The Torah teaches repeatedly that human sacrifice is something God does not want and finds abhorrent, so the concept that Jesus could be a sacrifice for sin is contradictory to the Torah. That alone would invalidate for all time even the most remote possibility of his being a "messiah"using the Hebrew definition of that word, an anointed ruler. I am not going to address here the many changes in word definition that took place with the development of Christianity, suffice it to say at this point that the Christian definition and purpose of "Messiah" bears little resemblance to the Hebrew Bible's prophetic vision.
Sometimes in order to explain what it is that Jews believe now or believed in ancient times it is necessary to dispel mistaken notions that appear commonplace and are directly related to what the New Testament says *about* Jewish belief and practice, versus what the Torah and Tanakh directly state.There is a concept in Christianity *alone* that only blood (animal) sacrifice may atone for sin. That concept has ALWAYS been foreign to the faith of the covenant nation, Israel. Before I can even begin to explain the sacrificial system adequately using the laws of Torah in Leviticus, I must first show that the perspective of Christianity on this issue is dependent on having taken a few key passages out of the Torah. They take them completely out of their context to try to support a human sacrifice as being compatible with the Temple sacrificial system.
In addition, rather than spend this entire entry on the topic of "blood" in sacrifice, I will copy-paste a brief portion from of an excellent web site devoted to understanding the differences between Christianity and Judaism. I sincerely hope you will read the thorough explanation in full there at the link. Rabbi Stuart Federow has read both religion's Bibles and has addressed the differences of many concepts very well in explanations from a Scriptural perspective what it is that Jews believe about things that differ from Christianity.
First, Jews do not have a concept of "original sin", meaning that humans are born with a burden of sin that must be reconciled. Blood sacrifice has never been the exclusive means to seek atonement. God does not become a man. There is no demon-god Devil in Torah. There is no fall of angels. Please read the portion at http://www.whatjewsbelieve.org/ regarding the question that Blood is not necessary for atonement. Jews then and now trust that God will do as promised if we do our part.
Animal sacrifice was never the only way to atonement.
A sin sacrifice, called a Korban Chatas, was only required for accidental transgressions of severe sins. If someone was unsure if they had transgressed a sin for which they would be required to bring a sin sacrifice they brought a sacrifice called a Korban Asham Taluy. The Chatas ( sin ) offering was not for intentional or malicious sins. Some sin offerings could not be eaten, but for the most part, for the average person's personal sin, the chatat was eaten by the Kohenim, the Temple priests.
The animal offerings differed as to who was giving them, for a king or the High Priest, the Kohen Gadol the requirement is the sacrifice of unblemished bull. A normal person had to bring a female lamb, but if they were too poor to provide that, they were asked to bring two birds (the exact species is subject to debate) and a really poor person brought flour, oil and frankincense.
The animal offerings differed as to who was giving them, for a king or the High Priest, the Kohen Gadol the requirement is the sacrifice of unblemished bull. A normal person had to bring a female lamb, but if they were too poor to provide that, they were asked to bring two birds (the exact species is subject to debate) and a really poor person brought flour, oil and frankincense.
There is no blood in flour, oil and frankincense. No sacrifice for sin was considered acceptable unless you had done the necessary steps of teshuvah beforehand. Teshuvah refers to repentance of the wrongful deed, amends for anything you could rectify and a return to righteousness, eschewing the wrongful deed. The important thing was the repentance you did prior to this offering and the act of showing you had done what was necessary before you asked God to forgive you.
***The centrality of the animal sacrifices ceased, not with the second destruction of the Temple by the Romans, but rather with the first destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians. Please remember that the vast majority of Jews never returned to the Promised Land under Cyrus of Persia. They remained in Babylonia. By the time Jesus was born, eighty percent of the world's Jewish community lived outside of the Promised Land, and could not have cared less about the cessation of the animal sacrifices. When the Temple was reestablished, the Jews of Babylonia made an annual financial gift for the maintenance of the Temple, and the land, but never worried that God was not going to forgive them their sins without a blood sacrifice, just as Diaspora Jews do today. And the reason why they had no such fear, was that the Bible makes it explicitly clear that no blood sacrifice is necessary for the forgiveness of sins, or that the exclusive means for the God-man relationship was through the animal sacrifices.***
Please read at the link below (topic on the left side of the page) for the scriptural references as to what it is that believing Jews do for repentance and atonement. I will also address in another essay my explanation of the Jewish concept of forgiveness.
Some Christians try to tell Jews that the Second Temple was destroyed because we "rejected" Jesus. I have seen that given as justification for every exile, inquisition, pogrom and even the Holocaust. They will also claim that he is the reason the sacrifices ended and claim he is a "one time" sacrifice for all. The sacrifices continued unabated for many decades before the Temple’s destruction, and if Jesus or his followers had something to do with its destruction, it certainly wasn’t because of the Jews who did not abandon worship of God to worship a deified Jew or rely on the sacrifice of a human.
