Was Jesus the messiah of the Hebrew bible?

[Nickman]

Cholland said he would like to debate this point so here it is.

Was Jesus the the messiah as prescribed by the Hebrew bible?

What prophecies does he fulfill and why?

Can he be shown to not fulfill the Hebrew text?

Cholland your up.....

[Artie]

As I said way back when, the Gospels writers each had their own agendas and wrote what they wrote to support those agendas. Luke wrote a rather different story from Matthew in many ways. The genealogical discrepancies are only part of that big picture.

"New International Version (1984) Titus 3:9
But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless."

"New International Version (1984) 1 Timothy 1:3-1:4
As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies..."

Sorry couldn't resist...

[Goat]

As I said way back when, the Gospels writers each had their own agendas and wrote what they wrote to support those agendas. Luke wrote a rather different story from Matthew in many ways. The genealogical discrepancies are only part of that big picture.

"New International Version (1984) Titus 3:9
But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless."

"New International Version (1984) 1 Timothy 1:3-1:4
As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies..."

Sorry couldn't resist...

To me, that is evidence that the writers of those two letters were aware of both Matthew and Luke, and was trying to ignore the contradiction.

[Jayhawker Soule]

...Once you put the crucifixion and ressurection into the mix, of course the Jews didn't accept Jesus...

All of Jesus' earliest followers were Jews, and they did accept Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

That is a wholly unwarranted assumption.

It is also more than a little tainted with racist stereotyping. First century Jews had one thing in common with first century everyone else: they were heterogenous. There were big ones, small ones, fat ones skinny ones, wise ones, foolish ones, honest ones, dishonest ones, smart ones dumb ones, etc. The presumed 'fact' that some Jews thought something about some guy named Yeshua should count for absolutely nothing.

The fact remains that you know nothing with certainty about Jesus, only what was marketed in the diaspora by apologists for a nascent Christianity. Have fun with that, but try doing so without ignorantly co-opting and distorting our scripture.

[cnorman18]

...Once you put the crucifixion and ressurection into the mix, of course the Jews didn't accept Jesus...

All of Jesus' earliest followers were Jews, and they did accept Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

That is a wholly unwarranted assumption.

It is also more than a little tainted with racist stereotyping. First century Jews had one thing in common with first century everyone else: they were heterogenous. There were big ones, small ones, fat ones skinny ones, wise ones, foolish ones, honest ones, dishonest ones, smart ones dumb ones, etc. The presumed 'fact' that some Jews thought something about some guy named Yeshua should count for absolutely nothing.

The fact remains that you know nothing with certainty about Jesus, only what was marketed in the diaspora by apologists for a nascent Christianity. Have fun with that, but try doing so without ignorantly co-opting and distorting our scripture.

Well said. From what I've seen, few Christians actually say that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah anyway. They say that he was the Christian Christ, which is an entirely different concept. There is nothing in Jewish tradition or teaching about the Messiah being himself God Incarnate, the literal Son of God, the Sacrifice for the world's sins, being raised from the dead, or even being a healer and wonder-worker. Those key concepts of Christianity do not even exist in the Jewish religion, and didn't even in Jesus's own day.

Christians may believe whatever they like, and they'll get no objections from me; but they do NOT have the right to redefine Judaism and overrule Jewish beliefs and traditions that existed for millenia before Jesus ever showed up, and which still remain central to our religion. If the FACT that Jews overwhelmingly did not and do not believe in Jesus is a problem for Christians, so be it; it is not a problem for us. We are doing just fine without any reference to Jesus at all in our faith and practice.

[ThatGirlAgain]

...Once you put the crucifixion and ressurection into the mix, of course the Jews didn't accept Jesus...

All of Jesus' earliest followers were Jews, and they did accept Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

That is a wholly unwarranted assumption.

It is also more than a little tainted with racist stereotyping. First century Jews had one thing in common with first century everyone else: they were heterogenous. There were big ones, small ones, fat ones skinny ones, wise ones, foolish ones, honest ones, dishonest ones, smart ones dumb ones, etc. The presumed 'fact' that some Jews thought something about some guy named Yeshua should count for absolutely nothing.

