*chuckle* No, not quite. Belief in a Kingly Messiah ben David in the 1st Century is well attested in the Talmud, Apocrypha, and Essene literature. Though I like your attention to Isaiah's prophecy.
Mashiach just means an individual anointed by God to fulfill a particular purpose. It had no connotations of divinity before Pauline Christianity
Not entirely true. You might want to read this article from the Jewish Encyclopedia to get a broader view on the topic and then, if you have the resources, dive into the Talmudic and Midrashic material cited. The idea that the Messiah would be just a man, albeit one endowed with wisdom from Hashem, is actually relatively recent, and developed largely in response to Christian claims.
It's true that you don't find Deity directly ascribed to the Messiah in the Judaica, but there are plenty of references to a quasi-divine Messiah to go on.
In any case, it has never been the belief of either Messianic Judaism or orthodox (not Orthodox, if you know the difference) Christianity that Yeshua is the entirety of Hashem incarnate. That would be ridiculous, of course. As Messianics, we find that the easiest way to explain the relationship is to postulate that in Yeshua, the Holy One placed His Sh'khinah into a Man to undertake His ultimate plan of redemption. Another way to look at it is that Yeshua is the living incarnation of the pre-existent Torah (the Word of God, to use John's terminology). I've got an article exploring this idea in brief here if you are interested.
For the record, I want no Jew to become a Christian. I will not take part in the assimilation of any Jew, whether to Christianity or secular American society. I do look forward to the day when all Israel is reconciled with Yeshua the Messiah just as the brothers of Joseph were reconciled to him, but I want any Jew who professes belief in Yeshua to become more zealous for the Torah, the traditions, and our people, not less. My children, for example, are Jews, and will be raised to be Jews. My nine-year-old daughter lit the second light of Hanukkah tonight, saying the traditional prayers.
Shalom and Hag Hanukkah Sameach!
“The idea that the Messiah would be just a man, albeit one endowed with wisdom from Hashem, is actually relatively recent, and developed largely in response to Christian claims.”
“It’s true that you don’t find Deity directly ascribed to the Messiah in the Judaica, but there are plenty of references to a quasi-divine Messiah to go on.”
True.
And an example of that can be found in the Jewish Targums. The Targums are “Aramaic” interpretations of the Hebrew Tanakh.
An Aramaic interpretation being necessary because many Jews in Israel no longer understood Hebrew.
The article linked to below provides the historic background as to how Aramaic replaced Hebrew as the everyday language spoken for many Jews in Israel in the late post/exilic period.
Although discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls furnished evidence that Hebrew had not become an entirely “dead language” in Israel.
Just like many Jews in Israel today are bilingual, or even trilingual, so it was with many in Israel during the time of Yeshua [Jesus]. Many understood Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.
But for many, Aramaic had become the normal everyday language.
What does this have to do with the subject raised concerning divinity of the Messiah? Plenty
Many, including Christians, have wrongly assumed that the Gospel of John was influenced by the Greek philosophy of an Alexandrian Jew named Philo because of the use of the Greek “logos”.
But “logos” is only how the Greek would normaly translate Aramaic “Memra”.
Remember, Aramaic had become the primary language for many Jews in Israel.
http://oneinmessiah.net/TargumMemraTheWordOfGod.htm
From the`Jewish Targums:
The Memra is God and is worshiped as such:
Gen. 28: [20] And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, [21] So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God:
And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, “If the Word [Memra] of YHVH will be my support, and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Word [Memra] of Lord be my God.
Targum Onkelos on Gen. 28:20-21
Gen. 22: [14] And Abraham called the name of that place Yehovah-Yireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.
And Abraham worshipped and prayed in the name of the Word [Memra] of YHVH, and said, “You are Lord who does see, but You cannot be seen.”
Jerusalem Targum Gen. 22:14
The Memra is God, yet is a separate personality from the Father and Holy Spirit:
And the Word [Memra] of the Lord caused to descend upon the peoples of Sodom and Gommorah, brimstone and fire from the Lord in heaven.
John was describing Yeshua [Jesus] as the divine “Memra”, or “Word” of the Lord.
The Gospel of John is from a Jewish perspective, a purely Jewish understanding of the divine “Word” , Memra of the Lord.
Not from Philo Greek philosophy.