Jews Not For Jesus

Already let's get something very clear here. We can debate whether or not Jews ever accepted Agrippa as the messiah of Israel. I think that ANY secular ruler of the Jews was a mashiach. I think the debates in the rabbinic literature about whether or not Agrippa COULD be accepted as a ruler of the Jews owing to the status of his grandfather (remember the tradition does not acknowledge the Christian concept viz. the manuscripts of the 'synergoi' of Josephus which argue for two Agrippas - i.e. father and son) necessarily decide the question of Agrippa's messiahood. You can't have the sages accept you as king of Israel if you are of the line of David (as Agrippa was) and then turn around and say you weren't 'qualified enough' to be the messiah. But that's another argument ...

The point is that my thesis is up for debate. The assumption of some scholars that there were 'Jewish Christians' who accepted Jesus as the messiah in some sense is ludicrous. This position doesn't even deserve a new response from me. You can read an earlier post on this 'controversy' (controversy? what controversy? a controversy would imply there is another's another 'side' to consider) here.

The problem for Christians is this. If it is the ignorant Gentiles who initiated the argument that Jesus was the messiah, the 'Jesus Christ' tradition did not begin with Jesus. You have to find at least one Jew from Jesus' inner circle who put forward this complete misapplication of the term mashiach which is impossible. So what are you left with? The creation of the 'Jesus Christ' tradition only after Christianity had spread to the Gentiles and indeed only after it was established as a separate religious tradition which to me means mid to late second century.

So let's focus on the second part of this formulation. If 'Jewish Christians' didn't posit the understanding that Jesus was their messiah, who was their 'real messiah'? This is the issue which so frustrates me with Eisenman's approach to Christianity (the only other Jew I can think of who bothers to think about 'Christianity in a Jewish setting').

You can argue that Jewish converts thought that Jesus was 'just a prophet' or 'just a teacher' - but if you leave it just there then this 'sect' wasn't a messianic movement. If it wasn't a messianic movement then the original Evangelist (whoever he was) wouldn't have had the authority to write the gospel (which as the title suggests was the announcement of the arrival or coming of the messiah).

Indeed those who argue that the Jews just thought Jesus 'taught stuff' without accepting him in some proto-Islamic way as the announcer of the 'one to come' just end up muddying the waters.

The original 'Jewish Christian' tradition was that Jesus was the herald of the advent of a messiah who was coming 'just now' (imagine Islam if Mohammed arrived in 60 CE rather than 600 CE).

There is no other way to interpret the evidence. You can't just go by what the Church Fathers ALLOW to get out. There couldn't be a 'Jewish Christianity' - where 'Christianity' necessarily means 'messianic religion' unless the tradition believed the messiah had already arrived (remember the gospel is the story of the arrival of the messiah where Jesus announces the Son of Man in the third person and the Son of Man appears in the final act).