Michi, from your response it’s clear you didn’t think enough about what was said.
You’ve known my views on this for several years already. To call me a missionary is very insulting — not only to real missionaries but probably also to most Christians.

But that’s not the main problem with your response… I believe that if you go into the short videos I attached, you won’t be so quick to link them to Oren Zarif or the Baal Shem Tov.
The argument in the video is substantive and even fairly strong, though not necessarily immune to every criticism (your “criticism,” on the other hand, it definitely survives). You obviously didn’t bother to watch it.
The issue really interests me, not only from the standpoint of my private beliefs, but mainly because it says something about the methodology underlying historical research. I thought that at least that might interest you.

I invite someone with a bit more integrity on this matter to find weak points in the argument. I’m sure there are some.

As for the recipe, I’ll keep working on it.

My experience with videos and propaganda materials like these has been very disappointing, so I decided there’s no point wasting time on them. Maybe I’m wrong and there are crushing arguments there of excellent quality. But the rule on the site is that if someone wants to ask a question, he should present an argument and not send me to videos. The arguments you raised here, which were supposed to set up the question, are Oren Zarif at his best (or worst). If you want to raise a specific argument and discuss it, we can discuss it.

All right, that’s a slightly more substantive response.
First, my experience with missionary-apologists of all kinds (including, of course, Christians) also hasn’t been good. Here we’re not talking about people in those leagues, but claims made by very serious scholars and philosophers (I can give you references).
As for an argument — read again and you’ll see there is one.

I’ll repeat it briefly:
There are several historical facts that are relatively easy to verify in accepted scholarly research (that is, they can be accepted even by an atheist historian).
The debate is about the plausible and rational explanation for those facts.

For example, the claim that Jesus’ tomb was empty. Some argue: in Jewish tradition (in Jewish law?) it is forbidden to move the corpse of the dead person (except to a family grave), so how and why did Jesus’ body disappear from the tomb? In any case there was Roman guard over the tomb, since Jesus was a political provocateur and rebel, so if someone wanted to move / kidnap the body, how did he do it? In addition, the Sanhedrin, or some among them, claimed that Jesus’ body had been stolen from the tomb, thereby strengthening the claim that the tomb was empty. In addition, the claim is that mainstream historical research accepts (that is, also among non-Christian or non-religious historians) that there are several independent testimonies regarding the empty tomb (cross-checking sources). Indeed, according to the claims I’ve encountered, the time of the testimonies regarding the empty tomb is dated to at most a few years after the event (even though they were written down and canonized later).

All this is only about one fact. There are of course additional serious arguments regarding the other facts, and all these join together into a complete explanatory picture. When serious historians come and repeatedly weigh the facts and their (competing) explanations, you can’t just dismiss it with a shrug. That’s amateurish.

All this could be very interesting news for people like you and me who believe there is a God, and that the core of the Jewish tradition (the giving of the Torah and the like) is perceived by them as a relatively solid fact.

And all this doesn’t even touch the even more interesting question (and perhaps also more important philosophically) regarding the power of the basic Christian narrative. Even if it is primarily “fictional.” Even if the historical Jesus was a charlatan or even a nonexistent figure, the basic theological core is very powerful.
This isn’t the place to bring arguments for that claim.

The historical fact is that it’s known where he was buried and the tomb was empty? I very much doubt the historicity, and also the significance of it (so someone stole the body. The Romans broke guard). The halakhic prohibition on moving the body in this context is a joke. It sounds so flimsy to me that it really doesn’t justify getting into the historical testimonies, which are always debatable.

With a little Doron to the official or the guard, you can move a body from a guarded grave. Presumably his followers preferred that he be buried in a hidden place where the Romans would not prevent access to him. Moreover, it stands to reason that the Romans themselves removed the body from the grave and threw it to the dogs so the place wouldn’t become a pilgrimage site — but achieved the opposite 🙂

In tractate Sanhedrin it is mentioned that there was a special cemetery for those executed, and only after the flesh had decomposed was their sin atoned for and they were permitted to be moved to their family graves. It wasn’t a great honor to be buried in the cemetery for the stoned, and it is obvious that his followers would do anything to get the body out of there.

According to the story, he was buried in his uncle’s family plot, not in the plot for the executed. He also wasn’t stoned but crucified by the Romans. Despite what is told in John, many argue that some of what is told there was inserted by the Church in a later period in order to blame the Jews. In the other Gospels, the ones who killed him were the Romans because he threatened their rule.

Why is the apparition at Fatima a weak argument? According to the story, she appeared before 70,000 people, in a period that had documentation only about a hundred years ago, and brought 3 prophecies that were fully fulfilled and were known before they were fulfilled, except for the last prophecy which was hidden by the Church because of its content (the assassination attempt on John Paul).
That’s not like arguments from a few crazies claiming something that only they saw. Nor is it a story that was later distorted, added to, or polished up after the fact for theological reasons. Though the description of Mary is very strange, and so some connect it to the UFO phenomenon.

Michi,
On what historical evidence are you doubting the empty-tomb story? If you have a concrete claim capable of confronting those of professional historians (if indeed most of them claim what has been put in their mouths), then by all means raise it. Until then it is more appropriate to take seriously their claim that the tomb was empty.
And the claim that “the Romans broke guard” (thus making it possible somehow to smuggle out the body) also looks like something you just pulled out of thin air. Maybe that’s what happened, but where’s the evidence? Is it even likely this would happen? Jesus’ crucifixion was probably not a negligible event and was meant to convey a clear message. Was it likely from the Roman point of view that there would be negligence at this stage? Again, without the concrete historical context, such a hypothesis seems a bit weak (ad hoc).

As for the Jewish norm at that time about moving or not moving bodies: was there or wasn’t there such a norm? Whether a halakhic norm or another kind. In what situations was this done? And if there wasn’t, is it likely that this was a special case that did justify it? And why would someone from a small persecuted Jewish sect (by the Jewish majority and the Roman government) risk himself for a spiritual leader who had failed, been disgraced, and executed?
As best I remember, the tomb was also sealed with a rolling stone, which made the task even harder.

And all this is only regarding the empty tomb. The Christian explanation, as noted, relies on much more than that: on historical facts (to the extent historians can arrive at facts) and connecting them to one another in a coherent and logical narrative. Of course the narrative may be false, in part or in whole, but in terms of historical methodology it appears, at least on its face, far more successful. That’s not nothing.

I don’t know the apparition at Fatima, but from what you describe, the main point is missing from the book. A central point in God’s revelation to the Jewish people is that it is known to whom the revelation happened and there is a tradition about it. Anyone can claim that there were 600,000 people who saw him bringing down lightning from heaven — the question is where are they? In the revelation to the Jewish people, the revelation is to a specific people who testify to it, and that already can’t just be made up. And that of course refutes Doron’s claims 2-3 (a few crazies confirm nothing; a large group does, because that’s a number you can no longer fool). Claim 4 is really weak — what does that prove? People believed that Shabbetai Tzvi was the Messiah, and many people believe many stupid things (they don’t testify to a specific event, but testify to a certain stupidity) — that proves nothing. Claim 1 proves nothing. Literally zero. Though I find it hard to believe these are things agreed on by all historians; rather they sound like missionary demagoguery. As far as I know, scholars dispute whether Jesus even existed at all. So claim 1 seems very uncertain to me. Though even if claim 1 is true, it really proves nothing.

Another interesting fact is the emergence of the very un-Jewish belief in a Son of God incarnate in flesh and blood as Messiah. The claim is that there is no ancient Jewish source at all for such a figure, only for a Messiah who will come at the end of days (which is not the case here). And certainly not as a figure who was defeated and humiliated before his enemies. How do Jews from the early first century CE manage to conjure up such a bizarre idea? The Christian claim is of course that they could not have invented such a belief unless they believed in what was revealed before their eyes.

There’s a book by Bart Ehrman on the ideological development of turning a Jew from Galilee into God. I don’t think it’s so simple to claim there were absolutely no roots in Judaism or in the Greek world for a god incarnate in flesh. From this distance in time it’s hard to make such sweeping claims.

As far as I remember, the apparition at Fatima was before two children. After that the stories started. But I haven’t checked now.

Doron, I’m really not especially interested in this myrrh-like argument to the point of investing time in historical studies. A priori it’s suspicious to me, and I’m aware that maybe if I looked into it deeply my opinion would change. Everyone chooses how to divide the effort and time they invest. At first glance this looks like nonsense arguments.

Who said there are no roots in Judaism for Christian ideas? Of course there are. In Kabbalah there are actual trinities.

L,
I have only a superficial familiarity with Bart Ehrman and his work. He is certainly a respected scholar and I’m in no position to criticize him within the material he deals with.
But “outside” the material — that is, reflection on the methodological foundations of his work — gives a not-so-good impression.
According to him, historical evaluation is bound in advance solely to “naturalistic” scientific tools, and therefore it would be irresponsible and meaningless for a serious historian to discuss whether Jesus was the Son of God or not, whether he performed miracles, and the like.
That is a confused claim. The science of history necessarily rests — like any other science — on basic assumptions that have logical and metaphysical status. In the case of Jesus’ supposed resurrection (or not supposed), the historian’s point of departure should be very simple: Are there enough testimonies, preferably independent, to the existence of Jesus the man before the crucifixion? Are there testimonies of equal weight to the fact of his crucifixion? Are there enough such testimonies regarding his appearance after his death? These are three simple matters that can be reported in plain and even “naturalistic” language. If you received satisfactory answers to these questions, it is entirely possible and almost necessary to arrive at theological conclusions.

L

My comment got cut off…
As for the absence of roots for the idea of the Son of God who is also Messiah:
As far as I understand, in the Greek world there is basically no talk at all of a “monotheistic” god who reveals himself in history and is involved in it. In any case, such a god cannot be incarnated in flesh (gods of another kind maybe yes).
As for the Jewish world, I have never heard of even a trace in any Jewish source of a claim to this very radical idea. If someone knows otherwise and wants to correct me, I’d be happy to hear.
Maybe Bart Ehrman is captive to the same confused naturalism, and so likely tries to find in history foundations that are not really there.

By and large, the Christian gospel is a revolution of unparalleled audacity. Precisely for that reason, it is easier to examine it, whether for condemnation or for grace.

Thanks for the humorous content and for the privilege of fulfilling mockery of idolatry.

With God’s help, 13 Nisan 5782

What is the great novelty? Every pagan belief claimed that every god had to become embodied in something physical. The incarnation of a god in a human was also accepted; for example, in Rome they used to regard the emperor as a god. At first after death, as they tell about Gaius Caligula who tended toward death and said, “I fear I am becoming a god” 🙂 and later pagan worship of emperors developed even during their lifetimes, from which only the Jews, as a “recognized religion,” were exempt.

Greek mythology too is full of stories about unions between gods and women, from which were born possessors of superhuman powers, like Heracles. In complete contrast to Samson the hero, who was born to a man and woman and whose great strength came to him from his observance of the Nazirite commandments.

The Christians made a mishmash of pagan monotheism. They took monotheism from Judaism together with the deification of man from paganism, where “the three are one and the one is three,” and whoever cannot digest the bizarre combination is destined for elimination — if he is a heretical Christian, or eternal humiliation as the “Wandering Jew.”

Thank God, the “Wandering Jew” has returned to his land, despite them and to their fury, and for that too we must give thanks on the festival of our freedom.

Regards,
Yiftach Lahad Argamon-Bakshi

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZikUYZyVgIuR0qAVu3p3yO1AZ73ne83J/view?usp=sharing

Yishai,
Regarding point 1 (it is known where that gentleman was buried), I explained what the claim is and what the evidence supporting it is. Joseph of Arimathea, who was a member of the Sanhedrin, apparently was the one who buried him (in a tomb he had purchased for himself).

