Download or read book Disputed Messiahs written by Rebekka Voß and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jewish and Christian messianic thought and activism in the Reformation era in the Ashkenazic world. Disputed Messiahs: Jewish and Christian Messianism in the Ashkenazic Worldduring the Reformation is the first comprehensive study that situates Jewish messianism in its broader cultural, social, and religious contexts within the surrounding Christian society. By doing so, Rebekka Voß shows how the expressions of Jewish and Christian end-time expectation informed one another. Although the two groups disputed the different messiahs they awaited, they shared principal hopes and fears relating to the end of days. Drawing on a great variety of both Jewish and Christian sources in Hebrew, Yiddish, German, and Latin, the book examines how Jewish and Christian messianic ideology and politics were deeply linked. It explores how Jews and Christians each reacted to the other's messianic claims, apocalyptic beliefs, and eschatological interpretations, and how they adapted their own views of the last days accordingly. This comparative study of the messianic expectations of Jews and Christians in the Ashkenazic world during the Reformation and their entanglements contributes a new facet to our understanding of cultural transfer between Jews and Christians in the early modern period. Disputed Messiahs includes four main parts. The first part characterizes the specific context of Jewish messianism in Germany and defines the Christian perception of Jewish messianic hope. The next two parts deal with case studies of Jewish messianic expectation in Germany, Italy and Poland. While the second part focuses on the messianic phenomenon of the prophet Asher Lemlein, part 3 is divided into five chapters, each devoted to a case of interconnected Jewish-Christian apocalyptic belief and activity. Each case study is a representative example used to demonstrate the interplay of Jewish and Christian eschatological expectations. The final part presents Voß's general conclusions, carving out the remarkable paradox of a relationship between Jewish and Christian messianism that is controversial, albeit fertile. Scholars and students of history, culture, and religion are the intended audience for this book.
Download or read book The Messiah Myth written by Thomas L. Thompson and published by . This book was released on 2009-04-20 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the eighteenth century, scholars and historians studying the texts of the Bible have attempted to distill historical facts and biography from the mythology and miracles described there. That trend continues into the present day, as scholars such as those of the "Jesus Seminar" dissect the Gospels and other early Christian writings to separate the "Jesus of history" from the "Christ of faith." But with The Messiah Myth, noted Biblical scholar Thomas L. Thompson argues that the quest for the historical Jesus is beside the point, since the Jesus of the Gospels never existed.Like King David before him, says Thompson, the Jesus of the Bible is an amalgamation of themes from Near Eastern mythology and traditions of kingship and divinity. The theme of a messiah-a divinely appointed king who restores the world to perfection-is typical of Egyptian and Babylonian royal ideology dating back to the Bronze Age. In Thompson's view, the contemporary audience for whom the Old and New Testament were written would naturally have interpreted David and Jesus not as historical figures, but as metaphors embodying long-established messianic traditions. Challenging widely held assumptions about the sources of the Bible and the quest for the historical Jesus, The Messiah Myth is sure to spark interest and heated debate.
Download or read book The False Messiahs written by Jack Gratus and published by Orion. This book was released on 1975 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Messiah Confrontation written by Israel Knohl and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2022-11 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2023 Top Ten Book from the Academy of Parish Clergy The Messiah Confrontation casts new and fascinating light on why Jesus was killed. Grounded in meticulous research on the messianism debates in the Bible and during the Second Temple period, biblical scholar Israel Knohl argues that Jesus's trial was in reality a dramatic clash between two Jewish groups holding opposing ideologies of messianism and anti-messianism, with both ideologies running through the Bible. The Pharisees (forefathers of the rabbinic sages) and most of the Jewish people had a conception of a Messiah similar to Jesus: like the prophets and most psalmists, they expected the arrival of a godlike Messiah. However, the judges who sentenced Jesus to death were Sadducees, who were fighting with the Pharisees largely because they repudiated the Messiah idea. Thus, the trial of Jesus was not a clash between Jewish and what would become Christian doctrines but a confrontation between two internal Jewish positions--expecting a Messiah or rejecting the Messiah idea--in which Jesus and the Pharisees were actually on the same side. Knohl contends that had the assigned judges been Pharisees rather than Sadducees, Jesus would not have been convicted and crucified. The Pharisees' disagreement with Jesus was solely over whether Jesus was the Messiah--but historically, for Jews, arguing about who was or wasn't the Messiah was not uncommon. The Messiah Confrontation has far-reaching consequences for the relationship between Christians and Jews.
