Bruce James is an Orthodox Jew, attorney, and writer who believes Jews cannot believe in Yeshua. In an e-mail discussion with The Refiner's Fire, he presented several comments which supposedly prove his assumptions:


Bruce James' assertion that Jews cannot believe in Yeshua

Bruce James' Assertion:

As a Jew, you don't need proof of G-d's capacity to forgive you and redeem you from the NT. Its right in the Torah. G-d heard the cries of the Jews in Egypt and he knew their pain. He redeemed them from slavery and he forgave them even from the sin of the Golden Calf. To say that he has abandoned his covenant with the Jewish people is to contradict the Bible itself; G-d clearly said that he would not forget the covenant, no matter how bad the Jews were (Lev. 26:44-45). See also 1 Chron. 16:17 (everlasting covenant). You don't need Jesus, you need G-d. Come back, and we'll show Him to you without any intermediary.

Messianic Judaism's Response:

Proverbs 30:4 - Who has gone up to heaven and come down. Who has cupped the wind in the palms of his hands? Who has wrapped up the waters in his cloak? Who established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name? Surely you know!

Yes, God forgave them from the sin of the Golden Calf - AFTER He meted out some severe punishment! At Moses' order, close to three thousand people were slain by the Levites.

You won't find it said on The Refiner's Fire that God "abandoned" His covenant. As a matter of fact, He went even further by giving us a NEW, better Covenant (Jeremiah 31:30-34)! The new covenant completely removed the need for animal sacrifice and enabled everyone - Jew, Gentile, slave, and free - to have eternal life.

You failed to mention that God also ALWAYS required blood sacrifices for the redemption of sins (Lev. 17:11). This is verified throughout the Tanach (Old Testament). (Please see Challenging the Rabbinical Notion that Prayer and Repentance Are All That's Required to Get into Heaven)

Since you have rejected Messiah, how are you going to get through heaven's gates? There is no temple, and without the temple, there can be no sacrifices. God tells us that our "works" are like menstrual rags (Isaiah 64:6) and so works and good deeds certainly can't do it. Neither the OT, nor the NT tell us that "good deeds" get us into heaven - quite the contrary! So, what the RABBIS said was NOT of God and not in keeping with the Tanach!

First of all, Yeshua is not merely an "intermediary"; He is an aspect of God sent to fellowship with mankind in a way that allowed them to better understand God and how He wants us to live and to treat each other (as opposed to revealing Himself via a burning bush, pillars of cloud/fire, or through a donkey). Yeshua was foreshadowed throughout the Tanach (See Challenging the Torah Experts). The Tanach and the B'rit Chadasha (New Testament) are one, complete entity that fit together like perfect puzzle pieces, each complementing the other - and they agree:

  • Philippians 2:9-11: Therefore God raised him to the highest place and gave him the name above every name; that in honor of the Name given Yeshua, every knee will bow -- in heaven, on earth and under the earth -- and every tongue will acknowledge that Yeshua the Messiah is Adonai -- to the glory of God the Father.

The above verse, quoted twice in the New Covenant, underscores the absolute Deity of our Lord. Want to see more proof that Yeshua is God Incarnate? See Who Is He?; More Proof that Yeshua is God Incarnate; and 48 Dead-On Prophecies About Yeshua. In these links you will discover that:

  • Yeshua has always existed. (See Micah 5:2. Isaiah 44:6. Revelation 22:12-13,16.)

  • He created everything that exists. (See John 1:1-3,14. Malachi 2:10; Isaiah 44:24; Colossians 1:15-18; Hebrews 1:2,8-10.)

  • He is to be worshipped (not the "man" but the Deity in Him). (See Matthew 4:10; Hebrews 1:6; John 20:27-28; Matthew 2:11; 8:2; 9:18; 14:33; 15:25; 28:9,17.)

  • Scripture identifies Yeshua as God: Isaiah 9:6 calls Him "Mighty God". Zechariah 12:1,10 says "they shall look upon me whom they have pierced". This was fulfilled in Revelation 1:7.

