Why Jews Don't Believe In Jesus?

One of the most common question "Why don't Jews believe in Jesus?" Let's understand why – not to disparage other religions, but rather to clarify the Jewish position.

Jews do not accept Jesus as the messiah because:

1. Jesus did not fulfill the messianic prophecies.
2. Jesus did not embody the personal qualifications of the Messiah.
3. Biblical verses "referring" to Jesus are mistranslations.
4. Jewish belief is based on national revelation.

But first, some background: What exactly is the Messiah?

The word "Messiah" is an English rendering of the Hebrew word Mashiach, which means "anointed." It usually refers to a person initiated into God's service by being anointed with oil. (Exodus 29:7, 1-Kings 1:39, 2-Kings 9:3)

(1) Jesus Did Not Fulfill the Messianic Prophecies

What is the Messiah supposed to accomplish? One of the central themes of biblical prophecy is the promise of a future age of perfection characterized by universal peace and recognition of God. (Isaiah 2:1-4, 32:15-18, 60:15-18; Zephaniah 3:9; Hosea 2:20-22; Amos 9:13-15; Micah 4:1-4; Zechariah 8:23, 14:9; Jeremiah 31:33-34)

Specifically, the Bible says he will:

1. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
2. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).
3. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)
4. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world – on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).

If an individual fails to fulfill even one of these conditions, then he cannot be the Messiah.

Because no one has ever fulfilled the Bible's description of this future King, Jews still await the coming of the Messiah. All past Messianic claimants, including Jesus of Nazareth, Bar Cochba and Shabbtai Tzvi have been rejected.

Christians counter that Jesus will fulfill these in the Second Coming. Jewish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright; in the Bible no concept of a second coming exists.

---

(2) Jesus Did Not Embody the Personal Qualifications of Messiah

A. Messiah as Prophet

The Messiah will become the greatest prophet in history, second only to Moses. (Targum – Isaiah 11:2; Maimonides – Teshuva 9:2)

Prophecy can only exist in Israel when the land is inhabited by a majority of world Jewry, a situation which has not existed since 300 BCE. During the time of Ezra, when the majority of Jews remained in Babylon, prophecy ended upon the death of the last prophets – Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

Jesus appeared on the scene approximately 350 years after prophecy had ended, and thus could not be a prophet.

B. Descendant of David

Many prophetic passages speak of a descendant of King David who will rule Israel during the age of perfection. (Isaiah 11:1-9; Jeremiah 23:5-6, 30:7-10, 33:14-16; Ezekiel 34:11-31, 37:21-28; Hosea 3:4-5)

The Messiah must be descended on his father's side from King David (see Genesis 49:10, Isaiah 11:1, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:17; Ezekiel 34:23-24). According to the Christian claim that Jesus was the product of a virgin birth, he had no father – and thus could not have possibly fulfilled the messianic requirement of being descended on his father's side from King David. (1)

According to Jewish sources, the Messiah will be born of human parents and possess normal physical attributes like other people. He will not be a demi-god, (2) nor will he possess supernatural qualities.

C. Torah Observance

The Messiah will lead the Jewish people to full Torah observance. The Torah states that all mitzvot remain binding forever, and anyone coming to change the Torah is immediately identified as a false prophet. (Deut. 13:1-4)

Throughout the Christian "New Testament," Jesus contradicts the Torah and states that its commandments are no longer applicable. For example, John 9:14 records that Jesus made a paste in violation of Shabbat, which caused the Pharisees to say (verse 16), "He does not observe Shabbat!"

---

(3) Mistranslated Verses "Referring" to Jesus

Biblical verses can only be understood by studying the original Hebrew text – which reveals many discrepancies in the Christian translation.

A. Virgin Birth

The Christian idea of a virgin birth is derived from the verse in Isaiah 7:14 describing an "alma" as giving birth. The word "alma" has always meant a young woman, but Christian theologians came centuries later and translated it as "virgin." This accords Jesus' birth with the first century pagan idea of mortals being impregnated by gods.

B. Suffering Servant

Christianity claims that Isaiah chapter 53 refers to Jesus, as the "suffering servant."

