Sorry don’t mean to correct you but I think you meant the Old Testament.

The New Testament is purley a Christian document and has no place in the Jewish bible.

The Torah, (the Pentateuch) is the 1st of 3 books in the Hebrew Bible, (Tanakh) and comprised the first 5 books of the Old Testament, hence Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

I mean, if it bothers the Jew’s so much that mormons are pretending to baptize by proxy members of the Jewish religion, wouldn’t that mean they actually believe the baptism is actually real, and doing something?

Mormon’s baptize by the dead by proxy based on a obscure passage of scripture in 1st Corintians. (“Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?” 1st Corinthians 15:29).

Based on this scripture and what they believe is divine revelation, mormons believe that they can be baptized for a person who has passed on, and that person living in some sort of spiritual world, will have the opportunity to either accept or reject that baptism.

So if a person doesn’t believe in the mormon spirit world, or that mormons have any authority from God, then why would it bother them what they’re doing in their private temples?

If it’s not real, then it doesn’t mean anything.

For one to be offended by it, wouldn’t they first have to believe that the practice is somehow based in reality?

“The thirteenth-century was a period of frequent Christian attacks on other religions in polemical treatises. The Dominican order in particular dedicated much effort to learning Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic in order to mine original source material from the Talmud and Qur’an for use in argumentation. In contrast to the twelfth century, when Western Christians began translating original texts in order to refute them, thirteenth-century Aragonese Dominicans such as Paul Christiani and Raymond Martini and Italian Dominican Riccoldo de Monte Croce began appropriating original source material in Hebrew and Arabic not only to destroy it in argumentation, but to invoke it as authoritative proof of certain arguments in favor of Christianity. The use of original languages became increasingly precise in the writings of Martini and Monte Croce and often involved extensive citations accompanied by careful translations. By the early fourteenth-century, the use of original source material became so important that writers like Alfonso of Valladolid, a convert from Judaism, wrote voluminous anti-Jewish polemics in Hebrew and based his arguments almost exclusively on Hebrew sources, while Dominican Alfonso Buenhombre fabricated imaginary dialogues between Jews, Muslims, and Christians–which he claims to have discovered in Morocco and translated from Arabic–in defense of Christianity. Later converts to Islam such as Anselm Turmeda similarly based their refutations of Christianity on citation of original Scriptural passages from the Bible. In some polemics, the appropriation of original source material, especially that drawn from religious scriptures, even led to the Christian use of Qur’anic citations against Jews or Muslim use of Hebrew scriptures in defense of Christianity. The borrowing, stealing, and manipulation of original source material characterizes late-medieval polemical writing in the Western Mediterranean region and exemplifies how the construction of religious identity in a multiconfessional society depended on the authority gained through control of original scriptural sources.” “In this lecture, we will survey the variety of medieval uses of original material in polemical writing, especially in the twelfth to fifteenth centuries in the Iberian Peninsula and Maghreb, with specific attention to odd variations on the standard patterns including the Christian citation of Qur’anic material against Jews in Judeo-Arabic script, the Hebrew translation of Christian Gospels, and the fictional fabrication of sources and polemicists on all sides as a strategy in inter-religious debate.”

Well said and even more importantly well reasoned.

It is disrespectful to the memory of those who died in the Shoah to use their life records to redefine their religion. Most non-Jews knowledge of Judaism comes from the Christian translation of the Torah, which they call “The New Testament.” New Testament is actually derogatory from a Jewish perspective because it is a statement that Judaism is obsolete. That Christians should have the right to see it that way is undisputable, but please understand that Jews see it differently. The English and Latin translations of the Torah have been done from a Christian perspective, which is of course reasonable, but they are not representative of what the Torah is actually saying to Jews or a Jewish translation from the Hebrew/Aramaic. It is also interesting that Fundamentalists primarily use the “Old Testament” as the source for their prejudice (homosexuality for instance) but canonically insist that the Gospel made these beliefs obsolete.

For instance SRL23 states above:

“Or more offensive than the Jewish claim that they are God’s “chosen” people?

My guess though is that his/her understanding of “chosen” people probably comes from his reading of the Christian Bible, rather than actual Jewish belief in what that concept means. Besides the Torah there are voluminous Jewish writings (Mishnah, Gommorrah,etc.) that define Judaism and present a quite different view of “chosen” people.

