Thank you all for answering this thread in such a thoughtful manner!
I’ve learned quite a lot, and I know I’ve really only scratched the surface. When it comes to Jewish theology, I (obviously) have minimal exposure. What a shame the first real exposure I had was from a guy who filled my head with his somewhat “interesting” points of view. As it was a number of years ago, I wondered if he was even jewish at all, but I do remember a star of David hanging on his wall. (not that it’s proof, but it’s all I have).
**DSeid ** - Thank you for the book suggestion. I will look for it.
Two more slightly basic questions to those of you in the know…
**cmkeller ** said
Do jews currently know who are in the lineage of King David, or will this only be determined after the fulfilment of Messianic things by the messiah? And how will Elijah convince the masses that he truly is Elijah? (or won’t he have to?)
The general consensus is that Elijah will tell everyone who’s in the lineage of King David. But we can, in some cases, trace descendents of King David pretty forward ahead in time. For example, the great scholar Rashi was a lineal male descendent of King David (Rashi lived from 1040-1105). Of course, he only had daughters, so there’s an end to that line there, but that’s just an example of a Davidic descendent in the male line we can put as far ahead as the 12th century.
There’s been a fair bit of Jewish intermarriage (either Jews marrying non-Jews, or Jews converting to another faith and marrying someone who’s not Jewish) over the last few hundred years. It’s entirely possible that there are non-Jews in the Davidic line. Remember, if your father is Jewish and your mother isn’t, you’re not Jewish unless you convert.
If you don’t insist on a male-only line of descent, there have been papers published in which various models were used to determine the most recent common ancestor of all living humans. The upshot is, if there are living descendants of King David living in Europe today, most of the population of Europe might well be descended from him, too…
Hi Anne Neville. Thanks for the answers. If I may,
If I read this correctly, even if my mother wasn’t Jewish, if my father was part of the Davidic line, I could theoretically be the messiah if I converted to judiasm. (I understand that converting wouldn’t make me the messiah, but it would put me in the small subset of potentials, correct?)
I don’t insist on a male-only line, but that seems to be the prevailing teaching. If you aren’t a believer in the male-only line, is that another offshoot of Judaism?
This one has me confused. So the Messiah could possibly be a metaphor? Or a number of people?
Also, on a purely 21st century thought process here…
**ITR champion ** said:
Would Elijah
appear as a human being? Would he *be * a human being?
how would we know him as the real Prophet and not an imposter?
Who would actually believe him instead of locking him up in a lunatic asylum?
I think in this skeptical world, any person claiming to be the Prophet Elijah would either be ignored or taken away in a rubber truck.
Apologies in advance if these questions seem basic and/or offensive. Truly, none meant.
According to a lot of Conservatives and those Reform who don’t think it’s all just a myth, yeah.
Remember, Judaism isn’t a monolith. It’s like asking, “What do Christians think about X”, and, you know, the Catholics have one view and the Baptists ave another, and the Lutherans have another, and so on. So when you ask, what do Jews think about X, it’s the Modern Orthodox have one view, and the Haredim have another, and the Lubivitchers have another, and the Conservatives have another, and the Reform have another, and the Reconstructionists have another, and the Jewish Humanists have another, and so on.
You’re right about the time frame, of course; I should have said that the concept of being a Messianic claimant was not unique to Jesus. Wikipedia does list three that came before, but the bulk came after.
I would quibble with this a little bit. I think it can go beyond just theology and have to do with culture or ethnicity too. E.g., I think an analogy could be made with Italian American parents wanting their children to marry other Italian Americans and East Indian parents wanted their children to marry another Indian. For example, my family is not at all religious and yet my mom still has some preference for me to marry a Jew. Admittedly, that preference is pretty weak and, in fact, they are probably ahead of me in hoping to see me marry my current girlfriend who is non-Jewish…but it was still there a little bit.
So far, I think it’s just me (though most non-Orthodox or liberal Jews don’t spend much time discussing things like the Messiah). I also think the Messiah could be a woman. But I’m a sixties-liberal type Jew.
And different individuals in each movement will have different beliefs about the Messiah. There’s a saying: two Jews, three opinions.
This comes about partly because the focus on Judaism isn’t really on what you believe, as much as it’s on what you do. Good Jews keep the mitzvot, or commandments- these include the Ten Commandments, as well as things like keeping kosher. It’s very much unlike some branches of Christianity, where you’re a good Christian no matter what you do (within limits, except for people like Jack Chick) if you believe the right things. You’re a good Jew if you do the right things, no matter what you believe (again, within limits). In my Conservative conversion to Judaism classes, IIRC we spent at least twice as much time studying various mitzvot as we did studying Jewish beliefs or theology.
There’s even a debate about the Ten Commandments that centers on this. The way we read them (there are slightly different versions as read by Jews, Catholics, and Protestants), the first commandment is to believe in God. But there are well-respected Jewish scholars who didn’t believe that you can be commanded to believe something- you either do, or you don’t.
