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Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus: General and Historical Objections

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For any serious Christian who interacts with Jewish persons, this book is a must read. Michael Brown is a fascinating Jewish Christian scholar whose depth of research into the tough questions about Christianity and Jewry leaves the reader feeling educated and prepared. The author's style is interesting; he writes as though he is dialoguing with a Jewish skeptic of Jesus. The Gentile reader may feel a little left out or in the dark at first, but the insightful reader will eventually feel he or she is sitting in on a debate of the utmost importance. A Christian who knows little about Jewish people will be at times shocked and saddened over the treatment Jews have received over the centuries by so called "Christians", and at the same time fascinated by insight the author offers into how these issues may be heard and answered. This is the first of three volumes due to be released in the year 2000; this volume deals with general and historical objections to Jesus and Christianity. I cannot imagine reading the first without reading the others!

This is a planned four-volume set.

Dr. Brown is the leading expert on responding to objections to Jesus and Christian theology raised by knowledgeable Orthodox Jews. He has a doctorate in Semitic languages, the books are well-researched and well-written and he covers the material in detail, going into Talmudic interpretations, Rashi, Maimonedes, etc. Although such Jewish theologians are unfamiliar to most Christians, their names are as familiar to knowledgeable Jews as Moody and Scofield are to Christians.

Although most purchasers are gentile evangelists, material is arranged essentially as dialogues between an Orthodox Jew and a responding Messianic.

Unfortunately, the books are rather pointless. Why? See Evangelism Explosion. If a person is not open to the gospel, no amount of arguments will matter. You can see similar debates in Internet newsgroups between Protestants and Catholics, Protestants and Mormons, Messianics and non-messianic Jews, etc.

I recently took Brown's course on Messianic Apologetics. He started by having two Messianic Jews try evangelizing him and he responded as an Orthodox would, with arguments from his books. One of the evangelists is an Israeli graduate of the Jewish Studies program at Christ for the Nations experienced at Jewish evangelism.

Responding like a non-messianic Orthodox, Brown "wiped the floor" with both of them, with things like "Are you Jewish?" "Is your mother Jewish?" "Is HER mother Jewish?" "Do you keep kosher?" (Contrary to the Bible, the Israeli Supreme Court says a person only is Jewish if their mother is Jewish. Hence, if the mother's mother wasn't Jewish, the mother isn't Jewish, so he's not Jewish, etc.)

It then moved on to, "Numbers 23 says, 'God is not a man'. Since Jesus can't be God, all your so-called 'messianic prophecy proofs' are worthless. Also, they can't be proofs, since Messiah has not come yet. Where do Hebrew Scriptures say Messiah will be God? He will be anointed, but only a man. Where does Isaiah 53 talk about Messiah? It's not a messianic prophecy; it's talking about Israel."

One evangelist said, "Since the Temple is destroyed, sacrifices can't be offered. How do you get atonement for your sin?" The response was, "After Solomon's Temple was destroyed there were no sacrifices. How were Daniel's sins forgiven?"

For non-Christians reading this review, understand that Brown didn't "wipe the floor" with them because their arguments were wrong. They had never heard Orthodox arguments and were not prepared to respond "off the cuff". Brown's books show that many Orthodox arguments contradict Scripture or historic Jewish interpretations or both.

For gentiles considering Jewish evangelism, an argument often raised by Orthodox Jews is, "If you could read Hebrew you would know that's not what it says." Brown studied Semitic languages because he kept getting that argument even though he's Jewish. He said materials written by Christians for Jewish evangelism routinely have Hebrew errors.

Sadly, despite claims to the contrary, what comes across in the 15-hour course and books is the attitude of "I am going to convince THAT person." An informal survey has indicated it is EXTREMELY rare for a Jewish person to accept Jesus unless the person (1) was raised secular or (2) marries a Christian. Such people are willing to listen to and honestly evaluate the beliefs of Christianity. Missiology studies show that 80% of people raised in a religion stay in that religion.