Download or read book Rogue Messiahs written by Colin Wilson and published by Hampton Roads Publishing Company. This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout history, Western culture has been bedeviled by false prophets, charlatans, and self-appointed messianic figures. Their appetites for destruction and depravity have led to broken lives and worse-mass suicide and even mass murder. Why does this occur again and again? In Rogue Messiahs, Colin Wilson compellingly recounts the stories and outrageous claims, acts, and abuses of 25 self-proclaimed messiahs who have arisen in the last 300 years. He uncovers the probable factors that turn earnest religious leaders, mystics, or well-intentioned cult leaders into violent, abusive, murderous, and paranoid rogue messiahs. This gallery of spiritual fakers includes many familiar names and faces: David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidians; Shoko Asahara, founder of the Aum Supreme Truth cult; Rev. Jim Jones; founder of the infamous Jonestown; Jeffrey Don Lundgren, Mormon con man and murderer; Ervil LeBaron and family, deranged cultist, prophets, and murderers; Rock Theriault, late twentieth-century French Canadian self-proclaimed messiah. Further, Wilson includes a study of others who achieved spiritual insight instead of destruction, and demonstrates that mayhem and benevolence are often two sides of the same coin. These would-be messiahs, in Wilson's analysis, are all driven by a childish dream of absolute power. Almost always, they cross the line from inspiration to paranoia, and from the teaching to killing-genuine aspiration mixed with self-deception, says Wilson. This is an incisive review of the motives and madness of cult leaders, spiritual con men, and would-be saviors.
Download or read book The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant written by Michael J. Gorman and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2014-06-27 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking book, Michael Gorman asks why there is no theory or model of the atonement called the "new-covenant" model, since this understanding of the atonement is likely the earliest in the Christian tradition, going back to Jesus himself. Gorman argues that most models of the atonement over-emphasize the penultimate purposes of Jesus' death and the "mechanics" of the atonement, rather than its ultimate purpose: to create a transformed, Spirit-filled people of God. The New Testament's various atonement metaphors are part of a remarkably coherent picture of Jesus' death as that which brings about the new covenant (and thus the new community) promised by the prophets, which is also the covenant of peace. Gorman therefore proposes a new model of the atonement that is really not new at all--the new-covenant model. He argues that this is not merely an ancient model in need of rediscovery, but also a more comprehensive, integrated, participatory, communal, and missional model than any of the major models in the tradition. Life in this new covenant, Gorman argues, is a life of communal and individual participation in Jesus' faithful, loving, peacemaking death. Written for both academics and church leaders, this book will challenge all who read it to re-think and re-articulate the meaning of Christ's death for us.
Download or read book Christ Among the Messiahs written by Matthew V. Novenson and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2012-04-17 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He then traces the rise and fall of "the messianic idea"' in Jewish studies and gives an alternative account of early Jewish messiah language: the convention worked because there existed both an accessible pool of linguistic resources and a community of competent language users. Whereas it is commonly objected that the normal rules for understanding "christos" do not apply in the case of Paul since he uses the word as a name rather than a title, Novenson shows that "christos" in Paul is neither a name nor a title but rather a Greek honorific, like Epiphanes or Augustus. Focusing on several set phrases that have been taken as evidence that Paul either did or did not use "christos" in its conventional sense, Novenson concludes that the question cannot be settled at the level of formal grammar. Examining nine passages in which Paul comments on how he means the word "christos", Novenson shows that they do all that we normally expect any text to do to count as a messiah text.
