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We have a hard task ahead of us. Since growing up in Christianity, as did most of this ministry's readership, we grew up the the traditional Christian teachings concerning Israel's Messiah. We heard week after week the passages contained in the New Testament as applied to Jesus which in our minds convinced us that he is the Messiah of Israel. Over and over we heard the "oral traditions" concerning Jesus as recorded for us in the New Testament and over time the picture of Israel's Messiah was permanently fixed in our minds. Before Fortunately for me before Seminary I had begun to read books on the "Jewish perspectives" of Christianity and continued to do so after graduation. I knew the "Gentile Christian" stance on Jesus but was deficient on the "Jewish understanding" of Biblical Messiah. At that time I figured that there would be little difference between the two because I had been told my whole life by my spiritual authorities that the reason the Jews don't see in Jesus what I do is that G-d had chosen to "blind" them to this fact in order that I, an non-Jew, could see Jesus as the Messiah. But somewhere in my heart and mind I realized that this just did not make sense in light of the fact that G-d also had called Israel to be a light to the Gentile nations [you and me] concerning all things spiritual, and that included their Messiah.
Answer for yourself: How do we reconcile the picture of the Christian Messiah and the Jewish Messiah which are opposite in so many different theological positions?
Well there is a way of course but it is slow and tedious let alone expensive as one must equip himself with the necessary materials to engage in such a comprehensive study. Over the years of my Christian Pastorate I continued to read about a Jewish Jesus and contrast that with what I had been taught by my Gentile teachers. Slowly I began to see a different picture than the one presented in the New Testament concerning Jesus. As book after book was researched, as history was examined from hundreds of sources, and as I patiently prayed through these difficult times of reconciling my "Gentile beliefs about the Messiah" as over against the "Jewish beliefs about their Messiah" I came to the very troubling conclusions and it all began with the FACT that my Christian Book [The Christian Old Testament] was a forgery when compared with the Jewish Scriptures. This of course opened a can of worms of unlimited proportions. Since Seminary I was equipped to do the kind of studies that the normal Christian is not and I began to set out diligently to find the truth of the matter because I believed it mattered to G-d, Jesus, and should matter to me, what we believe since our actions or lack of them are related to our "religious beliefs." Along the way I discovered I had learned about a "Gentile Messiah" in the disguise of solar-g-dmen and what I thought was the "Jewish Messiah called Jesus" as pictured in the New Testament had little to do with Judaism. In fact such a "Christian Messiah" never lived because the Jesus of the Bible was a Jew who never departed from his faith nor ever displaced it in order to create a new religion like we have today in his name.
Answer for yourself: Need I remind you that he was a Jew and not a Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, 7th Day Adventist, let alone a Gentile?
Along the way I learned that my Gentile beliefs concerning Israel's Messiah had been contaminated with sun-worship and was aghast to find so. Then the horrible realization struck me; I was an idolator and never knew it! That about killed me and through many profuse tears and prayers I begged G-d for forgiveness for allowing myself to be deceived in this most important part of my life. I realized that if I had loved G-d more than I did earlier in my life then I would have drawn closer to Him and in so doing my errors of religious belief would have been exposed sooner. I am a firm believer that the closer you draw to G-d in "truth and obedience" the light of His revelation expels the darkness in all parts of one's life; whether in conduct or beliefs. Today I live with the regret of lost time when my love for G-d was seen by Him, but not me, as an abomination. I hope to help multitudes reconsider these very important issues in their lives by making available the necessary information whereby they can not only become aware of the truth that has been held back from them by the anti-Semitic Gentile Christian establishments for almost two millennia, but be so challenged to begin such a through study on their own to see for themselves that the things I researched out and share with them are indeed the truths from G-d long kept from them. Having the ability to see both "sides" of the Messianic coin "so to speak" will the the reader be able to make an intelligent decision concerning these very difficult issues.
To begin such a study we must begin at the beginning. That means we must start with the Messianic idea of Israel and what G-d had taught them and what Israel was prepared to both know and recognize in their soon coming King.
In Israel the term "anointed," from which we draw the term "messiah," was related to three different classes of people.