Jesus interacted with religious leaders who disputed him but he did not get into extended debates like those in Brown's books. Also see Matthew 10:14

Although Dr. Brown is VERY active in evangelism, I can't help thinking, "How many hundreds of times MORE people could have been brought to Jesus if time spent researching and writing for a VERY small audience almost totally resistant to the gospel had been spent reaching out to the MILLIONS of people who are simply indifferent and uninformed but are willing to listen if someone tells them?"

If you are a Christian considering Jewish evangelism, review the sample pages, examine the books if you get a chance and visit "anti-missionary" websites, e.g., Tovia Singer. You'll see this is EXTREMELY unproductive SUPER-specialized work requiring responses to arguments you won't hear ANYWHERE elsewhere.

But don't let that deter you from GENERAL Jewish evangelism. MANY Jews are quite secular. Their main arguments are "I'm Jewish. Jews don't believe in Jesus." and "What about all the persecution the Church has done against Jews?" They are open to the gospel if you hang in there and honestly address their concerns with sensitivity.

And if YOU think Jesus or the apostles CONVERTED from Judaism to Christianity, YOU need to learn about the history of the Church BEFORE 100 A.D. In Acts 15 the apostles created "Christianity" for GENTILES, as a religion PARALLEL to Messianic Judaism.

TELL your Jewish friends that JESUS IS JEWISH. He was born Jewish, he was Torah-observant, he died Jewish, came back from the dead Jewish and he's STILL Jewish.

Hebrews 4:14 ... WE HAVE A GREAT HIGH PRIEST who has gone through the heavens, JESUS ...

THE HIGH PRIEST ISN'T CATHOLIC AND HE ISN'T PROTESTANT--HE'S JEWISH!

Check these out:

Our Hands Are Stained With Blood-Michael Brown
Restoring the Jewishness of the Gospel-David Stern
Messianic Jewish Manifesto-David Stern
Complete Jewish Bible-David Stern
Evangelism Explosion-D. James Kennedy

Shalom!

This book is outstanding in that it
1. deals with a wide range of objections of Jews against the Christian belief and the Messiah Jesus Christ
2. it is written by a Jew who believes in Christ and is therefore especially sensitive to both traditional Jewish concerns as well as issues of importance to the church
3. it is addressed, by and large, to the Jewish person who does not yet believe in Christ as opposed to merely supplying information to the interested Christian/Messianic Jewsih reader, although such readers will easily benefit from the material compiled, and
4. it seeks to be faithful to both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, while using the best tools in Biblical and Semitic scholarship as well as incorporating the Rabbinic writings where it is relevant
This volume has two parts. Part 1 is about general objections. They contain broad generalizations and sweeping statements. It shows how Jews in general think: Jesus is not for Jews. The author is answering these objections as a matter of correcting misconceptions as well as getting people to think about the emotional and sometimes irrational nature of what they are saying.

