[soc.religion.christian] The Messiah

cms@gatech.edu (12/24/90)

 The following is the results of some research I conducted into a 
question posed to me in email.  I thought the readers of src would 
also find it interesting in light of the discussion on Isaiah 53.  It 
is a _long_ file (563 lines).

 I'v got the following source books:

 "The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on 
Jewish Spirituality" by Gershom Scholem; "The Messiah Texts:  Jewish 
Legends of Three Thousands Years" by Raphael Patai; "Moses Maimonides: 
the guide for the perplexed" by the same; "The Essential Talmud" by 
Adin Steinsaltz; "Mishneh Torah:  Hilchos Bais Habechirah" by the 
Rambam; "The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism" by Dennis Prager 
and Joseph Telushkin; "The Jewish Roots of the Christian Liturgy" 
edited by Eugene J. Fisher; "The Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic 
Age" by Gedaliah Alon translated and edited by Gershon Levi; 
"The Talmud:  Selected Writings" The Classics of Western Spirituality; 
"The Mishnah" translated from the Hebrew with an Introduction and 
Brief Explanatory Notes by Herbert Danby, D.D.; "The Talmud:  Volume I 
Tractate Bava Metzia Part I" The Steinsaltz Edition; "Talmud Bavli:  
The Gemara:  The Classic Vilna Edition, with an annotated, 
interpretive elucidation, as an aid to Talmud Study:  Tractate 
Makkos" The Artscroll Series.  Okay, I think that's all my sources.  
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot:  "The Torah:  A Modern Commentary" edited 
by W. G. Plaut; and "Pentateuch and Haftorahs" edited by Dr. J. H. 
Hertz, C. H. Late Chief Rabbi of the British Empire.  Oops.  A couple 
more:  "The Pentateuch and Rashi's Commentary:  Genesis" and 
"Everyman's Talmud" by A. Cohen.  That's really everything.

 Hertz's Haftorahs has this to say on page 202:  "The most passage of 
this class [favourite texts of Christian missionaries in attempting to 
convert illiterate Jews or those ignorant of Scripture -- two 
paragraphs up from this one] is the Fifty-third chapter of Isaiah.  
For eighteen hundred years Christian theologians have passionately 
maintained that it is a Prophetic anticipation of the life of the 
Founder of their Faith.  An impartial examination of the chapter, 
however, shows that the Prophet is speaking of _a past historical 
fact_ (emphasis Hertz's), and is describing one who has already been 
smitten to death.  Consequently, a reference to an event which is said 
to have happened many centuries later is excluded.  These three 
instances may be taken as typical [reference to Psalm 2:12 and Isaiah 
7:14].  Modern scholarship has shattered the arguments from the 
Scriptures which missionaries have tried, and are still trying, to 
impose upon ignorant Jews."

 I checked the Scriptural index for Isaiah 53 in the Mishnah and it 
wasn't there.  At any rate, here is Isaiah 53 discussed in "Nine 
Questions People Ask About Judaism" pages 89-90:

 "A...significant example of an attempt to make a Jewish text 
Christian is the use of Isaiah 53 as a Christological reference.  In 
this chapter Isaiah speaks of a suffering and despised "servant of 
God."  The contention of some Christians that this refers to Jesus is 
purely a statement of faith.  It has no logical basis in the biblical 
text.  The "servant of God" is either the prophet himself who, like 
all the Jewish prophets, suffered for his service to God, or the 
people of Israel, who are specifically referred to as the "servant of 
God" nine times in the previous chapters of Isaiah (41:8, 9; 44:1,2, 
21, 26; 45:4; 48:20; 49:3).  This Christianizing of such a significant 
Jewish concept led the Jewish philospher Eliezer Berkovits to write:  
'God's chosen people is the suffering servant of God.  The majestic 
fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is the description of Israel's 
martyrology through the centuries [and] the way Christianity treated 
Israel through the ages only made Isaiah's description fit Israel all 
the more tragically and truly.  Generation after generaton of 
Christians poured out their iniquities and inhumanity over the head of 
Israel, yet they ''esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and 
afflicted.'''.  ['Faith After the Holocaust' (New York:  Ktav 
Publishing House, Inc., 1973) pp. 125-6.]

