Topic > “Responding to Jewish Objections to Jesus: Theological…

In his second volume on Jewish apologetics, Michael Brown responds to twenty-eight Jewish theological objections. Brown summarizes this book in his preface: The theological objections, addressed at length in this volume, strike at the heart of the differences between traditional Judaism and Jewish/Christian messianic faith. They revolved around the nature of God (the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, the person of the Holy Spirit), the nature of man and the need for salvation, and sin and the means of atonement. In summary, these objections state that "the religion of the New Testament is an entirely foreign religion, which is not only not Jewish but is also unfaithful to the Hebrew Bible." and the Jewish/Christian messianic faith,” I really appreciate the way Michael Brown demonstrated in a scholarly and balanced way that the Christian faith was perfectly compatible with the Jewish Tanakh. His discussion of the Trinity (the Triunity) was excellent. He demonstrated that the Hebrew word for one, 'echad, does not necessarily refer to absolute unity and, in fact, may well refer to compound unity (Page 4). Provides examples from the Hebrew Bible where 'echad is used to mean a compound or complex unity according to the unity of Adam and Eve, the many components of the tabernacle being a "unified" tabernacle and the one nation of Israel being composed of hundreds of thousands of people (5). I liked the way he supported his discussion of the Shema by referring to the concept of oneness (Deut. 6:4) by quoting the New Jewish Publication Society version: “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone” (page 6)Brown demonstrated the divinity of Christ by focusing on Him as the Son of God and the Word of God, sharing the divine nature and revealing Himself to His people in the Ancient Testament (15-37). I liked how Brown deals with the apparent conflict between the passages that state that no one has seen God and the other passages that clearly state that God was seen by Abraham, Moses, and Jacob (27-34). As he stated, “it is Jesus the Messiah – the divine Son, the image of the invisible God, the Word made flesh, the exact representation of the Father's being – who solves the riddle and explains how someone can truly see God, even though even though God cannot be seen.