  • In John 5:18 the Jews wanted to kill Yeshua because he also said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

  • John 8:57-59 says the Jews tried to stone Yeshua because he said, "Before Abraham was, I am." They believed He was claiming to be YHWH the "I AM" of Exodus 3:13-14, and Isaiah 44:6 which says that YHWH the King of Israel, and his redeemer, the Lord of Hosts says: "I am the first, and I am the last; besides me there is no God".

  • Revelation 1:8,17-18; 22:12-13,16 call Yeshua the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. (In Genesis 19:24 YHWH rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah from heaven. In Isaiah 42:8 YHWH said He would not share his glory with another. However, John 17:5 indicates that Yeshua evidently had shared YHWH's glory before the world was! 1 Timothy 3:16 says God was manifest in the flesh; and in Isaiah 45:18,23 we read that YHWH said that every knee will bow before Him, and every tongue shall swear allegiance).

  • Philippians 2:10-11 says that in honor of Yeshua every knee will bow and every tongue will acknowledge that Yeshua the Messiah is Adonai, to the glory of God the Father. Hebrews 1:8 tells us that YHWH said unto His Son, "Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever for ever".

  • Although the word "Trinity" per se is not in the Bible, the word "Godhead" or "Deity" is, depending on the Bible version. (See Colossians 2:9; Acts 17:29; and Romans 1:20.

Scripture is clear that the cleansing ONLY comes from shedding of the BLOOD:

Leviticus 17: 11 For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for yourselves; for it is the blood that makes atonement because of the life.'

Messiah came in the order of Malki-Tzedek (Hebrews 7:15-21). There is no intermediary; we go directly to the source - Yeshua, whose blood makes the FINAL atonement for our sin!

Messiah is our Cohen Hagdol, our High Priest and our SIN offering:

Hebrews 3: 1 "Therefore, brothers whom God has set apart, who share in the call from heaven, think carefully about Yeshua, whom we acknowledge publicly as God's emissary and as Cohen gadol. 2 He was faithful to God, who appointed him; just as Moshe was faithful in all God's house (Numbers 12:7)."

For centuries the Jewish people relied on the Yom Kippur temple service to wash them clean of their sins, but major events happened that changed the status quo forever. The rabbis at the council at Yavneh in 90 A.D. transformed the Yom Kippur sacrifice service by proclaiming that ritual and prayer was enough to replace sacrifice, and do good deeds. This was not true, according to the Scriptures!

According to Talmud, Yoma 39a, it was considered a good omen if the lot marked La Adonai was drawn by the priest in the right hand. 40 years prior to the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. the lot for La Adonai was drawn by the priest in the left hand. Once the temple was destroyed, Israel's ability to atone for sin was gone, at least as prescribed in Leviticus. The following was borrowed from Beit Simcha:

According to the Talmud, the destruction of the Temple did not come as a total surprise to the Jewish people, in fact, the Talmud records that four ominous events occurred approximately forty years before the destruction of the Temple. Those four events were to warn the Rabbi's of the Temple's impending doom. According to Jewish tradition, all four of these signs came to pass. The four signs were:

  1. The lot for the Lord's goat did not come up in the right hand of the high priest.

  2. The scarlet cord tied to the door of the Temple on the Day of Atonement stopped turning white after the scapegoat had been sent out. The scarlet cord (scarf) that was soaked in the blood of the goat for Adonai.

  3. The westernmost light on the Temple candelabra would not burn. It is believed that this light was used to light the other lights of the candelabra.

  4. The Temple doors would open by themselves. The rabbis saw this as an ominous fulfillment of Zechariah 11:1, "Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that fire may devour thy cedars." The opening of the doors to let in the consuming fire foretold the destruction of the Temple itself by fire. (The temple was burned by the Romans).

The sages drew two conclusions from these warnings. First, they realized that the destruction of the Temple was God's judgment on the Jewish people for ungodliness. Second, they perceived the warnings as God's way of giving them time to prepare for the restructuring of Judaism around the synagogue. What amazing event happened 40 years before the destruction of the second temple? ... They missed the most important event, number 1, making 5. Yeshua was born, rejected, crucified and arose! Do you think this would be the judgment against Israel? How much more rebellious can you get than to reject Messiah? They were right: God had a better plan - one created from the foundations of the universe; He would send Himself to pay the price of our sin!