The New Testament especially demonizes the Pharisees, the sect of Judaism whose writings and teachings actually agree more with the quotations of Jesus, and barely mentions the Sadducees.
The Pharisees, referring to those who keep separate , were so self-named because they wanted to keep Torah SEPARATE from pagan, foreign influence ( Hellenizing influences). They were not hypocritical elitists as the New Testament depicts, but dedicated to keeping the covenant of Israel intact without corruption. Any group or entity that would try to alter meanings of halacha (Torah law) would be dismissed by the Pharisees. The Sadducees were the Hellenized Roman collaborators whose sect has disappeared. The writers of the New Testament did this to those who were dedicated to keeping the Torah “separate” from all Hellenized and idolatrous influence to remove the blot of crucifixion of Jewish rebels from the Romans onto the Jews to justify their desire to do away with the Jews and Judaism.
The Pharisees, referring to those who keep separate , were so self-named because they wanted to keep Torah SEPARATE from pagan, foreign influence ( Hellenizing influences). They were not hypocritical elitists as the New Testament depicts, but dedicated to keeping the covenant of Israel intact without corruption. Any group or entity that would try to alter meanings of halacha (Torah law) would be dismissed by the Pharisees. The Sadducees were the Hellenized Roman collaborators whose sect has disappeared. The writers of the New Testament did this to those who were dedicated to keeping the Torah “separate” from all Hellenized and idolatrous influence to remove the blot of crucifixion of Jewish rebels from the Romans onto the Jews to justify their desire to do away with the Jews and Judaism.
Here is a bit of background and a Jewish perspective to show why that they may wish to reconsider the opinion that the destruction of the Second Temple happened as punishment from God because Jews did not worship Jesus.
Tammuz was a very ancient nature deity worshiped in Babylonia. A god of agriculture and flocks, he personified the creative powers of spring. The fertility goddess Ishtar, who, according to one legend, was so grief-stricken at his death that she contrived to enter the underworld to get him back, loved him. According to another legend, she killed him and later restored him to life. These legends and his festival, commemorating the yearly death and rebirth of vegetation, corresponded to the festivals of the Phoenician and Greek Adonis and of the Phrygian Attis. The Sumerian name of Tammuz was Dumuzi. In the Bible, the women of Jerusalem (Ezekiel. 8.14) mourn his disappearance.
Sunrise services in honor of Tammuz and praying for his resurrection is an ancient heathen custom. It is actually described and condemned harshly in the book of Ezekiel.
Hmm, Man/god, born of virgin dies and Ishtar resurrects him in the Spring. Ishtar/Easter? Annual spring resurrection celebrated with sunrise services...striking, isn't it?
12. And He said to me, "Have you seen, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each one in his paved chambers? For they say, 'The Lord does not see us; the Lord has left the earth.' "
13. And He said to me, "You will yet see again greater abominations that they are doing."
14. And He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the house of the Lord that is to the north, and behold there the women were sitting, weeping for Tammuz.
15. And He said to me, "Have you seen, son of man? You will yet see again greater abominations than these."
16. And He brought me to the inner court of the house of the Lord, and behold, at the entrance of the Temple of the Lord between the porch and the altar, about twenty- five men, their backs to the Temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, and they were prostrating themselves eastward to the sun.
17. And He said to me, "Have you seen, son of man? Was it [too] trivial to the house of Judah to prevent them from performing the abominations that they have done here? For they have [already] filled the land with violence, and repeatedly provoked Me, and behold they send disgrace into their nose.
18. I too, shall act with fury; My eyes will not spare, neither will I have pity, and they will call into My ears with a loud voice, but I shall not listen to them."
This was a warning prior to the destruction of the FIRST Temple.
The Second Temple was destroyed just after another man/god began being worshipped in Jerusalem.
Coincidence?
Rambam (Maimonides; Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon) (1135-1204 C.E.)the author of the Mishneh Torah, one of the greatest codes of Jewish law, had this to say about the passage in the book of Daniel 11:14 describing people who try to establish the vision of the kingdom of God but stumble and fall because they are not following Torah is a reference to Christianity, saying:
"Is there a greater stumbling block than [Jesus]? All the prophets foretold that the messiah would redeem the Jews, help them, gather in the exiles and support their observance of the commandments. But he caused Jewry to be put to the sword, to be scattered and to be degraded; he tampered with the Torah and its laws; and he misled most of the world to serve something other than G-d."
Shalom y'all
References:
***http://whatjewsbelieve.org/ portions asteriked with this copied from that site. Permission from my friend Rabbi Stuart Federow to use his site to help educate as long as I always credit him with his words.
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