What do Jews believe about Jesus?

Other Beliefs & ReligionsIn theological review

The short answer

Jewish belief about Jesus varies by movement, but mainstream Judaism does not accept him as Messiah, Son of God or risen Lord. In the classic frame of Maimonides' Thirteen Principles, God is one and incorporeal, and the Messiah is still to come. Rashi, the great medieval commentator, read the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 as Israel itself. Christians answer from the same Tanakh, reading Isaiah 53, Psalm 22 and Zechariah 12:10 as pointing to a pierced, suffering Messiah, and they do so as an argument within a shared book.

The fuller answer

Judaism is not one denomination, and Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jews differ, but on Jesus there is a broad mainstream position. Jesus was a Jewish teacher of the first century. He was not the Messiah, because the messianic age of peace and gathered Israel did not arrive. He was not divine, because Maimonides' Thirteen Principles confess a God who is one and has no body, and worship of a man would break the first commandment. Some modern Jewish writers reclaim Jesus as a Jewish brother or teacher, while still rejecting Christian claims about him. That range should be stated before any answer is attempted.

But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5 (BSB)

Isaiah 53 is the contested ground, and both readings deserve to be heard at strength. Rashi read the servant as Israel, suffering among the nations and bearing their scorn; the chapter sits among passages where Israel is called God's servant, which gives that reading real footing. The Christian reading notes what Israel as a nation cannot easily carry: the servant is innocent, suffers for the sins of others, is distinguished from the people whose iniquity he bears, dies, and is then exalted. Christians say that servant is a person, and that his name is Jesus.

For dogs surround me; a band of evil men encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet.

Psalm 22:16 (BSB)

Psalm 22 opens with the words Jesus spoke from the cross and moves from abandonment to vindication. Its details, including enemies encircling the sufferer and piercing his hands and feet in the received Christian reading, and lots cast for his clothing, are why the New Testament returns to it. Jewish readers note textual questions in the piercing line and read the psalm as David's lament, a pattern for righteous sufferers. Christians answer that a pattern can also be a prophecy, and that David's greater Son fulfils what David only tasted.

Then I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son.

Zechariah 12:10 (BSB)

Zechariah pictures Jerusalem looking on the one they have pierced and mourning for him as for an only child. Christians read that as God himself pierced in the person of his Messiah, which is why John quotes it at the cross. The conversation with Jewish neighbours should keep Paul's tone in Romans 9 to 11: grief, honour for the root, and no contempt. Christians and Jews share the book. They differ, deeply and honestly, over whether its promised one has come, and that argument is a family argument, conducted with the book open.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)
Maimonides' Thirteen Principles
Rashi on Isaiah

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Why don't Jewish people accept Jesus as the Messiah?Jewish people who do not accept Jesus usually give serious reasons from the shared Scriptures, and they should be heard at full strength. The Messiah was expected to bring peace, gather the exiles and rebuild the Temple, and the world is visibly unredeemed. God is one, and worshipping a man looks like idolatry; the suffering servant is read as Israel. Christians answer that the same Scriptures also promised a suffering, cut off Messiah who would come before the Temple's destruction, and that Jesus himself read Moses, the prophets and the psalms as written about him.Do Christians and Jews worship the same God?Yes, in the sense that matters most for the conversation, and with a real and painful difference at the centre. Christians worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who spoke to Moses from the bush and gave Israel the covenants, the Law and the promises, and there is no other God in Christian belief and no second god for the New Testament. The difference is Jesus: Christians believe that this same God has revealed himself finally in his Son, so that knowing God and rejecting his Son cannot both be complete. Jews who do not accept Jesus worship the God of the covenant without, on the Christian account, knowing him in fullness.Was Jesus a real person?Yes. Whatever a person concludes about his claims, the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth is confirmed by sources outside the Bible, including one that hated his followers. The Roman historian Tacitus records that Christus suffered the death penalty under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius, and the Jewish historian Josephus wrote about him within the same century. The debate worth having is not whether he lived, but who he was.Is Jesus God?Yes. The New Testament calls Jesus God in plain words, shows him doing what only God does, and records him receiving the worship that belongs to God alone. That is why the church at Nicaea confessed him as very God of very God, of one substance with the Father, and why Chalcedon confessed him as truly God and truly man in one person.Bible Character: IsaiahThe prophet who saw the LORD high and lifted up in the temple, volunteered to be sent, and foretold the child to be born and the servant pierced for our transgressions.Bible Character: JesusThe Son of God, born of Mary in Bethlehem, who preached the kingdom of God, was crucified for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was raised on the third day.Lesson: The big story of the BibleThe Bible is one story, not sixty-six separate ones. Walk the whole arc once, from creation to new creation, and every book you open will have a place to sit.