Is Christianity the Mormonism of Judaism?

Introduction: Is Christianity the Mormonism of Judaism? What is Noahidism?

Christina R Darlington

Jewish Rabbis claim that Christianity has distorted the teachings of Judaism in the same way that Mormonism distorts the teachings of Christianity. Are these claims that Orthodox Jewish rabbis make against the Christian religion valid? What is the B'nei Noach religion of Noahidism? How do these non-Jewish, Gentile followers of Rabbinic Judaism practice the religion of Judaism? What are the 7 Laws of Noah? How do the teachings of these anti-Christian Jewish missionaries compare to the teachings of ancient Judaism?

01 Is Isaiah 53 Messiah or Israel?

Christina R Darlington

Isaiah 53 is one of the most disputed passages of Scripture among the rabbis of the Jewish community. Early rabbinic Judaism saw shadows of a suffering Messiah while nearly every rabbi since the time of Rashi in the middle ages, has contended that this passage speaks of the suffering of the nation of Israel, rather than of the Messiah Yeshua Jesus. Which interpretation best fits the content and context of Isaiah 53.

02 Did Ancient Rabbis Believe in a Suffering Messiah?

Christina R Darlington

Today, Jewish rabbis dispute Christian interpretations of Isaiah 53 and other passages by claiming that there is no place in the Jewish Scripture that indicates that the Messiah would suffer and die for humanity. While various interpretations on Isaiah 53 and other Messianic passages abound in the Jewish Talmud, common themes seen in these ancient interpretations disagree with the current rabbinic views of these passages. Not only did the ancient rabbis see a suffering Messiah in several passages of the Old Testament, but these rabbis referred to this Messiah as “Messiah ben Yosef” or “Messiah Son of Joseph” because they saw similarities with Joseph suffering in Egypt when he was rejected by his brothers. When it came to Zechariah 12:10, these ancient rabbis even saw a Messiah who was pierced to the point of death, prior to the coming of the kingly Messiah who they called the “Messiah ben David” or “Messiah Son of David.” In this video, we examine the claims of these ancient rabbis and show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the current Christian interpretation of these passages in the Old Testament is consistent with ancient Judaism, and thus Christianity is not the Mormonism of Judaism.

03 Daniel 9's 70 Weeks and Jewish Chronology

Christina R Darlington

The 70 weeks prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 is one of the most debated prophecies in Scripture between Jews and Christians because it provides a time frame for the appearance of the Messiah. Prior to the coming of Christ, ancient Jews reckoned the chronology of Daniel 9's 70 weeks to end between the 3 B.C. and 2 A.D. When Jesus came during this time frame and fulfilled this prophecy in accordance with their expectations, rabbinic Jews of the 2nd century developed a brand new calendar to try to debunk the claims of Christianity. In this video, we examine the biblical Christian view of this prophecy, corresponding to astronomically confirmed dates for the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. and the prophecy of Daniel. We also examine the current Jewish chronology based in their 2nd century calendar which incorrectly places the fall of Jerusalem in 420 B.C. to put the Jewish reckoning of this timeline beyond the life of Jesus in an attempt to reject Him as Messiah.

04 Is the Messiah the Son of God?

Christina R Darlington

The Judaism of today rejects the idea that the Messiah would be a divine being or unique "Son of God." Claiming that God is not a man (Num 23:19), Jewish rabbis have a hard time explaining how God could take on the form of a man (Genesis 32, Joshua 5; Judges 13; Exodus 3; Hosea 12) and appear as two separate beings with multiple thrones as described in Daniel 7:13-14. While the ancient rabbis of Jesus' day accepted the idea that there exists two distinct "powers" in heaven, second century Judaism developed a strong prohibition against belief in this doctrine in an attempt to distance themselves from the Jewish believers in Yeshua Jesus as the Messiah. In this video, as we examine a debate between a Jewish rabbi and a Christian discussing the topic of the Messiah being the Son of God, we will also examine not only the many references to the "Angel of the LORD" in the Old Testament, but ancient rabbinic teachings on the Messiah being the "Son of God" found in the Talmud.

05 Are New Testament Textual Variants Like Mormonism?

Christina R Darlington

What are textual variants? They are the differences found in the various copies of the ancient handwritten manuscripts of the New Testament. While most differences are inconsequential in that they are easily recognizable scribal errors, a small handful of these textual differences impact the reading of the text in one way or the other. While Jewish critics of the Christian Bible, the New Testament, often point to these variants as evidence that the New Testament has been corrupted over time. Even the most significant differences found in textual variants do not impact the doctrinal meaning of the passages of the New Testament. In this video we will compare the statements of credible scholars to demonstrate that the whole Bible, both Old and New Testaments has been preserved.

