Eclectic Topics in no Particular Order
Various Topics Discussed
/>
The Hebrew word for salvation, יְשׁוּעָה y'shu'ah, is a FEMININE NOUN. It cannot possibly be a name for Jesus unless he was a woman. Nouns in Hebrew are either masculine or feminine and the word for "salvation" is a feminine noun. Missionaries ignore pesky little facts in their zeal to missionize. There was a Hebrew name which is similar to יְשׁוּעָה y'shu'ah, and that is the name יֵשֽׁוּעַ Yéshu'a (masculine) -- but do we know for a fact that Jesus' Hebrew name was יֵשֽׁוּעַ Yéshu'a? No, not at all. Indeed it is very unlikely to have been his name based on what we DO know. All the writings about Jesus were in Greek. There is no known Hebrew name for him. So all the modern "Hebrew Christians" who insist on calling Jesus "Yeshua" are simply making up a name based on nothing really. Based on, what, the HOPE that his name meant salvation? As already pointed out the word for salvation is feminine! The word for salvation, יְשׁוּעָה y'shu'ah, and the name יֵשֽׁוּעַ Yéshu'a are spelled differently. Notice not only the heh (ה) at the end of the word for salvation, but notice to that the Masoretic symbols (cantillation) representing vowels (Hebrew is spelled without vowels) are DIFFERENT as well. So while some consonants are similar (with יְשׁוּעָה y'shu'ah ending with a heh / ה and the name ending with an ayin (עַ) the vowels are different -- changing the pronunciation. The two words' pronunciation is very different: the vowel of the first syllable of יֵשֽׁוּעַ Yéshu'a is tzéré, a full-valued vowel having the sound of the "ay" in the English word bay and the accented syllable is the שֽׁוּ -shu-, whereas the yod in יְשׁוּעָה y'shu'ah is pointed with sh'va na, a "snatched" half-vowel that has no sound of it's own and causes the yod to be subsumed into the compound syllable y'shu-, and the stress in this case falls on the final syllable, -ah. There were men named יֵשֽׁוּעַ Yéshu'a 2000 years ago -- but given what we DO know of Jesus' Greek names it could not have been his Hebrew name. How do we know that Jesus' Hebrew name (if he had one) can't even be יֵשֽׁוּעַ Yéshu'a? When a Hebrew word or name is transliterated into Greek letters, iota (I,ι) takes the place of the Hebrew letter י yod and sigma (Σ,σ or ς at the end of a word) replaces the Hebrew ש shin (because Greek lacks both consonants y and sh); furthermore in Greek, men’s names regularly end with -s (e.g. Ἀρίσταρχος Arístarchos, Ἀρχιμήδης Archimēdes, etc). The Greek version of יֵשֽׁוּעַ Yéshu'a would be Jesuas, not Jesus. Also, salvation in the T'nach always refers to our physical lives being saved from danger. Our immortal souls do not need saving. The meaning of יְשׁוּעָה in the Scriptures is very different from the way it is misused in by Christian missionaries. In Hebrew, it simply means being “rescued” from danger—typically by the rescuer engaging in physical combat (fighting) with an assailant who is attacking the person being “saved”. In the T'nach, “saving” is almost always associated with “fighting” or “waging war”.... I refer you to any or all of the following examples: • “Just stand still and you’ll see HaShem’s salvation that He is going to do for your today....” (Sh'mot / Exodus 14:13) • “HaShem saved Israel from Egypt’s power that day....” (Sh'mot / Exodus 14:30) • “HaShem set up a savior for Israel—Otniyél ben K'naz, Kalév’s younger brother....” (Shoftim / Judges 3:9) • “HaShem set up a savior for them—Éhud ben Géra the Bin-y'mini, who had a deformed right hand....” (Shoftim / Judges 3:15) • “....and he, too, saved Israel....” (Shoftim / Judges 3:31) • “If You will save Israel through my hand, as You have spoken....” (Shoftim / Judges 6:36) • “....you didn’t save me from them....and, when I saw that you hadn’t saved me....” (Shoftim / Judges 12:2-3) • “HaShem saved Israel that day....” (Shmuel 1 / 1 Samuel 14:23) • “....so David saved the inhabitants of K'ilah....” (Shmuel 1 / 1 Samuel 23:5) • “HaShem is my Light and my Salvation-- Whom should I fear? HaShem is the fortress of my Life-- Whom should I dread? If evil men approach me To devour my flesh-- [When] my adversaries and my enemies [attacked] me-- Wow! They stumbled and fell! If