3. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, (9) those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; (10) as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

Josephus was not a contemporary of jesus - he was born about 5 years after jesus is alleged to have died and would not have been doing much in the way of quality writing for at least another 25 years - most likely longer. Josephus did most his writing from his patron's house in Rome - he was no field historian. This would have been very second hand or he would have been making it up.

Most importantly, this passage first appeared in the copy of the Jewish Wars owned by church historian and power broker Eusibius Pamphili, a man who lived both sides of AD300 and who exhorted his friends to falsify documents to support NT claims. The passage does not appear in earlier Jewish texts and most credible historians believe it to be a fabrication inserted out out context.

You need to consider that the words could only have been written by a christian - no practising jew, as Josephus was his whole life, could have written "if it be lawful to call him a man...he was the christ". It's a very clever attempt to validate the entire christian doctrine of the ressurection, forgiveness in christ and all the rest of it, in one single paragraph.

The tone of the line "And the tribe of christians...are not extinct to this day" also subtly suggests the author was writing long after the events.

Eusebius wrote to a friend prior to the discovery of this text and said something along the lines of: "In the cause of our argument we will need additional historical support - for our purposes let us turn to Josephus the Jew."

There are oblique references to a chrestus and a jesus in Tacitus and elsewhere but they could be talking about anyone. There's no mention of messiahs rising from the dead, long darknesses at midday, earthquakes and stars falling from the sky associated with jewish revolutionaries. The NT is almost completely unsupported by contemporary historians of the day. 

But he is a credible source and a prolific historian.

Christians who visit this thread may contend and with justification, that the historical method in which multiple documentary references combine to carry increasing weight applies to the NT and any scraps gleaned from the historians of the day.

I personally think the case of jesus is too important to rely on justification using nothing but the unknown authors of the NT and the 3 or 4 indirect things that exist outside it.

From memory the gold standard is 2 sources that don't always agree and an eyewitness - correct me some one if you like.

In any case I think when you're talking about the presence on earth of a living god, embracing this standard becomes perilous.

Gary and Lisa Giblin refute this passage as evidence for a historical Jesus in the latest Skeptic magazine:

"This passage, and another longer passage about Jesus, are almost certainly Christian interpolations - if for no other reason than the fact that Josephus was a devout Jew who would hardly have described Jesus as a 'wise man' who did 'wonderful works' and 'won over many Jews.'"

actually, herod antipas was tetrarch of galilee.  the romans dissolved the judean monarchy after herod the great's death.  there was no king when jesus died.

by the way, there are still sabbatians among the jewish people today, are there not?

Picky, picky.  Whatever the answer, there was never a "King Jesus".  Not that it would be possible -- based on Josephus and other sources, if Jesus ever did exist, he was of the House of Levi, therefore not at all in the Davidic line (House of Judah), therefore couldn't ever become King.

Depends.  If there are, I can't imagine their beliefs are normative enough to still be Jews.  I mean, Sabbatai Zevi has been dead (and a dead Muslim) for quite a while and he flunked "Messiah 101" as well.

James is 100% historical and we know James was a priest.  That makes him a member of the House of Levi.  Because James and Jesus are brothers, that sort of makes Jesus one as well.

There are no guidelines for conversion in the Torah, though it was obviously done.  The are communities that are very down on the concept of conversion, but that's their issue, not Judaisms.

It's impossible to "un-become" a Jew.  I have ton of Jewish relatives who all think they are Christians.  After Mom passed away, I'd go to Dad's place to cook Thanksgiving dinner and spend an entire day making his kitchen kosher on account of my Southern Baptist father was actually  Jewish.  He thought it was "nice", but still wanted to know why I gave up Jesus for Lent on year.

I've certainly never claimed that all Jews are smart people and none of us are deluded.  I was heading off in an Orthodox direction many years ago and it was the excessive literalism of some that turned me away.  I used to ask Orthodox friends if we were supposed to have done all those things 3,000 years ago.  Once I learned that Orthodoxy was a reaction to religious persecution and the destruction of the Temple I realized a lot of the strictness in Orthodox Judaism was invented.

Sabbatai Zevi can be excluded because his behavior is contradictory to Torah.  There's nothing contradictory about thinking the earth is 5,770 years old.  Stupid?  Yes.  Contradicts the Torah?  No.

Sabbatai Zevi, and I believe his followers as well, was excommunicated, so I'm guessing a Jew for Jesus.

