Answering for Jews - hubris or ignorance?

My guess is it's a little of both.

They are by and large ignorant of Jewish culture -- their knowledge of Judaism is comprised entirely of literal readings of the Pentateuch. And they are arrogant in thinking that theirs is the true religion and that Jews are either deceived or stubborn in refusing to accept Jesus.

I work at a university which offers courses in Biblical Hebrew. The Lutheran pastor who teaches thes courses may know the language very well, but his lectures are a source of much amusement to members of Campus Hillel. He may know how to decline a noun, but among Jewish students his reputation is for not knowing the difference between the Torah and the Tanakh. He is immune to correction, though -- to his mind, Jewish students can't possibly know as much about Jewish culture as an educated Christian.

The mind boggles.

These answers are just due to ignorance. First, we are FORBIDDEN to change even a single letter, so the whole thing about changing even the pronouns bit is wrong. Second, we have more experience in reading the Old Testament (Tanakh) than Christians. We have been around longer, and so we have our own beliefs (based on the original Hebrew) on who the Messiah is. The Christians can believe whatever they like, but we Jews can believe what we want too.

Just ignore them.

It's a combination of both ignorance and hubris. Repeatedly, *some* non Jews insist on speaking FOR Jews - why, I don't know, because goodness knows we are sufficiently articulate and sufficiently well versed in our own texts to speak for OURSELVES.

Here's the thing that always makes me laugh: of all the things that are said about us as Jews, nobody EVER claims that we lack intelligence. Yet apparently, at the same time, we are SOOOOOO stupid that we need non Jews to explain OUR faith for us!

And yet the people who are arrogantly answering on our 'behalf' never see this irrationality in their own attitudes towards us!

Now that said, I must add: there are a number of non Jews - BAD TIM, MARIE, SJC and others who DO UNDERSTAND Jewish beliefs and who KINDLY DO answer on posts about Judaism and give the RIGHT answers.

MULLAH - you are extremely kind for starring Jewish related posts, please know how much we appreciate this!

Many others, including SCJ, SQUISHY, CHEFDAVID and many others are also very sweet and star things for us - cheers guys, you're the best :)

Christians are the ones who changed things around to suit their own religion. They go on and on how the old testament talks about Jesus. I could not ever see how the old testament ever talked about Jesus in the first place. Once while i waited at the walmart auto department for my car's oil to be changed and a preacher came in and sat next to me. He started preaching about being saved and i informed him i was Jewish. I can not say i know tons about the Torah but i challenged this man, I asked him how could God perform a human sacrifice (Jesus being hung on the cross) when God had previously deemed that action unacceptable for people to sacrifice humans..You know he could not answer me at all..he had nothing to say....So Christians yak all the time how they know all about the old test..our Torah but when confronted they can not explain their beliefs

Well it cant be ignorance or stupidity because they had to do alot of research and reading in order to twist things around to get the interpretation that they want.

I would call it dishonest and disingenuous. As in the case of the second answer, post a lie, then call someone a liar for not accepting your lie. (Im getting dizzy).

Ok...it can be ignorance. But its not stupidity. They cannot use that for an excuse.

Questions and answers you provide underscore why I am careful when answering questions on this topic. Often, I write one brief sentence then star the question so my Jewish friends may respond with facts they have been learning their entire lives.

simple Jesus was not the savior of the Jewish people, according to Jewish beliefs today

I would guess those answers were given by the same segment of Christianity that seems able to tell the rest of us who is or is not a "true Christian."

All the Jewish posters here often viciously attack Christianity and their Jesus while I hardly see Christians here condemn Jews; in fact, I know very many Christian groups in my neighborhood who go all out to defend the Jewish right to Israel and honor Judaism as the forerunner of the Christian faith.

Some Religious scholars think that it was impossible for Jews to accept Jesus as their Messiah because, although Jesus seem to have some qualities as prophesied in the Old Testament, he missed one very important characteristic; he was supposed to be a king and mighty warrior who would bring victory and supremacy to the Jewish people. Then to make matters worse, Jesus made enemies among the Jewish Religious leaders when he condemned their corrupt ways and criticized their use of traditions as part of the faith.

Jews go crazy when you mention that Jews were responsible for having Jesus crucified but there are hints in the Talmud that they did. However there are no reports of outstanding quarrels between early Christians and Jews; in fact, the early Christian Leaders considered themselves Jewish and often taught in the Temple and Synagogues. Then the unthinkable happened; Rome sacked Jerusalem; the Jews were scattered and Jews and Christians went their own ways.

However, Jewish extreme hatred for Christians was created by the Catholic Church whose Popes under the protection of the Roman Empire made it known to Christians that Jews killed Christ and were evil folks; this resulted in the Christians using Jews as their foot stools persecuting them whenever they had an inclination to. The Jews hit back by naming Jesus a bastard, and a fraud. One Religious Scholar suggested that if not for the condemnation of the Jews by Catholic leaders, it could well be that they would have had a very close relationship with Christians today.

It's a pity that there is still some enmity between Christians and Jews today; personally I love the Jewish people and hail them for their strength and determination all through the Middle Ages and beyond. Although I don't call myself a Christian, I think the teachings of Jesus is unique, simple and very logical.

By not (at least) considering the message of Jesus, Jews have missed a lot.

These answers are just due to ignorance. The information included in both answers is wrong on many levels.

Just ignore them.