 "Fortunately, in recent years many Christian scholars have also 
acknowledged the illegitimacy of attempts to 'prove' Jesus's 
messiahship from the Jewish Bible.  J. C. Fenton, in his 'The Gospel 
of St. Matthew,' wrote:  'It is now seen that the Old Testament was 
not a collection of detailed forebodings of future events, which could 
only be understood centuries later:  the Old Testament writers were in 
fact writing for their contemporaries in a way which could be 
understood by them, and describing things that would happen more or 
less in their own lifetime.  Thus Matthew's use of the Old 
Testament...is now a stumbling block to the twentieth-century reader 
of his Gospel.'  The distinguished Christian scholar and theologian 
W. C. Davies likewise noted that the Gospels quote the Jewish Bible 
selectively:  'There were some prophecies which they ignore and others 
which they modify.'  ['Torah and Dogma -- A Comment,' Harvard 
Theological Review, April 1968, p. 99.]  Another Christian scholar, R. 
Taylor, noted in his commentary on Psalms 16:8-10 in 'The 
Interpreter's Bible' that the New Testament interpretation misreads 
the clear intention of the Psalmist.

 "In sum, to call anyone who does not actually bring about the 
messianic era the Messiah is untenable to the Jews.  To equate anyone 
with God, as normative Christianity does, is to Jews more than 
untenable.  It compromises their ideal of monotheism."

 My attitude toward this kind of statement is, "Since the Gospels are 
the Word of God, how do you reconcile this with the above stated 
implication that Matthew and other works are incorrectly citing Old 
Testament sources to prove their position?"  My understanding of the 
passages are that they do indeed refer to Israel.  The Psalms of David 
speak to the sufferings of all human beings and, thus, because the 
Messiah (Jesus) was and is a human being, it speaks to his sufferings 
also, which is why Jesus quoted the Psalms he had known and loved 
since he was a little boy to comfort him as he hung dying on the 
Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  Read the rest of 
the Psalm, and you'll see why.  The Psalms and Isaiah, therefore, 
speak as much *to* the Messiah as *of* the Messiah since the Messiah 
is *of* Israel.  They must speak to the Messiah or they cannot speak 
of the Messiah.  They speak to Him as an ordinary Israelite as well as 
the Messiah since He is fully God and fully human.  But that's my 
opinion.  What was in the mind of the authors as they wrote the 
divinely inspired message of God may have worked in conjunction with 
what was in the mind of God but that isn't equivalent to saying 
they were exactly the same.  Someone says to me, "Write down what you 
see and hear," and I do so, not realizing that I saw something and 
heard something the meaning of which I did not fully grasp at the 
time, although the Inspirer did.  But that's a common argument.  I 
happen to think it's the most valid one.

 While searching through my one Maimonides text, the "Guide for the 
Perplexed," I found nothing on Isaiah 53 (alas), but in my search, 
came across an interesting comment.  In the "Names of God" chapter, in 
reference to Number 6:3, "The following remark is also found in 
[Siphri] as follows:  'In the sanctuary [the name of God is 
pronounced] as it is spelt, but elsewhere by its substitutes.'"  
Although this has absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand, 
as I was reading this, the question occurred to me "What if Channel 5 
News decides to film this blessing and, since this is in the 
sanctuary, the name of God is pronounced as it is spelled.  Is it 
lawful to air the saying of God's name where people may hear it 
outside the sanctuary?"  Were I the Rabbi, I would simply tell the 
news team, "You may film all the time except during that brief moment 
when the name of God is pronounced as it is spelled.  The cameras will 
be turned off at that point otherwise you must leave."  Since I know 
nothing of what goes on in a synagogue, I don't know if this would 
ever be a problem.