No, Jews don't believe in puppet-master-god.  I think you're back to confusing us with religions that believe sky-daddy or free-ponies-from-heaven-guy is going to fix their skinned knee.

The Hebrew Hammer is =my= super hero!

   Because he's Jee-zus and he can do anything !!!!!

My iPod is plugged into my alarm clock and I have "Jesus Christ Superstar" on it.  I =love= when songs from JCSS come up.

Yup.  There are hundreds of "fake" prophecies that Jesus didn't come close to fulfilling.

Well ... you'd have to get into some of the more "humanistic" forms of Judaism for that answer.  My answer would be that (aside from "G-d exists" ) history has taught us that becoming more "Aren't we great!" centered tends to lead to "We're so much greater than them, let's go kill them and take their stuff!!!"  Not that "My god can beat up your god!" doesn't go the same way ...

based on what?  the talmud doesn't count, btw.

having been a classical studies major as well as a religion major, allow me to submit that it's really fucking difficult to classify anyone as "100% historical."  i don't know if i would even give that title to plato, and he supposedly left us tons of writings.

they could say the same thing about you: openness to converts is your hang-up and doesn't reflect what judaism really is.  in fact, one could say that the beauty of judaism lies in the fact that there is no one right answer for anything.  that how the halakhah works.  hillel and shammai both have their say.

my prof, despite being an extremely liberal reform jew, would definitely disagree with you.  she always argued that a "messianic" or jewish christian was no longer a jew because, by giving in to the very faith that jews had suffered and died resisting for centuries, they turned their backs on their heritage and thus forfeited their right to be called jewish.

"invented"?  that's a bit glib, isn't it?  i mean, most jews, not just orthodox, would argue that things like the "hedge around the torah" and ideas like that were necessary to retain the identity of the jewish people in the diaspora.  if it hadn't been for the synagogue and the talmud and the hasidim and even safed, you might just be an american today and nothing more. 

but perhaps you're right, in more ways than you know.  i read a very interesting book by the hungarian rabbi raphael patai in which he posits that the claim of modern jews to be direct descendents of the biblical hebrews or israelites is sketchy at best.  the most likely scenario is that a remnant of abrahamic myth was left over from a tiny semitic people, and during the time of the assyrian, babylonian, persian, and hellenistic invasions, the greater semitic peoples--many of them canaanites--latched onto these well-preserved myths and retroactively identified themselves with the "hebrews" or "israelites" to maintain a sense of identity.  it's sort of like how here in slovakia, after centuries of foreign rule, the modern slovaks identify themselves with the great moravians of the early middle ages, even though an actual connection is unlikely.  my old prof considered even the historicity of king david to be about as likely as that of king arthur, and the idea of an international trading empire under king solomon as just pure legend.

really?  i mean, i used to be friends with a jewish christian.  when he converted, his mother told him she wished he were dead.  somehow i doubt that becoming a sabbatian would have gotten that kind of emotional rise.  or if he had chosen to believe in bar kochba, for example.  (i mean, he was even endorsed by rabbi akiva of all people, wasn't he?)  also, on a totally unrelated note, i knew a guy who got his jewish friend an "i  jesus" keychain as a gag for her birthday and her mother freaked and told her to throw it out at once.  once again, despite theological niceties, somehow i doubt that "i  sabbatai zevi" would have gotten any notice.  i mean, if we take the gospels at face value, jesus was rejected by the majority of jews from day one.  bar kochba and sabbatai zevi, however, had huge followings in their days, among both laymen and religious leaders.  i think even today that's embarrassing enough for most jews that they feel it's better to forget or ignore those "mistakes" altogether. 

oh btw, in what way was shabbatai zevi "excommunicated"?  i thought it was impossible to "un-become" a jew.

STOP IT! You are defending DETAILS IE "PUPPET MASTER" And I am talking about MOTIF "SUPER HERO"

SUPER HERO is the MOTIF. YOU/THEY  both believe in a brain with super powers with no physical location that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

In the words of Tom Cruise " SHOW ME THE MONEY"

Stop arguing about your tribal book of myth. I don't care.

Your starting point, even before your claimed comic books, is that your god exists.

FINE, show me this invisible brain that can think and do things without a physical brain.

Your claim of invisible brain is just as stupid as the Egypitians thinking the sun was a thinking brain.

