It deliberately obscures the nature of Messianic Jewish (MJ) belief, and seeks to downplay the differences between MJ belief and the widely accepted view of mainstream Jewish belief. It does so with the use of weasel words like "Yeshua" instead of "Jesus" (at the very least, it should say "Jesus (Yeshua)" since "Jesus" is the name most people use to refer to that figure) and "Apostolic" instead of "New Testament" (again, the latter is the more common term). These words obscure the fact that these important elements of MJ are regarded by most people as essentially Christian elements.
Obfuscates Jewish and MJ terms. "Prayers and Blessings" is a link to List of Jewish prayers and blessings. "Jewish prayers and blessings" are not the same thing as "MJ prayers and blessings". In contrast to this "Religious practices" links to "Messianic religious practice'. It also lists terms like "Apostolic" (sic) alongside important Jewish texts like "Torah" and "Talmud" as if these belong in the same category.
The template neglects many other important elements of MJ, like Mary (mother of Jesus), Saint Joseph, Virgin birth, John the Baptist, John the Apostle, etc., which most non-MJ people would regard as essentially Christian, but which certainly belong there since they are central figures in the religious belief scheme that MJ ascribe to.
There are many other similar problems with the template, too numerous to mention.
It's not just Jewish denominations who regard MJ as non-Jewish, but as I said above, the vast majority of mainstream Christians, religious scholars, philosophers of religion agree upon this. —Batamtig 00:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
MJ Response 1. The nature of Messianic Jewish belief is Jewish and Messianic. The "Weasel" words you describe have valid articles with the same name. 2. Most (if not all) Jewish prayers listed in List of Jewish prayers and blessings are prayers used by Messianics, including myself. Also, Messianics do not call the New Testament by its name, but refers to these writings as the Apostolic Writings, or Apostolic Scriptures, depending on who you ask. This template, which lists articles "relevant" to Messianic Judaism then includes these commonly heard phrases and terms; just like Template:Judaism includes commonly heard phrases and terms that other people have different words for. 3. We have a link already to important figures and people in Messianic Judaism that lists some of those you mentioned, yet link to different articles about the people since we don't call anyone "saint" or regard Mary or Joseph as important as Christians do. inigmatus 06:09, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Objection Inigmatus, you don't speak for all MJ. Kindly change your labels above to say Inigmatus' response.
Response to Inigmatus ("MJ"). 1. Whatever the self-identification of MJ's belief, this template obscures the clear, verifiable and identifiable difference between mainstream Jewish and MJ belief. The weasel words are misleading, whether they have articles or not, I've responded on this issue at length here. 2. Not so. Many MJ invoke Yeshua's (sic) name in their prayers and blessings, so those are not the same as "Jewish prayers and blessings". In addition, MJ have many prayers which are not even based on "Jewish prayers and blessings". It's irrelevant what the MJ think the New Testament should be called, the effect of not referring to it by its common name is to obscure the fact that MJ believe in is in fact the same NT as the Christians believe in. There's no analogy with Jewish terms here, since Judaism, doesn't invent neologisms to refer to other religion's beliefs which it has adopted. It uses Hebrew terms that have been around since time immemorial, not newly invented ones like "Brit Chadasha" (sic) for NT and "Shimon Kefa" (sic) for "Saint Peter". See my additional comments here.