Download or read book Messiahs Christian and Pagan written by Wilson Dallam Wallis and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Talmud in Dispute During the High Middle Ages written by Fidora, Alexander and published by Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. This book was released on 2019-12-17 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Christian discovery of the Babylonian Talmud is a significant landmark in the long and complex history of anti-Jewish polemic. While the Talmudic corpus developed in the same period as early Christianity, this post-biblical text was largely unknown to the Christians. Full awareness of the Talmud among Christian authors did not arise until the late 1230s, when the Jewish convert Nicholas Donin presented a Latin translation of Talmudic fragments to Pope Gregory IX. Though the Talmud was subsequently put on trial (1240) and burnt (1241/2) in Paris, the controversy surrounding it continued over the following years, as Pope Innocent IV called for a revision of its condemnation. The textual basis for this revision is the Extractiones de Talmud, that is, a Latin translation of 1.922 Talmudic fragments. The articles in this volume shed new light on this monumental translation and its historical context. They also offer critical editions of related texts, such as Donin’s anti-Talmudic polemic. Authors of the contributions are: Wout van Bekkum, Piero Capelli, Ulisse Cecini, Enric Cortès, Óscar de la Cruz Palma, Federico Dal Bo, Alexander Fidora, Görge K. Hasselhoff, Moisés Orfali, Ursula Ragacs and Eulàlia Vernet i Pons.
Download or read book Connecting Histories written by Francesca Bregoli and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2019-04-05 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether forced by governmental decree, driven by persecution and economic distress, or seeking financial opportunity, the Jews of early modern Europe were extraordinarily mobile, experiencing both displacement and integration into new cultural, legal, and political settings. This, in turn, led to unprecedented modes of social mixing for Jews, especially for those living in urban areas, who frequently encountered Jews from different ethnic backgrounds and cultural orientations. Additionally, Jews formed social, economic, and intellectual bonds with mixed populations of Christians. While not necessarily effacing Jewish loyalties to local places, authorities, and customs, these connections and exposures to novel cultural settings created new allegiances as well as new challenges, resulting in constructive relations in some cases and provoking strife and controversy in others. The essays collected by Francesca Bregoli and David B. Ruderman in Connecting Histories show that while it is not possible to speak of a single, cohesive transregional Jewish culture in the early modern period, Jews experienced pockets of supra-local connections between West and East—for example, between Italy and Poland, Poland and the Holy Land, and western and eastern Ashkenaz—as well as increased exchanges between high and low culture. Special attention is devoted to the impact of the printing press and the strategies of representation and self-representation through which Jews forged connections in a world where their status as a tolerated minority was ambiguous and in constant need of renegotiation. Exploring the ways in which early modern Jews related to Jews from different backgrounds and to the non-Jews around them, Connecting Histories emphasizes not only the challenging nature and impact of these encounters but also the ambivalence experienced by Jews as they met their others. Contributors: Michela Andreatta, Francesca Bregoli, Joseph Davis, Jesús de Prado Plumed, Andrea Gondos, Rachel L. Greenblatt, Gershon David Hundert, Fabrizio Lelli, Moshe Idel, Debra Kaplan, Lucia Raspe, David B. Ruderman, Pavel Sládek.
Download or read book There Is No Messiah And You re It written by Robert N. Levine and published by Jewish Lights Publishing. This book was released on 2005-02 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The coming of the messiah is anticipated by millions of people of many faiths as the ultimate salve for our spiritual lives and as a way to finally make the world a better place. There Is No Messiah?and You?re It examines the history of messianic hope and anticipation, its evolution in Judaism and Jewish history, and other interpretations of ?messiah? that shed new light on what it means to usher in the ?kingdom of God.? This fascinating book is our call to see ourselves as the fulfillment of, not the anticipators of, messianic change. Drawing from the Bible, the Talmud, rabbinic sources, and modern-day scholars, Rabbi Levine provides a fascinating understanding of messianic vision, as well as false messiahs throughout Jewish history. He challenges the powerful idea of messiah that has survived in the heart and ethos of the Jewish people, and reveals the immediacy of messianic presence in our day.
Download or read book The Nonviolent Messiah written by Simon J. Joseph and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2014-06-02 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When scholars have set Jesus against various conceptions of the “messiah” and other redemptive figures in early Jewish expectation, those questions have been bound up with the problem of violence, whether the political violence of a militant messiah or the divine violence carried out by a heavenly or angelic figure. Missing from those discussions, Simon J. Joseph contends, are the unique conceptions of an Adamic redeemer figure in the Enochic material—conceptions that informed the Q tradition and, he argues, Jesus’ own self-understanding.
