Jesus Messiah

Jesus as the Messiah

Jews at the time of Jesus were waiting for the coming of the Messiah.  They were told that the Messiah would be recognized by the different attributes he will need to possess.    Maimonides, a Jewish scholar and contemporary of St. Thomas Aquinas, had offered guidelines to the Jews, as according to them the Messiah had not come, and that Jesus did not qualify for that title.

Jesus was a Jew, and his early followers were all devout Jews, and they too were waiting for the Messiah.  Since the Pharasees and Scribes did not take Jesus seriously, Josephus the Jewish historian has written very little about him, and what we know about Jesus comes down to us only from the Christian writers who were Jews: Mathew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul.    Jesus refused to be pulled into the political schemes of the Jewish elite and was therefore ostracized and ignored.    Modern Jews acknowledge the existence of Jesus with doubts.

Catholics are not very familiar of the controversies that have existed since the birth of Christianity, being sheltered from these conflicts in all the past centuries.    Hence , they were guided by misinformation and prejudice    Today, information is in the public domain, and as controversies arise, the faithful get shocked when they hear what others have to say about their icons.

It is therefore important for us to take a little trouble to understand what the Jewish followers of Jesus understood and interpreted the sayings of Jesus.   Since the contemporary Jews find it hard to accept the writings of the evangelists, as there is a debate among them regarding their authenticity and veracity, there is a chasm of misunderstanding between our two communities.   Vatican II has given guidelines how to approach this subject and on our part we have to be sympathetic to their point of view, at the same time, know what we believe what we believe.

You might we aware that in our Creed, we believe that Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead.  This is called Parousia, or the second coming.    The contemporary Jews are still waiting for the Messiah, and many Protestant Christians await the second coming so that the Jews will accept Jesus and the two communities will become one.

Jewish Christians of the time of Christ.

The first one to announce the coming of the Messiah was John the Baptist, who is also conspicuously absent from the memory of the Contemporary Jewish thought, for the same reasons given for Jesus.  This antipathy was prevalent right from the early times.

Mathew Chapter 3. Verses 7 - 12

7  And seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them: Ye brood of vipers, who hath showed you to flee from the wrath to come?

8  Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance.

9  And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father. For I tell you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

10  For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that doth not yield good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire.

11  I indeed baptize you in the water unto penance, but he that shall come after me, is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; he shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire.

12  Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his floor and gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

"He that shall come after me" was the Christ, the Messiah.      The arrival of John the Baptist too was foretold by Isaiah:   "For this is he that was spoken of by Isaias the prophet, saying: A voice of one crying in the desert, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths."  Isaiah chapter 40  verses 3-5 

3  The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God.

4  Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain.

5  And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken.

Vision of Daniel regarding Christ 

Daniel, Chapter 9  verses 20-

20  Now while I was yet speaking, and praying, and confessing my sins, and the sins of my people of Israel, and presenting my supplications in the sight of my God, for the holy mountain of my God:

21  As I was yet speaking in prayer, behold the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, flying swiftly touched me at the time of the evening sacrifice.

(The man Gabriel... The angel Gabriel in the shape of a man.)

22  And he instructed me, and spoke to me, and said: O Daniel, I am now come forth to teach thee, and that thou mightest understand.

23  From the beginning of thy prayers the word came forth: and I am come to show it to thee, because thou art a man of desires: therefore do thou mark the word, and understand the vision.

(Man of desires... that is, ardently praying for the Jews then in captivity.)

24  Seventy weeks are shortened upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, that transgression may be finished, and sin may have an end, and iniquity may be abolished; and everlasting justice may be brought; and vision and prophecy may be fulfilled; and the saint of saints may be anointed.

(Seventy weeks... Viz., of years, (or seventy times seven, that is, 490 years), are shortened; that is, fixed and determined, so that the time shall be no longer.)

25  Know thou therefore, and take notice: that from the going forth of the word, to build up Jerusalem again, unto Christ the prince, there shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks: and the street shall be built again, and the walls in straightness of times.

(From the going forth of the word, etc... That is, from the twentieth year of king Artaxerxes, when by his commandment Nehemias rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah 2. From which time, according to the best chronology, there were just sixty-nine weeks of years, that is, 483 years to the baptism of Christ, when he first began to preach and execute the office of Messias. -- Ibid. In straightness of times... [angustia temporum]: which may allude both to the difficulties and opposition they met with in building: and to the shortness of the time in which they finished the wall, viz., fifty-two days.)

26  And after sixty-two weeks Christ shall be slain: and the people that shall deny him shall not be his. And a people with their leader that shall come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary: and the end thereof shall be waste, and after the end of the war the appointed desolation.

(A people with their leader... The Romans under Titus.)

27  And he shall confirm the covenant with many, in one week: and in the half of the week the victim and the sacrifice shall fall: and there shall be in the temple the abomination of desolation: and ihe desolation shall continue even to the consummation, and to the end.

(In the half of the week... or, in the middle of the week, etc. Because Christ preached three years and a half: and then by his sacrifice upon the cross abolished all the sacrifices of the law. -- Ibid. The abomination of desolation... Some understand this of the profanation of the temple by the crimes of the Jews, and by the bloody faction of the zealots. Others of the bringing in thither the ensigns and standard of the pagan Romans. Others, in fine, distinguish three different times of desolation: viz., that under Antiochus; that when the temple was destroyed by the Romans; and the last near the end of the world under Antichrist. To all which, as they suppose, this prophecy may have a relation.)

We have to take into consideration, the followers of Jesus were indeed concerned with the tradition of the Messiah, as was prevalent during those times, when the elite was busy with other things.    As the Psalmist says, the "stone which was rejected by the builders has become the corner stone" was indeed a stumbling block in the reconciliation between the two communities and as things happen, the division persists and is often tried to be proved with arguments, perhaps till the Second Coming.

Messiah:

When a name was wanted for the Promised One, who was to be at once King and Saviour, it was natural to employ this synonym for the royal title, denoting at the same time the King's royal dignity and His relation to God. The full title "Anointed of Jahveh" occurs in several passages of the Psalms of Solomon and the Apocalypse of Baruch, but the abbreviated form, "Anointed" or "the Anointed", was in common use. When used without the article, it would seem to be a proper name. The word Christos so occurs in several passages of the Gospels. This, however, is no proof that the word was generally so used at that time. In the Palestine Talmud the form with the article is almost universal, while the common use in the Babylonian Talmud without the article is not a sufficient argument for antiquity to prove that in the time of Christ it was regarded as a proper name. It is proposed in the present article: