Talk:Messianic Judaism/Archive 4

message: but the resurgence of a very old movement. Messianic Judaism was the movement of the Schle'him "Apostles" and the community of Jewish and Non-Jewish believers "followers of the Messiah Yeshua ('Jesus')" in the first three centuries of Church history. Messianic Judaism is regarded by its followers as the latest stage in the development of authentic biblical Judaism. It is the religion "the form of worship" followed by Moses, David and the prophets. Brought to fulfillment through the coming of Yeshua ("Jesus") the Messiah. HISTORICAL MESSIANIC LEADERS: No, Messianic Judaism is not new, it was a continuation of true Judaism. Messianic Judaism was almost squelched out in the year 325 C.E.(common era.,or A.D.) when the Emperor of Rome who was the leader of the Church of Constanpinople. At that time Constantine and The Nicean Council issued a decree divorsing all Messianic Jews...unless they wanted to assumulate and join what then became "The church". After the bann on Messianic Jews, and Messianic Ger'eem (non-Jewish believers) to practise as they always had, it took a lot of chutspah (gall) to continue to do so. Many Messianic Jews have been killed by the Church. This article is to show you some of those who had chutspah to stand for the emeet of HASHEM (truth of G-d) when Messianic Judaism was not as widespread as it is today. Nu!..The purpose in this section is to show that Jews have not always rejected Moshiach, and have not always assumulated in order to embrace him. *a))- Rov Isaac (Yitzhak) Lichtenstein- early 1880's. A respected District Rabbi in Hungary, he picked up an old copy of the ReNewed Covenant (i.e. New Testament) and began reading it. As he later remarked, "Not the half had been told me of the greatness, power and glory of this Book, formerly a sealed book to me. All seemed so new, and yet it did me good, like the sight of an old friend who has laid aside his dusty, travel-worn garments, and appears in festive attire, like a bridegroom in wedding robes, or a bride adorned with her jewels." Not too long after that, Rabbi Lichtenstein starting teaching from the Newer Testament to his synagogue and people. Because of his reputation and position, the Synod of Rabbis in Hungary cited him to appear before them and explain himself. After prolonged discussion and much interaction with Rabbi Lichtenstein, the assembled rabbis demanded that he should resign his position and be formally baptized. he replied that he had no intention of joining any church. He had found in the Newer Testament the true completion of Judaism; so he would remain as before with his congregation, and preach it in the synagogue. And, that's what he did despite persecution and abuse. From his official place as District Rabbi he continued to teach and to preach from the Newer Testament (i.e. "Renewed Covenant" mentioned by Yerme'yahu haNovi, Jeremiah 31:31). This was a testimony to the strong attachment of his own community and the attentiveness of his synagogue. Soon, Rabbi Lichtenstein and his writings had become widely known, and many different church and missionary organizations sought his services. The Papacy, too, soon learned of his existence and significance. A special emissary from the Pope visited Tapio Szele, Hungary, with attractive offers to join the Catholic Church. To all he had the same reply: "I will remain among my own nation. I love Messiah. I believe in the New Testament but I am not drawn to join Christendom, so I will remain among my own brethren, as a watchman from within and to plead with them to behold in Yeshua (Jesus) the true glory of Israel.". *b))- Joseph Rabinowitz (1837-1899) is one of the most remarkable figures of the recent history of Jewish believers. Joseph Rabinowitz grew up a Chossidic Jew. In the Russian town of Kishinev he set up a congregation which is called "The Israelites of the New Covenant." As a Jew who believed in Yeshua, Rabinowitz insisted on his Jewish identity; that caused some problems which Messianic Jews of our day are familiar with. In 1888 Rabinowitz said, "I have two subjects with which I am absorbed: one, the Messiah Yeshua (Jesus); the other, Israel." Rabinowitz published at least one booklet in Yiddish in 1894 entitled "What is an Israelitte of the New Covenant?" in which two Rabbis dialog, one is Messianic, the other is not. All of Joseph Rabinowitz's derash'eem (sermons) were written in Hebrew, in which all, the term B'nai B'rit Chadasha (Sons of The Renewed Covenant) is found written upon them. There is a book written about Joseph Rabinowitz[] called "Joseph Rabinowitz and the Messianic Movement" by:Kai Kjaer-Hansen, Birger Petterson (translator). ISBN #0-8028-0859-X (Library of Congress #) See the Messianic Seal. [] This branch already has some antiquity, as findings in Israel had proven some archaeological objects that retrace the time of As the Temple, as the call messianic stamp, and are recognized for some ways, being related, for example, in "The Messianic Legacy" (Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln and Michael Baigent), workmanship that preceded and prepared way for the commercial success of "The Of the Vinci Code".
:The book  checks out and leads to a few more books. Where is the stuff about Jews prior to the Nicean Council and just exactly what does it say about this? Fred Bauder 00:35, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the "Synod of Rabbis in Hungary" and what is a "district Rabbi"?  Tomertalk 23:02, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Reminder to the first anon: Please remember to sign all your comments with the four tildes ~~~~ so that it can be known who made the comments and when. Thanks. IZAK 05:15, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: MESSIANIC JUDAISM is not a new movement

