it means "not" or "no".  E.g. En Soph or Ain Soph.

Fact: The Jews were never in Egypt.  Archaology proves this. The story
of the Hyksos being expelled was simply switched around and changed to
"The Jews escaped."  It's a myth.  TEXT SOURCE:
<http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_order/zionism/
who_are_the_Jews.htm>
Deconstructing the walls of Jericho: Who are the Jews?
By Ze'ev Herzog (Ha'aretz Magazine, Friday, October 29, 1999)

Following 70 years of intensive excavations in the Land of Israel,
archaeologists have found out: The patriarchs' acts are legendary,
the
Israelites did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus, they did not
conquer
the land. Neither is there any mention of the empire of David and
Solomon,
nor of the source of belief in the God of Israel. These facts have
been
known for years, but Israel is a stubborn people and nobody wants to
hear
about it

This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the
Land
of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the
desert,
did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on
to
the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact
that the
united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible
as a
regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come
as an
unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, Jehovah, had a
female
consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only
in the
waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai. Most of those
who are
engaged in scientific work in the interlocking spheres of the Bible,
archaeology and the history of the Jewish people - and who once went
into
the field looking for proof to corroborate the Bible story - now agree
that
the historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people's
emergence
are radically different from what that story tells.

In a September 22nd, 2002 speech to visiting Christian Zionists,
Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asserted, "This land is ours... God gave
us the
title deeds..." However, recent scholarly research, including
discoveries by
an archaeological team from the University of Tel Aviv, not only
deconstruct
the Biblical Old Testament and Torah stories upon which this claim
rests,
but grant previously unthinkable credence to an ancient historian's
claim
that the Israelites of Exodus were actually the Hyksos, and therefore
of
Asiatic origin.

To trace the foundations of this ongoing Biblical bonfire, we must go
back
to 1999.

All hell broke loose in Israel in November of that year when Prof.
Ze'ev
Herzog of Tel Aviv University announced: "the Israelites were never
in
Egypt, did not wander the desert, did not conquer the land, and did
not pass
it on to the twelve tribes". Moreover, the Jewish God YHWH had a
female
consort - the goddess Asherah!

His conclusion that the kingdom of David and Solomon was at best a
small
tribal monarchy, at worst total myth, has made enemies for him in the
camps
of traditional Jewish and Christian belief systems. He asserts: all
evidence
demonstrates that the Jews did not adopt monotheism until the 7th
Century
BCE - a heresy according to the Biblical tradition dating it to Moses
at
Mount Sinai.

Tel Aviv University's archaeological investigation at Megiddo and
examination of the six-sided gate there dates it to the 9th Century
BCE, not
the 10th Century BCE claimed by the 1960's investigator Yigael Yadin
who
attributed it to Solomon. Herzog, moreover, states that Solomon and
David
are "entirely absent in the archaeological record".

In addition, Herzog's colleague, Israel Finkelstein, claims the Jews
were
nothing more than nomadic Canaanites who bartered with the city
dwellers.

The team's studies concluded that Jerusalem did not have any central
status
until 722 BCE with the destruction of its northern rival Samaria.

However, the real bombshell is Herzog's discovery of numerous
references to
Yahweh having a consort in the form of Asherah. Inscriptions, written
in
Hebrew by official Jewish scribes in the 8th century BCE, were found
in
numerous sites all over the land. For Yahweh, supposedly the "One
God", to
have had a female consort and, of all people, the goddess Asherah, is
dynamite of wide ranging significance.

But what does all this do to the validity of the "Title Deeds" from
God that
Ariel Sharon refers to? Quite apart from the obvious conclusion that
the god
assumed to have given the "promised land" to his chosen people was
just one
god from a pantheon and not the alleged monotheistic only God of the
cosmos,
Herzog's findings corroborate theories that have been "out there" for
some
time.