Part 2 is about historical Objections. They tend to be more substantial and deal with the very purpose of the Messiah or the alleged failure of the church. Jesus, the Jews in general believe, cannot be the Messiah, because we are obviously not in the messianic age. The author is providing a biblical picture of the Messiah, showing that Jesus was indeed fitting all the Biblical proof.
I found this book astonishingly balanced. The author is never polemical or insulting. He has a very broad knowledge of Judaism and Christianity. He worte this book for everyone who is interested in reaching the Jewish people with the good news of Jesus the Messiah. He says, if anyone needs to hear the truth about Jesus, it is his own Jewish people. But Jewish people have a deplorable lack to know the true Jesus. For them he is a monstrous figure, a false prophet, a liar and deceiver, a traitor and the founder of a terrible, counterfeit religion, one whose followers are the cause or worldwide ant-Semitism and even the Holocaust. But the author makes clear that this is not the real Jesus. Rather Jews have the same biased, unfounded views of Yeshua the Jew that other people have about them as Jews. "The only way to overcome this kind of ignorance and bias is by exposure to the truth, even if that truth hurts.
Indeed the author proves many prejudices as unsubstantial. He discerns between the millions who call themselves Christian and those who live really according to the teachings of the New Testament. As if Jews do not also demand to discern between orthodox Jews and secular Jews. He is pointing out that the traditional Jewish teaching about Jesus gives a slanted portrayal of who the Messiah is and what he will do. But since the description is faulty the people are looking in the wrong direction for the wrong person. It is not education, he says, and not learning that stop people from believing in Jesus but rather ignorance as to who he really is and what their Scriptures really say about him. The same could be said about most Christians, I fear!
The author shows that the denial of Jesus as Messiah was in consequent tradition of the Jewish denial of Moses and the prophets. This is clearly stated throughout the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament.
Inso far the reproach that the New Testament is anti-Jewish makes no sense, because it is even milder to the Jews than the Old Testament. Interestingly the Torah says that the world exists six thousand years and that after the two thousand years of the Torah the two thousand years of the Messianic area would have to follow. This has to mean that at the time of Jesus, the Messiah should have come. And? No other "Messiah" has yet arrived!
The author is asking whether the Jews did not recognize the Messiah because of their iniquities. According to the Hebrew Bible the Messiah was to arrive before the Second Temple was destroyed. And this happened in the year 70 AD. The Talmud said that the Messiah would come riding on a donkey, if the people were unworthy. Is it possible that exactly this happened?
The author is stressing the special meaning of the Jews for the whole nation. He is not supporting the substitution theory that the church has substituted Israel as God`s people.
He is showing that true followers of Jesus were always persecuted and never the persecutors. Therefore the blame that the Jews were persecuted by true followers of the Christ must be rejected. The New Testament teaching is not purporting any persecution, which can be easily proved. The Jews also find it unfair ,if anyone generalizes the behaviour of some groups of Jews who are no representatives of their father`s belief.
Jesus, to the contrary, the author says, is the cure of every problem, individually and nationally, not the cause of the Jew`s problems. One should judge a tree by seeing what fruit is produced by those who hold to its principles and live out its ideals. And Israel`s best friends are Bible-believing, New Testament-reading Christians!
In one chapter the author deals about the Holocaust. He rejects the Jewish idea that this was done by Christians. He is citing many Jewish scholars who have had their own theory about the meaning of this tragedy and comments them. In his opinion God brought judgment on the Jews for their iniquities in all times. This is the clear statement of the Torah and the Talmud. But it was Satan who stimulated his willing servants to this extremeness.
I found it inconsequent to fail to think of how the judgement comes to a fair completion beyond the gates of death, because nobody could approve a child`s murder as relevant for a nation but not for the individual.
Nevertheless the author shows that he went deep into the matter. The still latent problem seems to be this: "that most religions - including Judaism basically look upon man himself to turn back and repent, not fully reckoning with how debased human nature really is. And while Jews and Muslims are taught to ask for mercy and forgiveness in prayer, there are no sure grounds for atonement and no full recognition of the depth of human corruption."
And the Holocaust proves what? The author says: "The Holocaust forces these questions on us and gives us, I believe, only one possible answer: God himself had to reach down into this deep pit of human evil to save us from our sins - including the sins of the Holocaust."
But he is also saying that the likeness of Jesus is ressembling more the likeness of the Jews in the Holocaust than those so called Christians who are no true followers of Christ! Of course, the author is critical on traditional Judaism, but he is as well critical on historical, traditional Christians. But this is not a book to save so called Christians, rather to help Jews to understand that their Messiah has already come.
"How strange it is that Jewish philosophers and religious thinkers could speculate that the Holocaust represented an act of vicarious, substitutionary suffering for our people, the experience of the servant of the Lord depicted in Isaiah 52:13-53:12, and yet the same philosophers and religious thinkers cannot conceive of our Messiah in such terms, nor can they find a point of identification between Yeshua and the Jewish people!"
According to the author the Holocaust should draw the Jews to the side of the suffering servant rather than drive them away from him. Out of death - the Holocaust and the cross - came resurrection, the State of Israel and the raising of the Messiah.
This is a highly recommendable book not only for Jews, but also for Christians, especially those who have a prejudice against Jews.

