Christian belief reduces to this: The Jews have cherished an incorrect notion of the Messiah. That is, while Jews expect someone who is only son of God in a figurative sense, Jesus told the Jews that the Messiah was literally the son of God. In this frame of mind, the Christian can point to every Biblical account of Jews being angry with Jesus and claim that this new truth was the cause of their upset.

But there are important facts to consider. The concept of the Messiah was gradually formed by the Jews and opinions differed. While several men had already been called Messiah, son of God, son of man, in scripture, the Jews came to expect a preeminent Messiah, a victorious leader through whom their nation would be a blessing to all the world.

Our suggestion is this: Suppose instead that Jesus meant to tell the Jews that while he also deserved to be called Messiah, he was not to fulfill their unrealistic and misunderstood expectations. Now several mysteries are clarified. Jesus could not have meant to claim status for he charged his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the true Messiah (Luke 9:21). Notice how he dissuaded a man who may have had mistaken ideas (Matthew 8:20). While many Jews believed that the Messiah would inherit his kingly rights from David, Jesus pointed out the difficulty of this interpretation (Matthew 22:43). Note also that today’s Jewish scholars have indicated that “son of God” is given its Christian meaning not by Jesus, but by Paul. (See “son of God” in reference 3.)

Meanwhile, some Jewish aspects have been adopted. Paul incited Christians to find symbolic meaning in scripture (1 Corinthians chapter 10). So we have impossible parallels like that of Matthew 2:15 which quotes a fragment of Hosea 11:1,2 and thus likens Jesus to an idolatrous nation! We have the unprecedented case of a prophet who supposedly would die then to return to fulfill all things expected of him. While acts 3:20-23 promises the return of Jesus, Christians understand that the prophecy yet to be fulfilled before he can return is actually only a reference to Jesus… as though Jesus was the one predicted by Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 18. The scripture quoted here by the disciple Peter reports that God told Moses about the future prophet “like you from among their brothers”. While Jesus was unlike Moses in being leader of a nation, Christians believe that he will be victorious on his second visit. However, they do not usually expect him to acquire a human father, a wife and children and then die of old age like Moses. Moreover. “from among their brothers seems to indicate not an Israelite, but a relative of that nation.

There is another historical figure who fits the role as the prophet promised by Moses better than Jesus. He was not an Israelite, but Jesus said that God’s special favours would be taken from Israel and given to a nation which would become fruitful (Matthew 21:43). It was Jacob or Israel the man himself, who prophesied that the kingdom would be the possession of the family of his son Judah until the coming of “the one whose it is” (Genesis 49:10). While Christians see this one as Jesus, look again at these words. When I give a man something and tell him to keep it until the owner comes, do I mean to say that the item belongs to one of his descendents? This would hardly be a natural understanding.

The many Quranic and Biblical references to the last prophet are a new subject, a satisfying discussion that inexorably leads to the Messenger who brought Islam to a nation and through them to all nations. (Quran 6:89,90).