Jews and Christians worship the same God

Regardless of your heritage, you clearly are well versed, and your devotion is admirable. "As I stated Jews are not Judaism." I did blur that line, but I did so intentionally, because I do not have the knowledge of their message as clearly as my own. I know they don't worship the Trinity and yet Christians persist in worshiping YHWH. And this makes me quite uneasy... and it is disheartening that Christians view Jews as brothers, but I don't think it is true the other way around (and if so, Christian's are certainly the younger, possibly adopted, brother) "There are all sorts of Jews: Buddhist, atheists, secular and all" - Apologies for not making it clear, I should have defined better... for the purpose of this debate, Jews = Religion (unless otherwise noted) and therefore, Jews can't be Buddhists, atheist, or secular. "Answering Jewish objections to Jesus" by Dr Michael Brown - I will attempt to read this, but I can only suppose that he, like everyone, including myself... has an agenda, and I think the only use for things like that are the verses sourced, which.. I might add.. you yourself have done marvelously on. I really want to thank you for this, I never took much notice to the "Jewish Messiah", but not that you bring it up... you're right... there is no Jewish Messiah. At least, not in the way that Jesus declared himself, and Christians consider it. There were future prophets, but not a "messiah" That entire concept is solely Christian, and not Judaic scripture based.... thank you for revealing that to me. The closest thing I found is "Genesis 49:8-12". But the First Temple fell in ~590 BCE and the house of Judah didn't gain full control of of Jerusalem again until ~190 BCE. I think that counts as the ruler's staff falling from the feet. "Notice in John 12:37-43" - This is a GREAT argument... it is a direct reference to a OT verse, word for word (via translation)... except one... YHWH... in all of this... I think this is more the case of the fact that he is proselytizing Jews, and as he isn't reference something to the messiah, but to Isaiah himself... Is the New Testament trying to say that Jesus was Isaiah? No.. he's not.. he's just describing the correct way to be a prophet... which they are saying Jesus is. Septuagint use of Kurios - This is true for most surviving copies... but things such as the Dead Sea Scrolls (the oldest texts we have, and they are in Greek) do write YHWH. I don't think we can know which version they were reading based off of what we know now, outside of the fact that they use similar wording "Jesus identified himself as the Messiah, the Son of God and divine many times clearly Matt 26:63-64; John 5:15-18; John 11:23-27 Matthew 16:13-20." - I don't read a single one of these and have Jesus saying that he is the Messiah... other people are saying it and he isn't confirming or denying it... the closest thing you got is Matthew 20 - "Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah." Telling people "don't tell people I'm the messiah" ... I say not to tell people that I'm the Messiah (especially if they are saying I'm the Messiah) without being the Messiah... watch Life of Brian for that one... "Only the TRUE messiah would deny that he is the messiah" - "Fine, I am the messiah" - "HE IS THE MESSIAH".. (love that scene!) ------- I understand you have done a lot of study for your points, and for that I am grateful.. I'm actually submitting this without being able to read all your references because of time, but I can promise that I will go through them. You have proved to me at least, that the OT doesn't properly define a Messiah at all (I used to think they did) and thus Jesus cannot be him (as he isn't defined) But there's more than that too.... to me at least.. I have moral issues believing in it And this is where faith trumps all. I refuse to believe that the same God who would Flood the Earth, slaughter the innocent Egyptian firstborns, DEMAND the massacre of the Canaanites, allow the massacre of the Hivites... this SAME GOD would preach eternal forgiveness... this SAME GOD would look upon the Roman Soldiers crucifying him and declare "Forgive Them Father, for they know not what they do" That one phrase has stuck with me... he's not talking to just the Roman Soldiers here.. if the rule is "Forgive us for we know not what we do"... this is true for every case until we meet our maker.. this is eternal forgiveness And I just can't accept that these two very opposing actions are the same... they can't be... they must be sprung from different gods... To turn the other cheek as oppose to slaughtering those who slight you in even the tiniest way. You can rationale anything you want... but to me... unless it states it explicitly anywhere... if there's any wiggle room in the text.. I can't believe they are the same entity... I can refuse to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob... and still believe in Jesus as the redeemer