Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

iskander wrote:

rakovsky wrote:

iskander wrote:All this happened during the second temple period. It never stopped after that as Gibbon shows .
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2823&start=10#p63774
by iskander » Fri Jan 20, 2017 3:03 am
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Judaism-Histor ... 0415236614
Pages 450-51
Jesus was a Jewish believer and his reforming activity was a form of Judaism. Messianic dreams began during the Second Temple Period and continued after its destruction and went on for many many years and is still continuing. The messiah was created in the mind of Hashem before the world was completed .The redeemer is a Jewish invention central to the faith...
Why are you arguing ?
Attached file

+1

Yes I don't see the point in arguing that in 50 bc to 130 ad there were no heightened messianic expectations by Judeans who were oppressed under Roman rule and wanted liberation from it, national liberation being a usual messianic theme in Judaism.

This was extracted from the Messiah Texts Raphael Patai Wayne State University.


Certain themes in Judaism have been treated by Jewish authors and sages as pre-existent in the sense that they were created in the sixth day of Genesis. Among them they mentioned the Torah, Repentance, the Garden of Eden and Gehenna, God’s Throne of Glory, the Fathers, Israel, the Temple and the Messiah.

The Messiah first appears as pre-existent in the First Book of Enoch which was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic about 150 B.C.E From that period on, the concept of the Messiah who was created in the six days of creation, or even prior to them or who was born at variously stated subsequent dates and was then hidden to await his time, became a standard feature of Jewish messianic eschatology.

Not sure what date you give Daniel 9, but alot of scholars date it to about then.
Daniel 9 has this cryptic mention of a " Messiah" or anointed one getting cut off and being no more in c. 49 bc to c.39 ad.
Rashi thought that was Herod agrippa. Maimonides and Talmud don't say AFAIK but they think Dan 9 is about Messiah's coming, apparently.

rakovsky wrote: already.

Good example- Josephus and others who lived in the first c. Described the messianic expectations of the period.

No, he didn't. Or can you provide evidence I have overlooked?

rakovsky wrote: Since the Christian movement started with Jesus in c. 30 ad and anyway Christ refers to anointed, ie messiah, it looks like Christ was part of that messianic idea among Jews josephus mentioned.

Josephus never once mentions "christ" or "messiah" unless you count the TF.

Your reply overlooks the point made that it was the gospels or Christianity itself that retrospectively created the myth of popular messianic expectations in the early first century.

rakovsky wrote: Now if you want to say, "NO WAY, IT IS DEFINITELY A COINCIDENCE!", . . .

I only ask for evidence. None has been forthcoming. All the evidence so far pertains to generations long after the early first century.

rakovsky wrote: Thing is, unlike Jesus' corpse reenlivening, I don't see anything odd about religious observant Jews living under Roman rule praying for and wanting some Messiah to awaken the nation to Redemption at a greater rate than they had , say, when they had Maccabean independence or semi independence before the Romans took over.

Nothing odd, but the point is we have no evidence. We can surmise all we want and say what we surmise is entirely plausible etc but we still have no evidence.

And after we see that we have no evidence, we move on to wondering why we have no evidence in exactly those places where we would expect to find it if there were indeed such a mass expectation or hope. See, for instance, my previous post.

rakovsky wrote: Daniel 9 has this cryptic mention of a " Messiah" or anointed one getting cut off and being no more in c. 49 bc to c.39 ad.

And the evidence that anyone around the time of Jesus embraced such an interpretation is....? And if they had held on to such an interpretation, then we can be confident they would not have accepted the death of Jesus twenty or ten years earlier as having any more significance than the death of any other rebel, yes?

rakovsky wrote: then we also have Essenes and qumranites who were super apocalyptic. Messianic was part of the apocalyptic Jewish concept. This was all in jesus' time. Plus even something messianic in 75 ad is still reasonably tapping into preexisting messianic expectations.

You asked if I had read the previous posts. I don't think you have replied in kind and read the posts to which I linked. All of this is addressed in those. The DSS tell us nothing about widespread messianic expectations of the sort many scholars ask us to assume existed at the time of Jesus.

rakovsky wrote: then we also have Essenes and qumranites who were super apocalyptic. Messianic was part of the apocalyptic Jewish concept. This was all in jesus' time.