Brian, I have to point out that apparently Furry believes in a first cause god existing outside the universe. I'm assuming she believes this god got the wheels in motion and is now laying back at Zegema Beach with a flock of hot young angels

waiting for the end of time/judgment day/etc. I think FurryCat's interpretation means she sidesteps the usual stiles that trip over the fundys. She also takes a fairly interpretative approach to torah - except the bit about the cheeseburgers - though her view is

is a little unclear - milky - if you like.

This makes it harder to argue with her about the whole god thing. Obviously, it's impossible to say anything verifiable about what exists outside the universe but lately there have been some suggestions - FurryCat has gone for G_d (I know), while our

BobSpence has plumped for quantum foam.

Making matters more interesting still is the view of newcomer Jocax who insists that prior to the universe the Jocaxian Nothingness prevailed. According to Jocax, this nothingness nevertheless had laws (a quality I found very suspicious) and it was these laws

that allowed the nothingness to introduce the somethingness of quantum mechanics. Bob argued nothing has no laws until there's something (which I personally agree with).

Finally, Luminon says our immediate universe will soon be governed by M - who rather than being the still oddly sensual Judy Dench, is in fact some dude who looks like Imran Khan, has a taste for chinese food and plans a brave new world.

God doesn't have to exist for God to exist? Ok, is there a clinic you can get your methadone at?

The only way that a god can exist and not exist at the same time is in your head as a claim. God is just a claim in your head. That is the only logical explanation. People make these imaginary friends up and believe them to be fact.

BTW, "super" means "beyond" God is not natural but super natural so that would make him(never seen his nads btw) a super hero, unless you don't think your God is trying to save humans? Typically when some cop or EMT saves us we call them heros. Which would rightfully put God in the "beyond nature" super hero.

If God is natural, then why call him a god? You are attempting to avoid the superstitious claims of your traditions.

Do you believe that humans magically popped out of dirt fully grown? Do you literally believe that the earth was made in 6 literal days? Do you literally believe that tons of water were magically parted by the wave of a hand?

If God did not have super powers how did those things happen? He either has super powers and wont share his secrets with us, or he is a made up myth people like believing is real.

BTW, long before your Jewish myth, Yahweh was part of the Canaanite pantheon as part of a divine family under the head god El, and Elohim were the plural for gods. In the Canaanite myth Yahweh was competing with BAAL for the love of Asurath(sp).

"Let us make them in our image" SOUND FAMILIAR? That line was in the Ugartic text long before the Hebrews incorperated their monotheistic version of it into the OT.

If you can accept Christianity and Islam as knockoffs of the Abrahamic god, what makes you think that the Hebrews weren't competing with other prior myths? You are falsely assuming that humans live in a vacuum.

http://books.google.com/books?id=S1tQ5Larst0C&dq=Hebrews+polytheistic+past&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=WLgmS5TcJI-YtgeA...

http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/MSmith_BiblicalMonotheism.shtml

Your precious Yahweh before the Hebrews adapted it, was the god of war and a lesser god to boot in the Canaanite pantheon.

Now before you go spouting, "The details are different" misses the point.

OF course Jews and even the Hebrews view Yahweh as different and separate than the Canaanites.

BUT THAT IS NOT MY POINT.

My point is that just like a business makes a product, they get their ideas from prior ideas. If Coke comes out with a cherry soda, Pepsi looks at it and says, hey, I like that idea, but I will change the color of the can and give it a different name and make the flavor slightly different.

The early Hebrews merely included older names and older ideas and managed to successfully market their new product.

Just like Christianity had to attach itself to the Jewish faith to start a new one to compete with all the other ones surrounding it at the time. Just like Scientology was started by the fans of a Science fiction writer whom use the cross as their symbol. Include an old idea, name or icon and call it different.

Again, this is why I don't deal with details, because it is all bullshit.

THE MOTIF of a god(pick one) is the idea that some invisible friend will swoop you off the train tracks and get you into his plush fan club up in the clouds while he stomps on the villains. Being the first to put a crappy book together about your super hero, doesn't make it the first super hero ever claimed in human history.

The cave painters thought animals and and volcanos were their heros and villians. You simply attach your cart to a current anthropomorphic popularly held myth to be fact.

So cut it with the "detail" crap. God is nothing but claim, be it yours or any other in human history and it is nothing but humans projecting their own traits on the world around them.

