Are "Messianic" Jews really a Christian sect and not a Jewish sect?

Hi David. As you already know, Messianic Jews are Jews. Messianic believers are not Jews, but keep Torah and are not Christians. Paul was a Jew who kept Torah and while he was a follower of the Messiah, he was also not a Christian. The term "Christian" came much later and was originally meant as a slur against Messianics.

And yes, Christianity is completely different from Judaism and Messianics follow Torah so are not Christians. You know this, yet you seem to keep asking and hoping that someone will come and bash Messianic Jews into giving up Torah. Our faith seems to really bother you . . .

Blessings and Happy Hanukkah,

D1

Jesus was a Jew, yes. However Jesus came to show people the difference between religion and spirituality. Religion is man-made. What started out as ten simple commandments turned into the Torah, The Septuagint, and the Talmud with thousands of rules and commandments. What made Jesus different was that he spoke from a position of actually KNOWING God personally, so much so that He could call him Father. He stressed a personal relationship, not a continuation of the same hypocritical traditions that God doesn't honor anyway.

The Asker brought up a very important point about Paul and Bar-nabas. A couple of Christians made some very important points about Yeshua's and Paulus's viewpoint about their idea of the God (let Christian's argue among themselves if Jesus was a lamb like many people believe (one person equates him to a Rabbi Zakkai) whose followers fled to Pella to safety and protection by Rome or if he was a lion and his followers were zealot jews who all died in the siege of Jerusalem, and only the 'Paulinist Christians' survived. His followers were supposedly Jews, but so were countless priests, thiefs, martyrs, traitors, farmers, righteous men of G-d, etc. So the argument that ""all" his followers were Jews" is meaningless. Jesus and his followers then were also Israelites, "killers of their prophets", descendants of those who Elijah had a problem with. Jews who study Torah and Tanakh will see things differently from Christians. That only makes sense that if you only read the Tanakh and see G-d complete in it, you will definitely reject much of Yeshua's or Jesus's teachings and disagree with Christian no matter what they call themselves or their "history" whether they are pre-Acts 11 believers or later Christians. Or else that person needs to read the Torah again or else choose Christ or make a number of other choices. Those Jews must disagree with someone who primarily reads the New Testament.

Marcuss made some very important points. There is a very wide difference between Judaism and Christianity for almost 2 thousand years. Now a new age religion, as some call it, is trying to redefine those distinctions, those basic principles of faith, but not for the betterment of either Jews or of Judaism or for Christians and Christianity. I am not talking about the many churches today who are "returning to their Hebraic Roots", but remain Christian as one pastor calls it in his book, "the next great movement of G-d".

--

This is beside the point, maybe not, but I noticed recently, like in some comments made to a resolved question, that some people are prone to making personal attacks against those who disagree with them, very disrepectful to others as individuals, some don't answer the question or even argue against another's argument but instead attack in areas that very little to do with the question. It seems they try to "prove" some unrelated point of theirs, somehow. Some people can get very prideful and arrogant even as they were talking about being humble, insulting and sarcastically calling someone a liar (baser on their false assumption), very angry tone and accusations and even using a foul word, (not enough to report it, yet), etc. That all came from an "evil spirit" within them. It is not the spirit that they say and believe that they have within them. And it actually turns other people away from what they argue for. Especially when one turns in anger toward another one who agrees with him on most things; angry at a "brother" because of pride. Maybe we need to study a little about 'lashon ha-ra' or practice a little of that 'love of Yeshua'?

I think it depends on what someone else thinks. If you choose to categorize us as Christians or as Jews go ahead. I'm a Messianic Jew, I consider myself as a Messianic Jew only. I was born to Conservative Jews and converted. Since my religion calls itself Messianic Jews, then I would say that it is Jewish.

But, its all what one considers, I would rather follow what one says.

I would not say that Christianity is "completely different" from Judaism. It would be more correct to say that Christianity brings Judaism to completion since those who practice Judaism are still looking for the Messiah Whereas Christians are like Jews who have found the Messiah which is Jesus Christ.

no, you have it backwards, christianity is a jewish sect, without judaism there would be no christianity

ok - i converted from christianity to Judaism and I would say - having a strong knowledge of both that the two are definatly differant religions...

