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Loading...In my previous post I started to explain why, based on the testimony of Paul, it appears that most Jews (the vast majority) rejected the Christian claim that Jesus was the messiah.
I have to say, that among my Christian students today (most of them from the South, most of them from conservative Christian backgrounds), this continues to be a real puzzle.
“But there were prophecies of Jesus being the messiah,” they argue. “Hundreds of Old Testament passages, such as Isaiah 53, describe him to a tee.”
They genuinely can’t figure it out.
What About Old Testament Messianic Prophecies?
In their view, the Old Testament makes a number of predictions about the messiah:
- he would be born in Bethlehem
- his mother would be a virgin
- he would be a miracle worker
- he would be killed for the sins of others
- he would be raised from the dead
These are all things that happened to Jesus! How much more obvious could it be? Why in the world don’t those Jews see it? Are they simply hard-headed and rebellious against God? Can’t they *read*? Are they stupid???
What is very hard to get my students to see (in most cases I’m, frankly, completely unsuccessful) is that the authors of the New Testament who portrayed Jesus as the messiah are the ones who quoted the Old Testament in order to prove it, and that they were influenced by the Old Testament in what they decided to say about Jesus, and that their views of Jesus affected how they read the Old Testament.
The reality is that the so-called “messianic prophecies” that are said to point to Jesus never taken to be messianic prophecies by Jews prior to the Christians who saw Jesus as the messiah. The Old Testament in fact never says that the messiah will be born of a virgin, that he will be executed by his enemies, and that he will be raised from the dead.
Messianic Prophecies in Isaiah?
My students often don’t believe me when I say this, and they point to passages like Isaiah 7:14 (virgin birth) and Isaiah 53 (execution and resurrection). Then I urge them to read the passages carefully and find where there is any reference in them to a messiah. That’s one of the problems (not the only one).
These passages are not talking about the messiah. The messiah is never mentioned in them. Anyone who thinks they *are* talking about the messiah, has to import the messiah into the passages, because he simply isn’t there.
I should stress that no one prior to Christianity took these passages to refer to a future messiah.
Then why are they read (by Christians) as if referring to the messiah? What happened is this: ancient Christians (within a couple of decades of Jesus’ death) who believed that Jesus *was* the messiah necessarily believed that Jesus fulfilled Scripture. They, therefore, began to read passages of the Old Testament as predictions of Jesus. And so the interpretation of these passages was changed so that they were now seen as foretelling the birth, life, and death of Jesus.
Once those passages are read that way, it is very hard indeed to read them the way they had been read before. When Christians read Isaiah 53, they simply can’t *help* but read it as a prediction of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. But for those who read the passage just for what it has to say, it does not appear to be about the messiah. (You’ll note that the term “messiah” never occurs in it.)
Are These Prophecies Really Messianic?
So that is one problem with Christians using the Old Testament to “prove” that Jesus is the messiah. They are appealing to passages that do not appear to be about the messiah. The other is the flip side of the coin. Christians who think that Jesus fulfilled predictions of the Old Testament base their views, in no small measure, on what the Gospels say about Jesus’ life: He was born in Bethlehem. His mother was a virgin. He healed many people. He was rejected by his own people. He was silent at his trial. And so on – there are lots of these “facts” from Jesus’ life, it is thought, that fulfilled Scripture. But how do we know that these are facts from Jesus’ life?
The only way we know is (or think we know it) is because authors of the New Testament Gospels claim that these are the facts. But are they? How do we know that Jesus was actually born in Bethlehem? That his mother was actually a virgin? That he was actually silent at his trial? And so forth and so on? We only know because the Gospels indicate so. But the authors of the Gospels were themselves influenced in their telling of Jesus’ story by the passages of Scripture that they took to be messianic predictions, and they told their stories in the light of those passages.
Take Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. A couple of times on the blog I’ve talked about how problematic it is to think that this is a historical datum. It’s true that both Matthew and Luke say that Jesus was born in that small village. But Mark and John do not assume that this is true, but rather that he came from Galilee, from the village of Nazareth. Moreover, Matthew and Luke *get* Jesus born in Bethlehem in radically different and contradictory ways, so that for both of them he is born there even though he comes from Nazareth. Why don’t they have a consistent account of the matter?
It is almost certainly because they both want to be able to claim that his birth was in Bethlehem, even though both of them know for a fact he did not come from Bethlehem, but from Nazareth. Then why do Matthew and Luke want to argue (in different ways) that he was born in Bethlehem? It is because in their view — based on the Old Testament prophet Micah 5:2 — that’s where the messiah had to come from. And so for them, Jesus *had* to come from there. They aren’t recording a historical datum from Jesus’ life; they are writing accounts that are influenced by the Old Testament precisely to show that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament.
You can go through virtually all the alleged messianic prophecies that point to Jesus and show the same things: either the “prophecies” were not actually predictions of the future messiah (and were never taken that way before Christians came along) or the facts of Jesus’ life that are said to have fulfilled these predictions are not actually facts of Jesus’ life.
One fact about Jesus life is certain: he was crucified by the Romans. And that was THE single biggest problem ancient Jews had with Christian claims that Jesus was the messiah. There was not a Jew on the planet who thought the messiah was going to be crushed by his enemies — humiliated, tortured, and executed. That was the *opposite* of what the messiah would do. To call Jesus the messiah made no sense — i.e., it was nonsense – virtually by definition. And that was the major reason most Jews rejected the Christian claims about Jesus.
Bart, one thing I’ve read is that the Bethlehem in Judea may not have even been an occupied settlement at the time of Jesus’ birth. But that there may have been a smaller town of the same name in Galilee, not far from Nazareth. Where absolutely nobody believed the Messiah would come from. Anyway, what’s the latest thinking on that? I know what the present-day Bethlehem of Judea tourist board would say.
One thing we do know is that it makes no sense to conduct a census by telling people with jobs to stick their heavily pregnant wives on a donkey and make a long arduous dangerous journey to their hometowns to be counted. Nor does the date of the actual census match up with other story elements in Luke. But it’s not as if Luke had a library or a newspaper archive he could go to and look this up. He couldn’t Google anything. We do come across as awfully superior, sometimes. We have the kind of information access nobody at that time could even dream of. And look at the use some of us make of it. ::sigh::
No, I’m afraid that one is just made up to try to explain Luke’s narrative.
Since there is a Bethlehem in Galilee, I assume you’re talking about my second (and in retrospect, superfluous) paragraph?
The text of Matthew is quite explicit that he is referring to Bethlehem in Judea.
Why did Mark and John say Jesus came from Navareth? Was there a passage in the Old Testament that also said someone came from there? It’s surprising to me that John said Jesus came from Navareth because it seems like that book speaks more about his divine role. It should match up with verses from the Old Testament that early Christians read as messianic prophecy. A spin off question from here is why did Christians believe the messiah had to be god if the Old Testament doesn’t say that?
Probably because he really came from Nazareth.
There isn’t any evidence for Jesus of Nazareth. It probably came from “Nazirite”. Why don’t you think Gospel authors were making this all up as they went along, Tanak in their laps?
As you probably know, I’ve written an entire book on this question.
