Jewish Apologetics – Dr. Eitan Bar | Bible Scholar https://eitan.bar Eitan Bar is a Theologian & Author Bringing a Jewish Perspective to the Christian Faith Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:39:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://eitan.bar/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/icon-logo-eb-eitan-bar-scaled.webp Jewish Apologetics – Dr. Eitan Bar | Bible Scholar https://eitan.bar 32 32 Can Prayer Replace Sacrifice? (Hosea 14:2) https://eitan.bar/articles/can-prayer-replace-sacrifice-hosea-142/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:38:57 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4733 God’s decree about atonement isn’t vague or peripheral — it sits at the heart of Moses’ Torah: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes…

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]]> Does the New Testament Water Down Jewish Torah? https://eitan.bar/articles/does-the-new-testament-water-down-jewish-torah/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:38:15 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4732 Does the New Testament water down the Torah and God’s standards? Does “grace” give people permission to sin? Those charges get repeated a lot, but they rest on a pair of mix-ups: (1) confusing Moses’ Torah with later rabbinic tradition, and (2) assuming that Yeshua relaxed the Law when, in…

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]]> How to Solve “Contradictions” in the New Testament? https://eitan.bar/articles/how-to-solve-contradictions-in-the-new-testament/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:36:53 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4731 Honest readers deserve more than drive-by objections. Many so-called “contradictions” dissolve as soon as we (1) read precisely, (2) remember there were multiple textual traditions in Second Temple Judaism, and (3) let ancient authors speak in their own literary conventions. Below are the top popular claims (collected from rabbis’ articles,…

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]]> Does the New Testament Misquotes the Old Testament? https://eitan.bar/articles/does-the-new-testament-misquotes-the-old-testament/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:36:16 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4730 Accusations that the New Testament “forces” Israel’s Scriptures to say what they do not say are not new. What’s often missed is that the New Testament’s way of reading the Tanakh is thoroughly Jewish — riffing on motifs, echoing earlier texts, and weaving together promise and fulfillment the way Israel’s…

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]]> Doesn’t the New Testament Say God Is Done with Israel? https://eitan.bar/articles/doesnt-the-new-testament-say-god-is-done-with-israel/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:35:18 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4729 The charge is common: “The New Testament tosses Israel aside and replaces her with the Church.” Many repeat it without opening the book they critique. But when you actually read the relevant passages, the story sounds very different — deeply Jewish, fiercely opposed to boasting, and saturated with covenant hope.…

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]]> Do Christians Believe in Three Gods? https://eitan.bar/articles/do-christians-believe-in-three-gods/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:34:46 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4728 Every serious conversation must begin here: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord alone” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Whatever Christians mean by Father, Son, and Spirit, if it does not safeguard the Shema, it is not the faith of Yeshua or his apostles. The New Testament does not replace…

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]]> Was Jesus a False Prophet? https://eitan.bar/articles/was-jesus-a-false-prophet/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:34:02 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4727 A common Rabbinic objection to Jesus is that he is considered a false prophet, accused of leading the people of Israel away from the God of Israel. Deuteronomy gives Israel a fierce clarity: if a prophet speaks in the name of other gods or presumes to speak what the Lord…

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]]> If Jesus Is the Messiah, Where Is the World Peace? https://eitan.bar/articles/if-jesus-is-the-messiah-where-is-the-world-peace/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:31:47 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4726 “If Jesus were the Messiah,” the argument goes, “the front page would announce world peace. Isaiah says wolves and lambs will live together — yet history after Jesus looks bloody, not blissful.” That objection deserves a careful, Jewishly literate reply. Scripture does bind the Messiah and shalom (Hebrew for peace)…

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]]> Why Must the Messiah Be God? (Isaiah 6:9) https://eitan.bar/articles/why-must-the-messiah-be-god-isaiah-69/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:31:16 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4725 Jewish critics often charge that the New Testament “turns a man into God,” smuggling pagan ideas into Israel’s faith. Scripture tells a different story. The Bible rejects the idea of human beings climbing up to become gods. It also witnesses — again and again — to the Holy One freely…

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]]> When Will the Messiah Come? (Daniel 9:24-27) https://eitan.bar/articles/when-will-the-messiah-come-daniel-924-27/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:30:01 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4724 Daniel 9 is one of Scripture’s most daring claims: it binds the hope of Israel to a clock. Not a vague “someday,” but a countdown tied to a royal decree, a rebuilt Jerusalem, the public arrival of “Messiah the Prince,” his being “cut off,” and — after that — the…

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]]> What Are Messianic Prophecies? https://eitan.bar/articles/what-are-messianic-prophecies/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:29:20 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4722 From the perspective of Rabbinic halakhah (religious tradition; also known as Oral Torah), Jesus of Nazareth is not only disqualified as the Messiah but branded a false prophet, one who sought to lead Israel astray. Stories and fables about Him — some grotesque, others satirical — were told in rabbinic…

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]]> Was Jesus an Anti-Semite? https://eitan.bar/articles/was-jesus-an-anti-semite/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:25:48 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4735 Jesus was a Jew from the tribe of Judah who lived, worshiped, taught, and died in the heart of Israel. Calling Him “anti-Semitic” only works if “anti-Semitic” now means “a Jewish prophet who confronted corrupt leaders the way Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Elijah did.” That’s the whole point: His sharpest words…