No, I obviously believe G-d exists.  To me, the argument means that G-d is self-enabling, rather than "externally enabling".  G-d doesn't have to tinker with human affairs because we've been told to do all the things G-d would do if G-d were into tinkering.

As for the comparison to Manson, a lot is made of all the "And then G-d smote the (fill in the blank)" and not a lot made about the people being smitten.  To give you an idea, the Egyptians were engaging in genocide prior to the events that lead to the Exodus.  They had 9 different opportunities to allow us to leave without any of them getting killed.  They refused, you know the rest of the story.

I am glad you accept the absurdity of a "king Jesus". GREAT, FANTASTIC, and you are one step ahead of their fans. BUT what you fail to see is that the word "KING" itself is an appeal to authority.

You fail to see that "lord" "king" and "god" are the same motif. If Jesus is not the ultimate power, how convenience for you to provide your own explanation for the ultimate authority, YOUR magical lawgiver, in it's place.

The problem you don't want to face is human traditions back then polytheist or monotheist, were not based on scientific observation, but false equation of good fortune to a magical father figure. Modern monotheism simply managed to out market all the other claims of divine entitlement.

The only difference in provable REAL kings and monotheistic or polytheistic gods past or present, is that we can prove that humans are real and dictatorships do happen. To postulate a magical "king" in the sky is not only absurd, but self defeating to our own REAL self determination.

Will you fucking stop it!

Do not equate your modern twisting of Jewish tradition as being the same as modern skepticism.

Your Jewish or Hebrew hero is BUNK, bullshit and made up. Atheists are not "getting with the program", we are bucking the status quo.

You are pulling the same retrofitting bullshit we see Christians pull and Muslims pull.

You are still admitting that a sky daddy exists even if you claim that your super hero wants us to do it on our own.

You still have a father figure that you want to be real, even if you claim that this daddy took our training wheels off.

Besides the point. You are still claiming that a magical cause that is human like created all this, but has no brain, no neurons or cerebellum. I could give a shit less if you claim that your super hero decided to cut the apron strings, you are still claiming a super hero.

if by "self determination" and "fixing the world" you're referring to tikkun olam then this idea has only become part of popular jewish theology since the days of isaac luria in the 16th century.  most of your own jewish scholars will admit this.  it's hardly 3,500 years-old.

before lurianic kabbalah's unprecedented and universal influence on popular theology among both the sephardim and the ashkenazim, the issue of humanity's active role in affecting the universe was divisive and you know it.  the most we can get from the hebrew bible itself is the general idea that israel can sometimes change god's mind, and then god changes circumstances himself.  however, he's very careful to always make it clear that he is in 100% control and we can like it or lump it, a la job. 

all we can begin to know about the religion of the ancient hebrews we must learn by turning a critical eye to the hebrew bible.  and as far as we can tell from that source, for the hebrews there was no tsimtsum, no shevirath ha-kelim, no pieces of en-sof trapped helplessly in kelipot requiring the mitzvot of each jew to set them free.  there was only a big, scary desert god that required, like so many of his kinfolk around him, the blood of animals to be appeased.  this is the root of judaism.  embrace it or reject it, but please don't gloss it over retroactively ("3,500 years" ) with the words of rabbis who lived in a completely different time, often in a completely different place, and facing completely different challenges.  judaism has no more of a monolithic history than any other religion.

Again, WHO THE FUCK CARES?

We agree with you that Jesus was not a messiah. BECAUSE there is no such thing for our species YOU IDIOT!

You are falsely equating the age of your myth as being proof that you got it right on your god claim.

WE are trying to point out to you that claims of god(s) are bullshit. Be it your pet obsession or that of one of some cave dweller long before you who truly believed that the volcano was a god.

So what?

People make up shit and believe it to be fact. You confuse tradition and history of making claims as being fact. No different than any other debunked bullshit in human history.

Jesus is not the messiah DUH, AND THANKS for the update. But if you want to wait round for your Jewish super hero, you are going to end up with the same results as the Egyptians waiting for the sun to save them. Bullshit is bullshit, your problem is that you walked into a well armed crap detector.

hey, come on, brian, this time she was just answering an honest question.  even if it was a question about magical unicorns, it was still a question and it was courteous of her to answer.

btw, i don't think the egyptians expected the sun to "save them" from anything.  at least not in a messianic sense.

