Do Jews think Talmud supersedes Torah? If so, it would be idolatrous. Orthodox Rabbi Reuven Mann says, "[Talmud] is inspired by God"; this is like saying the KJV is inspired by God, and usually not like saying the autographs of Scripture were inspired. Reform Rabbi Irwin Wiener says, "Everything that has anything to do with Scripture is regarded as Scripture by a large segment" (including the Talmud). Yet the Orthodox believe that the Reform's definition of Scripture as human creation is sectarian; so this gloss doesn't amount to supersession, and it's misleading to set the Reform claim up as if supportive of the Orthodox statement rather than contrary to it. Now, in Eruvin 21b, Rava says, "My son, be careful to fulfill the words of the Sages [soferim] even more than the words of the Torah", because Sages (literally scribes, office not texts) can invoke liability to death and Torah can't. This too is not widely taken as a claim of Jewish supersession. No primary body of Jews regards Talmud as overriding Torah on any point, though it's understandable many regard Talmud as relatively "superior" in many respects. Answer, no.
Does Talmud clearly denigrate Jesus by name? The one clear passage begins, "Yeshu was hanged" (Sanhedrin 43a). (Sefaria indicates belief that "the Nazarene" is inherent to the Yeshu specified.) There Ulla charges him as an "inciter" to idolatry, meaning that is his opinion but not taken as the judgment of Talmud. A legendary anecdote then says five of Yeshu's disciples were executed (not far from true if understood broadly), giving formulaic Tanakh puns to explain why each of their (common) names prophesies their execution. This passage is not directly objectionable. So, yeah, the Talmud teaches that Ulla later approved the death of Yeshu, probably Jesus, but it does not take an independent moral position on his death or his charges there. Answer, no.
Does Talmud contain indirect denigration applicable to Jesus? Most important here is the misleading presentation of quotes. Sanhedrin 106a says Rav Pappa cited the proverb "This woman was descended from princes and rulers, and was licentious with carpenters" comparing the woman to Balaam. Peter Schafer, "Jesus in the Talmud", believes it can apply indirectly to Jesus's family, which is a valid position within Judaism; he reviews encyclopedically all reasonable cases where Jesus reference has been inferred. But then Schafer's reference is shown in the film as "the mother of [whitespace] Jesus [whitespace] played the harlot with carpenters", "SANHEDRIN 106a - 106b", which is very misleading: it is presented to be easily misinterpretable as a Talmud quote, but "mother" and "Jesus" are not in the passage. The Talmud only mentions Balaam here; the conclusion that it also means Jesus is an inference, widely held and widely rejected, not a doctrine or dogma. Yebamoth 49b and Shabbath 104b are accurately quoted as passages that doesn't mention Jesus but some have applied to him. (Narrator then dizzyingly says "According to the Talmud" and continues with data not from Talmud but visibly supported from Jewish Encyclopedia instead; and rapidly merges in the much later Toledot Yeshu as if it's Talmud.) Yet Talmud does have quite a few probable digs at Jesus, without naming him so as to avoid commitment. Answer, yes.
Do some Jews take responsibiliity for killing Jesus? I admit he did get Schafer on record, whose book was shown to say, "We rightly executed a blasphemer and idolater. Jesus deserved death .... This heretic and impostor needed to be executed -- and we are proud of it." Rabbi Reuven Mann was rightly more cautious: "Maybe he deserved to die ..., maybe he's a troublemaker." And Ulla the Amora (about 300) also put himself on record. So indeed, individual Jews are free to accept the rabble-roused mob's frenzied claim under duress that they would take responsibility. But Conservative Rabbi Leo Abrami was cited as offended that 36% of Americans think Jews were responsible, with no comment by the producers as to how Mann and Schafer and Ulla contribute to fostering this opinion! Once again divergences are presented as if convergent. All the same, there are indeed individual rejections of Jesus, and these can be informally judged as repentable heresy from a Christian view; but they have no validity as doctrine, as noted by all the rabbis' reticence to directly join the professor or the amora. Answer, yes.
So far, he's doing well getting people on the record, and I'm impressed with the comportment and interaction of all the presenters, but the organization and spin of those facts can easiliy mislead those not aware of the subtleties compacted quickly. Professionally done and not severely vituperative (yet), it's merely an advocacy push that heavily emphasizes some of the known facts of the arena, often to the point of exaggeration. Jewry must choose between voices like outlier Schafer, and voices like those of the Messianics, and of course the vast majority of rabbis who are still trying to play both sides safely and to play noncommittal guides who wait for the populace to help lead them.
Next we transition into tropes that misread Scripture. Anderson preaches Acts 3:13, 17; this is not about all Jews, but was preached by Peter the Jew to Jerusalem Jews, who turned! "Many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand" (4:4). The very Jews that Peter accused repented immediately and constituted perhaps a thousand of the first five thousand followers of Jesus (Christians). Anderson calls the mob "thousands and thousands", but that number would not literally fit in the palace square, and he neglects the many observant Jews who were not in the mob because they were preparing for Passover; at Jesus's death, "all the people [or crowd] smote their breasts" in protest of the prior mob's and the government's actions. We have Jan 6, they had Nisan 14, it was wild.
I've explained Onkelos. This is directly intercut with Baptist Tim Coleman beginning, "They hate Jesus" (no antecedent), which is simply too generic; then there's an interesting audio cut in the ellipsis in the statement, "I think it's because they are ... children of the devil", suggesting Coleman was not willing to complete the sentence that bold way. So now we're getting into the subtle borderline between demographics and racism.