The Hyksos

Like Herzog, the historian Josephus (c. 37CE - c. 100CE) denied the
account
of the Hebrews being held in captivity in Egypt, but he went a drastic
step
further about the racial origins of the Jews, whom he identified with
the
Hyksos. He further claimed they did not flee from Egypt but were
evicted due
to them being leprous.

It must be said that Josephus has been vilified over the ages as a
Roman
collaborator by both Jewish and Christian scholars who have argued
that the
dating of the exodus of the "Hebrews" from Egypt in the Bible
positively
rules out their identification as Hyksos.

However, Jan Assmann, a prominent Egyptologist at Heidelberg
University, is
quite positive in his writings that the Exodus story is an inversion
of the
Hyksos expulsion and furthermore that Moses was an Egyptian.

Likewise, Donald P. Redford, of Toronto University, presents striking
evidence that the Expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt was inverted to
construct the exodus of the Hebrew slaves story in the Torah and Old
Testament. His book, which argued this theory, "Egypt, Canaan, and
Israel in
Ancient Times" was Winner of the 1993 Best Scholarly Book in
Archaeology
Award of the Biblical Archaeological Society.

There is irrefutable evidence that the Hyksos, a mixed Semitic-Asiatic
group
who infiltrated the Nile valley, seized power in Lower Egypt in the
17th
Century BCE. They ruled there from c. 1674 BCE until expelled when
their
capital, Avaris, fell to Ahmose around 1567 BCE.

The Hyksos in Egypt worshipped Set, who like ISH.KUR they identified
as a
storm deity.

Under the "inversion theory", Jewish scholars in the 7th Century BCE
changed
the story from "expelled" to "escaped" and as a further insult to
their
enemy, Ahmose, changed and miss-spelt his name to Moses, presenting
him as
leader of a Hebrew revolt. But there is also a strong possibility of
two
separate origins to the "Moses" character being merged into one, which
I
will come to later.

Ahmose's success in 1567 BCE led to the establishment of the 18th
Dynasty in
Egypt. ThotMoses III overthrew the transvestite Pharaoh Atchepsut, and
under
ThotMoses IV Egyptian conquests extended beyond the Sinai into
Palestine,
Syria, reaching Babylonia and included Canaan.

By the end of this expansion, Amenophis III (1380BCE) ruled an
Egyptian
empire whose provinces and colonies bordered what is now known as
Turkey.
This empire would have included the regions in which most of the
expelled
Hyksos now lived.

Amenophis IV succeeded the throne in 1353BCE. He established a new
monotheism cult establishing "Aten" as the one supreme god and he
changed
his name to Akhenaton. Married to the mysterious Nefertiti, Akhenaton
declared himself a god on earth, intermediary between the one-god Aten
(Ra)
and humanity, with his spouse as partner, effectively displacing Isis
and
Osiris in the Egyptian Enead.

Declaring all men to be the children of Aten, historians suspect
Akhenaton
planned an empire-wide religion. He banned all idolatry, the use of
images
to represent god, and banned the idea that there was more than one
supreme
god.

It is alongside Akhenaton and his father Amenophis III that we find
the
second Moses.

An important figure during this period was confusingly called
Amenophis son
of Hapu. He was First Minister (Vizier) to both kings. He is
generally
depicted as a scribe, crouching and holding on his knees a roll of
papyrus.
He more than anyone was responsible for authoring the religion in
which the
old gods were merged into one living god, Aten, who had been
responsible for
the creation of the Earth and of humanity.

The symbol of this god, the sun disk, represented Ra, Horus and the
other
gods in one. The sun disk, in symbolism, was supported between the
horns of
a bull. The Son of Hapu says this about creation: "I have come to you
who
reigns over the gods oh Amon, Lord of the Two Lands, for you are Re
who
appears in the sky, who illuminates the earth with a brilliantly
shining
eye, who came out of the Nou, who appeared above the primitive water,
who
created everything, who generated the great Enneade of the gods, who
created
his own flesh and gave birth to his own form."

