Why Don't Jews Believe in Jesus: A Jewish-Christian Unfolds the Great Mystery

by Eitan Bar

Aimed at educating Christian believers, this book takes readers on a captivating exploration of the complex relationship between Judaism and Christianity. Written from the unique perspective of an Israeli-Jewish believer in Jesus, it offers invaluable insights into the reasons behind Jewish rejection and, at times, hostility toward Christ and Christians. By fostering a deeper understanding of the apprehensions and historical wounds that have shaped Jewish perceptions of Christianity, Dr. Bar equips readers with the tools to be better ambassadors to the Jewish people.

What sets this book apart is the author's distinctive dual perspective. Dr. Eitan Bar is an Israeli-born Jewish believer in Jesus and a descendant of Jewish Partisan Holocaust survivors. He holds the remarkable distinction of being the first Jewish believer in Jesus to publicly debate an Orthodox rabbi in Hebrew in Israel.


The book is divided into three main parts, introducing the three core reasons Jews reject Jesus:
Reason #1: The Lies We Tell Ourselves
How Jesus Became the Best-Kept Secret in Judaism.
Reason #2: What Was Done to Us in Jesus' Name
Christian Antisemitism & Replacement Theology.
Reason #3: What Christians Tell Us About Our God
Judaism Continues to Reject the Gospel Because It Got Contaminated.

Genres: Christianity

196 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 7, 2023

About the author

Dr. Eitan Bar (born 1984, Tel Aviv) is a Bible scholar, author, and Israeli-Jewish follower of Jesus with multiple advanced degrees in Bible and theology. His unique background—living in Israel, being a native Hebrew speaker, and possessing advanced Christian education—provides a fresh and timely perspective on Christian beliefs and doctrines.

Dr. Bar co-founded ONE FOR ISRAEL Ministry, a Messianic Reformed Baptist non-profit and Bible college. He later left the organization in 2022 and deconstructed his Baptistic-Calvinistic beliefs, becoming an independent author of several books, including a few best-sellers (available on Amazon.com)

Eitan frequently lectures worldwide, primarily in Europe and the U.S., and his Hebrew-language videos, with over 25 million views, have made him a widely recognized figure in Israel for representing faith in Yeshua (Hebrew for Jesus).

Reviews

[Jason Poling · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this is awkward. A couple of times in his book the author begged for positive reviews. He explained that because anti-Semites and Orthodox Jews leave negative reviews he needed to outweigh their impact. And here I am leaving a two-star review! I guess I need to defend myself now! I am neither an Orthodox Jew nor an anti-Semite.

I am an Evangelical Protestant who does not believe in Replacement Theory nor in Two Covenant Theology. I believe Jew and Gentile can be united together as one through Christ. I believe God still has a special, covenant love for the Jew and will keep His ancient promises to them. In light of this, I believe there will be a future, miraculous ingathering of untold numbers of Jewish people into the Community of Christ.

Now for the review...
I appreciated the author's historical review of anti-Semitism and its impact on the reticence of Jews in becoming followers of Jesus as the Christ. I also was enlightened by his refutation of rabbinic Judaism. He posits that it does not represent ancient Judaism, but is rather a political takeover by the rabbinical, pharisaical movement after AD 70 and especially after bar Kokhba.

Unfortunately, the problems with this book are many. I will summarize quickly:

1. Grammar. This definitely sounds petty, but it drove me crazy. There were so many egregious errors in his composition that, to not lose respect for the author, I researched to make sure he was a native Hebrew speaker and did not grow up in the anglo-West. Fortunately - for my ability to make it through the book and not discount everything he wrote as 'uneducated' (I know...petty) - I discovered he is not a native English speaker. However, he is in serious need of an English-speaking editor!

2. Bias. I know this is not a work of scholarship. In other words, the author should not be expected to restrain his passions in an effort to understand and carefully weigh various opinions on a subject. However, the author repeatedly cited his erudition and advanced degrees. This seemed to imply that he was coming at his topic with a willingness to reasonably investigate counter-claims. This was most certainly not his aim. This book was more of a hit-piece against the groups he clearly disdains.