He moves to many Jews being secular (here he interview the Reform and the humanist, but not those who hold tight doctrines of inspiration). He shows that Jews have reinterpreted circumcision as counting even if only one drop of blood is shed rather than the full procedure; reinterpretation is of course something that all movements have in part, and again this is a matter of the right of a religion to determine canonically the definitions of words in their founding texts; the originalist debate is internal. Pastor David Berzins, same church as Anderson, says, "That is a lie, they don't believe God," which is another sweeping generalization because the observant minority does try to believe everything in the Old Testament. "There's no absolute, in my opinion," says the Reform rabbi, totally consistent with Reform if logically fallacious; yet this is not the opinion of the Orthodox and Conservative rabbis absent from this segment. Pastor Donnie Romero adds, Jesus said Moses agreed with him; yet the Jews are way past that, having authoritatively reinterpreted Moses so they don't need to review Jesus's statements. Finally the Conservative rabbi, not on a secularist proposition but instead on a works-theology proposition, denies a transforming salvation in favor of a self-salvation, and denies (interim) heaven and hell (he wasn't asked about the resurrection). Well, yeah, that's a fail, and those are common teachings within Judaism, not agreed by others; and they are common in lots of Christian sects too. Anderson's summary is that they don't literally believe many of the essentials of Torah (basically Genesis) and he asks what part of Torah they believe (it's well-known that Genesis is largely haggada and the other four books much more halakha, case law, which they thoroughly authorize). Well, as a literalist he may object to the allegoric approach, but the alternatives that he chastises (secularism and simplification) are problems common to all religions, and he isn't showing the core rabbis' views (who uphold the Torah as being literal and binding). I think the correct charge is that rabbis don't have a unique claim to the chain of custody of Torah, since Christians have several claims too; that there is a sketchy break in Jewish authority between 70 and 132 that needs to be acknowledged; and that Judaism's failure to address the race's majority secularism is a breach that needs fixing, just as Christians need to address often-majority secularism among their nations.
Abrupt topic change paints that Christian Zionism is bad and recent and Christian anti-Semitism is good and normative (Chrysostom, Luther, Augustine, Peter the Venerable, Calvin): "They're all saying the same thing about the Jews, that it's a synagogue of satan." Chrysostom was an anti-Semitic outlier; Augustine was more moderate and spoke primarily of the developed rabbinical religion, which is right to criticize; Peter the Venerable is so far from being an influential father that I don't care that much what he said. Luther was brash in whatever often contrary position he took, and in his youth he was very fervent about possibly evangelizing the Jews, and his later words were a reflection on that failed venture, so his position should not be taken as consistent. Calvin was very restrained (thus named last), and I doubt that he said an anti-Semitic word at all (as that word is limited to racism). This testimony to Christians struggling with Jewish obstinacy is not proof that racism is good. Next, we hear Zionism comes from Scofield who was bad and hung out with Jews; but like those of many breakout teachers, Scofield's extremes forced Christians to reevaluate their stance and compensate toward a medium. Dispensationalism, once redefined, was adopted as permissible, but that doesn't mean racism is Christian; rather, the covenant has always been for whomever believes. Any Jew or Gentile has always been welcome. I find the compensation made by the church at large, day by day, against any negative influence the Jews may have had upon Scofield, to be sufficient for each day.
Some misrepresentation, more oversimplification of the polylithic phenomena of Judaism and Christianity. Some Jews were overbad, some Christians were responsively overbad, the rest of us kept working on our problems, whether well-guided or misguided. Racism still lacks evidence. Dispensationalists is to be acknowledged but not overstated. If the goal were to present an authoritative statement that an organized body of Christians have sufficient evidence to regard Jews as a racial enemy, there are several steps missing from that goal in this presentation. If the OU, the USCJ, or the URJ (three primary American synagogue federations or "denoms"), or their rabbinical assemblies, taught something clearly objectionable, why we can say "the Jews" (e.g. the OU) teach it. They don't do that. We could say the URJ generally teaches moral relativism; that is heretical; we provide org-wide evidence; and we tell Christians to treat Reform Jews the same as atheists; but that would still not defend racism. The Reform would regroup, the Conservodox declaim our statement as not applicable, Judaism move on, and maybe one step be made against atheism. But racism adds nothing and corrupts much.
JP2 said, "Christian theological anti-Judaism is a phenomenon which is distinct from modern antisemitism." So a developed body of Christian rejection of Jewish theology exists without racism. When working reasonable anti-Judaism, why add the racism, "children of the devil", "that is a lie", "they hate Jesus", "it's a synagogue of satan" misapplied? These are harsh, unwarranted statements from anyone against anyone, speaking of knowing others' state of mind en masse, and should be limited to formal proofs in procedural settings. They are unworthy of documentary presentation.
Scofield convinced Christians to "bless Israel" as if a requirement? In part, but that's not what Scofield was quoted as saying, and Christians may be just as well reading Ps. 122:6, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem", or many others.
America and the Jews are not blessed? Very subjective answers.
Because of the Jews' "blasphemy toward Christianity and because of their predatory lending practices" they were ejected? Hmm, not really supported, instead we jump to explain Zionism as an introduction to the Rothschilds, then zoom ahead to the founding of Israel. (1) Judaism is no more blasphemous to Christianity than any other religion, because all religions that reject Christ "blaspheme" him equally. (Yet rejecting Jesus is not even a tenet of Judaism, it's something they work hard not to care about, if you will.) To say that all members of a religion, or especially of a race, commit blasphemy worthy of many national expulsions, based on a couple unofficial statements from among thousands of founding teachers, is to dramatically distort the evidence. The closest parallel is to say all the Arabs deserve to be expelled from dozens of countries because Arabs are mostly Muslim and a couple of ahadith speak against Jesus's deity (which they do); but nobody should denounce Arabs as a race for this. (2) Yes, Rothschilds established themselves and remain influential and may be the richest of all (who knows). That is not about every Jew. To say they were expelled because of joint predatory practices (providing evidence relating only after most of the expulsions) is to plant a racist seed without hard data.
Was it the will of God that Israel be founded? Whatever happens is God's choice for history! For the pastors to suggest otherwise demeans God.
Since 1948 was not accompanied by believing in God (as revealed to Christians), was it no move of God? "That was not God bringing back Israel because they believed in him," says Coleman. "He said he'd bring them back when they turned unto him, they have not turned unto him." Anderson adds, the spirit of antichrist brought them back. That's basically now a charge of satanism. If satan were involved, it would still have been permitted by our sovereign God. But more than that, we know it's God's plan because he told us this time he'd return them in unbelief! Ezek. 36:1-24 describes the return in unbelief in great detail; only after this does 25-38 indicate the people are later made holy again.