an army encamps against me My heart will not be afraid; If war breaks out against me-- On this [assurance] I can rely!” (T'hillim / Psalm 27:1-3) The above verses (and these are only a selection—there are many, many more) demonstrate how the verb save and nouns savior, salvation are used in the T'nach, which is nothing like the way christians use them.... The only reason that Christians pretend Jesus' Hebrew name was “Y'shua” is so they can claim that his name meant “salvation”.... but they conveniently forget that the very man to whose throne they pretend he was the heir warned us with biting sarcasm about him: “Do not trust in princes, in the son of men, who has no salvation. His spirit leaves, he returns to his soil; on that day, his thoughts are lost." T'hillim / Psalm 146:3-4). In D'varim / Deuteronomy 33:29 Moses said we are “a nation that has been saved by HaShem” and Y'shayahu / Isaiah 45:17 says the Jewish nation “has been saved by HaShem”, adding that “this is an eternal salvation”). Note that, in both verses, the words used were “has been saved” or "continually being saved." So we don't NEED Jesus to save us -- G-d has saved / is saving us continually, B"H! The Hebrew word used in both verses is נוֹשַׁע nosha, which is a nif 'al (passive) participle and literally means “being saved”. This form, although it may appear to be in the present tense, actually denotes a continuous state, independent of time, that has always existed in the past, still exists in the present, and will continue to exist into the future. Remember. . . “Do not trust in princes, in the son of men, who has no salvation. His spirit leaves, he returns to his soil; on that day, his thoughts are lost." T'hillim / Psalm 146:3-4).
2 Comments
Recently the blog has focused on how Jews know that Jesus was not the messiah (he did not have the correct parentage, he did not fulfill the prophecies and human sacrifice is forbidden. The Torah also teaches us that no one can atone for the sins of another -- each of us is responsible for his / her own sins. That last topic -- our personal responsibility -- brings me back full circle to the intention of this blog. The focus of this blog is not on Jesus (as a person or a god). The goal of this blog is to explain what Jews believe and to show how these beliefs are based firmly in the Jewish bible (primarily the Torah, the Five Books of Moses). The other books of the bible (Prophets and Writings) do nothing more but re-enforce what G-d already taught us in the Torah. We are forbidden from adding to or subtracting from the mitzvot of the Torah. Think about it -- the prophets spent most of their effort trying to return Jews to Torah observance! This blog exists to help teach uneducated Jews and interested non-Jews the teachings of Torah (and thus Judaism) -- and to refute the assumption by many a missionary that Judaism and Christianity are "the same" -- except they believe the messiah has come (Jesus) while the Jew still awaits the messiah. This assumption is false. There are far more differences between Judaism and Christianity than there are similarities. Let's just list a few differences, Remember: what one Christian believes another will reject -- some Christian reading the list will say "I don't believe in "original sin" or "faith over works", but the list of what Christians believe is based on a majority of "normative" Christian teaching and beliefs:
A Jew cannot be Christian and remain Jewish. A Jew accepting the beliefs of another religion (gods) and rejecting those promises we made to G-d to do and to hear is endangering his or her immortal soul. A Jew can never stop being a Jew, and thus turning to עבודה זרה / avodah zarah (strange / foreign worship, aka idolatry) is cutting that person off from G-d and the Jewish people. That person is an apostate to the Jewish people until such time as he or she returns to G-d and repents of their idolatry. The term idolatry in Judaism means any form of worship we did not know at Sinai, and any thinking Christian must realize that the Jews of Sinai did not pray to or through Jesus. The website Simple to Remember puts it well. Jews do not accept Jesus as the messiah because: (What exactly is the Messiah?)