message: The previous statement Blatantly denies the existence of any Messianic prior to 1800, this is an unsupportable position based on an ignorance of history.  While I do not have the documentation of prior groups, I see no reason to doubt the possibility they existed.  Stating that the modern messianic movement can be traced to the 1800 is both supportable and historically verifiable.
If we are going to describe the practices of messianic Judaism as a range, we should include the full rage as it is practiced.  There exists messianic Jews who attempt to fully emulate orthodox practices and who consider practical Halacha to be nearly as important as faith in the Messiah.  And just as any similarity to Orthodox Judaism cannot make it synonymous with Orthodox Judaism so any similarity to evangelical Christianity cannot make it synonymous with evangelical Christianity. 
The groups range from those comprised exclusively of ethnic Jews to..
The phrase "claiming to be" is inflammatory and unnecessary", that fact is no one can prove they are a Jew, and everyone’s claim to being a Jew is just that a claim.  Among messianic congregations there exist some who do not allow gentile membership or participation.
The statement "Most converts to Christianity..." is an unsupported over generalization, no one has done a census.  Likewise to say "Messianic Jew" is used only to refer..." is equally unsupportable; to say predominantly is a more prudent phrasing.
Jews for Jesus has never stated their purpose as "to convert Jews to Christianity”; and generally do not view themselves as “converts”.
The phrase "Messianic Judaism is not seen as a legitimate form of Judaism by any recognized Jewish organization or leaders whatsoever." is a blatant POV statement, that’s is stated as not defendable absolute and is nullified by even one voice of decent.  By replacing any with the majority, it become more neutral and factual
Whether Yeshua is the actual name of Jesus is an issue of debate. However the majority of messianic Jews who use the name Yeshua do so because they believe it to be his actual name
*Hello to the above anon: Please sign all your comments with the four tildes ~~~~ so that we can know with some degree of certainty who made them and when they were made. Thank you. IZAK 05:12, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Explanation of my changes of my changes - by Lorem 

message: Please use the talk pages of articles to discuss article content, not other editor's behaviour.  Your statements contravene Wikipedia's civility policy. Jayjg (talk) 20:06, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: People who really think that banning User:85.65.219.226 or desysopping User:PinchasC will equip us better to build an encyclopedia MUST use the proper procedures (Article RfC, User conduct RfC, mediation, RfAr... see Wikipedia:Resolving disputes). Using this talk page as done here is not at all warranted. I've removed the offending proposals diff, leaving only comments that are relevant to the article. AvB ÷ talk 11:32, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ahh I don't think User:85.65.219.226 should be banned, I thought the "p.s." section made it very clear I was just fooling around. ems 11:52, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, didn't see that. Same result though :-) Thanks. AvB ÷ talk 13:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:Refactoring talk pages|Re-factoring]] proposals