 Sorry for the digression.  I found a relevant passage in "The 
Messianic Idea in Judaism" page 18 (first):  "There is, however, a 
historical development in this character of the Messiah on which the 
two aspects stressed here shed a great deal of light.  I am referring 
to the doubling of the figure of the Messiah, its split into a Messiah 
of the House of David and one of the House of Joseph.  This conception 
of the 'Messiah ben Joseph' was again discussed only a few years ago 
in a very interesting monograph by Siegmund Hurwitz which tries to 
explain its origins in psychological terms.  But I think it can best be 
understood in terms of those two aspects with which we have been 
concerned here.  The Messiah ben Joseph is the dying Messiah who 
perishes in the Messianic catastrophe.  The features of the 
catastrophic are gathered together in him.  He fights and loses -- but 
he does not suffer.  The prophecy of Isaiah regarding the suffering 
servant of God is never applied to him.  He is a redeemer who redeems 
nothing, in whom only the final battle with the powers of the world is 
crystallized.  His destruction coincides with the destruction of 
history.  By contrast, when the figure is split, all of the utopian 
interest is concentrated on the Messiah ben David.  He is the one in 
whom what is new finally comes to the fore, who once and for all 
defeats the antichrist, and thus presents the purely positive side of 
this complex phenomenon.  The more these two sides are made 
independent and emphasized,the more this doubling of the Messiah 
figure remains alive for the circles of apocalyptic Messianists in 
later Judaism.  The more this dualism is weakened, the less is the 
doubling mentioned, and the special figure of the Messiah ben Joseph 
becomes superfluous and meaningless.

 "Such mitigations of the dualism occur even in the talmudic 
literature itself.  Much as apocalyptic imagination fascinated many 
rabbinic teachers, and varied as its continuing influence was in 
medieval Judaism, more sober conceptions remained alive as well.  
There were many who felt repulsed by apocalypticism.  Their attitude 
is most sharply expressed by the strictly anti-apocalyptical 
definition of the Babylonian teacher Samuel of the first half of the 
third century, which is often referred to in the Talmud:  'The only 
difference between this aeon and the Days of the Messiah is the 
subjection [of Israel] to the nations.'  This obviously polemical 
utterance provides the cue for a tendency with which we shall still 
have to deal in terms of its effect and its crystallization in the 
powerful formulations of Maimonides."

 Page 27 gives some specifics of Maimonides's ideas:  "Despite the 
conception's immense power of attraction, the Messianic idea was 
formulated only quite late into a positive basic dogma or principle of 
Judaism.  There were a great many enthusiasts among the Jews who 
rejected in advance any selection of principles whatever, and who 
demanded equal authority for all components of the tradition.  When a 
selection was made at all, it could remain doubtful whether next to 
the principles of monotheism and of the authority of the Torah as the 
norm of life, the Messianic hope as certainty of the redemption could 
claim an equivalent sanction.  It is surely worth noting in this 
connection that Maimonides, who took this step more decisively than 
several of his predecessors and who made room for the Messianic idea 
among his thirteen principles of the Jewish faith, accepted it only 
together with anti-apocalyptic restrictions."

 Interlude:  From the NOTES section (note number 21):  "In the 
Thirteen Principles which Maimonides set forth in the introduction to 
the Sanhedrin, Ch. 10, of his Mishnah commentary, we find the 
following:  'The twelfth principle concerns the Days of the Messiah.  
It consists of believing and recognizing as true that he will come and 
not thinking that he will delay.  ''Though he tarry, wait for him.''  
And one must not determine a time for him nor speculate on biblical 
verses in order to bring about his coming.  And the sages said:  ''May 
the spirit of those who calculate the End be extinguished.''  One 
should rather believe in him...magnify and love him, and pray for him, 
in accordance with the words of all the prophets from Moses to 
Malachi.  And whoever is in doubt concerning him or belittles his 
glory, he has denied the Torah which explicitly promises his coming.'"