In actuality, Isaiah 53 directly follows the theme of chapter 52, describing the exile and redemption of the Jewish people. The prophecies are written in the singular form because the Jews ("Israel") are regarded as one unit. Throughout Jewish scripture, Israel is repeatedly called, in the singular, the "Servant of God" (see Isaiah 43:8). In fact, Isaiah states no less than 11 times in the chapters prior to 53 that the Servant of God is Israel.

When read correctly, Isaiah 53 clearly [and ironically] refers to the Jewish people being "bruised, crushed and as sheep brought to slaughter" at the hands of the nations of the world. These descriptions are used throughout Jewish scripture to graphically describe the suffering of the Jewish people (see Psalm 44).

Isaiah 53 concludes that when the Jewish people are redeemed, the nations will recognize and accept responsibility for the inordinate suffering and death of the Jews.

---

(4) Jewish Belief is Based Solely on National Revelation

Throughout history, thousands of religions have been started by individuals, attempting to convince people that he or she is God's true prophet. But personal revelation is an extremely weak basis for a religion because one can never know if it is indeed true. Since others did not hear God speak to this person, they have to take his word for it. Even if the individual claiming personal revelation performs miracles, they do not prove  he is a genuine prophet. All the miracles show – assuming they are genuine – is that he has certain powers. It has nothing to do with his claim of prophecy.

Judaism, unique among all of the world's major religions, does not rely on "claims of miracles" as the basis for its religion. In fact, the Bible says that God sometimes grants the power of "miracles" to charlatans, in order to test Jewish loyalty to the Torah (Deut. 13:4).

Of the thousands of religions in human history, only Judaism bases its belief on national revelation – i.e. God speaking to the entire nation. If God is going to start a religion, it makes sense He'll tell everyone, not just one person.

Maimonides states (Foundations of Torah, ch. 8):

The Jews did not believe in Moses, our teacher, because of the miracles he performed. Whenever anyone's belief is based on seeing miracles, he has lingering doubts, because it is possible the miracles were performed through magic or sorcery. All of the miracles performed by Moses in the desert were because they were necessary, and not as proof of his prophecy.

What then was the basis of [Jewish] belief? The Revelation at Mount Sinai, which we saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears, not dependent on the testimony of others... as it says, "Face to face, God spoke with you..." The Torah also states: "God did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us – who are all here alive today." (Deut. 5:3)

Judaism is not miracles. It is the personal eyewitness experience of every man, woman and child, standing at Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago.

Further reading: "Did God Speak at Mount Sinai?"

Waiting for the Messiah

The world is in desperate need of Messianic redemption. To the extent that we are aware of the problems of society, is the extent we will yearn for redemption. As the Talmud says, one of the first questions asked of a Jew on Judgment Day is: "Did you yearn for the arrival of the Messiah?"

How can we hasten the coming of the Messiah? The best way is to love all humanity generously, to keep the mitzvot of the Torah (as best we can), and to encourage others to do so as well.

Despite the gloom, the world does seem headed toward redemption. One apparent sign is that the Jewish people have returned to the Land of Israel and made it bloom again. Additionally, a major movement is afoot of young Jews returning to Torah tradition.

The Messiah can come any day, and it all depends on our actions. God is ready when we are. For as King David says: "Redemption will come today – if you hearken to His voice."

For further study:

• Jews for Judaism
• "The Real Messiah" by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan
• "Let's Get Biblical! Why Doesn't Judaism Accept the Christian Messiah?" by Rabbi Tovia Singer
• "Path of the Righteous Gentile" by Chaim Clorfene and Yakov Rogalsky

FOOTNOTES

(1) In response, it is claimed that Joseph adopted Jesus, and passed on his genealogy via adoption. There are two problems with this claim:

a) There is no biblical basis for the idea of a father passing on his tribal line by adoption. A priest who adopts a son from another tribe cannot make him a priest by adoption.

b) Joseph could never pass on by adoption that which he doesn't have. Because Joseph descended from Jeconiah (Matthew 1:11) he fell under the curse of that king that none of his descendants could ever sit as king upon the throne of David (Jeremiah 22:30; 36:30). (Although Jeconiah repented as discussed in Talmud Sanhedrin 37a and elsewhere, it's not at all clear from the early sources that his repentance was accepted to the degree that the royal line continued through him. See e.g. Bereishit Rabbah 98:7 that the line continued through Zedekiah.)