He first came out swinging against Orthodox Judaism. It was easier to watch this because I am not Jewish. I am obviously not as well-informed about modern Judaism as I am of my own faith, so I gobbled up his polemic against it like it was gospel-truth. When he started swinging at Evangelical Christianity in the last part of his book, I naturally became a little uncomfortable. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt because I had enjoyed the first part of his book, so I tried to absorb and process his arguments.

Unfortunately, he kept using the term "Fundamentalist" as a pejorative against Evangelicals. Even though this betrayed a lack of scholarly balance in his thinking, I truly wanted to understand his perspective. What I discovered was some very shoddy exegesis shrouded in rhetorical vitriol.

I did some research to find out what provoked such unreasoning hostility within him towards both Orthodox Jews and Evangelical Christians. I discovered that he had gone through a personal scandal involving his ex-wife and current wife and received much criticism from his Messianic Jewish community. (Messianic Judaism and Evangelicalism do have some overlap in theology and practice.) The author describes his side of the story here: https://eitan.bar/uncategorized/one-f...

This helped me understand why he was so incensed against Evangelicals and explained why his arguments against Evangelicalism were heavy on biased pathos and light on well-reasoned logos.

3. Theology. There is so much to discuss here that it might be best to suggest a work of scholarship that could more effectively address the exegetical and logical problems with the author's thinking than I could in a short review. The short, but well-exegeted treatment of Scripture's view of God that I recommend is D.A..Carson's "The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God" https://a.co/d/aCeDCdF

The author's most glaring error in rightly dividing the Scriptures is his understanding of the love of God vis-a-vis the sinfulness of Man. On this front, and perhaps in the wake of his own personal (and now public) struggles, he sounds more like a progressive Evangelical Christian who highlights grace over and above the call to holiness (the Romans 6-type error). He so hates the clear texts in both covenants about God's wrath against sin (and therefore, sinners - see Genesis 6 and Ephesians 2), that he seeks to downplay God's self-description as King, Judge, and Righteous Warrior by overplaying God's self-description as Father. He is a loving Father, but He is also an awesome King whom we must not domesticate.

I do share the faith of the author in Jesus as our only Savior from sin. Jesus died as our final Yom Kippur atoning sacrifice. "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." (Hebrews 10:4) But "we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." (Hebrews 10:10)

Without this sacrifice, we would not be holy in God's sight. And without this holiness, we would be separated from God and His loving presence forever. "Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." (Hebrews 12:14).

So, we must strive to share the gospel of salvation from the wrath of God through the work of Jesus Christ to Jew and Gentile alike (Romans 1:16; 5:9; Ephesians 5:6; Colossians 3:6; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; Matthew 3:7). This salvation shows the amazing grace and mercy of God! Let's preach this whole gospel, and not a truncated version, so we can "see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God!" (Hebrews 12:15) 

[Delwyn Campbell Sr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, but still….

I read this book in order to understand the differences between Judaism and Christianity. I did not find what I was looking for, but I suppose that is not necessarily Dr. Bar’s fault. He wrote this book to describe the obstacles that cause Jews to stumble at believing the Gospel. So, it was good to get his perspective, but that perspective does include, I think, calling “antisemitic,” the recognition that the Gospel of Matthew includes the response of the crowd to Pilate’s attempt to derail the effort to have Jesus crucified: “His blood be upon us and upon our children.” This statement does not justify dehumanizing Jews for being Jews or attempting to eradicate them. It could explain, however, what happened over the following centuries, not as God’s judgment for their rejection of the Messiah, but the efforts of Satan to destroy Israel in order to thwart the missio Dei. As an aside, Bar engages with Luther’s polemic against Jews and its connection to the Nazi “Final Solution.” You can’t change the past but you can learn from it.

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why did you just don't believe in Jesus

I enjoyed everything about this book. It gave me insight into the Jewish religion and an understanding of why they do not believe that we believe in the same God. I would recommend anyone who had an interest in the Lord Jesus read this book. There is nothing in this book that I did not agree with. It's sad that religion gets in the way of faith in Him. I was raised in the Mormon or the Latter day Saint Church and found a lot of the same things happened to my family when we decided to leave it. So I can relate to what Eitan said about Judaism. They use the same tactics of manipulation, shunning and anger on us. They even tried to get my wife to divorce me because they said "I was taking my family to hell!".