The fact remains that you know nothing with certainty about Jesus, only what was marketed in the diaspora by apologists for a nascent Christianity. Have fun with that, but try doing so without ignorantly co-opting and distorting our scripture.

I see no stereotyping going on.

The records we have of the early phases of the movement later called Christianity make it clear that it started out as a variant of Judaism and its earliest followers were indeed Jewish. What Jesus really said or did or even existed is not relevant. Of course in the 1st century CE variants of Judaism were fairly common and messianic fervor was at a peak. A major reason for the survival of proto-Christianity was the existence of those early records and their widespread dispersal, especially into gentile populations.

The central meme of an imminent apocalypse and a universal judgment of the living and the dead to right the wrongs of the ages would have appealed to the gentile lower classes more than the official form of paganism that favored the nobility. A universal judgment would necessarily involve resurrection of the dead and the claim that someone had actually done this would fire the imagination of those who suffered under Roman oppression. But this idea was not invented by any apologists for Jesus. Apocalyptic thinking and literature were already around in the Jewish community before Jesus.

As I have argued above, the co-opting of messianic prophecies (actual or merely imputed) in the Hebrew scriptures was mainly the work of Matthew, although Mark really started it. Matthew was trying to establish his community of Jesus following but still observant Jews as the true inheritors of historical Judaism in the wake of the loss of the Temple. His competition was the newly forming rabbinic Judaism that was trying to do the same thing. Establishing Jesus as the true Messiah was a major part of Matthews strategy. It is ironic that the Gospel of Matthew should become one of the pillars of Christianity but Matthews community of fully observant Jews who not only accepted Jesus as the Messiah but also embraced Pauline theology apparently vanished without a trace.

A double irony is that the links to Judaism probably helped sell proto-Christianity to gentiles. In that era, any self respecting movement needed to have the aura of antiquity to be taken seriously. Even those who knew nothing of the Hebrew scriptures except what was (mis)represented in the Gospels or the Pauline Epistles would be attracted by this sense of ancient wisdom.

[The Tongue]

To "ThatGirlAgain."

First of all would you please answer the question: Were the 70/72 Jews who translated the Greek Septuagint from the Hebrew bible some 200 years before the birth of Jesus, referring to a virgin when they translated the Hebrew Almah, which, according to Youngs Analytical Concordance, carries the meaning (Concealment-Unmarried Female) by using the Greek Parthenos?

[ThatGirlAgain wrote] If the Joseph described by Matthew is not the Joseph described by Luke, then the inheritance by adoption of the temporal power of the royal Davidian princes described above does not work.

Joseph the son of Jacob, was a descendant of Jehoiachin of whom the Lord said in Jeremiah 22: 30; This man is condemned to lose his children, to be a man who will never succeed. He will have no descendants who will rule in Judah as Davids successors. I the Lord have spoken. Why do you believe that Joseph ben Jacob was not killed as was Heli who was murdered around 16 to 13 BCE, when the pogroms were fully activated against the Davidian princes by King Herod the Great.

Herod knew that Joseph ben Jacob had no claim to the throne of King David, being a descendant of Jehoiachin, meaning that his adopted son Jesus was also unable to inherit the throne of David, THROUGH his adopted father Joseph ben Jacob, neither could he inherit the throne through his Levite Mother, but he could make his claim through his biological Father, Joseph the son of Heli, who was a Prince of David, and the son of Matthat, whose 1st wife was Elizabeth of Jerusalem, whose royal Greek name was the Maccabee Princess Alexandra II, and Matthat was also a Prince of David as were all the descendants of King Davids Adopted son Nathan the son of Bathsheba.

CONTINUING from post #140.

Until Mary the mother of John Mark is introduced into the New Testament, there are only three women mentioned who are named Mary, and they are, Mary the sister of Lazarus whose name means (Without Help or Terminal) and Lazarus can be identified with Simon, who had the terminal skin disease (Leprosy) in whose house Jesus was anointed by a reformed Prostitute, who may or may not be the same woman as Mary Magdalene, then there is the mother of Jesus, who is the mother of James the younger of her biological sons and Joseph, who in my opinion is the same as the Joseph of Arimathea, the son of Marys first husband, who it would appear had issued her with a bill of divorce and raised his young son himself, and that he "Joseph ben Jacob"was still alive when his son Joseph of Arimathea, laid the body of his half brother Jesus in his own FAMILY tomb which had never been used, indicating that his father was still alive at that time, and then of course James the younger of her three biological sons, who we all know, that according to Paul, James is the brother of Jesus and James the brother of the Lord was sired by Cleophas the second husband of Mary, who is also called Alpheaus.