Regarding point 2 (the empty tomb): if you claim the tomb did not suddenly “empty out,” you have to deal, among other things, with the documented claim of the Sanhedrin, or someone from it, that the body was kidnapped from the place by Jesus’ followers. You also have to ask yourself why Jews of the first century CE living in a patriarchal and chauvinistic culture report to us that the first witnesses to the emptiness of the tomb were women. If you’re going to fabricate testimony, why not invent credible figures? Remember who the audience is to whom the producers of the false report (or real one) are speaking.

Regarding point 3 (multiple testimonies to Jesus’ appearance after his resurrection): I agree that this is the weaker point in the argument. Still, many historians claim these are not typical testimonies for several reasons (I’ll mention only a few): according to those testimonies, Jesus appeared in the form of a flesh-and-blood, “natural” person. This is an unusual phenomenon in the ancient world, where there are countless reports of visions of “spirits” and apparitions of beings with a heavenly appearance and the like. In addition, the reports concern that same figure itself on different occasions and in different places. In some cases the reports are cross-checked (one source experiences Jesus’ appearance and reports it, and another source that according to research was not in contact with that reporter brings a similar report).

Regarding point 4 (the conversion of belief out of nowhere): here it seems you didn’t understand the point at all.
The claim that people “invent” beliefs for themselves is anachronistic and does not fit the intellectual and spiritual climate of the ancient world, in this case the Jewish world of the first century CE. Jesus’ earliest followers never dreamed of deviating from the Jewish tradition in which the Messiah (and not the Son of God! there is no such thing in Judaism, as far as I understand) suddenly arrives in the middle of life and history. That move is reserved for the end of days. In addition, a Jewish messiah is by definition a real macho man, not a loser who was humiliated, tortured, and executed. Jesus on the cross is, from their perspective, a story of failure and even fraud. The ancient world sanctifies victory and heroism, not complicated and tormented anti-heroes…
This point also answers the claim of our What’s-the-Novelty friend, according to which the pagan myth of a man-god (Julius Caesar, etc.) is relevant to the explanation here. Even if those good Jews, faithful to their religion — at least from their own point of view — knew the pagan myths, they were not at all connected to them. In the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) on which they relied there is no sympathy for this pagan nonsense and the whole idolatrous business (all those nature gods and their cycles that are suddenly projected onto flesh-and-blood figures).
Moreover: those Jews who suddenly began to believe in Jesus’ resurrection (his brother James, for example, grew up with him and did not believe in him, only after the crucifixion) were willing to risk their lives and cling to him after his death in a world very hostile to that strange sect. Why? What did he see and hear as a Jew that caused such an upheaval in him?

Bottom line: the model of the Son of God / Messiah is frighteningly bizarre for the world in which it arose (perhaps like the Torah given to the Jews at Sinai). How did it suddenly pop up like that?

The last and broader point is philosophical (and not directly related to my arguments): suppose the historical Jesus did not exist at all. Still, the myth about a man-god who is the “son” of the God of the Hebrew Bible and is sent to save the world is an impressively effective myth. In my opinion, anyone who believes in God and to some extent also in His revelation at Sinai can easily feel that this story is really excellent, and it sits very well on central parts of the Jewish tradition and on human psychology. In other words: if the God of the Old Covenant wanted to tell us a good and successful story about us and Him, He would have done well to tell us this story. If I am right, then this point is also the key to the sympathy one can develop when approaching the concrete historical questions (the life and figure of Jesus).

What do you infer from your conclusion that the model of the Son of God is bizarre and rootless in the conceptual world of that period?

L,
Your question slightly distorts my conclusion because it presents only one side of it.
The essence of the Christian gospel rests on two almost opposite legs: one conservative (Jewish-monotheistic-revelatory, with a firm hold in human history and in “culture”) and the other radical and innovative (prophetic-apocalyptic, emphasizing the “future”).
That, as I understand it, is Christianity’s principal historical contribution, and my conclusion from it is that one should take very seriously the traditional interpretation it offers. It’s a very sexy interpretation in my eyes.
Sorry for all the foreign terms.

Doron,
Claim 1: You treat his tomb as if it were a settled fact and not archaeology under dispute. It can only persuade someone who already thinks Jesus existed and was buried. See here for more on the subject (I didn’t read it all, but from what I understood it surveys both sides). https://eds-p-ebscohost-com.elib.openu.ac.il/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=79f9ec6e-04be-4a46-9caf-a6a76d860aa2%40redis
Claim 2,3: I don’t need to do the work and show why historically this is probably inaccurate, because that work has already been done for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_and_origin_of_the_resurrection_of_Jesus
Claim 4: Have you heard of the phenomenon of Chabad followers who believe that the Rebbe is actually God? Do you know how Berland’s followers relate to him? (I once read a pamphlet by someone who left him, and if I remember right there was partial idolatry there.) These people too never dreamed of deviating from Jewish tradition, and yet there are those who do so proudly with all kinds of strange claims (as happened with Jesus). Berland too is supposedly humiliated, and lo and behold his followers still admire him and do not see that humiliation as a weak point. In general there is no shortage of people who believed in false messiahs and other bad business. That proves nothing. And what you tried to answer our What’s-the-Novelty friend also doesn’t hold water: even if the Hebrew Bible does not support such religious worship, they certainly knew it and therefore wouldn’t see it as something so bizarre. And so all kinds of myths that say things similar to Jesus could definitely provide fertile ground to prepare them psychologically for such worship. And of course the gates of interpretation were not locked, so the Hebrew Bible would not necessarily have had such special influence over them.
As for the paragraph beginning “Moreover”: here too the claim about Berland is the same thing. And surprise, surprise — there is still an audience of Berland followers. (See the YouTube channel Breslov Netzach Netzachim.) Once people admire a person in such an exaggerated way (they probably really believed him that he is God), they won’t care what other people think of him.
Bottom line: there are many crazy people in the world, and some of them are even charismatic and offer convenient alternatives to Judaism, so they succeed.
And in general, suppose claims 1-3 are correct — that does not lead to Jesus being the Son of God, just as Elijah (and Enoch?) never died and yet he is not the Son of God, and this certainly certainly does not overturn the Sinai revelation.
Response to the philosophical claim: what does it mean that it’s really excellent? How is the incarnation of God in flesh and blood “excellent”? It’s bizarre!!!! If you like bedtime stories, health to you, but if you think this really continues the Hebrew Bible then I don’t know what to tell you.

According to the Christians’ view that the bread and wine eaten at the “Mass” are the embodiment of the flesh and blood of that man who was the son of a Jewish mother — it turns out they are eating the flesh and blood of a Jew.

Regards,
Don Quixote de-Sacramento

Line 2
… it turns out they are eating …

With God’s help, 13 Nisan 5782

The story of the god who dies and returns to life is an ancient pagan myth about the idol Tammuz or Adonis, who dies and rises again. In Egypt too there was a myth about the idol Osiris who was murdered and whose body was cut up and thrown into the Nile, and from there he rose again. So here too we have another pagan myth that the Christians adapted.

As for the tomb attributed to that man, the matter seems far-fetched, since the Jewish law is that one does not make graves in Jerusalem because of ritual impurity, and this law was practiced in the Temple period when lesser sacrifices were eaten throughout the city. The only exception was “the graves of the kings of the House of David,” which had been there since the First Temple period, before the city was expanded. So if a grave was found within the walls of Jerusalem, it is certainly from the period after the destruction.

It may be that the “historical core” of the story is this: that the followers of that man, who saw him as messiah, sought to bury him in Jerusalem as one of the “kings of the House of David.” They may have done so secretly, and they may have misled the Roman governor into thinking that burial in Jerusalem was accepted. Presumably the moment the Sanhedrin learned of the burial in Jerusalem, they immediately approached the governor and made clear to him that burial of the dead in Jerusalem is forbidden except for a king from the House of David. It does not seem that Pontius would have wanted the crucified “messiah” to be recognized as a king of the House of David, and he ordered the body moved outside the city.

Regards,
Yiftach Lahad Argamon-Bakshi

Yishai.
Claim 1: I didn’t claim it is a settled fact that we know where Jesus was buried, so don’t put words in my mouth. I wrote that as far as I know most professional historians (not dubious missionary-apologists) think so. The source you sent on this matter didn’t open.

Claims 2 and 3: In a discussion like ours you can’t be satisfied with saying the historical work has already been done for you and send me to a source as long as the exile. Kindly make the effort to formulate a claim that summarizes the difficulty with my claims and offers a better option. Besides, I looked at the second source (Wikipedia), and on the tomb issue, lo and behold, they quoted at the end of that section (within the whole article) a historian who states that most historians in the field hold the view I presented (in their name). Next time you let others do the work for you, maybe take another group of “others” to supervise the first ones and make sure they do the job properly…

Claim 4: It is clear that again you didn’t examine this claim and didn’t understand it… I was talking there about historical anachronism, in which we project our present-day knowledge onto a world that operated by completely different laws. That is what you did in the examples of Chabad and Berland. Do you now understand what I claimed and what the flaw is in your position regarding this section?

You also raise a difficulty: even if the first 3 points are true, that does not indicate Jesus’ divinity. Not sure… As far as I understand from what I have studied, most historians agree that Jesus ascribed divine status to himself before the crucifixion and even spoke about his own killing (this text that appears, for example, in the parable of the vineyard in the New Testament is considered authentic, i.e. from the mouth of the historical Jesus). If that is true, and that figure took on so much pretension (again, unprecedented in history), that is significant reinforcement for the Christian thesis. There is much more to add here.

As for the philosophical claim that Christianity is an incomparably successful model (“sexy,” in my words): well, I’ll let you think for yourself why it is the most popular religion in the world (which is evidence that it speaks at least to people’s hearts), and perhaps think about what is unique about this original mediating channel between man and God (half man, half god, the Son of God) that is so psychologically apt. As I hinted earlier: such a universal and touching story must rest on deep philosophical and religious truths that one can intuitively identify (even if he cannot explain to himself what it is that touched him). I can give you a more concrete example here too (I wrote a whole book touching on this).

What’s-the-Novelty,
As far as I know, the attempt to read the myth of Jesus as a copy-paste of pagan myths is itself a dead corpse in the scholarly world of Christianity. Supporters of this approach were mainly atheist and probably somewhat anti-Semitic Germans who wanted on the one hand to give a secular scientific explanation for the story, but at the same time did not want to credit Judaism with such deep influence on Christianity and the West. As a result they held too “Christian” an approach to understanding the story. Today it is not seen that way. Today people approach the matter first of all from within Judaism and from the point of view of the Jewish supporters of Jesus who lived and acted first and foremost against their Jewish background. That certainly seems a more plausible historical-scholarly approach.

As for your remark about the tomb, I didn’t understand anything. Was it historically likely that believing Jews would remove a body from a grave (and in the process risk confrontation with the authorities for a messiah who deceived them, probably an idolater in their eyes)?

A.
A god incarnated in a man, a god who dies and rises, one who is three — these are clearly pagan notions, which the Christians grafted onto Judaism in order to adapt it to the gentiles.

B.
According to Jewish law it is forbidden to bury the dead inside Jerusalem because part of the sacrifices is eaten inside the city, and it is forbidden that there be corpse impurity there. The only exception is the graves of the kings of the House of David. The Romans did not interfere in Jewish legal matters, and therefore it is not likely that the Romans permitted burying a dead person in Jerusalem. Therefore if a grave is found inside the city, it should be assumed it was made after the destruction.

If there is a “kernel of truth” in the story, it could only be the opposite:
That Jesus’ followers, who saw him as “messiah,” buried him inside the city in order to count their “messiah” among the kings of the House of David. Perhaps they misled Pontius into thinking there was no problem with burying a dead person inside Jerusalem.

The moment the burial in the city became known, there is no doubt it angered the Pharisees, who complained to the Roman government about the violation of Jewish law. The last thing the Romans needed was the burial of the crucified messiah in the city under the category of “kings of the House of David.” And clearly the Romans ordered the body removed outside the city.

Regards,
Y.L.A.B.

