Doug Shaver

They tell us what a sect of Jews calling themselves Christians believed. There is not a word in any of his writings about what any other Jews believed about the messiah.
I agree that Paul is our best, and practically our only, source for the thinking of Christians, both Jewish and gentile, during middle of the first century CE.

Steven Avery

Hi Doug,

I know of two sources that give a good window on Jewish first century Messianic expectations. Targum Yonathan, especially on Isaiah 53, and the New Testament. Most other writings are more like snippets and fragments, little word-pictures open to conjecture. Or they are later discussions looking backwards. Those would be ruled out of your inquiry on technical grounds even if they supplied excellent working source material.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Diogenes the Cynic

Here's the explanation from Jewsforjudaism, for whatever it's worth:
The epithet may also be a play on Hezekiah's name which means "God strengthens" or "God is my strength."

dog-on

In the end, this only goes to make it harder to believe that Christianity was started by actual Jews. The more, for me at least, one looks at it; the more it seems to be a product of Gentiles that, at some point in the 2nd century, gets grafted onto the skeleton of Judaism in order to project Christianity back into the past.

Maybe Paul, (whoever he actually was), wasn't actually a Jew after all.

Coleslaw

That is the view promulgated by Hyam Maccoby in his book The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity (or via: amazon.co.uk).

Steven Avery

William Most references the connection:

http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/...fm?worknum=145
Further, it is generally agreed even by scholars who do not favor seeing Christ as the child, that the child foretold in Isaiah 9:5-6 is the same as the child of 7:14.

Cf. for example, Kaiser, op. cit., p. 116. Hayes and Irvine (op. cit., p. 180), surprisingly insist that a "messianic interpretation must be ruled out, if we are correct in rendering the verse in the past tense." But it is a familiar fact that the perfect in Hebrew, even outside of a prophecy, can stand for future. Cf. Joüon, Grammaire de l'Hebreu Biblique 2d ed. Institute Biblique Pontifical, Rome, 1947, #112 g-h.

The recent paper on this connection was written by Harold Holmyard.

The Linkage Between Isaiah 7:14 and 9:6
Harold Holmyard - Journal of Biblical Studies (2000)

Some comments by John Ronning at ..
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b...ch/010131.html

The relationship between the two prophecies is also discussed at ..
http://graceandknowledge.faithweb.com/creed4.html
A Study of the Doctrines of the Church of God - by Jared Olar

And some other interesting pages.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Casper

I'm not a fundie, but two points; wouldn't the expectations 1st century BCE jews be as, or even more, relavant, and isn't there Jewish literature from that time (Tosefta? sp?*) which chronicles such a "messiah" running off with followers? If substantiated even as believeable to Jews of the time the story would then, by proxy, indicate that at least some jews were ready to follow a human messiah.

*you'll have to forgive my ignorance but I am thinking of some literature that named a yeshua, maybe the ben Pandera guy or something. And then again I could be mixing things up entirely. :redface:

Doug Shaver

Good point. Either that, or very early first century CE.

My question about contemporary (with Jesus) Jewish sources is sincere. I honestly don't know what is reliably known about Jewish messianic expectations of that era or how we know it. And evidently, neither does the average fundamentalist.

However, knowing what I think I've learned about human nature in general, and about the cultural diversity (including among Jews) of that time and place, I would be very surprised if there was a substantial consensus on the interpretation of the alleged messianic prophecies to be found within the Jewish scriptures.

I would not dispute that some Jews were ready to follow any kind of messiah you can imagine. What I'm questioning is the confident blanket assertion that "First century Jews expected to messiah to be X."

If I remember correctly, ben Pandera was not alleged to be a messianic pretender. Whether he was or not, though, I believe the stories about him are from no earlier than the second century CE.

Casper

Ah, okay, thanks. I'm probably mixing up more than one reference from memory.

Didn't Josephus speak about some individuals claiming to be the Messiah? Not the text that is sometimes considered an apologetic interpolation, I mean some other quotes.

Steven Avery

Jospehus talks about various figures who were rebels and had followings
(some dovetail with Luke in Acts) without any direct Messianic indications.

The situation that is more complex is Vespasian.
Josephus has him fulfilling a Messianic prophecy.

You can read some of the details here.
http://www.livius.org/men-mh/messiah...aimants00.html
Messianic claimants

Shalom,
Steven