What’s the book and do you go into detail on Isaiah 53 in any of your books?
Did Jesus Exist? I deal with Isaiah 53 most extensively in the book I’m just finishing now, on the Afterlife (I argue that Daniel 12 — the first reference to a resurrection from the dead – is based on Isaiah 53)
Could it be that Nazareth itself was named for some religious idea, such as that of the “branch” of David’s house mentioned in Isaiah?
We’re not sure why it was named, but there is no connection of it anywhere to the Davidic line.
Even though I am not an atheist, what you wrote is part of why I have moved away from Christianity. Good info Dr. Ehrman.
My students, particularly those that are fresh out of high school, have a very difficult time with making a claim and supporting it with evidence from a text. They misconstrue the meaning of texts all the time! They have not practiced, enough, the skill of close reading that involves a number of things: background information about the author, the intent of the author to the reader and audience, the historical setting of the author, etc. It takes a considerable amount of time, concentration, and patience. I spend a lot of my time anticipating what they’re going to misunderstand or make a fuss about and try to get a *jump* on it before it happens.
Sometimes, I give students an errorless learning exercise to help them understand how an argument can be valid even though it may go against their beliefs. For example, I will give a writing prompt that asks them to agree or disagree. Most of the text suggests they agree because there’s not enough evidence in the reading to support disagreeing. I give them that particular prompt to show them that even though they may feel that they should disagree, they will not have enough evidence to support that position. I will also have them write a paper counter-arguing their own position on a subject. Basically, I box the students into taking an uncomfortable stance so they can see things from another perspective. It has to be presented in the right way though, or you could have a bunch of angry, non-compliant students. I’ve seen it backfire on some instructors, and it’s not pretty! Presentation is key.
In addition to what you write, Bart, it often strikes me how much unconscious assumptions about the availability of information seems to play in how believers understand Jesus. Of course, Jesus was the Messiah predicted by the Old Testament. You can see that anywhere in the media. So, why didn’t the ancient Jews know that? It reminds me of a line sung by Judas in “Jesus Christ Superstar”:
“If you’d come today, you’d have reached a whole nation / Israel in 4 B. C. had no mass communication.”
I doubt that is actually true. He’d gotten maybe a news cycle and then drowned out by noise.
The Messianic Prophecies
How do they know it’s so?
Because they KNOW they know.
The wish is father to the thought,
And other views just count as nought.
Can’t the OT passages have multiple (allegorical) meanings?
Yes, indeed! Christian readings are precisely those kinds of meanings.
Why was it important to link the Old Testament to the New thus creating false but convenient interpretations?
It shows that God is fulfilling his promises.
Being Jewish I agree with you logic. In my opinion, Jesus was a rural rabbi, probably married, as most rabbi were and still are today, who taught peace in a time of turmoil. Being a god, is just beyond reason,let alone the Messiah.
“Being a god, is just beyond reason, let along Messiah”
There being a god is just beyond reason, let alone there being a Messiah. Care to explain why the first statement is reasonable and the second not?
Hey Bart, in my interactions with an apologetics group on campus, two arguments keep cropping up. One, all the original disciples were martyred for proclaiming the risen Jesus. Two, that Luke never mentioned Paul’s martyrdom in Acts, so Luke must have been writing before Paul’s execution (around 64 AD I believe). Now I have read some of the stories of the martyrdoms of the disciples and pretty much all of them come from late accounts with obvious legendary fabrications. It seems like many scholars seem to accept Paul was martyred around 64 AD. How can we know that he was martyred for sure and how do we know the date with decent confidence? It seems we only have late Church tradition attesting to his martyrdom as well as legendary accounts from places like the Acts of Paul. It seems the only original disciple we can say with confidence was martyred was the James mentioned in Josephus.
Some time ask them what *evidence* they have for how the followers of Jesus died…..
Bart,
‘One fact about Jesus life is certain: he was crucified by the Romans.’
OK. You said it. Now prove it!
The Gospels are not ‘proof’. They’re Helenistic-style biographic fiction. Josephus is Christian interpolated. Luke borrowed from Virgil, Homer and Josephus. Etc., etc. Mark fathered the other three. Not much here, Bart! You’ve got … Mark. That’s IT. Might as well be Mark TWAIN. (No, I can’t do that to Samuel. He is more readable and humorous.)
‘Why don’t they [the Gospels] have a consistent account of the matter?’
Because the authors made it all up! Surely you know. Price makes a good case for the Tanak origins of the life stories –no oral tradition, no history. Carrier — A DOCTORATE of Ancient History — shows probabilities of details of his life and miracles are an impossibility. Doherty, no historian – sure, but a great master of logic, shows Jesus cannot have lived. Maccoby ditto on Judas. Eisenman ditto on Judas. Spong ditto on Judas, ALL experts — therefore no Jesus. No Betrayal — no Jesus of the Gospels, no sacrificial savior — just what the author of the Gospel of Judas said. (Judas is the sacrifice! NOT JESUS.) This stuff is all literature, not history! ALL of it.
“And so the interpretation of these passages was changed …” (Feign surprise)
We know the correct theology: Science of the Soul.org. Here can be found an Eastern Mysticism corpus of dozens of titles — printed at cost and shipped worldwide for free — both by and about recent Masters, ‘saviors’ composing IN ENGLISH. Why are scholars not reading it? Why haven’t you gone there yet? This should be our standard, not some silly romance novella collection from twenty centuries ago. All conundrums are answered, all loose ends tied. Living humans who can answer here and now, IN PERSON. The truth within these Teachings is ‘beyond the wildest imagination’ (quoting one recent Master). Yes, even the problems of Evil and suffering, solved. (They are rather easily explained.)
I’d suggest you read my books where I discuss the matter at length.
Why do you say that? Because you think I haven’t? As it so happens, I am right now rereading your book on the Gospel of Judas. I have read five or six others of yours. Orthodox Corruption is one of my three favorites of ANY books on spirituality. I told you about the Sant Mat corpus for your benefit, not mine. I know Mysticism (aka, for the most part, ‘Gnosticism’) in ways that can lead you to an understanding of ALL these texts as you have not seen them before. I want to have a discussion with you! What is it that you want me to know about what you think are the reasons Jesus is historical? I read Misquoting Jesus, Jesus Interrupted, Lost Scriptures, Lost Christianities, Apocalyptic Prophet, Forged, God’s Problem, probably one or two I forgot besides Orthodox Corruption. I absolutely LOVE what you write! (Except “Did Jesus Exist?”, the one you probably want me to read. For that I read Carrier and Price, who have more expertise on the subject than you do.) That is why I told you about the Science of the Soul corpus online. What I can tell you about Mysticism will infill what you know. We all know things others don’t.
Engage with me! This is where we last broke down on the Gospel of Judas. You said “I think your theory is fatally flawed [that Judas is James the Just, and ‘the sacrifice’, not Jesus]”. And that’s all — nothing further. Don’t you realize how frustrating that is for your poster? I am trying to tell YOU something. You don’t agree, but also do not tell me WHY. I know — not just think — I know that I can help you to understand Gnosticism. Not because I am so smart and you aren’t. But because my unique life experience has shown me things that yours has not. I so wish I had been in that Roman ruin outside Geneva for your interview with NGS, because I could have given you the REAL story on the importance of the Gospel of Judas for the world. History would have been made by now and the world would never be the same. Don’t contend with me. Engage me. I know sources you don’t, and I I am trying to help you learn of them! Trying to talk to you is like making love to a porcupine. How to do it?