To answer this difficult problem, apologists claim that Jesus traces himself back to King David through his mother Mary, who allegedly descends from David, as shown in the third chapter of Luke. There are four basic problems with this claim:

a) There is no evidence that Mary descends from David. The third chapter of Luke traces Joseph's genealogy, not Mary's.

b) Even if Mary can trace herself back to David, that doesn't help Jesus, since tribal affiliation goes only through the father, not mother. cf. Numbers 1:18; Ezra 2:59.

c) Even if family line could go through the mother, Mary was not from a legitimate messianic family. According to the Bible, the Messiah must be a descendent of David through his son Solomon (2-Samuel 7:14; 1-Chronicles 17:11-14, 22:9-10, 28:4-6). The third chapter of Luke is irrelevant to this discussion because it describes lineage of David's son Nathan, not Solomon. (Luke 3:31)

d) Luke 3:27 lists Shealtiel and Zerubbabel in his genealogy. These two also appear in Matthew 1:12 as descendants of the cursed Jeconiah. If Mary descends from them, it would also disqualify her from being a messianic progenitor.

(2) Maimonides devotes much of his "Guide for the Perplexed" to the fundamental idea that God is incorporeal, meaning that He assumes no physical form. God is eternal, above time. He is infinite, beyond space. He cannot be born, and cannot die. Saying that God assumes human form makes God small, diminishing both His unity and His divinity. As the Torah says: "God is not mortal" (Numbers 23:19).

with thanks to Rabbi Michael Skobac - Jews for Judaism

by Rabbi Shraga Simmons

Corruptions of Scripture

Let us look first at two disputed verses in Luke's Gospel and show that these verses were used in arguments with heretics. This will help to show that the motivation for altering the text was to get ammunition to use against other Christians, and that the alterations can not just be written off as scribal errors. 

Take Luke 22:43-44 'And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground'.

These are omitted by Clement (AD 200) p69, p75 (3rd century), Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Vaticanus (4th century), Codex Washingtonensis (5th century) etc, but are in the great majority of other manuscripts including Sinaiticus (4th century). They are cited by Justin (c. AD 130). 

Whenever these verses were added or dropped, it must have been very early. We know that these verses were used in the second century to counter the docetic view that Jesus was not a real human being and only for that purpose. We know that they were used against heretics. 

• EG Justin (c. 140 AD) (Dialogue with Trypho, 103) '- it is recorded that His sweat fell down like drops of blood while He was praying .... in order that we may perceive that the Father wished His Son really to undergo such sufferings for our sakes, and may not say that He, being the Son of God, did not feel what was happening to Him and inflicted on Him '
• Irenaeus (c. 170 AD) (Against Heresy 3,22,2) '.... nor would He have wept over Lazarus, nor have sweated great drops of blood; nor have declared, 'My soul is exceeding sorrowful' nor, when His side was pierced, would there have come forth blood and water. For all these are tokens of the flesh which had been derived from the earth, which He had recapitulated in Himself, bearing salvation to His own handiwork' 
• Hippolytus (c. 190 AD) (Against Noetus, 18) 'Thus then, too, though demonstrated as God, He does not refuse the conditions proper to Him as man, since He hungers and toils and thirsts in weariness, and flees in fear, and prays in trouble. And He who as God has a sleepless nature, slumbers on a pillow. And He who for this end came into the world, begs off from the cup of suffering. And in an agony He sweats blood, and is strengthened by an angel...' 

Who needs to guess motivations when we can see that the only 2nd century uses of a verse, missing from other very early manuscripts, are to refute heretics?

On the other hand, it is impossible to see why these verses would ever have been dropped, if they had been original. Why would such high quality witnesses as p75, Codex Alexandrinus, and Codex Vaticanus etc drop these verses if the scribes had them in the manuscripts they were working from This means that Luke's Gospel must have been changed by about 100-120 AD, in time for Justin to use them.