Brown's book is a bizarre menagerie of questions begged to exhaustion and bad-faith assumptions. It is no surprise that evangelical Christians have flocked to this book, nor is it a surprise that they are unaware of its many weaknesses, shortcomings, and overall failure as effective apologetic. However, these deficiencies are there for anyone who's willing to engage the material. Page numbers are given in parentheses for any who would like to follow along.

The first clue to the weakness of Brown's "answers" is the format of his book: Brown has a hypothetical 'Jew' raise an objection which Brown then answers. This is fairly crucial. While he admits that Jewish scholars and rabbis have offered many learned, cogent objections to Jesus, he does not use them. Brown isn't answering Jewish objections to Jesus. He is answering the objections of a painfully stupid *imaginary* Jew whose only purpose is to say something facile or absurd so that Brown can refute it. I shall not say what I think of a man who has to invent a Jew in order to win a debate with one, save to note that it's hardly a new concept. Nor does it explain why he chastises his imaginary Jew for contradicting something the imaginary Jew said earlier (17). I'm not going to lie, it's... weird.

The second is that he is constantly redrawing the boundaries to claim sole authority for his narrow interpretation of Christianity. Any Christian who ever persecuted a Jew or in fact did anything that the Jewish Jesus wouldn't have is not a `real' Christian (though he contradicts this below). Similarly, any Jew who follows the rabbinic teachings isn't a real Jew. (Interestingly, those who reject the rabbis, like the Karaites, aren't real Jews either.) Brown's group is in fact not just the only true Christians but the only true Jews as well. It's a specious argument, because while messianism is a very old component of Judaism, Brown's particular flavor of Messianic Judaism is inarguably modern. You cannot claim antiquity for your faith when there is no continuity. For Brown, just because Christianity has never been terribly biblical or terribly Jewish doesn't mean it can't be (18). Similarly, we often see the fallacy of the unexcluded middle... Brown will note that Jesus said or did something Jewish, and then argue, "so you see how Christianity is Jewish!" Well, no. We see how a particular Jew was Jewish. The religion that untenably traces itself back to him, and the books written by practitioners of that religion, are decidedly not. When you control the definitions, you can never be wrong.

He buys into some very dangerous Christian ideological constructs. Frequently throughout the book he references the Jews and Jewish nation "rejecting Jesus" (7, 32, 102, etc.), which for those who don't know is part of the `blood libel', founded on Matthew 27:25. That Brown is willing to collectively charge the Jewish nation with rejecting Jesus puts him slightly behind the Vatican, which just recently codified that pretending that the Jews as a people bore the responsibility for Jesus was, on its face, ridiculous. (Just for some context, the Vatican finally apologized to Galileo for his 1663 trial... in 1991. Yes, Brown's worldview lags behind *them*.) Brown returns to this collective guilt theme again and again in his book.

Or, to answer Brown's own question: "Do you deny that most of our leaders rejected Jesus as the Messiah when he was on earth?"

Answer: yes. Most Jewish leaders never saw, heard, or noticed Jesus, much less weighed in on whether he was a son of God. When you use the New Testament as historical accounts rather than religious literature, you open yourself to this self-centered, distorted worldview. The majority of Jews in Jesus's time never knew he existed. ("But the Christian Gospels contradict you! They say he was popular!" Well, yes. They would. That's rather my point.)

