Jesus - whether you approve of him or not - comes with a ton of historical evidence including Josephus - who was born a decade or two after. The "Pagan Dissenters" you mention lived hundreds of years after - when records of Jesus' time were already ancient historical documents and places he lived were buried under centuries old rubble. Furthermore, their dissent was not against the existence of an historical figure named Jesus - but against the fact that their religion was outlawed by a Roman Christian heirarchy. Mr. #21 - you don't need a University education to "get" this - just a cursory read of translated historical documents from the Roman period in the east - widely available in most librarys and better book stores around the world.

I'M A JEW IN THE USA. IN 6TH GRADE, AT MY PUBLIC SCHOOL, WE HAD THE USUAL CHRISTMAS PLAY. I WAS PICKED BY THE TEACHER TO PLAY THE VIRGIN MARY. CAN YOU UNDERSTAND THE TRAUMA I WENT THROUGH SITTING UP ON THE STAGE, IN AN AUDITORIUM FULL OF 99.9% CHRISTIAN PARENTS, ROCKING THE BABY JESUS DOLL TO MY CHEST. MY PARENTS SAID IT WOULD BE UNWISE TO COMPLAIN BECAUSE I WAS THE ONLY JEWISH KID WE KNEW OF IN THE SCHOOL. DO NOT HAVE CHRISTIAN STUDIES IN ISRAELI PUBLIC SCHOOLS! OR YOU WILL END UP LIKE I DID. KEEP YOURSELVES TOTALLY JEWISH AT ALL COSTS! THINK OF THE 6 MILLION WHO DIED ONLY BECAUSE OF THEIR JEWISH RELIGION. ISRAEL, KEEP FAITH WITH THEM SO THEY DID NOT DIE IN VAIN.

I for one am glad it's not offered to Jewish students...yet. if and when it is, then all the anti-missionary work unravels. since it's being taught to Arabs, here's a better idea, offer the Arabs a matriculation exam in Judaism!

My Jewish gran learned Chrisitianity in school in Canada. But that was 60 years ago. Today my Canadian nephews learn a bit "about" different religions and are taught to respect others in school. They do not take classes in the structures, internal policies, politics and developments of any religion. This has nothing to do with fear. Unlike Maths, science and history - religion has power over people. Teachers are humans - many with their own deep religious beliefs. I don't want my children coerced before they are prepared to make their own decisions. That includes Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddism, Sufism, etc, etc,...

if israel goes the way of teaching christianity in their public schools. the jewish kids will lose their souls.

I think someone who may have committed adultery.

Yes, I do wonder why ? Why do they help them while others - even some Israelis - cannot make a living ? Perhaps some non-dits have to be expressed. The way to peace were not so long if men of goodwill and rich in true wisdom - like you - would not systematically been rebuked and their people demonized. In a time of organized distress where some live comfortably others are being put aside, and they die not only of not having a minimum, but also of despair that better days are not for them as if hope would always choose its camp. It's high time to give real chances to peace and love in this restless world where societies have lost their bearings. Not even a war to end all wars, but determined, peaceful steps to come out of a potential chaos. Sheikh yer Bu'Tay, we need each other on the way to an appeased world. Salam, shalom, peace.

Some of the posters who most vociferously object to teaching Christianity took the opportunity to do so themselves - thereby contradicting themselves. There's a difference between teaching historical Christianity and uncritically teaching Christian claims. According to historians, the first Netzarim (corrupted to "Nazarene") was born in B.C.E. 7. However, the late Oxford historian, James Parkes, and the earliest Christian historian, Eusebius, combine to PROVE that HISTORICAL Christianity began not in year zero of the C.E., but in the wake of the Bar Kokhva Rebellion, as the polar antithesis of the Netzarim, with the ouster and displacement of the 15th Netzarim Paqid, namely Yehudah, by the first gentile Roman Hellenist "bishop," namely Marcus. Eusebius also recorded that it wasn't until several decades after the gentile Hellenist Romans had ousted and displaced the 15th Netzârim Pâqid (EH IV.v.3) in 135 C.E. that Hegesippus epoieisamein - "fabricated" - the first list of popes some time between 142 and 168 C.E. (EH IV.xxii.3)!!! The question is: will the schools teach these types of historical deceptions and the fraud of Christianity as a displacement theology documented by James Parkes and other historians? Or vacuously regurgitate Christian doctrines and evangelism? There's little doubt about the answer. When will Christian schools teach historical Christianity and Muslim schools teach historical Islam? Don't hold your breath to hear documented history taught when it contradicts Christianity and Islam. It results in Baptist, Catholic and other Christian preachers renouncing Christianity and undertaking to practice Torah. Seculars want ecumenicism. What they don't want is their children exposed to historical facts that might turn secular youth to practice Torah. Khareidim don't want their children exposed to historical facts because it occasionally contradicts their rabbis. Christians don't want their children exposed to historical facts for the same reason as Muslims, their children might discover, and reject, the fraud and deception of displacement theology. Few are they who find the narrow and difficult Way. Anyone who wants to seriously study the documented historical facts rather than trade slogans and sound-bytes, can contact me at the website below (see, for example, the History Museum pages), where the historical facts are laid out and clearly documented in a series of four books..Would that the schools would do so. Paqid Yirmeyahu Israeli Orthodox Jew Advancing Logic as Halakhic Authority Welcoming Jews & non-Jews www.netzarim.co.il