06 Does the New Testament Misquote the Jewish Bible?

Christina R Darlington

Does Matthew misquote Isaiah 7:14; 9:1-2; 11:1; Hosea 11:1 and Jeremiah 31:15 to provide false prophetic support for Jesus being the Messiah? What is Midrash? Do the prophecies cited in the New Testament have a Dual Fulfillment in both the Old and the New Testament? Throughout the New Testament, and particularly in Matthew's gospel, multiple prophecies from the Hebrew Old Testament (Jewish Bible) are cited to provide support for the life and ministry of Yeshua Jesus. While many of these prophecies were already partially fulfilled during the events of the Old Testament, Matthew and other New Testament writers saw aspects within these historical events that had their ultimate fulfillment within the life of the Messiah Yeshua Jesus. Scholars refer to these prophecies as "dual fulfillment" prophecies or "typologies" in which a prophecy or an event within the Old Testament provides a "type" or pattern to picture an event in the New Testament. In this case, New Testament writers and early Christians practiced what scholars today call "Midrashing" the text. In this video we examine several examples of Matthew's citations and other New Testament midrash of the Old Testament and compare these examples to Jewish Talmudic writings which engaged in the same type of exegetical analysis of the Jewish Bible. In this way, we counter the claims of Jewish rabbis who assert that the New Testament writers misquoted or misapplied these Old Testament passages.

07 Does the New Testament Distort the Tanakh by Corrupting the Greek Septuagint?

Christina R Darlington

When comparing passages of the Hebrew Old Testament Jewish Bible that we posses today with the direct quotations of these texts found in the New Testament, notable textual differences can be seen.  Despite the evidence that the message found in the manuscripts of both the Old and New Testaments have been preserved regardless of textual variations, Jewish rabbis assert that these variations found in the New Testament's quotations of the Old Testament (Jewish Bible, Tanakh) were deceptively added to the Greek translation of the Old Testament (Septuagint) in order to distort the Old Testament's message and point to Yeshua (Jesus Christ) as being the true Messiah. While Jewish rabbis claim that these differences are the result of Christian corruption to the text of the Jewish Hebrew Bible, biblical scholars note that these differences agree with the Greek Septuagint Bible of the early Christian church which was completed by Jewish translators prior to the first century. Since the Septuagint serves as the bases of 75-90% of the New Testament's citations of the Old Testament, many Christian scholars assert that these differences were either the result of Jewish translators interpolations to the text of the Septuagint or differences in the original Hebrew manuscripts utilized by the Jewish translators of the Septuagint and not the result of Christian distortion to the text of Scripture.

08 Do Textual Variants Support Heb. 8:9 Quote of Jer. 31:32?

Christina R Darlington

At Hebrews 8:9, we read a discussion of the New Covenant found at Jeremiah 31:32. Although the majority of Hebrew's Greek citation of Jeremiah's New Covenant follows the text of the Jewish Bible's rendering of the passage, notable differences arise when the Hebrew word ba‘altî for "husband" is translated as ēmelēsa for "disregarded" or "I did not care for" them in the Hebrews 8:9 quote of Jeremiah 31:32. Consulting the Greek Septuagint, we find the same Greek word ēmelēsa contained within its text of Jeremiah. Thus, scholars assume that this reading found in the New Testament is based upon the Jewish Greek Septuagint's rendering of the passage as many other unique citations from the Old Testament bear striking resemblance to the Septuagint's influence as the primary Bible of the early Christian Church. Yet, Jewish rabbis disagree that this passage has any support in textual variants of the Old Testament manuscripts. In this video, we will examine their claims in light of the textual diversity found in the translations of this passage that support the Hebrew 8:9 quotation of this passage.

09 Was the Original Septuagint Lost by Christians?

Christina R Darlington

As with all manuscripts of antiquity, all of the original texts of both the Hebrew Old Testament Bible, the Greek New Testament manuscripts and the original Greek Septuagint have been lost due to Roman persecution and textual deterioration over time. Hence, the only way any of these ancient manuscripts have been preserved has been through the process of handwritten copies being made of the text and distributed. Just as Jewish Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament underwent textual analysis and “editing” through the manual process of comparing and compiling the handwritten copies into what is now called the Masoretic Hebrew text of the Old Testament in the 7th century, so the Septuagint, used by the New Testament writers when quoting the Old Testament, has undergone textual compiling (editing) by early Christian church fathers of the 3rd and 4th centuries to include Origen’s Hexapla, which was a six-volume, critical word-for-word comparison of the Hebrew Old Testament with the text of the Greek Septuagint. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls dated from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st Century CE, scholars have learned that only 35% of the Hebrew manuscripts actually support the unique renderings of the current Jewish Masoretic Hebrew Bible, while 65% support variations of these readings with many supporting different textual families, to include the Septuagint and other ancient translations of the Old Testament. Hence, the Jewish rabbi Tovia Singer's assertion that Christians of the early church distorted the text of the Greek Septuagint when “editing” (compiling) these manuscripts for further distribution are clearly unfounded as differences in the Hebrew manuscripts seem to be supportive of many of these different readings.

