Indivisibility of God: In Judaism, the idea of God as a duality or trinity is heretical and it is considered polytheism. According to Judaic beliefs, the Torah rules out a trinitarian God in Deuteronomy (6:4): “Hear Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.”
Fundamentally, Judaism believes that God, as the creator of time, space, energy and matter, is beyond them, and cannot be born or die, or have a son. Judaism teaches that it is heretical for any man to claim to be God, part of God, or the literal son of God. The Jerusalem Talmud (Ta’anit 2:1) states explicitly: “if a man claims to be God, he is a liar.”
Judaism’s view of the Messiah differs substantially from the Christian idea of the Messiah. In the Jewish account, the Messiah’s task is to bring in the Messianic age, a one-time event, and a presumed messiah who dies before completing the task (i.e., compelling all of Israel to walk in the way of Torah, repairing the breaches in observance, fighting the wars of God, building the Temple in its place, gathering in the dispersed exiles of Israel) is not the Messiah. Maimonides states, “But if he did not succeed in all this or was killed, he is definitely not the Moshiach promised in the Torah… and God only appointed him in order to test the masses.”
Jews believe that the Messiah will fulfill the messianic prophecies of the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel. According to Isaiah, the Messiah will be a paternal descendant of King David via King Solomon. He is expected to return the Jews to their homeland and rebuild the Temple, reign as King, and usher in an era of peace and understanding where “the knowledge of God” fills the earth, leading the nations to “end up recognizing the wrongs they did Israel”. Ezekiel states the Messiah will redeem the Jews.
Therefore, any Judaic view of Jesus per se is influenced by the fact that Jesus lived while the Second Temple was standing, and not while the Jews were exiled. He never reigned as King, and there was no subsequent era of peace or great knowledge. Jesus died without completing or even accomplishing part of any of the messianic tasks, instead promising a second coming. Rather than being redeemed, the Jews were subsequently exiled from Israel. These discrepancies were noted by Jewish scholars who were contemporaries of Jesus, as later pointed out by Nahmanides, who in 1263 observed that Jesus was rejected as the Messiah by the rabbis of his time.
Further, according to common beliefs of Judaism, Christian claims that Jesus is the textual messiah of the Hebrew Bible are based on mistranslations and Jesus did not fulfill the qualifications for Jewish Messiah.
However, not all traditional rabbinical authorities viewed Jesus in negative terms. Maimonides wrote that Jesus helped to “pave the way” for the future true Messiah, by introducing the basic concepts of Judaism to Gentiles. Rabbi Jacob Emden considered Jesus a righteous man, who brought to light of faith and morality to the world, but not a Messiah.
Prophet and False prophet: According to the Torah (Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and 18:18-22), the criteria for a person to be considered a prophet or speak for God in Judaism are that they must follow the God of Israel (and no other god), they must not describe God differently than He is known to be from Scripture, they must not advocate change to God’s word or state that God has changed His mind and wishes things that contradict His already-stated eternal word, and the things they do speak of must come to pass.
Additionally, there are two types of “false prophet” recognized in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh): the one who claims to be a prophet in the name of idolatry, and the one who claims to be a prophet in the name of the God of Israel, but declares that any word or commandment (mitzvah) which God has said no longer applies, or makes false statements in the name of God. As Judaism believes that God’s word is true eternally, one who claims to speak in God’s name but diverges in any way from what God Himself has said, logically cannot be inspired by Divine authority. Deuteronomy 13:1 states simply, “Be careful to observe only that which I enjoin upon you; neither add to it nor take away from it.”
Even if someone who appears to be a prophet can perform supernatural acts or signs, no prophet or dreamer can contradict the laws already stated in the Bible. Thus, any divergence from the tenets of Biblical Judaism espoused by Jesus would disqualify him from being considered a prophet in Judaism. This was the view adopted by Jesus’ contemporaries, as according to rabbinical tradition as stated in the Talmud (Sotah 48b) “when Malachi died the Prophecy departed from Israel.” As Malachi lived centuries before Jesus it is clear that the rabbis of Talmudic times did not view Jesus as a divinely-inspired prophet.
Judaism does not believe that salvation or repentance from sin can be achieved through sacrifice on another’s behalf, (“The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin.”) and is instead focused on the requirements of personal repentance.
In addition, Judaism focuses on understanding how one may live a sacred life according to God’s will in this world, rather than the hope of or methods for finding spiritual salvation in a future one. Judaism views Jews’ divine obligation to be living as a “holy people” in full accordance with Divine will, as a “light unto the nations,” and Judaism does not purport to offer the exclusive path to salvation or “the one path to God.” Accordingly, the implications of the Christian conception of Jesus massively diverge from the Jewish worldview.
Judaism’s view of Jesus is a very peripheral one. Jews have traditionally seen Jesus as one of a number of false messiahs who have appeared throughout history. Jesus is viewed as having been the most influential, and consequently the most damaging of all false messiahs. However, since the messiah does not take center stage in Judaism, the total rejection of Jesus as either messiah or deity in Judaism has never been a central issue for Judaism.
Judaism has never accepted any of the claimed fulfillments of prophecy that Christianity attributes to Jesus. Judaism also forbids the worship of a person as a form of idolatry, since the central belief of Judaism is the absolute unity and singularity of God.
Jewish eschatology holds that the coming of the Messiah will be associated with a specific series of events that have not yet occurred, including the return of Jews to their homeland and the rebuilding of The Temple, an era of peace and understanding during which “the knowledge of God” fills the earth, and since Judaism holds that none of these events occurred during the lifetime of Jesus, he is not a candidate for messiah.
The belief that Jesus is God, a person of the Trinity, the Messiah, or a prophet of God are incompatible with traditional Jewish philosophical tenets. The idea of the Jewish Messiah is different from the Christian Christ because Jews believe Jesus did not fulfill Jewish Messianic prophecies that establish the criteria for the coming of the Messiah.