"...a Jewish land for the Jewish people " Great ! In the same insane world a number of despaired people use a stone as pillow when night comes along with loneliness, despair and death. Great !

Israel is the Jewish country and it's only right that Jewish children should learn about Judaism. How to behave in a church? How is that matric material *for anyone* anyway? BTW, I don't recall my son studying anything in school about how to behave in a synagogue. Now if they wanted to have some enrichment-type courses (electives) about "Christianity in History" or the like, that's something else.

I most certainly do NOT want my children exposed to teachers - such as yourself - intent on "imbibing" them with their own personal truth. All the children in my family are taught to respect others and their belief systems - to know how important religion is to the religious. The "I'm right and you need your nose rubbed in your ridiculous beliefs" - is an education system that can only be avoided by keeping people such as yourself far away from developing minds.

Why? You looking for converts. Not enough in the rest of the world? What's wrong with you. I thought Israel was a Jewish country?

Of course it wouldn't kill anybody. But what exactly is your point?

I think everyone on the planet would benefit from becoming more educated about other religions. That doesn't mean, however, that I think the State of Israel should use our tax money to compell our kids to study Christianity.

I think we need more Jews/Rabbis to become scholars of the new testament so that they can teach the Christians what is wrong and what is right about the Christian faith. Jews/Judiasm are the closest to the original word of Gd, they have much insight they can share with Christians. G-d chose the Jewish people/Israel to be a light to the nations :o)

Shalom, I recommend reading Isaiah 53 as well.

An American Rabbi said once, that all Jews should have converted to Christianity, since Jesus was the messiah they were waiting for. What do you think?

There is no historical reference to Jesus’ life, death or the crucifixion―nothing at all. John E. Remsburg, in his classic book The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidence of His Existence 1 lists the following contemporary historians/writers who lived during the time, or within a century after the time, that Jesus was supposed to have lived: Apollonius Persius Appian Petronius Arrian Phaedrus Aulus Gellius Philo-Judaeus Columella Phlegon Damis Pliny the Elder Dio Chrysostom Pliny the Younger Dion Pruseus Plutarch Epictetus Pompon Mela Favorinus Ptolemy Florus Lucius Quintilian Hermogones Quintius Curtius Josephus Seneca Justus of Tiberius Silius Italicus Juvenal Statius Lucanus Suetonius Lucian Tacitus Lysias Theon of Smyran Martial Valerius Flaccus Paterculus Valerius Maximus Pausanias According to Remsburg, “Enough of the writings of the authors named in the foregoing list remains to form a library. Yet in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ.” Nor, we may add, do any of these authors make note of the Disciples or Apostles; increasing the embarrassment from the silence of history concerning the foundation of Christianity. In other words, the only information of the life of Jesus comes from Christian believers. Logic would dictate that if all the miracles which Jesus performed or surrounded him: 1. Being born of a virgin mother; 2. Three Magi following the brightest star forever to see the demigod; 3. The slaying of the innocent babies; 4. Raising the dead, healing the blind and lame; 4. Having the sky turn to blackness when Jesus died; 5. Earthquakes in the region; 6. The dead Jewish saints coming out of their graves going to Jerusalem; and 7. The Resurrection. that at least one of these world headline news events would have at least a small mention by at least one of the foregoing historian and writers. But, NO, they are totally silent!

Actually, the neither the Rabbis nor everyone else acknowledge Jesus as the messiah or understand and acknowledge Christianity as a faith equal to Judaism. Sorry.

“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). These words from the First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny. In the same verse, Saint John also offers a kind of summary of the Christian life: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us”. We have come to believe in God's love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. Saint John's Gospel describes that event in these words: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should ... have eternal life” (3:16). In acknowledging the centrality of love, Christian faith has retained the core of Israel's faith, while at the same time giving it new depth and breadth. The pious Jew prayed daily the words of the Book of Deuteronomy which expressed the heart of his existence: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might” (6:4-5). Jesus united into a single precept this commandment of love for God and the commandment of love for neighbour found in the Book of Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (19:18; cf. Mk 12:29-31). Since God has first loved us (cf. 1 Jn 4:10), love is now no longer a mere “command”; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us. In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence, this message is both timely and significant. For this reason, I wish in my first Encyclical to speak of the love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others. That, in essence, is what the two main parts of this Letter are about, and they are profoundly interconnected. The first part is more speculative, since I wanted here—at the beginning of my Pontificate—to clarify some essential facts concerning the love which God mysteriously and gratuitously offers to man, together with the intrinsic link between that Love and the reality of human love. The second part is more concrete, since it treats the ecclesial exercise of the commandment of love of neighbour. The argument has vast implications, but a lengthy treatment would go beyond the scope of the present Encyclical. I wish to emphasize some basic elements, so as to call forth in the world renewed energy and commitment in the human response to God's love.

