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Jewish Messiah

Eli G

Well-Known Member
if Jews are still waiting for a messiah, that messiah could be anyone... since modern Jews, contrary to the original practice of Biblical Judaism, assume a person is Jewish just because their mother is.

That modern criteria would imply that if a non-Jewish woman marries a Jewish man and becomes Jewish by one of the modern criteria for converting women to Judaism, their sons and daughters would automatically be Jewish. ... If one of his Jewish daughters marries a non-Jewish man, her descendants would be Jewish by virtue of the fact that her originally non-Jewish mother married a Jew and became Jewish ... if that procedure is maintained from daughter to daughter for a long enough period, the distant female descendants of that woman, even if they had been marrying men not even remotely associated with Judaism, would supposedly be Jew, as would all the descendants of all those generations.

This analysis is a clear demonstration that modern Judaism is not Biblical Judaism even in terms of the identity of the descendants. In Scripture, genealogies were counted from the tribes of the fathers, not the mothers, and every person in the first century followed the same criteria.

Today in Judaism, anyone could say that he is the Messiah that Jews are waiting for, just by saying that some woman in his remote past married a Jew form the tribe of Judah and became a Jew...
 
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Clear

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Hi @rosends

Rosends said : “intuiting ethnicity from names is rife with problems.” (post #199)

I agree, especially in modern times. But we are not talking about modern times. We are speaking of specific historic periods. Look at the names of the bible in the early periods.

While "Shlomo" and "Moshe" could be common Mexican names and "Jose" could be Swedish and "Roger" could be a common name of an african tribe in the 1400s but these would be strange exceptions.

While there are many exceptions to this nowadays, It doesn’t take a linguist to understand that certain names on a list of thousands of ancient names on ancient lists are associated with certain nations.


1) IF THEY WERE GENTILES IN THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH THAT DID NOT CONVERT TO JUDAISM, THEN THEY REMAINED GENTILES IN JUDAH

Rosends said :
“I said that there were commentators that said they converted fully and some that said they didn't convert fully” (post #199)

So, if they started out as non-Jews among Jews and did not convert, then they remained non-Jews among Jews.



Rosends said : “ I explained (had you read, you would have seen) that R. Cohen was reflecting one specific classic commentator about this one situation.” (post #199)

OK. Give readers evidence that R. Cohen did not mean what he said and that he was reflecting “one specific classic commentator”.
Tell readers what commentator he was speaking of?
Tell readers what specific situation he was referring to?



2) THE DISAGREEMENT IS NOT ABOUT THE HISTORICAL USE OF THE WORD ISRAEL BUT THE SPECIFIC ORIGIN AND USAGE OF THE WORD "JEW"

Rosends said : There was no geography, nor was there a separate nation of Judah yet. This was a catch-all term for people who lived among the children of Israel.” (post #199)

I agree that in this context, “Isreal” is simply is a geographical. However the word we disagree on is not “Israel” but the word “Jew”.



Rosends said : I never said it was a catch all for non-Jews. There is no evidence that a non-Jew was called a Jew.

Of course there is historical evidence of this but that was irrelevant to my point.

Perhaps we can review a bit of history to put this issue to rest as it appears to be important to you, (but not to me).
It matters whether you are speaking historically or “modern” usage. For example, Even you used “yehudin” as a non-historical way, as a “catch-all” term that it has become.

BUT, IF we are speaking “historically” then it matters how it is used and what time period one is are referring to.

Lets use your family friend and historical Scholar Rabbi Cohen of Harvard as a source since you seem to trust him (though Gruen, Janowitz, Grabe, Porton, etc al. have reviewed and agree with him on much of his work)

So, R. Cohen tells us, “to make a Jew” (la’asot jehudi), “to be made a Jew did not simply mean “to convert to Judaism”.
Rabbi Cohen, tells us that medieval copyists had difficulty with understanding terms (such as Mityahadin and yudazein, etc) that they understood “Make yourselves Jews” to mean “pretend to be converts" and thus substituted gerim for yehudin.