Continuation of previous paragraph:  "Maimonides, who sought to set 
down a firm authority for a rather anarchically organized medieval 
Jewry, was a man of extraordinary intellectual courage.  In his nearly 
standard codification of Halakhah, he succeeded in including his own 
metaphysical convictions as binding norms of religious conduct for the 
Jews in general, i.e., as Halakhot, although crucial parts of these 
theses have no legitimate basis whatever in the biblical and talmudic 
sources and are rather indebted to the philosophical traditions of 
Greece.  And just as he is prepared at the beginning of his great work 
to lend the power of law in the sense of Halakhah to his own 
convictions, thus he acts no less arbitrarily in his radical 
acceptance of the anti-apocalyptical elements of the talmudic 
tradition and his decided exaggeration of them in the sense of his own 
realm of ideas at the end of this work.  In the last two passages of 
his code of law, in the eleventh and twelfth paragraphs of the 'Laws 
Concerning the Installation of Kings,' we find a portrait of the 
Messianic idea.  After we have become acquainted above with several of 
the formulations of the apocalyptists, it will be of value to look at 
several essential points of these contradictory remarks.  Here we 
read:

 'The Messiah will arise and restore the kingdom of David to its 
former might.  He will rebuilt the sanctuary and gather the dispersed 
of Israel.  All the laws will be reinstituted in his days as of old.  
Sacrifices will be offered and the Sabbatical and Jubilee years will 
be observed exactly in accordance with the commandments of the Torah.  
But whoever does not believe in him or does not await his coming 
denies not only the rest of the prophets, but also the Torah and our 
teacher Moses.

 'Do not think that the Messiah needs to perform signs and miracles, 
bring about a new state of things in the world, revive the dead, and 
the like.  It is not so....Rather it is the case in these matters that 
the statues of our Torah are valid forever and eternally.  Nothing can 
be added to them or taken away from them.  And if there arise a king 
from the House of David who meditates on the Torah and practices its 
commandments like his ancestor David in accordance with the Written 
and Oral Law, prevails upon all Israel to walk in the ways of the 
Torah and to repair its breaches [i.e., to eliminate the bad state of 
affairs resulting from the incomplete observance of the law[, and 
fights the battles of the Lord, then one may properly assume that he 
is the Messiah.  If he is then successful in rebuilding the sanctuary 
on its site and in gathering the dispersed of Israel, then he has in 
fact [as a result of his success] proven himself to be the Messiah.  
He will then arrange the whole world to serve only God, as it is said: 
''For then shall I create a pure language for the peoples that they 
may all call upon the name of God and serve him with one accord 
(Zeph. 3:9).''

 "'Let no one think that in the days of the Messiah anything of the 
natural course of the world will cease or that any innovation will be 
introduced into creation.  Rather, the world will continue in its 
accustomed course.  The words of Isaiah:  ''The wolf shall dwell with 
the lamb and the panther shall lie down with the kid'' (Isa. 11:6) are 
a parable and an allegory which must be understood to mean that Israel 
will dwell securely even among the wicked of the heathen nations who 
are compared to a wolf and a panther.  For they will all accept the 
true faith and will no longer rob or destroy.  Likewise, all similar 
scriptural passages dealing with the Messiah must be regarded as 
figurative.  Only in the Days of the Messiah will everyone know what 
the metaphors mean and to what they refer.  The sages said:  ''The 
only difference between this world and the Days of the Messiah is the 
subjection of Israel to the nations.''  (Sanhedrin 91b)

 "'From the simple meaning of the words of the prophets it appears 
that at the beginning of the Days of the Messiah the war between Gog 
and Magog will take place...{With regard to these Messianic wars and 
the coming of the prophet Elijah before the End, Maimonides then 
continues:}  Concerning all these things and others like them, no one 
knows how they will come about until they actually happen, since the 
words of the prophets on these matters are not clear.  Even the sages 
have no tradition regarding them but allow themselves to be guided by 
the texts.  Hence there are differences of opinion on the subjection.  
In any case, the order and details of these events are not religious 
dogmas.  Therefore a person should never occupy himself a great deal 
with the legendary accounts nor spend much time on the Midrashim 
dealing with these and similar matters.  He should not regard them as 
of prime importance, since devoting himself to them leads neither to 
the fear nor to the love of God....