Regarding point A, you repeat yourself like a parrot without arguments. I explained why current research sees such an interpretation as a mistake and a misunderstanding of the society surrounding Jesus. I repeat: Christianity in its beginnings is rooted deeply, deeply in the Jewish world (with a twist of Jesus).
Regarding the halakhic prohibition of burial in Jerusalem, that is indeed a good point to which I have no verified answer, but I’m not sure it is relevant at all. Maybe burial norms in Jerusalem did not always obey Jewish law on this matter? Maybe when it came to a desecrator of God’s name like Jesus there was even less motivation? In any case, this is not a theoretical question in Jewish law but a historical factual question that many have presumably already considered. I think I’ll check it myself (or perhaps ask our friend Yishai for a source…)

Doron,
Claim 1: Indeed there are historians who claim as you do, but to present it as a settled fact (you didn’t say it explicitly, but that is essentially what you are claiming) doesn’t seem precise to me. I didn’t send you to a missionary-apologist; I sent you to an academic article (not very long and written in ordinary language). Looking again now at the article, it talks about the tomb of Jesus’ family and not only Jesus’ tomb. Is that what you meant? I’m not expert in these matters…
If the article didn’t open for you there isn’t much I can do, because I have no way to send a PDF file in a forum like this. Basically the title of the article is: The Jesus tomb controversy: an overview.
Try to find it on Google. When I searched that title on Google, I ran into more sites saying this is a disputed subject, so I wouldn’t take this as a proven fact.
Claims 2-3: The fact that one historian is on one side doesn’t mean that is really what everyone agrees on. As for my not being able to send you to long studies and needing to present the claim myself — in principle you’re right. But time is short and the work is great, and since your claims are mostly “historians say,” I don’t have the energy to get into disputes among historians because I’m not an expert in the field, so I sent you somewhere that would show it isn’t agreed upon and where the opponents’ claims would also appear, with references to longer and more serious sources.
Claim 4: I’ll explain my claim. You said that to claim that people would invent a belief like belief in Jesus is anachronistic because it contradicts the Jewish tradition from which they came. I came and claimed that your own eyes can see beliefs of people who supposedly follow Jewish tradition and yet arrive at the same delusions. I don’t see the flaw. Unless you’re claiming that we cannot discuss the past at all and must assume nobody would invent any belief — but you can’t possibly really believe that (after all you surely say pagan beliefs were invented). Therefore the reason you say we must assume they wouldn’t invent such a belief is necessarily because it contradicts the Jewish tradition, and that is exactly the same case as Berland and the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
As for the response to your answer, even if we accept the first 3 facts: if I understand correctly, what you are arguing is roughly this: A. Jesus testified about himself that he is God. B. Jesus rose from the dead. C. From B it follows that he necessarily had spiritual powers, and there is an assumption here that if he has spiritual powers he necessarily would not lie; therefore from A it follows that he really is God.
My response is that it does not necessarily follow that he wouldn’t lie, or that he wouldn’t be delusional that he is God. From a believing Jewish perspective one can say that God did this miracle in order to put the people to the test / in order that Christianity would spread in the world (Maimonides at the end of the Laws of Kings), and many other explanations that would explain why it does not necessarily follow that he wouldn’t lie, and it may be that the Holy One simply used him as a tool and therefore revived him. And why reach for such explanations? Because the idea of God’s incarnation in flesh and blood is bizarre, and the idea that the Sinai revelation would suddenly be nullified not before the whole people is bizarre and illogical. Therefore explanations are needed for how the resurrection fits in — and indeed everything works out.
But of course I find it hard to believe historians really say this miracle happened in reality, and their claims should be checked more carefully and not on the basis of YouTube videos.

My friend Yishai,

You are trying to correct the methodological failures in your earlier responses, but with very little success, in my opinion. Again you put words in my mouth about what I attributed to historians (even if, according to you, not explicitly). That is neither serious nor fair. I am also not a scholar and not a historian, but apparently I know the views opposing my position even better than you.
I see that you still do not understand what the historical anachronism I spoke of is, so you are not really dealing with it. Let’s start with the fact that you assume in advance that Jesus was not who and what Christianity says he was, and from that infer that if the earliest believers in him converted their religion and opinion from Judaism to him, then we are dealing with falsehood; in your mind this is the same falsehood driving the psychotics of the Chabad and Berland type. This is a methodological mistake (which recurs, by the way, also among atheist and naturalist Bible interpreters).
The required methodological assumption is to leave all options open: it may be that the Christian narrative is correct (in part or in full), and it may also be entirely false. With that assumption, one must compare the explanations to the known facts — to the extent we managed to get hold of them — and choose the most plausible explanation.
Now, in order to speak about your anachronism, a few words must be devoted to the differences between our world and the ancient world: broadly speaking, the ancient world is stable and static; there is no social mobility in it, no “individualism” or “self-fulfillment” outside tradition and community, and people there generally do not get up in the morning, travel to India, experience a revelation, and change their path so radically. If nevertheless this happens (and it happens very little), there has to be a really good reason for it. “Chabad” or “Berland” explanations are not relevant here. Or in a more vulgar formulation: contrary to what you say, there really are not many psychotics in the ancient world, because ancient “psychosis” is much more bound to its physical and cultural environment.

Here Christianity is not only a radical deviation from historical Judaism (expressed in the unprecedented innovation that God became incarnate in man), but at the same time also Jewish and biblical conservatism in the sense that the God incarnated is explicitly the God of the Hebrew Bible — not some heavenly Beelzebub or some abominable Greek Zeus and the like, as What’s-the-Novelty claims. Christianity is a revelatory-historical religion exactly like Judaism (and perhaps even more so, since there the god really “revealed” himself).

As for your statement that the idea that Christianity came to cancel the Sinai revelation is absurd — well, my claim is that historical Judaism from the outset interpreted that revelation incorrectly. One doesn’t need Jesus or Christianity to reach this conclusion. I have elaborated on this extensively on this site. I would have shortened my response were it not necessary to correct so many of your distortions of my position (and I didn’t even correct everything — merciful and gracious heart that I am).

Doron,
If there are more distortions you want to correct, then please say so, otherwise we can’t move forward. Indeed, if you spend a major part of your time dealing with Christianity, then you probably know the opposing views better than I do. The first time I ever opened this topic was when I saw your question. It’s a bit hard to answer your claims when you speak in such generalities. I didn’t say the earliest believers were liars (I think that’s what you meant by “falsehood”), but that they were foolish.
“Let’s start with the fact that you assume in advance that Jesus was not who and what Christianity says he was” — I think you mean my last claim, that even if the historical facts are correct, the final conclusion still does not follow. Indeed that is a basic assumption I have in the end, for a very simple reason — divine incarnation in flesh and blood seems to me philosophically implausible to the point of near impossibility. Therefore, to move me from my position you need very very strong evidence, which I do not see in this case.

In any case, regarding historical anachronism. Your claims are very strange. It’s a bit hard to answer claims thrown into the air with no proof. True, in the ancient world there were no self-fulfillment workshops and the like. But I think you are not accurate. Even in the ancient world there were shifts and changes among religions and cultures (Alexander’s conquest of the world, the beginning of philosophy, and the beginning of Zoroastrianism are examples that come to mind); maybe these changes occurred more slowly than in our day, but they still occurred. Also, you forget that this was a period in which the Jewish people split into sects, and there were many divisions among the people. So a static state is not exactly the right description of the situation. Therefore, against the background of these struggles it is easy to see a person who would not be bound to his family but would move to another sect within the Jewish people.
What is more, as you yourself said, they saw themselves as the true continuers of Judaism, so they did not see themselves as psychotics, and therefore it makes sense that they arrived at such conclusions (exactly like Chabad and Berland, but let’s leave that aside). In sum, your claim that if people arrive at a bizarre and new conclusion in the ancient world, this necessarily means they are right, doesn’t hold water.
Well, I have no idea what you claim about the Sinai revelation, but I assume Rabbi Michi answered you properly.

I speak in generalities, though apparently less than you do… because that is the nature of our discussion, which is principled. You yourself admitted this when you explained why you assume in advance that the Christian narrative is implausible. After all, you did not rely on any “facts” for that (because truly they are not the basis of the discussion) but on a “general” assumption. Again I get the impression that you are not aware of the methodological problems behind a discussion like ours. True, I, exactly like you, also came with a basic assumption (opposite to yours), a “philosophical principle,” but unlike you I take into account that the entire Christian historical argument may be false. It may be false because my basic assumption is confused or mistaken, or perhaps because the facts will refute it.

As for the matter itself, your basic assumption that it is not plausible for God to be incarnated in flesh. Really? But to stage a concert of smoke and fire on a mountaintop and add as a holiday gift two stone tablets with a few laws sounds more plausible to you? The motif of a figure standing halfway between man and God, who is a direct descendant of God and in addition was sent here to die for us as a sacrifice and atone for our sins, seems to me much more successful as a mediating factor than the artifact God sent us at the giving of the Torah. It speaks much better to the human heart and therefore also to the human mind.

Regarding changes in the ancient world: of course there were such things, but not such dramatic ones, not so fast, and certainly they did not celebrate their victory from two thousand years away. This is the first (and last) time in all monotheistic history — certainly Jewish history — that a person claimed to be the continuation of the biblical tradition, the Son of God bringing redemption to the world, and in the end winds up on the cross screaming like a pig before slaughter and shitting himself to death in front of all his crowd. Jesus is the ultimate loser: betraying his people and rebelling against Roman rule, the person with the most inflated pretensions in history revealed as a liar and desecrator of God’s name and punished on the cross by humans and by God who allows it. Here, in his filth and blood, that small perverted and sick sect was supposed to end its path and fly into the trash heap of history together with other deranged sects of that period (Essenes, followers of Bar Kokhba, etc.). It did not happen. Something in the broken souls of the followers at the crucifixion changed, apparently because of the events of the days after the crucifixion and the strange belief formed in the minds of good, commandment-observing Jews that he rose bodily (and not as a vision of a “spirit,” which was actually common in the ancient world).

At the end of your remarks you again distorted my words: in no way did I categorically determine that every change of opinion in the ancient world proves that the new opinion is necessarily true. I do not think that, not even regarding this sect. It is very hard to discuss like this when again and again you set up straw men for yourself instead of the actual speaker in front of you.

There are far more testimonies from children who saw monsters in the dark.

Response to the first paragraph: my claim was that the Christian claim that Jesus is God is false because of the basic assumption that God does not incarnate in flesh and blood. The next step after that claim is that the resurrection does not affect my opinion in the slightest. Because even if the resurrection really occurred, one can explain that the Holy One used him as a test and other explanations. Therefore I now understand that the discussion whether the resurrection historically really happened is not important. In fact I now understand that your whole question doesn’t get off the ground at all, because these facts (true, facts can change such a basic assumption — but not this fact) prove nothing and do not cancel the basic assumption.
Response to the second paragraph: you use the word “concert” to mock the Sinai revelation, which is not especially persuasive. The technical details accompanying the Sinai revelation (smoke, fire) were, in my humble opinion, intended for the uneducated masses so they would understand that this was an event of the Holy One. Therefore if one accepts that revelation of God in the world is something plausible (more precisely, that it is plausible to assume God would say what His expectations of human beings are), then the rest of the technical details are plausible too. By contrast, that God should incarnate in a human being is not plausible. But here you are arguing something else from what I know of Christianity — namely that Jesus is not God Himself but some sort of creature between God and man. It is not clear to me what exactly that means. If he is not God, then why worship him and why should his words nullify the Sinai revelation (I don’t know what your interpretation of Sinai is; I’m speaking from my own understanding)? What does it mean “a direct descendant of God”? Wasn’t he born from a woman’s womb? Wasn’t he born with the help of a man’s seed? Why does that fact change anything? The end of what you say is really bizarre. That someone would be sent into the world in order to die and atone for everyone’s sins seems logical to you? So now everything is permitted (after all, it has already been atoned for)? Did he also atone for those who came after him? Indeed it speaks more to the heart, because it validates every crawling thing and every sin that can ever enter your mind, because in any case everything has already been atoned for by Jesus. If you assume that God expects a certain deed from you as the desirable one, your words are bizarre.
Again, the craziness of his believers proves nothing. A lot of people got swept up after a charismatic leader. If you ask me why his believers managed to sweep so many people along in their bizarre fantasies, in my humble opinion the answer is that Christianity offers a much more convenient practical (not theological!) alternative to classical Judaism. There is no obligation of commandments; you believe in God and receive reward, and all this is true because Jesus and the apostles said so.
“You in no way categorically claimed that every change of opinion in the ancient world proves the new opinion is necessarily true” — I will correct myself. You claim that every change of opinion in the ancient world constitutes reinforcement for the second claim that it is true.