"Remarkably and characteristically, the term Mashiah - of which 'Messiah' is the Anglicized form - had preceded the Messianic concept by many centuries. Originally, in Biblical usage, it simply meant 'anointed', and referred to Aaron and his sons, who were anointed with oil and thereby consecrated to the service of G-d." - Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts
"And you shall put them upon Aaron your brother, and upon his sons with him, and shall anoint them and ordain them and consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests." - Exodus 28:41
"The legitimacy of the priesthood...was supposed to descend lineally from Aaron through the Tribe of Levi. Thus, throughout the Old Testament, the priesthood is the unique preserve of the Levites. The Levite high priests who attend David and Solomon are referred to as 'Zadok'- though it is not clear whether this is a personal name or an hereditary title." - Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, The Messianic Legacy
"The High Priest, in particular, was termed 'the Anointed [Mashiah] of G-d'.
With the establishment of the monarchy, the same term was applied to the king: he was 'the Anointed of the Lord' because he was installed in the high office by receiving the sacrament of anointment." - Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts
"The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces; against them he will thunder in heaven. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed." - 1 Samuel 2:10
Solomon is anointed by Zadok, thereby becoming 'the Anointed One', the 'Messiah' - 'ha-mashi'ah' in Hebrew." - Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, The Messianic Legacy
"Your throne, O G-d, endures for ever and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity; You love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore G-d, your G-d has anointed you [in the Greek of the Septuagint, enchrisen se, has made you Christ] with the oil of gladness above your fellows." - Psalm 45:6-7
"A third type of the divinely elected, the prophet, could also undergo the ceremony of anointing: Elizah, we read, was commanded by G-d to anoint Jehu as king over Israel, and Elisha as prophet in his own place."- Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts
"And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel; and Eli'sha the son of Shaphat of A'bel-meho'lah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place." - 1 Kings 19:16
"Still in early monarchic days the person of 'the Anointed of the Lord' came to be considered sacrosanct: to harm him or even to curse him, was a capital offense." - Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts
"But David said, 'What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeru'iah, that you should this day be as an adversary to me? Shall any one be put to death in Israel this day? For do I not know that I am this day king over Israel?'" - 2 Samuel 19:22
"A further development of this concept can be seen in the belief that G-d provided special protection to His anointed king. The Psalms contain several references to the idea of divine intervention for 'the Anointed of the Lord', the idealized Davidic king:" - Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts
"Now I know that the Lord saveth His Anointed [Mashiah], He will answer him from His holy heaven With the mighty acts of His saving right hand." - Psalms 20:7
"While David was king of Israel (tenth century B.C.E.), the belief developed that his House would rule forever, not only over Israel but also over all the nations:" - Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts
"The G-d who giveth me vengeance, And bringeth down peoples under me.... Therefore I praise Thee, O Lord, among the nations. And will sing unto Thy name, Who increaseth the victories of His king And dealeth graciously with His Anointed, With David and his seed for evermore." - 2 Samuel 22:48-52, Psalms 18:42-52
In the seventh century B.C.E., Judah and its capital were besieged by the Assyrians. Micah prophesied deliverance by someone from Bethlehem, the home village of the house of David, in terms that are resonant with Messianic expectations centuries later:
"Now you are walled about with a wall; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike upon the cheek the ruler of Israel. But you, O Bethlehem Eph'rathah, who are little to be among the clans [or rulers] of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin [Hebrew 'goings out' ] is from of old, from ancient days [olam or from days of eternity]. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in travail has brought forth; then the rest of his brethren shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his G-d. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth." - Micah 5:1-5
"The word 'olam' is derived from the primitive root alam, meaning to veil from sight, to conceal. An analysis of the passages where olam appears shows clearly that the word does not express 'eternity' or 'everlasting' as it has been frequently translated in the King James Version. Rather, it simply expresses a duration, a time during which a person, thing, or state of a thing exists - literally an age of time which has a definite beginning and conclusion. the duration of an age in scripture is sometimes defined and sometimes undefined." - Dallas E. James, "Putting the Sword to Churchianity"
"After the Exile of the Jewish people and later through contacts with Jews of the Diaspora in many parts of the Mediterranean world, Zoroastrian concepts influenced Jewish thought. Certain ideas about last things, salvation, and Satan (the Evil One) stem from Zoroastrianism." - Ninian Smart, The Religious Experience of Mankind
"...The Persian Mazda worshippers looked for the birth of a Savior from a virgin mother." - Frederick Thomas Elworthy, The Evil Eye
"We worship the guardian spirit of the holy maid Esetât-Jedhri, who is called the all-conquering, for she will bring him forth who will destroy the malice of the demons and of men." - Sacred book of Zoroaster
"The old Persian faith was an abstract and subtle religion, offering many new ways of looking at divinity and the idea of the holy. Its influence upon the minds of Jewish scribes and rulers, men like Nehemiah and Ezra, was probably greater than surviving evidence can show. There are, however, numerous hints of this influence in the Old Testament. The 'Spirit of G-d', for example, that moves on the face of the waters in the opening of Genesis is a most remarkable idea...Yet in surviving Persian writings the idea of a 'spirit of god' is a common one." - John Romer, Testament
"The Spirit of the Lord G-d is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed..." - Isaiah 61:1 (Deutero-Isaiah 5th C. B.C.E.)