An other place where the New Testament was altered to make it more convincing was in the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection. Take Luke's account. There are 5 clear instances in Luke's Gospel.

Luke 23:53 

In Luke 23:53, it says that Jesus was placed in a tomb 'where no-one had ever yet been laid'. Just to make sure that nobody could argue that people stole Jesus's body, some scribes added the words 'and he rolled a great stone before the door of the tomb'. No less a manuscript than Codex Bezae was altered to add 'and having placed him there he positioned before the tomb a stone that scarcely twenty people could roll'

Luke 24:12 

Luke 24:12 reads 'But Peter, rising up, ran to the tomb; and stooping down he saw the linen cloths alone, and he returned home marvelling at what had happened'. This was just after Luke writes that the disciples did not believe the women , whose words seemed nonsense to them. This verse is missing from Codex Bezae and some Old Latin manuscripts. The text varies in other manuscripts. Why would this verse be dropped from Codex Bezae by a scribe, especially given the reluctance of scribes to delete anything from the text? There are far more than insertions than deletions, especially in the Codex Bezae, which is notorious for adding stuff, not subtracting stuff. 

For technical reasons, whenever Bezae and the Old Latin manuscripts agree, that reading must date back to at least the second century, if not earlier. Also, readings from Codex Bezae are found very early. Polycarp's letter to the Phillipians (AD 110) quotes the version of Acts 2:24 found in Codex Bezae. 

Was Luke 24:12 added by a scribe in the second century so that it could be shown that somebody found the witnesses to the resurrection to be credible? If it was not added, then some scribes must have chosen to delete it. Why on earth would they do that? 

The verse is very similar to Peter's rushing to the tomb in John 20:3-10. The word for the linen cloths in Luke 24:12 (othonia) is not the word that Luke has just used in Luke 23:53 (sindoni), but it is the word used in John 20:5. 

This one verse (Luke 24:12) has 3 words or phrases used nowhere else in Luke or Acts. It also uses an 'historic present', which Luke shuns elsewhere, - for example of the 93 historic presents in the Markan verses that Luke used, no less than 92 were changed by him. 

By this, I mean that Luke uses 'he sees', when everything else in Chapter 24 is in the past tense. Notice that the NIV translates that as 'he saw'. Even they recognise that writers do not suddenly change tense for no good reason. 

Luke 24:12 uses words for 'stooping down', 'the linen clothes', 'went away home' , which are never used elsewhere in Luke or Acts. 

Exactly those words in Luke 24:12 which are not otherwise in Luke-Acts, are in John 20, with John 20:5 being very close indeed! 

There is an Illustrations page available for readers to double check my claims. 

Clearly, a scribe has added in the verse. It is missing from important manuscripts, it has many non-Lukan features, but features which resemble John's Gospel and it is impossible to see why a scribe would ever have wanted to delete the verse. Nobody has ever come up with such a reason.

It is sometimes argued that Luke and John were using a common source, written by someone before them. Suppose this is true. . In itself, this destroys the idea that John is an eyewitness report. Fancy an eyewitness having to rely on an account written by someone else of what he did! It also makes clear that even a careful historian like Luke could not find oral testimony of the resurrection and had to rely on sources , the authenticity of which is now lost to us. 

Luke 24:40 

Codex Bezae and many Old Latin texts do not include Luke 24:40 - 'having said this, he showed them his hands and feet'. Either some scribe added this verse, or some scribe dropped it. It is hard to see why any scribe would drop the verse. It is easy to see why a scribe would add the verse, basing it on John 20:20. He would have had to alter it as John 20:20 mentions 'hands and side' and there was no spear-thrust in Luke's Gospel, but that would only be a small change. It would all help to show that the Gospels 'recorded' a physical resurrection. 

Luke 24:3 

In Luke 24:3,Codex Bezae and most of the Old Latin texts do not have the phrase 'the Lord Jesus' in 'they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus' Clearly, the phrase 'the Lord Jesus' was added by a scribe to make sure that the Gospels recorded that the women went to the right tomb. The phrase 'the Lord Jesus' only occurs in the Gospels here and in Mark 16:19 (another addition by a scribe!) and it is hard to see why the phrase would have been dropped if it were original to Luke's Gospel. 

