1st Page of the New Testament Proves That Jesus Can't Possibly be the Jewish Messiah

In many places the Hebrew Bible prophecies a future situation where the world will be perfected. A central role in this theme is assigned to a future king of Israel, who amongst other things, will be a continuation of the Davidic monarchy. In addition to describing the achievements of this future king- whom we refer to as the messiah- the Bible is clear that this future king must be a descendent of King David.

Accordingly, in championing the candidacy of Jesus of Nazareth, the New Testament’s opening 17 verses describe the genealogy of Jesus. Leaving for one moment the 30+ internal contradictions between the genealogy found in the gospel of Matthew and that found in Luke’s gospel. It seems that rather than confirming Jesus as a suitable candidate for the post of Jewish messiah, one need read only the opening 17 verses of the New Testament to conclude that Jesus is simply ineligible as a candidate. Rather than proving the case that Jesus is the messiah, the New Testament begins by informing us that Jesus is not even eligible for the role. How does that work?

What's Wrong with Matthew's Genealogy?

Matthew begins his gospel by telling us “these are the genealogies of Jesus Christ”. Bear in mind that Christ is simply the Greek for messiah. The New Testament begins by explicitly laying out the case for Jesus being the Jewish messiah and does so by attempting to link Jesus back to King David by detailing the ancestry of Joseph, the husband of Mary.

Before we investigate the genealogy itself its worth noting that immediately following Matthew’s account of the genealogical record we are told quite plainly that Joseph is not the biological father of Jesus, but rather that he was born of a virgin, impregnated by the holy spirit.

Clearly King David is not the great, great (and so on) grandfather of G-d and no Christian makes such a foolish claim but this in itself creates a problem; Jesus cannot be descended from King David regardless of the heritage of his adopted father. According to the Hebrew Bible, tribal affiliation is passed through the paternal line and according to the Hebrew Bible, all rightful kings of Israel must be from the tribe of Judah.

It would seem that if the New Testament is a truthful document then Jesus, having no human father, does not belong to the tribe of Judah (or any other). For this reason alone Jesus cannot be a king of Israel; a pre-requisite for candidacy as Jewish messiah. An argument given against this last point is that Joseph formally adopted Jesus, however, adoption does not in Judaism confer tribal affiliation and whatever else he may have been Jesus was a Jew. 

Unfortunately, even were adoption to allow for the passing of tribal affiliation, it gets slightly more complex when we return to the genealogy itself. To cut a long story short Matthew has Joseph descended from King David but lists one of his ancestors as Yechoyachin (Jaconius in Latin) whose wickedness led G-d to place a curse on him; none of his descendants would sit on the throne of Israel. Indeed when Yechoyachin died, the kingship passed to his brother and not one of his sons. If Jesus genuinely descended from Yechoyachin then he was ineligible to be king and therefore ineligible to be the messiah.

Is Luke's Genealogy Any Better?

What then of the genealogy handed down by Luke? Unfortunately for Christians this also leads to the conclusion that Jesus is ineligible for the role of messiah. Notwithstanding the 30+ contradictions between Luke’s genealogy and Matthew’s, or the standard attempt to reconcile these contradictions by claiming that Luke is giving the genealogy of Jesus through Mary, Luke’s genealogy also makes Jesus ineligible. 

First, if Luke’s genealogy is indeed documenting the maternal line (Mary is mentioned nowhere in the text), then in terms of tribal affiliation it is worthless. The Hebrew Bible is clear that the tribe you belong to is the preserve of the paternal line. Thus the problem of Jesus not having a human father and therefore not belonging to any tribe is unresolved. More importantly, the Hebrew Scriptures make it clear that the messiah must be descended from David, through his son Solomon and Luke’s genealogy has Jesus descended from David through Nathan. Which ever way you examine the question; Jesus is ineligible to be the Jewish messiah and consequently Jesus cannot possibly be who the various churches claim him to be.  

Those that claim the New Testament to be a reliable document insist that the New Testament lays out the evidence in favour of the conclusion that Jesus of Nazareth was the Jewish messiah, rejected in his time and scheduled to return to complete the job. This claim is problematic for numerous reasons (in addition to those documented here), yet perhaps the most convincing of these is that to uphold any notion of Jesus as Jewish messiah; one must first discard the New Testament because according to the very text Jesus is simply ineligible to be the Jewish messiah.

Either the New Testament genealogies of Jesus are false (and at least one of them must be), in which case one wonders what they are doing in a book supposedly inspired by G-d, or one of them is correct and Jesus is not eligible to be the messiah. One cannot have cake and eat it too, a position seemingly not lost on the previous Pope who when pressed on this very subject was unable to come up with any answer.

Conclusive Proof That Jesus Cannot be the Jewish Messiah

Faced with the evidence; contradictory genealogies both of which exclude Jesus from candidacy, coupled with the problem of tribal affiliation, an honest person must conclude that Jesus cannot possibly be the Jewish messiah. Thus either the New Testament contains unreliable information about Jesus in which case we have no reason to accept any of the other claims about him or the information may all be true but regardless of the miracles, and so on, Jesus is simply not eligible to be the Jewish messiah and thus we have no reason to accept any of the other claims made about him.

In one of the greatest ironies of history, far from confirming that Jesus is the Jewish messiah- the starting point of Christian claims about the world- one need read only the first page of the New Testament to rule him out of contention altogether.

Is it really any wonder why Jews, those most intimately knowledgeable with the Hebrew Bible, have consistently rejected Christianity? Or why Christendom has spent the best part of its history trying to wipe the Jewish people from the face of the earth? 