Cleophas is the Greek for Of a Renowned Father and Alpheaus is the Aramaic, which carries the same meaning, Of a Renowned Father. According to the Universal Subject Guide in Youngs Analytic Concordance to the Bible, the Cleophas of Luke 24: 18; is recorded as the first male person to whom the risen Jesus revealed himself, and the Cleophas of John 19: 25; and Matthew 10: 3; as the husband of Mary who is also called Alpheaus.

It is my personal opinion, based on many, many years of study, that the woman who the Jewish authorities accused of committing adultery, was Mary the mother of Jesus, who, contrary to the new teachings of Jesus, who preached that if a person remarried while their original spouse was still alive, they were adulterers, had remarried Cleophas/Alpheaus while her ex-husband Joseph was still alive.

The religious authorities of those days were always looking for ways that they might trap Jesus according to his own teaching and then accuse him to the people, and it was after Jesus had been preaching that if a divorced person remarried while their original spouse was still alive, they were committing adultery, and having access to the temple files containing all the legal documents, It was then that the hypocritical priests thought that they had the means whereby they could make Jesus appear to the people to have one law for himself and another for everyone else.

Bringing forward his mother, who was among the crowd that were listening to the great teacher who was setting Israel on fire, they said to Jesus in their most patronising voice, Teacher, this woman has been caught in the very act of adultery: (This was according to the new teaching of Jesus) In our law Moses commanded that such a woman must be stoned to death. Now, what do you say? John 8: 6; They said this in order to trap Jesus and accuse him to the people.

Jesus knew what those hypocrites were up to, those hypocrites who thought nothing of stoning the innocent Stephen to death, were bound by the law of Moses to stone this woman to death if she had indeed been caught in the very act of sexual intercourse with a man other than He to who she was legally married at that time.

Jesus then turned the tables on them by saying, He who is without sin may cast the first stone, knowing full well that according to their law, she was innocent of any crime and they could do nothing.

Then he bent down and wrote something in the dust, Perhaps he may have written, As ye judge, so shall ye be judged. Most men in those days who had been given by Moses, the right to issue their wives with a bill of divorce, had done so and according to the new teaching of Jesus would have been as guilty as the woman that they were accusing, and the hypocrites knowing full well that the woman had not broken the Law of Moses and was innocent of any crime according to their own teachings, they were forced to walk away with their tails between their legs, thereby admitting to the people that they were not without sin.

Jesus then turned to his mother and asked, Is there no one left to condemn you? No one Lord she answered. Well then, said Jesus, I do not condemn you either. Go, but dont sin again, and it was for this reason I believe, that the mother of Jesus chose to remain separate from her husband Cleophas and his children, and the reason why, on the cross, Jesus entrusted his mother, Mary the wife of Cleophas, into the care of his beloved disciple John.

Otherwise, why would he do that, when Mary had a husband and his three sons James, Jude and Simeon to care for her?

It is written in Acts 1: 14; that after the death of her son Jesus, the disciples would frequently gather as a group to pray together, with the women and the mother of Jesus etc.

Up until this point in the New Testament, no mention has been made of Mary the mother of John who was surnamed MARK, which name means (Hammer, or Hammerer) much like Thor dont you think?

When Peter was miraculously released from prison, he ran straight to the house where he knew the believers would be gathered in prayer for his safety. Straight to the house of Mary the mother of young John surnamed Mark, who, in the opinion of myself and others, is young John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, who he had surnamed, Boaneoes, which means, Son of Thunder.

According to Luke, the people who knew Jesus, believed him to be the biological son of Joseph the son of Alexander Helios, a Macedonian name, (Heli) who is the Father of Mary.