Luke 24:6 

In Luke 24:6,Codex Bezae and most of the Old Latin texts do not have the phrase 'He is not here, but has been raised'. Clearly, this phrase was added by a scribe to make sure that the women knew that Jesus had been raised It is hard to see why the phrase would have been dropped if it were original to Luke's Gospel.

We have clear evidence that Christians tampered with the text of the Gospels to make them better evidence for the Resurrection. How much tampering went on that we don't have evidence of?

Other Corruptions 

There were many kinds of Christians in the first few centuries after Jesus died. What is called 'Orthodoxy' nowadays is just one strand of Christianity that happened to prevail. Just as their 'heretical' opponents did, Orthodox scribes would alter the texts to better reflect Orthodox views, views which are what we call Christianity nowadays. 

One place where orthodox battled heretic was over when exactly Jesus became Son of God. Orthodox Christians maintained that Jesus was Son of God from conception or even earlier. Heretics maintained that Jesus became Son of God at his baptism or at his resurrection. Romans 1:4 says that '(Jesus was) designated Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead', which seems to imply that even Paul was not unsympathetic to this view. 

The orthodox said that Joseph was not really Jesus's biological father. Some heretics said that Jesus was an ordinary man until he became Son of God and so was born in the normal way. Sadly for the orthodox, the Gospels did say that Jesus's father was Joseph. So some of them simply eliminated those places which said that Joseph was the father of Jesus. For example, Luke 2:33 says that Jesus's 'father and mother began to marvel'. Many Greek manuscripts changed the text to read 'Joseph and his mother began to marvel'. Luke 2:48 says 'Look, your father and I have been grieved'. Some manuscripts were altered to read 'Your relatives and I..' or 'We have been grieved'. In Luke 2:43 'his parents' was often changed to 'Joseph and his mother'. 

Jesus the Son of God? 

John 1:34 

The NIV says here 'And I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God'. But is 'Son of God' the original reading?

A new manuscript has recently been found called p106. It is an early third century manuscript and it says , not Son of God, but the 'Elect of God'. This is also the reading of the very early manuscripts , p5, and Codex Sinaiticus - the only Greek manuscript before AD 800 which has all 27 New Testament books. The reading of 'Elect' is also present in Old Syriac and Old Latin manuscripts. This seems to be a place where later scribes altered the original Gospel to read that Jesus was the 'Son of God'.

Mark 1:1 

Mark 1:1 says 'The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God'. However, important witnesses, including Origen, and Codex Sinaiticus, the only Great Codex to contain the entire New Testament, omit the phrase, Son of God. Did a scribe add this phrase or did a scribe drop it? In any case, it is clear that the idea that Jesus was the Son of God is an important point of Christian doctrine about which manuscripts differ. 

Matthew 27:49 

In 'Evidence that Demands a Verdict', Josh McDowell, the million selling Christian evangelist, has a nice story about the discovery of the very important document, Codex Sinaiticus, in a monastery in 1859. He also makes much of John 19:34-35, where Jesus's body is pierced by a sword after he died. He cites much medical opinion that only eyewitnesses could have observed that. 'The 'blood and water' from the spear-thrust is proof positive that Jesus was already dead' 

Surprisingly, he forgets to inform us that Codex Sinaiticus says , in Matthew 27:49, that the spear was thrust into Jesus before he died. Codex Vaticanus (mid 4th century), Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (5th cent), and other manuscripts back that up. It seems that an orthodox scribe added that detail to Matthew. The issue of the spear-thrust became a major point of controversy between orthodox and heretic. The heretical 'Acts of John' denied that Jesus suffered on the cross - 'You heard that I was pierced , yet I was not wounded, that blood flowed from me , yet it did not flow'. What could be more natural for an orthodox scribe to alter the Gospels to make clear that Jesus suffered on the cross and shed real blood, as Church Fathers like Irenaeus maintained? 

