Nadene Goldfoot
Back in September 1951, I attended Lewis & Clark College, a Presbyterian one, in Portland, Oregon, and took as a history requirement a class on the Old and New Testament, taught by an Oriental professor, so I thought it would be quite historic and non-proselytizing, and it was, but I was just 17 when I had started, and my eyes see a lot more today, though I'm 88 now. Time to re-examine my old college bible.
It's noteworthy that I explain the Jewish Messiah first: Messiah is an adjective referring to kings. Kings are anointed. He is the anointed one, the ultimate deliverer. The anointment allows the king to receive Divine sanctions and a unique inviolability of station. He is also a man; nothing else.
High Priests were also anointed and in exiled times, it implied anyone with a special mission from G-d like the patriarchs, prophets, the Jewish people, even gentiles such as Cyrus the Mede.
Among the many uses of olive oil in ancient times was its use as an anointing oil. In fact, olive oil continues to be prominently used in religious ceremonies in the Jewish and Christian churches to this very day. The Bible describes many of the types of uses of olive oil, specifically its temple uses in Exodus.
Why use olive oil for anointing? There were a variety of reasons.
First and foremost, olive oil had a tremendous symbolic value to the Hebrews. It could indicate honor and joy. If you poured oil on another person’s head, you were wishing them happiness. This is described in numerous Psalms, such as Psalm 23, 92, 45, and 104.
Olive oil was also a symbol of life. A person who recovered from leprosy had to place olive oil on his or her right ear, right thumb, and right big toe after placing blood on each of those places. The oil would then be poured over the leper’s head as a sign of atonement before the Lord, a ceremony that is described in full in Leviticus 14. Jewish tradition indicates to us that the oil was symbolic of the leper coming back from “the dead,” as leprosy was essentially a death sentence and forced people to live a life apart from the rest of society.
After the exile of Jews, the prophetic vision of the universal establishment of G-d's kingdom was associated with the ingathering of Israel under a scion of David's House, who would be the Lord's anointed.
In the period of Roman rule the expectation of a personal Messiah acquired great prominence and he assumed the character of a descendant of David who would break the alien yoke and establish a golden age. the messianic figure was the center of a large number of eschatological concepts, and is reflected in the body of Hellenistic Jewish pseudepigraphic (falsely or wrongly attributed.) literature from the 1st century CE.
From 66 to 70 CE, life was on the edge. The First Jewish–Roman War ended with destruction of the Second Temple and the fall of Jerusalem. 1,100,000 people are killed by the Romans during the siege, and 97,000 captured and enslaved. The Sanhedrin was relocated to Yavne by Yochanan ben Zakai, see also Council of Jamnia. Fiscus Judaicus levied on all Jews of the Roman Empire whether they aided the revolt or not.
Messianic emotionalism became intense shortly before 70 CE. It was a period of many false Messiahs appearing. When the 2nd Temple and city of Jerusalem were destroyed in 70 CE, the belief grew even stronger.
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Frequent predictions of when the Messiah would appear were based on the Book of Daniel and other biblical passages. The widespread Jewish revolt of 115-117 certainly had a messianic content and during the last revolt against the Romans, Aluf Bar Kokhba was acclaimed the Messiah. He had held Jerusalem from 132 to 135 when he was killed in battle.
I see that Matthew, the first part, was a genealogist, as he cites how Jesus was a Jew and his ancestry as he knew of it. It has add-ons that are not found in the Jewish genealogy used to prove a connection to the line. Matthew is a classic boy's name stemming from Hebrew origins, meaning “gift of God.” ” Bearing strong biblical ties, Matthew was one of the 12 apostles, and the author of the Gospel of Matthew. His parents may have been typical Jews, but he became hellenized.
He notes that from Abraham to David is 14 generations, and from David to the Babylonian Exile 14, and from the Babylonian Exile to the Christ, 14. Christianity teaches that It is clear that the Messiah must come from the line of David, but nothing in the Jewish texts require him to be any particular generation. A messiah in Judaism is completely different from the Christian Messiah.
This is the first of using the name, Christ, as if all understand the meaning or use. Also, this is the first to use Jesus. Jesus is a Greek name. Christ is, also. Etymology. Christ comes from the Greek word χριστός (chrīstós), meaning "anointed one". Matthew wrote: the Christ---the annointed one.
Jesus is Joshua in Hebrew. Jesus (/ˈdʒiːzəs/) is a masculine given name derived from Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς; Iesus in Classical Latin) the Ancient Greek form of the Hebrew and Aramaic name Yeshua or Y'shua (Hebrew: ישוע). As its roots lie in the name Yeshua/Y'shua, it is etymologically related to another biblical name, Joshua.