The king's overseer of the land of Nubia was a certain Mermose
(spelled both
Mermose and Merymose on his sarcophagus in the British Museum).
According to
modern historians, in Amenhotep's third year as king, Mermose took his
army
far up the Nile, supposedly to quell a minor rebellion, but actually
to
secure gold mining territories which would supply his king with the
greatest
wealth of any ruler of Egypt.

Recent scholarship has indicated Mermose took his army to the
neighborhood
of the confluence of the Nile and Atbara Rivers and beyond.

But who was this Mermose? According to historian Dawn Breasted, the
Greek
translation of this name was Moses. Does Jewish tradition support
this
identification?

According to Jewish history not included in the Bible, Moses led the
army of
Pharaoh to the South, into the land of Kush, and reached the vicinity
of the
Atbara River. There he attracted the love of the princess of the
fortress
city of Saba, later Meroe. She gave up the city in exchange for
marriage.
Biblical confirmation of such a marriage is to be found in Numbers
12:1.
"And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian
woman
whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman."

      .."And 'ALHYM' myhla spake unto 'MSHH' hAZsm Moses, and said
unto him,
I am 'YHWH' hvhy: And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto
Jacob,
by the name of 'AL SHDY' yrs la, but by my name 'YHWH' hvhy was I NOT
known
to them"...

      -EXODUS 6: 2-3


The archaeology of the Land of Israel is completing a process that
amounts
to a scientific revolution in its field. It is ready to confront the
findings of biblical scholarship and of ancient history. But at the
same
time, we are witnessing a fascinating phenomenon in which all this is
simply
ignored by the Israeli public. Many of the findings mentioned here
have been
known for decades. The professional literature in the spheres of
archaeology, Bible and the history of the Jewish people has addressed
them
in dozens of books and hundreds of articles. Even if not all the
scholars
accept the individual arguments that inform the examples I cited, the
majority have adopted their main points.

Nevertheless, these revolutionary views are not penetrating the
public
consciousness. About a year ago, my colleague, the historian Prof.
Nadav
Ne'eman, published an article in the Culture and Literature section
of
Ha'aretz entitled "To Remove the Bible from the Jewish Bookshelf," but
there
was no public outcry. Any attempt to question the reliability of the
biblical descriptions is perceived as an attempt to undermine "our
historic
right to the land" and as shattering the myth of the nation that is
renewing
the ancient Kingdom of Israel. These symbolic elements constitute such
a
critical component of the construction of the Israeli identity that
any
attempt to call their veracity into question encounters hostility or
silence. It is of some interest that such tendencies within the
Israeli
secular society go hand-in-hand with the outlook among educated
Christian
groups. I have found a similar hostility in reaction to lectures I
have
delivered abroad to groups of Christian bible lovers, though what
upset them
was the challenge to the foundations of their fundamentalist
religious
belief.

It turns out that part of Israeli society is ready to recognize the
injustice that was done to the Arab inhabitants of the country and is
willing to accept the principle of equal rights for women - but is not
up to
adopting the archaeological facts that shatter the biblical myth. The
blow
to the mythical foundations of the Israeli identity is apparently too
threatening, and it is more convenient to turn a blind eye.

Ha'aretz., October 29, 1999

...................................................................

As to why Jews don't regard Jesus as anyone special:

by Rabbi Shraga Simmons  For 2,000 years, Jews have rejected the
Christian idea of Jesus as messiah. Why?

It is important to understand why Jews don't believe in Jesus. The
purpose is not to disparage other religions, but rather to clarify the
Jewish position. The more data that's available, the better-informed
choices people can make about their spiritual path.

Jews do not accept Jesus as the messiah because:

1) Jesus did not fulfill the messianic prophecies.
2) Jesus did not embody the personal qualifications of the Messiah.
3) Biblical verses "referring" to Jesus are mistranslations.
4) Jewish belief is based on national revelation.