I just passed the point where you quote Luke in Acts 1. Did I tell you that is the passage that started all this? Dr. Eisenman pointed out that ‘Judas’ was evidently a stand-in for James here from several references: “Joseph Barsabbas JUSTus” (son of father Joseph), for James THE JUST; “his office let another take” (another forced ‘prophecy’ of historicity) which is episcopate of Jerusalem — not apostle — which is no office; and most tellingly Judas “falling headlong”, the very wording used by Clement of Rome in his Recognitions 1:70 for the death OF JAMES. (The “bread” also, he points out, goes to James in the ascension passage in Gospel of the Hebrews, not “the disciples” or “them” as in the Synoptics’ Last Supper). This is only the start. Several other characters cover James (Eisenman says ‘Stephen’ and ‘Nathaniel’, for instance). I show that ‘the Betrayal’ has much more on James and ‘Judas’ as successor, inverted. The Gospels are not what you think! Let me show you how. Just because I am not a biblical scholar doesn’t mean that I don’t know. You can check this stuff yourself.
Bart:
Another thing > make it possible to correct a post. A post looks different in the typing dialogue box than it does in the finished column form. I meant to say: “The bread goes to James in Gospel of the Hebrews, not TO JUDAS as in John, nor the disciples or “them” as in the Synoptics.
You need to do your own proofreading, ahead of time!
So does this mean you are not commenting on the post?
I’m not able to reply to long and detailed arguments — I simply don’t have enough hours in the day! But I can certainly respond to shorter ones and try to regularly. I am not interested in carrying on an extended back and forth with anyone though. We have over 3000 people reading these posts every day, and so you can imagine what it would be like having a long conversation each day with every one of them.
😉 You’re wading through waters infested with piranha, aren’t you, Bart, when you mention Isaiah 53?
God knows, coming to terms with the entire book of Isaiah, in particular chapters 41-53, caused me much grief, as a Christian. Letting go is never easy. For once I wept long and hard over how despised and rejected of men my Jesus was, and oh but how he suffered for worthless me, per church teachings, only to become involved in a long study of Isaiah in which the long suffering servant of God turned out not be my Jesus, rather and specifically named – Israel. God’s suffering servant – Israel made clear.
But you, O Israel, my servant… -Isaiah 41:8
Isaiah 44:1: But now listen, O Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have chosen…
Isaiah 44:21: Remember these things, O Jacob, for you are my servant, O Israel. I have made you, you are my servant…
Isaiah 45:4: For the sake of Jacob my servant, of Israel my chosen…
Isaiah 49:3: “You are my servant, Israel…”
It doesn’t get any plainer. There is no mention of a Messiah, there, nor anywhere in Zechariah 8:23 which reads:
“In those days (the last days) ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, “Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.”
Nor in Ezekiel:
Ezekiel 37:11-14: Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”
The “we are cut off” got to me, for as strongly as I believed it couldn’t be but Jesus who was cut off; but then it became painfully clear that the church wasn’t but picking and choosing passages of Scripture that supported the cause, and never encouraging anyone to read further.
I lost a whole lot of friends confronting such things, and remain at odds with numerous family members who continue to pray for the restoration of my faith and the salvation of my soul.
So where do you go from here? Celsus? Can’t wait!
But you gain some, too. I can help a lot. I used to be a Believer, and then I learned about Mysticism. There are saviors here today. Just as you show Israel is the Servant, Jacob is “Israel”. In the Gospel of Judas there is a new fragment (you will need Marv Meyer’s book “On a Night with Judas Iscariot” to see it, as it is new and not online or in the older texts) that says, on page 55, “Israel will come, bringing Israel out from Egypt”. This is in the future, so cannot be the great Patriarch, Jacob. I think it is the namesake James (the Just), which is English for Jacob, who “will come”. The Gospel of Judas is all about James, who sacrifices HIMSELF, not his Master, to become the new leader at 56,20. No scholar recognizes this, including Bart. Judas has a vision at the bottom of page 44 where he is stoned *by fellow disciples*, as was James in Josephus, and by Saul (Paul), a fellow disciple,in Clement’s Rec. 1:70. The First and Second Apocalypses from Nag Hammadi are about succession of James (a version of it – James – immediately precedes Gospel of Judas in the Codex Tchacos). It says flat out, The disciples said, “He is the new Master”. Can’t get any plainer than that! No wonder the Orthodoxy squashed the Gnostics. You can find a living savior (they say — not just me saying – that the world is never without at least one) at http://www.rssb.org. I can answer any question you may have. Or go to Science of the Soul.org for at cost books, written by Masters, in English.
Willow, I very much identify with what you said in your post. I am just at the very beginning of this and have much to read and learn. Isaiah 53 has always been one of the “glues” to keep me believing in an otherwise hard to believe story. I haven’t even got to what Prof. Ehrman says about it yet, just your post alone gives me a hint at what is coming.
Why do you think the Jewish scholars who translated Hebrew texts into the Greek Septuagint choose parthenos as the correct translation of the Hebrew word almah? The translation was centuries before Jesus so was parthenos ever used in any other example to describe a woman who was not a virgin?
Yes, it could be used that way.
The Rabbis never translated the prophets only the 5 books of the torah. However the word parthenos was used to describe Dina after she was rapped ,hard to say it means virgin
Bart: ”One fact about Jesus life is certain: he was crucified by the Romans”.
That is the central claim of Christianity; the central claim of the gospel story. It is not a historical fact until it can be established historically. And, as we all know, it is impossible to do so for the Jesus figure in the gospel story. That does not mean that the gospel story is not reflecting a historical Roman crucifixion/execution; a Roman execution of a figure relevant to the writers of the gospels. The question is who was that figure? A suggestion:
Historical accounts indicate that the last King and High Priest of the Jews, Antigonus Mattathias II was executed by the Romans in 37 b.c.e.
Cassius Dio’s Roman History records: “These people [the Jews] Antony entrusted to a certain Herod to govern; but Antigonus he bound to a cross and scourged, a punishment no other king had suffered at the hands of the Romans, and so slew him”. Josephus relates that Antigonus was beheaded. Antigonus was ”humiliated, tortured, and executed” by the Romans. Around 70 years after Antigonus captured Jerusalem, 40 b.c.e., the Lukan writer begins his Jesus story.
It is possible to look behind the gospel prophetic interpretations and let history play it’s own role in understanding the gospel Roman crucifixion story – the Carrier/Doherty mythicists notwithstanding. The gospel crucifixion story was anathema to the Jews not because Rome executed a suffering messiah figure but that the messiah figure was crucified, hung on a cross/stake/pole. (Gal.3.13). An executed suffering messiah figure could be viewed as a martyr. A crucified, hung on a tree, messiah figure could not. Although Josephus relates that Antigonus was beheaded – there was only one way open to Herod in order to turn the Jews against Antigonus and not view him as a martyr. Have him hung on a tree, crucified, prior to beheading.
