Rabbi Reads the Christian Book of Matthew

I have no intentions or desire in this course to attack the religion of Christianity. I am not here to challenge, or critique, those who embrace the Christian faith. I am not here to talk about Christianity at all, even though due to the nature of this material, I am sure that I will not be able to avoid the topic entirely. Nevertheless, I am here to look at the Christian Bible from an entirely Torah point of view.

I begin with certain premises. I do not deny the existence of an historical Yeshu, be he called Yeshua or what. For Torah faithful Jews, Yeshu was not, is not and can never be the Messiah of Israel. For Torah faithful Jews, Yeshu was not, is not and can never be God, or even a son of god, anymore than any other human being of flesh and blood. For the record, the historical Yeshu, was born, lived as, and died as a Jew. He, and his original followers, were all Jews, who like him, were born, lived as, and died as Jews. Absolutely none of them were Christians, in any sense of the word. We Torah faithful Jews follow the same religion that Yeshu himself practiced. We pray to the same Heavenly Father. We live by the same Torah, mitzvot and ma'asim tovim. Yeshu was not a Christian, and neither are we. Yeshu's original followers were all Torah observant Jews as was he. As Jews, educated in Torah, drenched in its teachings, and from what can be seen, knowing no other spiritual path, I must logically conclude that the original writings of Yeshu's original followers, were all Jewish writings, and therefore well within my domain as a Torah observant Rabbi to read them and understand them, as would one rabbi to another. I therefore begin with the position that anything found in the Christian Bible, attributed to any of its Jewish authors, that does not agree with Torah Judaism must not have been written by such an author, and is therefore subject to suspicious and must be critically analyzed. And that is what I am here to do.