I can copy and paste a couple of posts or more easily just link to them by way of rebuttal:

Questioning Carrier and the Common View of a “Rash of Messianism” at the time of Jesus

Questioning Claims about Messianic Anticipations among Judeans of the Early First Century

Both these posts address the supposed "super apocalypticism" of the DSS.

rakovsky wrote:even something messianic in 75 ad is still reasonably tapping into preexisting messianic expectations.

How so? I fail to see the reasonableness of a backward extrapolation from 75 to 25/30 without supporting evidence.

We have traumatic events (and nothing comparable 40 years earlier) around the year 70 (why opt for 75?) that plausibly explain certain changes or developments in thinking, identity, etc. Though even at this point we don't see any specific evidence for "popular messianism". (Claiming to be a rightful king cannot be assumed to be an expression of widespread messianic expectation unless somehow justified as such.)

rakovsky wrote:...
Not sure what date you give Daniel 9, but alot of scholars date it to about then.
Daniel 9 has this cryptic mention of a " Messiah" or anointed one getting cut off and being no more in c. 49 bc to c.39 ad.
Rashi thought that was Herod agrippa. Maimonides and Talmud don't say AFAIK but they think Dan 9 is about Messiah's coming, apparently.

I don't give any precise date to any specific writing. It is sufficient to establish that a climate of messianic expectation existed . The only problem is to decide on the strength of the desire for the arrival of the messianic era; this problem is what Kenneth Greifer highlighted with his question.

The triumph of the Christian messiah was in revaluating the death of a heretic man , This new and totally unexpected task of the messiah was directly contrary to the traditional Jewish messiah , whose definition necessitated the subjugation of the World to the Israelites. The messiah was expected to destroy the walls of a Jericho everywhere , but the trial of the powerless Jesus frustrated many of his early supporters and this frustration turned them into the crowd that demanded the execution of the now proven imposter.

The messiah was a conqueror for the nation, but, instead, the messiah became the ending sacrifice that will conquer death for the individual.

I much prefer no messiah to any messiah , but victory in death is a beautiful thought experiment to spike with it every executioner . Every revolutionary dreams that the death of his leader will not be wasted; an overwhelming desire to turn the tables on them propels the imagination ever forward . The followers of the man who died saying ,my God why have you forsaken me, answered their despairing leader by making his death the battle cry of freedom.

iskander wrote: I much prefer no messiah to any messiah , but victory in death is a beautiful thought experiment to spike with it every executioner . Every revolutionary dreams that the death of his leader will not be wasted; an overwhelming desire to turn the tables on them propels the imagination ever forward . The followers of the man who died saying ,my God why have you forsaken me, answered their despairing leader by making his death the battle cry of freedom.

I think Shia Islam does that too, to some extent.
Which form of Islam do you see as more legitimate?

neilgodfrey wrote:The myth of messianic expectations at the time of the early first century ....

I think one area worth considering in this connection is the level of doctrinal continuity between Pharisaeism and Rabbinic Judaism. The latter of course traces its own pedigree through the Pharisees. It is therefore entirely possible, and one might even say probable, that rabbinic messianism found its antecedents in pharisaic messianism. If that was in fact the case, then messianic expectations were conceivably widespread early in the 1st century CE given the level of popular influence the Pharisees reportedly had.

Putting a somewhat finer point on matters: If the standard 1st century dating of most books of the NT as well as certain OT Pseudepigrapha is accurate, then one can say with confidence that 1st century Jewish eschatology (pharisaic or otherwise) influenced later rabbinic eschatology; several eschatological themes show up in both strands of tradition, early and late. Thus, rabbinic eschatology is also conceivably indebted to 1st century messianism in particular. (Indeed, Matthew's 1st century messianic interpretation of Micah 5:2, which the gospel attributes to the "chief priests and teachers of the law," is in fact the standard interpretation given in rabbinic sources.)

rakovsky wrote:

iskander wrote: I much prefer no messiah to any messiah , but victory in death is a beautiful thought experiment to spike with it every executioner . Every revolutionary dreams that the death of his leader will not be wasted; an overwhelming desire to turn the tables on them propels the imagination ever forward . The followers of the man who died saying ,my God why have you forsaken me, answered their despairing leader by making his death the battle cry of freedom.

I think Shia Islam does that too, to some extent.
Which form of Islam do you see as more legitimate?

I dislike Islam . Which one is best? ???.

Selling a convicted criminal as a leader is a hard sell that wants imaginative marketing.