Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
The Cyrus Cylinder is not evidence that the Persian king Cyrus commissioned a return of Judeans to restore their temple (as explained in the previous post) but it does show us why the biblical authors proclaimed Cyrus to be the “anointed one” as their central character in their mythical narrative of that return. In the … Continue reading “Origin of the Cyrus-Messiah Myth”
There was a time when I felt reasonably confident that the views of the Zionist extremist Meir Kahane would never become dominant in Israel. Surely, they would always be confined to the margins. Then Netanyahu formed government with the religious extremists. How on earth did it turn out this way? I failed to understand that … Continue reading “Messiah Mode – understanding Israel today”
Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics by Bruno Bauer Volume 1 —o0o— 54 §5. The Messiah as a Child. In the first half of his account of the birth story of Jesus, Luke conceived of the Messiah and the salvation that was to come with him in relation to the past, insofar as … Continue reading “§ 5. The Messiah as a Child”
I quickly glossed over Nanine Charbonnel’s discussion of what the various sacrifices meant in the Temple cult of Israel in my previous post. I need to back up and cover the key points of those sacrifices before moving on but I’ll try to do so without getting into the details of certain Hebrew and Greek … Continue reading “The Sacrifices to be Fulfilled by the Messiah Jesus (Charbonnel continued)”
In preparing my next post on Nanine Charbonnel’s Jésus-Christ, sublime figure de papier I remarked that I had posted a few times along the lines of a theme her work explores: the idea of a suffering and dying messiah among Jewish circles prior to the Christian era. I began to list those posts but found … Continue reading “Pre-Christian Jewish Ideas of a Suffering and Dying Messiah”
Nanine Charbonnel’s next chapter addresses the Jewish origin of the Passion of Jesus, or the climax of the gospel narrative: “sacrifice and the glory of the cross”. Here much material I have covered in other posts is discussed so this will be a quicker write up for me than the previous three posts. The coming … Continue reading “Climactic Advent of the Messiah (Charbonnel contd)”
How or from where did Christianity get the idea that the Messiah was also the Son of God? It is easy to get the idea that the standard belief among scholars is that there was a gradual evolution of Christological concepts, that over time Jesus became ever more exalted in the minds of worshipers. But … Continue reading “When the Messiah Became the Son of God in Early Jewish Thought”
Continuing the series Charbonnel: Jesus Christ sublime figure de papier . . . A Messiah to combine the different messianic visions Nanine Charbonnel [NC] has been exploring various ways the Jesus figure of the gospels was drawn to embody certain groups of people and now proceeds to discuss the way our evangelists (gospel authors) also found … Continue reading “Jesus embodies all the Jewish Messiahs — continuing Jésus-Christ, Sublime Figure de Papier”
I’ve just stumbled across this video featuring David Fitzgerald, Richard Carrier, Mark Goodacre, Amy-Jill Levine, Robert M. Price, Raphael Lataster, “and many more”. MARKETING THE MESSIAH – How Christianity Became A Thing. By Deep Dive Documentaries Part of the advertising blurb….. Over the last century, New Testament scholars have examined the text word by word to tease … Continue reading “Marketing the Messiah”
I know, I’ve addressed this question before, but I’ve just come across evidence from a new source so here we go again. It’s a rabbinic source but don’t be too quick to judge that it is late and therefore useless. Can anyone seriously imagine Jewish rabbis borrowing the following interpretations from Christians? We read a … Continue reading “That Very Jewish Idea of a Suffering, Defeated, Davidic Messiah”
Other Vridar posts discussing the gospels as parables: Making sense of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark Making more sense of Jesus . . . Art and Aramaic in the Gospel of Mark Jesus’ Journey Into Hell and Back — told symbolically in the Gospel of Mark? Was the Empty Tomb Story Originally Meant to … Continue reading “Gospel Parables and the “Birth” of the Messiah as a Personification of Israel”
Posts on: Novenson, Matthew V. 2012. Christ among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism. New York: Oxford University Press. –o– Christ among the Messiahs — Part 1 (2012-06-15) Introduces the question of what the term “messiah” originally meant in the context of the “Christ” label for Jesus. A list … Continue reading “Christ Among the Messiahs (Novenson)“
My post “The Chosen People Were Not Awaiting the Messiah” led to more diverse comments than I had been expecting and I thought I should cover a little more of Akenson’s grounds for his view that there is no unambiguous evidence for popular messianic expectations as part of the background to the life of Jesus … Continue reading “Were Jews Hoping for a Messiah to Deliver Them from Rome? Raising Doubts”
One widely held view that I have long questioned is that there were widespread expectations or hopes for a soon-coming messiah around the time of Jesus. One line of evidence often cited in support for this scenario are the scrolls from Qumran. I have posted regularly on the evidence and what various scholars have had … Continue reading ““The Chosen People Were Not Awaiting the Messiah””