In both Biblical and Modern
He uses the name, Immanuel, "the maiden will be pregnant and will have a son, And they will name him Immanuel." The word “Emmanuel” comes from the Greek rendering of two Hebrew words, `immanu, “with us,” and 'el, “God” (thus in English it is found as either “Emmanuel” or “Immanuel”)."The
Jesus is described by Matthew born in Bethlehem in Judea in the days of King Herod. Herod I was king from 73 BCE to 4 BCE, king fo Judea, son of Antipater the Idumean by his Nabatean wife, Cypros. First job was that as governor of Galilee. The New Testament associates him with the Massacre of the Innocents. He's the one who rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem on a magnificent scale and erected the 2 new cities of Sebaste and Caesarea.
It has traditionally been attributed to St.
The canonical gospels are the four which appear in the New Testament of the Bible. They were probably written between AD 66 and 110, according to Wikepedia. Almost certainly none were by eyewitnesses, and all are the end-products of long oral and written transmission Mark was the first to be written, using a variety of sources. The authors of Matthew and Luke both independently used Mark for their narrative of Jesus's career, supplementing it with a collection of sayings called "the Q source", and additional material unique to each. There is near-consensus that John had its origins as the hypothetical Signs Gospel thought to have been circulated within a Johannine community. The contradictions and discrepancies between the first three and John make it impossible to accept both traditions as equally reliable. John is the most anti-Semitic.
In Jewish history, Jesus died in 29 CE, founder of Christianity. There are no independent Jewish sources for the life of Jesus of Nazareth. A reference in Josephus is at least in part a Christian interpolation; allusion in the Talmud and the post-talmudic TOLEDOT YESHU (life story of Jesus) are of value only as an indication of later Jewish attitudes. The only source of information about Jesus is thus the New Testament Gospels.
Ever since the Greeks had invaded Israel, Hellenization (Hellenization is the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language, and identity by non-Greeks.)had started to affect many of the citizens. It strikes me that Joseph and Mary were Hellenized Jews to start with, even speaking Greek. So must have been Matthew. It even permeated their understanding of Judaism and confused them, who were not that knowledgable about Judaism for starters as rabbis knew the most.
The center, like a Yale or Harvard of Jewish knowledge, was Jerusalem. A rabbi coming from another town with their knowledge was expected to spend time in Jerusalem continuing their learning. We had rabbis in towns only after 70 CE. Before that, all were educated by attending the Temple in Jerusalem.
At the time of Jesus, Roman crucifiction was practiced at the drop of a hat on Jews. "However, given that crucifixion was seen as an extremely shameful way to die, Rome tended not to crucify its own citizens. Instead, slaves, disgraced soldiers, Christians, foreigners, and — in particular — political activists often lost their lives in this way, Retief and Cilliers reported. The practice became especially popular in the Roman-occupied Holy Land. In 4 B.C., the Roman general Varus crucified 2,000 Jews, and there were mass crucifixions during the first century A.D., according to the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus. "Christ was crucified on the pretext that he instigated rebellion against Rome, on a par with zealots and other political activists," the authors wrote in the report." Emperor Titus was responsible. The Romans perfected crucifion for 500 years until it was abolished by Emperor Constantine I in the 4th century AD.(CE).
The affect of Roman invasion of Judah, of their Occupation, was a traumatic as the Greek invasion earlier that caused Hellenization. Young men were leaving their own family homes to live together in communes studying their Jewish history, and trying to see what the future was bringing to them. In the late 330s BCE, Alexander the Great invaded the Middle East (including the area which is now Israel), during his campaigns against the Achaemenid Empire. In 63 bce the Roman general Pompey had captured Jerusalem. The Romans ruled through a local client king and largely allowed free religious practice in
The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in just such a place at Khirbet Kumran, 7.5 miles from Jericho, discovered in 1947. A nearby cemetery held 1,000 graves. Coins found there were from the days of John Hyrcanus, of Greek days. It was destroyed in 31 BCE by an earthquake but rebuilt. Writers of the scrolls were there until 68 CE, belonging to a Jewish sect.
Reading Matthew doesn't give you all the history of that day. It doesn't explain what Jews were going through, only to the followers of Jesus.
Reference:
https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2022/10/king-davids-genealogy.html
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gospel-According-to-Matthew
https://www.livescience.com/65283-crucifixion-history.html