Remember Jeremiah 31:31? Yeshua is the better covenant (see Hebrews 7:22-28)!


Bruce James' Assertion:

I do not accept the NT. I will be happy to discuss its errors that clearly mark it as anything but G-d - given. For example, while the Hebrew Scriptures (Tanach) clearly tell us that 70 persons of Jacob's clan went down to Egypt (Deut. 10:22; Ex. 1:5; Gen. 46:27), Acts 7:14 says it was 75. Why?

Messianic Judaism's Response:

Baptist Pastor John Gill had the following comments about this subject:

Reference Acts 7:14, "....And called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls..." - which seems to disagree with the account of Moses, who says, that "all the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten" (Genesis 46:27). But there is no contradiction; Moses and Stephen (Acts) are speaking of different things; Moses speaks of the seed of Jacob, which came out of his loins, who came into Egypt, and so excludes his sons' wives; Stephen speaks of Jacob and all his kindred, among whom his sons' wives must be reckoned, whom Joseph called to him. According to Moses's account, the persons that came with Jacob into Egypt, who came out of his loins, and so exclusive of his sons' wives, were threescore and six; to which if we add Jacob himself, and Joseph who was before in Egypt, and his two sons that were born there when Jacob went down, the total number is threescore and ten... NOR WAS THERE ANY NEED TO ALTER AND CORRUPT THE SEPTUAGINT VERSION of Genesis 46:27 TO MAKE IT AGREE WITH STEPHEN'S ACCOUNT.


Bruce James' Assertion:

Another example: the Tanach makes it clear that the Messiah should be of the seed of Jesse. To this end, both Matthew and Luke go to great lengths to prove that Joseph was a descendant of David and Jesse, although they don't agree as to the actual family tree. Yet, Matthew 1:18 tells us that Joseph wasn't the father! What was the point then of the geneologies? The juxtoposition of these two proofs is that Matthew originally didn't believe in the virgin birth, and took the conventional approach to proving Jesus' credentials to be messiah, but later editors decided to introduce the virgin birth concept, thereby undermining the entire geneology argument.

Messianic Judaism's Response:

Here is an extensive explanation, ranging from adoption to the curse of Jeconiah.....

Adoption: Adoption in Biblical times WAS an accepted practice. The Bible itself is proof of that. Please read the following from The New Unger's Bible Dictionary:

ADOPTION:

Greek: huiothesia, the "placing" as a "son". The admission of a person to some or all of the privileges of natural kinship. As the practice of adoption was confined almost exclusively to sons - the case of Esther being an exception - it probably had its origin in the natural desire for male offspring. This would be especially true where force, rather than well-observed laws, decided the possession of estates.

Hebrew: Abraham speaks of Eliezer (Gen 15:3), a house-born slave, as his heir, having probably adopted him as his son. Jacob adopted his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh, and counted them as his sons (48:6), thus enabling him to bestow through them a double portion upon his favorite son, Joseph. Sometimes a man without a son would marry his daughter to a freed slave, the children then being accounted her father's; or the husband himself would be adopted as a son (1 Chron 2:34). Most of the early instances of adoption mentioned in the Bible were the acts of women who, because of barrenness, gave their female slaves to their husbands with the intention of adopting any children they might have. Thus Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham, and the son (Ishmael) was considered the child of Abraham and Sarah (Gen 16:1-15). The childless Rachel gave her maid, Bilhah, to her husband (30:1-7) and was imitated by Leah (30:9-13). In such cases the sons were regarded as fully equal in the right of heritage with those by the legitimate wife. (From The New Unger's Bible Dictionary. Originally published by Moody Press of Chicago, Illinois. Copyright (c) 1988.)