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]]> Inquisition, Crusades & Pogroms … In the Name of Jesus? https://eitan.bar/articles/inquisition-crusades-pogroms-in-the-name-of-jesus/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:25:31 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4734 The Crusades, pogroms, the Inquisition, blood libels, expulsions, and the Holocaust — so much Jewish suffering has occurred under banners displaying the cross, in Jesus’s name, or by individuals identifying as “Christians.” How can such horrors possibly square with Yeshua? They don’t. These acts were not obedience to Yeshua but…

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]]> Reading Moses Seeing Jesus: How Jesus Fulfills Moses https://eitan.bar/articles/reading-moses-seeing-jesus-how-jesus-fulfills-moses/ Wed, 03 Sep 2025 07:59:41 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4693 The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. (Deuteronomy 18:15) Jewish people often say, “We believe in Moses, not Jesus,” as if honoring one cancels the other. Scripture itself refuses that rivalry. Moses points…

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]]> What Does it Mean that Jesus is “The Son of God”? https://eitan.bar/articles/what-does-it-mean-that-jesus-is-the-son-of-god/ Wed, 03 Sep 2025 07:56:49 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4691 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the…

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]]> The True Meaning of “Messiah Son of Joseph” https://eitan.bar/articles/the-true-meaning-of-messiah-son-of-joseph/ Wed, 03 Sep 2025 07:49:27 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4689 The phrase “The deeds of the forefathers are a sign for the children” encapsulates a foundational principle in Jewish thought: that the lives and actions of the patriarchs serve as spiritual and historical templates for their descendants. This concept, though not stated verbatim in the Talmud, is deeply rooted in…

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]]> The Virgin Birth Prophecy (Isaiah 7:14) https://eitan.bar/articles/the-virgin-birth-prophecy-isaiah-714/ https://eitan.bar/articles/the-virgin-birth-prophecy-isaiah-714/#comments Mon, 01 Sep 2025 15:18:39 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4676 The New Testament tells us that, according to the Old Testament prophecy, Jesus was born through a supernatural birth – his mother was a virgin. This is based on the verse Isaiah 7:14 where it says: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive…

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]]> https://eitan.bar/articles/the-virgin-birth-prophecy-isaiah-714/feed/ 1 Is Jesus Truely From the Line of David? https://eitan.bar/articles/is-jesus-truely-from-the-line-of-david/ Mon, 01 Sep 2025 13:07:36 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4674 According to the prophecies in Old Testament, the Messiah must be a descendant of David. In the New Testament the apostle Paul starts his letter to the church in Rome: “Jesus the Messiah, our Lord, who was descended from David according to the flesh.” (Romans 1:3) In the past, nobody questioned that Jesus was a descendant of David, neither historians nor the Sages.This was because the…

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]]> Jeremiah 31: The New Covenant Prophecy https://eitan.bar/articles/jeremiah-31-the-new-covenant-prophecy/ Mon, 01 Sep 2025 13:05:12 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4669 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of…

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]]> The Crucifixion Foretold by Zechariah 12 https://eitan.bar/articles/the-crucifixion-foretold-by-zechariah-12/ Mon, 01 Sep 2025 13:03:32 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4667 We are all very familiar with the famous icon of “the Crucified Jesus”, probably mostly recognized as the symbol of Christianity. But what if we told you that this image of the pierced Messiah is actually a biblical Jewish concept? And what if we told you that there is a…

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]]> What Does It Mean That God Has a Son? Isn’t That a Pagan Concept? https://eitan.bar/articles/what-does-it-mean-that-god-has-a-son-isnt-that-a-pagan-concept/ Mon, 01 Sep 2025 13:02:07 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4666 What does it mean that God has a son? Did God have intercourse, go into labor and deliver the son of God? Of course not! In the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament), the angels, who partake in the heavenly and spiritual nature of God (in contrast to the fleshly and…

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]]> Psalm 22 – The Prophecy About The Crucified Messiah https://eitan.bar/articles/psalm-22-the-prophecy-about-the-crucified-messiah/ Mon, 01 Sep 2025 12:54:24 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4663 Psalm 22: Possibly the most famous prophetic psalm about the Messiah! Much like Isaiah 53, it describes the Messiah’s torment, rejection and death: “To the choirmaster: according to The Doe of the Dawn. A Psalm of David.My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?Why are you so far from saving me, from…

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]]> Isaiah 53 – The Forbidden Chapter https://eitan.bar/articles/isaiah-53-the-forbidden-chapter/ https://eitan.bar/articles/isaiah-53-the-forbidden-chapter/#comments Mon, 01 Sep 2025 12:52:00 +0000 https://eitan.bar/?p=4660 Long ago, the rabbis used to read Isaiah 53 in synagogues, but after the chapter caused arguments and great confusion, the rabbis decided that the simplest thing would be to just take that prophecy out of the Haftarah readings in synagogues.1 That’s why today when we read Isaiah 52, we stop…

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