Antiquities book 15.ch.1
”And Strabo of Cappadocia attests to what I have said, when he thus speaks: “Antony ordered Antigonus the Jew to be brought to Antioch, and there to be beheaded. And this Antony seems to me to have been the very first man who beheaded a king, as supposing he could no other way bend the minds of the Jews so as to receive Herod, whom he had made king in his stead; for by no torments could they be forced to call him king, so great a fondness they had for their former king; so he thought that this dishonorable death would diminish the value they had for Antigonus’s memory, and at the same time would diminish the hatred they bare to Herod.”
”A ”dishonorable death” Jewish death required more than simply beheading – it included the humiliation of being strung up on a cross/stake. That was the curse of the Law. Josephus, seemingly, upheld Jewish sensitivities in this regard and records only the beheading.
Greg Doudna: ‘’What has long been overlooked is that a Qumran text, widely acknowledged to have been authored at about this very time, speaks directly of a Jewish ruler being “hung up alive”—just like Dio Cassius’s account of the fate of Antigonus Mattathias. This is found at 4QpNah 3-4 i 8-ii 1, which is a pesher unit consisting of a biblical quotation followed by its interpretation. The text introduces this unit with the words: “concerning the one hanged up alive on a stake it is proclaimed:”, or “to the one hanged up alive on a stake he (i.e. God) proclaims:”.
A Narrative Argument that the Teacher of Righteousness was Hyrcanus II
http://www.bibleinterp.com/art…..8018.shtml
The gospel writers, in developing their Jesus crucifixion story, had Jewish history as their template. From the tragic history of Antigonus they were able to create a new context in which the curse of the Law would become a positive instead of a negative principle. A spiritual/intellectual context in which ‘crucifixion’ and death had value.
The gospel Jesus story is of course much more than a reflection of the historical Roman execution of Antigonus. The gospel writers sought to reflect, to incorporate, a ‘man of peace’ figure alongside an executed/crucified ‘man of war’ figure. Thus creating a political allegory that allowed them to retain their prophetic interpretations of their Jewish history while living under Roman occupation.
Maryhelena,
Your link was down. Have you read Eisenman on the Righteous Teacher?
Hi Robert
Sorry about the link – hope it works this time. Otherwise google the name of the article and it will get you to the Bible and Interpretation website. Or just visit the Bible and Interpretation website and search for Greg Doudna – he has a number of articles there.
http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/2015/03/dou398018.shtml
No, I’ve not read Eisenman – I just have a general idea of what his ideas are. I’m more interested in the work of Greg Doudna. Greg has worked with Eisenman in the past – but has now taken a different route……
Maryhelena,
I looked at the Doudna article, which concluded that “we cannot romanticize the figure of the R.T. to what we today might like him to be” etc. I met Eisenman personally, and was very impressed, which came after reading all his published work, which I found impressive beyond *anything* I have ever read – in any field. I approach this topic from a privileged point of view. That’s the only way I can think to adequate frame it. I have the great advantage of knowing and being an initiate of a perfect living Master, Majaraj Charan Singh. His line is not your everyday Indian Guru line. These are unique as can be in the world. What they teach resonates mightily with Eisenman’s work, and that’s truly amazing considering how far apart in world view they are: Satsangi Master and nationalist Jew. His scholarship is a thing to behold, just for the way his peerless mind works! It is a tremendous inspiration to me, and I say that even though he has scant regard for me. He misapprehends who and what I am. I wrote a book and credited him extensively, even using a title of one of his works in my subtitle. He thinks of me as “a ripoff artist”. I was saddened to hear someone tell me he told him that, as I thought he would be pleased I held his work in such high regard. I think he may be getting a little senile. He knows so many sources and juggles them into a coherent conclusion that it is hard to argue him. I’m so impressed! He shows how Ananus is the Wicked Priest and no one but James can be the R.T., and only Paul the “Spouter of Lying”. I count it all as a MAJOR breakthrough in biblical studies.
What he concludes is that James equaled ‘Jesus’ in station and stature, which harmonizes perfectly with the serial Mastership taught by modern Mystics at the Radha Soami Satsang Beas, which is Charan Singh’s line. I wrote my book trying to tie all this together. People in the West, like Bart, find this superficial and unscholarly, but the Mystics I have known are beyond impressive. They completely changed my life. All traditions make perfect sense in their interpretation. I will try to get my own thread here to show what I have learned from the Masters and from Eisenman. It is all I do now. The NT is a coverup of serial Mastership, and *nothing* more. This is in my opinion the greatest story of all time *of any kind*. I will do what i can to relate it as best I can. Masters come here all the time, and teach a method of actual hearing of WORD or Shabd (Hindi/Punjabi). The sacrificial salvation in the NT is a corruption of SELF-sacrifice the Gnostics practiced.
Robert
I’ve no interest in Eisenman – nor in mysticism.
Each to their own 😉
The index in my study Bible does not list the word “Messiah” as being anywhere in the Old Testament. and, so far, I have not found it anywhere in the Old Testament.
It’s there. It’s actually used of the king of Persia, Cyrus, in Isaiah 45:1!
It depends on which translation one uses. The word “messiah” doesn’t appear anywhere in the NRSV translation of the Old Testament. Instead, the literal meaning of the Hebrew word “mashiach” (or some derivation)–“anointed one” is used. In Daniel 9:25, however, the the Hebrew phrase “nagid masiah” is sometimes translated “Messiah the Prince,” but, read in context, it can hardly be seen as a reference to Jesus.
All good Jewish pesher exegesis of the prophets, not unlike what can be found at Qumran regarding the Teacher of Righteousness, only the early Jewish followers of Jesus stopped exegeting individual books of the prophets and started using several books of the prophets to tell the story of Jesus.
This topic is the one that first opened my eyes for myself years ago through my own studying of the claims. Christians generally claim that God/Jesus loves everyone and wants everyone to be saved even if they don’t take the opportunity. The whole Bible, including the Old Testament, is supposed to be the inspired and often the literal word of God (here in the South anyway). Yet the claims for Jesus as Messiah involve having to interpret vague verses or at least non-Messianic ones as “proof”. If this caring God wanted people to know who the Messiah was and these verses to be known as related to the Messiah why wouldn’t he just clearly say they are? Why hide it? It is ironic to me that the “proof” of Jesus being the OT Messiah appears to be based on a position that the OT God just didn’t give the Jews the right information or knowledge and “God’s people” and what they wrote were just wrong. He apparently didn’t “care” enough about people to give a clear message so they would recognize the Messiah and be saved. And how can they blame the Jews for not recognizing Jesus when even God didn’t make it clear to the Jews to begin with?
“This topic is the one that first opened my eyes for myself years ago through my own studying of the claims. Christians generally claim that God/Jesus loves everyone and wants everyone to be saved even if they don’t take the opportunity.” flcombs
True.
“The whole Bible, including the Old Testament, is supposed to be the inspired and often the literal word of God (here in the South anyway). Yet the claims for Jesus as Messiah involve having to interpret vague verses or at least non-Messianic ones as “proof”.” flcombs
Verses abound that present Christ as the Messiah.