10 Did Christianity Change Psalm 22:16?

Christina R Darlington

Psalm 22 is a powerful prophecy about the Messiah Yeshua Jesus. While it was originally written by David to describe the trials he was facing during his flights from King Saul, there is much more described in the passage than a simple distressed soul. Words like "my bones are out of joint," "they are at my hands and my feet," and "they part my garments among them," seem to have found their ultimate fulfillment in the crucifixion death of Yeshua. Indeed, He Himself drew attention to this passage when he called out form the cross, the first words of this chapter: "My G-d, my G-d, why hast Thou forsaken me." (Psalm 22, Jewish Publication Society) Yet, Jewish rabbis vehemently object to the Christian idea that this prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus claiming that the original text in the Hebrew did not contain the word "pierce" in the phrase, "they have pierced my hands and feet" found in the Christian Bible. Is there a textual variant at this passage that originally read "pierced" at verse 16. We will examine their claims in this video.

11 Why Does Hebrews 10:5 Change Psalm 40:6?

Christina R Darlington

Hebrews 10:5 is another passage where a quote of an Old Testament passage reads differently than it does in the Hebrew Bible, but unlike other passages we have looked in our series thus far, this change in reading does not have the support of a textual variant in the Hebrew text.  Rather, it appears that the translators of the Greek Septuagint being quoted by the writer of Hebrews, actually interpolated a reference to David possessing "dug out" ears (or pierced ears) in the Hebrew text of Psalm 40:6 as a reference to servitude which finds its basis in the Jewish law of slavery. Hence, the change was made from pierced or dug out "ears" to "body" to emphasize  the complete devotion of David (and eventually the Messiah Jesus) to God in offering His "body" in self-sacrifice for sins as applied by the author of Hebrews in his citation from Psalms.

12 Does the Messiah Sacrifice for Himself in Ezekiel's Temple?

Christina R Darlington

Ezekiel 45:22 describes a Prince who would offer a bull as a sacrifice “for Himself and for all the people,” in Ezekiel’s perfect temple.  Christian believe this passage was fulfilled when Jesus sacrificed Himself for our sins, but Jewish rabbis disagree pointing to the fact that this passage specifically states that the Messiah’s sacrifice would be “for himself.”   Claiming that this reference is referring to a third temple to be built when the Messiah returns to Jerusalem, Jewish rabbis use this passage to try to prove Jesus could not be the Messiah because the New Testament claims Jesus is sinless, so He would not need to sacrifice “for Himself.”  In this video, we examine the Hebrew text of this passage to demonstrate how this passage is actually teaching that the Messiah sacrificed “by” or “on account of” Himself for our sins, not that He needed the sacrifice, but that he was offering Himself as a sacrifice for all of the people who would be saved by putting their trust in Him.

Are New Testament Reports of Christ's Resurrection Like Discrepancies Found in Joseph Smith's First

Christina R Darlington

Skeptics and Jewish rabbis like the ones at Jews for Judaism attack Christianity by drawing false comparisons between the differences found in the Gospel Resurrection accounts and discrepancies in Joseph Smith's First Vision accounts in Mormonism. While both Christianity and Mormonism base their religious claims upon the reality of their historical events, the New Testament's historical account of Jesus Christ's resurrection is the only event that is supported by both internal and external sources.

Questions for Our Jewish Friends on Who is the Messiah

In this video, we discuss the Messianic passages of Isaiah 53, 60:2; Isaiah 6:9-12; Daniel 7:13-14; Zechariah 9:9; 12:8-10; 13:6-9; Psalm 2:7-8 and Psalm 22. The primary focus of this video is to answer the question of whether these passages refer to the suffering of the nation of Israel as a whole, or to an individual Messiah, as fulfilled by Yeshua, Jesus when he came the first time to make atonement for our sins. References to the views of the ancient Jewish rabbis in regard to these passages are likewise considered with many relevant citations from the Jewish Talmud. With the exception of Christian New Testament, all citations of the Jewish Scriptures (the Old Testament) are from the Jewish Publication Society's Bible translation (or JPS) of 1917.