Even words such as “Ioudazein and Ioudaios” did not have the meaning you apply to them.
I claimed the term originated from the name Judah, but it evolved into a term that could be applied to anyone who lived in Judaea.

This is why Rabbai Cohen says it could, historically (for a time) be applied to anyone who lived in Judaea.
Thus a gentile who lived in Judaea could call himself a Jew just a someone from Texas might call themselves a Texan regardless of religion.
The point is that the term evolved.
This is Cohens (and other historians) point. You simply could not tell what religion a “Jew” was at one point in history.

This is why the romans were able to present themselves to Rabbi Gamaliel as converts. It was, as Rabbi Cohen said, “easy to pass as a Jew”.


While Cohen says “Before or about 100 b.c.e. Ioudais always and only meant a function of birth and/or geography (pp. 70-71 in his book) without a religious or cultural meaning with later meanings developing only from approximately the 2nd century b.c.e.
He attributes the Maccabean conflict to the development of the later “catch-all” nature of the term.
Before the existence of Rabbinic Judaism the term was certainly less defined.
So, when you talk about foreigners being called “Jews” it did not have the meaning then that you are applying to it now.

As rabbis innovated religious rules and regulation for this relatively new religion “Rabbinic Judaism” (or Rabbanate Judaism) rules such as Immersion the term Jew, historically, took on more of a “religious” catch-all meaning as you called the term.

So, what was once a name of a son of Israel (Judah/Jew), over time took on a geographic meaning, and added an ethnic character to it, and added a religious meaning and a cultural meaning according the Cohen.

This is why at certain periods of time the term “Ioudaia” is taken by the historian Cohen to mean “Judean” instead of “Israelite”.
At later periods, Ioudaios takes on a clearly religious character such as when Mattathias slays the priest in Maccabees.
Cohen even gives examples where the different meanings are used in proximity such as in 2 Macc 6:1 versus 6:6.

So, as we approach the end of the 2nd century c.e. Ioudaia was used to mean anyone residing in judea whether they were Jewish or not and the newer meaning that emerged is a person of Jewish culture/religion/heritage, etc.

When you use the term you simply used it as a “catch-all” term. There is a problem with such non-specificity.



4) THE RESULTS OF USING INCREASINGLY LESS SPECIFIC TERMS AND USING THE TERM "JEW" AS A “CATCH-ALL”.

For example, when I was young, I remember that the term “I Jewed him down” meant that a person bargained with another for a much lower price. Even the online Etymology Dictionary still contains the verb “Jew” as meaning “to Cheat” or “drive a hard bargain”. Such meanings stem from a tendency to use terms as an improper “catch-all” and instead of a specific meaning.


jew.JPG



If I use the term “The Jewish religion” as a “catch-all” then it can apply to multiple religions.

For example,
Early Christianity can easily be referred to as a form of “Judaism that accepted the Messiah” given their interpretation of the old testament.

Rabbinic Judaism can easily be referred to as a form of “Judaism that did not accept the Messiah” given their interpretation of the Old Testament.

Islam can be a form of “Judaism that accepted Mohammed as the final prophet of Judaism” with their own interpretation of the Old Testament and while Islam emerged near the six hundreds, Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity emerged much closer in time period.

If we do not retain specific meaning HISTORICALLY, then History and meaning evolve incorrectly and terms are used improperly or at least lose their original meaning and historical confusion results.

Clear
 
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Clear

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
if Jews are still waiting for a messiah, that messiah could be anyone... since modern Jews, contrary to the original practice of Biblical Judaism, assume a person is Jewish just because their mother is.