First, you keep repeating that it is not plausible for God to incarnate in flesh, but you don’t explain why… you only say “that God should incarnate in a human is not plausible.” I tried to illustrate to you by “mocking” the Sinai revelation (which I myself actually tend to think has a kernel of truth) how much your statement resembles the statements of skeptics and atheists, in whose eyes not only the description of the event is infantile but also the very belief in God… From this they formulate a general worldview that prevents them from coming from a clean place to the factual-historical clarification of that matter. You are just like them regarding Jesus.

And that is the second point, connected to the first: in my view you fail to understand the power of Jesus’ narrative, and fail to understand that the very existence of such power (that it speaks to the human heart) carries enormous religious weight. Of course this power is only a necessary condition and not a sufficient one — that is, it still does not prove the correctness of the narrative and also does not constitute proof of the historical facts (I hope here you won’t put words in my mouth…). Such blindness before such a popular narrative (even if false) is by itself a very basic failure. There are other reasons for the existence of such power in the Christian narrative, more on that below.

A third point is your claim that I am distorting even the authentic Christian message regarding Jesus’ status. You are mistaken. Basically, most streams of Christianity grant Jesus a dual nature: human (bodily, etc.) and divine. Therefore I said that the model of the “Son of God” stands halfway between God and man and thereby eases the mediation between man and God. For God’s purpose is to draw man near to Him (this is true also in Judaism and Islam). This returns once again to the power of the model I noted above, hinting that there is something very right in it. In any case, the believer does not worship a “human” but a god incarnate in a human. It is not that God disappears and in his place appears a man (half human and half god), but that to God the “Father” another persona is added.

A fourth point relates to your misunderstanding of the Christian idea of atonement (and in my opinion, if you don’t understand it, you will also have trouble understanding the Jewish idea of atonement…). Don’t worry — here you are in good company, because I believe many believing Christians also hold exactly that mistaken idea, meaning they don’t understand their own religion. Briefly: Jesus is God’s “gift” to man and serves only as conditional atonement. For God not only gives “gifts” but also demands that man respond, meaning believe in Him and behave in a good and upright way (in Christianity, Jesus’ life serves as a model for the life every person should aspire to). Therefore it is clear that the coming of Jesus does not categorically atone for a person’s actual sins. If a person did not also make an effort to move toward God, then he is in trouble (according to their faith). I am sure you know that in the eyes of most streams of Christianity a person can go to hell despite the fact that Jesus came into our world to save him. Again: this is not different in principle from Judaism and Islam.

A fifth and final point regarding your excuses for Jesus’ resurrection. You say: even if Jesus really rose from the dead, that means nothing, because maybe there is some educational message from God here, or maybe something else. That’s not serious. First, your own eyes can see that these “didactic” means you are attaching to God did not work — Christianity is the flourishing religion in the world. Second, I already told you that as far as I know, the historical Jesus did indeed say in his lifetime that he was the Son of God, that he was the true messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, that he would die and also rise again. Those claims are so psychotic and radical that therefore either they are one big pile of bullshit, or they will be proved true if he indeed rises after being killed. Jesus’ pretension is the litmus paper distinguishing him from other figures who rose from the dead (if there were any such figures at all…).

Doron,
A preliminary note: you use words like “power,” “narrative,” “motif,” which is a bit strange. Because it sounds like you don’t regard the Christian claim as a fact that is true, but as a certain narrative one may choose for convenience (not a substantive claim, just about your style of expression).
Now to the matter itself. Regarding the problematic nature of God incarnating in a human. Here the question should be split in two. If we are talking about God Himself being a human, then it is easy to understand the problem: He is then limited and not infinite, and He lacks several other basic properties that define God (creator of the world, etc.). If we are talking about a transcendent God who incarnates in flesh and blood for a certain time (that is, contracts Himself), then I do not know whether there is a philosophical problem, but it still seems strange and requires direct proof that this is reality. Because what exactly is his status as a human being? What happens to the rest of the world he creates and governs while he is a human being? Does he still remain omnipotent? In short, it is strange that God should be a human being for a certain time. Not like the Sinai revelation.
The power of the Christian narrative (I don’t know what that means anyway) really does not interest me in the slightest. How does it affect reality? Because many people are convinced of something, does that make it true? In earlier periods many people worshiped idols (in your language you would say the narrative of idolatry was very powerful) — does that, in your opinion, support the truth of idolatry? Why do you shut your eyes before this narrative?
Regarding the third point. I didn’t accuse you of distortion; what do I care about the relation between the Christian message and your claim? I only meant that you are saying something I was not familiar with. In any case, you wrote: “God’s purpose is to draw man near to Him (this is true also in Judaism and Islam).” What? What? What?! How did you decide that? How can one even know such a thing?
The theological explanation is that another persona is added to God. Now, I do not understand. Are both of them God? Which one of them is unlimited and governs the world? If one of them is, then the other is not. What does another persona mean? There cannot be more than one God, because then one of them would not be God.
On the fourth point. If in any case one must repent, why is Jesus needed? There is Yom Kippur (“For on this day he shall atone for you to purify you from all your sins”)… there is a person’s own repentance. Do you want to tell me that Jesus replaces the role of the sacrifice that each person needs to bring for his sins? That still doesn’t make sense. How can a sacrifice be brought after the fact to atone for sins that will come later? Also the idea of sacrifice — that a person offers it in order to atone for his sins — is not present here, since he himself did nothing. A central part of the sacrifice is that a person brings it and thereby atones for himself; what does it help if someone died 2,000 years ago? How is that relevant at all? How does it atone for my sins?
Fifth point: first, these didactic means absolutely did work. (Maimonides already wrote it: “But the thoughts of the Creator of the world — human beings have no power to grasp them, because our ways are not His ways and our thoughts are not His thoughts. And all these matters concerning Jesus the Nazarene and that Ishmaelite who arose after him serve only to clear the way for the King Messiah and to prepare the entire world to worship the Lord together, as it is said: ‘For then I will turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one shoulder’ (Zephaniah 3:9).”) Second, again you fall into the same mistake. Indeed it is either a true claim or a false claim (like every claim about the world; there is nothing special here). But why did you decide that if he indeed rose from the dead, that proves he was God? That is just a baseless assumption. It could very well be that the Holy One used him for certain purposes. And precisely for that, someone foolish like Jesus was needed so that the purpose would work (everyone would abandon idolatry and move closer to the God of the Hebrew Bible), meaning someone was needed who would say he is God in order to sweep others along. Therefore his rising to life proves nothing. (There are even explicit verses in the Torah that there may be someone who performs a sign or wonder and is a false prophet sent to test the people of Israel so that they not go after idolatry; meaning signs and wonders do not necessarily prove the prophet.)
And one last point: the Christian myth is so widespread because it is so much fun psychologically. All you have to do is what feels nice to people, always love one another, pay the priest, and you’re exempt from commandments — nice life. You keep God but without the whole burden of the 613 commandments. That is why it grabs people so strongly. Basically Christianity is the religion of populism. That does not persuade me.

This Christian argument is painfully familiar, mainly a bundle of taking data out of context, distortions, and methodological errors. See for example at Paulogia, and from there onward.

I have no interest in starting a deep debate now; I’ll just say that I’ve read some 20 academic books on this argument from all sides, and there is nothing serious there.

Almost every fact on which the argument is based is wrong. There is no academic consensus whatsoever — that’s a lie; there are no independent sources — that’s a lie; when you turn the event into what it really was, there is no difficulty at all in explaining things, and the whole method of analyzing the argument is completely bizarre. If the subject interests you that much, I would start by reading Ehrman, Carrier, and Allison.

And P.S.: the model of the Son of God and its use also exists in other ancient religions; there is nothing new here at all… (See for example the trinity of Amun, Ptah, and Ra, and take a careful look at Wells’s introduction to Egyptian religion.)

Yishai,

1. I use concepts like narrative, etc., precisely because I, apparently unlike you, value a discussion that is philosophically and historically critical; that is, I am not willing to assume in advance the correctness of the Christian claim. At most I assume its plausibility (in my eyes it is indeed very plausible, but no more than that).

2. Related to this is the need to focus first of all on the power of the narrative, meaning the question to what extent it is suited to the souls and lives of human beings (to their hearts). As I said, we have no certainty about the truth (in this case the Christian truth), but we do have a good ability to assess whether a narrative is powerful, and if so that is a hint that perhaps there is truth here too. And quite right: in idolatry, or even in Nazi ideology, there are enormous powers, and therefore there too there is something of the truth (though of course very far from the degree of truth they ascribe to themselves). I thought you had already understood this point because I worked hard to explain it…

3. Regarding the Trinity and multiplicity of personae. Well, I won’t say there is no problem here at all for Christianity (and therefore Christian history is full of debates around this), but the problem you point to probably does not exist here. In Judaism too (and in Islam) God reveals Himself to man through a mediating mechanism, for example the Torah or the Divine Presence, for example the Qur’an. Christianity certainly took this one step further, but did not give up the basic monotheistic claim: God is one and unique (and omnipotent), even if He mediates Himself to man through different personae.

4. With your honor’s forgiveness, again it seems to me that you do not understand the idea of repentance in general. Even in Judaism! Repentance in all monotheistic religions is a joint project of man and God. God is good and therefore takes human limitation into account and helps man help himself (provides him with institutionalized channels of repentance). If nevertheless a person rejects this help, then the responsibility lies on him. Here too Christianity did not depart from Judaism but only sharpened (in my opinion more consistently) that same original Jewish principle. And indeed, Jesus replaces the sacrifice as an external act (which in its historical origin truly was a physical act — see Cain and Abel or the sacrifices in the Temple) with an inner movement of the soul. In general, the Christian worldview is more sober (in my opinion — and apparently in the opinion of a few billion more) precisely because it is more “tragic” in relation to man: it sees human brokenness (“the Fall”) as a basic existential condition that requires special treatment, for which Judaism refused to give a sufficient account. For that purpose God “allocated” to man the best of all His resources — “His Son.”

5. Your supposed excuses for Jesus’ resurrection — if we choose to believe in it — are not even an excuse. There are two parameters for testing your claim that there was educational success here: the important one is in terms of the hoped-for benefit, and the second in terms of the actual result. In both I do not see that the educational mission you imposed on God succeeded. What did the Torah or Judaism at all gain from the growth of the Christian narrative? And from the standpoint of outcome too: how can Christianity’s transformation from a persecuted minority religion on the margins of the Roman Empire into the most popular and flourishing religion in the world serve as an educational instrument serving the God of the Torah? Unless you want to tell me that the Torah was originally meant to bring us closer to a non-Jewish and non-Torah monotheistic conception… If that is your excuse for Jesus’ success, then you are already three-quarters Christian yourself (and in any case you do not believe in the Torah of Israel).
I am already weary of explaining to you my position on what is unique in Jesus’ narrative (which came from his own mouth). It is not clear to me what is not understood in the claim that he set forth the most pretentious narrative in history, and therefore it is easy to test its success or failure in light of what came afterward (and in fact what continues to this very day). It seems to me you did not really try to understand the claim. Because it is really simple.

6. Your claim that Christianity is “fun” is also very puzzling. Even if it is true (not so sure), it is irrelevant. What is relevant is its power (and fun is really not power), how philosophically robust it is, and finally (and least interesting to me) how grounded it is in historical truth.