 "'The sages and prophets longed for the days of the Messiah not in 
order to rule over the world and not to bring the heathens under their 
control, not to be exalted by the nations, or even to eat, drink, and 
rejoice.  All they wanted was to have time for the Torah and its 
wisdom with no one to oppress or disturb them.

 "'In that age there will be neither famine nor war, nor envy nor 
strife, for there will be an abundance of worldly goods.  The whole 
world will be occupied solely with the knowledge of God.  Therefore 
the Children of Israel will be great sages; they will know hidden 
things and attain an understanding of their Creator to the extent of 
human capability, as it is said:  ''For the earth shall be full of the 
knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea'' (Isa. 11:9).'"

 There is a great deal of discussion following this passage in the 
book, too lengthy to type in (I've probably typed in too much as it 
is, as is my wont :-).  A central idea seems to be that Maimonides is 
uninterested in miracles or even in whether heaven intervenes on earth 
in any way at all in determining who the Messiah is; rather, the 
Messiah proves his identity by historical success.  That is his one 
criterion:  that the Messiah succeed in his endeavors.

 The NOTES (number 25) add:  "In his 'Epistle to Yemen,' where 
Maimonides pays great heed to the eschatological requirements of the 
tradition which he later elminates, this element of miracle still has 
its place, though it is presented in very sober fashion.  With 
manifest concervative regard for his Yemenite readers, Maimonides here 
formulates the difference between the prophetic rank of the Messiah 
and that of the other prophets from Moses to Malachi in this way:  
'But his unique characteristic is that when he appears God will cause 
all the kings of the earth to tremble and be afraid at the report of 
him.  Their kingdoms will fall; they will be unable to stand up 
against him, neither by the sword nor by revolt.  They will neither 
defame nor slander him, but they will be frightened into silence when 
they behold his miracles and wonders.  He will slay anyone who tries 
to kill him and none shall escape or be saved from him...That king 
will be very mighty.  All peoples will maintain peace with him, all 
nations will serve him on account of the great justice and the 
miracles which issue from his hand.  All the words of Scripture 
testify to his success and to our success with him.'  ('Iggeret 
Teman,' ed. David Hollub {Vienna, 1875}, p. 48.)"

 The next note, number 26, is equally interesting:  "Abraham Cardozo, 
the very differently oriented follower of Sabbatai Zevi, surprisingly 
referred to this discussion of Maimonides even after his apostasy.  He 
sought to support his thesis that it is in the nature of the Messiah 
for him to behave in such a fashion as to nurture doubts regarding the 
legitimacy of his mission until his authority is finally established." 
Number 27, "The conception of the Last Judgment plays no role at all 
in Maimonides's writings.  There is no future retribution in the sense 
of escahtological reward and punishment."  Number 28, "Of course he 
also excludes conceptions like that of the pre-existence of the 
Messiah and of the Messiah ben Joseph."

 Page 32 notes that Saadia's "Book of Beliefs and Opinions" has ideas 
that are the opposite of Maimonides along with other Messianists of 
the Middle Ages such as Abraham bar Hiyya's "Scroll of the Revealer" 
in the twelfth century.

