tanya

fishy: smells bad, possibly dishonest;

tall tale: myth, lie, dishonest/misleading presentation,

tail: the end of a story. Here: the last word on the subject.

Fish: Greek: ICHTHYS : ACRONYM: meaning:
Iesous CHristou THeos Yios Soter

The issue: The proper Greek word corresponding to "Messiah", an English word, derived from Greek/Latin "messias", and misunderstood, evidently, even to the present day.

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....306547&page=20
see post 479, for example:

post 484
The fishy tail provides the answer.

English************Greek******* Hebrew

annointed********cristou ***** mashiach (root = Mem Shin Chet)

saviour********* soter ******* moshiah (root = Yod Shin Ayin)

It is "soter", not "cristou" which corresponds to the English word, Messiah--> SAVIOUR.

It would surely be interesting to learn what Origen wrote, in the Hexapla, differentiating mashiach and moshiah. How did Origin describe Jesus: as THE annointed, or as THE saviour?

Somewhere in time, the English word Messiah originated, ostensibly from Greek and Latin: "messias". Back then, did "messias" correspond to "annointed", or "saviour"? Certainly, TODAY, Messiah, is typically associated with the meaning of SAVIOUR, not merely "annointed".

Historically, of course, every tom, dick, and harry were annointed with olive oil, to keep the lice away, but THE Messiah, was someone very unique, once in 50 generations kind of person, in other words, a Moshiah, and not simply a Mashiach.

Iskander

It is the same

stephan huller

I have posted most of this before, but since this is point of the OP it should be noted that Messiah means Christ and Christ means Messiah and the two words only mean Anointed and the usual referent is a secular king. The Queen was anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland at her coronation. There is no Greek word Christos unambiguously meaning what Christian theology uses it to mean. The altar was “christos” when olive oil was poured on it. Flour is “christos” when olive oil is poured on it. Grass is “christos” when the sprinkler is turned on. If it means someone special, then it means any king of any country at any time.

Aside from this, there is no Hebrew or Aramaic word “Messiah”. This is an ARTIFICIAL word only existing in late modern English. There is the Hebrew word משיח Mashiach (approximate pronunciation) and the Aramaic Meshiach (approximate pronunciation) and definite Meshicha (approximate pronunciation) and the Greek phonetic transcription Messias (where the 's' is a Greek suffix). French correctly renders both Mashiach and Messias as “Messie”. German has “Messias” for both.

A source of confusion is that the Aramaic and Greek forms also render the Hebrew Kohen Mashuach, an anointed High Priest. Another source of confusion is that although the word Mashiach = Christos in the Psalms usually refers to any earthly temporal king, in some places it refers to a heavenly figure known from Canaanite mythology and from contemporary writings about Melchizedek, seen as manifestation of a heavenly figure. (King of Salem = King of Peace. Melchizedek means King of Righteousness, as in the Christmas carol “Hark the Heavenly Angels Sing”, which says “Hail the King of Righteousness”. The phrase in the carol is a conscious translation of Melchizedek [Malki-tsedek in modern transcription]). A further difficulty is that some occurrences of Mashiach = Christos have both the earthly and the heavenly meanings.

From my reconstruction of the Marcionite text (and from what we see in other early witnesses) it can be said with certainty Jesus NEVER EVER ONCE used the term Mashiach = Christos = Anointed for himself. One could argue I suppose that he (or the author of the narrative) did this because the term had too many meanings, some badly misleading. One could also argue that he used “Son of Man”, which is deliberately ambiguous. In Aramaic of the time (as Bar Nasha) and in literary Hebrew (Ben Adam) it could just mean “the one under discussion” or “the person”. As an allusion to Daniel 11, it meant a heavenly figure who acts to bring the will of God to earth.

Finally, all the references to Isaiah at the start of Luke DON’T refer to a heavenly figure. In the context in Isaiah, it is a child already born or about to be born in 700 BCE. What was miraculous then 700 BCE. was the sign of divine intervention in history, symbolised by the birth and the change in political circumstances coinciding. The Prince of Peace etc. is in the first instance this child in 700 BCE. The angel says or Luke says the same power is to act again, more powerfully, in the birth of Jesus.

