Jewish Position on Jesus

The first thing you have to recognize whenever you are discussing the Jewish position on Jesus is that it is the Christians who must prove their case, not the Jews. The Jewish religion existed for thousands of years before Christianity, and Christianity accepts the truth of the Torah and other Jewish Scriptures as Divinely revealed truth. As such, there is no need to enter into any debate regarding the truth of Judaism per se when dealing with Christians. However, Christians maintain that their god, Jesus, came to the world and annulled the laws of the Torah, replacing them with a "New Covenant" that demands belief in Jesus. This is an extraordinary and untenable claim on several grounds:
The claim that a human being is actually God, or part of God, is clearly a very serious claim. Most of us, if presented with such a claim, would reject it out of hand as an utter absurdity, even bordering on madness. Yet, Christianity claims that Jesus, a human being, is God. Obviously they have to prove this before we should be expected to accept it. But what do they actually offer us as proof? A few miracle tales written by his disciples. Yet, despite the rather dramatic claims made by these few followers, we find little or no mention of Jesus in any of the historical sources from the period he supposedly lived in. Every religious movement makes such claims about its founder, yet obviously they cannot all be true. Why should we pick the stories of Jesus over the stories of Krishna, Buddha, Mohammed, or any other such legendary figure?
(Just as an aside, some may respond that the same accusation could be leveled at Judaism. However, this is incorrect. Judaism, alone among all religions, is based upon events that happened in the presence of hundreds of thousands of eyewitnesses, primarily the Exodus and the Sinai Revelation. These events, which are the foundation stones of Judaism, were witnessed by the entire Jewish people and qualify as objective historical events. No other religion claims to have had similar experiences, because such claims would be obviously false. The Jews, however, can make this claim because these events really happened (as any Christian or Muslim will agree).)
The idea that God would take physical form (as in the physical form of Jesus) is clearly repugnant to the Bible, as we see from Deuteronomy 4:15-16 and innumerable other places. It is this concept which is the basis of the prohibition against idolatry, one of the worst sins. If we would accept the premise that God could or would take physical form, then any form of idolatry could be justified by its followers as legitimate and the prohibition against idolatry would be meaningless.
The Torah, which Christians believe to be God's word, states in several places that the laws of the Torah are eternal. See, for example, Deuteronomy 4:2, 29:13-14 (KJV 14-15), and 29:28 (KJV 29:29). In particular, see Deuteronomy 13:1-6 (KJV 12:32-13:5) where we are taught that we are not permitted to add to or detract from God's laws, and that if a prophet arises who teaches us to worship a new god we may not listen to him, even if he performs miracles. Yet, Christians believe that Jesus declared himself to be God, and that the laws of the Torah are no longer binding. How can Christianity claim to accept the Torah (the "Old" Testament) while rejecting its most basic principle?
Christians claim that Jesus was the Messiah which the Torah tells will someday come. Yet, contrary to the claims of Christianity, Jesus never fulfilled any of these prophecies. Briefly, these are:
He will return all Jews to the service of God in all its details.
He will rebuild the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
He will gather in the dispersed Jews to the land of Israel.
He will bring the entire world to serve God in unity.
Clearly, Jesus did not accomplish any of these things. In the past I have encountered Christians who have argued that Jesus has not failed to fulfill these conditions since he will fulfill them at the time of the "Second Coming". This is a meaningless argument. As the conditions clearly have not been fulfilled, there is no reason to assume he is the Messiah simply because some of his followers say he will do so at some undetermined point in the future. I could as easily make the same argument for myself, I will fulfill the conditions in the future so believe I am the Messiah now.
Even if we would reduce the claim for the legitimacy of Jesus from that of deity to that of a prophet, we would still be faced with a serious problem. The Torah lays out clear guidelines for determining who is a prophet. Jesus never qualified according to these rules, particularly since one of these laws is that a prophet cannot claim to abrogate God's laws and Jesus sought to do just this. It is for this reason that Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides, one of the greatest leaders of the Jewish people, applied to Jesus the verse in Daniel 7:25, "He will speak words against the Most High, and he will wear down the saints of the Most High, attempting to change the seasons and the Law" (Igeres Teiman).
For all these reasons, and others as well, Judaism cannot accept the claims of Christianity. As these opinions are all firmly based in the Bible, which Christians claim to believe in, it is upon them to prove beyond a doubt that their god is a true god and not simply an idol. They have never done this because it cannot be done. Jesus was clearly not God, not the Messiah, and not a prophet.
Nevertheless, the opinion of most historical scholars, including religious Jews, is that Jesus was an actual historical personage though he may not have lived at the time the New Testament claims. In any event, whether he ever lived is very secondary, the tales told of him in the New Testament are almost certainly all fictional and are completely unsupported by any other historical text from that period.

