What do Jews Believe about Jesus?

Key events in Jewish and Christian history

4 BCE - 30/33 CE Life of Jesus

34 CE - 62 CE Life of Paul (as a Christian) and his writings

70 CE First Jewish revolt against Rome; destruction of Temple,

founding of Yavneh

70 CE - 100 CE Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John

132 CE - 135 CE Bar Kochba revolt, Jerusalem rebuilt as Aelia Capitolina

200 CE - 220 CE Completion of Mishnah, growth of Patriarchate

305 CE - 311 CE Empire-wide persecution of Christians

325 CE Council of Nicea

392 CE Christianity official religion of Roman Empire

500/600 CE Completion of Babylonian Talmud

The Prophets (Nevi’im), who wrote hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth, envisioned a messianic age as:

• a period of universal peace
• war and hunger iseradicated,
• humanity accepts God’s sovereignty.

By the first century, the view developed that

• the messianic age would witness a general resurrection of the dead,
• the in-gathering of all the Jews, including the 10 lost tribes, to the land of Israel,
• a final judgment
• universal peace.

Jews expected the messiah to be

• a descendant of King David (based on an interpretation of God’s promise to David in 2 Samuel 7 of an eternal kingdom).

The Dead Sea Scrolls speak of two messiahs:

• one a military leader and the other a priest.

Still other Jews expected the prophet Elijah, or the angel Michael, or Enoch, or any number of other figures to usher in the messianic age.

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-jews-can-learn-from-the-new-testament/

Maimonides

Jews believe the messiah must accomplish specific things in order to confirm his identity — among them restoring the kingdom of David to its former glory, achieving victory in battle against Israel’s enemies, rebuilding the temple (which the Romans destroyed in 70 CE) and ingathering the exiles to the land of Israel. “And if he’s not successful with this, or if he is killed, it’s known that he is not the one that was promised by the Torah.”

According to Judaic beliefs, the Torah rules out a trinitarian God with the following quote from Deuteronomy

What is a false prophet?

1. "if a man claims to be God, he is a liar." (Ta'anit 2:1)
2. "He has no semblance of a body nor is He corporeal". (Yigdal)
3. “Be careful to observe only that which I enjoin upon you; neither add to it nor take away from it. If there appears among you a prophet or a dream-diviner and he gives you a sign or a portent, saying, “Let us follow and worship another god” – whom you have not experienced – even if the sign or portent that he named to you comes true, do not heed the words of that prophet or that dream-diviner. For the Lord your God is testing you to see whether you really love the LORD your God with all your heart and soul. (Deuteronomy 13:1-4)
4. “But any prophet who presumes to speak in My name an oracle that I did not command him to utter, or who speaks in the name of other gods – that prophet shall die” (Deuteronomy 18:20)

Maimonides

But if he did not succeed in all this or was killed, he is definitely not the Moshiach promised in the Torah... and God only appointed him in order to test the masses.^[17]

Who Was Jesus?

While many people now regard Jesus as the founder of Christianity, it is important to note that he did not intend to establish a new religion, at least according to the earliest sources, and he never used the term “Christian.” He was born and lived as a Jew, and his earliest followers were Jews as well. Christianity emerged as a separate religion only in the centuries after Jesus’ death.

All of what is known about the historical Jesus comes from the four New Testament Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — which scholars believe were written several decades after Jesus’ death. There is no archaeological or other physical evidence for his existence, most scholars agree that Jesus did exist and that he was born sometime in the decade before the Common Era and crucified sometime between 26-36 CE (the years when the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, ruled Judea). He lived at a time when the Roman Empire ruled what is now Israel and sectarianism was rife, with major tensions among Jews not only over how much to cooperate with the Romans but also how to interpret Torah . It was also, for some, a restive time when displeasure with Roman policies, as well as with the Temple high priests, bred hopes for a messianic redeemer who would throw off the foreign occupiers and restore Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel.

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-do-jews-believe-about-jesus/

Did the Jews kill Jesus?

NO.

Jesus was executed by the Romans. Crucifixion was a Roman form of execution, not a Jewish one.

Where does this myth come from?

For most of Christian history, Jews were held responsible for the death of Jesus. This is because the New Testament tends to place the blame specifically on the Temple leadership and more generally on Jewish people. According to the Gospels, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate was reluctant to execute Jesus but was egged on by bloodthirsty Jews.

According to the Gospel of Matthew, after Pilate washes his hands and declares himself innocent of Jesus’ death, “all the people” (i.e., all the Jews in Jerusalem) respond, “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:25).

Noestra Aetate

In 1965, the Vatican promulgated a document called “Nostra Aetate” (Latin for “In Our Time”) which stated that Jews in general should not be held responsible for the death of Jesus. This text paved the way for a historic rapprochement between Jews and Catholics. Several Protestant denominations across the globe subsequently adopted similar statements.

What is Jews for Jesus?

Jews for Jesus is one branch of a wider movement called Messianic. Members of this movement are not accepted as Jewish by the broader Jewish community, even though some adherents may have been born Jewish and their ritual life includes Jewish practices. The beliefs of messianic Jews are theologically incompatible with Judaism.