For those who know me, I am extremely interested in Jewish things. I love learning about the feasts of Israel, how the Jews view the bible, particularly from Jews that Believe in Messiah Ben Joseph ( which means literally Messiah son of Joseph or people call Him Yeshua and as everyone I know calls Him, Jesus). For about two weeks I’ve keenly been waiting on a book to arrive, its not a Christian book, but rather its a Jewish book written by Raphael Patai, what I want to do is as I read each chapter of the book give a summary of it and write my thoughts about what is written in the text. The introduction of the book is quite long, so I am not sure if I will do a summary of that in my blog, and it seems to cover quite a bit in the introduction, so I may or may not… I’ll decide that after I read the introduction. What I especially want to do, is see how the Messiah the Jews are believing in related to the Messiah I believe in, from what I’ve read so far, the Messiah they believe in sounds very much like what Jesus is prophesied to do in His return.
But the aim of this will be to give people reading my blog (as well as being a reminder to me), an understanding of the general Jewish belief in the Messiah, as well as how I see Jesus fitting into all of this.
Anyway, just so you have an idea of what the book is about I’m going to write the description from the back of the book:
"Following a detailed introduction to the world of messianic ideology and its significance in Jewish history, The Messiah Texts traces the progress of the messianic legend from its biblical beginnings to contemporary expressions.
"Renowned scholar Raphael Patai has skillfully selected passages from a voluminous literature spanning three millennia. Using his own translations from Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Latin, and other original texts, Patai excerpts delightful folk tales, apocalyptic fantasies, and parables of prophetic power. All are central to the understanding of a magnificent heritage. Patai also investigates the false messiahs who have appeared throughout Jewish history, the modern Messiah-influenced movements such as reform Judaism and Zionism, and the numerous reasons put forth by the various branches of Judaism as to why the Messiah has not yet appeared.
"Raphael Patai is an internationally regarded anthropologist, Orientalist, and biblical scholar. He has written over six hundred articles and two dozen books…"
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