M,
Well, this is the first serious response here to my remarks, and unlike the other commenters it addresses directly the question of the facts and not the explanations of them. And thank you for that. I definitely intend to check the matter in the direction you suggested, and I only regret that you throw a bone and immediately announce that you have no interest in continuing the discussion. But that is of course your right.

Your remark about the trinity in Egypt is not clear to me. First, because it is not directly connected to the claim (which I brought in the name of those theologians and historians); second, it is not new (and I already addressed it above); and third, even if it is connected, I don’t see how it weakens any of the philosophical-theological claims or the historical ones.

The purpose of the remark is connected to claim 4. Most of the innovations that, according to those making the argument, were supposedly hard to accept are things known and not at all bizarre in that period, including within Judaism. The Trinity and the Son of God are examples.

As for the rest — start digging into Paulogia’s channel (he has a whole playlist just on this), and from there you can move on to more sources and research literature on the subject. He also is not free of problems, but as an introduction at any rate it will give you a good initial basis.

Doron,
1. Narrative (at least as I understand it) means an option that is no truer than the other options, just one option among others. So true, one cannot arrive at certainty and one is left only with the most plausible option, but in your relation to the claim it amounts to truth (since it is the most plausible), and to what happened in reality, and not to a mere narrative.
2+6. Though we have no certainty about truth, there are claims that bring us closer to truth (bring us to the most plausible option). I do not accept your words that if many people identify with Christianity this hints at something about its truth. In my humble opinion this is simply a psychological phenomenon stemming from the need for religion, and from the lack of commitment required to be Christian. (In addition, one can also note that many people were forced to convert to Christianity.) Of course according to what you say, one should if anything lean toward Islam (I’ve heard they have overtaken Christianity in number of adherents).
3. Glad to see that you too understand there is a problem here in Christianity.
If we set aside Kabbalah in Judaism, there is no comparison between Torah and Divine Presence on the one hand and Jesus on the other. Torah is content transmitted from God, and Divine Presence is the presence of something spiritual coming from the Holy One upon a physical thing in the world. By contrast, the claim about Jesus is that he himself is God / half-God. (In Islam too, according to rationalist opinion, there is no such problem.)
4. Jesus’ death has no significance as a sacrifice. It is not relevant at all, when speaking about the concept of sacrifice, that the death of one person once should matter, because the whole effect of the sacrifice is that it is the final act of repentance — which is not at all the case in Jesus’ death. Apparently you do not understand that repentance has always been an inner movement of the soul (“And you shall return to the Lord your God and obey His voice according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul”), and the sacrifice was the final seal upon repentance — which has no place in Jesus’ death. Indeed Christianity does not believe in man and thinks he is in such a messed-up state that he cannot get out of it by himself; if that makes you feel good, health to you. Only, what exactly does “His Son” mean? How is he different from all other human beings? Is he God Himself?
5. The rise of Christianity brought about the spread of faith in basic monotheism (in your words), and that is its success. Even if this is not the perfected faith, it is much better than the pagan faith that existed before.
“It is not clear to me what is not understood in the claim that he set forth the most pretentious narrative in history and therefore it is easy to test its success or failure in light of what came afterward (and in fact what continues to this very day).” — I think the claim is clear to me. I simply do not accept it. No matter how pretentious his claim was, its success or failure changes nothing regarding its truth.

If there is anything that could support the truth of Christianity, it would be the fact that many of the greatest sages, scholars, and geniuses in history were devout Christians. Newton, Leibniz, Gauss, Thomas Aquinas, Pascal, Riemann, Watt, Maxwell, Faraday, Kepler, and more. In Judaism it is hard to find Jews who reached such intellectual levels, were exposed to the most advanced knowledge about the world, and remained religious. If anything, on the contrary, most of the smartest Jews were absolute secularists or converts to Christianity. In fact, a large portion of Jewish Nobel Prize winners were baptized into Christianity.
And then one has to ask: how did such people not see through the falsehood of Christianity, and how did smart people not discover that Judaism is true?

The apparition at Fatima also needs to be examined deeply. There are reports of 70,000 people who were present at the event, and prophecies that are claimed to have been fulfilled one by one. Then one has to check whether the prophecies were unambiguous, whether it would have been possible to arrive at them by natural means. From my experience, most “apparitions,” even if they have a real basis, are often distorted — sometimes even unconsciously — and interpreted according to preexisting worldviews.
In Judaism too there are quite a few such cases.

Yishai,
I am unable to find in your words any substantive claim addressing the specific points I raised. From here on, it seems to me mere grinding of water. Only one point I will address, and in my eyes it is the most interesting even though it is not directly related to our discussion of Jesus’ narrative.

I mean your claim (a correct one!) that the Torah served a purpose outside the Torah and outside Judaism. In that you opened the door wide for anyone who claims, as I do, that the Torah is a means and not an end in itself.
That is the interpretation of the Torah and of its status to which I was pointing from the outset. Needless to say, Christians and Muslims, for example, could easily support your position on this matter.

“the lack of commitment required to be Christian”
Enough with this lie! Christianity is a religion with rules, and it is not an easy religion the way people present it. Though it depends on the denomination, and there are tens of thousands of different denominations. Some of them are literally sects with sky-high demands.

Catholic Christianity requires deeds as part of salvation. Some even claim deeds are the sole key to salvation, and in this way they retroactively validated believers in other religions.
The Catholic believer is required to receive the sacraments, participate in religious ceremonies, come to church on Sundays and the various holidays, fast, maintain modesty, give charity, and do good deeds. He is also forbidden to divorce, and if he has divorced he is forbidden to remarry, and if he does so he cannot participate in the rites until he repents and divorces again. The only way to divorce is for an ecclesiastical court to determine that the marriage was invalid from the outset and that the ceremony was not properly conducted or was conducted by an unauthorized clergyman, or that there was pressure on him to marry or that he did not do so of his own free will. And this is not a simple or easy process. In Judaism, by contrast, they find every tiny loophole in order to permit agunot and women denied a bill of divorce, and they even regard this as a matter of life and death. I think living alone after a failed marriage is far harder than keeping the Sabbath or not eating certain foods.
The Christian believer also must have all his thoughts clean and directed to God, and even a thought is considered a sin. Not so in Judaism (at least formally).
Most Christians in the world are Catholics.

Among certain Protestant denominations and Anabaptists the demands are even more extreme than in Catholic Christianity.
There are liberal denominations in which there are almost no demands on the believer beyond belief, but there are denominations with sky-high demands. Some are run like sects.
Even liberal denominations engage a great deal in deeds and in changing and repairing the world, even if deeds do not affect personal salvation according to their theology. That too is not a simple thing.

As for the psychological need for religion, one can say that about any religion. Christianity is not unique in that regard.

I once saw a film about a Calvinist community. Calvinists believe that deeds have no significance at all and that the people who are saved and will go to heaven were already saved in advance. That is, God chose in advance who goes to heaven and who to hell.
So on the face of it, even faith does not save, contrary to the position of most Protestants.
On the face of it, you can’t run a religion like that. Because a person will say that if he is saved then it doesn’t matter how he lives, and if he is not saved he has no way to be saved. One could imagine that such a church would have no rules at all and everyone would do whatever he wants.
(You can imagine what would happen if tomorrow Rabbi Edelstein announced that there is no need to keep commandments in order to go to heaven. The day after, Haredi society would turn into Sodom and Gomorrah.)
In practice, their communal life and rules are very rigid, with a very strict code, and all the people are very active in church and even have to volunteer long hours there.

Doron,
I really did try to address the points substantively, but I also feel this is grinding water because I’ve basically understood the dispute. You see power as a sign (not certain, as you say not a sufficient condition) that Christianity is true, and I do not see it that way.

I didn’t really understand how you reached your conclusion about the purpose of the Torah. I’d be glad if you’d explain.

Rafi,
I’m not even sure such demagoguery is worth answering (that refers to the first paragraph). But still. By what did you decide that those are the greatest geniuses and scholars in history? Did you forget Kant, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Einstein, Plato, and the list goes on. I don’t know on what basis you determined your list, but it will include many deists or atheists. So that proof doesn’t hold water. In addition, it is no great feat to prove something from a period in which most of the world was Christian about the faith of scientists — they simply behaved like the rest of the world. That’s all regarding your list. (I didn’t have the energy to check your whole list, but regarding Gauss I checked and the claim is that he was not a Christian, and I assume many of the rest of your list were also not really Christians.) As for your next sentence, “were exposed to the most advanced knowledge about the world and remained religious” — do you know what the knowledge of the world was in their time? What does that have to do with the fact that they remained religious? Are you aware that in order to be exposed to knowledge of the world one need not be a genius at all? (The special thing about the people you spoke of is that they discovered new things, not that they were exposed to knowledge.) As for your next sentence: “If anything, most of the smartest Jews were absolute secularists or converts to Christianity. In fact a large part of Jewish Nobel winners were baptized into Christianity.” On what basis did you determine that? Do you know how to measure whether Dan Shechtman is smarter than Rabbi Akiva Eger? You are just talking about level of knowledge and not wisdom. “And then one has to ask how such people did not see through the falsehood of Christianity and how smart people did not discover Judaism’s truth.” That can be asked about Christianity too (how is it that smart people were not Christians? How did they not discover the truth of Christianity?)
In any case, I don’t know why I bothered to answer in detail when the answer is simple: there are smart people on every side. One has to deal with the issue itself and not rely on others (why trust these more than those? Rather, look at the issue itself).
As for the second paragraph: what does “reports” mean? Did you see it on the news? And I find it hard to believe the prophecies would really constitute proof. If you have something specific, it can be discussed.
11,
I’ll answer you later. Right now I don’t have the energy.

With God’s help, Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day 5782

To Yishai — greetings,

The discussion between you and the representatives of Christianity cannot get anywhere, because these are worldviews opposed to each other in the extreme. Really like the contrast between the views of “Kfir” the teacher and “Raz” his student, in the novel Childlike (published by Niv). The author of the book, D.P., presents himself as one who “is especially interested in the connection between theology and childhood.”

Indeed this is the secret and foundation of pagan theology, of which Christianity is a part. According to them, god must be tangible, someone one can hug and cling to. This is a theology that must remain in the world of a child who needs something tangible.

Judaism, by contrast, follows in the path of Abraham, the three-year-old child, who was wise enough to see that even the heavenly bodies that are exalted and illuminate the world are not the summit of all summits, and that beyond them there is something greater and mightier and abstract. Abraham laid the foundation for a mature theology.

The abstract God is not seen and not touched. One connects to Him and clings to Him by learning His will and fulfilling it, by obeying His voice and by walking in His ways and cleaving to His attributes. Abraham too will command his children “to keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice.” That is how one comes close to God and that is how one cleaves to Him.

And therefore, the conversation is barren. Whoever is not prepared to accept an abstract God will prefer to believe any bizarre story — so long as it gives him the illusion of “a god that can be touched.”

Regards,
Feivish Lipa Sosnovitzki-Dehari, owner of the old platform

Truth be told, even if I had a pagan inclination, I would prefer worshipping some milk-rich cow, or an elephant that would stroke my head with its trunk and sprinkle on me from the waters of the Ganges 🙂 rather than the sadomasochistic crucified idol of the “religion of love and kindness,” in whose honor the Christians sacrificed, murdered and burned, tortured and humiliated millions of my brothers…

What’s-the-Novelty, first of all congratulations on joining the sales campaign for my debut book. I’m sure you’ve already bought a copy or two, and if not, feel free to do so (the next book, a work of analysis, will be out around the beginning of 2023 — prepare your cash already).
As for your claim about the childish tendency identified with seeking the physical and the sensual… well, maybe when you read my second book you’ll be convinced that it is exactly the opposite.
As you know, my main interest is not in historical Christianity but in the principled logical-metaphysical structure behind it. The common claim, which you share, that this model emphasizes mainly the tangible, is in my opinion based on a misunderstanding of the concept of tangibility, or more precisely the concept of actuality. This is not the place to elaborate and justify, but briefly my claim is that the Christian God is even more abstract than the Jewish God, precisely because the mediating factor chosen by Christianity (the Son of God — “child”) sacrificed himself on the cross. Death as a metaphor for the most abstract of all. But as I said, without a long and reasoned explanation, what I’m saying here really may look like something pulled out of thin air. That’s why I wrote an entire book.