Switch-up! Is the hexagram the Star of Remphan? I did independent study on this. Amos 5:26 mentions the "star of your god" Chiun, later identified as Remphan, when no polygrams of any kind were associated with Israel! Pentagrams and later hexagrams came in primarily through the Pythagoreans. So this star is shown by inspiration not to be the hexagram! (I concluded the star in question was the bronze idol Nehushtan or its symbol.) This anachronism doesn't prove "Jews serve satan"; we know everyone of any race who doesn't serve God as he has revealed himself, through his true Messiah Jesus, is in some way serving satan (no dualism, just that satan claims and benefits from all service not directed to God).
Can Jews be saved? Only by accepting God revealed. I say one can accept God rightly as revealed in Tanakh as long as one has not personally rejected Jesus as Messiah. Before Jesus came, those without revelation showed whether they accepted or rejected God's testimony through nature by their behavior and conscience, Rom. 2:14-15. After that, Jews ended up in the place of being without the revelation of the identity of Messiah, and they can still be judged by the rule of whether their actions show acceptance or rejection of God: like any other people-group partly reached with the truth. I have hope for all such races as the Bible teaches. Besides the nearly a million Messianics, it's still possible today for a Jew to come to know God without knowing the Messiah's name if he has not rejected that Messiah (and they have not rejected him corporately, though a few individuals have done so personally). And that truth applies the same to any other unreached tribe or community that believes a Creator exists but doesn't know enough specifics about him. The real problem is that Christians exempt the Jews from this rule of evangelism that applies to every other people!
Switch-up! Jews are connected to Masons? Jackie, maybe. The faulty arguments from symbolism are unpersuasive (straightedge, 90 degrees, is not equilateral, 60 degrees). Masonry is a syncretism mostly of Abrahamic faiths, well of course it sounds Jewish, it also sounds Christian! No proof the GAOTU is "Moloch", as if we've interviewed the idols; we should just stick to our basic knowledge that all the satanic idols are connected. Then:
Switch-up! Jesus cursed the Jews in John 8? Actually, only those among the leaders who had first believed in him and then disputed and insulted him repeatedly (see the whole course of the chapter), not anywhere near the whole race. Of course we know physical descendants of Abraham aren't always spiritual heirs of Abraham, but they are not excluded from returning! Even Abrami cites 8:44 and misquotes as "The Jews are the sons of the devil"! If a Jewish rabbi can misunderstand the NT about the Jews, it's likely we can misunderstand the Talmud about Jesus! Rather, Jesus spoke to "those Jews which believed on him" who didn't accept his charge "continue in my word", 8:31. The gospel was preached by and among Jews, and many tens of thousands of them believed (literal myriads, Acts 21:20), and these Jews obviously were spiritual children of Abraham; so there was no racial curse from Jesus's preaching. In Acts 3-4, many of the very mob that called for his death came to be saved.
Who is the synagogue of satan? First, Jesus said they're not Jews. If we said he means they're not real spiritual Jews, well, then he'd mean some Jews in Philadelphia/Smyrna, but of course not the Christians from among the Jews. Jesus the Jew said this to John the Jew, so it cannot mean the whole race; it means a network that had infected these two cities only. We don't get to extrapolate this as a racial slur.
Who are the antichrists? The clever idea of limiting this to people that believe a messiah exists doesn't work in the other definitional passages. 1 John 4:3, 2 John 1:7 say who won't confess "Jesus Christ is come in the flesh" is an antichrist, so belief in "messiah" is no prerequisite to being antichrist, but rejection of the central message of Jesus.
Denying Jesus? Reuven Mann was willing to say, "If the claim is made that he's a Messiah, then he's a false Messiah." But note, the question is still out on whether he even claimed that, because the Messianic title in Judaism is so redefined onto the national deliverance aspect! So he carefully keeps himself off the hook of speaking directly against Jesus's title. But then Anderson goes to: "We know that that other messiah that's coming is the antichrist". Not quite that simple! Of course antichrist will deceive many Jews and many Gentiles, but there's no reason for many Jews and many Gentiles not to turn to Jesus at that hour too. They are not nationally pledged to either! Each individual will decide; the race has not decided. Rabbi Jeremy Gimpel's statement is similarly two-edged, and often heard: "We will all kneel before the king, do you know what I mean, whoever that is. So, your vision of that, you say it's the second coming." Literally, that means if it's Jesus, sobeit, we'll still only count it as his first coming as Messiah (a narrowing of definition shared by several in this video, but confusing to many Christians). Yet it can also permit a false messiah, and that is the range of openness that encourages our evangel.
So will all (the bulk of) Israel be saved? Anderson rightly points out the devil's antichrist strategy, but then misreads Rom. 11 as if it teaches the tautology that all the saved will be saved. No; he means "Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election [chosen] hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded." Physical Israel was split in two so the Gentiles could be brought in, and, once they are, Israel will receive its healing. Eschatologically, this happens a long time after sifting and testing by the initial deception of antichrist; but this complex plan to outwit the devil's scheme requires consulting many Scriptures so we often get only pieces of it.
Bless Israel? 2 John 1:9-11 cannot be taken as saying that to bless those without Christ is automatically to partake of their evil deeds, because Jesus says, "Bless them that curse you" (Matt. 5:44). (Rather, John is not speaking of general blessing, but those among people who "come ... unto you" (1:10), in context who present themselves as having a message for the church.) Hagee mistakenly said, "Everyone else ... needs to believe in Jesus ... but not Jews". I don't know if Hagee has moved on from that, or if it's a semantic game, but of course that sentiment as ordinarily understood does not ultimately bless Israel; they have the same need as any other nation. Instead, they can (see above) only be saved and "brothers" if they accept God on his own terms and not reject the Messiah at the time in their lives he is pleased to reveal himself to them. We want Jews to have the truth, requiring sensitivity to their desire not to be evangelized and skillful presentation of truth that overcomes their fear: this is why a slogan of Jews for Jesus is to make the Messiahship of Jesus an "unavoidable issue" for Jews worldwide.
Politics? Not that interested; yes, the Jewish-Evangelical lobby is strong, but it only works if both sides recognize the truths I'm pointing out, so they don't fall prey to Anderson's criticisms. The idea that Jehoshaphat of Judah was not to support Israel when it was ungodly may be a valid principle, though a bit misleading in presentation; but Christians take both sides on this nonessential question.
Does Israel have narrow citizenship laws and tight antimissionary provisions? Absolutely! Which makes it just another of the creative-access countries so familiar to spreaders of the truth of Jesus. Gay Tel Aviv, same point.