Download or read book Banished Messiah written by Robert R. Beck and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By arguing that Matthew's Gospel can be read as a "homecoming story" according to the ancient formula of the "Banished and Returning Prince," Robert Beck offers a fresh and provocative reinterpretation of the Gospel. He exploits this understanding of the narrative to disclose new elements within the plot, to identify a fresh resolution to conflict development within the tale, and to arrive at an unprecedented explanation of the place of violence and nonviolence within Matthew's text. The traditional roles of Usurper, Impostor, and Mentor are examined for insight into what Matthew's narrative achieves as well as, perhaps more importantly, what it excludes in the way of cultural expectations of violent reprisal.
Download or read book The Real Messiah written by Stephan Huller and published by Watkins Media Limited. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Highly controversial but impeccably researched, The Real Messiah explodes the myth that Jesus was the long-prophesied Messiah of the Jewish nation. Indeed, it argues that Jesus never claimed that role but thought of himself as herald to the true Messiah: Marcus Julius Agrippa, the last King of the Jews and Jesus’ contemporary. It was he who truly founded what became known as Christianity, and wanted to build a faith to which anyone could aspire. Though Marcus Agrippa was initially successful, with the passing of time those in charge of the new faith capitulated to the whims of successive Roman Emperors and centered their religion on Jesus instead.
Download or read book The Jewish Messiah written by James Drummond and published by . This book was released on 1877 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book There Is No Messiah and You re It written by Rabbi Robert N. Levine and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2012-08-20 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A challenge to each of us to take personal responsibility for repairing the world. "We are taught that every one of us is created in the divine image. All of us can be holy through imitating God.... So, you don’t have to look around or look away. You don’t have to wait for someone to come and do what you were put on this earth to do in the first place. Judaism empowers you, as one of God’s anointed ones, to do more than you ever dreamed possible." —from Chapter 1 The coming of the messiah is anticipated by millions of people of many faiths as the ultimate salve for our spiritual lives and as a way to finally make the world a better place. There Is No Messiah...and You’re It examines the history of messianic hope and anticipation, its evolution in Judaism and Jewish history, and other interpretations of “messiah” that shed new light on what it means to usher in the “kingdom of God.” This fascinating book is our call to see ourselves as the fulfillment of, not the anticipators of, messianic change. Drawing from the Bible, the Talmud, rabbinic sources, and modern-day scholars, Rabbi Robert Levine provides us with an accessible, fascinating understanding of messianic vision, as well as false messiahs throughout Jewish history. He challenges the powerful idea of messiah that has survived in the heart, soul, and ethos of the Jewish people, and reveals the immediacy of the messianic presence in our day—in our own lives. Compelling and controversial, There Is No Messiah...and You’re It inspires us to embody the noblest values of Jewish tradition—prayer, study, mitzvoth, and tzedakah—and embrace our own messianic potential to heal the world.
Download or read book The Elusive Messiah written by Raymond Martin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-05 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What might the findings of researchers engaged in the quest for the historical Jesus mean to Christians? In posing this question and others, The Elusive Messiah opens a window for looking anew at the age old problem of faith vs. reason.To fully understand the implications of the historical search, Raymond Martin suggests we must first examine the inquiries of the individual scholars. In the book's first section, he provides an insightful overview into the major players who have written on the subject, among them E. P. Sanders, John Meier, Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, J. D. Crossan, and Luke Timothy Johnson.In his second section, Martin discusses various Christian responses to the challenges presented by the historians' work. Martin goes on to argue philosophically that faith and reason are able to coexist alongside each other, and then suggests how this may be the key to Christianity's future.Through readily understandable language and examples, Martin poses basic questions, looks for the answers, and explains how these answers correspond to the overall problem. His accessible writing synthesizes complex academic arguments in ways that bring them down to earth, enabling Christians and other readers to understand what is being claimed and to test these claims for meaningfulness.