This leads to another dangerous construct, which he seems indifferent to the implications of. For Brown, when a Jew (or "the Jews", to use his dangerous umbrella thinking) suffers, it is because they sinned and are being punished by God. It's a neat way of both tacitly introducing the concept of original sin to the argument (32) and cutting off those who point out that Christians have persecuted Jews for centuries. By Brown's logic, if Christians tortured, raped, and killed Jews, then the Jews must have had it coming. And anyway, atheists killed more Jews than Christians. (He doesn't cite where he gets that interesting factoid from. It's because he made it up out of thin air.) (102)

(But what about `Our Hands Are Stained With Blood'? Two points. One, I never accused Brown of theological consistency or rigor... even for an apologist, his thinking is a contradictory muddle. Two, `Hands' faults the behavior of Christians while never refuting the thesis that when the Jews suffer it is because God is punishing them. He simply says that Christians sometimes went "too far." This leads to a horrific thought-experiment in which we try to decide which pogroms were God's and which weren't. How much Holocaust is too much?)

Building from his notion that catastrophe is the logical outcome of Jews sinning, he then offers the stunning suggestion that the Holocaust must have been the result of a truly great error... such as, say, rejecting Jesus (102).

Yeah.

Brown is theoretically a trained scholar, but his arguments are fictions and his evidence completely inadequate to his claims. I like to think that Brown must be smarter than his mistakes, which only leaves me to conclude he is being disingenuous. An example: after claiming that people who challenge the Jewishness of Christianity are like the Inquisition(!), he accuses Jews of reciting an anti-Jewish Christian prayer (the Birkat Ha-Minim) since the first century (9). It's a bizarre leap, which requires a little context to truly grasp.

1) The Birkat Ha-Minim is an anti-Jewish Christian prayer? Not really. It's an anti-heretic prayer. Brown just needs for everything to be about him.

2) The `evidence' he alludes to for 1st century Judaism is a mention in the Babylonian Talmud (ca. 6th century CE) that Gamaliel, a 1st century rabbinic precursor, clarified the ordering of the Shemoneh Esreh prayer and implied that something similar in context to the Birkat Ha-Minim might be part of it.

3) Implicit in (2) is the fallacy that Gamaliel of Yavneh, or indeed any Jew, had the authority to proscribe the morning prayers of first century Jews. Which is odd, because Brown repeatedly wants to point out how diverse the first century iterations of Judaism were.

4) The Birkat Ha-Minim is not found in the Talmud. The closest one comes is individual phrases which were later incorporated into it (ex: "Lift up your hand against the wicked." --- yBerakhot iv, 8a; bBerakhot 29a.)

If you're most people, you're confused by the bad Scrabble hand I just used. It's called a citation - specifically, the first a citation from the Yerushalmi Talmud (y), tractate Berakhot (tractates are roughly analogous to chapters), 8a. Brown doesn't provide these when he claims that Jews prayed against Jewish-Christians in the first century. Part of this is the paucity of such texts: there is no trace of the prayer in Josephus or Philo or Paul (all first century Jews), no reports of it in the ancient Jewish Christian texts, no textual remains among the Cairo Genizah or Qumran, and so on. Another is that the passage mentioned in (1) only obliquely implies the Birkat Ha-Minim in the Babylonian Talmud, and not its Yerushalmi counterpart. (There are two Talmuds, Babylonian and Yerushalmi, compiled in different locations at different times, which often preserve parallel accounts of the same text - though there are often variants.) Of course, the Talmud is not a history text, nor does it ever claim to be, so using it to `prove' something about first century Judaism is intensely problematic... and I could go on. You get the point.

Now, why all of this over a throwaway slander against Second Temple Judaism? After all, there is certainly no shortage of those in the book. I bring this up because it's characteristic of his thinking for Brown to ignore things that he knows full well contradict him. If not, he went to an awful lot of trouble to learn Hebrew and then not read his sources. Instead of citing his pitifully sparse proof-texts, what he provides in his endnotes are articles written by people who cite them, even if like Kimelman they reject his conclusion. (I happen to have read the article in question, but you almost don't need to, as the title "Birkat Ha-Minim and the Lack of Evidence for an Anti-Christian Jewish Prayer in Late Antiquity," is pretty self-explanatory.) He's certainly aware of how to present a scholarly argument, yet he consistently fails to. That he doesn't is a tacit admission that his ideas don't bear up under scrutiny. I imagine that's why he chose an imaginary Jew as his opponent.