 Page 33, "Their [the apocalyptists] opponents do exactly the 
opposite.  As much as possible, they try to refer biblical passages 
not to Messianic, but to some other circumstance.  They detest 
typology.  The predictions of the prophets have for the most part 
already come to pass in events at the time of Ezra, Zerubbabel, the 
Maccabees, and the perid of of the Second Temple in general.  Many 
passages which the one group interprets to refer to the Messiah are 
interpreted by the other as predictions regarding the destiny of the 
entire Jewish people (like that famous chapter 53 in Isaiah, which 
speaks of the suffering servant of God).  The second tendency, then, 
is to restrict the valid scope of the Messianic as much as possible.  
However, there is also an apologetic impulse at work which must not be 
underestimated.  The representatives of the rational tendencies stood 
in the forefront of the theological defenses mounted against the 
claims of the Church.  The more biblical exegesis could reduce the 
purely Messianic element, the better it was for the defenses of the 
Jewish position which were often made necessary by the application of 
external force.  But the apocalyptists were not in the least 
interested in apologetics.  Their thought has its locus beyond such 
disputes that occur on the borders, and they are not concerned with 
fortifying the frontiers.  This is no doubt the reasons why the 
statements of the apocalyptists often appear freer and more genuine 
than those of their opponents who often enough must take into account 
the diplomatic necessities of anti-Christian polemics and therefore do 
not always permit penetration to the true motives of their thought.  
In rare individuals the two tendencies come together.  The most 
important codificiations of the Messianic idea in later Judaism are the 
writings of Isaac Abravanel (ca. 1500) and "The Victory of Israel" by 
the "High Rabbi Loew," Judah Loew ben Bezalel of Prague (1599).  The 
authors are not visionaries but writers who endeavor to embrace as a 
whole the legacy of ideas which has been trasmitted in such 
contradictory traditions.  Despite their otherwise reticent manner, 
they richly avail themselves of the apocalyptic traditions."

 Pages 96-97 discuss the idea that the Messiah must descend into 
apostasy (a folk-myth).  Thus, the tragic element is apostasy instead 
of crucifixion.  In this novel idea, the King Messiah must give a "new 
Torah" and the commandments of the Law (mitzvot) would be abrogated in 
Messianic times.  "Speculations of this nature could be found in 
various Midrashim and Aggadot, but possessed no particular authority 
and were easily challenged by means of other exegetical passages to 
the opposite effect, with the consequence that, in Jewish tradition, 
the entire question had hitherto been allowed to remain in abeyance."  
The apostate Messiah "ideology reached a peak in the writings of the 
Lurianic Kabbalah, which strove to inculcate in every Jew a sense of 
duty to 'elevate the sparks' and so help bring about the ultimate 
tikkun of the Creation.

 "Here the 53rd chapter of Isaiah played a key role, for as it was now 
reinterpreted the verse 'But he was wounded because of our 
transgressions' was taken to be an allusion not only to the Messiah 
ben Joseph, the legendary forerunner of the Redeemer who according to 
tradition was to suffer death at the hands of the Gentiles, but to the 
Messiah ben David as well, who 'would be foreably prevented from 
observing the Torah.'  By a play on words, the Hebrew ve-hu meholal, 
'but he was wounded,' was interpreted as meaning 'from sacred he [the 
Messiah] will be made profane [hol].'  Thus,

     all Gentiles are referred to as profane [hol] and kelipah,
     and whereas Israel alone is called sacred, all the other
     nations are profane.  And even though a Jew commit a
     transgression, as long as he remains a Jew among Jews he is
     called sacred and an Israelite, for as the rabbis have said,
     'Even though he has sinned, he is still an Israelite.'  It
     follows that there is no way for the King Messiah to be made
     profane except he be removed from the Community of Israel
     into another domain.

"Many similar homilies were written on the rest of the chapter, 
especially on the verse, 'And he made his grave with the wicked.'  Yet 
another favorite verse was Deuteronomy 33:7 ('And this for Judah, and 
he said:  Hear, Lord, the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his 
people'), which was assumed to allude to the Davidic Messiah of the 
House of Judah, whose destiny it was to be taken from his people 
(hence Moses' prayer that God bring him back to them).  Endless 
biblical verses were cited to prove that the Messiah was fated to be 
contemned as an outcast and criminal by his own people.  Clothed in 
Messianic radiance, all the typical arguments of the Marranos were 
applied to Sabbatai Zevi:

     And similar to this [the apostasy of Sabbatai Zevi] is what
     happened to Esther, who was the cause of great salvation to
     Israel; for although most of the people, being ignorant, most
     certainly despised her for having given herself to an 
     idol-worshiper and a Gentile in clear violation of the bidding
     of the Torah, the sages of old, who knew the secret [of her
     action], did not regard her as a sinner, for it is said of her
     in the Talmud:  'Esther was the ground of the entire world.'