“Don’t rely on ‘princes’ or on that ‘son of man’ —he has no ‘salvation’! When his spirit departs he will turn back into his dust; on that very day all his schemes will be destroyed!” (T'hillim / Psalm 146:3-4). The term the Son of man is used to refer to Jesus 32 times in Matthew, The term the Son of man is in Mark 15 times, The term the Son of man is in Luke 26 times. The term the Son of man is in John 12 times. In the first three gospels the title is always recorded as having been used by Jesus of himself and never by angel, by man, or by demon. "Just" Jesus as the "son of man." Yet G-d warns you that the "son of man" has no salvation. The son of many cannot save you. But doesn't Jesus' Hebrew name mean salvation? Jesus doesn't have a Hebrew name. The Christian bible was written in Greek, not in Hebrew. If Jesus ever lived no one knows what his Hebrew name might have been. It is impossible that it was the Hebrew name for "salvation." Why? Because Hebrew nouns are either feminine or masculine. There is no "gender neutral" noun. The Hebrew word for salvation is a FEMININE noun (יְשׁוּעָה - y'shu'AH) . Feminine as in female, girl, woman. . . not a man (let alone a son of man). Hebrew is not spelled with vowels (only consonants), but when vocalized there is a man's name spelled somewhat similarly -- but it is not the Hebrew word for salvation. The male name is "Yeshu'a" is יֵשׁוּעַ - a masculine proper name.
Did you notice the markings under some of the letters? Hebrew is written only with consonants (no vowels), but those dots and dashes are the Masoretic diacritical markings -- symbols added to letters of the aleph bet to indicate pronunciation (basically, vowels). Not all Hebrew uses them -- the Torah does not have them, most Hebrew in Israel does not use them. . . but they are helpful with people less familiar with Hebrew pronunciation. The Hebrew word for "salvation" is spelled differently from the masculine name Yeshu'a and it is also pronounced differently, too. The modern usage of "Yeshua" for Jesus is a recent attempt by missionaries (most of them actively trying to convert Jews to Christianity, aka "messianic" Judaism -- an oxymoron if ever there was one) -- but if Jesus lived no one knows what his Hebrew name might have been as we have no ancient documents with his Hebrew name. People are simply "guessing" -- and for the most part, guessing poorly with limited knowledge of Hebrew. All we know of Jesus' "name" is what is found in ancient Greek papyri. In Greek the name is Ἰησοῦς / Iesous. This would transliterate into the Aramaic form יֵֽשׁוּ Yéshu (not יֵשׁוּעַ - yeSHU'a or יְשׁוּעָה / "Y'shu'AH"). We know that Jesus (Ἰησοῦς / Iesous) can not represent the Hebrew form יֵשֽׁוּעַ / Yéshu'a (the masculine name closest to / "Y'shu'AH" aka "salvation") because Ἰησοῦς / Iesous would transliterate into "Jesuas" and no missionaries who have tried to make up a Hebrew name for Jesus have ever called Jesus "Jesuas." The Yeshu'a name game (calling Jesus "יֵשׁוּעַ") began in the 1970s with the various Christian groups established primarily by Baptists to try to convert Jews to Christianity that had a veneer of Jewishness to it (e.g. "Jews for Jesus" and other "messianic" Christian groups). As the Baptists tried to add Jewish trappings to churches (calling their ministers "rabbi" and their churches "Synagogues) they started saying that Jesus' Hebrew name was יֵשֽׁוּעַ Yéshu'a so they could pretend it is the same as the common noun יְשׁוּעָה y'shu'ah (which is feminine and means "salvation"). As shown in this post this deception is transparently obvious to anyone who can read Hebrew (even without understanding the words). The two words' pronunciation (the feminine word meaning "salvation" versus the male name) are very different: the vowel of the first syllable of יֵשֽׁוּעַ Yéshu'a is tzéré, a full-valued vowel having the sound of the "ay" in the English word bay and the accented syllable is the שֽׁוּ -shu-, whereas the yod in יְשׁוּעָה y'shu'ah is pointed with sh'va na, a "snatched" half-vowel that has no sound of it's own and causes