That modern criteria would imply that if a non-Jewish woman marries a Jewish man and becomes Jewish by one of the modern criteria for converting women to Judaism, their sons and daughters would automatically be Jewish. ... If one of his Jewish daughters marries a non-Jewish man, her descendants would be Jewish by virtue of the fact that her originally non-Jewish mother married a Jew and became Jewish ... if that procedure is maintained from daughter to daughter for a long enough period, the distant female descendants of that woman, even if they had been marrying men not even remotely associated with Judaism, would supposedly be Jew, as would all the descendants of all those generations.

This analysis is a clear demonstration that modern Judaism is not Biblical Judaism even in terms of the identity of the descendants. In Scripture, genealogies were counted from the tribes of the fathers, not the mothers, and every person in the first century followed the same criteria.

Today in Judaism, anyone could say that he is the Messiah that Jews are waiting for, just by saying that some woman in his remote past married a Jew form the tribe of Judah and became a Jew...


Wow Eli G. Kudos to you for recognizing descent from the mother was one of the later innovations created by the leaders of the emerging Rabbinic Judaism. I suspect very few people even know this sort of history.

Clear
 
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Eli G

Well-Known Member
Thank you. That is not the only dilemma facing modern Judaism.

The most serious among these is that none of their decrees since the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in the first century have been endorsed by any prophet who has spoken in the name of Jehovah with visible proof, as the prophets of old did. This lack of divine backing makes all their modern religious traditions a purely human invention.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
if Jews are still waiting for a messiah, that messiah could be anyone... since modern Jews, contrary to the original practice of Biblical Judaism, assume a person is Jewish just because their mother is.
There is a tradition that says in every generation is a man who could be the messiah. But it isn't all men. Certain criteria still have to be met, such as descent from King David.
That modern criteria would imply that if a non-Jewish woman marries a Jewish man and becomes Jewish by one of the modern criteria for converting women to Judaism, their sons and daughters would automatically be Jewish. ...
This is correct.
If one of his Jewish daughters marries a non-Jewish man, her descendants would be Jewish
This is also correct.
by virtue of the fact that her originally non-Jewish mother married a Jew and became Jewish ... if that procedure is maintained from daughter to daughter for a long enough period, the distant female descendants of that woman, even if they had been marrying men not even remotely associated with Judaism, would supposedly be Jew, as would all the descendants of all those generations.
That is also correct. As long as the maternal line remains Jewish, the children are Jews.
This analysis is a clear demonstration that modern Judaism is not Biblical Judaism even in terms of the identity of the descendants. In Scripture, genealogies were counted from the tribes of the fathers, not the mothers, and every person in the first century followed the same criteria.
Here is where you go off base. You mistakenly think that the maternal determination of Jewish identity is not scriptural. but it is. Furthermore, it is fortified in the Talmud.
Today in Judaism, anyone could say that he is the Messiah that Jews are waiting for, just by saying that some woman in his remote past married a Jew form the tribe of Judah and became a Jew...
No. Anyone who says they are the messiah must fulfill ALL the messianic prophecies. So far, no one has yet done that. For one thing, no one has yet ushered in an era of worldwide peace between the nations.

For someone in the present to have a jewish identity, they have to have an UNBROKEN matriliean line of jews to have descended from. If even one of those maternal ancestors is not a Jew, then they are not a Jew.

You started off pretty good, but you still have a few ideas you need to tweak.
 

Eli G

Well-Known Member
No Jew who has been named messiah by the Jews themselves would have to fulfill any messianic prophecy that the Jews mention to identify God's messiah. He is supposed to be identified first and AFTER THAT he gets to reign... or not? :rolleyes:
 

Eli G

Well-Known Member
When we study the appointment of the kings of Judah, we have the constant of a prophet anointing a king that God himself has directly named. Saul and then David by Samuel when Jehovah sent him to where they were, then Solomon for Nathan (1 Kings 1:34), and Rehoboam as his heir in Judah, and the following by dynastic succession.

Nowadays, after so many centuries without a king appointed by God, how are the Jews going to recognize a king with divine authority if they lack even a prophet of God who can go by God's order to anoint him as king?

