{"id":3,"date":"2009-03-31T18:15:22","date_gmt":"2009-03-31T23:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jesusandjews.com\/wordpress\/?p=3"},"modified":"2016-01-18T22:44:40","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T03:44:40","slug":"jewish-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jesusandjews.com\/wordpress\/2009\/03\/31\/jewish-christian\/","title":{"rendered":"Can a person be both a Jew and a Christian"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Can a Jewish person believe in Jesus and still be a Jew? Of course! That is like saying\u00a0a person who is Arab or Chinese is now a non-Arab or non-Chinese because they believe in Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe the question ought to be restated by defining what it means to be a\u00a0Jew. Actually the word is derived\u00a0from a biblical\u00a0reference\u00a0for those who were the\u00a0natural descendants of Judah\u00a0yet today\u00a0many have classified a Jew based on human opinion.<\/span><\/p>\n

One opinion states that you are Jewish\u00a0only if your mother is a Jew.\u00a0Some claim that it is merely a\u00a0matter of religion. Then how can the atheist,\u00a0 humanist, or reformed Jew\u00a0whom the Orthodox don’t even recognize and who do not acknowledge the Torah as being the word of G-d\u00a0 be Jewish? Maybe its a matter of ethics? Then how about a corrupt Orthodox rabbi? Is he still considered a Jew? Is being a Jew\u00a0a matter of showing solidarity with the people of Israel? Then what about the anti-nationalist Israelis? Perhaps its only\u00a0ones ethnicity in which none of these other points are no longer important.\u00a0Whatever the viewpoint is when\u00a0denying someone an identity based on ones own\u00a0criteria as\u00a0listed\u00a0above than\u00a0this can\u00a0be bigoted and who knows maybe by\u00a0someone else’s definition they might even consider you to be outside of whatever group you identify with.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway in getting back\u00a0to the original question on whether\u00a0you can be a Jew and believe in Jesus even\u00a0the Orthodox recognize\u00a0 Jewish believers in Jesus\u00a0as being\u00a0“apostate Jews” and target them for outreach purposes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The original context of what it means to be a Jew by\u00a0biblical definition\u00a0is one who is a descendant of Judah.\u00a0If you look at the two greatest men that the Jewish people recognize and identify with as being their own then\u00a0perhaps you\u00a0might be interested in knowing that\u00a0Abraham was neither a Jew nor an Israelite. Moses\u00a0 was\u00a0 an Israelite but not a Jew. Even among those who could make claims to being Jewish by biblical definition as descending from\u00a0Judah \u00a0can not\u00a0prove the purity of\u00a0their ethnic line \u00a0because of the Diaspora,\u00a0mixing of tribes,\u00a0and converts to Judaism. So as you can see\u00a0 being a Jew isn’t always so definable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today there are many\u00a0contemporary opinions and definitions about what it means to be a Jew. The opinions may vary and may fluctuate yet\u00a0lets not try to limit\u00a0a definition by excluding these\u00a0Jewish believers in Jesus. Many of them still identify with the Jewish\u00a0community\u00a0yet their greatest identification is in their Jewish Messiah Jesus(Yeshua). These Jewish believers\u00a0relate\u00a0to the G-d of the Jews\/Israel based on being a new covenant(testament) people as defined by the prophet Jeremiah as found in the Tanakh, Jeremiah 31:31-34.<\/span><\/p>\n

31 \u00a0 \u00a0The time is coming,\u201d declares the Lord,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cwhen I will make a new covenant<\/span><\/p>\n

with the house of Israel<\/span><\/p>\n

and with the house of Judah.<\/span><\/p>\n

32\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It will not be like the covenant<\/span><\/p>\n

I made with their forefathers<\/span><\/p>\n

when I took them by the hand<\/span><\/p>\n

to lead them out of Egypt,<\/span><\/p>\n

because they broke my covenant,<\/span><\/p>\n

though I was a husband to\u00a0them,\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

declares the Lord.<\/span><\/p>\n

33\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThis is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel<\/span><\/p>\n

after that time,\u201d declares the Lord.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI will put my law in their minds<\/span><\/p>\n

and write it on their hearts.<\/span><\/p>\n

I will be their God,<\/span><\/p>\n

and they will be my people.<\/span><\/p>\n

34\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0No longer will a man teach his neighbor,<\/span><\/p>\n

or a man his brother, saying, \u2018Know the Lord,\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

because they will all know me,<\/span><\/p>\n

from the least of them to the greatest,\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

declares the Lord.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor I will forgive their wickedness<\/span><\/p>\n

and will remember their sins no more.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Lastly\u00a0if we allow for every one else within \u00a0the Jewish community to\u00a0define what it means to be a Jew then those who are\u00a0Jews\u00a0who believe in\u00a0Jesus should likewise\u00a0have those\u00a0same rights to identify themselves as being Jewish whether we accept it or not.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How to have a relationship with God<\/span><\/p>\n

How to know God<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Other Links<\/span><\/p>\n

English<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Jewish Resources of Jesus<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can a Jew believe in Jesus and still be Jewish<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jesusandjews.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jesusandjews.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jesusandjews.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jesusandjews.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jesusandjews.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/jesusandjews.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jesusandjews.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jesusandjews.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jesusandjews.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}