the yod to be subsumed into the compound syllable y'shu-, and the stress in this case falls on the final syllable, -ah. There is only one G-d, and He does not share His glory with another. There is no salvation from the "son of man." "Remember the first things of old, that I am G-d and there is no other; I am G-d and there is none like Me." Y'shayahu / Isaiah 46:9. G-d has revealed to us that He is not a man or a son of man in whom there is no salvation. "Do not trust in princes, or in the son of man, who has no salvation." (Psalm / T'heillim 146:3). The Christian bible calls Jesus the "son of man" over 77 times. It is not the Jews who are blind! Human beings cannot be sacrificed -- by the high priest or anyone else. BTW the only lambs sacrificed for sin were FEMALE. Aside from the fact that human sacrifice is forbidden, Torah tells us that a proper sacrifice must be of a kosher, domestic animal (the animal is often identified as a bull, a seh (goat or lamb), etc (see Sh'mot / Exodus 13:13; Vayikra / Leviticus 22). Jesus, being a human (or even a demi-god) was obviously not a kosher animal and thus was unacceptable as a sacrifice. The sacrificial ritual must be administered by a Jewish Priest (see Vayikra / Leviticus Chapters 1-7). According to the accounts in the Greek Testament (Christian Bible), Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers (Matthew 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:33; John 19:18, 23). Some Christians may say that Jesus was a priest "like Melchitzedek" -- but Jewish sacrifices had to be brought by Jewish priests who were of the tribe of Levi and descended from Aaron (Moses' brother) -- which would exclude Jesus (see Sh'mot / Exodus 29:9 and Bamidbar / Numbers 25:13 for two of many references). The so-called priesthood of "Melchitzedek" is non-existant (the King of Salem was a king of righteousness -- which is what the words "malki and tzedek" mean). The King of Salem (Shem) in B'reshit / Genesis was NOT Jewish ergo his priesthood had nothing to do with Judaism or Jewish sacrifices! In Psalm / T'hellim 110 where the phrase is used again it is simply referring to King David who was also a king of righteousness (malki - tzedek). Torah further tells us that the blood of the (cheit / sin) sacrifice had to be sprinkled by the Jewish Priest on the veil of the sanctuary and on the altar in the Temple (e.g., Vayikra / Leviticus 4: 5-6). Christian Bible evidence clearly shows this was not done. Then it tells us that the (cheit / sin) sacrifice must be without any physical defect or blemish (e.g., Vayikra / Leviticus 4:3). According to the various accounts in the Christian Bible, Jesus was beaten, whipped, and dragged on the ground before being crucified (Matthew 26:67, 27:26, 30-31; Mark 14: 65, 15:15-20; Luke 22: 63; John 18:22, 19:1, 3). Moreover, as a Jew by birth, Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day after being born, a ritual that leaves a scar ("sign of the covenant"). According to the Christian Bible, circumcision is tantamount to mutilation (Philippians 3:2, Galatians 5:12). Torah says that the Passover animal was to be a male-goat, be offered on an individual (per household) basis (Bamidbar / Numbers 28:22), not as a communal offering. According to the Christian Bible, Jesus’ death (termed a “sin sacrifice”) expiated the sins of mankind (Romans 6:10; Hebrews 9:12, 10:10, 10:18 ). It was not a sacrifice -- it was a celebratory offering to G-d (read the bible!). The phrase the "lamb of god" is pagan. Read up on Greek gods. . . the Jewish sacrifices of bulls, goats, sheep, birds, etc. were all of pagan gods to show the power of the real G-d over false gods. . . they are for us (not for G-d) -- a gift from G-d to man. . . more on that if you desire an explanation. No where does the Jewish bible state we have to be perfect or keep the mitzvot "perfectly." G-d MADE us imperfect just as He created good and evil -- so that we could choose the right path and learn. If we do not sin (if we were perfect) we would not grow -- and G-d would not even have made us! From a post