How could she have committed adultery when she wasn't married? I assume you're talking about Jesus's conception, but maybe I'm wrong. Is there something in her later life I haven't heard about?

Haha! That's a good one. And how many Arabs -- Christian or Muslim (I'm all for equal opportunity) -- would take advantage of that??

I had a bit of Comparative Religious Studies in 9th grade in an American public high school about 35 years ago. I remember wondering why it was that we were studying about Hinduism, Shinto, Buddhism and Islam but not Judaism or Christianity. It was interesting, though. Theology wasn't what was being taught. It was the effect of these religions on the cultures.

In a Jewish country only the root-Judaism-should be tought,nothing else.There is no reason to please minorities in this delicate matter. To learn ,as much as possible,is always a very good thing,but an ideological/educational policy for a country always threatened by outside, and needing to strengthen more and more its own identity, is another thing,and should be very well thought,always with the eyes in the present and ,most important,in the future consequences of such policies.

Jews - don't assimilate! It is a great honor to be a Jew! It is a great honor that G-D gave Israel to Jews as an everlasting possession! Why are Jews not taught Biblical values in Israeli schools - that racism and hatred of Jews is evil? Why was it considered acceptable to follow the criminal, Gentile 2,000 year practice of making Jews jobless and homeless, stealing Jewish land and assets and giving it to the enemies of Jews as was perpetrated against 10,000 Jews in Gaza and northern Samaria? Spitting in G-D's face, Israeli leaders gave Gaza to PLO/PA/Hamas/Al Qaida/Hizbullah et al. Demonstrating utter contempt and intense hate for Israel's G-D, Muslim mobs desecrated and destroyed the Gaza synagogues where G-D the Creator of all life had been worshipped and honored. Obeying G-D protects! Disobeying G-D removes G-D's protection! Exchanging Jewish land for war, Global Islamic Terror State One was installed in Gaza. Iranian Revolutionary Guard units train Fatah and Hamas in the Jew-cleansed areas of Gaza. In the land for war, Jew-cleansed areas of global terrorist paradise Gaza, Islamists fire a daily, incessant barrage of rockets on the defenseless Jews of Sderot and Ashkelon. The U.S. EU, UN, Israeli leaders' plan is to duplicate the Islamist terrorist success of Gaza - installing Global Islamic Terror State Two in Judea and Samaria reducing tiny Israel to indefensible 6-10 miles wide Auschwitz borders. Facilitating Jewish annihilation must be stopped! Advancing global jihad's unopposed march to world conquest must be stopped!

To our Jewish brothers. True Christian belief teaches that Jews and Christian are of one and same (olive) tree and branches of the same tree. I hope that the factual historical truth of Jesus (English for "Jeshua") will be taught int those schools to Jews and Muslims. And also the hundreds of prohesies in the Torah pointing to Him as the expected Messiah, how it was fulfilled in the New Testament. As a reminder: Jesus (English translation for "Jeshua") was/is a Jew. All the Apostles were Jews, for the first 200 years all the Popes were Jews. It was and is a very Jewish "religion", if you will. And no, this "New Testament" about the life of Jesus is not replacing the 'Old" Testament. But shows the fulfillment of the first. As examples I would like to invite you to read the following: Genesis 22: 7 through 14, where Abraham is about to sacrifice his son Isaac. A clear picture of God providing the sacrifice of Jeshua. (Jesus). A fact confirmed once again in verse 14 when Abraham called the place "Jehovahjireh". ("Jehovah God shall be seen"), referring to Jeshua, the visible image of the unseen spirit Jehovah who was seen for 33 years until his death on that very same spot. Ask yourself, what else could the entire story mean? Answer: A preview of what later became the slaying of Jeshua, as sacrifice to die for our sins and us all? Exodus 12, the establishment of the Passover. Jesus, Jeshua, being the future real Passover with His blood (on the cross= the door posts in the Genesis story). Verse 21: "..........and kill the Passovver". See verse 27 that says: "It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover". What do you think this killing of the "sacrifice" was and was going to be in the future? Was the establishment ( the "ordinance" as it is called in verse 14) meant to simply establish a religious "tradition" only? Psalms 2:7 - Psalms 22:16 - Psalms 110:1. All versus you can look up yourself because of space limitations here. Isaiah 9:6 'For unto us a child is born, a Son is given, .........his name shall be called ....Mighty God" (!), Everlasting Father (!)....." What, a child born as "Mighty God" and as "Everlasting Father"?? How shocking? What do you think it means? The entire chapter of Isaiah 53, which shows how this gruesome was fulfilled in Jesus' (Jeshua's) death on the cross. Zechariah 3. The entire chapter about Jesus in his role of "high priest" and "the branch" in heaven. Zechariah 12: 10 ".....and they shall look upon Me Whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for Him as one mourns for Him as one mourns for his only Son", reflecting His return one day soon. Lastely: Who do you think this refers to: "Who had ascended up into heaven, or descended?.......Who has established all the ends of the earth. What is His name, and what is His Son's name? ". (It is in Proverbs 30: 4.) In short: What are you going to do with all those prophetic verses? Ignore them? And these are only a few of many, hundreds more and many books are written showing this in a full-proof manner. Seek and you will find. And I wish you will.

