I know that Judaism didn’t and doesn’t recognize the historical Jesus as the Messiah. Do modern Jews still expect a Messiah, and do they expect that Messiah to be the Son of God?
The answer to your first question is yes.
The answer to your second question is define “Son of God.”
In Judaism, the phrase “Son of God” is honorific, not literal, and it’s especially associated with Davidic kings. I guess you could think it as being a title similar to “Her Royal Highness,” or other such phrases.
In Judaism, the Messiah is not God or a biological “son” of God, but a rightful heir to the throne of Israel, directly descended from David. In simplest terms, the Jewish expectation is that one day, a direct patrilineal descendant of David will reclaim the throne, will restore the Biblical kingdom of Israel, will rebuild the Temple, will return all Jews to Israel, will cause the world to worship one God, and will usher in an era of world peace.
This Messiah will still be human, though. The notion that God could have a biolgical son, or that a human would be an incarnation of God is completely antithetical to Jewish theology.
Oh…and the Jewish Messiah is also not supposed to die or be resurrected, and he doesn’t save anybody from their sins.
In many but by no means all cases, yes. There are some Conservative and Reform Jews who interpret the writings about the Messiah to refer to a future time in which the world will be a better place (the Messianic Era), not to a specific person.
No. We believe our Messiah will be an ordinary mortal person, and will be no more the son of God than any person is a child of God. We don’t expect a virgin birth, a resurrection, or anything of that nature.
[this reply is directed to OP]
Certainly “ordinary” in the sense of a biological homo sapien but “extraordinary” in the sense that he would be a larger-than-life leader that could drive out the Roman emperor and his army.
It is not clear from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) whether he’d be a “warrior-king” (imagine combining Genghis Khan + Alexander the Great) who could kick ass and liberate his people … or a “peace broker” (e.g. Ghandi) and smooth talk the Roman occupiers out their land. Either way, he’d have to be a most unusual specimen of a human being.
Thanks Anne, and Diogenes.
So, historically, the tribe of Israel expected (and expects, I suppose, in a general sense) “a” son of God, as opposed to “the” son of God?
Possibly straying out of GQ territory here, was the historical Jesus’ claim to be the literal son of God part of why they didn’t accept him, or would that not have been a problem had he not contended with them over matters of religious law and such?
I’ve known Jews who speak of a literal messiah and others who speak, as one poster noted of a “messiahic time,” of peace and betterment.
I think it’s important to point out - even if it’s evident to some - that many Jews root their “Jewishness” in fidelity to the traditions of Judaism and to a preceived kinship with other Jews. That means that there are many Jews for whom the notion of a Messiah is irrelevant, or even, to me, at least, nonsense. There is a non-liturgical sort of Jewishness that many people subscribe to. So “What do Jews Believe” is a very narrow sounding question with a very broad answer. I guess the OP is really asking, “What does Judaism teach?”
Yes, exactly. I’m referring to the religion, not the culture, and appreciate the correction.
Did Jesus actually claim to be the literal son of God? I thought that was tacked on later.
Anyway, the reason Jews didn’t accept him as Messiah was that he died; so long as he was alive, he had as legitimate a claim to Messiahood as anyone. Preaching against the establishment and against custom isn’t what disqualified him, it’s failing at driving out the Romans and bringing world peace in his lifetime.
Jewish history has seen several candidates for Messiah put forth, the most prominent being Simon Bar Kochvain the 2nd century, [Sabbatai Zevi](Sabbatai Zevi) in the 17th and Menachem Mendel Schneerson in the 20th. In each case, a large number of Jews declared them to be the Messiah. In each case, this belief mostly died with them.
I say “mostly” because in the latter two cases, a few followers remained who still considered their leader the Messiah, even after their death, in apparent violation of Jewish law. I would be so bold as to say that Christians as the descendants of another such group.
But you can’t even ask that, because there isn’t one set of dogmas and rules that is “Judaism”. Not only are there several major denominations (which makes asking “What does Judaism teach about X” about as ridiculous as asking “What does Christianity teach about X”, bearing in mind that Christianity encompasses biblical literalists, some Unitarians, and a whole lot of positions in between), but Judaism isn’t really a set of beliefs that its followers are required to hold. It’s a list of things you’re required to do or not do, and the belief part is pretty much left up to the individual. “There is one incorporeal God, who should be worshipped” is pretty much the only thing that Jewish law requires us to believe. All the rest of the rules have to do with what you do, not what you believe.