[Marguerite Leggett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gut-wrenching

I grew up in regional Australia taught that Jews were highly Intelligent, very creative and artistic, and good business men and women. My church taught that the Jews are God’s chosen people but that we could also become sons and daughters of Abraham by faith in Jesus. I remember as an adult reading Romans 11 and feeling Paul’s grief over his unsaved kindred. But it is only recently that I have become aware of the church’s anti-semitism through the centuries and been challenged that Nazi Germany was a ‘Christian’ nation. Christian read this book to be properly informed. The final two chapters include the positives that will guide you in loving and witnessing to your Jewish neighbour.

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. It breaks down 3 reasons why Jews don't believe in Jesus.

1. The lies Jews believe and what the rabbis added to seperate Jews from Christians early on. (Interesting section that is covered in his other books).

2. Historic and current antisemitism in the church. Lots of quotes from the early fathers down to current leaders that make you say yikes.

3. Common Christian theology that clashes with Jewish understanding of God and makes them run. For example calvanism and the wrath of God. Good to know, but this section was repetitive and frustrating and left me with more questions than answers and he just says to read his book on it. Maybe I will.

[Richard Hammond · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really appreciated the first part of the book. It was really eye opening and sad to see the history of antisemitism throughout the church.

The last part of the book was really repetitive and I felt like it misrepresented penal substitutionary atonement. The parent child analogy was used over and over again and I think he tried to take the analogy too far. It will make me work out my own views further, but I still don't understand what the distinction is between what I believe and what the author believes.

[Karen Caballero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Informative

I really appreciate the perspective brought to light. I think many of these ideas apply to sharing God's love with any non-believers. Thank you for clarifying some of the not-quite-accurate translations that we, as Christians without any Hebrew background, just accept. Thank you for giving me a clearer picture of God in the Old Testament as you explained some of the history and traditions of the time.

[Cecilio · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the kind of Christians we need more and more. I am a Viet Nam veteran, soldier and defender. Also I am a Catholic Christian. Somewhere in the last 2,000 years we began to "rationalize" God's will. And we all got it wrong. This book is an absolute must-read for all and any who kneals before God and prays for a better relationship with Him!

[Richard Sellers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oooohhh, thaaaat's why.

This book was well written and moved along quickly in spite of the complexity of the subject. I read it to find the answer to the mystery of why Jews reject Jesus and this book carefully explained it. Thank you, Dr. Bar.

[R. Cobb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book

This book is exploration of the complex relationship between Judaism and Christianity. It's an educational read that addresses the key reasons behind Jewish rejection of Jesus. Good read for religious people or people who study religion

[Misael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely excellent. This book blew my mind, I didn’t realize how complex the situation is in regards to evangelizing the Jews. If you have any friends who are Jews and you wanted to talk to them about Jesus, definitely read this first.

[Juliane Purves · Rating 5 out of 5]

I WANT EVERY CHRISTIAN IN MY LIFE TO READ THIS BOOK

[Michael Wagner, · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! I’ve been enlightened to a lot of things I didn’t know about this subject. I have a far greater appreciation to the plight of the Jewish people. I highly recommend this book!

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have liked to have rated this book so much higher. I got so much out of the first half, learning how rabbinic Judaism took root during and after the Second Temple period, while seeing the development of the oral tradition prevalent within their faith. But what I found difficult to absorb, was the author’s caricature of penal substitutionary atonement in the second half of the book. He must have referenced his other book, “The Gospel of Divine Abuse,” forty to fifty times, making me wish he had contained most of his criticism there, while giving readers more solutions to the evangelization of the Jewish people here. While I understand and can even appreciate the author’s motive and point that many Jews may find this idea offensive, he did not offer much of an alternative to use with Jewish people instead. In fact, he did not even differentiate between God’s active and passive will in the atonement. He made it seem as if God acted as a cosmic bully, actively crushing his son. This went on for pages. That is not what most Christians believe, not even the many Reformed authors he quoted. Being Reformed myself, I have read many of their writings. With all that said, the first half of the book is worth its weight in gold. Therefore, I heartily recommend you read at least that first half. With that said, mature believers in Jesus may find it instructive to consider the criticism of penal substitutionary atonement.