message: BTW, the title is sarcastic.  anyway, i wasn't offended by ems' perverted sense of humor.  i understood he was joking and would have been willing to have a cup of coffee with me if he were in jerusalem.  i think we've strayed FAR from the subject.  i previously suggested having a conservative jewish scholar from an accredited university rewrite the article's basic format and support his claims.  that was rejected by people whose behavior proves they have an agenda to keep an anti-messianic article in place.  it seems the alternative is to delete ALL sections of the current article that: 1. make unsourced exceptional claims; 2. are not relevant to scientifically defining messianic judaism; 3. permit those of us who actually click on the sourced material and actually READ the content to clean up gross errors already supported by the books and web sites cited.  is this the most fundamental good faith effort we can make? 85.65.219.226 19:58, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Seems like we need another section

message: I looked at this article nearly 6 months ago and I hardly recognize it. I did not realize this article is deserving of so many words. It has been expanded greatly.
who cares to write so much on messianic judaism?
* Interested people. 
**To the above anons: Please sign all comments with the four tildes ~~~~ so that we can know who is making statements and when they were made. Thank you. IZAK 04:13, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 6 months ago

message: I have been going through the text and trying to clean it up stylistically, combine redundant sections and change phrasing that is either unclear, emotional or confrontational or persuasive in tone.   My goal is not to take ownership of the article, or to attack any one elses position, but just to get to a workable starting point for future edits. What I ask is that whether you agree with what I write or not, that you not revert it, but make new edits, if you think I deleted something vital add it back, please correct the mistakes I make in content and style, but before making an edit take a moment to ask yourself if your goal is to persuade or to report, and ask yourself are if you are emotionally invested in the POV presented.  If you are emotionally attached to any POV or if you have a stronger desire to persuade than to objectively report, please wait till you can approach the article from a more neutral perspective.
Most of the significant content changes have been removing text that was redundant either within this article itself or redundant to another article I have only made a couple of changes that were meant to change the meaning.  Such as removing Pentecostal from the doctrine of the Mainstream messianic movement since a large segment is not in agreement with Pentecostalism.  I also created a secion on history that i merged the previous introductory sentances with.  Nistar 05:52, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: RickReinckens 10:32, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  attempt to clean up this page and make it acceptable  by Wikipedia standards

message: Nistar, a word of advice—you are wasting your time. This article is like Intelligent Design and a few others. Regular contributors are so biased they remove anything neutral or that they personally disagree with and a lot of what is factual. They routinely add material with no references. I contributed to this article for awhile until I saw I was wasting my time. For instance, some evangelical Christian in New Zealand—a hotbed of Messianic Judaism, to be sure—kept editing my contributions because they didn't agree with his personal interpretation of Messianic Judaism from a highly distorted perspective. Given his location and information on his user page, I strongly doubt he has ever even set foot in a Messianic congregation and he probably doesn't even know anyone Messianic.
Save yourself some grief. Look through past edits and you'll see what I'm talking about. If you do want to make edits, be aware that they won't be there a month from now.
:RickReinckens 10:32, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nistar, you're wasting your time 

message: I am the webmaster for the site. (Surprise!) The main GodOnThe.Net site is definitely not Messianic. I put it together years ago. About 90% of it was written before I had ever even met anyone Messianic. The site attempts to present mainstream Protestant/leaning toward evangelical views. It deliberately avoids denominational issues as much as possible. For instance, some denominations teach "Once saved, always saved. You can't lose your salvation." Others don't. You won't find that mentioned anywhere on the site.
The reason I say "main" site is that I host about 20 sites, some of which are mainstream Protestant and some Messianic. They have extensive cross-linking, so clicking on a link in a Messianic site actually could pull up a page from a Protestant site and vice versa. The main way to tell which site a particular page is from is that the Protestant-oriented pages use the name Jesus and the Messianic pages use Yeshua.
However, a number of sites are set up in subdirectories of the main GodOnThe.Net domain, e.g., MessianicSeder.com, DidGodLie.com. So, someone could visit, e.g., MessianicOutreach.com and see that the URL is GodOnThe.Net/mlo and assume the entire domain is Messianic.
In fact, the specific reason I started setting up separate Messianic websites is that a number of years ago I emailed a Messianic Jew and asked her to visit GodOnThe.Net and let me know whether it would appeal to Jews who believed in Jesus. She did and her response was, "No, it's too goyish." The reason I have not just totally switched over to Messianic sites is that I realize most gentiles would never be interested in anything Jewish. I'm not Jewish and at the church I attend pretty much the easiest way to start an argument is to mention anything about how Jews do something or did it in Jesus' day--even if what I am saying totally agrees with the church's theology! (I attend a Protestant church, a Messianic synagogue and a Reform temple weekly.) (At the Protestant church they also aren't too hot about gasp! quoting the Bible in Hebrew!)  (But, hey, they're pentecostals. As Jesus said, "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they are doing.")
(I know . . . "NPOV, Rick!")
:RickReinckens 10:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whether the referenced site is Messianic 