Although very ancient and valuable manuscripts maintain in Matthew 27:49 that blood and water came out of Jesus's side before he died, most translations of today drop the statement, probably because it clashes so horribly with John's Gospel. It is clear that the account of the spear-thrust in the Gospels was not written by eye-witnesses but by scribes, who wanted to show , in Matthew's Gospel, that Jesus really did suffer on the cross, or, in John's Gospel, that Jesus was definitely dead. 

If orthodox scribes were prepared to alter the accounts of their Lord's crucifixion to make them agree with their doctrines, how much alteration went on , especially in the 300 years between the writing of the Gospels and our earliest complete manuscripts? 

Luke 22:19-20 

'And taking bread, giving thanks, saying ,'This is my body that is given for you. Do this in my remembrance. And the cup likewise after supper, saying 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood that is poured out for you'' Why does the RSV have these famous words by Jesus as a footnote? They are not in Codex Bezae , from the 5th century. 

Probably because they were not original to Luke's Gospel. The phrase 'for you' occurs twice in that verse , but nowhere else in Luke-Acts. The word for 'remembrance' occurs nowhere else in Luke-Acts and nowhere else does Luke use the term 'the new covenant'. More importantly, nowhere else does Luke say that Jesus died 'for your sins' or 'for you'. 

Luke , in the Gospel or in Acts, had many opportunities to say that Jesus died 'for' anybody or 'for' anything, but he consistently spurns them all. For example, in the famous 'prophecy , Isaiah 53, Luke in Acts 8 ignores 53:5 'wounded for our transgressions', or 53:5, 'bruised for our iniquities' or 53:10, 'an offering for sin'. As Luke never says that Jesus died 'for our sins', why would he add those words in Luke 22:19-20? If he did write those words, why would any scribe have dropped them? It is clear that the RSV is right and they were not original to Luke's Gospel.

Luke 22:14

'he sat at table, and the twelve apostles with him'. Some Christians had difficulties with calling Judas Iscariot one of the twelve apostles. The very earliest manuscript of Luke 22:14, p75, omits the word 'twelve'. Other manuscripts omit the word 'apostles'.

Luke 23:34

'Father forgive them for they know not what they do.' These words are often cited as an example of Jesus's ability to forgive his persecutors even while on the cross. However, many Christians had difficulty with the idea of Jesus forgiving the Jews who killed him. This verse is missing from the earliest manuscript of Luke, p75. It is also missing from the very early manuscripts Codex Vaticanus and Codex Bezae, along with others. The early manuscript, Codex Sinaiticus, originally contained the words, but a later corrector indicated that they should not be regarded as original to the text. An even later corrector reinstated them.

Similarly, they were added to Codex Bezae by a later corrector, although omitted at first.

Divorce 

One Christian doctrine which varies a lot from one manuscript to the next is teaching about divorce.

The early manuscripts have some twenty different sayings about divorce. I list just a few of them. All of them are different versions of the same passage :- Matthew 19:9 They give different teachings about whether a man can remarry or whether a man can marry a divorced woman.

• Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Ephraemi, Codex Regius Whoever divorces his wife, except for fornication, and marries another commits adultery.
• Codex Purpureus Petropolitanus Whoever divorces his wife , except for fornication, makes her an adulteress and the person marrying a divorced woman commits adultery

  Here there is no prohibition on a man remarrying, but there is a new prohibition about marrying a divorced woman.

• Freer Gospels, Koridethi Codex Whoever divorces his wife , except for fornication, and marries another commits adultery and the person marrying a divorced woman commits adultery

  Both prohibitions have been combined

• Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Original Version) Whoever divorces his wife , except for fornication, and marries another makes her an adulteress and the person marrying a divorced woman commits adultery

  The prohibitions on a divorced man remarrying has been removed , but the part saying 'makes her an adulteress' has been added.

Conclusion 

We have seen that scribes were prepared to alter the most crucial parts of the Gospel accounts to make them more convincing and more suitable for Christian doctrine. Many more examples could be given , but examples from the Last Supper, the Passion and the Resurrection show that Christians themselves altered and tampered with the texts. They were prepared to alter the teachings of Jesus about such basic issues as divorce. In doing so, they have reduced their status as evidence for the life of Jesus.