Was Jesus the Messiah?

[Desert Snake]

Present your arguments in a Scriptural format, in this thread, for or against

 

[Copernicus]

Point of order, Disciple. Why start a scriptural debate in the General Religious Debates forum and not the Scriptural Debates forum?

 

[RJ50]

From my reading of the Bible Jesus comes over as a human with faults and failings like the rest of us. He probably had charisma which gained him followers, and eventually got him executed for getting up the noses of the religious mafia of the time. The Bible indicates that his own family, who knew him the best, didn't seem to rate him that highly. The vast majority Jews never accepted Jesus as their Messiah. I am of the opinion his followers crafted accounts of his life to fit in with so called prophecies concerning a Messiah.

 

[Desert Snake]

Point of order, Disciple. Why start a scriptural debate in the General Religious Debates forum and not the Scriptural Debates forum?

In order to be inclusive. Like Christianity.

 

[Caladan]

Present your arguments in a Scriptural format, in this thread, for or against

I think its worth noting that the Hebrew scriptures, written prior to the NT do not mention Jesus at all. The NT utilizes the Hebrew scripture to support the divinity and messiah-status of Jesus. The writers and editors of the NT take Hebrew prophecies and glue them on Jesus.
But I'll try to address the OP from the NT itself.
Many of the titles and epithet of Jesus should be viewed in light of the context of the Greco-Roman world.
For example, the gospels refer to Jesus by titles and deeds which reflect Jesus' superiority in relation to Imperial Roman religion and Greek paganism.
Jesus becomes the Son of God to show that he is greater than the emperor, who is also the Son of God. Jesus turns water into wine, to show that he is greater than Dionysus the pagan god of wine. And so on and so forth.
While there is evidently an agenda to present Jesus as an exclusive divinity, it's hard to ignore the background for the creation of such early Christian ideologies.
These were times in which emperors became sons of chief gods, and often elevated in an apotheosis to divine status. It's not surprising that early Christians wished to elevate Jesus above the men made gods of their time.

 

[Desert Snake]

I think its worth noting that the Hebrew scriptures, written prior to the NT do not mention Jesus at all. The NT utilizes the Hebrew scripture to support the divinity and messiah-status of Jesus. The writers and editors of the NT take Hebrew prophecies and glue them on Jesus.
But I'll try to address the OP from the NT itself.
Many of the titles and epithet of Jesus should be viewed in light of the context of the Greco-Roman world.
For example, the gospels refer to Jesus by titles and deeds which reflect Jesus' superiority in relation to Imperial Roman religion and Greek paganism.
Jesus becomes the Son of God to show that he is greater than the emperor, who is also the Son of God. Jesus turns water into wine, to show that he is greater than Dionysus the pagan god of wine. And so on and so forth.
While there is evidently an agenda to present Jesus as an exclusive divinity, it's hard to ignore the background for the creation of such early Christian ideologies.
These were times in which emperors became sons of chief gods, and often elevated in an apotheosis to divine status. It's not surprising that early Christians wished to elevate Jesus above the men made gods of their time.

Does this necessarily mean to you that Jesus wasn't the Messiah? It doesn't to me

 

[Caladan]

Does this necessarily mean to you that Jesus wasn't the Messiah? It doesn't to me

Yeah, it does to me.
I can accept the philosophical quality attributed to Jesus in the gospels, I can also accept that we are dealing with a historical individual who was similar in his philosophy to other contemporary Jewish teachers such as Hillel. but I don't swallow the Davidic bloodline, virgin birth, titles, or miracles. To me, all these reflect a synthesis of the religious realities that were found in the Near East and the Greco-Roman world at the time.

 

[Desert Snake]

Any other opinions? Any christians want to contribute to this argument?

 

[savagewind]

His name Yehoshua is YHWH is salvation

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Present your arguments in a Scriptural format, in this thread, for or against

He's not in my scripture ... sorry.

 

[Desert Snake]

He's not in my scripture ... sorry.

