Journal: Global Journal of Classical Theology
Volume: GJCT 16:3 (Feb 2020)
Article: Maimonides Against The Trinity: Implications For Contemporary Dialogue With Jewish Religious Thought
Author: Amy Downey

Maimonides Against The Trinity: Implications For Contemporary Dialogue With Jewish Religious Thought

Amy Downey

Abstract: Dr. Downey is the president/director of Tzedakah Ministries, which seeks to reach Jewish people with the gospel of Jesus, the Messiah. She is the author of Paul’s Conundrum and the first woman to receive a PhD in apologetics from Liberty University (2016). In “Maimonides against the Trinity” she points out the continuing influence that one of the most noted of Jewish philosophers, Rabbi Moses Maimonides (1135–1204), continues to hold over Jewish thought. Nevertheless, it is still possible for the Jewish people to believe in Jesus as the Messiah.

According to the Joshua Project regarding the unreached spiritual condition of the Jewish people, 96.8% of the estimated 14.7 million Jewish people in the world today are separated from a personal relationship with Jesus the Jewish Messiah.1 On many levels, this should be perceived as implausible when one realizes that the Christian faith is predicated on the Old Testament (aka Hebrew Scriptures or Tanakh) and that Jesus himself was Jewish. The overwhelming majority of the Jewish people today, however, do not accept the Messiahship of Jesus nor acknowledge the possibility of such Christian concepts as the Trinity and the Incarnational deity of Jesus.2

Therefore, a place to begin the study of why modern/Rabbinic Judaism, which is clearly different than the Judaism of the Old Testament, would reject the identity of Messiah Jesus must include the evaluation of early Jewish theologians and scholars who were the most vocal in rejecting Jesus’ divinity and deity. This paper, therefore, will examine the life, thought and legacy of one of the most prominent Jewish scholars and rabbinical forces in Judaism—Moses Maimonides (1135–1204).3 It should be acknowledged that while the “official separation” began much earlier than Maimonides’ times, I will argue that it reached its greatest fruition in the life and teachings of the twelfth century scholar, whose teachings continue to influence and block the Gospel message from the Jewish people in the twenty-first century.

For there is a disconnect between Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism in relationship to the identity of Jesus due to what will be described in this paper as Maimonides’ “un-God concept.” This disconnect, which I can only fleetingly begin to begin to identify here, needs to be evaluated in order to bring the truth of Messiah Jesus and the second member of the Godhead, to the people for whom He first came (Mt. 10:1–28, esp. v....