"The Babylonian Captivity had exposed the Jews to the Zoroastrian pantheon, with its good gods headed by Ahura Mazda ('G-d of Light') and its bad god headed by Ahura Manah or Ahriman ('G-d of Darkness'). This led to the belief that the prolonged overlordship that outlasted the captivity was the fault of the bad gods, rebel messengers who has refused to obey Yahweh's orders.
"Alternative versions of the seraphs' original disobedience were postulated, the most popular being that they were the sons of the gods who had sired the giants by illegally recreating with mortal women. Such rebels had to have a leader, and since the concept of a divine antagonist, a Jewish Ahriman, had been assimilated before there was any speculation as to the antagonist's identity, he was simply styled the Enemy (ha-satan). The first reference to the Enemy as a male in Jewish mythology was made by Zechariah in 520 B.C.E." - William Harwood, Mythologies Last G-ds: Yahweh and Yeshua
"And the Lord said to Satan, 'The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?'" - Zechariah 3:2
"Similarly, some of the optimistic Persian notions of the afterlife seem to have entered into the later Books of the Prophets in the Bible. A rare view of the traditional Israelite afterlife (the afterlife is not often mentioned in older biblical writings) is briefly glimpsed in the tale of Saul's meeting with the dead Prophet Samuel, who is 'called up' by the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28:7-21) from a kind of Hades; it is a shadowy survival." - John Romer, Testament
"The king said to her, 'Have no fear; what do you see?' And the woman said to Saul, 'I see a god coming up out of the earth.' He said to her, 'What is his appearance?' And she said, 'An old man is coming up; and he is wrapped in a robe.' And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground, and did obeisance."- 1 Samuel 28:13-14
"But in the Book of Isaiah, which was certainly compiled after the Babylonian exile, a full-blown theory of death and resurrection is implicit throughout, a forerunner of one of the major themes of the New Testament." - John Romer, Testament
"Thy dead shall live, My corpses shall arise, Awake and sing Ye dwellers of the dust, For a dew of light is thy dew And the earth shall bring forth the shades." - Isaiah 26:19
"Greek geenna represents Aramaic gehinnam, which in turn represents Hebrew ge-hinnom, an abbreviation of the full title, 'valley of the son of Hinnom'. The name probably is that of the original Jebusite owner of the property. In the Old Testament this is a geographical term which divides ancient Jerusalem (Zion) from the hills to the south and west. It is the modern Wadi er Rababi, which joins the Wadi en Nar (the Kidron) at the southern extremity of the hill of Zion.
"The valley was a point on the boundary between Judah and Benjamin (Joshua 15:8, 18:16). This usage is reflected in Nehemiah 11:30. The valley had an unholy reputation in later Old Testament books because it was the site of Tophet, a cultic shrine where human sacrifice was offered (2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chronicles 28:3, 33:6; Jeremiah 7:31, 19:2 ff, 32:35). It is called simply 'the valley' (Jeremiah 2:23). Because of this cult Jeremiah cursed the place and predicted that it would be a place of death and corruption (7:32, 19:6 ff). The valley is referred to, not by name in Isaiah 66:14, as a place where the dead bodies of the rebels against Yahweh shall lie. Their worm shall not die nor shall their fire be quenched..." - John L. McKenzie in Endtime: The Doomsday Catalogue
"The authors of Enoch (150 B.C.E) [adapted] the physical Gehenna to the mythology of Zarathustra to produce an Essene/Pharisee purgatory, identical with the Christian Hell except for the lack of permanence. Prior to Yeshua, the Essenes had pictured Gehenna as a monstrous torture chamber that sinners needed to endure as the only method of cleansing them of their sins and making them fit for the afterlife of the saints. It was not...the suffering through which a sinner was purified, but rather exposure to the sacred power of Fire. Zarathustra did not quite deify Fire, but he saw it as an aspect of the divinity of Ahura Mazda." - William Harwood, Mythologies Last G-ds: Yahweh and Jesus.
