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Thread[.post]: 5.7
TACKER: agk (Anna)
SUBJECT: .. Prophesies about Jesus in Tanach (Old Testament)
DATE: 19-Jan-26 20:44:56
HOST: sdf
The Jewish messiah is the "annointed" litterally, or the "deliverer"
figuratively. It is a concept of one who will deliver the nation (the
children of Abraham and Israel etc) from troubles.
The Jerusalem Temple was destroyed for the second time in 70 AD during a
Roman counterinsurgency campaign. After its destruction, the community that
sacrificed there and their extended relations needed to find a new center
for their religious life.
Rabbis, who were a weird subculture before the temple's destruction,
grounded religious life in Torah, its interpretation, the interpretations
of interpretations, the application of its laws, the interpretation of the
laws, family life, groups of families or family heads who pray together,
and a religious cycle celebrated throughout the year. Their messiah is in
the future (depending on the tradition that means different things. One is
that the Messiah will come when all Jews follow all 614 laws
simultaneously).
I say "their" because I'm a Christian. Jews aren't our ancestors, they're
our contemporaries, our siblings. Christianity was born at the same time as
rabbinical Judaism, as a way of continuing religious life after the second
destruction of the Temple. The Torah, Prophets, Wisdom books, History
books, etc., are as much "ours" as "theirs."
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The apostles and followers of Jesus developed a different foundation for
religious life, based in ritual baptism, a communal meal, traveling
evangelists, martyrdom, and eventually a hierarchical structure of
authority (esp after merging with the Roman empire), creeds, and a
religious week and year. Christians understand the Messiah to have come, to
be available to believers, and to be coming again in the future. For
Christians, Jesus was/is/will be the Messiah.
Shia Muslims have a similar concept.
By personalizing the Messiah, Christians also sacralized (made sacred)
individual biography, made the individual possible, in a sense. In
addition, Christianity early on converted followers of Roman gods and
others, and conceived of itself as a universal ranther than a tribal
religion.
The Jewish Messiah comes to liberate the Jews (and in some conceptions, for
the whole world by way of the Jews, or through the repairing of the vessel
of the human soul which shattered in Adam's first sin).
The Christian Messiah oddly comes to liberate the individual and the whole
world.
Christians and Rabbinical Jews have turned particularly to the Prophets to
understand their messianic ideas (which tend to preoccupy Christains much
more then Jews), but the Prophets were writing in response to real
historical events, not the future. We're finding a congurence of one time
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with another when we reuse the prophets this way.
Christians particularly like second Isaiah (from chapter 40 to the end of
the book), and lean on it heavily especially around advent and
christmastide. The metaphor is that Isaiah's suffering servant is Jesus.
Jesus most likely read Isaiah as a youth, and may have identified with the
suffering servant. His followers seized on the metaphor before they were
even called Christians.
But Isaiah was writing about the impending end of the Babylonian Exile,
when the peoples who worshiped in the first temple's temple was destroyed
and they were carried into slavery or left in a destroyed land under the
power of two Babylonian sovereigns, an end first Isaian (chapters 1-40)
warns will happen if Judah allies with Egypt instead of depending on God.
Everyone was suffering. They had been suffering a long time. The suffering
servant showed how to suffer in a way that prepared the people for
liberation.
To say the suffering servant was Jesus or the coming Rabbinical Jewish
messiah is to say the sufering servant was like the messiah, or prefigured
the messiah. It's an act of finding a story from the past to identify with.
One of the gospel-writers was always doing this, I think Matthew. He was
writing during a time of persecution to an early community that did not yet
include former followers of Roman gods. So he had to justify that following
Christ was the continuation of the Temple religion. Paul too. Look for
the scripture they quote if you want to see what you seek.
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the book), and lean on it heavily especially around advent and
christmastide. The metaphor is that Isaiah's suffering servant is Jesus.
Jesus most likely read Isaiah as a youth, and may have identified with the
suffering servant. His followers seized on the metaphor before they were
even called Christians.
But Isaiah was writing about the impending end of the Babylonian Exile,
when the peoples who worshiped in the first temple's temple was destroyed
and they were carried into slavery or left in a destroyed land under the
power of two Babylonian sovereigns, an end first Isaian (chapters 1-40)
warns will happen if Judah allies with Egypt instead of depending on God.
Everyone was suffering. They had been suffering a long time. The suffering
servant showed how to suffer in a way that prepared the people for
liberation.
To say the suffering servant was Jesus or the coming Rabbinical Jewish
messiah is to say the sufering servant was like the messiah, or prefigured
the messiah. It's an act of finding a story from the past to identify with.
One of the gospel-writers was always doing this, I think Matthew. He was
writing during a time of persecution to an early community that did not yet
include former followers of Roman gods. So he had to justify that following
Christ was the continuation of the Temple religion. Paul too. Look for
the scripture they quote if you want to see what you seek.
Some of it isn't obviously quoted. We're far removed from their original
audiences.
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