גמר חטימה טובה

Why Jesus is not the promised Jewish Messiah (part 1)

In the dispute between Christians and Jews over whether Jesus ought be accorded some special status, its not uncommon to come across some fairly awful reasoning on the part of Christian apologists.

The over-riding objection with such reasoning might seem to be that they have already decided on the conclusion before beginning the argument but this in itself is not necessarily an objection so long as one argues cogently and coherently. However, one consequence of taking sides in advance is that the advocate often doesn't think critically enough about the arguments offered in defence of their pre-conceived notions.

Of course I may be subject to the same criticism so rather than begin with my conclusion, I point to my arguments. Rubbish those and I’ll have to admit that my conclusion doesn’t stand and in such circumstances I’ll be happy to do so…

In a recent discussion a Christian apologist presented the Jewish position as follows and attempts to show why the conclusion cannot be drawn from the premises;

1) The Messiah will fulfil prophecies x, y & z

2) Jesus did not fulfil prophecies x,y, & z

Conclusion: Jesus cannot be the messiah.

The critic attempts to show that premise 2 doesn’t stand because Jesus will come back and for the conclusion to stand the Jewish position must be amended to read “Jesus did not and will not fulfil prophecies x,y, & z. 

Essentially this is offering the notion of a second coming as refutation that Jesus is not the Jewish messiah. However the refutation of the objection is that it is not reasonable to believe that Jesus will return, because no evidence is presented to support such a notion. 

There are a number of problems with this reasoning.

1) The burden of proof is on the Christian’s shoulders, not that of the Jewish people. Since Judaism pre-dates Christianity, the burden of proof lies with those who are claiming new information, not with those who are saying nothing has changed. This is obvious. 

If you want to convince others that an apparently ordinary person who lived and died, actually has a special status, you need evidence to support this conclusion and yet none is offered that survives scrutiny.

2) Given that Jesus died prior to the fulfilment of the relevant prophecies and that this was 2000 odd years ago you would need a convincing explanation for why he will still be able to fulfil the prophecies. Mere possibility alone is foolish. After all its possible that tomorrow my dog will start talking or become a chess grand-master but no reasonable person expects either of these things to happen. If you are happy to base your decisions on probability then I am offering bets on my three-legged donkey winning the Grand National, any takers?

3) The “he’ll do it later” argument may convince those with a pre-existing belief that Jesus is a special person but it doesn’t provide any support to convince someone who doesn’t believe that Jesus is special.  If you’re not providing any evidence I have no obligation to accept your argument and you have no reason to accept it either. To the non-believer in Jesus this sounds like a classic case of cognitive dissonance.

4) Additionally, the notion of a second coming is entirely extra-textual to the Hebrew Bible, thus there is no basis for a believer in the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures to accept such a notion. Yet it gets worse, the text of the Hebrew Bible instructs believers to reject ideas which are not found in the text. Thus the only consistent position is to reject the notion of a second coming and claims made in respect of Jesus coming back to do x, y & z.  

5) A further related problem is that to uphold the “he’ll do it later” principle one also has to explain why you give preference to belief in Jesus over belief in other religious figures, such as, Muhammed, Joseph Smith or Reverend Moon. If the notion is not excusive to Jesus then it isn’t evidence that he’s special.

If possibility is sufficient, then believing in Muhammed, or Jospeh Smith is as reasonable as belief in Jesus but the Christian offers no grounds for choosing one over the other. Can’t these other figures also come back and do it later if G-d wills it such? If not you have to say why and have a reasoned argument that can not also be used to refute your own position. No such argument exists. 

For these reasons, an inconsistent position is taken somewhere along the line and a rational person (a category which ought to include Christians) has no reason to accept the conclusion that Jesus is special.

Blogging and Intellectual Honesty

I've recently had an online dispute with a blogger (The site and the writer isn't important), I'm sure my posts were polite, thorough and thoughtful responses to his arguments but they were simply not published. No form of refutation was offered. Discussion along with this blogger's mind is apparently closed.

Maybe its just my academic training (philosophy) but something seems odd about running a blog and not posting comments, or rather, not publishing comments that disagree with your article. The phrase "publish and be damned" really ought to be the guiding principle. Well at least is should be if you're honest.

Perhaps I've simply got the mucky end of the stick but I don't think so. In my mind the only reason for blogging is to share your opinions with a wider audience and the corollary to that is to have the integrity to publish all responses, even if it means putting material on your blog with which you fundamentally disagree. What won't do is to screen out the criticism which you are unable to answer and respond only to weak, easily refuted objections or the posts of those with whom you already agree.

Here's the nub of the matter; if you take a position on a certain subject you ought to be able to justify that stance, (not least for yourself). This is doubly so if the entire raison d'etre of your site is to convince others of the accuracy of your position vis a vis competing theories and explanations. Its less than honest to push your view of the world and then hide relevant responses from your readers because they undermine the position you're advocating for.

Isn't it simple? If the critique can be challenged then argue against it and demonstrate how the critic's argument is mistaken; highlight the flaws in their logic and show that your position emerges unscathed. After all, if the critique is so poor this ought to be a doddle. Alternatively admit that your original piece doesn't survive the critic's slings and arrows but at the very least publish critical comments and allow others to make their own judgement. Isn't that what thoughtful, honest people do?

In refusing to publish criticism which might undermine your conclusions, you are both insulting and deceiving your readers and revealing your own lack of conviction. In short, over and above refusing to publish hate speech, defamatory comments or such like) whatever the issue you ought also to allow your readers to make up their own minds by publishing contrary comments.

Reagrdless of the stance of others, this blog is and aims to remain a dialogue and as such, all comments are welcome. Refusing to publish counter arguments is simply intellectually dishonesty of the worst kind, isn't it?