“If this caring God wanted people to know who the Messiah was and these verses to be known as related to the Messiah why wouldn’t he just clearly say they are?” flcombs
God makes clear that Jesus is the Messiah through numerous verses. Why not examine those and determine what they mean?
“Christians claim God wants everyone to be saved…”: of course the claim is made, but then many Christian explanations for this and that issue talk about how hidden and hard the knowledge is. We shouldn’t have to try to figure out events and accounts 2000 years ago to get a clear message for such a caring God.
“Verses abound that present Christ as the Messiah.”: Christ and Messiah are the same word for “anointed one” in Greek and Hebrew so of course. As to Jesus, many of the verses claimed actually don’t mention “the” Messiah at all. Given the context of the verses and a loving God who would not obscure his message, many or all don’t apply. Of course in the NT, where Christians are trying to convince people to believe, they would claim it. We just have to take the writer’s word for it.
“God makes clear that Jesus is the Messiah through numerous verses. Why not examine those and determine what they mean?”: You mean first assuming the Bible is true and correct and one set of interpretations is correct, which you have not established. I have examined them many times over many years with many groups and grew up in conservative Christianity. In many cases the explanation is based on the OT being “wrong”. Jews, with many verses saying they were God’s chosen people and given the truth, were apparently given a different meaning by God than retroactive Christian interpretations. Since you agree that God wants everyone to be saved, obviously verses that don’t clearly talk about the Messiah should not be applied to him. That kind of God would have no purpose in obscuring his message and identification of the Messiah.
You do realize that (as one example) the Quran has many verses that authenticate it as the word of God, Muhammad his true prophet, etc. RIGHT? So “if it is written it must be so”, others have just as valid a claim as Christianity.
Here is Dr. Daniel Boyarim’s claim:
[W]e now know that many Jewish authorities, maybe even most, until nearly the modern period have read Isaiah 53 as being about the Messiah; until the last few centuries, the allegorical reading was a minority one.
Aside from one very important — but absolutely unique — notice in Origen’s Contra Celsum, there is no evidence at all that any late ancient Jews read Isaiah 52-53 as referring to anyone but the Messiah. There are, on the other hand, several attestations of ancient rabbinic readings of the song as concerning the Messiah and his tribulations.
In the Palestinian Talmud there is an amoraic [i.e. from between 200 and 500 CE] passage (Sukkah 5:2 55b) discussing the meaning of a verse in Zechariah:
And the land shall mourn (Zechariah 12:12)
One opinion expressed is that this refers to the Messiah — that is, that the land will mourn over the Messiah. (The other view is that it refers to the death of sexual desire in the messianic age.)
Other traditions appear in the Babylonian Talmud from a later period (300 to 600 CE) “but very likely earlier”. One of these is from Sanhedrin 98. The question is there asked “What is the Messiah’s name?” Different rabbis offer various answers.
After several views, we find: “And the Rabbis say, ‘the leper’ of the House of Rabbi is his name, for it says, ‘Behold he has borne our disease [the word here means ‘leprosy’], and suffered our pains, and we thought him smitten, beaten by God and tortured’ [Isa. 53:4].”
So here we find Jews interpreting Isaiah 53 as a prophecy of the vicarious sufferings of the Messiah.
Boyarin then mentions that on the previous page in the Talmud is a scene of the Messiah sitting among the diseased and poor at the gates of Rome, and understanding that he has a saving role to perform for these wretched sufferers by identifying with them.
One more passage is brought forth as a witness although Boyarin advances it with some caution. It is known only from “a polemic Testimonia (of a thirteenth-century Dominican friar)”. If genuine, it would be evidence that from the third century that rabbis interpreted the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 as the Messiah who must suffer to atone for sins. This is the passage:
Rabbi Yose Hagelili said: Go forth and learn the praise of the King Messiah and the reward of the righteous from the First Adam. For he was only commanded one thou-shalt-not commandment and he violated it. Behold how many deaths he and his descendants and the descendants of his descendants were fined until the end of all the generations. Now which of God’s qualities is greater than the other, the quality of mercy or the quality of retribution? Proclaim that the quality of goodness is the greater and the quality of retribution the lesser! And the King Messiah fasts and suffers for the sinners, as it says, “and he is made sick for our sins, etc.” ever more so and more will he be triumphant for all of the generations, as it says, “And the Lord visited upon him the sin of all.”
It is possible that after Jesus’ death, his desperate disciples went to Hebrew scriptures such as Psalm 22, Isaiah 53 and Wisdom of Solomon to interpret what happened. But it would only make sense that the first Christians would go to these scriptures because people at that time thought they could be interpreted as referring to the Messiah. The writers of the New Testament wouldn’t have used, for instance, Isaiah 53 to shape Jesus’ passion story unless they believed it referred to the Messiah. You wouldn’t write a story about a Messiah using silent allusions to Hebrew scriptures (such as Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, and Wisdom of Solomon) unless you thought those Hebrew Scriptures referred to the Messiah. What other reason could there be for the silent allusions? You wouldn’t be making those allusions for no reason.
I don’t think I agree. Someone had to be the first to apply these terms and texts to the messiah — not *everyone* had forerunners who did it before them! Since we have no solid evidence that any Jews did, but solid evidence that Xns did, well… that’s the math
This is from a post at Vridar
Yes, Danny Boyarin does make arguments like these!
Ah yes, the supposed messianic prophecies. Unlike you, Bart, who left the faith primarily due to the problem of suffering in the world, for me it was this issue of prophetic fulfillment in the life of Jesus. I think no one attempts to use OT “prophecy” to prove Jesus’ Messiahship more than the author of Matthew’s gospel. The trouble is, if you actually go back into the OT and read the passages that Matthew refers to, it becomes abundantly clear that they either were not prophecies at all, or, even if they were, they had nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth. One of my favorites is Matthew’s claim that Jesus and his parent’s return from there sojourn in Egypt was a fulfillment of Hosea 11:1 (out of Egypt have I called my son.) What Matthew conveniently leaves out, however, is the first part of that verse which reads: When ISRAEL was a child, I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. It is clearly referring past tense to the Exodus, not future to a singular “son” of God. This is further confirmed in Exodus 4:22 where God clearly refers to the nation of Israel as his firstborn son. And don’t even get me started on Isaiah 7:14 LOL. Then, of course, there are Jesus’ own failed prophecies of his return to take place within his present generation. This whole issue of prophecy fulfillment in the life of Jesus, upon thorough investigation, came crumbling down around me, and was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me in my evangelical Christian life. As you have pointed out many times, Bart, if one is to be true to oneself, he must follow the truth….wherever it leads.
I think another problem with attempts to interpret this passage as being about Jesus is the following verse, Hosea 11:2 (NRSV): The more I[a] called them,
the more they went from me;[b]
they kept sacrificing to the Baals,
and offering incense to idols.
If Jesus is the son, did Jesus (who is supposed to be sinless) sacrifice to the Baals and offer incense to idols? This is clearly referring to the nation of Israel as the son.
Was it a general expectation that the Messiah would be from Bethlehem or something Christians came up with?
