Messianic fevor before Christ's ministry

Dr. Michael Wise (famed translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls) taught a Sunday School class of mine about a decade ago. He had just written a book "The First Messiah: Investigating the Savior Before Jesus." In it he tells of The Teacher of Righteousness at the Qumran community. He was the first recorded Messianic figure.

The Sept/Oct 2008 BAR, (pp. 58-62) article The Messiah Son of Joseph (also called "Gabriel's Revelation") reports of a tablet from Jesus Christ's era, telling of a Son of Joseph that would be the suffering servant, would rise from the dead in 3 days, would institute righteousness and cause a general resurrection

----The following three quotes are from the above article -----------------------
'In "Gabriel's Revelation," the Lord addresses David, asking him to request of Ephraim that he place a sign: "My servant David, ask of Ephraim [that he p]lace the sign ..." (Line 16-17). ... the fact that David is sent by God to request Ephraim to place the sign may attest that Ephraim has superior rank. He, and not David, is the key person who is asked to place the sign; David is only the messenger!' (BAR p. 60)

"By three days you shall know that thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, the evil has been broken by righteousness" (Lines 19-21) (BAR p. 60)

'"In three days, live, I, Gabriel, command you." ... Ada Yardeni has since agreed with this reading of hayeh and with the translation ... The archangel is ordering someone to rise from the dead within three days.'
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This is a link to another article about false messiahs
http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/jdtabor/4Q521.html
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Daniel 7:13-14 predicted the Messiah would receive authority - and more importantly (reading this as a Christian) he would be worshiped (as part of the Trinity).
"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

In Daniel 9, God gave a clear time indicator for the coming of the Messiah with the prophecy of the 70 7's (weeks) of years. The prophecy states that the Messiah would be cut off 69.5 "weeks" (486.5 years) after the command to rebuild Jerusalem. The Jews didn't have the meticulous calendar and dating system we have but they knew that the Messiah should appear near the time that Jesus did.

I heard in a lecture that, in the 1st century, about 16 people were held forth as Messiahs.

An atheist can claim that Jesus was just caught up in the Messianic fervor.
I would claim that SOMEONE was going to be the divinely sent Messiah, Jesus was the true Messiah and the "other Messiahs" are evidence of the trust the Jews had in the prophecy.

http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/messiah/other-historically-significant-jewish-messiah-claimants.html

Interesting quote from B.C.

This quote is from the Sept/Oct 2008 BAR, page 36:

Theophrastus (372-288 B.C) remarks that "being a race of philosophers, they converse with each other about divinity, and during the night they view the stars, turning their eyes to them and invoking their God with prayers."

On Piety, cited by Poryphry, third century A.D., in

On Abstinence, 2.26. Meyer Reinhold and Lousi Feldman,

Jewish Life and Thought Among Greeks and Romans

(Mpls: Fortress Press, 1996), primary readings, p.7.

In Exodus 19:6a, God says that Israel "will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

It is fun (a rejoicing kind) to see that the Jewish nation was known by others as a people interested in divinity.

In the New Testament, Peter states that those in Christ "are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)

We are called to be declarers of God's excellencies to the world. Oh that modern historians could write of us, that we loved the [true] divinity!

Creation

"The energy budget of the universe is the total amount of energy and matter in the whole cosmos added up. ... the Universe is 72.1% dark energy, 23.3% dark matter, and 4.62% normal matter. ... everything you can see, taste, hear, touch, just sense in any way ... is less than 5% of the whole Universe.



In other words ... science and rational materialist philosophy is only relevant to five percent of what we currently consider to be all known Creation. Combined with its complete inapplicability to abstract concepts such as justice, equality, and freedom, this shows that even attempting to build a social order on a secular basis is not only doomed to failure, but is quite arguably insane."

Vox Day Website, Vox Popoli, March 8, 2008

from The Journal , by Summit Ministries, August 2008

Global Warming

"On May Day, Noah Keenlyside of Germany's Leipzig Institute of Marine Science, published a paper in Nature forecasting no additional global warming 'over the next decade.' ... that there has not been any since 1998."

Patrick J. Michaels, The Washington Times, May 16, 2008, P. A21

Folks, we've had one full decade with NO increase in global temperatures!

AND

They do not expect any increase over the next decade!

"Let me recommend Roy W. Spencer's, article "Global Warming and Nature's Thermostat" at http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm Spencer notes that Al Gore says humans put 70 million tons of carbon dioxide (humans breathe!) into the atmosphere every day. What Gore doesn't say is that mother nature puts 24,000 time that amount of grenhouse gases into the atmosphere every day as well!"

both quote are from The Journal , by Summit Ministries, August 2008

Opportunity

"Thomas Edison once said, 'Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.'"

National Review, June 30, 2008, p. 51

from The Journal , by Summit Ministries, August 2008

Inflation

"Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owner a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into its arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, baked by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it."

Ayn Rand

"By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. The process engages all of the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner that not one man in a million can diagnose."

John Maynard Keynes

both from The Journal , by Summit Ministries, August 2008

Miracles

"No doubt most stories of Miracles are unreliable, but then, as anyone can see by reading the papers, so are most stories of all events. Each story must be taken on its merits: what one must not do is to rule out the supernatural as the one impossible explanation."

C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock, p. 27

from The Journal , by Summit Ministries, August 2008