"Their spirits are going to be thrown into a blazing furnace. They are going to be wretched in their immense agony, and into darkness and chains and burning flames...you will have no peace....We have been tortured and destroyed and not hoped to see life from day to day." - 1 Enoch 98:3, 103:7-10
The author of Revelation, over 200 years later, would write of how Hades itself would be consumed by fire: "Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death." - Revelation 20:14
"...After the period of exile, other major themes of both Judaism and Christianity also begin to appear in the Bible, not the least import of which is the idea of the Messiah - the 'Anointed One'. Cyrus the Great is the first biblical person to be given this title." - John Romer, Testament
(All books from Deuteronomy to 2 Kings were constructed from various texts, such as the court narrative of King David, by D, the Deuteronomist, most probably a single author living in the age of exile - c. 550-540 B.C.E. Deutero-Isaiah, who wrote about Cyrus, lived c. 530 B.C.E.)
"Thus saith the Lord...that hath said of Cyrus: 'He is My shepherd, and shall perform all My pleasure, even saying of Jerusalem, 'She shall be built', and to the Temple, 'Thy foundation shall be laid'."
"Thus saith the Lord to His Anointed [Messiah] to Cyrus whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before him....'I will go before thee and make the crooked places straight...'" - Isaiah 44:28-45:2
"The Greek historian Herodotus claimed to know many different stories of Cyrus's death, but pointedly, he tells the version in which the king is berated by a queen of the barbaric Scyths. Far away beyond the River Oxus, Cyrus invades the Central Asian steppes, only to be told that he is thoroughly aggressive and 'insatiate of blood'. The Scyths then kill him in the ensuing battle and their queen fills a wine-skin with human blood, she seeks out Cyrus's corpse and stuffs the head of the 'Lord's Anointed' into the wine-skin to take the revenge which this man of war deserves." -Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version
"Later, biblical scribes redefined the term [Messiah] so that it came to mean, quite specifically, a son of the House of David, a defender of the Children of Israel who will establish a new era on earth and a new kingdom with its capital in Jerusalem." -John Romer, Testament
"The word of the Lord came to me: 'Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him and say, Thus says the Lord G-d: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal; and I will turn you about, and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you forth, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great company, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords; Persia, Cush, and Put are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer and all his hordes; Beth-togar'mah from the uttermost parts of the north with all his hordes--many peoples are with you'." -Ezekiel 38:1-6
"The shape of the future occupies a prominent place in the prophecies of Ezekiel, who lived in Babylonia....Among his prophecies are two which subsequently became the basic building blocks of the Messianic myth. One is that of the great apocalyptic war of Gog and Magog, and the other his famous vision of the dry bones." -Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts
"And I saw, and behold, there were upon them sinews, and flesh came up, and skin stretched upon them on the top, but spirit was not in them. And He said to me: Prophesy to the spirit, prophesy Son of Man, and say to the spirit: Thus saith the Lord G-d: From the four winds come, O spirit, and breathe into these slain ones so that they may live! And I prophesied as He commanded me, and the spirit came into them and they live, and they stood upon their feet, an army, very, very great. And he said to me: Son of Man! These bones are all the House of Israel." -Ezekiel 37 7-14
1. The phrase is employed to refer to the human species as insignificant creatures in the presence of G-d."
"How then can a man be righteous before G-d? How can one born of woman be pure? If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his eyes, how much less man, who is but a maggot - a son of man, who is only a worm!" - Job 25:4-6
2. "The phrase was also used to identify human beings as next to G-d in the order of creation."
"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings [or 'than G-d'] and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet..." - Psalms 8:3-6
3. "The Jewish scriptures portray the human being as the agent to exercise control over every living creature (Genesis 1:28). This ideal decisively shaped Jewish visions of the end of history." - Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels
"G-d blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'" - Genesis 1:28
"Ezekiel claimed, in chapter after chapter (2:1, 3:1, 4:1), that Yahweh habitually addressed him as Ben Adam. This salutation, usually translated 'son of man', is more accurately rendered 'descendant of Adam', or simply 'human'. Because the title ben Adam carried the implication that the person so styled was the second Adam it came to be viewed as a title for the messiah, once the concept of a messiah was invented in post-exilic days. Both the Book of Daniel (7:13) and the Book of Enoch (46) referred to Ben Adam in terms that persons with a messiah-belief were bound to view as messianic." -William Harwood, Mythologies Last G-ds: Yahweh and Jesus
"Ever since Ezekiel, 'Son of Man' has been a designation signifying special nearness to G-d of the person so called."