Jesus, who was born according to the workings of the holy promise, (My word is Spirit) is the promised seed of Abraham, and Jesus is seen as the child born of a brother and half sister relationship, as Mary is the only child believed to have been born of Anna the youngest of the three daughters of the High Priest Yehoshua (Jesus) III, while Luke makes mention of a son of Heli by the name Joseph, obviously by a previous woman.

Isaac, is seen as a prototype of Jesus, as he too was the promised seed of Abraham and was born of Gods promise according to the workings of the Holy Spirit.

Galatians 4: 29; Amplified version: Yet as at that time the child born according to the flesh (Ishmael), despised and persecuted him (Isaac) who was born according to the promise and the workings of the Holy Spirit, etc.

Isaac is a prototype of Jesus and like Jesus, was born of Gods promise according to the workings of the Holy Spirit. Both are seen as the seed that was promised to Abraham.

Both Isaac and Jesus were the sons of parents who were both sired by the one Father.

Terah, is the father to both Abraham and Sarah by different mothers, while Heli, is the father of both Joseph and Mary, by different mothers.

Both Mary and Sarah were informed by an angel that they would become Pregnant and bear the son of Gods promise. Isaac was offered up as a sacrifice by his physical father, and Jesus was offered up by his spiritual father, whose spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove as the voice was heard to say, you are my beloved in whom I am well pleased, TODAY I have become your Father. Or rather, THIS dAY I have begotten thee. See the more ancient authorities of Luke 3: 22; and Isaac was offered up on the same mountain at the very spot where Jesus was crucified.

In Luke 3: 22; (In place of Thou art my beloved son in who I am well pleased.) The following authorities of the second, third, and fourth centuries read, This day I have begotten thee, vouched for by Codex D, and the most ancient copies of the old latin (a, b. c. ff.I), by Justin Martyr (AD 140), Clemens Alex, (AD. 190), Methodius (AD. 290), among the Greeks. And among the Latins, Lactaitius (AD 300), Hilary (AD) Juvencus (AD. 330), Faustus (AD. 400) and Augustine. All these oldest manuscripts were changed completely. They now read, This is my son in whom I am well pleased. Whereas the original variant was, Thou art my Son. This day I have begotten thee.

In my opinion, Joseph the son of Heli (Luke 3: 23.) Is one and the same as the Macedonian Joseph the Levite, a descendant of Nathan the adopted son of King David, who came from Cyprus and presumably met Mary for the first time at the gathering of the family and friends of Elizabeth the aunty of Mary and sister-in-law of Heli the father of Joseph from Macedonia, both being unaware that they shared a common father.

Joseph, (not Joseph ben Jacob,) but the Joseph who the disciples surnamed Barnabas after the death of Jesus, even though he is said to have been a disciple of Jesus, was a Levite. He was a Macedonian native of Cyprus, where he possessed land (Acts 4:36, 37), which he sold, giving the proceeds to the church in Jerusalem.

Paul and Barnabas were appointed as missionaries to Asia Minor. It was in this capacity, and taking with them, young John who was surnamed Mark, who was the son of Mary the sister of Joseph who had been surnamed Barnabas, they visited Cyprus and some of the principal cities of Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Lycaonia (Acts 13:14).

After they had returned to Antioch from the Jerusalem council and after spending some time there (15:35), Paul asked Barnabas to accompany him on another journey (15:36). Barnabas wished to take John surnamed Mark along, but Paul did not, as he had left them on the former journey (15:37-38). The dispute ended by Paul and Barnabas taking separate routes. Paul took Silas as his companion, and journeyed through Syria and Cilicia; while Barnabas took John surnamed Mark to visit Cyprus and the land of Pamphylia, where today, in the town of Ephesus the grave sites of Mary the sister of Joseph, and John, can still be visited.

[Jayhawker Soule]

I see no stereotyping going on.

We are offered ...

All of Jesus' earliest followers were Jews, and they did accept Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

... from which we are to infer what?

[Jayhawker Soule]

The records we have of the early phases of the movement later called Christianity make it clear that it started out as a variant of Judaism and its earliest followers were indeed Jewish.

What records would those be?

