Why Don’t The Jews Accept Jesus As The Messiah?

2008-07-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

I began my spiritual journey as a Jewish-boy, raised and Bar Mitzvahed in the Reformed Jewish Tradition in West Hartford, Connecticut in 1970. Then years later in the mid-80’s, having accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior (as a result of a revelation from God initiated by inspecting a Gideon Bible in a hotel room one evening), I have always been curious why it is that the Jewish people are not willing to accept that Jesus is the ‘long-awaited’ Messiah, promised in the Tanakh - Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). Although it seems a question/topic that might be easily answered, it really isn’t.

So hence the purpose of this blog is to organize my thoughts, and try to find some definitive or at least acceptable answer(s) to this question. Thus hopefully this will become a developing blog, allowing readers (especially a ‘seeker’ such as myself) the benefit of other individual’s understanding/study/enlightenment/revelation regarding this question.

To begin with, when the Hebrew people gathered at Horeb (Sinai), on the day of the congregation, Deuteronomy 18:8 states: “I will establish a prophet for them from among their brethren, like you (referring to Moses), and I will place My words in his mouth; He shall speak to them everything that I will command him.” (Chumash ‘Stone Edition’ translation)

It’s interesting to note that in the Chumash commentary, although the use of the word ‘prophet’ is used in the singular - seemingly to refer to an individual, the commentary considers the word to be plural referring to forthcoming prophets. Christian commentators such as Walvoord & Zuck (The Bible Knowledge Commentary), consider this to be a direct reference to the Messiah of Israel (Jesus Christ).

Perhaps one of the main reasons that the Jewish people did not accept Jesus as the Messiah is that it was believed that His appearance in the world would usher-in a time of peace and well-being for the Jewish people. As a result of Jesus’ birth or ‘first-coming’ during a time of Roman occupation, there was certainly no ‘physical’ peace brought to the Jewish people. At that time, Jews were expecting a Messiah that would free them from the Romans. Since this did not happen at that time, perhaps many Jews questioned how could this be the Messiah?

I recently purchased a copy of Abraham Cohen’s Everyman’s Talmud, which describes the major teachings of the rabbinic sages. (By the way I get a kick out of the fact that Abraham Cohen was also from West Hartford. I wonder if he went to Temple Beth Israel as well?) I hope to be able to gain some insight from this book. It talks about how the Messiah’s coming will ‘inaugurate’ a time of abiding peace, happiness, and contentment - especially for the Jewish people. This time of peace according to the rabbinic sages will occur at the beginning of the Messianic-era when the Messiah comes to earth. So, might there be confusion regarding the ‘first-coming’ and the ‘second-coming’ of the Messiah? Or do the sages teach that the coming of the Messiah is a one-time event?

Well I think that’s enough to get started…let’s see where it leads from here.

The Messianic Identity Question

Why Don’t The Jews Accept Jesus As The Messiah?