("But this is a popular book, not a scholarly article!" Nonsense. Simple writing is no excuse for simple-mindedness. If we are to have scholars writing popular works we should expect - and often get - the same level of rigorous thinking and discipline a scholar would bring to bear on any matter. Otherwise we should just sub-contract the whole field out to Dan Brown.)

It's also informed by Brown's desperate need for rabbinic Judaism to be in diametric opposition to messianic Judaism. (What of rabbis who believed in the Messiah, like Rabbi Aqiba? Well, he believed in a Messiah, but not Brown's.) He needs the rabbis to be hard-hearted authoritarians (100) who lead the Jews away from the truth of Christianity (they weren't - in fact, our evidence indicates the rabbis and their teachings were marginal throughout much of Late Antiquity. See Seth Schwartz, `Imperialism and Jewish Society' for a cogent analysis of the available sources.) He needs rabbinic Judaism to have grown in opposition to Christianity, when in fact the Talmudic rabbis were theologically indifferent to Christianity. (Peter Schafer demonstrates this in his handsome but necessarily slim volume `Jesus in the Talmud.') In short, because Christianity is the center of his world, he needs it to have been the center of everyone's world.

His claim to scholarship is belied by his credulousness towards texts - particularly, his literalist faith in the integrity of the New Testament writings. Brown's Jewish Christianity is apparently innocent of any concept of New Testament textual or literary criticism, which makes his scholarship disingenuous at best. A scholar who simply refuses to engage with the existing scholarship would do well to have saved his money and gone into gymnastics instead, so at least his body has a chance of keeping up with his mind. But no matter: if the NT says that something happened, then for Brown, it did. As you can imagine, this makes for some circuitous reasoning:

"We know that Jews were expecting a miracle worker Messiah because Matthew 12:22 says that Jesus healed someone and Jews wondered if he was the Messiah." (99) Now, what does this passage demonstrate? That Jews were expecting a miracle worker for a Messiah, or that the anonymous author of Matthew (our earliest manuscripts have no auctorial attributions) believed that Jesus was the Messiah and wrote his Gospel under that assumption? Remember, the Gospels are not transcriptions from audio recordings. They are consciously executed literary creations. This can be seen in Brown's naïve phrasing - he will claim that a Gospel `records' something, rather than `claims' something.

"Some Jews asked him if he was the one to come, in Luke 7:20. He replied by bragging about his miracles. Therefore, his miracles were his answer."
Brown ducks the problem of what exactly these Baptists are asking... the most intelligible reading is that they are asking Jesus if he is Elijah. But regardless, this is again a Christian document trying to retroactively frame their conclusions as Judaism's criteria.

(And even if we grant for the sake of argument that they are accurate histories, why do we then not assume Messiahship for Hanina ben Dosa or Honi the Circle-Drawer? They were healers as well - in fact, though they predate Jesus, many of Jesus's miracles are suspiciously similar to theirs. Brown doesn't address this, though of course an honest answer to Jewish objections would.)

If Acts records Jews being confused by the idea of preaching to Gentiles, then that really happened. There is over two centuries of scholarship demonstrating the absurdity of this position, but whatever. If the book were truly targeted towards Jews, Brown would remember that citing a text is useless if your opponent does not agree it is authoritative, no more than he would accept rulings based on suras from the Qu'ran. Interestingly, though Brown is obviously a biblical literalist, he makes a throwaway argument (xix) that essentially reads: The New Testament has been shown to be inaccurate. But the Hebrew Bible can be inaccurate too. Therefore, you should believe both. Why? Because shut up, that's why.