Kabbalah? Yes, Hagee said Washington wanted the hexagram and Shekhinah to be on the dollar (Washington only spoke of the great seal and it was Roosevelt who put it on the dollar; so that's overreach). The glory of God is Biblical and must be understood as it is, and it is called "shakan". So Shekhinah is not wrong if used consistent with Biblical glory. The masculinity of Father, Son, and Spirit is emphatic, but the occasional Scriptures that speak of his feminine aspects, most notably as Wisdom in Prov. 8-9, must be understood as they are presented: not as some sexual duality but as an expression of God's total overarching character. (Anderson implies a dangerous idea, that only males are in the image of God; rather, first usage (Gen. 1:26) is, "Let us make man in our image ... and let them have dominion", and "man" is "them".)
Genealogy (which turns out to be the last point besides the gospel): Much time wasted. One good point, there's high likelihood that many or most people have at least one Jewish person somewhere earlier in the tree; but that doesn't define Jewishness, which is determined only by matrilineality or conversion. The Jewish populace still has self-definition rights to determine who is a member, just like any other race that doesn't want to be watered down.
Spiritual covenant aspects have always stayed with the covenant people even as those people became largely Gentile and called "Christians"; national covenant aspects have always, like any national covenant, related solely to the physical and been passed down to a people as self-defined. The divergence of these two covenants leads to much mystery, resolved as soon as it is seen.
Jews are not satanist by birth; rabbinical Jews are not necessarily satanist by religion any more than any non-Christian religion. But the vast body of Jewish thought keeping many of them from committing outright rejection of Jesus as Messiah is neglected. It is because they have been entrusted with all the Hebrew Scriptures that they have, in every generation, all the tools the disciples had to come to faith in Jesus. As a people they have been in a holding pattern ever since, constantly forced to face the same question of Jesus's identity over all generations, as so many other nations pass them by in becoming evangelized with the good news. They are still an unreached people, in some ways the last one! They resist evangelism more than the remotest tribe, and with more power. Even if someone were to tell me directly he was a son of satan, I would still hold out hope for him while he is alive. I can do no less with the people from whom my Bible and my Messiah came.
Many tropes, choppy themes. The gospel to all races Jew and Gentile could've unified. The video ends with the gospel, but I daresay that the producers would've complied with the standard that all the Jews interviewed would've insisted, that their appearances would be predicated on the implicit condition that they not be "evangelized". Instead, give the same gospel to both Jew and Gentile, to escape the charge of believing (like Hagee is charged with thinking) that Jews are unwinnable to the current gospel. The producers seem to state that no Jews were evangelized during the making of this film. Maybe they believe it fruitless, that the people are too far gone.
Their goal is to claim the true Zion and "replace" all Jewish promises. But failing to see spiritual vs. national promise, the land covenant remains invisible to the producers. Then these slightly-spun points get used as fodder for spin beyond recognition and really monstrous racism, which Anderson avoids showing. So were the positive features, the interactive dialogue, the vignettes about Jewish oddities, the genealogical argument, worth the imbalance and spin? It's hard to say the strengths overcame the weaknesses. The need for remediation is much clearer than the effectiveness of the whole presentation.
Footnote: The Church of England has "some correction" to "chosen" Jews: "God’s will is for all people to enter into the renewed covenant in Christ’s blood .... Jewish people therefore need to discover and respond to this divine gift as God’s irrevocably chosen people" (p. 30 ff.). Concerns of fundamentalist members are held as legitimate to present to Jews without fear of reprisal. That's how it's done. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis affirmed this, questioning only "targeting of Jews for conversion to Christianity." I answer, "Convert to God" (Ps. 51:13, shuv). Find God's new covenant in Messiah. They've never said it's impossible to return to unity or to continue dialogue.
How might dialogue with Jews proceed instead? In the Sanhedrin section of the Talmud, when all the rabbis are making puns about how the Messiah will be named after them, why doesn't Rabbi Yehoshua make a pun about his own name, but changes the subject instead? Is it for the same reason that Zechariah says that High Priest Yehoshua from his day would have a name connected with the Branch of God, the Messiah? Do the Jews still look for the prophet like unto Moshe, who appointed no successor other than General Yehoshua son of Nun? Why do the commentaries on the Talmud admit that there will be two Messiahs, not only the son of David who will reign, but also a "son of Joseph" (!) who will be humble? Why does the Talmud teach that there is a special Angel of the Lord who has the privilege to stand before the Lord as an equal, almost like the Son of Man in Daniel 7, even though it is taught that there is otherwise no such standing before the Lord? Why does Rabbi Simlai present arguments for the corporate unity of God when debating separatists who sound like early tritheists? Why did the rabbi in this video reiterate that the Shekhinah is One with God the Father and yet distinctions can be made between them, exactly as we speak of Spirit and Father? Why do rabbis act like they worship the Torah, especially in the annual festivals, not the synagogue scroll but the eternal Message of God it contains? Why does every Passover seder have exactly three matzah slices, where the second of three is broken in half, one half remaining with the others and the other half wrapped and hidden secretly, and then sought and found and brought out later as the last part of the meal, the "afikomen" (the one coming afterward), the last slice of unleavened bread presented with the last cups of wine, the same bread and wine that Jesus called his body and blood in that annual meal? Why do rabbis read Isaiah 52 and 54 in the prophetic cycle but not 53? Since the suffering servant of 53 is distinguished from sinful Israel and yet is also Israel, wouldn't that mean in fact that he represents the best of Israel, possibly the best one alone out of all Israel? How will Israel mourn for the one they have pierced as for a firstborn son, according to Zechariah? Can you see why I'm excited about the Jewish sources? Why does the Talmud say that everyone who approaches heaven will be asked by the Father, "Did you accept the salvation of my Messiah?"?
This documentary is probably good to share with your normie right wing christian to help redpill them about Jews.
It's probably not interesting to those who dismiss all abrahamic religions and already know Jews are a problem. There's some good info in there about how Rothschild's setup banks in Europe and rose to power and the foundation of Israel. Also some good info about Zionism and the origin of the Jewish star. Some talk about feminizing God, etc.
An old "liveblog" review of this video.