BTW, the Egyptians DID have a trinity motif where Ra and Osirus and Horus judged the dead in heaven.

Thanks for that correction. But maybe my understanding is rusty. I thought Ra was the boss of Osirus and that he and Osirus were in heaven when Horus accended to sit at the right hand of Osirus in judgement of the dead.

citations?  and bear in mind i've been trained in exegesis myself, by the jewish professor i mentioned to you before.  if you can show me unequivocally, without any room for alternate interpretations, that lurianic concepts obviously exist in these texts, then i'll cede the point.  but even your own rabbis would argue that the very nature of torah makes that impossible.  so the only thing for a "detached scholar" to do is to go with the assumption based on evidence: that the idea of tikkun olam, etc., in its present form accepted by most of modern judaism, can be traced back as far as safed and that's it.  anyone who insists that this concept, as we know it today, exists in the hebrew bible and issac luria merely expounded what was already there, is, as far as i'm concerned, the same kind of person who insists that the zohar is a tannaitic text, i.e., a person with preconceptions based on faith.

yes, they are.  but lurianic kabbalah is not there.  tikkun is not there.  tsimtsum and the breaking of the vessels are not there.  the same way as pauline christology, athanasian trinitarianism, episcopal hierarchy, caesaropapism, and papal infallibility are not in the gospels, but of course that doesn't stop christians from seeing them there.  then again, i suppose jews could never make a similar mistake?

never said that.  in fact, the one time i made a remark that religious people are blinded by their preconceptions when approaching a text i clearly stated that i wasn't necessarily referring to you ("necessarily" because i simply don't know you well enough yet to say one way or the other if such a statement applies to you).

please spare us this.  there are as many old idiots as there are young idiots.  age means nothing to me.

i'm sorry, but doesn't safed kabbalah and hasidism state that the mitzvot of israel are necessary to free the reshimu (yes, there was debate about if these are essentially pieces of en-sof) from the kelipot?  furthermore, isn't the messiah himself trapped in the lower depths of existence, in the world of the kelipot, and cannot free himself, but rather israel must free him through mitzvot?  thus the saying, "the messiah will not come until one hour after he is needed."  isn't this the whole purpose of kawwanah, dedicating each mitzva to the reunion of the holy one, blessed be he, and his shekhinah?

ok, now you can jump on this and say it's all metaphorical, but once again you're projecting your modern conceptions on the ideas of men who lived 5 centuries ago.  then again, you have no choice but to do this if your faith requires that these ideas still be valid in a modern world.  i've never read anywhere, whether in cordovero, luria's disciples, the baal shem tov, or their modern interpreters and experts like scholem, buber, and moshe idel, that these men considered the idea of israel's active and necessary role in reuniting god with his creation  to be metaphorical.  if the idea of tikkun is only a metaphor for being nice to each other, then centuries of expounding this doctrine, not to mention the doctrine itself, are unnecessary.  no, the only choice a "detached scholar" has is that lurianic theology, and thus modern "normative" jewish theology (as in the theology accepted by the majority of jews), states, quite clearly, that god NEEDS israel.

we absolutely do not ignore the rest.  we just don't believe, because all of higher critical evidence is against it, that the texts in the hebrew bible form a coherent whole.  we believe that the ancient hebrew priest from the time J was writing would be in firm disagreement with the prophetical school doing its writing several centuries later.  why?  because these texts express contradictory ideas.  only those with a vested religious interest feel the need to either "harmonize" or ignore these contradictions. 

by the way, i mentioned the sacrifices because i was specifically comparing rabbinical judaism with the religion described by the torah, i.e., the pentateuch.  J, E, P, and D all espouse the viewpoint that literal sacrifices are required by god.  there is no internal evidence in the pentateuch that would lead us to believe otherwise, and this cannot be altered by anything a later prophet or rabbi says.  otherwise, it's not textual criticism: it's dogmatics, deductive rather than inductive.  nor does mixing around the hebrew letters, a la abraham abulafia, count as inductive reasoning either.

yes, i am very aware that according to the rabbis the torah is never finished, but one cannot take this concept into account when one engages in higher criticism.  you can't have it both ways.

i'm not jewish, nor is any of my family.  and i know where the orthodox were coming from.  if you don't consider my degree in religion, at least one third of which was made up of jewish studies, worth anything then please stop implying i don't know enough and engage my knowledge directly.  so far the majority of your arguments with everyone in this forum has been that we can't really talk about these things because either we're not jewish or we're not significantly informed about judaism.  well, i think i've already demonstrated that the latter is not true of me.  now, to make engagement easy, my arguments in this thread have been as follows:

1. that the idea of tikkun olam can be traced back to the safed school of kabbalah at the earliest.