HIV Prevention is a Failure

HIV Prevention is a Failure
By Michael Weinstein
The new numbers from the Centers for Disease Control showing a 50 percent rise in HIV infections in the United States prove two things conclusively: Abstinence-only education along with censoring prevention materials is a prescription for disaster, and that when people think HIV is as easy as popping a pill, we get sloppy.
The verdict is in: HIV prevention in the United States is a failure. At the rate we are going, we will double the number of people with HIV over the next 10-12 years.
Do the math: A condom costs 5 cents, an HIV test costs $20, and lifetime infection with HIV costs $600,000. So safer sex and routine testing are a great buy financially, not to mention personally. However, condoms are still the unwelcome guest at the party, and HIV testing is largely inaccessible. We know what to do to control HIV, but we are unwilling to do it.
The CDC has been unwilling to release the new official numbers, but many major publications have already published articles indicating that infections are now in the 60,000 per year range, up from earlier estimates of 40,000.
There are many contributing factors to the rise, but the heaviest burden of responsibility must rest with the Bush administration' s policies:
* For the last seven years, the Christian right has been determining HIV-prevention policy in this country. Despite the fact that there is no scientific basis for abstinence-only education, it received a hefty increase in funding this year.
* The CDC regularly censors safer-sex ads, which they say promote sex—as if sex needs promotion.
* Despite supporting routine testing in principle, the federal government has done virtually nothing to make it a reality.
* Prevention funding in general is down on an inflation-adjusted basis.
* Condoms are still not advertised on TV to any great extent. A wonderfully clever ad for Trojan condoms was rejected entirely by Fox and CBS. Most of the safer-sex messages we see are lame and restricted to the gay press. Condoms are seldom visible in gay or straight bars.
Gay organizations, politicians and celebrities seldom speak out about the culture of self-destruction in the gay community—a culture that includes a mixture of meth abuse, unregulated sex venues and bareback sex. “Party and play” ads are prominent in publications and on-line. AIDS organizations are still beneficiaries of circuit parties where untold numbers of people are getting infected.
The people most at risk of HIV are avoiding testing, and they are not routinely tested in emergency rooms or community clinics. A third of people who are HIV positive don't know it and represent 50-70 percent of new infections. Many more who know they are positive are not on medication and are not seeing a medical provider on a regular basis.
People of color with HIV are routinely diagnosed long after they are infected and shortly before they develop full-blown AIDS.
All in all we are a sorry mess.
So what is the reaction of CDC to all of this? Delay giving out the information.
Instead of giving us the bad news right away so that we can do something about it, they have sent it off to a medical journal for peer review. In the meantime, the budget for next year will already be introduced, and the nominees for the presidency will already be decided. Obviously, the academic exercise is more important than mobilizing the community.
This is another cover-up by the Bush administration of its incompetence — which we should loudly protest.
However, the dirty secret that we all know is that gay men are still the largest group of people becoming infected with HIV, and hardly anyone in our community wants to talk about it—it’s boring. So the price we will pay is that a very large portion of another generation or two of gay men will become infected.
So when the history of this period is written, how will we account for ourselves? Why were we silent? Why didn't we care? Was it because we can just pop a pill for it? Was it because we got tired of thinking about it? Was it because we were bought off by all the people who profit from the spread of the disease?
Now that we know for sure how bad it is, shame on us if we do nothing.
Personally, I refuse to accept that becoming HIV positive is the normal rite of passage for gay men. I hope this wake up call will cause others to feel the same way.
Michael Weinstein is president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation.