Amaleq13

Perhaps (though I think you must mean the dating of those beliefs rather than their existence) but that doesn't change the flawed logic in your post.

I need no such thing to recognize the flawed logic in your post. The fact of traditional messianic expectations amongst some Jews in the 2nd century says nothing about any non-traditional messianic expectations that may have been held earlier.

aa5874

I can recognise your flawed logic, you are just guessing. You must present pertinent information, I do not deal with idle speculation.
You say nothing about this early non-traditional expectation.

You seem not to understand logics at all.

If the 2nd century messianic expectation was the same as the 1st century, then LOGICALLY there would be NO risen dead Messiah expectation.

If you disagee with someone please come with your facts.

Amaleq13

There are no guesses involved in my observation of your flawed reasoning. The fact that there are known "non-traditional" messianic expectations described in the DSS which predate the traditional views expressed in the 2nd century makes that error plain.

That you think I need to suggests you do not understand the nature of your error.

Why would anyone make such a silly assumption?

aa5874

This is just a total waste of time. You present nothing but continuous rhetoric. You need to present information about your early RISEN dead Messiah tradition.

If all you can say is that my logic is flawed then I will continue to say your logic is flawed.

This is what I have presented so far, in short. Philo and Josephus make no mention of a RISEN dead Messiah and in the 2nd century Simon bar Kokbha was called the Messiah. The Messiah was expected to be a military leader not a risen dead Messiah who would save the Jews from their sin and come back for the DEAD.

You seem to think that there may be an expectation for a RISEN dead Messiah who would save the Jews from their sins with the Temple still standing and would come back a second time for the DEAD.

Now, please present your RISEN dead Messiah and your source. I have very little time to waste.

Amaleq13

Yes, you appear to be either unwilling or unable to grasp the nature of your error. I trust you are alone in this.

No, I don't need to do any such thing to deny that traditional messianic beliefs in the 2nd century somehow preclude the possibility of earlier non-traditional beliefs. I shouldn't have had to mention the specific non-traditional beliefs described in the DSS but I did so in the (vain) hope it would help you understand the nature of your error.

While I'm sure that all you'll do is repeat yourself, that isn't all I've written. I also provided a specific example that clearly denies your faulty reasoning. I guess you didn't understand that, either. To be honest, I had little hope you would. :wave:

aa5874

Again, you have presented NOTHING to support your RISEN dead Messiah expectation.

Waste of time.

gstafleu

Good plan !
OK, I'll go with that for now...
So we know that Paul himself saw Jesus in a role close to the Jewish Messiah concept. We don't know why he saw things that way (which is what the OP asks). We also don't know to what extent he explained this to his followers. Or rather, the evidence we have tends to indicate that he did not explain this.

So now we have not one, but two, or maybe three, silences on concepts that seem rather important: Paul is silent on historical details, and he is silent on the Messiah issue in two, perhaps related, ways: he does not say why he thinks of Jesus as the Messiah, nor does he explain Messiahship to his followers. These silences are all explained in the same fashion: neither the historical details not the concept of Messiahship were important to Paul's mission.

Now you are of course familiar with the arguments that make the idea that Paul would not play a trump card like a real historical Messiah witnessed by many rather unlikely. But obviously the same unlikeliness attaches to his not holding forth on such an important issue as Messiahship. Consider the following exchange between us:

That doesn't answer much, does it? Just like one can expect people to clamor for historical details if one proposes a historical Messiah, so one can expect people to ask for an explanation as what the heck "anointed" means. Did somebody pour oil out over Jesus, and if so, why? If not, what does anointed mean, why is it important that Jesus was anointed, or "The Anointed One," or whatever?

So not only do we have a problematic silence on history, we have an equally problematic silence on Messiahship. To me this suggests that the two attributes, historicity and Messiahship, evolved over time.

Let us shortly consider "the putative original tradents (in Hebrew or Aramaic)." Does the fact that "Christ=anointed=Messiah" requires a rather intimate familiarity with the LXX and its background, suggest that the Jesus concept originated in the community of Hellenistic, mainly Greek speaking, Jews, not in the Aramaic one?

Gerard

Amaleq13

This is nothing but a red herring to distract from your clearly faulty logic.
I have no "RISEN dead Messiah expectation" nor have I ever made an appeal to one in order to point out the error in your post. You need to read more carefully and try to stick to what I've actually written.

Traditional messianic beliefs/expectations in the 2nd century in no way preclude earlier non-traditional beliefs or expectations. We know this is true because we know from the DSS that there were prior non-traditional beliefs.

This ridiculous assumption appears to be the ultimate basis of your error. It would be foolish enough without the evidence of the DSS.

Ben C Smith

He does not appear to think his followers will be confused by scriptures that Paul says point to Jesus, or to the present time (which Paul takes to be the end of the age).

Paul is not silent on historical details; but he is not very talkative on them. As has been pointed out, this near silence is trivial to explain, despite all protestations to the contrary.

I agree he does not say why Jesus was originally pegged as the messiah (by those who came before Paul, for example). But the resurrection and subsequent appearance to Paul is certainly enough for Paul himself, right? The connection between the general resurrection and the messiah is not an unnatural one in Jewish thought.

The concept of the messiah was important only insofar as it helped the gentile mission, yes.

Maybe. I am not sure what this sentence means.

Since the term Christ was uttered mainly as a nickname amongst Greeks and Romans, I do not think we should expect a lot of explanation for it, any more than we would expect a lot of explanation for Cicero as a nickname (cicero being the Latin word for a chickpea).

I do not think there is any problem with either. These are epistles. They are occasional. They are not meant to address all issues equally.

I agree that both concepts evolved over time. I do not necessarily agree, however, that the starting point was zero.

I should think it would suggest just the opposite. Perhaps I am not following.

Ben.

gstafleu

How do we get from Christ to Messiah? Via the fact that Christ means "anointed" in Greek, and Messiah means the same in Hebrew. This connection could, I think, only be made in the Hellenistic Jewish community, the "LXXers," so to speak. Sure, the connection could be made by some scholar familiar with both cultures, but that would hardly be sufficient to let the idea take hold. Given that we see all this Greek literature where we see the Messiah concept translated as Christ (or where we see Christ in the meaning of Messiah), this suggests to me that the community where this evolved was the community best suited to make this connection: the LXXers.

Gerard