Why did the Jews think that Jesus lied?

Answer 1

Jewish Answer

Jews have never believed that ANY person was the literal child of God. That is because the very concept violates the teachings of the Hebrew Bible, which tells us specifically that God will never be man or son of man.

In part, the confusion regarding this topic is that a number of people in the Hebrew Bible are referred to as the 'son of God,' as are angels. This is not literal; the phrase is simply used to denote that the individual had a unique relationship with God, Moses being a prime example.

The claim of Jesus's divinity didn't come about until much later in the development of Christianity.

Please see the related link for biblical references as to why Jews do not accept the concept of a literal child of God.

Alternate Answer

Actually, your question needs clarification. Jewish people both did and did not believe Jesus was the son of God.

If you adhere to the bibilcal account of Jesus' life, then all of Jesus' early followers and deciples were Jewish, as was Jesus himself.

However the people who persecuted and subsequently had Jesus killed were also Jewish.

Those who do not accept the Bible's account of Jesus life, particularly those who are not of Anglo decent, are more inclined to argue that Jesus either did not exist, or that the story of his life was greatly exaggerated.

Proponents of this view could surmise that the Jewish nation did not accept Jesus, because he simply didn't exist.

Answer 3

In their vast majority, they did not.

According to our tradition, the vast majority of the Jews at the time didn't hear of him. The few who did come in contact with Jesus soon lost interest, and the early Christians felt the need to turn to non-Jewish centers of population in order to gain adherents, while the Jews remained Jews.

The Torah-sages (Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel, Chanina ben Dosa, Bava ben Buta, Shimon ben Hillel, Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Akiva, and hundreds of others) were active at that time and their yeshivot (Torah-academies) were flourishing. Their tens of thousands of disciples and hundreds of thousands of sympathizers were active in the Jewish world in that generation; they were the leaders and the forefront of Judaism. As Josephus (Antiquities book 18) writes, "the cities give great attestations to them." The great majority of Jews loved their sages and their Torah.

The unlearned class of the Amei-haaretz (ignoramuses) was a small fringe of society, but even they would and did lay down their lives in order not to violate anything of the Torah. As one ancient historian famously wrote:
Hecateus declares again, "what regard we [Jews] have for our laws; and we resolve to endure anything rather than transgress them." And he adds: "They [Jews] may be stripped on this account, and have torments inflicted upon them, and be brought to the most terrible kinds of death, but they meet these tortures after an extraordinary manner, beyond all other people, and will not renounce the religion of their forefathers."
No one (even any of them who did hear of Jesus) - would have given any consideration to what was and is considered unacceptable for us. In Judaism, Jesus was a regular human being who lived in olden times, and is not part of Jewish religious belief.

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We may also note that according to our tradition, prophecy ceased about 340 years before the birth of Jesus; and public miracles stopped even earlier.
Here is a related topic:
The word "messiah" is the transliterated form of the Hebrew "moshiach." The word moshiach means "anointed." The title of moshiach was given to any person who was appropriately anointed with oil as part of their initiation to their service of God. We have had a number of meshichim (plural) in the form of kings and priests. There need be nothing supernatural about a moshiach.
This being said, there is a prophecy of a future moshiach. However, this is a relatively minor topic in Judaism and the Tanakh.
The Jewish requirements of the messiah have not yet been fulfilled. They are:
* Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
* Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).
* Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred and oppression. "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more" (Isaiah 2:4).
* Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. "God will be King over all the world. On that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).
* The messiah must be descended on his father's side from King David (Genesis 49:10 and Isaiah 11:1).
* The messiah will lead the Jewish people to full Torah-observance. The Torah states that all of its mitzvot (commands) remain binding forever.

Answer 2

The base assumption underlying this question is false; Jews do not actually believe that Jesus lied. In order to lie, a person must say something while knowing to false or reasonably believing it to be false. Jews do not believe that this happened and will generally part along three different lines:

1) There is no evidence to suggest that Jesus lived at all:There is no Jewish source that is contemporaneous with Jesus. (The closest source in time is Josephus and even he arrives over twenty years after Jesus' supposed death.) This is especially surprising when, according to the Gospel accounts, he often argued profusely with leading Rabbis, the Sanhedrin, the Temple Moneychangers, and the High Priest. Jesus also was not addressed by Rabbis at any point as a foil to their arguments in the Talmud, which often quotes Rabbis who may disagree with the current Rabbi's analysis. Considering that Jesus had been a Rabbi, allusions to his arguments would be normal.

The takeaway here is that if Jesus did not actually exist as a person, then it is impossible for a nonperson to say or do anything and, therefore, cannot lie.