In the same vein, the familiar aggadic saying that 'the last Redeemer 
will be as the first' was taken to mean that just as Moses lived for 
many years at the court of Pharoah, so the Messiah must live with 'the 
Turk,' for as the exile draws to a close the Messiah himself must be 
exiled to atone for Israel's sins."

 I'm writing too much, I'll be accused of plagiarism before too long 
:-), but Rabbi Joseph Taitatsak of Salonika said, "when the rabbis 
said that the Son of David would not come until the kingdom was 
entirely given over to unbelief [Sanhedrin 97a], they were thinking 
of the Kingdom of Heaven, for the Shekhinah is destined to don the 
garments of Ishmael."  Page 99 speaks of an old rabbinic concept of 
"mitzvah ha-ba'ah ba-averah," literally, "a commandment which is 
fulfilled by means of a transgression."  So the Messiah's apostasy is 
not a transgression but is a fulfillment of the commandment of God, 
"for it is known through Israel that the prophets can do and command 
things which are not in accord with the Torah and its laws."

 In my other book, "The Messiah Texts," I couldn't find the other two 
authors mentioned, but I did find some Rashi on page 59:

 His disciples asked R. Yose ben Qisma:  'When will the Son of David 
come?'  He said:  'I am afraid that you will ask me for a sign.'  They 
said to him:  'We shall not ask you for a sign.'   He said to them:  
'When this [city]gate will fall and will be rebuilt, and fall again, 
they will have no time to rebuild it again until the Son of David 
comes.'  They said to him:  'Our Master! give us a sign!'  He said to 
them:  'Did you not tell me that you would not ask me for a sign?'  
They said to him:  'Nevertheless.'  He said to them:  'If so, let the 
waters of the Cave of Pamias [the source of the Jordan River] turn 
into blood!'  And they turned into blood.  In the hour of his death he 
said to them:  'Dig a deep grave for my coffin, for [in the wars of 
Gog and Magog] there will be no palm tree in Babylon to which the 
Persians will not tie their horses, and no coffin in the Land of 
Israel from which a Persian horse will not eat straw.'

                              (B. Sanh. 98a--b, with Rashi's comments)

 "The rabbis taught:  'The proselytes and those who play with children 
hold back the Messiah.'  This is understandable as far as the 
proselytes are concerned, for R. Helbo said:  'The proselytes are as 
bad for Israel as a sore on the skin'; but why those who play with 
children?...This refers to those who marry little girls who are not 
yet able to bear children, for R. Yose said:  'The Son of David will 
not come until all the souls are emptied from the Guf [lit.: 'body'; 
the celestial place where the souls of the unborn are kept], for it is 
said:  For the spirit that enwrappeth itself is from Me, and the souls 
which I have made (Isa. 57:16) -- that is:  The spirits that I 
destined to be born are thus kept back....'

                              (B. Nid. 13b and Rashi ibid.)"

 "The Messiah Texts" notes in the Introduction concerning Isaiah's 
suffering servant:  "As to the identification of this "Servant," there 
is no scholaraly consensus to this day.  However, the Aggada, the 
Talmudic legend, unhesitatingly identifies him with the Messiah, and 
understand especially the descriptions of his sufferings as referring 
to Messiah ben Joseph."

 On page 165, in reference to Rachel giving birth to Yosef (Ge. 
30:24), saying, "May the Lord add [yosef] to me another son," a 
Midrash fragment explains:  "Hence [we know] that the Anointed of War 
will arise in the future from Joseph...[And Rachel said:] God hath 
taken away [asaf] my reproach (ibid. v. 23) -- because it was 
prophesied to her that the Messiah would arise from her" (BhM 6:81).  
In another Midrash fragment the two Messiahs are compared:  "In the 
Future to Come, the Anointed of War will arise from Joseph.  And the 
Messiah who will arise from Judah [i.e., Messiah ben David] will be 
stronger than he" (BhM 6:96).

