I’m not posting this for a debate really, but I am posting this here because it is religious in nature and there might be some debate depending on whether a conservative, orthodox or reformed Jew answers this question.
In the Jewish religion, the Messiah hasn’t come yet. Jews say that Jesus didn’t fulfill the prophesies and so isn’t the messiah.
So my question for the Jews is, what will the Messiah be like and what will he do when he comes? What is expected of him? What are the prophecies that he will fulfill? Will there be any signs pointing to his arrival? And will he benefit the Jews only, or will gentiles be able to benefit any at all?
If you’re a practicing Jew of any branch of Judaism or somebody who as studied Judaism, and you have an answer, or answers, please identify which branch of Judaism you are representing. Thanks.
It’s my understanding that our messiah will be a mortal man. He will NOT be divine, or born through any type of miracle. He will return the Jews to the holy land, rebuild the temple and act as the king of the Jewish people. The Jews will be prosperous and will abandon all the unclean and unholy acts they’ve been practicing.
He does not perform miracles or anything like that. That is god doing the tricks. Peace will spread not just to the Jews, but to everyone. I think that god will condemn other peoples and others will acknowledge the “one true god”.
I recently posted at length on this subject. Here is a selection from Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (Hilchos Melachim) [Laws of Kings] on the subject (translation mine):
From 11:1
“The king messiah will arise and restore the Davidic kingship of old. He will rebuild the Temple, gather in the exiles of Israel, restore the Laws of the Torah, bring sacrifices, and establish the Sabbatical and Jubilee years…”
From 11:3
“Do not entertain the notion that the messiah must perform signs and miracles or create new things or raise the dead or do anything along those lines. This is not the case, since Rabbi Akiva, one of the greatest sages of the Mishna thought that Bar Koziva was the messiah … until he (Bar Koziva) was killed. And once he was killed, they realized that he wasn’t the messiah. But (while he was still alive) the Sages did not ask him for any (miraclulous) sign or wonder.”
From 11:4
“If a king arises from David, who follows the laws of the Torah as David his father did, according to the written law and the Oral tradition, and he gets all of Israel to follow it as well and fights battles for God, he is considered a presumtive messiah. If he does all this and is successful, and rebuilds the Temple in it’s place, and gathers in the exiles, then he is a definite messiah, and will cause all the world to worship God…”
**
For the most part, the messiah will benefit the Jews. The fact that the exiles will be gathered in and that the Jews will live peacefully in their land will benefit primarily the Jews.
However, another hallmark of the Messianic Age is that eventually everyone else will come to worship God as well (note: this does not mean that they will become Jewish).
Ewwww. I seem to recall that part of the way that David “followed” the Law was to violate at least the spirit of it by shipping off one of his most loyal lieutenants to die in order to get sack time with said lieutenant’s wife…
I was under the impression that there wasn’t really one big singular messiah in Judiasm. I mean, the messiah that the Jews were waiting for in early Roman times was certianly not going to rebuild the temple: the temple hadn’t been destroyed yet. He was going to free the Jews from Roman occupation, right?
One of the primary Messianic prophesies occurs in the book of Daniel which was written during the time of the Selucid occupation of Israel. The Selucid king, Antiochus, had installed a statue of Zeus in the Temple. Daniel stated that the Messiah would remove the “abomination” from the Temple and restore it as the center of Jewish worship (although the more conservative/Orthodox interpretation is that Daniel was written during the Babylonian exile after the destruction of the first Temple). So restoring the Temple is a part of Hebrew prophesy it is just interpreted differently now.
Actually, looking at Apos’s question again, I’m not really sure how the restoration of the Temple was interpreted during the Roman occupation. I know some of the high priests were hand-picked collaborators with the Romans. Maybe it was viewed that the Messiah would restore a more legitimate priestly hierarchy. I will have to defer to Zev on this question as I don’t know the answer.
Zev, I noticed one particular little thing in your post
One of the texts you quote includes this line:
(emphasis mine)
Now, I understand that to mean David his forefather. Is it traditional to refer to one’s ancestor as “my father?” If so, it kind of lends a different meaning to Jesus reference to the temple as his “father’s house.”
Not that any literalist would accept it of course.
Very often “father” could mean “forefather.” II Kings calls David the “father” of Ahaz (16:2), Chizkiyah (18:3) and Yechoniah (22:2), even though it is clearly understood that it means “forefather.”
As for Jesus, I suppose it depends on what he meant. Did he mean “father’s house” as in “The Temple built by my ancestor Solomon,” or did he mean “Father’s house” meaning “God’s temple?”
Not to sound glib, but Skammer is correct. No one is perfect. The Uriah/Bat-sheva incident wasn’t the only one in which David made a misstep. But, nonetheless, he was chastised and repented for it.
Here’s my question: is the coming of the Messiah truly a fundamental tenet of Judaism, or is it a later interpretation/concept that could be right or wrong? IOW, if at the end of the Universe there had been no Messiah, would it mean that Jews had gotten the whole message wrong, or simply that a bit of later interpretation turned out to be skewed?
Depends on who you ask - that question underlines one of the key differences between the different branches of Judaism. To the Orthodox, he’s very important. OTOH, many Reform communities have revised their prayer books to strike any reference to the Messiah, To a Conservative like myself, it’s more like… if he comes, he comes.