At the end of this article, we will examine these additional topics:

5) Christianity contradicts Jewish theology
6) Jews and Gentiles
7) Bringing the Messiah

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) JESUS DID NOT FULFILL THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES

What is the Messiah supposed to accomplish? The Bible says that he
will:

A. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).

B. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).

C. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression,
suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)

D. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite
humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world --
on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah
14:9).

The historical fact is that Jesus fulfilled none of these messianic
prophecies.

Christians counter that Jesus will fulfill these in the Second Coming,
but Jewish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies
outright, and no concept of a second coming exists.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2) JESUS DID NOT EMBODY THE PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS OF MESSIAH

A. MESSIAH AS PROPHET

Jesus was not a prophet. Prophecy can only exist in Israel when the
land is inhabited by a majority of world Jewry. During the time of
Ezra (circa 300 BCE), when the majority of Jews refused to move from
Babylon to Israel, prophecy ended upon the death of the last prophets
-- Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

Jesus appeared on the scene approximately 350 years after prophecy had
ended.

B. DESCENDENT OF DAVID

The Messiah must be descended on his father's side from King David
(see Genesis 49:10 and Isaiah 11:1). According to the Christian claim
that Jesus was the product of a virgin birth, he had no father -- and
thus could not have possibly fulfilled the messianic requirement of
being descended on his father's side from King David!

C. TORAH OBSERVANCE

The Messiah will lead the Jewish people to full Torah observance. The
Torah states that all mitzvot remain binding forever, and anyone
coming to change the Torah is immediately identified as a false
prophet. (Deut. 13:1-4)

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus contradicts the Torah and states
that its commandments are no longer applicable. For example, John 9:14
records that Jesus made a paste in violation of Shabbat, which caused
the Pharisees to say (verse 16), "He does not observe Shabbat!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3) MISTRANSLATED VERSES "REFERRING" TO JESUS

Biblical verses can only be understood by studying the original Hebrew
text -- which reveals many discrepancies in the Christian
translation.

A. VIRGIN BIRTH

The Christian idea of a virgin birth is derived from the verse in
Isaiah 7:14 describing an "alma" as giving birth. The word "alma" has
always meant a young woman, but Christian theologians came centuries
later and translated it as "virgin." This accords Jesus' birth with
the first century pagan idea of mortals being impregnated by gods.

B. CRUCIFIXION

The verse in Psalms 22:17 reads: "Like a lion, they are at my hands
and feet." The Hebrew word ki-ari (like a lion) is grammatically
similar to the word "gouged." Thus Christianity reads the verse as a
reference to crucifixion: "They pierced my hands and feet."

C. SUFFERING SERVANT

Christianity claims that Isaiah chapter 53 refers to Jesus, as the
"suffering servant."

In actuality, Isaiah 53 directly follows the theme of chapter 52,
describing the exile and redemption of the Jewish people. The
prophecies are written in the singular form because the Jews
("Israel") are regarded as one unit. The Torah is filled with examples
of the Jewish nation referred to with a singular pronoun.

Ironically, Isaiah's prophecies of persecution refer in part to the
11th century when Jews were tortured and killed by Crusaders who acted
in the name of Jesus.

From where did these mistranslations stem? St. Gregory, 4th century
Bishop of Nanianzus, wrote: "A little jargon is all that is necessary
to impose on the people. The less they comprehend, the more they
admire."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4) JEWISH BELIEF IS BASED SOLELY ON NATIONAL REVELATION

Of the 15,000 religions in human history, only Judaism bases its
belief on national revelation -- i.e. God speaking to the entire
nation. If God is going to start a religion, it makes sense He'll tell
everyone, not just one person.

Judaism, unique among all of the world's major religions, does not
rely on "claims of miracles" as the basis for its religion. In fact,
the Bible says that God sometimes grants the power of "miracles" to
charlatans, in order to test Jewish loyalty to the Torah (Deut.
13:4).