Christians- when they werent busy trying to convert jews by hook or crook , or burning us a jesus killers - have always leaned heavily on jesus' ''jewishness'' .. becuase when you apply jewish law and prophecy to their faith - their claim for jesus as the messiah is full of holes and actually doenst really stand up to scrutiny...

christians - over the centuries have purposefully mistranslated, twisted and put false meaning into jewish texts ( like the thing about jesus being the ''passover lamb '' ) to make jesus fit as the messiah.... but when you apply the basic laws of the JEWISH prophecty to jesus - you can see almost instantly that he couldnt have been the messiah.....

Christians NEED jews to accept jesus, becuase jews - not goyim - where the people to whom the prophecy was given... with the idea being that other peoples have their own path to god... so the fact that jews have rejected jesus for so long is a big problem for christians...

Now that killing and forced conversion of jews is no longer PC ... christians have instead decided to play on the jesus was jewish thing.. and spun the ridiculous line - that because they follow a dead jewish guy - some how they too are jewish and so are nothing more than an branch of judaism rather than a separate religion...

its just another way of saying '' hey jews - see - we are all jews too - so why dont you follow jesus now '' same conversion tactics... new spin on it...

youll hear all kinds of riduculous phrases like ''spiritual jew'' ''completed jew'' etc with christains trying to tell us jews that they are jewish just cos jesus was...

but thats as silly as me telling indians and nepalis that i am now a spiritual nepali/ indian or completed indian / nepali just becuase i follow Buddha or Krishna etc ... its not only absurd its insulting and disrespectfull to indians / nepalis and their culture and heritage...

Back in the early days of pagan conversion - christians very much believed in spreading christianity by the sword... they thought christianity had superceded judaism and that judaism was now defunct...

when that didnt work - when they couldnt convert all the jews and pagans - they tried a softer approach... superimposing christian themes onto pagan ideas and customs - hence christmas and easter both being riddled with pagan imagry ...

a thousand or so years later -they still have the pagan / jewish problem - so now they are putting a new spin on it ... .

anyone with even a basic knowledge of the two faiths can see that the two are very very differant- with christianity especially having - quite ironically - more in commen with the pagan faiths its tried so hard to wipe out - than it ever did with judaism...

you want to see for yourself - go to a hindu temple - and then a catholic or orthodox church and see how much the two are alike... then go to a synagogue - no more explanation needed ...

There is no 'messianic' sect IN Judaism.

I'm astonished that 'gospel shirley' thinks *she* gets to decide who gets 'adopted into judaism'.

She doesn't get to unilaterally decide this. Judaism defines 'jew'. Only Judaism. And no worshippers of Jesus, or anyone else, are 'jews'.

DEVOTED also goes by the name 'oregon flower', and interestingly, when using THIS name, she defines herself as a 'born again CHRISTIAN'.

The founder of the Messianic movement is Martin Meyer - an ordained *BAPTIST* Minister!

It will be obvious to any sane person that a BAPTIST doesn't get to 'start' a 'jewish' group!

WTF Jews having sects with Christians? Wow!

"Messianic" Jews claim to be Jews who came to know Jesus. Whether this be so, I couldn't say. I have heard that they keep the Jewish Sabbath, the Jewish holy days, and even fast on the Jewish Day of Atonement ("Yom Kippur"). Whether they be Jewish followers of Jesus, or whether they be gentile followers trying to live up to the Jewish code, I couldn't say.

Yes, the Jewish traditions, religion, food, etc is most amazing; and yes, it is all very beautiful and meaningful. But the believer in Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile jeapardizes his faith in Jesus by trying to uphold a Law that is not theirs. In the books of Galatians, Ephesians, and Romans (actually not "books", per se, but letters Paul wrote to the churches in each of those cities), there is dire warning that one can NOT follow both Jesus and follow the Jewish Law. The Law is of "works", while Christ is of "faith", and works nullifies faith because works is saying, "Hey, God, look at me! Aren't I great? I kept the Law, and no you 'OWE' me!" Whereas faith says, "We are saved BY grace THROUGH faith. It is a gift from God, not by works, so that NO man can boast."

"Messianic Jew" therefore is an oxymoron. One can not claim Judaism and Messianic at the same time.