Why "sorry", why would I care

 

[outhouse]

Present your arguments in a Scriptural format, in this thread, for or against

Sparked from his martyred death at passover with thousands and thousands of possible witnesses, oral traditions of what happened and why were generated and originated with this event.

These witnesses were wide and varied, some believed he was the Messiah, some did not.

Your question is almost a matter of "when" and "who" more so then "if".


For some, he had failed with death, and was a failed Messiah.

For others, he had bypassed death alltogether and was ressurected to fulfill OT prophecy and become "the one" Messiah.

 

[steeltoes]

Sparked from his martyred death at passover with thousands and thousands of possible witnesses, oral traditions of what happened and why were generated and originated with this event.

These witnesses were wide and varied, some believed he was the Messiah, some did not.

Your question is almost a matter of "when" and "who" more so then "if".


For some, he had failed with death, and was a failed Messiah.

For others, he had bypassed death alltogether and was ressurected to fulfill OT prophecy and become "the one" Messiah.

And yet not a single person that wrote about him ever met the guy. It's all about the belief from reading the tallest tale ever told, it's all a matter of opinion.

 

[Pegg]

Jesus was the Messiah based on
1. Miracles he performed
2. Fulfillment of Messianic prophecies connected with him
3. Timing of his arrival exactly according to Daniels prophecy of the '70 weeks'
4. Miraculous nature of his birth
5. His Resurrection
6. His prophecies concerning the end of the Jewish temple system and the situation in the world during the last days.
7. And Gods own declaration as heard by 3 witnesses on the night before he died...and as witnessed by John the Baptist when he saw holy spirit descend upon Jesus.

 

[Flankerl]

Yeshayahu- Isaiah - Chapter 2
4. And he shall judge between the nations and reprove many peoples, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Do i really have to present an argument?

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

It is impossible to to get the concept of the future messiah except from Jewish scripture.

A small number of Jewish followers of Jesus may have come to the conclusion that he was the messiah. It is hard to tell as they never said so.

Later writers of the Christian Scriptures certainly believed him to be so , and used selective Jewish prophecy to try to prove it. However it never rose to a higher level of argument than "opinion" and "belief".

If you use Prophecy as the yardstick, one must not be selective, in the way Christians did, as to what Identifies the messiah. The Jewish prophecies are very clear and give both attributes and actions that identify the messiah. Jesus seems to fulfil few if any of them.

However to Christians he is "Their" messiah.
The "Jewish" messiah is yet to come.

 

[arthra]

In my view Jesus was the Messiah..

But His teachings were not expected... The "Messiah" expected at the time was someone who would lead an armed insurrection against the Roman occupation like maybe Simon bar Kochba...

But Jesus taught people to pay their taxes...carry burdens if requested and go the extra mile...

Turn the other cheek if slapped and so on.

So HIs strategy was totally unexpected and not welcome by most people at the time.

Had they followed His teachings in a massiveway.. I suspect Jerusalem would have been spared at least for awhile...

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Jesus was the Messiah based on
1. Miracles he performed
2. Fulfillment of Messianic prophecies connected with him
3. Timing of his arrival exactly according to Daniels prophecy of the '70 weeks'
4. Miraculous nature of his birth
5. His Resurrection
6. His prophecies concerning the end of the Jewish temple system and the situation in the world during the last days.
7. And Gods own declaration as heard by 3 witnesses on the night before he died...and as witnessed by John the Baptist when he saw holy spirit descend upon Jesus.

1. baseless claim
2. baseless eisegesis
3. :biglaugh:
4. baseless claim
5. baseless claim
6. baseless eisegesis
7. baseless claim

 

[F0uad]

Well Muslims belief that Jesus(pbuh) is the Messiah however we do not belief he carried out that role in the past but will do so in the future.

 

[Odi Brassicum]

The Jesus described in the new testament certainly seems to fit the classical messianic profile but so do many other characters in many other books.