Do Jews think Talmud supersedes Torah? If so, it would be idolatrous. Orthodox Rabbi Reuven Mann says, "[Talmud] is inspired by God"; this is like saying the KJV is inspired by God, and usually not like saying the autographs of Scripture were inspired. Reform Rabbi Irwin Wiener says, "Everything that has anything to do with Scripture is regarded as Scripture by a large segment" (including the Talmud). Yet the Orthodox believe that the Reform's definition of Scripture as human creation is sectarian; so this gloss doesn't amount to supersession, and it's misleading to set the Reform claim up as if supportive of the Orthodox statement rather than contrary to it. Now, in Eruvin 21b, Rava says, "My son, be careful to fulfill the words of the Sages [soferim] even more than the words of the Torah", because Sages (literally scribes, office not texts) can invoke liability to death and Torah can't. This too is not widely taken as a claim of Jewish supersession. No primary body of Jews regards Talmud as overriding Torah on any point, though it's understandable many regard Talmud as relatively "superior" in many respects. Answer, no.
Does Talmud clearly denigrate Jesus by name? The one clear passage begins, "Yeshu was hanged" (Sanhedrin 43a). (Sefaria indicates belief that "the Nazarene" is inherent to the Yeshu specified.) There Ulla charges him as an "inciter" to idolatry, meaning that is his opinion but not taken as the judgment of Talmud. A legendary anecdote then says five of Yeshu's disciples were executed (not far from true if understood broadly), giving formulaic Tanakh puns to explain why each of their (common) names prophesies their execution. This passage is not directly objectionable. So, yeah, the Talmud teaches that Ulla later approved the death of Yeshu, probably Jesus, but it does not take an independent moral position on his death or his charges there. Answer, no.
Does Talmud contain indirect denigration applicable to Jesus? Most important here is the misleading presentation of quotes. Sanhedrin 106a says Rav Pappa cited the proverb "This woman was descended from princes and rulers, and was licentious with carpenters" comparing the woman to Balaam. Peter Schafer, "Jesus in the Talmud", believes it can apply indirectly to Jesus's family, which is a valid position within Judaism; he reviews encyclopedically all reasonable cases where Jesus reference has been inferred. But then Schafer's reference is shown in the film as "the mother of [whitespace] Jesus [whitespace] played the harlot with carpenters", "SANHEDRIN 106a - 106b", which is very misleading: it is presented to be easily misinterpretable as a Talmud quote, but "mother" and "Jesus" are not in the passage. The Talmud only mentions Balaam here; the conclusion that it also means Jesus is an inference, widely held and widely rejected, not a doctrine or dogma. Yebamoth 49b and Shabbath 104b are accurately quoted as passages that doesn't mention Jesus but some have applied to him. (Narrator then dizzyingly says "According to the Talmud" and continues with data not from Talmud but visibly supported from Jewish Encyclopedia instead; and rapidly merges in the much later Toledot Yeshu as if it's Talmud.) Yet Talmud does have quite a few probable digs at Jesus, without naming him so as to avoid commitment. Answer, yes.
Do some Jews take responsibiliity for killing Jesus? I admit he did get Schafer on record, whose book was shown to say, "We rightly executed a blasphemer and idolater. Jesus deserved death .... This heretic and impostor needed to be executed -- and we are proud of it." Rabbi Reuven Mann was rightly more cautious: "Maybe he deserved to die ..., maybe he's a troublemaker." And Ulla the Amora (about 300) also put himself on record. So indeed, individual Jews are free to accept the rabble-roused mob's frenzied claim under duress that they would take responsibility. But Conservative Rabbi Leo Abrami was cited as offended that 36% of Americans think Jews were responsible, with no comment by the producers as to how Mann and Schafer and Ulla contribute to fostering this opinion! Once again divergences are presented as if convergent. All the same, there are indeed individual rejections of Jesus, and these can be informally judged as repentable heresy from a Christian view; but they have no validity as doctrine, as noted by all the rabbis' reticence to directly join the professor or the amora. Answer, yes.
So far, he's doing well getting people on the record, and I'm impressed with the comportment and interaction of all the presenters, but the organization and spin of those facts can easiliy mislead those not aware of the subtleties compacted quickly. Professionally done and not severely vituperative (yet), it's merely an advocacy push that heavily emphasizes some of the known facts of the arena, often to the point of exaggeration. Jewry must choose between voices like outlier Schafer, and voices like those of the Messianics, and of course the vast majority of rabbis who are still trying to play both sides safely and to play noncommittal guides who wait for the populace to help lead them.
Next we transition into tropes that misread Scripture. Anderson preaches Acts 3:13, 17; this is not about all Jews, but was preached by Peter the Jew to Jerusalem Jews, who turned! "Many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand" (4:4). The very Jews that Peter accused repented immediately and constituted perhaps a thousand of the first five thousand followers of Jesus (Christians). Anderson calls the mob "thousands and thousands", but that number would not literally fit in the palace square, and he neglects the many observant Jews who were not in the mob because they were preparing for Passover; at Jesus's death, "all the people [or crowd] smote their breasts" in protest of the prior mob's and the government's actions. We have Jan 6, they had Nisan 14, it was wild.
I've explained Onkelos. This is directly intercut with Baptist Tim Coleman beginning, "They hate Jesus" (no antecedent), which is simply too generic; then there's an interesting audio cut in the ellipsis in the statement, "I think it's because they are ... children of the devil", suggesting Coleman was not willing to complete the sentence that bold way. So now we're getting into the subtle borderline between demographics and racism.