No king of God will reign unless he was previously anointed by a prophet of Jehovah ordained directly by Him. Who is going to anoint a messianic king in this era, according to modern Jews? Which of their titled rabbis? Could that king have been one that Jehovah really chose or one that the modern Jews themselves chose?
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
When we study the appointment of the kings of Judah, we have the constant of a prophet anointing a king that God himself has directly named. Saul and then David by Samuel when Jehovah sent him to where they were, then Solomon for Nathan (1 Kings 1:34), and Rehoboam as his heir in Judah, and the following by dynastic succession.

Nowadays, after so many centuries without a king appointed by God, how are the Jews going to recognize a king with divine authority if they lack even a prophet of God who can go by God's order to anoint him as king?

No king of God will reign unless he was previously anointed by a prophet of Jehovah ordained directly by Him. Who is going to anoint a messianic king in this era, according to modern Jews? Which of their titled rabbis? Could that king have been one that Jehovah really chose or one that the modern Jews themselves chose?
Eli: we will recognize the Messiah because he will do ALL the tasks that are prophesied for him to do, beginning with ushering in an era of worldwide peace.
 

Eli G

Well-Known Member
Eli: we will recognize the Messiah because he will do ALL the tasks that are prophesied for him to do, beginning with ushering in an era of worldwide peace.
That is impossible. :rolleyes:

The Messiah is a king, and if God does not choose him and send someone to name him as such, he cannot become king... much less while there are humans acting in his place. Not even David became king at the same time when he was anointed by Samuel; he had to wait for the right time to occupy the throne while he respected Saul before him as one whom Jehovah himself had chosen, his Anointed (1 Sam. 24:6,10; 26:16).

Tell me: do you think the Messiah modern Jews choose will be a Jew who will stage a coup in Israel and become king, or what do you think the process of naming him as messiah will be like?
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Tell me: do you think the Messiah modern Jews choose will be a Jew who will stage a coup in Israel and become king, or what do you think the process of naming him as messiah will be like?
I have no idea. To be very honest, I don't think much about the messiah. I talk about him in here because Christians often bring him up. the emphasis of my faith is obedience to God.
 

Eli G

Well-Known Member
Biblical hope for the future is based on God's messianic reign on the planet. (Psal. 110:1,2; 2:7,8).

What a shame that modern Jews have lost interest in something that first century Jews looked forward to! :(
 

Rachel Rugelach

Shalom, y'all.
Staff member
What a shame that modern Jews have lost interest in something that first century Jews looked forward to! :(

Modern Jews have absolutely not "lost interest" in the coming of Moshiach. A frequent entreaty to God is: "We want Moshiach now!" Jews are encouraged to observe and perform the commandments given us in Torah in order to hasten the arrival of Moshiach.

Perhaps it may seem to you that we are uninterested. That's most likely because we are not in agreement with you and others like you about when and how Moshiach will arrive, who he will be, etc, and it gets tiresome continually having to reiterate the Judaic view to you.

It gets tiresome continually having to explain ourselves as Jews to you and others like you, as though we owe you these explanations as some sort of apology for not being Christian.

Speaking for myself, I have lost interest in these perennial discussions about Moshiach with some Christians here. I think that @rosends has done a superb job of patiently responding to a lot of presumptions flying around in this thread, as well as to some people's arrogant attempts to "school" us in our own scripture and history.

I think, though, that there comes a time when a Jew has got to step back and evaluate the individual or individuals who do this all the time -- to the point where it is no longer a friendly debate but instead... something else. I can only see one purpose for it, and that is to proselytize Christianity to Jews.
 