Micah 5:2 does say that a deliverer will come from there. It’s because it was the birthplace of king David.
Eastern Mysticism (and the Tanak) has THOUSANDS of such references to “the Deliverer”. The Deliverer is the Spirit WITHIN the particular Master. In Micah’s case, David. In “the man that bears me” at 56,20 in Gospel of Judas, “me” is the Spirit of Christ within Judas, for example, NOT JESUS. Does this make sense to you? Read 36,1-3 with that in mind if it doesn’t.
I’m trying to help you understand Gnosticsm (Mysticism). I hope you appreciate that. You know of the Messiah ben Aaron and Messiah ben David in the Scrolls. The “ben Aaron” is the Spirit, “ben David” is the particular Master. Make sense? They are not two saviors! They are One. “I *and my Father* are One.” Christians mucked this all up to create a separate religion and now no one gets it.
The verse in Micah says the Messiah we come from Bethlehem [ Me Kedem ] from ancient days.Not that the Messiah himself would be born in Bethlehem but he would be a descended from David who was born in Bethlehem.
He did come from Bethlehem. He was DAVID (at that time).
Seeing Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 behind the crucifixion narrative in Mark is the wave of the future in New Testament scholarship. See for example the table on the top of page 89 of the recently released Jewish Annotated New Testament: https://books.google.ca/books?id=DZRJ5zXUI2QC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=the+jewish+annotated+new+testament+gospel+of+mark+crucifixion&source=bl&ots=pWb4my13aI&sig=j2hJGVO_72M7_LXn-2Di4TwZCBU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAWoVChMI2p3v78qEyQIVwlY-Ch2IlwAA#v=onepage&q=the%20jewish%20annotated%20new%20testament%20gospel%20of%20mark%20crucifixion&f=false
You have to scroll up a few pages to see the table on the top of page 89.
If I understood Dr. Ehrman correctly, he is stating that the early Christians re-read the Old Testament with new eyes. Any passage that seemed to allude to an event that happened in the life of Jesus was declared a prophecy that Jesus fulfilled.
Now, there was no reason for the early Christians to invent that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and then go to Micah 5:2 and imagine it as a prophecy about Jesus. There is no requirement for the Jewish Messiah to be born in Bethlehem. In fact, Dr. Ehrman clearly states that none of these passages are explicit that it belongs to a future Messiah. Thus, the early Christians are not obligated to match the “prophecy” of any given passage; If it didn’t match the life of Jesus, then (for them), it was not a prophecy about the Messiah.
I am reasoning that Micah 5:2 grabbed the attention of the early Christians because it matched a story in the life of Jesus; that he was born in Bethlehem, regardless of the reasons that placed him in Bethlehem that night.
Bart, can you discuss the Hermeneutical method of Typology used by the gospels writers, Patristics and other christian authors to read into the Hebrew bible images of Jesus in order to validate the religion and hijack the Tanakh as their own. Also, without the Typological use of the Tanakh does Christianity even have a foundation?
Great questions. I’ll add them to the list.
It makes sense to me that the early Christians re-read the Hebrew Scriptures looking for signs of Jesus, and incorporated what they found into the stories of his life. At the same time, whether the word ‘messiah’ appears in any of those passages is essentially irrelevant to most Christians, both ancient and modern. Second Temple Judaism had the concept of ‘messiah,’ drawn from the written text and oral traditions. This was the world in which early Christians interpreted and expanded on their faith.
Christians believe a lot of things that the text does not say explicitly. The doctrine of the Trinity, for instance, is not mentioned once by name, and yet can be defended based on the text. That understanding of deity has far less support in ancient times outside of Christianity than the concept of a messiah.
Same here. All it took was learning a little Hebrew, a good and preferably older Strong’s Exhaustive that didn’t add too many side notes, and a big, fat, Hebrew/Greek/English Interlinear . You probably know all of this but, what a shocker! Psalm 22:16: Ka’ari/כָּ֝אֲרִ֗י means like a lion, not pierced. אֲרִי: Lion; Strong’s word 738. Interestingly enough, the H/G/E interlinear translates like a lion as pierced, though that’s not the Hebrew interpretation of the word(s) in question.
Daqar means pierced (among other Hebrew words) Strong’s word 1856.
Proverbs 8 (Wisdom) is mentioned a bit in your book about How Jesus Became God, and by a few comments in this thread. I always felt it was clear that this Proverb was written by people who worshiped Yahweh and Asherah jointly –given the symbols of Asherah worship at the beginning of the chapter below. Thoughts?
On the heights beside the way,
at the crossroads she takes her stand;
3
beside the gates in front of the town,
at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud:
Possibly. There were other circles as well, though, that held to female divine consorts.
One thing for sure though, IF everything written about Jesus in the Gospels really did happen, it wouldn’t take much for just a casual reading of passages like Isaiah 53 to recognize that this was about the Messiah, Jesus. But how does one prove that ANY of this happened? We can’t SEE the wind, but we can SEE the results of the wind. It’s hard to believe a major world wide, world changing religion came about from some “made up” stories.
“There was not a Jew on the planet who thought the messiah was going to be crushed by his enemies”.
I have to wonder why this hasty generalization fallacy keeps appearing in texts written by scholars. Jews at the time were very diverse (as Dr. Ehrman has noted in many books), so we do not know what ALL of them would or wouldn’t think about killed Messiah. This fallacy has to stop.
OK, well I suppose then we could say “We have no record of any Jew on the planet who thought….”
That’s better, I think. Because when we acknowledge that we do not know everything about every sect of Judaism, then the hypothesis that “Christianity started as a Jewish sect that waited suffering Messiah” is valid. This means that hypothesis is possible, not that it’s probable, of course. After acknowledging that, then we proceed to see the evidence.
But that’s another story. For me it’s enough if I see Dr. Ehrman avoiding the Hasty generalization fallacy in his texts.
just a couple of questions. do you “have” to be a messiah to be a savior? where does the pistis sophia come from?
Well, I myself don’t have to be, luckily. 🙂 But no, “savior” could be applied to various figures, including the emperor. It just means “someone who delivers people from threat or danger.” Do you mean the *book* Pistis Sophia? It is a Gnostic writing.
yes, ihave read it, but they ? say they dont know where it came from supposedly jesus is speaking in it talks about the mysteries what ever they are.
Hi Bart, what do you think the original reading is for psalm 22:16? Do you think it’s “like a lion,” or “they pierced my hands and feet.”?
I really don’t know!
Hi Bart. I’ve been a member for a long time, but never posted. I’m familiar with the Psalm, but can you explain these references to “like a lion” vs. “They’ve pierced my hands and feet”? It isn’t making sense to me. (I hope you see this reply.)
Sure — but you’ll need to ask the qeustion again with verse references so that I can make sure I”m answering what you want to know.
Thank you, Bart. It’s actually Psalm 22:16 I was referring to, but I think I found the answer to my question. I never knew that there’s a dispute between “like a lion” and “They’ve pierced my hands and feet” in that Psalm. It made no sense until I read the following:
“When translated into English, the syntactical form of this Hebrew phrase appears to be lacking a verb. In this context the phrase was commonly explained in early Rabbinical paraphrases as “they bite like a lion my hands and my feet”.