He moves to many Jews being secular (here he interview the Reform and the humanist, but not those who hold tight doctrines of inspiration). He shows that Jews have reinterpreted circumcision as counting even if only one drop of blood is shed rather than the full procedure; reinterpretation is of course something that all movements have in part, and again this is a matter of the right of a religion to determine canonically the definitions of words in their founding texts; the originalist debate is internal. Pastor David Berzins, same church as Anderson, says, "That is a lie, they don't believe God," which is another sweeping generalization because the observant minority does try to believe everything in the Old Testament. "There's no absolute, in my opinion," says the Reform rabbi, totally consistent with Reform if logically fallacious; yet this is not the opinion of the Orthodox and Conservative rabbis absent from this segment. Pastor Donnie Romero adds, Jesus said Moses agreed with him; yet the Jews are way past that, having authoritatively reinterpreted Moses so they don't need to review Jesus's statements. Finally the Conservative rabbi, not on a secularist proposition but instead on a works-theology proposition, denies a transforming salvation in favor of a self-salvation, and denies (interim) heaven and hell (he wasn't asked about the resurrection). Well, yeah, that's a fail, and those are common teachings within Judaism, not agreed by others; and they are common in lots of Christian sects too. Anderson's summary is that they don't literally believe many of the essentials of Torah (basically Genesis) and he asks what part of Torah they believe (it's well-known that Genesis is largely haggada and the other four books much more halakha, case law, which they thoroughly authorize). Well, as a literalist he may object to the allegoric approach, but the alternatives that he chastises (secularism and simplification) are problems common to all religions, and he isn't showing the core rabbis' views (who uphold the Torah as being literal and binding). I think the correct charge is that rabbis don't have a unique claim to the chain of custody of Torah, since Christians have several claims too; that there is a sketchy break in Jewish authority between 70 and 132 that needs to be acknowledged; and that Judaism's failure to address the race's majority secularism is a breach that needs fixing, just as Christians need to address often-majority secularism among their nations.
Abrupt topic change paints that Christian Zionism is bad and recent and Christian anti-Semitism is good and normative (Chrysostom, Luther, Augustine, Peter the Venerable, Calvin): "They're all saying the same thing about the Jews, that it's a synagogue of satan." Chrysostom was an anti-Semitic outlier; Augustine was more moderate and spoke primarily of the developed rabbinical religion, which is right to criticize; Peter the Venerable is so far from being an influential father that I don't care that much what he said. Luther was brash in whatever often contrary position he took, and in his youth he was very fervent about possibly evangelizing the Jews, and his later words were a reflection on that failed venture, so his position should not be taken as consistent. Calvin was very restrained (thus named last), and I doubt that he said an anti-Semitic word at all (as that word is limited to racism). This testimony to Christians struggling with Jewish obstinacy is not proof that racism is good. Next, we hear Zionism comes from Scofield who was bad and hung out with Jews; but like those of many breakout teachers, Scofield's extremes forced Christians to reevaluate their stance and compensate toward a medium. Dispensationalism, once redefined, was adopted as permissible, but that doesn't mean racism is Christian; rather, the covenant has always been for whomever believes. Any Jew or Gentile has always been welcome. I find the compensation made by the church at large, day by day, against any negative influence the Jews may have had upon Scofield, to be sufficient for each day.
Some misrepresentation, more oversimplification of the polylithic phenomena of Judaism and Christianity. Some Jews were overbad, some Christians were responsively overbad, the rest of us kept working on our problems, whether well-guided or misguided. Racism still lacks evidence. Dispensationalists is to be acknowledged but not overstated. If the goal were to present an authoritative statement that an organized body of Christians have sufficient evidence to regard Jews as a racial enemy, there are several steps missing from that goal in this presentation. If the OU, the USCJ, or the URJ (three primary American synagogue federations or "denoms"), or their rabbinical assemblies, taught something clearly objectionable, why we can say "the Jews" (e.g. the OU) teach it. They don't do that. We could say the URJ generally teaches moral relativism; that is heretical; we provide org-wide evidence; and we tell Christians to treat Reform Jews the same as atheists; but that would still not defend racism. The Reform would regroup, the Conservodox declaim our statement as not applicable, Judaism move on, and maybe one step be made against atheism. But racism adds nothing and corrupts much.
JP2 said, "Christian theological anti-Judaism is a phenomenon which is distinct from modern antisemitism." So a developed body of Christian rejection of Jewish theology exists without racism. When working reasonable anti-Judaism, why add the racism, "children of the devil", "that is a lie", "they hate Jesus", "it's a synagogue of satan" misapplied? These are harsh, unwarranted statements from anyone against anyone, speaking of knowing others' state of mind en masse, and should be limited to formal proofs in procedural settings. They are unworthy of documentary presentation.
Scofield convinced Christians to "bless Israel" as if a requirement? In part, but that's not what Scofield was quoted as saying, and Christians may be just as well reading Ps. 122:6, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem", or many others.
America and the Jews are not blessed? Very subjective answers.
Because of the Jews' "blasphemy toward Christianity and because of their predatory lending practices" they were ejected? Hmm, not really supported, instead we jump to explain Zionism as an introduction to the Rothschilds, then zoom ahead to the founding of Israel. (1) Judaism is no more blasphemous to Christianity than any other religion, because all religions that reject Christ "blaspheme" him equally. (Yet rejecting Jesus is not even a tenet of Judaism, it's something they work hard not to care about, if you will.) To say that all members of a religion, or especially of a race, commit blasphemy worthy of many national expulsions, based on a couple unofficial statements from among thousands of founding teachers, is to dramatically distort the evidence. The closest parallel is to say all the Arabs deserve to be expelled from dozens of countries because Arabs are mostly Muslim and a couple of ahadith speak against Jesus's deity (which they do); but nobody should denounce Arabs as a race for this. (2) Yes, Rothschilds established themselves and remain influential and may be the richest of all (who knows). That is not about every Jew. To say they were expelled because of joint predatory practices (providing evidence relating only after most of the expulsions) is to plant a racist seed without hard data.
Was it the will of God that Israel be founded? Whatever happens is God's choice for history! For the pastors to suggest otherwise demeans God.
Since 1948 was not accompanied by believing in God (as revealed to Christians), was it no move of God? "That was not God bringing back Israel because they believed in him," says Coleman. "He said he'd bring them back when they turned unto him, they have not turned unto him." Anderson adds, the spirit of antichrist brought them back. That's basically now a charge of satanism. If satan were involved, it would still have been permitted by our sovereign God. But more than that, we know it's God's plan because he told us this time he'd return them in unbelief! Ezek. 36:1-24 describes the return in unbelief in great detail; only after this does 25-38 indicate the people are later made holy again.
Continued.