If you go to your local synagogue that has classes for people who want to convert to Judaism (as I did), you’ll find that those classes don’t spend a whole lot of time on things like the nature of God or the Messiah. They spend most of their time teaching prospective converts about the how of Judaism: how to observe Shabbat, how to keep kosher, how to celebrate holidays.
Um… yeah, I think he did? I mean, in so far as thats how the KJV New Testament reads, if I’m remembering Sunday School correctly, 20 years later. I know the books we think of as The Bible have been modified/translated/retranslated several times since originally written, and some may have not been penned by who we think wrote them, etc., but is there specific evidence to think that he didn’t claim to be the literal Son of God? I’d be interested in knowing about that.
I guess what I’m referring to (again, vague memories of the KJV New Testament as my source) is the Pharisees’ resistance to him while he was alive. I can certainly buy that that resistance would have slackened had he fulfilled the ideal of a “rescuing” messiah, I’m just curious if his claim to be the literal Son of God had anything to do with that original resistance to his status as Messiah.
Technically speaking, he was a son of God by the Judaic expectation, wasn’t he? Descended from David through both his mortal parents? So, assuming that he did indeed claim to be the Son of God, in addition to being a son of God, did that claim hurt his case with the observant Jews of the time?
Not a scholar, please forgive any gross generalizations…
Nobody really knows for sure what Jesus said or didn’t say, but claims to divinity (such as in John) come from later literary layers. The question is whether there is any solid evidence to think he DID make such a claim. That claim is not attributed to him in the earliest layers of sayings traditions.
Also, as I said above, a claim to be the “son of God” would not have been perceived as literal in his cultural and historical context anyway. It would have been seen as a claim to the throne of Israel, not literal divine descendancy.
The assertions that the Pharisees had any particular problem with Jesus are not corroborated outside the NT, but there is nothing in what is accepted as the authentic sayings traditions of Jesus that would upset the Pharisees. The Gospel writers, for political reasons, were eager to shift the blame for Jesus’ execution away from the Romans and onto the Jews.
The Gospels do not give Mary’s genealogy. Both Matthew and Luke trace Jospeh’s lineage to David, but their genealogies contradict each other, and the truth is, they were both making it up. There were no records of genealogies descended from David at the time. No such documentation existed which either writer could have used as a source.
There was no way to prove Davidic descendency one way or the other. Anybody could claim it. It was no sin to do so. Simply being a descendant wasn’t enough to be the Messiah, though. By Jewish expectations, there are direct descendants of David in every generation. What will make one of them the Messiah is not genealogy, but action. Nobody is the Messiah until he fulfills the expectations. So basically, if somebody said, "I’m the Annoined One. I’m David’s heir. I’m the Messiah (and people did do this), the response from other Jews was, “OK, prove it. Get rid of the Romans.” If the dude ended up nailed to a tree, that was seen as proof that he WASN’T the Messiah.
Hijacking the hell out of my own thread, here…
My understanding was that one of the presented geneologies was a direct bloodline descent, and the other was a descent traced through marraiges (although I don’t remember which was which).
If there is no corroborative evidence to back either lineage, and no evidence outside Matthew and Luke that he claimed that descent in the first place, though, it becomes a moot point. Thanks.
A corollary question would be, “how will they tell?” Presumably, someone saying, “I’m here, gotta love me!” isn’t sufficient.
Yeah, it hasn’t worked for Terrell Owens, Barry Manilow, or many others. I figure there has to be something quasi-miraculous done in order to convince the masses - maybe three consecutive Cubs World Series, or a sudden cessation of spam world-wide.
Or having all the Arab states declare"Hey we where wrong about you guys, welcome to the neibourhood".
Would it matter what Joseph’s lineage was, if we take the Christian assumption that Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father? That his biological father was God himself.
Isn’t this a bit of a misnomer? “Biological father” implies some degree of genetic continuity, doesn’t it? According to the story, God may be the “father,” but not in the sense that he actually impregnated Jesus’ mother, but that he caused her to be with child.
The gospels don’t get into the DNA aspects, but if we put that aside, we still are left with the fact that Joseph was not the biological father. Had someone else been his father (let’s say we don’t know who), and Joseph adopted Jesus, would Joseph’s lineage be important for Jesus to claim descent from David?
No, both of them trace the lineage through Joseph. It is a fairly common inerrantist apologetic to try to reconcile the conflicting genealogies by suggesting that Luke traces the lineage through Mary, but the text does not support that (compare Mt. 1:1 to Lk. 3:23). Luke unambiguously goes through Josph and does not even mention Mary’s name.
Not that it would matter anyway. The mother’s lineage is irrelavant to Royal succession. The Messiah has to specifically be a patrilinear descendant.