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The question of whether or not Jesus is the promised Jewish messiah is fundamental to the claims of Christianity, Judaism, and, by extension, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
All three groups accept the Hebrew Bible (comprising the books of Genesis through Malachi) as Holy Scripture and take note of the prophecies of a figure that would come as the Messiah. The word Messiah comes from the Hebrew word Meshiach which means “anointed one”.
BYU Professor Trevan Hatch summarizes the content of the prophecies and the expectations that Jews had of the Messiah prior to Jesus’ coming. Those include:
Hatch writes that “[w]e must be careful not to assume that all Jews expected the messiah to be and do all these things. Some Jews may have expected some of these outcomes while rejecting others. This list is simply a conglomeration of what is apparent in pre-Christian Jewish texts regarding messianic expectations.”[1]
Some Jews expected there to be one figure that would satisfy all of these requirements with one and only one arrival or advent. Others thought that there would be two seperate figures that would satisfy these requirements. Still others thought that there would be one figure but that he or she would satisfy these requirements with two arrivals or comings. It is this last one that Christians have held onto as the basis of their belief in Jesus as the Messiah.
Many Jews today believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Many have converted to Chrisitianity or become affiliated with what is known as the Messianic Judaism movement. Conservative Jewish scholars have embraced Jesus as at least a plausible candidate for the Jewish Messiah. For example, Daniel Boyarin, the Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture and rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, argues in his book The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ (2012) that "[t]he coming of the Messiah...was fully imagined, in detail, in ancient Jewish texts."[2]
How well does Jesus hold up to these messianic requirements? What other issues must be dealt with when establishing Jesus as the Messiah? This article attempts to answer these questions.
We first need to consider some ground rules for the discussion since, with different ground rules, the conclusions we arrive at become drastically different. Exactly what the author means by that will be explained.
One of the major disagreements that Jews and Christians have over the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible and especially as it pertains to the question of Jesus’ messiaship is whether or not a prophecy can have multiple fulfillments. Let’s take Isaiah 7:14 as our example.
Isaiah 7:14 is one of the most oft-cited and oft-debated passages of scripture as it regards Jesus. The text reads:
Jews and Christians debate two specific issues as it regards this passage:
We’ll disregard the first issue in this article, though it has been more thoroughly explored elsewhere.[3]
The second issue is one that is crucial for settling the debate of Jesus' messiahship
There were other expectations that certain Jews had of the Messiah. One of these was that Jesus would be a triumphant warrior over Jerusalem's enemies. Thus when Jesus came as a humble carpenter's son born in Nazareth, many Jews didn't believe his claims.
Notes
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