Sidebar

[boxcar]

As stated in 5705, the vast majority of Jews believed a couple of things about the promised "anointed" one -- the promised messiah. Most believed that the messiah would be a descendant of King David and as such occupy the Davidic throne. They also believed that this messiah would restore Israel and vanquish her enemies, that this king would greatly resemble the nation's greatest warrior-king and defender of Israel, King David himself.

The second very important point to understand about Israel's messiah is the great significance to being God's anointed one. When Israel's kings were chosen by God and inaugurated on their throne, there was a royal ceremony of anointing usually performed by the High Priest or a prophet of God. In the cases of Saul (Israel's first king) and David (the second king), both were anointed by the prophet Samuel. This ceremony used costly perfumed oil which would be poured over the heads of the kings. This costly oil signified God's favor, blessing and approval upon the king. In a real sense it signified the outpouring of God's Holy Spirit upon the king and it was expected of the king to rule and judge the people in the righteousness of God's Law and to protect all the oppressed.

Many of the messianic passages dealing with the royalty of God's anointed one can be found in the Psalms. See Psalms 2, 45, 72 and 110 for starters.
And the core of the Davidic Covenant promises God made with King David can be found in 2Sam 7:4ff. God promised David that his throne would be established forever. In light of these promises and messianic prophecies in the OT, we can begin to understand all the kingdom teachings of Jesus, including all the kingdom parables, and why he preached the Gospel of the kingdom of God! Jesus certainly saw himself as fulfilling the covenant promise his Father had made with King David about a 1,000 years or so earlier.

But it's not only in the Hebrew canon of scripture that we find this messianic kingship motif, but also in extra-biblical Hebrew writings. These writings, too, show how ingrained the kingship of the messiah was in the national psyche of Israel. Ehrman points this out in his book and so he quoted extensively from the Psalms of Solomon, which I will duplicate here.

See, Lord, and raise up for them their king, the son of David, to rule over your servant Israel in the time known to you, O God.

Undergird him with the strength to destroy the unrighteous rulers, to purge Jerusalem from from gentiles who trample her to destruction; in wisdom and in righteousness to drive out the sinners from the inheritance; to smash the arrogance of sinners like a potter's jar; to shatter all their substance with an iron rod; to destroy the unlawful nations with the word of his mouth; at his warning the nations will flee from his presence; and he will condemn sinners by the thoughts of his heart...

And he will have gentile nations serving him under his yoke...

And he will purge Jerusalem and make it holy as it was even from the beginning...

And he will be a righteous king over them, taught by God. There will be no unrighteousness among them in his days, for all shall be holy and their king shall be the Lord Messiah.

A couple of things -- Ehrman and other scholars date this psalm as being written in the first century BCE. This dating seems reasonable given the reference above to purge Jerusalem of the Gentiles who trample her to destruction. This psalm was very likely penned shortly after Roman occupation.

Also, it's clear that the composer of this psalm was alluding to various passages in the Hebrew scriptures themselves. We can know this, for example, from the use of the phrase "iron rod" -- a phrase that is used in the OT (cf. Ps 2:9). There are other phrases, too, the composer used, but time won't permit discussing those.

To be sure, there were other Jewish views relevant to the form the Jewish messiah would take when he came into the world. But again, time won't permit a discussion of those. Suffice to say, the the couple of other views were very much in the minority. The vast majority of Jews who believed in a coming messiah believed he would come as a warrior-king -- a conquering king who would deliver Israel from her enemies and restore to her to her former glory. This was the predominant view of the Jewish messiah.

Now...take a deep breath. Try to absorb what I have written here -- what the great hope and expectation of the Jewish world was when Christ entered it. And try to put yourself back into first century Israel. And remember, this great hope, huge expectation and eager anticipation were all greatly excited by the fact that the Jews longed to be out from under the yoke of Rome. And not only this, but some devout, pious, God-fearing Jews also generally understood from Daniel 9 and the Seventy Weeks Prophecy contained therein that their messiah was due to come onto the world stage momentarily.

So what happens? Well, the Gospels tell us. Jesus came, started up a ministry of preaching for three years, excited a lot people, gained quite a few followers but greatly angered many more because he presented a threat to their power and authority. Jesus was to the Jewish religious establishment what Donald Trump is to political establishment in D.C. -- a rank outsider! In the case of Christ, he did not tow their religious line. So...they had to get rid of him because every day he was building momentum among the people. He was becoming more popular. So, the Jewish establishment plotted and schemed and they brought false charges up against him to Pontius Pilate, who albeit reluctantly had him crucified publicly.

So given everything we have learned about what most Jews believed about their coming messiah, and how he would be the blessed one and favored one by God -- God's chosen and anointed king -- how in the world can his small band of core followers, subsequent to his shameful and humiliating death, preach their messiah CRUCIFIED and expect anyone to not consider them madly insane!? But more than this: How did they ever get anyone to listen to them!? How was this small, rag-tag ban of fishermen-disciples able to convert thousands of Jews shortly after Jesus' ascension? And how was it that the Jewish religious authorities were not able to easily expose the fraudulent nature of their preaching, given what they thought they knew about the nature of the coming messiah? Why couldn't the powerful religious establishment reveal the Jesus sect's preaching for hoax, mythicists say it was?

Remember what I said earlier, folks: The motif of messianic kingship was deeply ingrained into the national psyche of Israel. The religious authorities should have had no problems at all in bringing the vast majority of the Jesus followers back down to planet earth. After all, their "glorious" messiah, who had a way with words, nevertheless just got himself crucified!

To any honest thinker, something really doesn't add up here. Something stinks in Denmark. It wasn't as though Jesus came into ancient Palestine that was in a religious vacuum where it would have been relatively easy to pull the wool over people's eyes. Rather he came into the Jewish world -- unto his own people -- who had very strong and definite ideas of what their messiah would look like in terms of his character, authority, mission and office. The elite, educated, polished, sophisticated Jewish religious authorities should have been the 1-10 shot favorites to easily correct the misconceptions of the uneducated, unwashed masses. God only knows...they had enough scriptural and extra-biblical evidence on their side to show that God would never have cursed his messiah -- but rather he would have "anointed" him and we saw what that meant. I will leave one text for you all to ponder before taking my leave. This text being, perhaps, the primary reason why Paul at first rejected the messiah. Perhaps Paul could not, in his own mind, reconcile the curse of God on one hand with His blessing and favor and approval on the other. Paul in the bold highlighted part is probably alluding to Josh 10:26-27

Gal 3:10-14
10 For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them." 11 Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, " The righteous man shall live by faith. " 12 However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, "He who practices them shall live by them." 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us — for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree" — 14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
NASB

To most Jewish minds the idea of a crucified Christ would have been extremely offensive to them. Jesus would have been repugnant to them, and it would never have entered their minds to bless or approve or accept what God had cursed! So..how on this little green planet did that small band of Jesus followers ever spread the gospel to convert thousands of Jews in Palestine and then take the gospel throughout the Roman empire to convert only God know how many more all these centuries? How were they able to overcome this seeming insurmountable obstacle of a crucified Christ with their fellow Jews and convert thousands of them?