Of course, Brown seems unable to conceive of a Jew who is not a biblical literalist and so needs each and every word of the Hebrew Bible to be true. An educated Jew knows they aren't... hence the tripartite hierarchy of Torah, Prophets, and Writings. The educated Jew is also aware that the text is corruptible, unless he really believes Saul was a one-year-old when he became king and ruled until he was three (1 Samuel 13:1). This is but one example... there are hundreds. Brown needs you to be slavishly devoted to the text as the paramount truth because he is. It should be noted again that this sort of bibliolatry is a characteristically *Protestant* approach, and likely stems from Brown's indoctrinators. Or does he think that first century Jews all walked around with Bible in hand?

I could go on, and on, and on... literally every page has some lapse in logic, scholarship, or consistency. But it would require a book in and of itself, and the audience who buys Brown's books (evangelical Christians) aren't interested in reading something that doesn't confirm their pre-existing beliefs. So I'll end with what I thought were some of the most simplistic, absurd, or even humorous claims of this book. You may find some examples of hyperbole therein. I'm not above having a little fun with the patently absurd.

- If Jews are still upset about the Holocaust, it's because they haven't found Jesus (111).

- A televangelist said "Someone watching this show will be healed of a terrible illness." A Jew who was watching the show recovered from a spinal injury. E.g. - Jesus! (101)

- Brown once heard of a Jew who said bad things about another Jew. Therefore, when he claims that "the Jews" collectively rejected and killed his Messiah and reject the obvious truth of Jesus Christ because they are ignorant and misguided, it's not anti-Semitic (16).

- Jesus was the Messiah but didn't bring about the Messianic age per se, mostly because some Jews killed him. However, some Jews have also been wrong about when the Messianic age would begin. Therefore, because Chewbacca is a Wookiee but lives on Endor, Jesus was the Messiah (69).

- Brown's not saying that your Grandma is in hell, but if she is, she deserved to burn (28). How well did you really know her, anyway? After all, she was old when you were born, and who can say what kind of life she led. For all you know, she was raping kittens with a rolling pin (31).

- It's not okay to set Jews apart as a fallen, evil people. However, it is okay to set them apart as a fetishized, supernatural construct for converts to unhealthily fixate on (xxiii).

- Christians have persecuted and slandered Jews for centuries on end. On the other hand, some medieval Jews wrote Toledot Yeshu, a pamphlet that smears Jesus. Call it even? (21)

- God is a passive-aggressive nitwit. If he finds out you stole a pretzel, he'll make you rob a liquor store just to prove a point (22).

- Look, the Holocaust wasn't all bad. It helped pave the way for fulfillment of a Christian prophecy. Silver lining! (185)

- Yes, many Church Fathers were virulent anti-Semites, most notably John Chrysostom. Yes, Christians passed laws specifically against Jews. Yes, during the Crusades anti-Semitic fervor reached some of its most horrific levels. Yes, medieval Christians commonly accused Jews of eating Christian babies and drinking their blood. Yes, the Inquisition all-but exterminated Spain's Jewish population. Yes, Martin Luther wrote a book called `Concerning the Jews and Their Lies.'(128). But non-Christians have also done unkind things to Jews. Therefore, Christianity is not anti-Semitic (149).

- A true Christian would never deceive a Jew concerning Christianity (10). Unless that true Christian adheres to what Jesus taught in Luke 16:9 ("make friends for yourself by dishonest wealth...")

- Even when Jews were forced into rigged debates with Christians, they often won the day (199). Yet 100% of Christians who buy videotapes of Brown debating rabbis agree that Brown wins every time. What gives?

- The Jews rejected the Torah and the Prophets (7). This is why they gathered and preserved them in writing throughout millennia.

Wow, this is the best book I have ever read on the subject. Come to think of it, it might be the ONLY book I have ever read on the subject. Dr. Brown divides this book up into two parts. The first part deals with the emotional objections that Jewish people might have toward Jesus ("Jews don't believe in Jesus!" "Believing in Jesus violates the Shema!" "How can I betray my ancestors who stayed faithful to the Jewish religion?" "Jesus is for the Goyim!" "If Jesus is the Messiah then why haven't our rabbis believed in him?").