A couple of points:

1. The phrase 'a variant of Judaism' is more than a little anachronistic.
2. Nascent Christianity was an Hellenistic (parasitical) movement marketed to gentiles and, secondarily, to Hellenistic Jews in the diaspora by a handful of apologists about which exceedingly little is known.
3. The only thing we have connecting this movement with anything in Palestine are the questionable writings on Paul and Luke and a few bits of even more problematic polemic about/against groups such as the Ebionaioi.
4. Statements like "its earliest followers were indeed Jewish" are, at best, worthless generalizations that serve more to obscure than inform.

[Jayhawker Soule]

... would you please answer the question: Were the 70/72 Jews who translated the Greek Septuagint from the Hebrew bible some 200 years before the birth of Jesus, referring to a virgin when they translated the Hebrew Almah, which, according to Youngs Analytical Concordance, carries the meaning (Concealment-Unmarried Female) by using the Greek Parthenos?

1. The story of "the 70/72 Jews who translated the Greek Septuagint" is legend, not fact.
2. This legend has these Jews being called together by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, which would make your "200 years before the birth of Jesus" off by almost a century.
3. The legend has them being called together to translate the Torah in the 3rd century BCE. Isaiah is not part of the Torah but, rather, part of the Nevi'im and was probably translated mid 2nd century BCE.
4. The term parthenos was a reasonable translation of almah given the connotation of the terms at that time.
5. The woman referenced in Isaiah was most likely a virgin. Virgins give birth all the time: it's typically a nine month process initiated by sex.
6. Isaiah 7:14 had absolutely nothing to do with Jesus - hence the fanciful concept of 'dual prophecy'.
7. Matthew was penned long after Isaiah by someone familiar with LXX Isaiah. The Virgin Birth is best seen as a bit of 1st century CE embellishment.

[ThatGirlAgain]

The records we have of the early phases of the movement later called Christianity make it clear that it started out as a variant of Judaism and its earliest followers were indeed Jewish.

What records would those be?

A couple of points:

1. The phrase 'a variant of Judaism' is more than a little anachronistic.
2. Nascent Christianity was an Hellenistic (parasitical) movement marketed to gentiles and, secondarily, to Hellenistic Jews in the diaspora by a handful of apologists about which exceedingly little is known.
3. The only thing we have connecting this movement with anything in Palestine are the questionable writings on Paul and Luke and a few bits of even more problematic polemic about/against groups such as the Ebionaioi.
4. Statements like "its earliest followers were indeed Jewish" are, at best, worthless generalizations that serve more to obscure than inform.

What records would those be? The Gospels and the Epistles of Paul. Whether the stories they tell are true is irrelevant. They reflect strongly Jewish roots to the movement.

Mark knowing a whole lot about the details of political life in Jerusalem in the era of Pontius Pilate despite him writing decades after that life was long gone is not due to it arising from any "Hellenistic (parasitical) movement". He paints a convincing picture of the Law literalist Shammai Pharisees being opposed by someone influenced in his youth by Hillel and probably inspired by the Prophets especially Amos. And a scene involving money changing in the Temple with no explanation of why money needed to be changed for the allegedly non-Jewish audience? Sorry, nope.

Matthew is about as Jewish as they come and his objective is clearly to reclaim a chaotic post-Temple Judaism. While would some Greeks be so obsessed with dumping on the Pharisees - who incidentally he says call themselves Rabbis? This is a Jew trying to fend off other Jews. One can easily imagine Matthew digging up as much scripture as he can to impress his rural audience to try to counteract the sophisticated 'city slicker' rabbinic Jews migrating northward from war torn central Judaea.

Luke's mission is to oppose Matthew's heavily Jewish message. Championing the supremacy of the Law (including adult circumcision for converts - ouch!) goes against the Pauline gentile acceptance campaign. Perhaps even worse, the disastrous Revolt gave Jewish messianic movements a bad name. Lets de-emphasize the strongly Jewish elements and emphasize the universality of Jesus instead.

John is all about distinguishing his community from a now once again established mainstream (rabbinic) Judaism. Why would Greeks care about that?

Much of Paul is about arguing to Jews that gentiles do not need to convert to Judaism to become Jesus followers. If Christianity did not originate in a Jewish atmosphere why would he need to do that? And his imagery is all Jewish, albeit as convoluted as Matthews fulfillments.

I see no reason to doubt the conventional take on things that Christianity started out with some Jews and was in essence Jewish in character.