Disputed Messiahs PDF Download

Author: Rebekka Voß
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 0814341659
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
Jewish and Christian messianic thought and activism in the Reformation era in the Ashkenazic world.

Author: Colin Wilson
Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing Company
ISBN: 9781571741752
Category : Cult members
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
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.

Author: Jerry Rabow
Publisher: Gefen Publishing House Ltd
ISBN: 9789652292889
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
It is a little known fact that there have been more than fifty prominent Jewish Messiahs. These characters, though unrenowned today, inspired messianic fervour that at times seized the whole Jewish, Christian, Muslim and even secular worlds. The stories of these fifty Messiahs, both male and female, are unknown -- suppressed by Jewish religious authorities or ignored by historians of all religions. Until now. In this book, these Jewish Messiahs are remembered, and now their forgotten stories -- whether humorous, bizarre, tragic or solemn -- are finally told. The Messiah who killed the Pope; The Messiah who was saved from the Inquisition when the Pope hid him in the Vatican; The Messiah who demanded that his head be cut off in order to prove his immortality The Messiah who defied the Holy Roman Emperor; The 17th century Messiah whose followers continued their secret society into the 20th century. And to contemporary times and the story of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and how he inspired a passionate and devoted following. Above all, Fifty Jewish Messiahs examines humanity, not divinity, and history rather than theology. Taken together, these intriguing stories paint a vivid portrait of the universal and timeless human need for optimism, and hope in a better future.

Author: Roland H. Worth, Jr.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786482273
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
A messiah is an individual appointed by God to a specific task of importance, and elevated to a level of far greater authority than a prophet by leading (or claiming to lead) a group or movement. The movement comes to be uniquely centered on his or her teachings, and the messiah claims spiritual and temporal authority over its followers. This book is an examination of both males and females in the Judeo-Christian heritage (excluding Jesus of Nazareth) who either claimed to be the messiah, were viewed by contemporaries as such, or are considered by a significant number of scholars to have been motivated by messianic goals. The work is arranged chronologically, with details about messiahs from before Christ through the dawn of the technological age at the end of the nineteenth century. It covers nearly 100 individual messiahs, including such Old Testament figures as King Hezekiah and Herod the Great, as well as later messiahs both obscure and historically renowned (even Queen Elizabeth I and King Charles I were touted as messiahs by certain devoted followers). Meticulously researched, the book includes an extensive bibliography.

Author: Matthew V. Novenson
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199844577
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
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.

Author: Harris Lenowitz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019534894X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
In this book, Harris Lenowitz explores the fascinating history of Jewish messianic movements. Looking in detail at all of the Jewish messiahs about whom anything is known, he introduces each of these figures in turn, and offers extensive excerpts of the original texts that tell their stories. The messiahs whom we meet in these pages range from the inspiring to the tragic and bizarre. By examining the messianic idea in the tradition which gave birth to it, Lenowitz both sheds new light on this engrossing aspect of Jewish history and provides a firmer basis for understanding contemporary messianic groups.

Author: Fidora, Alexander
Publisher: Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
ISBN: 8449089476
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
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.

Author: Thomas L. Thompson
Publisher:
ISBN: 0786739118
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
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.

Author: Israel Knohl
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0827618999
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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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.

Author: Jack Gratus
Publisher: Orion
ISBN:
Category : Messiah
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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