The second part of the book deals with historical objections ("If Jesus is the Messiah, why is there no peace on earth?" "The Messiah is supposed to come in triumph, not in meekness and in death." "How can I believe in Jesus when there are so many anti-Semitic people who believe in him?" What about portions of the New Testament which seem anti-Semitic?"

Dr. Brown writes in an argumentative, debating type of style for a big part of the book, especially the first half, and this doesn't always translate well for the reader. You will feel at times like Dr. Brown is yelling at you, and I hope that if there is a future edition to this three volume series (he did say he hoped to eventually publish all the volumes into one binding), he will revise his style so that it won't seem quite so hostile.

But the content is fantastic, and I can't wait to read volumes two and three and now four!

Rev. Marc Axelrod

Brown's book is really a much-needed work in apologetics. Before, it was difficult to fine a section that dealt with why some Jewish people refuse to accept Jesus as our Messiah. Now, we have an entire three books. I'm not sure I like the "debate" format of the book, because the believer always gets "the last word," but it does help present the information in a logical flow. The reader, if he or she is intending to use the information in the book, should be prepared to question the material so they will be better prepared for questions they might receive about their argument. ANSWERING JEWISH OBJECTIONS TO JESUS is a great book for every Christian, not just Jewish Christians or those who interact with Jews. The book doesn't pull punches too much, so you might be stepping on some toes with it, but that's a part of the game. Read this one, you'll be glad you did.

A number of Dr. Brown's arguments, especially towards the beginning of the book, deal with primarily 'knee-jerk' emotional responses of Jews to Christian evangelism. These responses are largely illogical and Dr. Brown does an excellent job in responding to these issues. However, as he proceeds into more reasonably placed objections, there are numerous places where his arguments, while valuable to a faltering believer, are far less convincing to the seeker. As an example, in one instance Dr. Brown addresses the issue of reconciliation with G-d. He notes with compassion that traditional Jews have no assurance that they have been forgiven by G-d, whereas in Christianity, believers have that promise. This is an argument appealing to the emotions of the reader, and not his logic, the reason being that G-d in the Old Testament does not promise to tell the people if they have won His forgiveness. So while the Christian approach is appealing emotionally, logically it is using the argument to prove itself. I would recommend reading with careful scrutiny, using Dr. Brown's excellent footnotes and the original sources if possible.

This is indespensible book. I am a Christian and it strenghten my religion with objective reasons to believe. I recommend everybody to read this book.

People don't come to believe in jesus by intellectual games. Pray to the one who gives belief. For a wonderful read, buy jesus of nazareth, "this book is my personal search for the face of the lord" by pope benedict. It has quite a lot about our attitude to other faiths, understanding and love. To find out how many jews see christians read the neoconserative persuasion, selected essays 1942 -2009 by Irving Kristol.

This book was the answer to a prayer. I prayed to God to give me a Jewish perspective before attempting to share the gospel with my Jewish friend, I went to the bookstore to find a book (thinking one did not exist), and this was the FIRST book I saw on the shelf. God does hear our prayers! Dr. Brown is a modern-day Apostle Paul, held up by God to be a light not only to the Jews but to Christians as well. I have read Christian apologetics for over 20 years, but always from a "gentile" or Christian perspective. Dr. Brown so richly gives us a Jewish perspective that is much needed by Christians today desiring to reach our Jewish friends. I believe it would be impossible for a Christian to read this book and NOT love Jews more that ever!
The reviewer who said that "nobody with a genuine belief likes to have someone else's belief shoved down his throat." I wonder why he read the book? Also, I find it interesting that Christians do not feel threatened at all by other religions but other religions feel threatened by Christianity. Why is that? Is it the power of Truth?
Also, I have read many antagonistic reviews of Dr. Brown's various books and they all have the same characteristics: 1) no cohesive, logical argument 2) emotionally-driven (anger) and 3) incoherency!
Thank you, Dr. Brown! Wish I could give this book 10 stars!!