In the fifth and final volume of his series, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, Dr. Michael Brown refutes the traditional Jewish concept that there is a binding, authoritative Oral Law going back to Moses. While showing great respect for his people's traditions, Brown demonstrates that when there is a conflict between the Bible and tradition, Jews are called to follow the Bible.
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Michael L. Brown (Ph.D., New York University) is a Jewish believer who has been active in dialogue, debate, and interaction with rabbis and countermissionaries for more that thirty-five years. He has served as a visiting or adjunct professor at many universities, including Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Fuller Theological Seminary, Denver Theological Seminary, the King s Seminary, and Regent University School of Divinity.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thorough, No-Spin Answers to Traditional Jewish Objections to Jesus,
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This review is from: Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus:Traditional Jewish Objections Vol 5 (Paperback)
On the one hand, Michael L. Brown shows great respect to the Jewish tradition and a love for his fellow Jews. On the other hand, Brown answers objections to Messianic Judaism with clarity and first a concise, then a detailed response.The Talmud and traditional Jewish understandings have much to offer, but Brown documents that they often run contrary to the plain and obvious sense of the Torah given to Moses, they often contradict one another, and are obviously wrong, absurdly cumbersome, and contrary to the practice of the godly in the Tanakh itself in a number of ways. The medical prescriptions in b. Git. 68b-69a sound more like superstition from the Middle Ages than divinely inspired truth (who would want to practice such cures?). As far as the so-called Oral Law clarifying the Torah, Brown comments, "... understanding the Torah is far less challenging than understanding the alleged divine explanation of the Torah preserved in rabbinic tradition." Good hands-on information, well argued.
9 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well-written, detailed and accurate, but pointless,
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This review is from: Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus:Traditional Jewish Objections Vol 5 (Paperback)
This is the final volume of a 5-volume set. (This review is basically the same as for the previous volumes.) Collectively, the set is a ground-breaking resource of first-rate scholarship. Unfortunately, the subject matter is incredibly arcane. Although this final volume doesn't deal primarily with theology, all five volumes suffer from the same problem--the only people who would be familiar with more than just a few of the arguments in ANY of the volumes are hard-core anti-missionary types and the (LITERALLY) handful of Messianics who study their positions in depth and prepare responses.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 took Brown's course on Messianic Apologetics in 2003. He started by having two Messianic Jews try evangelizing him and he responded as an Orthodox Jew would, with arguments from his books. One of the evangelists is an Israeli graduate of the Jewish Studies program at Christ for the Nations and a Messianic rabbi experienced at Jewish evangelism in Israel and the U.S. 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 arguments from "anti-missionary" experts such as Tovia Singer 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. As mentioned above, this particular volume does not primarily emphasize theology. However, the discussion of many of the "traditional Jewish objections" is equally arcane. 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. Brown is also knowledgeable in biblical Greek and often debates "anti-missionaries" about both the Hebrew and Greek texts. Sadly, despite claims to the contrary, what comes across in the 18-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 in the U.S. 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. Anyone who is Jewish, doesn't believe in Jesus and knows many of the arguments Brown is refuting has already made up their mind and this won't matter. 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! Comment
1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY IS A HOUSE OF CARDS,
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This review is from: Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus:Traditional Jewish Objections Vol 5 (Paperback)
Christians have been trying to shoehorn Jesus into the Torah for almost 2000 years, and no matter how they try, the bottom line is that all their "proofs" are painful and transparent contortions of the facts, mistranslations from the original Hebrew (into Greek, the language of the New Testament), out-of-context misunderstandings, or outright falsehoods. Two excellent sources of this are to be found in the books "Twenty-Six Reasons Why Jews Don't Believe in Jesus" by Asher Norman, and "Why the Jews Rejected Jesus" by David Klinghoffer. In these books, one will find concrete and convincing examples of why Jesus could not have been the Messiah, and why Jews, most pointedly the Jews who lived with and knew Jesus personally, rejected his claims. The reader will find that in the Torah there are six absolute requirements for Messiahship, none of which Jesus fulfilled. To be the Messiah, one must fulfill these requirements. For example, the Messiah MUST be a direct descendant of King David. Since Christians claim that Jesus had no Earthly father (as in Matthew, first page), this eliminates him from consideration as Messiah. When reading the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, one will find that the two are totally different and contradictory; in fact, they differ by 15 generations. This eliminates Jesus from consideration. Another Messianic criterion is that the Messiah will rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus did not do that, since the Temple had not yet been destroyed during Jesus' lifetime; this eliminates him from Messianic consideration. Another requirement is that the Messiah will be annointed King of Israel, and oversee the "gathering of the exiles back into Israel." Since Jesus was not annointed King of Israel, and in fact soon after his death Israel was destroyed by the Romans and the people exiled into the Diaspora, it eliminates Jesus from consideration as Messiah. There are many other examples that provide absolute and incontrovertible proof that Jesus could not possibly have been the Messiah. The reason why Christians are generally not aware of these facts is that their religious education STARTS with the New Testament, and their knowledge of the Torah is only through "the lens of a Christian," which by definition includes all the errors, misunderstandings, and lack of fundamental knowledge inherent in that religion. It turns out that the story of Jesus became entwined with the local pagan mystery cults of the time, including the mythical men-gods Baal, who was killed and resurrected "on the third day," and had a supposed virgin mother; Attis, who also had a virgin mother, was resurrected after three days, and whose birthday was December 25th; Isis, whose religion included sin being forgiven through immersion in water, and whose birthday was also December 25th; and Mithras, who was regarded as a "mediator between God and man, who performed miracles, whose birthday was also on December 25th, and who killed the "sacred bull," which provided life by consuming its body and blood. Mithras held a "last supper" with his disciples, who all had to be "purified by baptism." One can start to see that, at the time of Jesus, it was very unlikely that Judaism, with its commandments for circumcision and kosher laws, could spread to the pagans without some "tweaking," which included the elimination of laws of ethics and morality, and a certain blending with their comfortable beliefs.For a truly masterful elaboration of this issue, go to the website of DM Murdock at truthbetold dot com. There you will find very detailed and scholarly discussion of the roots of Christianity and religion in general. Please also see the amazing website whywontgodhealamputees dot com. It's time for religious people to face their delusions.
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