Clivedurdle

From 1st century thread

Can we clearly define the terms Christ and Messiah?

How are they used in the new testament and later writings?

Are they separate ideas that have become entangled?

Is Jesus a messiah or a christ?

Ray Moscow

Hmmm ... I always thought that the NT just used the terms interchangeably.

In the Hebrew Bible, doesn't the "messiah" idea start with the Persian king Cyrus the Great? As in Isaiah 45:1:

spin

Well, whaddaya make of passages such as 1 Sam 2:10, 35, 24:6, 10, 26:9, Ps 20:6, 28:8, 84:9, etc?


spin

Clivedurdle

! Sam 2 v 10 kjv annointed

P296 Dake.

P549 about Psalm 2 states in a sidenote - Heb Maschiyah, annointed. Trans Messiah (Dan 9 25 - 6) and annointed 37 times(elsewhere in kjv).

Clivedurdle

Is the entanglement more of priest king saviour?

judge

An interesting verse to consider is John 1:41

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ).


ευρισκει ουτος πρωτον τον αδελφον τον ιδιον Σιμωνα και λεγει αυτω, Ευρηκαμεν τον Μεσσιαν ο εστιν μεθερμηνευομενον Χριστος

Here the greek text includes an explanation that the messiah is the christ.

Clivedurdle

But why have they become entangled? Going back to Samuel, there was a huge argument about whether or not there should be kings! Priests have a claim on an older tradition in Judaism, but do they? One of the main arguments between the Greeks and the Persians was over priesthood of believers or a hierarchical priesthood. Kings and annointers are not the same - politically theocracies have brought them together - Fraser discusses how kings would lose their jobs - lives actually - if they did not magic the weather properly!

Are we not looking at the slow invention of a super god man priest king? Hebrews definitely discusses the priestly nature of Christ. Where is the kingly nature discussed? Is it discussed jointly or is it John brings them together?

Can we not track back a history of how these terms changed their meaning?

Boro Nut

Good idea. Messiah seems okay, but at what point did Christ become the first thing you say when you look under the bonnet, ie, to imply all is not as it should be?

Boro Nut

Clouseau

That will make good sense if running low on oil, because chrism is oil. The words 'christ' and 'messiah' have the same meaning, 'anointed'- touched with oil, anciently a characteristic of specially honoured persons such as kings and high priests. The Greek christos is merely a literal translation of Hebrew masi(a)h and the corresponding Aramaic masiha. The transliterated word 'Messiah' was introduced by the Geneva Bible.

spin

It certainly isn't "merely a literal translation of Hebrew masi(a)h". Try to find a classical Greek reference to christos not meaning "ointment or salve". The translators of the LXX got inventive, by starting with a Greek verb (xriw) that meant basically the same as the Hebrew M$X, "smear with oil". It's just that the result didn't mean to Greeks what the Jews used it for. (The Greeks win: it's their language.)

Here's Euripides, Hippolytus, l.516:

Phaidra:
potera de christon h poton to farmakon

Which is this drug, an ointment or a potion?

(You could also check out Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound l.480.) Hard to get past the fact that christos meant ointment, isn't it? Not "merely a literal translation of Hebrew masi(a)h".

(Oh, and could someone quote this for Clouseau to see?)


spin