Switch-up! Is the hexagram the Star of Remphan? I did independent study on this. Amos 5:26 mentions the "star of your god" Chiun, later identified as Remphan, when no polygrams of any kind were associated with Israel! Pentagrams and later hexagrams came in primarily through the Pythagoreans. So this star is shown by inspiration not to be the hexagram! (I concluded the star in question was the bronze idol Nehushtan or its symbol.) This anachronism doesn't prove "Jews serve satan"; we know everyone of any race who doesn't serve God as he has revealed himself, through his true Messiah Jesus, is in some way serving satan (no dualism, just that satan claims and benefits from all service not directed to God).
Can Jews be saved? Only by accepting God revealed. I say one can accept God rightly as revealed in Tanakh as long as one has not personally rejected Jesus as Messiah. Before Jesus came, those without revelation showed whether they accepted or rejected God's testimony through nature by their behavior and conscience, Rom. 2:14-15. After that, Jews ended up in the place of being without the revelation of the identity of Messiah, and they can still be judged by the rule of whether their actions show acceptance or rejection of God: like any other people-group partly reached with the truth. I have hope for all such races as the Bible teaches. Besides the nearly a million Messianics, it's still possible today for a Jew to come to know God without knowing the Messiah's name if he has not rejected that Messiah (and they have not rejected him corporately, though a few individuals have done so personally). And that truth applies the same to any other unreached tribe or community that believes a Creator exists but doesn't know enough specifics about him. The real problem is that Christians exempt the Jews from this rule of evangelism that applies to every other people!
Switch-up! Jews are connected to Masons? Jackie, maybe. The faulty arguments from symbolism are unpersuasive (straightedge, 90 degrees, is not equilateral, 60 degrees). Masonry is a syncretism mostly of Abrahamic faiths, well of course it sounds Jewish, it also sounds Christian! No proof the GAOTU is "Moloch", as if we've interviewed the idols; we should just stick to our basic knowledge that all the satanic idols are connected. Then:
Switch-up! Jesus cursed the Jews in John 8? Actually, only those among the leaders who had first believed in him and then disputed and insulted him repeatedly (see the whole course of the chapter), not anywhere near the whole race. Of course we know physical descendants of Abraham aren't always spiritual heirs of Abraham, but they are not excluded from returning! Even Abrami cites 8:44 and misquotes as "The Jews are the sons of the devil"! If a Jewish rabbi can misunderstand the NT about the Jews, it's likely we can misunderstand the Talmud about Jesus! Rather, Jesus spoke to "those Jews which believed on him" who didn't accept his charge "continue in my word", 8:31. The gospel was preached by and among Jews, and many tens of thousands of them believed (literal myriads, Acts 21:20), and these Jews obviously were spiritual children of Abraham; so there was no racial curse from Jesus's preaching. In Acts 3-4, many of the very mob that called for his death came to be saved.
Who is the synagogue of satan? First, Jesus said they're not Jews. If we said he means they're not real spiritual Jews, well, then he'd mean some Jews in Philadelphia/Smyrna, but of course not the Christians from among the Jews. Jesus the Jew said this to John the Jew, so it cannot mean the whole race; it means a network that had infected these two cities only. We don't get to extrapolate this as a racial slur.
Who are the antichrists? The clever idea of limiting this to people that believe a messiah exists doesn't work in the other definitional passages. 1 John 4:3, 2 John 1:7 say who won't confess "Jesus Christ is come in the flesh" is an antichrist, so belief in "messiah" is no prerequisite to being antichrist, but rejection of the central message of Jesus.
Denying Jesus? Reuven Mann was willing to say, "If the claim is made that he's a Messiah, then he's a false Messiah." But note, the question is still out on whether he even claimed that, because the Messianic title in Judaism is so redefined onto the national deliverance aspect! So he carefully keeps himself off the hook of speaking directly against Jesus's title. But then Anderson goes to: "We know that that other messiah that's coming is the antichrist". Not quite that simple! Of course antichrist will deceive many Jews and many Gentiles, but there's no reason for many Jews and many Gentiles not to turn to Jesus at that hour too. They are not nationally pledged to either! Each individual will decide; the race has not decided. Rabbi Jeremy Gimpel's statement is similarly two-edged, and often heard: "We will all kneel before the king, do you know what I mean, whoever that is. So, your vision of that, you say it's the second coming." Literally, that means if it's Jesus, sobeit, we'll still only count it as his first coming as Messiah (a narrowing of definition shared by several in this video, but confusing to many Christians). Yet it can also permit a false messiah, and that is the range of openness that encourages our evangel.
So will all (the bulk of) Israel be saved? Anderson rightly points out the devil's antichrist strategy, but then misreads Rom. 11 as if it teaches the tautology that all the saved will be saved. No; he means "Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election [chosen] hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded." Physical Israel was split in two so the Gentiles could be brought in, and, once they are, Israel will receive its healing. Eschatologically, this happens a long time after sifting and testing by the initial deception of antichrist; but this complex plan to outwit the devil's scheme requires consulting many Scriptures so we often get only pieces of it.
Bless Israel? 2 John 1:9-11 cannot be taken as saying that to bless those without Christ is automatically to partake of their evil deeds, because Jesus says, "Bless them that curse you" (Matt. 5:44). (Rather, John is not speaking of general blessing, but those among people who "come ... unto you" (1:10), in context who present themselves as having a message for the church.) Hagee mistakenly said, "Everyone else ... needs to believe in Jesus ... but not Jews". I don't know if Hagee has moved on from that, or if it's a semantic game, but of course that sentiment as ordinarily understood does not ultimately bless Israel; they have the same need as any other nation. Instead, they can (see above) only be saved and "brothers" if they accept God on his own terms and not reject the Messiah at the time in their lives he is pleased to reveal himself to them. We want Jews to have the truth, requiring sensitivity to their desire not to be evangelized and skillful presentation of truth that overcomes their fear: this is why a slogan of Jews for Jesus is to make the Messiahship of Jesus an "unavoidable issue" for Jews worldwide.
Politics? Not that interested; yes, the Jewish-Evangelical lobby is strong, but it only works if both sides recognize the truths I'm pointing out, so they don't fall prey to Anderson's criticisms. The idea that Jehoshaphat of Judah was not to support Israel when it was ungodly may be a valid principle, though a bit misleading in presentation; but Christians take both sides on this nonessential question.
Does Israel have narrow citizenship laws and tight antimissionary provisions? Absolutely! Which makes it just another of the creative-access countries so familiar to spreaders of the truth of Jesus. Gay Tel Aviv, same point.