Yishai,
First it is important to me to emphasize that the power of a religious model is very important in my eyes, but it is not the most important foundation. The most important foundation is that it is rational at base and therefore also philosophically robust. “Power” is simply usually a decent hint to that robustness (that is so in the case of Torah from Sinai, and so too in the case of the Son of God). In any case I think it is didactically correct to begin with it in analyzing the model (even though it is not the main thing).

As for the purpose of the Torah (and I am speaking first and foremost about the Five Books of Moses), you were the one who brought the claim, in the name of Maimonides, according to which a possible explanation for the success of one religious truth (Christian monotheism) is its being grounded in another religious truth (monotheism in its early path — in Judaism). This is an absurd determination, since Christianity is not only grounded in Judaism but also purports to replace it… It is a paradox to claim that the supposedly original truth sees its own success in a new truth that replaces it. In other words: your attempt to supply such an explanation for the phenomenon of Christianity does not accord with the Torah’s claim to ownership of the full and final truth. The Torah cannot justify anything rising to inherit its place. If it nevertheless does so (I claim it does), then it has a built-in problem. The only way I see to overcome that problem is to adopt a meta-Torah and therefore also meta-Jewish interpretation. And here we return to my conclusion: the most robust religious (monotheistic) model should probably emerge from belief in the Sinai revelation, but in no way may it remain there.

You see demagoguery here. But the argument I brought is a real question that needs an answer. The people I brought were examples from among quite a few scholars, all of them devout Christians. According to Wikipedia, 60 percent of Nobel laureates were Protestant Christians.
Gauss was a devout Christian. I suggest you check before accusing me of lying, since I checked well before writing my comment. I also seem to recall that my mathematics lecturer said so. From Wikipedia:

“Gauss was a Lutheran Protestant, and a member of St. Alban’s Church in Göttingen. Evidence of Gauss’s deep belief in the relevance of faith in God comes from his response after solving a problem that had disturbed him for a long time: ‘At last I have succeeded — not by my great efforts but by the grace of God.’ One of his biographers, G. Waldo Dunnington, describes his religious views as follows:

For him, science was the means to expose the immortal core of the human soul. In the days when his mathematical powers stood at their full strength, his faith itself brought him creativity and, through the opportunities it opened for him, brought him hope and comfort. Toward the end of his life it brought him confidence. Gauss’s God was not the cold and remote figment of metaphysics, nor the distorted caricature of bitter theology. A human being is not guaranteed such complete knowledge as to justify his arrogant position that his blurry vision is the absolute light and that there cannot possibly be someone else reporting the truth as he does (he held religious tolerance). For Gauss, it is not the one who shouts his ‘I believe,’ but the one who lives it, who deserves the highest esteem. He believed that a life properly lived here on earth is the best, indeed the only, preparation for heaven. Religion is not the domain of literature alone, but a way of life. God’s revelation is continuous, and not contained in tables of stone or holy parchments. A book is charged with insight when it conveys insight. The unshakable idea of personal continuity after death, the firm belief in a final order of things, and in an eternal, just, all-knowing, and all-powerful God formed the basis of his religious life, which stood in full harmony with his scientific researches.”

Beyond that, quite a few argue that Protestant Christianity constituted the infrastructure for the scientific revolution. Luther, who took authority away from the Church and gave it to people, caused the revolution in literacy and reliance on the written texts as the believer understood them. This continued into reliance on reason and an inner desire to understand the wisdom of creation, which ultimately brought the scientific revolution, and not only that, but also moral progress, human rights, separation of religion and state, modern economics, and in fact the whole modern Western world. And this is not my claim; many scholars think so.
Indeed, many scientists admitted that their religious worldview caused them to investigate the world and nature.

My argument was not to prove Christianity, but to understand how such smart and learned people did not see through the falsehood of Christianity. And why among Jews is the phenomenon the opposite? Why is it rare for an educated Jew to remain religious?
Obviously there is no proof here for the correctness of Christianity, and I did not claim that. Nor did I claim one should listen to someone because he is smart; rather, one should examine what he says on its merits. But surely you agree that a question arises here, and I’m looking for an answer to it.

Wisdom for me is not only intellectual ability by itself, but also exposure to knowledge and understanding of the laws of nature. A musician too can be a genius, and there are works composed by people with high IQs, and you can see it in their works. That does not prove anything.

Regarding the prophecies, you can say that about any prophecy. I think the prophecies should be checked deeply, and from that infer whether they are true or fabricated. Clearly something happened there, because the event is documented. The question is whether Mary appeared or not (her description seems a bit strange to me), and whether the prophecies were indeed prophecies. I’m sure that if this had been a Jewish event, you would immediately go check whether it was real. To dismiss it as you do shows you are not seeking truth.

I’ve already disconnected from the discussion here, and I also don’t know what the background is to Rafi’s remarks. But I want to respond to him.
You are presenting a factually distorted picture. This is not a difference between Judaism and Christianity but between periods. In earlier periods people were religious, including the educated — both Christians and Jews. In the last two hundred years (it began earlier, of course), education brought secularization (and vice versa) in both Christianity and Judaism. On the contrary, in the Christian world the war and hostility between religion and science and education are much stronger and more extreme than in the Jewish world.
It is true that in the Christian world there were more people engaged in secular wisdoms, and this certainly began before it did among Jews, but that has other reasons. In short, this picture is simply incorrect, and so there is no point discussing its meaning.

Even in later periods (the 19th century and onward) there were quite a few devout Christians who were geniuses in their field, during the age of Enlightenment and after it, when atheism and non-theistic views became more widespread.
Riemann, Cauchy (who even opposed the separation of religion and state and defended and aided the Catholic education system, which hurt his popularity at the time), Georges Lemaître, Ivan Pavlov (who began as a theologian), Ernest Walton, Victor Hess, and others. In their time there lived people like Bertrand Russell and Paul Dirac, who were clear agnostics or atheists.
This was not a period when religion ruled the world, especially not among the intellectual elite of the time, which was relatively diverse with a tendency toward non-theistic approaches.

At that same period Jews achieved very impressive things, far beyond their proportion in the population. But I don’t know of religious ones, especially Orthodox ones. In roughly that same period there were Einstein, Bohr, Cantor, Bohm, Eugene Wigner, Richard Feynman, Wolfgang Pauli, John von Neumann, George Pólya, and others. All of them were complete secularists or converts to Christianity. Some were even baptized as adults by choice.

I don’t think there is more tension between religion and science in the Christian world. If you look at Evangelicals and fundamentalists, maybe. But in Judaism too you have the Haredim, whose approach is more extreme than that of most Christians.
Most churches do not reject science, and even today there are quite a few Christian scientists. Some of them have reached impressive achievements, despite the fact that today most scientists in the world have no religion.
In terms of education, Catholic schools (however much Catholics are vilified nowadays) are very advanced. Even in Israel, Christian schools achieve quite nicely, and even Muslims try to study in Christian educational institutions. Not to mention the more liberal denominations, where the clergy have academic education (also among Catholics there are quite a few such people). Apart from Modern Orthodoxy in America and a few others in Israel, I don’t see much openness to science and education in most of the religious population. In terms of achievements, religious Jews do not stand out especially. The only one that comes to mind is Professor Aumann.

But what interests me is this: how do people so intelligent, who reached such impressive intellectual heights, fail to see that Christianity is mistaken? And why can Jews (for the most part) not be smart, educated, and remain religious, when some of them converted to Christianity? (And again, this was already in the last century, when Jews had full rights and religion had been pushed out of public life in Europe, while in America there was from the outset separation of religion and state.)

You are making the same mistake again. Religious Jews did not engage in this, and it is not that those who engaged in it left religion.

With God’s help, 1 Iyar 5782

A considerable portion of scientists, from the 18th century onward, challenged the foundations of religious faith, such as the theories of biblical criticism and evolution, and more.

The strengthening of science increased secularization, both among Christians and among Jews, and among Jews the weakening of faith was also bound up with a weakening of nationalism in the attempt to integrate into the ruling society. Jews thought that if they adopted English, German, French culture, etc., they would gain equal rights. The gentiles too conditioned acceptance of Jews as equal citizens on abandoning their “separatist culture.”

A Jew who proudly bore his Judaism found it very hard to receive a senior academic appointment, and it was made clear to him that his conversion to Christianity would “open the gates of professorship” to him. Thus, for example, the orientalist Daniel Chwolson converted in order to receive a professorship in Russia, whereas the famous Jewish orientalist Isaac Judah (Ignaz) Goldziher had to work for his livelihood for thirty years as “secretary of the Budapest community,” and only in 1904 did the University of Budapest finally deign to appoint him professor!

In this grim situation, the responses differed between Eastern European Jewry and Western European Jewry. In Eastern Europe, most religious Jews preferred to “keep their distance” from secular learning so as not to be harmed religiously. By contrast, in Western Europe the movement of Torah with the way of the land arose, under the inspiration of Rabbis Hirsch, Hildesheimer, and Hoffmann, who argued that one can combine loyalty to Torah with excellence in culture and science.

From this school emerged great men of science who remained Torah scholars and commandment-observant, among them: Dr. Jacob Barth, orientalist and linguist; his son Aharon Barth, who was a jurist and economist (served as director general of Bank Leumi in the 1950s and wrote the book Our Generation Confronting the Eternal Questions, dealing with questions of Torah and science).

From this school came famous mathematicians such as Professor Zvi Hermann Schapira of blessed memory (founder of the Jewish National Fund), Professor Abraham Fraenkel of blessed memory (one of the founders of the mathematics department at the Hebrew University), Professor Hillel Furstenberg (Abel Prize laureate), Professor Israel Aumann (Nobel laureate), and Professor Eliyahu Rips; great physicists such as Professor Yechiel Dom, Professor Binyamin Fine, Professor Alvin Radkowsky, and Professor Yirmiyahu Branover.

Religious women too reached important achievements, such as the Israel Prize laureate, statistician Professor Esther Samuel of blessed memory (originally from Holland), the Israel Prize laureate, pharmacologist Professor Martha Weinstock-Rosin (originally from England), and biotechnologist Professor Shulamit Levenberg (home-grown, graduate of a religious girls’ high school).

The Jewish people have gone through, not least thanks to the “nice” Christians, persecutions and crises that reduced our numbers and our strength, but despite and to the fury of the Christian anti-Semites and the atheists alike — we are growing and flourishing in our land, in culture and science as well as in security and economics, and we have nothing to be ashamed of.

Regards,
Ami’oz Yaron Schnitzler

Paragraph 7, line 2
… Professor Esther Samuel-Cohn of blessed memory (originally from Norway). …

11,
You don’t seem to be a religious person, or to have kept Jewish law in your life. Everything you said (except the issue of divorce and thoughts, which I’ll address shortly) doesn’t come close to keeping Jewish law. Jewish law (Orthodox, of course) exists in every single detail of what a religious person does. It’s not some thing that happens “once in a while like paying taxes” (like going to church once a week), but a constant burden resting on you that doesn’t even let you do the most basic things however you want (there are even laws about how to go to the bathroom!). Nothing you said comes close to that. People simply enjoy religious experiences from time to time (going to church once in a while, etc.; in Judaism too people enjoy making kiddush once a week, going to synagogue from time to time, fasting on Yom Kippur), so the requirements (more accurately, recommendations among Christians) you presented are not very hard to keep, and indeed for the broad Christian public it is a religion that does not require much commitment. Factually, Paul and his successors waived commandment observance for converts to Christianity — in other words, he made the religion easier to keep.
Regarding divorce: nowadays, when there are so many divorces, the prohibition on divorce is indeed a very difficult thing (though allow me to doubt that over a billion Christians are as devout as you present them. Of course when we compare to Jews we compare to Orthodox Jews). But you forget that the period in which Christianity became popular and gathered momentum was antiquity, when most couples, as far as I know, stayed married all their lives, so this did not require particularly unusual sacrifice. (By the way, if one spouse dies, is remarriage also forbidden? Just asking out of interest.)
Regarding thoughts: first of all, in Judaism too one can find sources saying one must keep thoughts pure (“thoughts of sin are worse than sin”), and I assume there are more, but the question is how you define pure thoughts and to what extent Christianity really demands this from its believers. Obviously there is an ideal that you purify your thoughts (“I have set the Lord before me always”), but that is not something that is part of basic Christian commitment. At least that is how it seems to me. In short, it is a religion demanding much less commitment than Judaism (as Paul also wanted it to be, from what I understood from Wikipedia).
What’s-the-Novelty,
It seems to me that you simply fled the discussion with the claim that Christians are childish. In any case, part of the reason I answer is also for myself. That is, having to confront other worldviews actually adds to me and builds me (and of course directs me more toward truth).