From the very beginning of the Christian movement, followers of Jesus tried to make sense of the impact of Jesus of Nazareth, and began arguing about differing ways of making sense. There has never been an uncontested, unrationalized Christian faith. The processes of making sense initially drew upon the ideas and narratives of contemporary Judaism, which was already Hellenized in various degrees. As time went by, ideas and narratives from other Hellenistic context were drawn on, but the Jewish scriptures remained a key driver of theological development, and too sharp a distinction between Hebraic and Hellenistic is unsustainable. Some elements of early Christian theologizing previously thought to be thoroughly ‘Hellenistic’ (e.g., the Prologue of John’s Gospel) are now regularly argued to be thoroughly Jewish. The ideas and narratives drawn on in this process were transformed as they were given a new context in Christian practices of devotion, community - formation and evangelism - and the extent to which borrowings from Hellenistic culture (for instance) were given new meanings in this process should not be underestimated. One of the characteristics of those strands of early Christianity (in the second and third centuries) that sometimes get called ‘proto-orthodox’ (because they are the most direct ancestors of the forms of Christianity that in the fourth century got defined as Orthodox), invested a great deal of time and energy in communication between widely spread conversations, and in pursuing a deep interest in each other’s beliefs and practices. This concern and communication seems to have been as much a driver of the development of theological activity as the desire to communicate Christianity to, or make it acceptable in, a Hellenistic culture (cf. Paul when he started evangelizing), whereof studying religions in determined frames are not waste of time. Shalom, salam, peace

I find this hard to believe as all public schools in the US can only present secular Christmas plays ie. Santa, etc. so no one including atheists is offended. By law, public schools must appeal to the entire public not any one religious group. The only schools permitted to have religious Christmas pageants are the private christian schools and catholic schools.

That's now. But anyone writing in to these talkbacks is already an adult (I assume) and so attended school "back then."

U.S. public schools infamous for their hostility to Christianity and Judaism are indoctrinating America's children into Islam. Breaking G-D's commandment: "You shall have no other gods before Me", America's children are being taught to follow a god we and our ancestors never knew. As American soldiers fight and die in Iraq - to spread democracy??? - we have lost our freedom in America. WorldNetDaily.com December 13, 2003 JUDICIAL JIHAD Judge rules Islamic education OK in California classrooms Dismisses suit opposing requirement students recite Quran, pray to Allah Requiring seventh-grade students to pretend they're Muslims, wear Islamic garb, memorize verses from the Quran, pray to Allah and even to play "jihad games" in California public schools has been legally upheld by a federal judge, who has dismissed a highly publicized lawsuit brought by several Christian students and their parents... ...the suit was filed by the Thomas More Law Center against the Byron Union School District and various school officials to stop the use of the "Islam simulation" materials and methods used in the Excelsior Elementary School in Byron, Calif. The World History and Geography class in question is part of a curriculum being taught to seventh-graders all over the state, and is included in the state's curriculum standards required by the state board of education. Although the standards outline what subjects should be taught and will be included in state assessment tests, they don't mandate how they're to be taught. In the three-week course, Excelsior teacher Brooke Carlin had students assume Islamic names, recite prayers in class, memorize and recite verses from the Quran, and had them simulate Ramadan fasting by going without something for a day. The final test required students to critique Muslim culture. The Islam simulations at Excelsior are outlined in the state-adopted textbook "Across the Centuries," published by Houghton Mifflin, which prompts students to imagine they are Islamic soldiers and Muslims on a Mecca pilgrimage. The lawsuit also alleges students were encouraged to use such phrases in their speech as "Allah Akbar," which is Arabic for "God is great," and were required to fast during lunch period to simulate fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. "While public schools prohibit Christian students from reading the Bible, praying, displaying the Ten Commandments, and even mentioning the word 'God,' students in California are being indoctrinated into the religion of Islam..." http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36118