Clouseau

Jesus is considered priest because he sacrificed himself on behalf of mankind. He is considered king because the love thereby shown 'commands' love in return, inspiring obedience in those who love him. In the life of the Christian there is no outward priesthood, no visible rule. The visible priests and kings of the OT are reckoned to be prefigurements and illustrations of internal truths.

No Robots

False. It is an indicator that Christ is an non-Messianic figure who is shoehorned into the role of Messiah in the NT. There is no indication that he is not of Jewish background. Quite the contrary. After all, why shoehorn a pagan deity into a crucified Jew at all?

TedM

What I meant was "the christian literature presents Jesus as the Messiah they believed had been foretold by the prophets, even though he was not the kind of Messiah that had been long-expected". Does that clarify for you what I meant?


Sure, I'll agree that Jesus did not meet the Jewish expectations at the time of what a Messiah would be like. That is why the idea that they killed him is believable. It could be an indicator that the Jesus story came from a non-Jewish background. However, the fact that the gospels and Paul are full of references that tie Jesus back to the OT prophecies suggests otherwise. It isn't just the triumphal entry that is mentioned. Many references to so-called Messiac passages are referenced. If the gospel Jesus was written for Gentiles, why even bother trying to fit him into a Jewish Messiac framework? As NoRobot says above "After all, why shoehorn a pagan deity into a crucified Jew at all?". Exactly my point.


What contradictory evidence--you mean since Jesus didn't have the expected qualities of a messiah? That is irrelevant to what the gospel writers thought. If I think Ted Bundy was a nice guy that fact that he wasn't doesn't change what I think. What are you seeing in the gospels or Paul's writings that even suggest any of them thought Jesus wasn't the Messiah?

ted

spin

I certainly agree with this statement. It doesn't make what I said false.

I didn't talk about Jesus coming from any background. I talked about the Jesus story. The people who wrote it are what we can talk about.

The better question should be: why shoehorn a crucified savior into a sham Jewish messiah. Dying saviors are certainly not Jewish and certainly not messianic, are they?

It seems that you aren't playing with the full deck here. There is an obvious Jewish connection and hopefully we both acknowledge that. There is also a strong non-Jewish mystery religious connection as well.


spin

No Robots

The disciples understood him as the political Messiah, an impression that Christ did nothing to correct:

He was not really a son of David and knew that he was not, nor did he in any way call himself so; but when he was called so, he liked it well enough. Indeed, he acquiesced in his passing for a political messiah, as the king of the Jews, which he was not and did not want to be (the common belief was the Messiah was a son of David); with his wonders, he was at the pleasure of those who addressed him as the son of David (e.g., Mt. 9:27, Mk. 10:46), and he slipped away very neatly when put on the spot: "And the chief priests and scribes, seeing the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying: Hosanna to the son of David; were moved with indignation. And said to him: Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus said to them: Yea, have you never read: Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings thou hast perfected praise" (Mt. 21:15-16]? And finally, when his disciples called out, "Blessed be the king who cometh in the name of the Lord," and some of the Pharisees said to him, "Master, rebuke thy disciples... he answered and said unto them, I say to you, that if these shall hold their peace, the stones will cry out" (Lk. 19:37-40).—Brunner, Our Christ, pp. 204-5.

However, the disciples did eventually stop believing in him as the Messiah:

The nearer the end approached, the less he could expect of his disciples, because they understood him less and less. In the end they did not even believe in him any more. They had never understood him fully; they believed something he himself did not believe at all, namely, that he would re-establish the Kingdom of Israel. They carried on believing that until the end came. It was ironic that they were quarrelling about who should have the best places in his new kingdom on the very road to Jerusalem which was Christ's road to death. Now was the time, they thought, now they would be richly recompensed for everything. At this point Peter becomes very candid as their spokesman, revealing his innermost heart to us: "Lo, we have left everything and followed you. What then shall we have?" (Mt. 19:27). He did not disabuse them of this idea; he remained ambiguous until the end came close, and then they could not understand anything any more. When his end actually came and no miracle took place, they stopped believing in him. Then they believed the rabbis who had said that there was nothing to him. Jerusalem robbed them of their faith; in Jerusalem they heard form the lips of famous men that no one should believe in him. They did not believe in him again until the miracle of his resurrection began to be broadcast, awakening into ambiguity their former expectations: "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?" He said to them, "It is not for you to know times and seasons which the Father has fixed in his own power" (Acts 1:6).—Brunner, Our Christ, pp.268-9.