Ezekiel's "prophecy of Resurrection in contemporary with the destruction of the First Temple of Jerusalem (586 B.C.E.). Ezekiel, however, had no Messianic idea in mind; the purpose of his prophecy was theological-political-psychological: he wanted to implant the belief in a speedy return to their own land into the hearts of the despairing Judean exiles in Babylonia."
"Just as Moses had brought the Children of Israel to the threshold of the Promised Land and then died, so the Messiah leads them to victory over Gog and Magog, culminating in the elimination of Armilus [their Satanic master], and then fades away, disappears from the scene." -Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts
"As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord G-d: Speak to the birds of every sort and to all beasts of the field, 'Assemble and come, gather from all sides to the sacrificial feast which I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast upon the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat flesh and drink blood. You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth--of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan. And you shall eat fat till you are filled, and drink blood till you are drunk, at the sacrificial feast which I am preparing for you. And you shall be filled at my table with horses and riders, with mighty men and all kinds of warriors,' says the Lord G-d." -Ezekiel 39:17-20
"It is G-d who resurrects the dead, who judges the pious and the wicked, who sits with the saintly at the great feast, who pours wine into their cups, who entertains them by dancing before them, who teaches them the new Torah, and who receives the homage of the entire rejuvenated, and sanctified world. Where is the Messiah in all this? We are told nothing of him, and were it not that in the earlier phases of the Messianic myth we were assured that he would, after the ultimate victory, reign in Jerusalem as the Prince of Peace, we would not even suspect that he is present."
"Thus, and in this primarily, the Messiah proves to be essentially a Moses figure, and Moses to be the accurate prefiguration of the Messiah. Both are Redeemers, but neither of them has a part in the great era to whose threshold they lead their people at the price of their lifeblood." -Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts
"In Christian tradition, where so much in the Old Testament is taken as a symbolic prefiguring of the events of the New, Moses is - inevitably, one might almost say - taken to prefigure Jesus, who was the superior and culminating figure." -David Daiches, Moses - Man in the Wilderness
"For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house. For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is G-d. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; but Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end." -Hebrews 3:3-6
"About half a century after Ezekiel, there lived in Babylonia the anonymous prophet of consolation and Israel's national restoration, usually referred to a Deutero-Isaiah. This great poet-prophet spoke repeatedly about the 'Servant of the Lord', describing the call, mission, sufferings, death and resurrection of this mysterious individual." -Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts
"Behold, My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect whom My soul wanteth: I have put My spirit upon him; he shall send out justice to the nations." -Isaiah 42:1
"As to the identification of the 'Servant', there is no scholarly consensus to this day. The debate is divided into 2 camps: those who understand the "Servant" as the corporate nation of Israel and those few who believe in the the Aggada, the Talmudic legend, and identify the "Servant" with the Messiah, and understands especially the descriptions of his sufferings as referring to Messiah ben Joseph."
"Messiah ben Joseph, also called Messiah ben Ephraim, referring to his ancestor Ephraim, the son of Joseph, is imagined as the first commander of the army of Israel in the Messianic wars. He will achieve many signal victories, but his fate is to die at the hands of Armilus in a great battle in which Israel is defeated by Gog and Magog. His corpse is left unburied in the streets of Jerusalem for forty days, but neither beast nor bird of prey dares to touch it. Then Messiah ben David comes, and his first act is to bring about the resurrection of his tragic forerunner." -Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts
After reading these short summary quotes it would seem that my Christian ideas concerning Messiah ben Joseph are completely wrong!
