Who do Jews believe Jesus is?

Misconceptions, community pressure, and persecution prevented many in the first century from putting faith in Jesus. Today, erroneous ideas about Jesus and his teachings can have a similar effect.

• Answer 2

A real person who once lived? Yes. A real savior? No.

Judaism says very little about Jesus. According to our tradition, the vast majority of the Jews at the time didn't hear of him. The Torah-sages 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 change anything of the Torah. As one ancient historian (Hecateus) famously wrote:
"They [Jews] may...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 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. In Judaism, Jesus was a regular human being who lived in olden times, and is not part of Jewish religious belief.
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.