Maimonides states (Foundations of Torah, ch. 8):
The Jews did not believe in Moses, our teacher, because of the
miracles he performed. Whenever anyone's belief is based on seeing
miracles, he has lingering doubts, because it is possible the miracles
were performed through magic or sorcery. All of the miracles performed
by Moses in the desert were because they were necessary, and not as
proof of his prophecy.

What then was the basis of [Jewish] belief? The Revelation at Mount
Sinai, which we saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears, not
dependent on the testimony of others... as it says, "Face to face, God
spoke with you..." The Torah also states: "God did not make this
covenant with our fathers, but with us -- who are all here alive
today." (Deut. 5:3)

Judaism is not miracles. It is the personal eyewitness experience of
every man, woman and child, standing at Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago.

See "Did God Speak at Mount Sinai" for further reading.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5) CHRISTIANITY CONTRADICTS JEWISH THEOLOGY

The following theological points apply primarily to the Roman Catholic
Church, the largest Christian denomination.

A. GOD AS THREE?

The Catholic idea of Trinity breaks God into three separate beings:
The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost (Matthew 28:19).

Contrast this to the Shema, the basis of Jewish belief: "Hear O
Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE" (Deut. 6:4). Jews declare
the Shema every day, while writing it on doorposts (Mezuzah), and
binding it to the hand and head (Tefillin). This statement of God's
One-ness is the first words a Jewish child is taught to say, and the
last words uttered before a Jew dies.

In Jewish law, worship of a three-part god is considered idolatry --
one of the three cardinal sins that a Jew should rather give up his
life than transgress. This explains why during the Inquisitions and
throughout history, Jews gave up their lives rather than convert.

B. MAN AS GOD?

Roman Catholics believe that God came down to earth in human form, as
Jesus said: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30).

Maimonides devotes most of the "Guide for the Perplexed" to the
fundamental idea that God is incorporeal, meaning that He assumes no
physical form. God is Eternal, above time. He is Infinite, beyond
space. He cannot be born, and cannot die. Saying that God assumes
human form makes God small, diminishing both His unity and His
divinity. As the Torah says: "God is not a mortal" (Numbers 23:19).

Judaism says that the Messiah will be born of human parents, and
possess normal physical attributes like other people. He will not be a
demi-god, and will not possess supernatural qualities. In fact, an
individual is alive in every generation with the capacity to step into
the role of the Messiah. (see Maimonides - Laws of Kings 11:3)

C. INTERMEDIARY FOR PRAYER?

The Catholic belief is that prayer must be directed through an
intermediary -- i.e. confessing one's sins to a priest. Jesus himself
is an intermediary, as Jesus said: "No man cometh unto the Father but
by me."

In Judaism, prayer is a totally private matter, between each
individual and God. As the Bible says: "God is near to all who call
unto Him" (Psalms 145:18). Further, the Ten Commandments state: "You
shall have no other gods BEFORE ME," meaning that it is forbidden to
set up a mediator between God and man. (see Maimonides - Laws of
Idolatry ch. 1)

D. INVOLVEMENT IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD

Catholic doctrine often treats the physical world as an evil to be
avoided. Mary, the holiest woman, is portrayed as a virgin. Priests
and nuns are celibate. And monasteries are in remote, secluded
locations.

By contrast, Judaism believes that God created the physical world not
to frustrate us, but for our pleasure. Jewish spirituality comes
through grappling with the mundane world in a way that uplifts and
elevates. Sex in the proper context is one of the holiest acts we can
perform.

The Talmud says if a person has the opportunity to taste a new fruit
and refuses to do so, he will have to account for that in the World to
Come. Jewish rabbinical schools teach how to live amidst the bustle of
commercial activity. Jews don't retreat from life, we elevate it.

yemach shemo vezichro = Yeshu (aconym for ""May his name and memory be
obliterated")

Maimonides' Epistle to Yemen
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, namely a forced conversion to Islam, 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 (who is referred
to in the text as "the Madman").

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).

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?

