Why Jews don't accept Jesus


A discussion between National Review Online editor Kathryn Jean Lopez (a Catholic), Beliefnet editors Rebecca Phillips (a Jew), Laura Sheahen (a Christian), and Jewish writer David Klinghoffer reveals why the 'chosen people' chose not to take Christ into their hearts.

KJL: David, you've got chutzpah. What were you and your publisher thinking publishing a book on the necessity of Jews rejecting Jesus so close to Easter?

DK: It's not chutzpah. I'm just trying to answer the Big Question when it's most on Christian minds. At Easter, Christians recall the death and resurrection of Jesus, his saving death, as they believe. The question is, why don't Jews understand that they also need the gift of unmerited grace that came with that death? The quickest answer is that Judaism has always understood that we received such a gift, but 1,300 years before Jesus died, at Mt. Sinai. The Christian offer of salvation through Christ's death is an offer of a gift we already had in exchange for giving up the unique grammar of our relationship with God through the mitzvoth, or commandments. I also hope that my book will remind believing Christians of the most important thing we have in common: a belief that there is such a thing as religious truth in the first place. That idea is under attack from the secular left. In this sense, my book is a battle cry on behalf of both Jews and Christians.

 Filed Under: TRUTH
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