Thanks again.
Ah, glad you found that, since I wouldn’t have known it off the top of my head….
Hi Bart do you have any views on the original meaning of Zechariah 12 which John uses in his crucifixion account?
What are you thinking of in particular?
Was it ever seen as a messianic prophecy before Christianity? John’s usage of it seems like it’s taken out of context and he also changes the pronoun of the quote from “me” to “the one”! It seems like he’s using it to construct his narrative
I’m not sure which verses (John or Zechariah) you are referring to.
Sorry! was Zechariah 12: 10 seen as a messianic text? It looks to me like John has taken it out of context and used it to construct his narrative about Jesus being speared
Yes, it originally was referring to a figure in the prophet’s own day — possibly even himself. John has reinterpreted the passage messianically (so too in the book of Revelation (1:7).
Does the interpretation of Zechariah 12:10 in the Talmud as referring to Messiah Ben Joseph being killed in battle suggest any pre-Christian Jewish belief in a suffering Messiah or is this a later development?
I don’t think so. The Talmud, of course, was written many centuries after the beginnings of Christainity.
According to the Talmud the rabbi discussing this interpretation was Dosa Ben Harkinas who died around 130ce. Is the Talmud not really a reliable source of what these Rabbis actually said as it was written down much later?
A good deal of scholarship since the 1970s or so has been devoted to showing why it is so problematic to think that Talmudic materials actually date to the earlier periods. The pioneer was Jacob Neusner.
Thanks for replying Bart! So if I understand you correctly these rabbis in the 1st/2nd century probably didn’t say this and it was made up by later authors?
It’s not quite so simple as “someone made it up”; but yes, many of the traditions attributed to earlier rabbis were formulated in the years after they had died.
Why didn’t most of the Jews recognize Jesus as their Messiah? That’s an excellent question, one which Jesus was asked and answered.
At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.
It pleased GOD to withhold the identity of His Son from the wise and learned and that remains the case today. He doesn’t conceal His true identity from anyone in reality. His requirements to find Him necessitate a degree of humility and an eagerness to come to the Truth in ways not based on human merit.
Why didn’t most of the Jews recognize Jesus as their Messiah? Again, an excellent question. Jesus seemed unable to understand it, too, as seen here:
but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” “We are not stoning You for any good work,” said the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because You, who are a man, declare Yourself to be God.”…
They didn’t believe GOD could be a man according to their own words. They said this before He was murdered and resurrected. So, when they said that about Him, He wasn’t understood by the Jews to be a suffering servant/messiah at that time.
You certainly have a lot of assumptions. How did you determine what Jesus actually was asked and what he actually said if anything? Even if the statement is true, how did you determine he was “full of joy through the Holy Spirit” and not some other stimulation? Aside from drugs and other possibilities, I’ve seen many people get emotional and excited over things that obviously were not really true. It is actually pretty easy to get most people worked up emotionally on some topic and be euphoric and “full of the spirit”. Just look at sports or politics these days. Heck, even Christians that vehemently disagree on Christian issues often claim to be full of the Holy Spirit. People of many religions have found “truth” through “humility and eagerness” and didn’t need Jesus to do it.
“It pleased GOD to withhold the identity of His Son from the wise and learned and that remains the case today”:
Isn’t it the “wise and learned” Christian scholars that do the fancy interpretations of the OT scriptures and prophets to explain how Jesus is found there when others don’t see it?
So, if you are a believer, what category is yours if you can’t be wise or learned? Honestly, I’m just trying to clarify how you view yourself considering your position. Are you claiming God only loves the ignorant and Christians are or must be ignorant to “find Jesus” (interesting reflection on Christian apologists there!)? You are certainly pointing out a large contradiction in the Bible and Christianity. One the one hand, the claims like you point out that God is hiding things from the wise and learned and requires some special knowledge or insight. Ok, so on the other, obviously the Bible is wrong when it claims you are to “test all things”, stone “false prophets”, etc. How do the unwise and unlearned go about doing those things since they wouldn’t know or understand? That WOULD explain a lot! Perhaps that is why there are over 40,000 Christian groups alone: no questioning or testing?
God apparently withheld the identity of Jesus from the wise and learned to prove that he really isn’t “kind and loving”, or so that the OT prophets would be false and not believed. What would be the “good” purpose to mislead OT prophets as to how to know the Messiah? You can’t blame people for rejecting Jesus for not fulfilling God’s own prophecies when God deliberately gave poor or false information to his own prophets and in his own (infallible?) scripture. After all, a true omnipotent and omniscient god that wanted people to be saved and obey would be very clear to all as to the identity of the Messiah. It is very easy to read the OT and realize that Jesus is not the Messiah without a lot of special interpretations. So, either Christian claimed inspired scripture and prophets have the wrong information or Jesus is not the Messiah. If it requires “special knowledge and understanding” (i.e. be learned and wise) to see how Jesus “fulfills” claimed prophecies, then obviously Christians are wrong in claiming God loves everyone and wants everyone to be saved “if only if….”.
“Ehrman and Metzger state in that book ( The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. ) that we can have a high degree of confidence that we can reconstruct the original text of the New Testament, the text that is in the Bibles we use, because of the abundance of textual evidence we have to compare. The variations are largely minor and don’t obscure our ability to construct an accurate text. The 4th edition of this work was published in 2005 – the same year Ehrman published Misquoting Jesus, which relies on the same body of information and offers no new or different evidence to state the opposite conclusion.
Melinda Penner
You didn’t address if Christian apologists are “wise and learned” and therefore God hides truth from them.
Do you consider yourself wise and learned in your comments or since Jesus was revealed to you are you not among the wise and learned?
Again, you just stated assumptions in your posts and haven’t shown why you made your claims as fact. Unfortunately, even having the original text does not mean the story is true or the quotes in the text are accurate, etc. It would prove that the writers were who they were claimed to be or that they accurately passed along stories that were accurately passed to them. You can easily have reliable text passing false stories and information or embellishing them.
I think your position is something like “assuming the Bible is reliable textually and assuming the stories are true as written….”. Just realize that if you can’t establish your position as true there is no reason for others to assume it is. We see too many issues with Bible contradictions, authorship and so on to just take your word for it.
Another most interesting way to address the topic of how He was received by the Jews is to examine the manner in which those Jewish followers did thoroughly consecrate their lives to Him. Many of them were tortured and brutally murdered for not renouncing Him as their/the Savior. They forsook everything to be His disciples. They gave up their worldly pursuits, their ambitions, control over their futures in order to walk with Him, to be counted among those who were His true disciples and the entire world was and is challenged by what they said and wrote about Him. No other human being has had as profound an influence as He, largely because His early Jewish disciples loved Him so.
Again, a lot of assumptions. What documentation to you have as to how extensive the “torture and brutality” was for Christians and WHY? Research shows a lot of the claims are legendary or spotty events. And the reasons are often for other things, not for not “rejecting Jesus”.