 The whole reason behind splitting the Messiah in two is because of 
the belief that the Messiah had to be slain, of course.  Thus, the 
first Messiah is slain, and the second Messiah completes the work of 
Redemption.

 This is from Y. Suk. 55b:  "And the land shall mourn, every family 
apart (Zech. 12:12).  Two have interpreted this verse.  One said:  
'This is the mourning over the Messiah,' and the other said:  'This is 
the mourning of the Evil Inclination' [which will be killed by God in 
the Messianic days]."

 From B. Suk. 52a:  "And the land shall mourn (Zech. 12:12).  What is 
the reason of this mourning?  R. Dosa and the rabbis differ about it.  
R. Dosa says:  '[They will mourn] over the Messiah who will be slain,' 
and the rabbis say: [They will mourn] over the Evil Inclination which 
will be killed [in the days of the Messiah]...'"

 From B. Suk. 52a:  "The rabbis have taught:  The Holy One, blessed be 
He, will say to Messiah ben David, may he be revealed soon in our 
days!:  'Ask of Me anything, and I shall give it to you, for it is 
written, ''The Lord said unto me, Thou art My son, this day have I 
begotten thee, ask of Me and I will give thee the nations for they 
inheritance (Ps. 2:7-8).'''  And when he will see that Messiah ben 
Joseph will be slain, he will say before Him:  'Master of the World!  
I ask nothing of you except life!'  God will say to him:  'Even before 
you said, ''life,'' your father David prophesied about you, as it is 
written, He asked life of Thee, Thou gavest it to him (Ps. 21:5).'"

 What seemed to me a rather bizarre description is given in Otot 
haMashiah, BhM 2:58-63, but, frankly, I'm too tired to type it in.  
Pages 311-316 of "The Messiah Texts."  I can't figure out whether it's 
supposed to be an apostate Messiah being killed for the Redemption 
because this Messiah says, "I am your god," and the people are 
confused, saying, "But Torah says, worship only God, etc.," but then 
Messiah commands them to testify that he is their god, and some wicked 
Armilus gathers armies of the world to a great battle and the Messiah 
of God is slain, and the angels come and take him and inter him with 
the Fathers of the World, and the heart of Israel melts, and their 
strength is weakened, and the wicked Armilus doesn't know that Messiah 
died, for if he did he wouldn't leave any survivors or a remnant of 
Israel.  Then all the nations expel Israel, then Michael sorts out the 
wicked from Israel, and all Israel flee to the deserts, and those 
whose heart will doubt his judgment will return to the nations of the 
world and say:  'This is the Redemption for which we have been 
waiting, for the Messiah has been killed."  And all those who did not 
expect the Redemption will be ashamed of it and return to the nations 
of the world.  Then the judgment and all the wicked die.  Later, 
Messiah ben David comes with Elijah, and then they fight Armilus 
again, but the Lord doesn't require the Messiah to fight, but says, 
"Sit on My right!"  Then God kills Armilus.  Then Michael blows the 
shofar and Messiah ben David and Elijah go and revive Messiah ben 
Joseph, who has been gathered into the gates of Jerusalem, and 
Messiah ben David is sent to the remnant of Israel scattered in all 
the lands, and then, in triumph, the Holy One will open for them the 
sources of the Tree of Life, and will give them to drink on the way.

 That was badly summarized because I'm tired but I urge you to look it 
up, it's fascinating stuff.  Clear as Revelation.

Yours in Christ,

Cindy Smith

p.s.  You can post this on soc.religion.christian, if you like.....
      Sorry the presentation is so haphazard, I just threw together 
      materials related to the subject....
-- 
                                   Sincerely,
Cindy Smith
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