message: Regardless of the origins, changes, etc., Messianics refer to baptism as "mikvah" or "immersion". I can tell you that from personal experience because I was infant-baptized in Roman Catholicism and in 2000 I underwent a mikvah at a Messianic synagogue because there is no biblical basis for infant baptism (although the Protestant denomination I attend accepts infant baptism).
I have attended the Messianic synagogue for 5 years, completed five 20-hour yeshiva courses there (seminary level), and a 3-day new-members orientation program. The "Who's Who" of Messianic Judaism have taught and preached there. They all indicate that Messianic Judaism practices believers-only baptism and only baptism by immersion, not by sprinkling or pouring, like some Protestant denominations. In fact, when I first started attending a Messianic congregation, that was one of the questions I had.
:RickReinckens 10:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mikva and Baptism 

message: I've removed some long, polemic original resarch by User:Lorem.  Wikipedia is not a soapbox, and if we're going to stick to the facts, then we'll stick to the facts.  Philosphical speeches, revisionist history, and various religious apologetics are all well and good, but Wikipedia relies on sourced, verifiable information that is neutral and not original research. Jayjg (talk) 15:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If I had put somthing in there saying that "Messianic judaism was the attempt of gentile Christians to eliminate thier enemies the Jews by assimilation" would you remove it as unsourced??  My guess is no matter how unsourced it was you would defend it because it expressed a point of view you agree with, and revert anyones attempt to remove it.  Yet you relentlesslesy remove anything that would support any viewpoint you oppose. What I put in was neither making a speach, as I am not a messianic jew; nor is it revisinoist history, I challenge you to dispute anything mentioned in that source, with any other source.  What you removed was a direct quote from the source already referenced in the artcle,  to say it is unsourced is absurd.   Now if you want to impeach the source, please give some evidence of its unreliability. -Lorem 18:36, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You've inserted a long polemic that appears to have little to do with the section at hand.  If you want to quote something relevant, then please quote it directly, with page numbers etc., from an encyclopedic source.  The text that was inserted was highly emotive, highly POV, and non-encyclopedic. And if that inserted text is indeed a quotation of some sort, assuming it came from some encyclopedic source (which, given the language, is highly unlikely) then it's far too long to include in the article, since a quotation of that length would not fall under "fair use" provisions, but instead would almost certainly be a copyright violation. Jayjg (talk) 22:24, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I think I've found the source you used.  Aside from the fact that the huge amount of information you copied from it was clear plagiarism (and a copyright violation), and should have at least been enclosed in quotation marks to indicate it was being quoted from somewhere, the source itself is hardly authoritative or encyclopedic, instead being itself an unsourced polemic from a dubious source.  Anyone can publish anything they want on the web; please try to restrict sources to those with match Wikipedia's reliable sources policy. Jayjg (talk) 18:05, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  If the artlicle by David Sedaca, does not meet the standards, I fail to see how any of the other referneces meet the standard. As such, it appears that the best policy would be to romove all information, of questionable sources, until such rliable sources are brought forward. I will expect of you to be constistent with your standard of reliability, whether the included information is that which you agree with or that which you oppose, and I equally expect of you to aply the same standard to EVERY article that you apply to this one.  The practice of being loose with that which  you agree with and strict with that you disagree with, should be totally unacceptable to anyone editing wikipedia. -Lorem 04:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latest cleanup 

message: If we can push forward in good faith; I would ove to have a clean and neutral article that we can remove the tag.  If and when this article is clean and neutral, I will be happy to side with PinchasC, Izak, Jayig, OpenInfo and Shintle against Messianic propogandists who may try to edit the article to their side.  But we must work together in good faith. 85.65.219.226 06:07, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Explanation of Edits