2. that lurianic kabbalah is the primary influence on modern popular jewish theology (in the most literal sense of theology), religious ethics, and eschatology.  i do not say this influence is universal, but it is primary for the majority of religious jews, not only the orthodox, but a large portion of the conservative and reform as well.

3. that modern jewish popular theology espouses the idea of tikkun olam, which clearly states that israel's mitzvot are necessary to finish god's work.  this does not mean that god is impotent, but that if israel does not cooperate with god, god cannot fulfill his purpose for creation.

4. that this idea runs contrary to the hebrew bible.

5. that in order to reconcile this contradiction, a jew who holds the hebrew bible sacred and inviolable must

          a. renounce the idea of tikkun olam,

          b. reinterpret the idea so that it no longer conforms to its original, lurianic meaning, or

          c. subvert the obvious meaning of the original text.

feel free to address any or all of these arguments at your leisure.  i'm a patient person and i won't bullshit you if you don't bullshit me.

see, this is what i mean by "bullshit."  you've been pulling this card on everybody in this forum.  how the hell am i mistaking judaism for christianity?  i have been arguing from nothing but jewish concepts and citing jewish authorities whom i've named several times.  i've also made it clear that all my jewish studies were made under a jewish professor (a born and raised jewish professor, no less).  now, once again, don't make such implications or accusations without backing them up.  this is the precise reason why some of the people on this forum are getting irritated with you. 

once again, no true scotsman.  the "craziest of the orthodox" would argue that it's precisely you who need the refresher.  and guess what?  pretty much all the texts would be on their side.  you think they're wrong basically because you disagree.  you think the torah should be subverted in order to fit modern, enlightenment principles of empiricism.  they think the torah (and yes, i mean oral as well as written) should be taken at face value unless it states otherwise.  unlike the catholic church, there is no central authority in judaism to say who's right and who's wrong (though it might be worth noting that the old part of jerusalem is basically controlled by the orthodox today).  so i'm afraid you can't speak authoritatively on another's judaism either.

tikkun olam doesn't just mean doing mitzvot in general.  tikkun olam means repairing the world, not making the world nicer.  if you're not talking about tikkun olam then just tell me to begin with, "i'm not talking about tikkun olam."  or at least, "i think of tikkun olam differently than 5 centuries worth of writers who developed that doctrine."

i'm familiar with that, particularly ohr ha'goyim and rabbi hillel's analogy.  i just don't think you can identify ohr ha'goyim and all it biblically pertains to with the term "tikkun olam" and stay within common usage.

by the way, please address my points.  don't try to fob me off with instructions to go do more reading.  i've done and still do my reading.  if you don't believe that the most common conception of tikkun olam in modern judaism comes straight from lurianic kabbalah then please make an argument, but you'll be disagreeing with some of the biggest names in jewish scholarship.  i'll even quote gershom scholem, major trends in jewish mysticism, new york: schocken books, 1995, pp. 285-286:

"The Lurianic Kabbalah was the last religious movement in Judaism the influence of which became preponderant among all sections of the Jewish people and in ever country of the diaspora, without exception.  It was the last movement in the history of rabbinic Judaism which gave expression to a world of religious reality common to the whole people.  To the philosopher of Jewish history it may seem surprising that the doctrine which achieved this result was deeply related to Gnosticism, but such are the dialectics of history."

now, perhaps many jews today take lurianic kabbalah and the idea of israel's necessity in tikkun olam metaphorically, but we have no evidence luria himself, nor at least four centuries of later writers who developed the idea of tikkun olam, did, and so it's just plain fallacious to retroactively say, "well, it's metaphorical, it was always meant to be metaphorical, and anyone who says otherwise is a heretic or a nutter."  i say fallacious, but not surprising, since almost every religion says something to this effect in every age.

now who's speaking in christian terms?

btw, once again, i thought it was impossible to "un-become" a jew.  how does "excommunication" work, exactly?  without a central authority, who does it?  and if what you're saying is true, why haven't the hasidim been "excommunicated"?