Kabbalah? Yes, Hagee said Washington wanted the hexagram and Shekhinah to be on the dollar (Washington only spoke of the great seal and it was Roosevelt who put it on the dollar; so that's overreach). The glory of God is Biblical and must be understood as it is, and it is called "shakan". So Shekhinah is not wrong if used consistent with Biblical glory. The masculinity of Father, Son, and Spirit is emphatic, but the occasional Scriptures that speak of his feminine aspects, most notably as Wisdom in Prov. 8-9, must be understood as they are presented: not as some sexual duality but as an expression of God's total overarching character. (Anderson implies a dangerous idea, that only males are in the image of God; rather, first usage (Gen. 1:26) is, "Let us make man in our image ... and let them have dominion", and "man" is "them".)
Genealogy (which turns out to be the last point besides the gospel): Much time wasted. One good point, there's high likelihood that many or most people have at least one Jewish person somewhere earlier in the tree; but that doesn't define Jewishness, which is determined only by matrilineality or conversion. The Jewish populace still has self-definition rights to determine who is a member, just like any other race that doesn't want to be watered down.
Spiritual covenant aspects have always stayed with the covenant people even as those people became largely Gentile and called "Christians"; national covenant aspects have always, like any national covenant, related solely to the physical and been passed down to a people as self-defined. The divergence of these two covenants leads to much mystery, resolved as soon as it is seen.
Jews are not satanist by birth; rabbinical Jews are not necessarily satanist by religion any more than any non-Christian religion. But the vast body of Jewish thought keeping many of them from committing outright rejection of Jesus as Messiah is neglected. It is because they have been entrusted with all the Hebrew Scriptures that they have, in every generation, all the tools the disciples had to come to faith in Jesus. As a people they have been in a holding pattern ever since, constantly forced to face the same question of Jesus's identity over all generations, as so many other nations pass them by in becoming evangelized with the good news. They are still an unreached people, in some ways the last one! They resist evangelism more than the remotest tribe, and with more power. Even if someone were to tell me directly he was a son of satan, I would still hold out hope for him while he is alive. I can do no less with the people from whom my Bible and my Messiah came.
Many tropes, choppy themes. The gospel to all races Jew and Gentile could've unified. The video ends with the gospel, but I daresay that the producers would've complied with the standard that all the Jews interviewed would've insisted, that their appearances would be predicated on the implicit condition that they not be "evangelized". Instead, give the same gospel to both Jew and Gentile, to escape the charge of believing (like Hagee is charged with thinking) that Jews are unwinnable to the current gospel. The producers seem to state that no Jews were evangelized during the making of this film. Maybe they believe it fruitless, that the people are too far gone.
Their goal is to claim the true Zion and "replace" all Jewish promises. But failing to see spiritual vs. national promise, the land covenant remains invisible to the producers. Then these slightly-spun points get used as fodder for spin beyond recognition and really monstrous racism, which Anderson avoids showing. So were the positive features, the interactive dialogue, the vignettes about Jewish oddities, the genealogical argument, worth the imbalance and spin? It's hard to say the strengths overcame the weaknesses. The need for remediation is much clearer than the effectiveness of the whole presentation.
Footnote: The Church of England has "some correction" to "chosen" Jews: "God’s will is for all people to enter into the renewed covenant in Christ’s blood .... Jewish people therefore need to discover and respond to this divine gift as God’s irrevocably chosen people" (p. 30 ff.). Concerns of fundamentalist members are held as legitimate to present to Jews without fear of reprisal. That's how it's done. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis affirmed this, questioning only "targeting of Jews for conversion to Christianity." I answer, "Convert to God" (Ps. 51:13, shuv). Find God's new covenant in Messiah. They've never said it's impossible to return to unity or to continue dialogue.
How might dialogue with Jews proceed instead? In the Sanhedrin section of the Talmud, when all the rabbis are making puns about how the Messiah will be named after them, why doesn't Rabbi Yehoshua make a pun about his own name, but changes the subject instead? Is it for the same reason that Zechariah says that High Priest Yehoshua from his day would have a name connected with the Branch of God, the Messiah? Do the Jews still look for the prophet like unto Moshe, who appointed no successor other than General Yehoshua son of Nun? Why do the commentaries on the Talmud admit that there will be two Messiahs, not only the son of David who will reign, but also a "son of Joseph" (!) who will be humble? Why does the Talmud teach that there is a special Angel of the Lord who has the privilege to stand before the Lord as an equal, almost like the Son of Man in Daniel 7, even though it is taught that there is otherwise no such standing before the Lord? Why does Rabbi Simlai present arguments for the corporate unity of God when debating separatists who sound like early tritheists? Why did the rabbi in this video reiterate that the Shekhinah is One with God the Father and yet distinctions can be made between them, exactly as we speak of Spirit and Father? Why do rabbis act like they worship the Torah, especially in the annual festivals, not the synagogue scroll but the eternal Message of God it contains? Why does every Passover seder have exactly three matzah slices, where the second of three is broken in half, one half remaining with the others and the other half wrapped and hidden secretly, and then sought and found and brought out later as the last part of the meal, the "afikomen" (the one coming afterward), the last slice of unleavened bread presented with the last cups of wine, the same bread and wine that Jesus called his body and blood in that annual meal? Why do rabbis read Isaiah 52 and 54 in the prophetic cycle but not 53? Since the suffering servant of 53 is distinguished from sinful Israel and yet is also Israel, wouldn't that mean in fact that he represents the best of Israel, possibly the best one alone out of all Israel? How will Israel mourn for the one they have pierced as for a firstborn son, according to Zechariah? Can you see why I'm excited about the Jewish sources? Why does the Talmud say that everyone who approaches heaven will be asked by the Father, "Did you accept the salvation of my Messiah?"?
This documentary is probably good to share with your normie right wing christian to help redpill them about Jews.
It's probably not interesting to those who dismiss all abrahamic religions and already know Jews are a problem. There's some good info in there about how Rothschild's setup banks in Europe and rose to power and the foundation of Israel. Also some good info about Zionism and the origin of the Jewish star. Some talk about feminizing God, etc.
Thank you for sharing, saved for later watching.