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rosends

Well-Known Member
While there are many exceptions to this nowadays, It doesn’t take a linguist to understand that certain names on a list of thousands of ancient names on ancient lists are associated with certain nations.
The name “Yishma’el” is associated with the Arab lineage as per Abraham’s son with Hagar, and yet there are great Talmudic sages by that name. The name “Alexander” is not Jewish by any stretch yet many Jews have the name. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4992830/jewish/Why-Is-Alexander-a-Jewish-Name.htm Non-Jews have adopted biblical names or names of whatever surrounding culture they have found themselves (I doubt that before the slave trade, few Blacks were named Abraham). Jews in other cultures did much the same thing (or took names from occupations or location. Names like Tarfon, Assi and Shila are not “Jewish” names but are the names of Talmudic sages. Intermarriage also created situations in which the father named a child a non-Jewish name but the matrilineality of Judaism still determined religious identity. So while one might feel safe jumping to conclusions based on lists of names, as I said, there is ample room for error both in the statistical certainty and in the specific case.
So, if they started out as non-Jews among Jews and did not convert, then they remained non-Jews among Jews.
Yes, and were not called Jews, Judeans, Israelites etc.
OK. Give readers evidence that R. Cohen did not mean what he said and that he was reflecting “one specific classic commentator”.
Tell readers what commentator he was speaking of?
Tell readers what specific situation he was referring to?
I don’t think I ever said he didn’t mean what he wrote so I would request that you not impute statements to me that are not mine. What I said was “What he is doing is referencing specific commentators who connect the word “mityahadim” to the claim of fear.”



And I supported my statement by referencing some commentators – “Emanuel of Rome says that because of fear many attested to loving Jews and the Torah even if they didn’t fully convert, while Ibn Yahya says that this refers specifically to descendants of Amalek because they knew they were targeted. The Ohr Chadash says that they (specifically, the weak commoners) affiliated themselves with Jews, not necessarily converted. “ I guess it bothers you that I referenced 3 and not one. Would you like their statements verbatim, in the Hebrew? I can provide that if you want. And all of these are related to the specific case as referenced in the Scroll of Esther, 8:17, the one time in all of the Jewish bible in which the word is used.
Of course there is historical evidence of this but that was irrelevant to my point.
Please show me the evidence. That is all I have been asking for.
BUT, IF we are speaking “historically” then it matters how it is used and what time period one is are referring to.
What era of history are you talking about? I have shown the biblical usages of Yisra’eli and Yehudai. Both are very limited. Your claim is that these terms applied to a wider group than the biblical uses indicate. I’m just waiting for any actual proof of that.


Rabbi Cohen, tells us that medieval copyists had difficulty with understanding terms (such as Mityahadin and yudazein, etc) that they understood “Make yourselves Jews” to mean “pretend to be converts" and thus substituted gerim for yehudin.
So you are talking about an era well post biblical, and dealing with translators.
but it evolved into a term that could be applied to anyone who lived in Judaea.
Great! Can you show me evidence of its being used to refer to a non-Jew living in Judea. That’s all I have been looking for on this front.

This is why the romans were able to present themselves to Rabbi Gamaliel as converts. It was, as Rabbi Cohen said, “easy to pass as a Jew”.
It is easy to pass as a Jew. It was then, and it is now. You really should read the medrash about the origin of Christianity and you would see that passing as a member of another religion was fairly simple for anyone. Though I find it curious that those non-Jews you refer to were passing as “converts” and not ones who were called anything without attempting to pass as Jews. That just means that the title was being adopted and misused specifically to associate with Jews.