Rufus Jones summarizes the matter succinctly:

The Stoic conception of God as Soul or Spirit of the Universe may unconsciously have influenced him [Paul]. So, too, the experiences and practices of the mystery-religions may have had their influence upon him. But, after all, the thing that counted most was his own undoubted personal experience of the invasion of God, the insurging of a divine Spirit which he identified with that Life that was personalized in Jesus Christ.—Jones, World Within, p. 162

spin

If rendering the word "messiah" meaningless is a clarification.

This is not a half empty/half full situation. You must deal with the fact that it is both non-Jewish and Jewish.

My response to NoRobots was: "The better question should be: why shoehorn a crucified savior into a sham Jewish messiah."

I see no way of deciding if the writers knowingly projected the unfitting title onto Jesus, just as some tried to label him king without any tangible kingness or priest without any tangible priestness. You've seen half-assed rationalizations from the inerrantist mob frequently on this site.


spin

spin

You (and your citation) are turning characters in a narrative into what you consider to be historical people, something you can't successfully do with the narratives we have, and then projecting onto those reified figures the values that appeal to you. At best we can talk about the writers presentation of the characters (who may or may not have been real and therefore beyond any meaningful analysis we can give).

And just a small glimpse into the problem:
We have a change from one redaction to another. There is no point whatsoever to supply a Davidic genealogy only to deny its validity at the end. It should be clear that the genealogy was supplied with the intention of establishing Jesus's Davidic descent. At a later moment, this was deemed to conflict with other necessities in the developing religion. Hence the change in the literature. This is something obviously at a literary level of analysis. How can one possibly say from the literature "He was not really a son of David and knew that he was not"? It makes no sense when the evidence is based merely on the literary account.


spin

No Robots

When specifically asked if he is David's son, he dismisses the question ironically: If David then call him Lord, how is he his son (Mt. 22:41-45)? Thus like Socrates facing the Sophists, he cuts the wedge from the very wood he will split with it.--Brunner, Our Christ, p. 65.

No Robots

As for the genealogies that appear in the NT:

After Christ's death it was naturally an easier and a more attractive thing for his relations to believe in him: no longer did they feel inhibited by him personally, and they had now become authorities themselves. The very fact of being related to him made them important, and they may have endeavoured to heighten Christ's significance by using their own power to give the family what it still lacked. The magnificent genealogy establishing Christ's Davidic descent is supposed to have been supplied by his relations. In part they may have wanted to counter certain rumors about Christ's father being someone other than Joseph, but they were also concerned to offer some defence, some palliative, with regard to his undeniably illegitimate birth. What, otherwise, are women such as these doing in Matthew's genealogy? For one thing, women have no business in genealogies (Baba b. 110b: The mother's family is not reckoned as family, i.e., they are not counted as a man's ancestors.) Here, however, they are of interest precisely because of their more or less doubtful reputations.—Brunner, Our Christ, p. 253.

spin

Perhaps you didn't read anything I wrote before the question of mine you cited, for example this:

You (and your citation) are turning characters in a narrative into what you consider to be historical people, something you can't successfully do with the narratives we have, and then projecting onto those reified figures the values that appeal to you. At best we can talk about the writers presentation of the characters (who may or may not have been real and therefore beyond any meaningful analysis we can give).

It is an unjustifiable step of assumption to turn figures in a narrative into real people.

ETA: This is not to say that they weren't real people. It is just that one cannot know that they were and one goes into conjecture when one acts as though they were real people.


spin