Doron,
First of all, you wrote a book? What is it called? Is it a missionary book?
Second, I’m not sure what “philosophically robust” means. For me the question is what is more philosophically plausible and how much historical basis there is. Of course the philosophical question is the more basic and decisive one (here I think Christianity falls pretty hard with the whole Trinity business; you said it seems more successful to you, but I’m not sure what the definition of “successful” is and how much significance it has).
Third, it seems you did not understand my claim about Christianity. The Holy One used Christianity not as a substitute for Judaism but as preparation of the world for the King Messiah and the redemption of the world. That is not a purpose outside Judaism but a Jewish-Torah purpose. And perhaps for that He really did Jesus’ miracles (though Jews were not supposed to follow Christianity, because of course it cannot replace the Sinai revelation and it was only intended for the rest of the world). One should remember that Judaism was not meant to be a universal religion but a religion unique to the Jewish people, so that in order for the whole world to be redeemed it has a wayward daughter that brings the world closer (only closer! it itself is not the truth) to the true faith. It seems to me you just need to study a little Rav Kook and you’ll come back to loving Christianity.
Rafi,
Now I understand your claim. I think you were not precise in what you wrote earlier, because it somewhat sounded as though the number of scholars constituted a decisive proof in favor of Christianity, which it does not (as you yourself admitted).
The data you quoted from Wikipedia, saying that 60 percent of Nobel laureates are Protestant Christians, is interesting. I have no answer to that. (Though one needs to normalize the percentage of Protestant Christians living in the modern world, that is, mainly Europe and North America, and check the numbers after normalization.)
Regarding Gauss, apparently I was a bit sloppy with his Wikipedia entry. Though the paragraph I relied on is:
“Gauss stated that he held a firm belief in the afterlife, and saw spirituality as something fundamentally important for human beings. He was once quoted: ‘The world would be nonsense, the whole creation an absurdity without immortality.’ However, Dunnington states that Gauss did not believe in all Christian dogma, and his faith cannot be interpreted as belonging to the Christian tradition. His belief was closer to Buddhism than to Christianity, for he expressed some belief in reincarnation (in correspondence with Olbers regarding non-Euclidean geometry he wrote: ‘perhaps in another incarnation we shall gain the insight into the nature of space…’ ) and believed more in the soul’s journey of learning in the world than in an eternal heaven.”

As for Protestant Christianity being the basis for the scientific revolution, that is a somewhat funny claim. It was the basis for the scientific revolution after the Catholic Church had ruined scientific thinking, so someone had to free themselves from them. In other words, Protestant Christianity may have started the scientific revolution, but all that was needed only because of Christianity itself.

Now to your actual overall claim: I have no way of knowing why smart people chose Christianity. One can conjecture it is because there is a kernel of truth there (the Sinai revelation, helping one’s fellow, etc.). And as Rabbi Michi already remarked to you, most smart Jews did not become irreligious as a result of exposure to worldly knowledge; rather, they arrived secular to begin with. And at the beginning of secularization and Enlightenment, it is reasonable that some of them were baptized into Christianity in order to integrate into general society (as our What’s-the-Novelty friend brought about some professor). So the claim that Jews did not remain religious because of exposure to the intellectual world — I think it is simply not correct. Though indeed the question arises why religious people are less successful in academia than secular people today; one can speculate that it is because often the smartest among the religious will study Torah and invest less in science, and even those in academia will deal with things on the border of Torah and science. In the end there just aren’t many successful religious scientists. (Take for example Rabbi Michi, who left physics and moved to teaching Torah.)

Finally, regarding the prophecies, I don’t like all these proofs from prophecies, because they can always be explained in a way that suits you. Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu also published a book called The Prophecy showing the fulfillment of prophecies in our own day — does that convince you to believe in Judaism? I have a hard time believing it does. So too with Christianity: prophecies are not very convincing proofs.

Yishai,
I wrote two books, and neither of them is “mission” or anything of the sort. The first is a novel (already published — you are invited to run out and buy it and increase the income of the Porat family), and the second is a work of analysis not yet published. Both books deal with the same topic — childhood. In the analytical book I deal only on the margins with the connection between Jesus’ narrative and the concept of childhood. That’s enough self-promotion.

“Philosophically robust” means rational and therefore a good candidate for defense. Is it not good in your eyes that some religion or worldview should be such?

Again you mutilated my words, this time on the Trinity. I said exactly the opposite of what you attribute to me here: I said explicitly that in my opinion the third persona (the Holy Spirit) seems somewhat problematic. But since I am not expert in the niceties of Christian theology, perhaps I am mistaken here. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is after all a concept with “philosophical robustness.”

Finally, it seems to me that regarding the role of the Torah I understood you perfectly, but you did not understand yourself. It is not plausible that one complete and finalized religious truth in its own eyes (the Torah) would make use of a competing truth that seeks to inherit it (the New Covenant, for example) in order to achieve its aims. The full and complete victory of Christianity means the final destruction of historical Judaism precisely because of the cancellation of the Torah’s exclusive status and of Judaism in general. In other words: if the universal gospel promoted by Christianity is the main thing, then the particular historical truth found in the Torah is doomed to be nullified. According to your words, this is the purpose of the Torah — to wither and die in favor of its successor.

By the way, as far as I remember, in the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) there is no “King Messiah” and no “redemption” (at least not in the cosmic meanings you are trying to give them). The very use of these expressions that you supposedly “find” in the Torah distorts the image of the Torah from the outset and in fact turns it into a means and not an end. The Torah certainly does not mean to present itself as a means.

That’s really not true. In Christianity there are sins one is forbidden to commit, such as anger, hatred, lust, gluttony, and more.
And these are extremely serious sins.
In ancient times there were more problems of women’s infertility. Think that a Jew could take a second wife or divorce, whereas a Christian was condemned not to build a family. That is much harder than keeping Jewish law. I, for example, would not manage it.
Before artificial insemination came into the world, a person was condemned to childlessness.
As long as one’s spouse did not die, remarriage was forbidden. In Christianity there is also encouragement of monasticism, which is harder than keeping Jewish law, and there there is a prohibition on owning property, on eating certain foods, there are ascetic practices, a prohibition on speaking ordinary speech, and more.
There are Catholic Christians belonging to certain organizations who live very hard lives even when they are not monks. In Catholic Christianity there is encouragement of suffering.

Keeping Jewish law is not simple, but I don’t think Christianity is easier. Especially since there are levels of prohibition, there are laws of doubt, there are leniencies in pressing circumstances, in cases of great need, human dignity, and other considerations. In Christianity there are no such considerations.

Paul indeed abolished the commandments, but instituted rules of abstinence, especially in the sexual realm, that are very difficult to observe. The ideal is not to marry and to live a life of abstinence. Even relations between married spouses are not desirable unless for the purpose of reproduction. By contrast, in Judaism it is a commandment.
The sages said quite a bit about how important it is for married couples to have sexual relations. They even instituted divorce without payment of the ketubah for a rebellious wife, or compelled a man to divorce a woman unable to live with him.
Paul is also not relevant, because one cannot understand Christianity from a superficial reading of the New Testament any more than one can understand Judaism from a superficial reading of the Talmud.
By the same token I could have brought Jesus’ words that a person must give all his money to the poor, gouge out his eyes if he sees a woman, give to the one who robs him all his property, turn the other cheek, and so on.
These are things no person can live up to, and they are very difficult. But again, that is not Christianity. Because there is interpretation of these things.

The laws of kashrut are not very different from the sin of gluttony in Christianity, where enjoyment from eating is a sin (depending on the intensity of the enjoyment and addiction and why one does it, but there are different opinions on this).
In my opinion Judaism focuses more on external rules while Christianity focuses on general lines. But according to quite a few medieval authorities (Rishonim), the purpose of the commandments is to distance one from phenomena of indulgence. For example, according to Maimonides they could easily have established different rules that lead to the same goal.
Each of the approaches has advantages and disadvantages. Without concrete rules it will be difficult not to fall, and with concrete rules it will be difficult to arrive at the meaning of things.

The confession is also not simple. Try talking about everything you do from morning till night with a stranger.

In every religion there are hard things and less hard things. Judaism is not unique in this regard. There are also sects much harder than Judaism. Does that mean they are better or truer?
Running a marathon every day and eating under 1000 calories is also hard. I don’t see you doing that.
What matters is whether what you are doing is true or not.
To attribute to Christians a religious experience and a desire for an easy life is not serious. By the same token one could also say of a halakhic decisor who ruled leniently that he is seeking an easy life. But of course that is not true. He does what he thinks is right.
There are many places one can attack Christianity. The angle of easy living is not one of them.
A person could also seek a much easier modern spiritual movement. Why didn’t he do that?

As for Protestants who live such lives even though deeds do not help their salvation, I personally respect them very much. They do deeds for their own sake and not in order to receive reward. In Judaism too that is a very great virtue.
In Judaism only exceptional individuals are capable of living like that. Among the Haredim, without threats and fear tactics, people would go off the religious path.

And I haven’t even spoken about sects like the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others, where life is almost unbearable. Adventists even keep Sabbath according to their own law (I haven’t looked deeply into what exactly they do), don’t eat pork and additional foods, do not accept blood transfusions even in life-threatening situations, and so on.
There is even a sect that does not go to doctors. I’m sure that is much harder than keeping Jewish law — when you reach danger to life and are prepared to die. (By the way, here the Ethiopian halakhic position that danger to life does not override Sabbath is much harder. I don’t see you becoming Ethiopian.)
The Essenes lived very hard lives, even harder than the Christians. Yet they did not survive, and the sages did not view their way of life positively.

The entry I read on Gauss was the English one. I brought the quote from the Hebrew Wikipedia after I saw that quote. In English it is not mentioned that his faith was close to Buddhism. There too it is mentioned that there were different views about his true faith, but at most he was a nominal Christian (a cultural Christian). But it is written there as well that he encouraged a man to go on a missionary journey. A non-Christian believer would not encourage such a thing. In my opinion he was a believing Christian even if here and there he had radical views.
Professor Aumann and Rabbi Michael Abraham are also not classical believers in Judaism. Nor was Maimonides. But no one doubts their Jewish faith even if here and there they have radical beliefs.

Gauss did not live in a period when it was forbidden to leave Christianity. If he wanted, he could have left. Nor was there discrimination against non-Christians.

One should remember that Protestant Christianity (at least outwardly) encourages personal understanding of the scriptures and of God’s intention. Therefore any person who came to faith is a Christian, even if here and there his views differ somewhat. Newton too had radical views, but he was a devout Christian.

The contribution of Protestant Christianity is much more than a return to scientific inquiry. It is an enormous conceptual shift!
The transition from reliance on reason alone, as with most Greek sages and the ancient world, to empirical research was a process that began with the winds of the Reformation in Europe. Newton’s book The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy expresses this shift to no small degree. The conceptual shift of Protestant Christianity was very large.
Also, the religious zeal to understand the secrets of creation could not exist in that emotionless world. Biblical scholarship and archaeology, for example, began with the goal of researching the lives of the Israelites and the early Christians in order to discover their faith and arrive at the true faith.
Separation of religion and state also arose because Christians of different denominations could not agree on many matters.
So too capitalism, free market, modern economy, human rights, and more. I don’t have the energy to go field by field, but most scholars think so, and it is easy to see.