ADOPTION: The taking of one as a son who is not so by birth. (I) Natural: As Pharaoh's daughter adopted Moses; Mordecai Esther; Abraham Eliezer (as a slave is often in the East adopted as son) (Gen 15:2-3); Sarai the son to be born by Hagar, whom she gave to her husband; Leah and Rachel the children to be born of Zilpah and Bilhah, their handmaids respectively, whom they gave to Jacob their husband. The handmaid at the birth brought forth the child on the knees of the adoptive mother (Gen 30:3); an act representative of the complete appropriation of the sons as equal in rights to those by the legitimate wife. Jacob adopted as his own Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, on the same footing as Reuben and Simeon, his two elder sons (Gen 48:5). Thereby he was able to give Joseph his favorite son more than his single share, with his brothers, of the paternal heritage. The tribes thus were 13, only that Levi had no land division; or Ephraim and Manasseh were regarded as two halves making up but one whole tribe. In 1 Chron 2 Machir gives his daughter to Hezron of Judah; she bore Segub, father of Jair. Jair inherited 23 cities of Gilead in right of his grandmother. Though of Judah by his grandfather, he is (Num 32:41) counted as of Manasseh on account of his inheritance through his grandmother. So Mary, being daughter of Heli, and Joseph her husband being adopted by him on marrying his daughter, an heiress (as appears from her going to Bethlehem to be registered in her pregnancy), Joseph is called in Luke's genealogy son of Heli. (From Fausset's Bible Dictionary, Electronic Database Copyright (c)1998 by Biblesoft)

As for the genealogy of Jeconiah, please see: The Curse of Jeconiah.

AND CHECK THIS OUT:

Mary should be disqualified to transfer the rights of her lineage to her son Yeshua - except for a little known exception to the rule....

In Matthew 1:1-16 and Luke 3:23-38 we are presented with two genealogies of Yeshua. On the surface these different listings would appear to be a contradiction in the scriptures. The genealogy found in Matthew's gospel is the lineage of Jesus' earthly father Joseph, while the genealogy found in Luke's gospel is the lineage of Yeshua's mother Mary. However, many of the people that teach on the genealogies fail to realize or address a major problem associated with the genealogical listing found in Luke's gospel, the lineage of Mary. Once you have established that the line is indeed Mary's you must deal with a second difficulty. The rights of the line are not passed through the mother, only the father. Even though Mary, through her lineage, was of the Davidic bloodline, she should be excluded from being able to pass those rights of the bloodline because of being a female (Deut 21:16). So it is not enough to prove that Mary was an unblemished descendant of David, she had to be a male to transfer the rights. Therefore she would be disqualified to transfer the rights to her son Yeshua, except for a little known exception to the rule.

HOWEVER - In Numbers 26 we are introduced to Zelophehad. Zelophehad, we are told, had no sons, only daughters. In Numbers 27, following the death of Zelophehad, the daughters of Zelophehad came before Moses and argued their plight. Because their father had died with no sons, all of their rights of inheritance were to be lost and they felt this was unfair. So Moses prayed to God and God gave Moses an exception to the rule. The Lord told Moses that the inheritance CAN flow through a female, IF they fulfill two requirements. There must be no male offspring in the family (Num 27:8) and if the female offspring should marry, they must marry within their own tribe (Num 36:6).

Now we come back to Mary. On the surface she should be unable to transfer the rights to her Son. But when you research you find that Mary had NO brothers, AND Mary did indeed marry within her own tribe to Joseph. What an awesome God we serve that set in order the requirements to allow the virgin birth to take place 1,400 years in advance! (From: The Lineage Loophole by Phil Luna.)

For an indepth study about this subject, please read Matsati's article entitled The Genealogy of the Messiah Yeshua (Jesus).



Bruce James' Assertion:

As far as who produces lies in order to promote their religion, the NT resorts to threats of damnation to those who don't believe, e.g. Mark 16:16; 2 Thes. 1:7-9; John 15:6, but also Paul clearly said it was permissable to lie to convert Jews or others. 1 Corin. 9:20-22 ("And to the Jews, I become as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law, though not being myself under the Law, that I might win those who are under the Law ... I have become all things to all people ...").

Messianic Judaism's Response:

Like many others, you've totally misunderstood and completely taken the teachings of Paul out of context. (It's just like Christians misunderstanding that "Jesus nailed it to the cross" - without understanding exactly WHAT He nailed to the cross.) If you will study the above-mentioned verses, you will realize that Paul was trying to say that he put himself in the place of whoever he was talking to - NOT to lie, but to get his point across in a way that each person could understand. For instance, you don't use 15-letter terms with two-year olds; you use simple language. You tell him: "Hot! Don't touch!" You don't say: "If you don't immediately retreat from that heating device you may end up injured because...."