2) Jesus sincerely, but incorrectly, believed himself to be Divine:This is the argument that Jesus truly believed that he was the Son of God and everything that Christians claim about him. However, just because someone believes something about himself or herself does not make it true. A person can believe that they are the most beautiful person in the world, even if this person is completely hideous. This person may not actually be beautiful, but if he says that he is beautiful, it is not a lie since he genuinely believes it to be the accurate state of affairs in the world. Jews will argue that while Jesus truly believed that he was the Son of God, this simply is controverted by what he said and did in that role.

The takeaway here is that if Jesus sincerely believed that he was the Son of God, then it is impossible for him to lie on that issue because he did not know or reasonably believe that what he was saying was false.

3) Jesus never claimed to be Divine, but his followers and apostles deified him:This is the argument that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah and/or the Son of God, but his followers misinterpreted what he had told them and out of this horrible game of telephone, Christianity developed. In this way, Jesus never actually lied about his identity, but the early Church, which formalized Christian doctrine, misunderstood what Jesus was talking about and imputed divinity to him.

The takeaway here is that if Jesus did not actually advocate that he was the Son of God, then it is impossible for him to lie when he never said anything on point.

Answer 3

According to Jewish tradition, the vast majority of the Jews at the time didn't hear of Jesus. The Torah-sages (Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel, Chanina ben Dosa, Bava ben Buta, Shimon ben Hillel, Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Akiva, and hundreds of others) were active at that time and their yeshivot (Torah-academies) were flourishing. Their tens of thousands of disciples and hundreds of thousands of sympathizers were active in the Jewish world in that generation; they were the leaders and the forefront of Judaism. As Josephus (Antiquities book 18) writes, "the cities give great attestations to them." The great majority of Jews loved their sages and their Torah.
The unlearned class of the Amei-haaretz (ignoramuses) was a small fringe of society, but even they would and did lay down their lives in order not to violate anything of the Torah. As one ancient historian famously wrote:
Hecateus declares again, "what regard we [Jews] have for our laws; and we resolve to endure anything rather than transgress them." And he adds: "They [Jews] may be stripped on this account, and have torments inflicted upon them, and be brought to the most terrible kinds of death, but they meet these tortures after an extraordinary manner, beyond all other people, and will not renounce the religion of their forefathers."

No one (even any of them who did hear of Jesus) - would have given any consideration to what was and is considered unacceptable for us. The few who came in contact with him soon lost interest, and the early Christians felt the need to turn to non-Jewish centers of population in order to gain adherents, while the Jews remained Jews.

Rather, you might prefer to ask "What does Judaism notbelieve about Jesus." And the answer is that we do not believe that he is or was anything other than a regular human being.

(See: What do Jews believe God is like?)

We may also note that according to our tradition, prophecy ceased about 340 years before the birth of Jesus; and public miracles stopped even earlier.

Here is a related topic:
The word "messiah" is the transliterated form of the Hebrew "moshiach." The word moshiach means "anointed." The title of moshiach was given to any person who was appropriately anointed with oil as part of their initiation to their service of God. We have had a number of meshichim (plural) in the form of kings and priests. There need be nothing supernatural about a moshiach.
This being said, there is a prophecy of a future moshiach. However, this is a relatively minor topic in Judaism and the Tanakh.
The Jewish requirements of the messiah are:
* Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
* Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).
* Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred and oppression. "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more" (Isaiah 2:4).
* Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. "God will be King over all the world. On that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).
* The messiah must be descended on his father's side from King David (Genesis 49:10 and Isaiah 11:1).
* The messiah will lead the Jewish people to full Torah-observance. The Torah states that all of its mitzvot (commands) remain binding forever.

Answer 4

According to our tradition, the vast majority of the Jews at the time didn't hear of him. No one (even any of them who did hear of Jesus) - would have given any consideration to what was and is considered unacceptable for us.

• Link: What in Christianity is unacceptable in Judaism?

The few who came in contact with Jesus soon lost interest, and the early Christians felt the need to turn to non-Jewish centers of population in order to gain adherents, while the Jews remained Jews.

The unlearned class of the Amei-haaretz (ignoramuses) was a small fringe of society, but even they would and did lay down their lives in order not to change anything of the Torah.
The Jewish requirements of the messiah have not yet been fulfilled. They are:
* Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
* Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).
* Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred and oppression. "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more" (Isaiah 2:4).
* Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. "God will be King over all the world. On that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).
* The messiah must be descended on his father's side from King David (Genesis 49:10 and Isaiah 11:1).
* The messiah will lead the Jewish people to full Torah-observance. The Torah states that all of its mitzvot (commands) remain binding forever.

• Link: What do Jews believe about God?