As for the Rabbi’s words, I still cannot express an opinion because I am still checking it. There is truth in the fact that religious Jews are less interested in the secular wisdoms and in research (at least today; in the Middle Ages Jews did engage in the sciences), but what is true is that the Enlightenment movement caused enormous secularization. There are known sages who left religion, like the philosopher Solomon Maimon. It is also known that there was a war against the Maskilim for a long period, something that caused people to leave.
But in my opinion, if the Maskilim had kept commandments, no one would have doubted their Judaism, just as today no one doubts the Judaism of the Hasidim.
And the conversions to Christianity, in my opinion, also did not come in order to be accepted into general society, apparently because at that period there was separation of religion and state, freedom of religion, and Jews had full rights. One could be Jewish and succeed.

Regarding the prophecies, precisely for that reason I think they should be checked deeply, to see whether there is a factual basis or interpretation and whether there was an apparition there rather than some natural phenomenon. If Mary appeared and said that in year x World War II would begin and there would occur cases α,β,γ, and in year y Russia would become communist, and in year w communism would fall, and in year z they would try to assassinate John Paul — then there was undoubtedly prophecy there.
If she said something that can only be interpreted that way after the fact, then that is not prophecy. And if it was a UFO, then it was not Christian prophecy.
That is why one must check deeply.
The event took place in the modern period, and so it can truly be researched. Until 20 years ago it was even possible to question witnesses directly.

Doron,
I even found your website. It says there that you dealt a lot with Jewish thought — interesting.

“Philosophically robust means rational and therefore a good candidate for defense. Is it not good in your eyes that some religion or worldview should be such?” — how did you arrive at that conclusion?

As for the Trinity, okay okay, you love the Son but not the Holy Spirit, fine fine. Both seem problematic to me, and these things are well known.

Again you didn’t understand me, and it seems you are not even trying to understand me. Indeed the full and complete victory of Christianity means the loss of Judaism, but one can still say that the Holy One uses Christianity for Judaism. Not that Christianity will really succeed in “winning” and causing the whole world to become Christian, but that it brings non-Jews closer to faith in God. The purpose of the Torah uses Christianity and does not die because of Christianity. In other words, Christianity will not finally win, but will achieve significant success (though not total success).

Why are you speaking in the name of the Torah? These expressions come from the Prophets and the sages, who are part of the continuation of Torah and Judaism. Indeed the universal redemption I’m talking about comes from the Prophets. (“For then I will turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one shoulder,” and many more.) The Prophets do not act against the Torah and nullify it; rather, they prophesy what will be, and they too are part of Judaism.

I didn’t understand exactly what you mean when you say means or end. The Torah comes to transmit the word of God. What is the definition of it as a means, and what is the definition of it as an end?

11,
How do you know there were more fertility problems? As far as I know, by the time of Christianity having two wives was already less common. Indeed monasticism is harder than ordinary observance of Jewish law, but monasticism is not intended for every Christian, only for select clergy.

In any case, you are talking about Christianity today, whereas I meant to answer the question of how Christianity became popular, so your arguments are not relevant. If you have a better source than Paul for what converts were actually obliged to do in antiquity, feel free to bring it. (Jesus is not relevant at all because he said that as preaching to believers in general, whereas Paul really says what to do in practice, if I understood correctly.)

It seems you didn’t understand what I was saying in general. After one understands that Christianity is not correct (that is stage one!), the question arises: so why do so many people believe in it? I argued that the reason is that it contains a kernel of truth (the Sinai revelation, love of others, etc.) and less commitment compared to Judaism. That is, in antiquity, when Christianity became popular, people joined it because they could both gain monotheism and not take upon themselves that burden called the 613 commandments (and also get a nice religious experience). As you said, Christianity speaks in general lines, so a person in antiquity would want to join them. And after Christianity had already become so entrenched, it is hard to uproot such a thing from the world.
Of course difficulty does not determine whether the religion is true or not. It is only a psychological explanation.

Rafi,
Fine, accepted. Gauss was Christian. (Very disappointing.)
Maybe Protestant Christianity led to many successes. What does that show?
Even if Jews had rights formally, the question is whether they could integrate into society and culture. Here I’m not sure reality was as you say.
I didn’t understand the comparison to Hasidim.
Regarding the prophecies, what happened 20 years ago? I thought you were talking about prophecies from the New Testament.
If what is written in the prophecy is: “In x World War II will begin and there will occur cases α,β,γ; in year y Russia will become communist and in year w communism will fall” and this is correct and the distance is thousands of years — there is no doubt it sounds very accurate and real. I find it hard to believe such a thing happened.

Yishai, you are very hard to deal with…
Forgive my words, but you are confusing things that are unrelated, and it seems you do not understand the basis of the discussion. The discussion, if it is a systematic philosophical discussion at all, is first and foremost about the Torah, not about the Hebrew Bible and certainly not about the sages… Now go back to what I said and try to read again, and then maybe you will understand what we are talking about…

In short (though I feel it is hopeless…): the purpose of the Torah is the Torah itself, insofar as it expresses the authentic will of God. Not the morality of the Prophets, not repairing the world, not redemption, not messiah, and not anything else. Torah for its own sake, pure and simple. If nevertheless someone like you comes and uses it to justify (not explain! justify) an alternative Torah that comes to inherit its predecessor, then it is as if you said that the Torah sentences itself to be temporary. Because such a statement has only one meaning: the Torah is a means to goals more important than itself (coming from the Prophets, from the sages, or from my grandmother). It’s really not that complicated to understand.

I am not talking about New Testament prophecies but about the apparition at Fatima. There, the woman who appeared provided 3 prophecies.
1. World War II and the destruction of Europe
2. The rise and fall of communism and unbelief in Russia
3. A prophecy hidden in secret for years, around which much speculation arose, including from the radical Protestant side that the Pope would open the door to Satan, until in 2000, if I’m not mistaken, the Vatican published it and claimed it referred to the assassination attempt on John Paul.
If the prophecies were unambiguous, then there is evidence for the truth of the apparition, and if the woman was really Mary then there is proof of the truth of Christianity. Therefore I think one must investigate deeply what really happened there.
According to the text they published, the prophecy gave an exact date for World War II (the period of Pius XII) and for the persecution of Christians in Russia.

In the third prophecy, the girl said it would be of great importance and carry a great message for the whole world. Does the attempt on the Pope’s life answer that? I doubt it.

In my opinion the Vatican hid quite a few things. It also did not explicitly approve for a long time that there had indeed been an apparition, and there are claims that the girl was taken to a convent against her will.
Still, apparently some event did happen there.
Some connect it to the UFO phenomenon.

The Jews integrated very well in that period. I brought quite a few Jews who were complete secularists. In that period too there were quite a few secular scientists who were not Jewish. In fact, as time passed, the proportion of secular scientists increased.

My comparison of the Maskilim to Hasidim was to speculate what would have happened if the Maskilim had continued to keep commandments. That is to clarify whether a Jew left religion because he was educated, or turned to education because he left religion.
The first Maskilim, like Mendelssohn, kept commandments, but their descendants left religion.

It won’t harm Judaism if Christianity takes into its bosom Jews who still believe in magic and sorcerers, prophecies and prophets, diviners and fortune tellers. It suits them that an idiot like Jesus should be their guide.

Did it really require a tremendous prophetic talent in 1917, in the last year of World War I, to foresee the expected collapse of rotten Russia and economically defeated Germany, the rise of the communists in Russia and its later collapse after the people became disillusioned with communism? Also expected was Germany’s refusal to reconcile itself to defeat, which would lead to renewed nationalist awakening. It seems the lady from Fatima had a bit of geopolitical analytical ability, or newspapers reached her whose commentators analyzed the situation correctly. “Wisdom among the nations — believe it” 🙂

It is also worth noting the correct analyses of Dr. Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl, who already in the 1890s grasped that the European nation-states would not tolerate the Jews as citizens for long and called to establish a Jewish state in the Land of Israel; and the wisdom of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and Joseph Trumpeldor in exploiting the approaching fall of the Ottoman Empire and the transfer of rule in the Land of Israel to Britain. Weizmann labored at cultivating political connections with the British authorities, while Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor sought to win the hearts of the British through enlistment in their army (while in parallel the NILI people worked to assist the British through espionage).

Jabotinsky also foresaw the collapse of the “new order in Europe” and anticipated the rise of Nazism and fascism, and went about Europe like a man possessed, warning its Jews to immigrate to the Land of Israel and establish a Jewish state there before it would be too late. Sometimes there is wisdom among Jews too 🙂

Regards,
Ben-Zion Yohanan Corinaldi-Radetzky

Rabbi Shlomo Molcho preceded Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor in the idea of establishing a Jewish state in the Land of Israel by setting up “Hebrew battalions” that would cooperate with the Christian nations of Europe in conquering the Land of Israel from the Turks. In addition to being a Kabbalist and mystic, Molcho had a political background as one who had formerly held a senior position in the court of the king of Portugal, and was therefore capable of proposing “at eye level” plans for military and political cooperation with the powers of Europe.

Molcho’s attempt was far ahead of its time. Neither the kings of Europe nor its Jews, in whom the heritage of persecution and humiliation of the Jews was deeply ingrained, were capable of imagining such cooperation; and the Ottoman Empire too was then at the height of its power and constituted a serious threat to Christian Europe.

Only about four hundred years later did the nations of Europe and its Jews ripen to the idea of Jewish political independence backed by military power, and the declining Ottoman Empire too ripened for the revolutionary change. Therefore what Rabbi Shlomo Molcho did not succeed in achieving, Weizmann, Jabotinsky, and Trumpeldor did.

On the plan of Rabbi Shlomo Molcho and his successors in the next generation — see my comment “Messiah or Commander of the Battalion of Gad?” on Menachem Ilan’s article “A Messiah Who Died in the Fulfillment of His Mission,” on the Shabbat Supplement – Makor Rishon website.

Regards,
Eliam Pish”l Workheimer

Doron,
Indeed, the Torah comes to present the authentic will of the Holy One. I did not say that the Torah comes to justify an alternative Torah that comes to inherit the Torah. My previous claim was that it may be God’s will that the rest of the nations should draw near to monotheistic faith, so that in the end they may draw near to the truth of the Torah. Then the people of Israel will be a kingdom of priests (in the biblical sense of servants) and a holy nation. In other words, in order to bring the nations of the world to a state in which the people of Israel can be a kingdom of priests to the Holy One, the nations too must believe in the truth of the Torah. And Christianity brings us closer to that state (it is not perfect, but it brings us closer to the ideal state). That is the Torah’s vision, and this Torah shall not be replaced; Christianity comes only as a servant.

P.S. The Prophets, Messiah, redemption, and the sages did not come to replace the Torah, but by the power of the Torah they add (they do not replace and do not constitute an alternative) to transmit the word of God in various forms to the people of Israel.
It is worth noting in this context that the concept “new covenant” was distorted by the Christians. The verse says: “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My Torah within them” — meaning, the exact same Torah will be given to the people of Israel in the form of a new covenant, one that will already be part of each person. But I won’t elaborate.

Rafi,
From reading the contents of the prophecies themselves on Wikipedia, the prophecies actually do not seem all that clear and unambiguous (the period of a pope is not an exact date…). In any case, the question arises whether in 1917 these were really such hard things to predict. Even in our own day I saw someone who wrote a book in 2012 in which he predicted a war between Russia and Ukraine (I think he said 2020, but I’m not sure); there are things one can estimate by natural means too. Finally, why decide that this is Mary? (And I didn’t see 70,000 people on Wikipedia.)

As for the Maskilim, I’m surprised at you. This is exactly the neo-Orthodox movement. They really were educated people who remained religious. There’s no need to guess what would happen with educated religious people.