(urth) IROSF

[brunians at brunians.org]

>> Significantly, there is the Christian idea of the Messiah being God
>> Incarnate, which idea is anathema to the Jews, and the Jewish conception,
>> which is much more that of a national redeemer, someone who restores the
>> nation - sort of like Cyrus did.

> Absolutely. But within Judaism itself there seem to have been variant
> Messiah understandings -- for example, the stipulation in Isaiah 11
> that the awaited Messiah would be Jewish and of the line of David,
> irreconcilable with the acclamation of Cyrus as Messiah in Isaiah 45.
> It is a complex issue, particularly when we don't know exactly when
> the relevant texts were written, or (as in the case of Isaiah)
> suspect they were cobbled together from several authors over a lengthy
> period.

> My point really was, though, that while many Jews of the Soldier
> setting would have been looking back to Cyrus as the good old Messiah
> that was, we can expect that plenty of others would have been looking
> forward to the next one.

That's pretty reasonable on the face of it and I am unaware of any
evidence against it.




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