Because Jews are a minority we have generally been defined by other religions that in effect have co-opted our Torah to add age to their own later religions, Judaism is probably between 3,500 to 3,000 years old, but in that co-optation have naturally disparaged the source religion as being superceded by their new improved versions. Millions of dollars are being spent by Baptists in their “convert the Jews” campaign

Mormonism even has “good” Jews and “bad” Jews coming to America around 600 BCE, fighting an apocalyptic war won by the “bad” Jew and now claim to have reclaimed and superseded the heritage of the “good” Jews.

Islam also has co-opted the Torah and likewise teaches a replacement theology. It is no coincidence that the Mosque of Omar was placed on Temple Mount and the non-Koranic claim of Mohammed’s heavenly ascent from that site, was a religious and political statement of Islam’s supremacy.

All of this is fair game in the world of religion and everyone is entitled to their own religious beliefs and the feeling that theirs is the road to truth and God. I practice Judaism because I am comfortable with it and approve of much of its ethical content. However, while I do believe that there is a creative force in the Universe, I believe it is folly for human’s to believe that they can understand it. So that’s why I am also a Deist. While my attitude is “live and let live” towards other beliefs, I don’t think that exerting public approbrium towards those who would use Holocaust victims for their own purposes is out of bounds.

Is this belief anymore disrespectful than the evangelical christian that believes that everyone (Jews, Muslims, Hindus or atheists) that does not accept their version of Jesus Christ goes to Hell? Or more offensive than the Jewish claim that they are God’s “chosen” people? I could go on. My point is not to argue the superiority of a belief, or even to argue that the controversial beliefs/practices of another faith have to accepted by others. What I read on this post was misunderstanding about the practice itself. I just think that if we are going to criticize or opine about something we should at least know what it is and why it is done.

Via these Baptisms do these souls get the right to have their own planet too? If so sign me up. I’ll take Saturn. I like those ice rings.

That is incorrect. The purpose of these Mormon proxy baptisms for the dead is to ensure that everyone will have the chance to accept or reject baptism.

The Mormon faith, like many Christian faiths, states that baptism is an essential ordinance for everyone to progress in the next life. Mormons believe that those who have died without the opportunity to choose to be baptized or not can accept or reject a baptism performed on their behalf by the living. According to Mormon theology, this avoids the somewhat depressing conclusion, that has been taught throughout history, that those that are unbaptized are eternally damned.

It has nothing to do with swelling the ranks of the Mormon Church. Mormons are emphatic that those baptized by proxy do not automatically become Christians or Mormons. Rather, they believe that the dead will now have a choice. This is centered in a doctrine that God will give everyone the opportunity to believe and be baptized if they so choose.

Many may believe this to be a silly and controversial practice, and all are entitled to their opinion. I just thought it would be best to clear up the motivation behind Mormon baptisms for the dead.

I just realized how outlandish that must sound if you hadn’t grown up around it.

You’re talking about religion, what seems obvious to you is heretical to others. I’m sure you believe things that are as absurd to me as baptism of the dead is to you (and me).

I agree with Jill, to me this is one of the more odd manifestations of the emphasis on “conversions” that is prevalent in some forms of American Christianity. I do give them credit, postmortem conversions are less annoying then being witnessed too while alive.

It does seem very disrespectful, not to mention presumptuous of Mormons to do this. It’s also arrogant. Perhaps everyone could start the process in reverse, turning Mormons into Catholics, Jews, Zoroastrians, etc. and send them letters saying they are no longer Mormons, now they are (_______). This might be an effective way to stop the action.

You can’t lose 50 lbs for your overweight friend, they have to do the work themselves. I can’t say, well now that I lost that 15 lbs for Betty Lou, now maybe she’ll fit into that size 2 dress she’s been eyeing.

Things don’t work that way. Otherwise I’d have lost my last 10 lbs of baby weight because my friend runs marathons

According to YOUR beliefs, baptism doesn’t mean anything if the person isn’t present. Theological statements are only self evident to the people who agree with them.

Remember all religions are equally weird to the people who don’t practice them.

Besides, you aren’t saved from hell by just being baptized.

They’re just doing it because they know it upsets them.

Ever notice that if you take that extra “m” out of Mormon, you get moron?