Many followed Muhammad and died believing in his message, yet Christians reject that as proof of his message as true. It’s a stale argument that people don’t die for things that aren’t true as it happens all the time and through history. That they believe, maybe, but you don’t see Christians believing in or joining up with ISIS because of their beliefs and willingness to die for them.
Obviously most Jews did reject Jesus and his claims to be the Messiah (if he made them). You can always find a few people that believe anything. Your argument that God hid the truth from the wise and learned would say that it was only the ignorant Jews who obviously didn’t know prophecy, etc. that followed Jesus anyway. So, it’s hard to give them much credit for knowing what they were doing from your other statements.
“The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament”
Bart
Of course first ASSUMING what is IN the text is correct and true anyway!
Even as is, with 40,000 different Christian groups apparently there are many ways to interpret what is there.
One fact about Jesus life is certain: he was crucified by the Romans. And that was THE single biggest problem ancient Jews had with Christian claims that Jesus was the messiah.
There was not a Jew on the planet who thought the messiah was going to be crushed by his enemies — humiliated, tortured, and executed. That was the *opposite* of what the messiah would do. To call Jesus the messiah made no sense — i.e., it was nonsense – virtually by definition. And that was the major reason most Jews rejected the Christian claims about Jesus.
And they rejected Him long before they had Him executed, so they didn’t know He would be rejected when they rejected Him. That didn’t enter into their thinking. So they were wrong. He came to His own and they rejected Him.
Bart,
What is your interpretation of Isiah 53:1
“Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
Are the Jewish people here saying who could have believed that were being allowed back to our land and who else has heard this great message that we’re now free from Babylonian captivity? Historically didn’t Cyrus, king of Persia conquer the Babylonians and allow the Jews to return home?
It’s a rhetorical device. There’s not actually a person talking to someone else asking a question.
Yeah I think this was the problem that Marcion was encountering . The Canonical Gospel editors of the 2nd Century kept Interpolating the OT texts into the Gospel narratives (and Paul’s letters). Claiming Jesus fulfilled Messianic prophecies that never existed.
I like to put things into context myself when I read the Bible. All Jews at the time of Jesus had been taught that the worship of a person was forbidden and that the long awaited messiah would be an anointed king, a savior, but only a man who would be the savior of the Jewish people. I’m assuming none of the Jews at the time were waiting for the messiah so they could worship Him. So how was Jesus and his followers able to amass a following using the Old Testament to prove he was God? The Jews had been reading and studying the Torah for centuries long before the life of Jesus. Why is it that they never interpreted the Scriptures the way early followers of Jesus were beginning to?
Christian Guy.
Long story. It turns out Jews did sometimes worship beings other than God the Creator. As to why Jesus’ followers came to think that he was more than an earthly messiah, but actually a divine being: that’s an even longer story. It’s the question I address in my book How Jesus Became God, if you want the full answer. Shortest possible answer: they believed that after his death he had been taken into heaven to dwell with God, and in the Greek, Roman, and Jewish worlds, anyone taken up to dwell in heaven after death was thought to have become a divine being.
Hey Bart, regarding the Jewish attack against the Romans in 66-70 CE, is there any historical evidence to suggest that it was carried out by “a jewish messiah”?
No, we have very good records about how it all happened, in Josephus’s five-volume account of the War (he was an active participant). it was not because of a messianic pretender but because of animosity for Roman administrative overreach.
Another question is:
Do we have any historical sources that would suggest there being other people who were declared as the messiah?
Yes indeed. The most famous is Bar Kochba, responsible for the second Jewish uprising in 132-35 CE.
Bart, do have any information on Jesus being Messiah ben Joseph (relating to Shiloh)?
Jstor
Torrey : The Messiah Son of Ephraim
Third page (255)
” The rise of the Nazarene sect with its Messiah ben Joseph and its appropropiation of the Old Testiment prophecies was most unwelcome to the Jewish doctors. Especially disturbing was the new interpretation of Isaiah 53, which was claimed as definite prediction of the death of Jesus of Nazareth. “
Not really. He is never called that. Joseph, of course, was a very common name at the time, so I’m not sure too much should be made of it….
What are your thoughts regarding the following quote?
“This rabbi described those who interpret Isaiah 53 as referring to Israel as those: “having forsaken the knowledge of our Teachers, and inclined after the ‘stubbornness of their own hearts’, and of their own opinion, I am pleased to interpret it, in accordance with the teaching of our Rabbis, of the King Messiah….This prophecy was delivered by Isaiah at the divine command for the purpose of making known to us something about the nature of the future Messiah, who is to come and deliver Israel, and his life from the day when he arrives at discretion until his advent as a redeemer, in order that if anyone should arise claiming to be himself the Messiah, we may reflect, and look to see whether we can observe in him any resemblance to the traits described here; if there is any such resemblance, then we may believe that he is the Messiah our righteousness; but if not, we cannot do so.” (From his commentary on Isaiah, quoted in The Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah According to the Jewish Interpreters, Ktav Publishing House, 1969, Volume 2, pages 99-114.)
I don’t know. Sounds like it is written by a Christian. Who is “this rabbi”? And who is describing what “this rabbi” said?
I will get in touch with Rabbi Tovia Singer (famous Orthodox Counter-Missionary Jewish Rabbi) on the subject if I can and will let you know his thoughts. But lets say even if there was a Jewish view of the Messiah dying for the sins of mankind, there are still other passages that would disqualify Jesus as the Messiah according to the Old Testament. One extremely compelling evidence is found in Ezekiel that talks about the restoration of the animal sacrificial system for sins, which flies in the face of the Book of Hebrews that clearly argues that only Jesus is the sacrifice for sins. Any thoughts?
I would say that the opinion of the author of the Book of Hebrews would have no bearing on whether Jesus was truly the messiah or not. It would just be his opinion, not some kind of “official source of disqualification.”
Was Judas Maccabeus (“The Maccabee”), the revolutionary leader against the Seleucids, considered a moshiach? If not, why?
No, not that I know of.
In antiquity Israel was surrounded by countries who each had their own gods, for war, fertility. etc. Where in the Old Testament is there any indication that indicates the Hebrew god was the god of all men as opposed to just a Jewish god, similar to other countries that had their own gods.
Consider no accounts of God reaching out to his other children. Canaanites worshiped idols, and for that God told the Hebrews to kill every man, woman, and child. When Hebrews worshipped idols, he promptly forgave them. They called themselves the chosen people. God only talked to the Hebrews.
There are indications the Hebrews devised a god, like other countries, and proceeded to worshipped him.
I suppose Genesis 1-11 is meant to show that; it comes to be explicitly affirmed in the wriings of Isaiah (esp. chs.40-55); otherwise you have clear indications of God’s sovereignty over other nations in Jonah, e.g., or the attackes on other nations in Amos for what they had done against nations other than Israel, etc. My sense is that a number of ancient Israelites thought of YHWH as *their* God and of little relevance ot others; others thought that YHWH was the God of all people and would be using his chosen ones to bring others into the proper worship of him. disabledupes{8bf4108c8a2427f2ee004a8afd991fa7}disabledupes
As far as my research is concern, there are at least two prophecies about Jesus as the Messiah. It is mentioned in Isaiah 61:1 and Daniel 9:25.