"Wondrously show thy steadfast love, O savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at thy right hand. Keep me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of thy wings, from the wicked who despoil me, my deadly enemies who surround me. They close their hearts to pity; with their mouths they speak arrogantly. They track me down; now they surround me; they set their eyes to cast me to the ground. They are like a lion eager to tear, as a young lion lurking in ambush. Arise, O Lord! confront them, overthrow them! Deliver my life from the wicked by thy sword, from men by thy hand, O Lord, from men whose portion in life is of the world." - Psalm 17:7-14
"The tremendous cruelties of the age [of exile] were rejected in visions of a Second Coming leading to a new Heaven and new Earth. This vision, that had first been seen and recorded by prophets in Babylon, was now celebrated in the Book of Psalms, that wonderful collection of hymns ancient and modern designed for use in the new Temple that Zerubbabel built in Jerusalem [between 520 and 515 B.C.E.]. All illness, all wickedness will be banished from the earth, they tell us; Jehovah's Law will be written not on papyrus not on scrolls of vellum but on men's hearts, so that they will grow in understanding of their G-d. It was a dream of paradise, a paradise prepared for the nation that kept Jehovah's Law." - John Romer, Testament
"The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: 'One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies which I shall teach them, their sons also for ever shall sit upon your throne.' For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his habitation: 'This is my resting place for ever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provisions; I will satisfy her poor with bread. Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints will shout for joy. There I will make a horn to sprout for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but upon himself his crown will shed its luster'." - Psalms 132:11-18
"...The author of 4 Ezra [350 B.C.E.] unmistakably refers to the Messiah...when he puts words in the mouth of G-d to the effect that after four hundred years (counted from when?) My son the Messiah shall die." -Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts
"And whosoever is delivered from the predicted evil shall see My wonders. For My son, the Messiah, shall be revealed, together with those who are with him, and shall gladden the survivors four hundred years. And it shall be, after those years, that My son, the Messiah, shall die, and all in whom there is human breath. Then shall the world be turned into the primeval silence seven days, as it was at the first beginnings..." -4 Ezra 7:27-30
"How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings the news, announcing peace, bringing good news, announcing salvation, saying to Zion, 'Your G-d reigns as king!'" - Isaiah 52:7
"The Sibylline Oracles comprise various Jewish and Christian poems, written in Greek and purporting to be the (often political and minatory) prophecies of various famous prophetesses of the ancient world."
The Third Sibylline Oracle, "written around the middle of the 2nd century BC in Egypt...tells how G-d sends a savior king who puts an end to all war and grants deliverance to the Jews. The reference is to some Hellenistic Egyptian ruler, either Ptolemy VI Philometor or his successor. The concluding section of the oracle prophesies a kingdom that G-d will raise up. The hopes of Isaiah are echoed as the Jerusalem temple becomes the goal of pilgrimage for all the nations, the conditions of paradise return, and universal peace prevails....All this is done by G-d, who is referred to throughout the oracle as 'the great King'. Additions were made to the Third Oracle in the 1st century BC. They prophesy the coming of a 'holy prince' who will rule over a universal kingdom, inaugurated by the fiery judgment of 'the great king, immortal G-d.' Again all this takes place on Earth." - John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 2.
"The Egyptian Sibylline tradition is remarkable for its lack of the otherworldly dimension so characteristic of the apocalyptic literature. There is no talk of angels and no expectation of resurrection." - John J. Collins, "The Kingdom of G-d in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha"
If you are somewhat acquainted with the history of Israel you are familiar with the captivity of Israel by Babylon. You might think that assimilation of "pagan-ideas" into Jewish beliefs only began with the Babylon captivity but I can assure you that is not true. Ever since Israel became a nation following the Egyptian experience and the Exodus we find the assimilation of neighboring Gentile country's religious beliefs in with the Jew's religious beliefs. It might be best said that the Jewish people were not against "borrowing religious beliefs" from those in which they had contact; either through travel, trade, war, etc. I realize that this is not comforting especially in light of the traditional Christian teaching that Israel was G-d's chosen people but the facts of archeology, Biblical history, linguistics, textual analysis, etc., all tell the same story. What is important for our study is the fact that the multitude of various religious concept concerning "the" Jewish Messiah were not an original idea with them. Many of these "beliefs" concerning the Messiah were picked up along the history of the nation by the various methods described above.
So as I have shown you the concepts of the Messiah are drawn from many ancient beliefs...some of which were pagan concepts.
Answer for yourself: Does this fact destroy the whole of the "Messianic concept" of Israel? No!
This does not discount the reality of the coming redeemer promised by Samuel to David. But we need to be aware that the picture of the Messiah we have inherited from our churches and synagogues are build upon many different manifestations of "redeemer" type figures. What should concern both the Jew and the Christian is the ability to "filter out" those aspects of solar-myths which have become attached to the Jewish concept of the Messianic Redeemer over time. To this effort Bet Emet Ministries has devoted itself and continues to present such information to our valued readership. More in other articles in this series. Shalom.