Bruce James' Assertion:

The ultimate proof of who is telling you the truth is the fact that if Jesus was the Messiah, we would be living now in a Messianic Age where there is world peace, universal belief in G-d, the ingathering of the exiles, and the resurrection of all of the righteous. To say that Jesus is coming again to finish the job is very self-serving, and could just as easily be applied to any other great historical figure, Jewish or otherwise. But when the Messianic event happens, G-d will hasten it in its time (Isa. 60:22) and not drag it out for more than 2000 years!

Messianic Judaism's Response:

Why is it self-serving to believe He will return to "finish the job"? God does things in His OWN timing, not yours! Moses had to be born before he could be used to rescue God's Chosen from Egypt; God gave the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai AFTER their rescue - not before; Israel couldn't become a nation again (in 1948 in ONE DAY, just as prophecied!) until certain other prophecies had been fulfilled....God has a certain order for everything, and He isn't going to deviate from it to suit our human wishes.

Since Yeshua has fulfilled hundreds of prophecies, what makes you think He won't fulfill the rest? As a matter of fact, let's discuss THE ODDS of so many prophecies being filled by ONE PERSON (Messiah Revealed discusses over 300 which were all fulfilled in the life of one individual — Yeshua of Nazareth!):

Speaking of even eight key prophecies, Peter Stoner, a mathematician, points out, "We find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled eight of the prophecies is one in 100,000,000,000,000,000" (Science Speaks, Moody Press). And the probability of any one man fulfilling all of these hundreds of prophecies is a number too large to write down.

He also discussed the probabilities of just the 48 prophecies (in our article) being fulfilled in one person is the incredible number 10^157!


The following was borrowed from Watchmen @ Alpha Thru Omega:

Moses prophesied:

Deuteronomy 18: 15 The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; 16 According to all that thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. 17 And the LORD said unto me, They have well [spoken that] which they have spoken. 18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. 19 And it shall come to pass, [that] whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require [it] of him. 20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. 21 And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? 22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that [is] the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, [but] the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

God told king David

2 SAMUEL 7: 12 "When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 "He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 "I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. 15 "But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16 "And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever."'"

Note several things here.

First, God promised to raise up a Prophet who would be like Moses. Just as God gave Moses the Old Covenant to give to the people of Israel, even so would God raise another who would give His New Covenant to the people of Israel.

Also, king David was told that the Messiah would come from his lineage. For those who might claim that his promise concerned his son Solomon, even though Solomon built the first Temple, Solomon's throne did not last forever, but the Messiah figure promised to David would have an everlasting throne. And by this fact, the house he would build for God's name would also last forever, thereby indicating that the builder would be an eternal figure.

God also states through Moses that if what the prophet prophesies fails to come to pass, he is to be ignored. Yeshua prophesied of His death, the manner of His death, His resurrection, and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman legions to name a few literally fulfilled prophecies.

And for those who might say that the Gospels were written after all of this happened, to make it seem as if Yeshua was right, NONE of the books of the New Covenant mention the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., which if the writers had heard of, or witnessed, surely would have written about! And if later writers had "edited" the New Covenant, they would have written about the destruction of Jerusalem to make it seem that Yeshua had prophesied correctly.

Why is there no record of the event in the New Covenant? Because all of the writers of the New Covenant were dead before Jerusalem was destroyed, and the Jews scattered to the corners of the Earth. Therefore all of the books of the New Covenant (including the book of Revelation) were finished before 70 C.E.!

Abraham believed God, and set out for the land that God said he would show Him, not knowing where he was going. There is no solid proof today that we can point to, and say, "Here is proof that Abraham came here!" Neither can we prove the Law of Moses, as the Ark of the Covenant has vanished. We have no remains of Solomon's temple, yet we believe it existed.

And yet people refuse to believe that God would come in the form of a man, even when it was prophesied that He would do so! The Jews cling to the Law of Moses, even though God through Jeremiah stated:

JEREMIAH 31: 31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day [that] I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: 33 But this [shall be] the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.