Why don't Jewish writers write fantasies like Narnia?

HT: Steve Hays.

On not misunderstanding Judaism: What Kind of a Messiah are They Waiting For

When Christians say this "they're waiting for their Messiah" I get the feeling that Christians think that Jews are looking for someone to do pretty much the same thing Christians claim Jesus does for us.

Evangelical Christians often use the expression "He paid the penalty for our sins" to describe what Jesus does for us. Amongst Jews, there is debate as to whether they are even looking for an individual Messiah, (as opposed to a Messianic Age), and if they are, I seriously doubt that they are looking for a Messiah to pay the penalty for our sins and replace the Jewish sacrificial system. I'm not saying that that kind of Suffering Servant isn't foreshadowed in the Hebrew Scriptures, but I do think that Christians and Jews have different Messiah-concepts. Just because they use the same word doesn't mean they have the same things in mind.

I am supplying a link to the Wikipedia entry on the Messianic Age.

Judaism and conversions

I get the impression from talking to Jews that they don't expect obedience to the Torah from people who aren't Jewish.So if you convert to Judaism, then you have the responsibility to follow the Torah, in all its aspects, which they don't really want to saddle people with. They would rather your follow the basic moral code that underlies the Torah. It wasn't that way in Jesus' time, however, because you had people going out all around the Gentile world and winning converts. This is something that Jesus complained about:

Mt: 23: 15 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you cross land and sea to make one convert, and then you turn that person into twice the child of hell[f] you yourselves are!

How do Jews identify Jews?

This is often extremely confusing to us non-Jews, who think some kind of belief or religious practice is essential. But if your mother was a Jew, or you go through the official conversion process, you're a Jew. Otherwise, you're not.

A Jewish critique of Christianity on Original Sin

Yep, here's Medved opposing Lieberman on this issue

Sin and Stupidity

A Jewish perspective.

Jewish rejection of Original Sin

Luther's Flip-Flop on the Jews

In his early career as a reformer Luther wrote an essay saying that Jews should be treated kindly. Later on in his life he wrote a virulently anti-Jewish essay entitled “On the Jews and their Lies” in which he adopted typically anti-Jewish Christian attitudes. I consider this to be one of the great tragedies of history. If Luther had stayed with his original stand the attitude of German Protestantism toward Jews might have been different, and the anti-Jewish attitudes that resulted in the Holocaust would never have developed.