All from: Halkin, Abraham S., ed., and Cohen, Boaz, trans. Moses
Maimonides' Epistle to Yemen: The Arabic Original and the Three Hebrew
Versions, American Academy for Jewish Research, 1952

Nahmanides' disputation at Barcelona
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:

- whether the Messiah had appeared;
- whether the Messiah announced by the Prophets was to be considered
as divine or as a man born of human parents;
- whether the Jews or the Christians were in possession of the true
faith.

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.

According to Jeremy Cohen,

"[e]ven before the Gospels appeared, the apostle Paul (or, more
probably, one of his disciples) portrayed the Jews as Christ's
killers]][2 see below] ... But though the New Testament clearly looks
to the Jews as responsible for the death of Jesus, Paul and the
evangelists did not yet condemn all Jews, by the very fact of their
Jewishness, as murderers of God and his messiah. That condemnation,
however, was soon to come."[3 see below]

In the centuries that followed, antisemitic accusations of deicide and
host desecration circulated throughout Europe, usually accompanied by
massacres. As a part of Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic
Church under Pope Paul VI issued the document Nostra Aetate,
repudiating the doctrine of Jewish guilt for the Crucifixion.

Emil Fackenheim wrote in 1987:

"... Except in relations with Christians, the Christ of Christianity
is not a Jewish issue. There simply can be no dialogue worthy of the
name unless Christians accept — nay, treasure — the fact that Jews
through the two millennia of Christianity have had an agenda of their
own. There can be no Jewish-Christian dialogue worthy of the name
unless one Christian activity is abandoned: missions to the Jews. It
must be abandoned, moreover, not as a temporary strategy but in
principle, as a bimillennial theological mistake. The cost of that
mistake in Christian love and Jewish blood one hesitates to
contemplate."[4 see below]

References

1. ^ Incompatible with Judaism:
"The point is this: that the whole Christology of the Church - the
whole complex of doctrines about the Son of God who died on the Cross
to save humanity from sin and death - is incompatible with Judaism,
and indeed in discontinuity with the Hebraism that preceded it."
Rayner, John D. A Jewish Understanding of the World, Berghahn Books,
1998, p. 187. ISBN 1-57181-974-6
"Aside from its belief in Jesus as the Messiah, Christianity has
altered many of the most fundamental concepts of Judaism." Kaplan,
Aryeh. The Aryeh Kaplan Anthology: Volume 1, Illuminating Expositions
on Jewish Thought and Practice, Mesorah Publication, 1991, p. 264.
ISBN 0-89906-866-9
"...the doctrine of Christ was and will remain alien to Jewish
religious thought." Wylen, Stephen M. Settings of Silver: An
Introduction to Judaism, Paulist Press, 2000, p. 75. ISBN 0-8091-3960-
X
"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, the son of God, part of a divine Trinity, and was resurrected
after his death. ... For two thousand years, a central wish of
Christianity was to be the object of desire by Jews, whose conversion
would demonstrate their acceptance that Jesus has fulfilled their own
biblical prophecies." (Jewish Views of Jesus by Susannah Heschel, in
Jesus In The World's Faiths: Leading Thinkers From Five Faiths Reflect
On His Meaning by Gregory A. Barker, editor. (Orbis Books, 2005) ISBN
1-57075-573-6. p.149)
"No Jew accepts Jesus as the Messiah. When someone makes that faith
commitment, they become Christian. It is not possible for someone to
be both Christian and Jewish." (Why don't Jews accept Jesus as the
Messiah? by Rabbi Barry Dov Lerner)

2. "... the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets." (I
Thessalonians 2:14-15)

3. Jeremy Cohen (2007): Christ Killers: The Jews and the Passion from
the Bible to the Big Screen. Oxford University Press. p.55 ISBN
0195178416

4. Fackenheim, Emil (1987). What is Judaism? An Interpretation for the
Present Age. Summit Books. p. 249. ISBN 0-671-46243-1.