Theoretically, I would have no problem with a female Messiah, except for one thing: The Messiah is consistently and universally referred to in every biblical source as a man, the son of David, etc. And there’s only one Messiah, so it’s not as if the torah is simply using the generic male form of the words; when there’s only one, you are, by definition, being specific. If it was going to be a woman, then the Torah would have said that there will be a daughter of David that will be the [female form of the word Messiah].
For the record, the insistence on a male-only line is one obvious disqualification for Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. According to the same theology that considers Jesus the Messiah, he had no human father and therefore could not have come from David in a male line.
:dubious: Well, I’m pretty sure the Levites existed, & exist today, even if we speculate that their origins aren’t exactly as in Genesis. And all those imprecations against the Ephraimites are rather odd if they never existed. So that’s two of thirteen (counting Manasseh separately from Ephraim). I think you could make a pretty good case for the rest having existed as well.
I read that non-literally. I lean more toward the concept of a Messianic Age, actually, so I’d accept it if those things happened, but more than one person were involved in doing them.
Yup. That, and the fact that the world since Jesus’ time hasn’t exactly looked like a Messianic Age, however one cares to define that. I’m sure a Messianic Age wouldn’t include things like the destruction of the Temple, the huge amount of persecution that Jews and others have faced in the last two millennia, and epidemics like the Black Death and the epidemics of Old World diseases in the New World.
Yup, that’s what happened at our seder this year. We poured out the wine (all over the tablecloth) to make people think Elijah had been there, and that he has a drinking problem (Hey, it sounds better than “we’re a bunch of klutzes, and we spilled Elijah’s cup”)
Well, and beyond that, legally, a woman can’t hold the kingship. There was only one female king of Judah or Israel, and that was Athaliah, and she didn’t exactly come to the throne legally (then there was also the Hasmonean queen Salome, but the Hasmoneans weren’t particularly devout).
I don’t know a whole lot about the origins of Christianity, so I’m sure some more informed person will step in soon to answer this, but I think it’s worthwhile to note that it didn’t start out as a religion that you could “convert” to. It began as more of a Reform faction of Judaism. So it might have been easier for some Jews to become followers in the new Jewish movement than it would have been for them to actually convert to another established religion. As to answering for the contradition between the male line producing the Messiah and the son-of-G-d dictrine, I don’t know how Jesus’ followers reconciled that; it is, of course, possible that they weren’t that educated about the specifics of Jewish messianism.
Having just done some research about the Orthodox perspective on female authority in the Jewish community, I feel a quibble coming on. (Sorry.) Maimonides, in his writings on laws regarding rulership, explains that a woman can’t be appointed to the throne. While he would probably agree with your blanket statement, not everyone does. The Sefer HaChinuch, an important 13th century book of Jewish Law that systematically discusses all 613 commandments, maintains that while a woman can’t be appointed to the throne, this is only to fulfill a technical aspect of the law and not because of any theological opposition to women rulers. Therefore, explains one of the key commentaries on that work, the Jews are legally allowed to accept a woman ruler that ascends to the throne through ways other than appointment, such as inheritance.
So there’s a disagreement between two very respected Jewish authorities, from about the same time period, as to whether a Jewish queen could ever legally rule. It certainly can’t be categorically ruled out.
As a Christian, I would say that actually sums it up, albeit flippantly.
Miraculous births are part of Judaic history & heritage- Isaac, Samson & Samuel were all born of post-menstrual or barren women. So a virginal conception of Messiah would not necessarily be … inconceivable
Also, I don’t believe that the rules/qualifications of Messiaship were that tightly codified in Jesus’s day, but that they were more rigidly coded by the Rabbis after JC so as to disqualify him. Heck, there is only one prophecy of the coming Messiah which actually uses the title “Messiah”- Daniel 9. All the other Messianic prophecies, whether in Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel etc. refer to him as “The Prince”, “The King”, “The Lord”, “David” (or his “Son”).
About the term “Messiah”: It’s not a particularly descriptive term. It’s a transliteration of the Hebrew word “Mashiach,” which means anointed one. The full phrase is “Mashiach Hashem,” anointed one of G-d. Technically, King Saul was a Messiah, as was David and any other Jewish King that was anointed by G-d to hold the office. Today, we use the term “Messiah” to refer only to THE Messiah probably because he will be the next (and last) one to be anointed by G-d for this particular office, and so there isn’t any confusion about who me mean. The word doesn’t inherently have any sort of savior or redeemer implications.
Especially considering that, in the times in which the Bible was written, there were other kings (and therefore “Messiahs” anointed by G-d to rule), it doesn’t seem particularly revealing to me that the prophesies concering the coming of what we now call the Messiah don’t use the term.
(Hey, it sounds better than “we’re a bunch of klutzes, and we spilled Elijah’s cup”)