So let's make this clear. Jesus always rejected the term Mashiach (Hebrew) or Meshicha (Aramaic) or “Christos” (Greek). All these words mean exactly the same thing, someone or something anointed. He rejected the term was because the PRIMARY CONNOTATION is “legitimate TEMPORAL or SECULAR king”. This is its meaning in Daniel 9: 25 and 26.

ALL EARLY CHRISTIAN COMMENTATORS AGREE THAT THIS ANOINTED IN DANIEL IS ONLY A TEMPORAL KING. (All early Christian commentators agree with the mainstream Jewish interpretation, that it is meant to refer to Marcus Agrippa). In the contemporary Jewish context, Anointed = Mashiach = Christos meant a new secular king descended from David.

Jesus’s descent from David is of about one percent of importance in defining his status in traditional Christianity. American Evangelicalism is close to heresy in this respect. The traditional model is Moses.

AGAIN THERE IS NOT ONE BIT OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHRISTOS AND MASHIACH. THEY ARE THE SAME WORD IN TWO DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. Daniel 9 says Marcus Agrippa was Christos in one meaning, the usual meaning, a secular king. Jesus and Paul would have agreed. This is a rare meaning of the term in the Psalms, hardly found anywhere else in the O.T. (Yes, I mean this). Actually the verb is usually used to carry this meaning, not the noun. (“He has been anointed”, not “He is the Anointed”).

Jesus didn’t use the word Christos at all, because the first meaning was wrong in his case and the second meaning would not be relevant or applicable till after the Resurrection and Ascension.

Jesus never repudiated the title Mashiach: he just discouraged the use of it when applied to himself.

tanya

Thanks for your comment.

I do not dispute this fact.

Sorry, if it came across, that I do.

I do not.

I dispute that the English word "Messiah", which is commonly thought to mean "saviour", corresponds to Cristou (or Mashiach). I think that "Messiah" corresponds, rather, with the tail of the fish: Soter (= Moshiah).

Does Origen differentiate, in Hexapla, between the two Hebrew words, mashiach and moshiah?

In his other works, does Origen refer to Iesous as Cristou, or Soter, or both?

stephan huller

No you are incorrect. Soter = Jesus. The names יהושע Yehoshua’ (Samaritan pronunciation Yê’ûsha) and its shortened form ישוע Yeshua and the name הרשע Hoshea’ (anglice Hosea) all mean “the Lords saves” or “the Lord is salvation”, and allude to the last verses of Deuteronomy 33. The af’el participle mesha’ מישע and the Hebrew hif’il participle מושיע both mean “one who saves” or “saviour”, from the root ישע in both cases. Sorry, back to the drawing board.

For what it is worth one of the Church Fathers (I am out and about so I can't remember who - probably Irenaeus) notes that the 'heretics' would only call Jesus 'Savior' rather than Christ and put great emphasis on the fact that Jesus and Christ were separate persons. Perhaps this is what you are looking for.

tanya

The question is not whether or not Iesous was regarded as both cristou and soter, the FISH acronym demonstrates that he was.....

The question concerns the origin of the Latin/Greek word messias, source of the English word "Messiah".

I claim that the word comes not from Mashiakh, but rather from Moshiah.

Somewhere along the line, the concept of annointing became supreme, and the notion at the tail of the fish was disregarded: Emphasis, at least in Paul's epistles, was to describe Jesus as the Cristou, rather than the Soter.

It makes no sense to me, because obviously, Jesus, a rabbi, would have been annointed before or during his sojourn in the Temple. Tens of thousands of Jews were annointed. No big deal. But, a SAVIOUR, that was an extraordinary person, from which our modern day concept of Messiah is perfectly suited. I claim that the original meaning of Messiah, is derived from Moshiah, not Mashiakh.

tanya

Yes, exactly right

stephan huller

Actually here is the reference in Irenaeus:

tanya

Thank you for this reference.

MCalavera

tanya, big recommendation. Don't listen to what tickles your ears.

Mashiakh = Anointed One. Period.

Go argue with the experts if you don't like it.