quoting R' Yisroel Blumenthal (in response to a missionary named Michael Brown): No where does the Jewish bible state we have to be perfect or keep the mitzvot "perfectly." G-d MADE us imperfect just as He created good and evil -- so that we could choose the right path and learn. If we do not sin (if we were perfect) we would not grow -- and G-d would not even have made us! The missionary assumption is that unless one attains absolute perfection (which he cannot), all is lost. Brown should read the verse again. It says, "There is no RIGHTEOUS person..who never sins." The person who does a sin is still righteous! One of the verses most devastating to Original Sin is Genesis 4:7, where G-d tells Cain that he can overcome temptation. Cain is envious of Abel because G-d accepts only Abel's sacrifice. Cain is tempted to murder Abel. G-d says, "if you do not do good, sin crouches at the entrance. Its desire is for you, but you can rule over it." G-d's majestic statement of man's ability to overcome evil is brushed aside by Dr. Brown, and his answer is terrible: "But it is one thing to overcome a particular sin. It is another to be free from the grip of sin in general" (p. 193). If Cain can free himself from this sin, why can't he free himself from any sin? Also, what is meant by "the grip of sin in general"? If he means that no one is 51% righteous, this is manifestly not true. Must one be 70% righteous (or 80%, or 90%) to transcend "the grip." Perhaps Dr. Brown believes that a 99% righteous person is under "the grip of sin", but would he justify a teacher who failed a student with a 99 average? This belief that absolute perfection is required is the real backbone of Original Sin, as Dr. Brown admits that people can do much good. What is the Scriptural proof that only perfection earns G-d's favor? There is none whatsoever. It can be asserted only by a faulty reading of Deuteronomy 27:26. It says, "Cursed is one who does not uphold (yakeem) the words of this Torah to do them." Since no one fulfills Torah with total perfection, all are damned and require "salvation." This missionary interpretation cannot make sense of the eleven curses (applied to eleven specific sins) that appear before this verse. If Deuteronomy 27:26 sets a curse for any single violation of Torah, the eleven prior curses are totally superfluous (Samuel Levine). Missionaries also make a subtle but devastating grammatical error. While y'kayaim means to fulfill, yakeem is a different construct meaning "cause to stand up", "confirm", "uphold". This verse is not saying that unless one fulfills Torah flawlessly, he is cursed. One who does not accept the mitzvot, in whole or in part, fails to "uphold" the Torah, but the commission of a specific sin is not the subject here. This reading is faithful to the grammar and is totally consistent with Torah's frequent injunctions to choose good and make amends for wrong behavior. The missionary viewpoint paints G-d as an anti-Semite who curses Israel with commandments they cannot obey (Samuel Levine). At no point does Dr. (Michael) Brown attempt to integrate the verses he cites with the many hundreds of verses that stress free will, the opportunity to do good and amend wrongs, and descriptions of righteous people who earned G-d's favor. Let us cite only one of them: "It is not in heaven, to say 'Who will go up for us to heaven, and acquire it for us, and teach it to us, and we will do it?' Nor is it across the sea, to say Who will cross the sea, and acquire it for us and teach it to us, and we will do it?' For the matter is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it ('varim / Deuteronomy 30:11)." Dr. Brown provides not a single verse to support Original Sin. There is also no support that one must be a perfect individual to earn G-d's favor. Original Sin was unknown before Christianity, not because ancient Jews did not read carefully but because Original Sin is not in the Hebrew Bible at all. Rabbi Blumenthal's original post and many other excellent thoughts may be found on his blog "Your Pharisee Friend." |
Categories
All
|