As rabbis innovated religious rules and regulation for this relatively new religion “Rabbinic Judaism” (or Rabbanate Judaism) rules such as Immersion the term Jew, historically, took on more of a “religious” catch-all meaning as you called the term.
Now you are showing a different agenda. Instead of any, even quasi historical discussion about the use of a word, you are setting your groundwork as one that sees Rabbinic Judaism as distinct from some notion of Judaism per se. Claiming that rabbinic laws are (your statement was without qualification) “innovated” means you see no authority nor connection to the continuum of Mosaic code.
This is why at certain periods of time the term “Ioudaia” is taken by the historian Cohen to mean “Judean” instead of “Israelite”.
At later periods, Ioudaios takes on a clearly religious character such as when Mattathias slays the priest in Maccabees.
Cohen even gives examples where the different meanings are used in proximity such as in 2 Macc 6:1 versus 6:6.
I don’t use the non-canonical texts as evidence. 2 Maccabees was (possibly) written by a random person who spoke Greek, in Greek. It is (according to Wikipedia) possibly a shortened version of an earlier history written by a Hellenized Jew, in Greek, but it is impossible to know what word the earlier writer used. Translations of it then try to make sense of the Greek word chosen by the re-writer but the background Hebrew connection one has to intuit, 2 steps removed. I did find a translation into English online which has “Jew” for both 6:1 and 6:6 2 Maccabees - Chapter 6 - Bible - Catholic Online and a quick look at the content of those verses indicates that it is speaking about religious identity in each case. So even from the non-canonical and non-authoritative text, one does not see non-Jews referred to as “Jews”.

And your continuing to misrepresent what I wrote about the catch-all is problematic. As I showed, I used it to refer to the use of the word Yisraelite. All of your responses which have to do with the use of the word “Jew” as a “catch all” are therefore irrelevant as you are trying to argue with a position I never made.
If I use the term “The Jewish religion” as a “catch-all” then it can apply to multiple religions.
Using it to refer to other religions would be wrong. While qualifying another group by making reference to Judaism (a “non-Jew”) makes sense, the word “Jew” then continues to refer only to the religion of Judaism and only the qualifying or comparative language, which creates a new phrase, has any relation to another religion.
Rabbinic Judaism can easily be referred to as a form of “Judaism that did not accept the Messiah” given their interpretation of the Old Testament.
Well, you could, but that would be wrong. Judaism is a religion that teaches that the messiah could not have been Jesus and Christianity is a religion that teaches otherwise. I’m not sure why you want to see everything through the lens of Judaism, but if you do, then you are using Judaism qua Judaism as the basis and the qualifiers as a way to distance from what Judaism is.
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
When we study the appointment of the kings of Judah, we have the constant of a prophet anointing a king that God himself has directly named. Saul and then David by Samuel when Jehovah sent him to where they were, then Solomon for Nathan (1 Kings 1:34), and Rehoboam as his heir in Judah, and the following by dynastic succession.

Nowadays, after so many centuries without a king appointed by God, how are the Jews going to recognize a king with divine authority if they lack even a prophet of God who can go by God's order to anoint him as king?

No king of God will reign unless he was previously anointed by a prophet of Jehovah ordained directly by Him. Who is going to anoint a messianic king in this era, according to modern Jews? Which of their titled rabbis? Could that king have been one that Jehovah really chose or one that the modern Jews themselves chose?
Here are some interesting discussions about some of these issues.


 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Biblical hope for the future is based on God's messianic reign on the planet. (Psal. 110:1,2; 2:7,8).

What a shame that modern Jews have lost interest in something that first century Jews looked forward to! :(
Psalm 110 is not about the messiah.
 

Ebionite

Well-Known Member
Psalm 110 is not about the messiah.
Do you have a better explanation for who it's about?

The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.
He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill [the places] with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries.
Psalms 110:5-6

I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.
Numbers 24:17

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.
Matthew 2:1-2
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
Do you have a better explanation for who it's about?

The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.
He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill [the places] with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries.
Psalms 110:5-6

I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.
Numbers 24:17

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.
Matthew 2:1-2
Here ‘The Lord Said to My Lord…’ To Whom Was the Lord Speaking in Psalm 110:1? - Outreach Judaism
 

Ebionite

Well-Known Member
King David. although I should add that some Rabbis say Abraham. I go along with the King David theory because the Psalm begins: "A Psalm for David."
Psalms of/for David are not necessarily about him. Psalm 22 and 69 are a better fit for the crucified man.

Also the Psalm says "my Lord", which implies that it's someone else.
 
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