Was Jesus the expected Messiah? No and yes

Abstract

This article discusses how Jesus came to be regarded as a messiah when his actions and teaching do not correspond to the expectations that can be retrieved from the texts in which we find this figure defined. Second Temple Judaism was extremely complex and different eschatological expectations coexisted, one of which was the hope for a messiah. The difficulty arises in trying to outline a definite image of the messiah, given the paucity and disparity of sources. The process by which Jesus came to be regarded as the messiah starts from how the cause of his condemnation as “king of the Jews” was interpreted from his resurrection as a confession of faith: “Jesus is the messiah”, although to do so his disciples had to rework the meaning of the term Messiah.