Did Jews in Jesus’ time believe that prophecy had ended?

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Thank you. Allow me to repeat the question I asked earlier (post #10). Can you quote a Jewish source for your statement that there was a connection with the numbers of people in Judea and in the diaspora?

And how would that belief square with Jeremiah and Ezekiel, both recognized as prophets at the time of the Babylonian captivity?
 
It’s ridiculous on its face. If their claim had merit, it means that Moses couldn’t have been a prophet, because the Israelites had not yet entered the Promised Land.
 
DiamondCraftH2O said:
Currently that is the only Jewish objection to Jesus being the messiah that I have yet to answer.
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I see that now you’re discussing the question of the Messiah, which is a different question altogether. There is a least some truth in the claim that Jesus was not the kind of Messiah that the Jewish people had been led to expect. You will find a very full Catholic analysis of the question in The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, a book-length document published by the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 2001, over the signature of the Commission’s president, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...on_cfaith_doc_20020212_popolo-ebraico_en.html

Here is a key excerpt:
  1. The basic theological presupposition is that God’s salvific plan which culminates in Christ (cf. Ep 1:3-14) is a unity, but that it is realised progressively over the course of time. … Christian faith recognises the fulfilment, in Christ, of the Scriptures and the hopes of Israel, but it does not understand this fulfilment as a literal one. Such a conception would be reductionist. In reality, in the mystery of Christ crucified and risen, fulfilment is brought about in a manner unforeseen. It includes transcendence. Jesus is not confined to playing an already fixed role — that of Messiah — but he confers, on the notions of Messiah and salvation, a fullness which could not have been imagined in advance; he fills them with a new reality; one can even speak in this connection of a “new creation”. It would be wrong to consider the prophecies of the Old Testament as some kind of photographic anticipations of future events. All the texts, including those which later were read as messianic prophecies, already had an immediate import and meaning for their contemporaries before attaining a fuller meaning for future hearers. The messiahship of Jesus has a meaning that is new and original.
 
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  1. From aish.com (the main source I’m trying to refute): “The Messiah will become the greatest prophet in history, second only to Moses. (Targum – Isaiah 11:2; Maimonides – Teshuva 9:2)
Prophecy can only exist in Israel when the land is inhabited by a majority of world Jewry, a situation which has not existed since 300 BCE. During the time of Ezra, when the majority of Jews remained in Babylon, prophecy ended upon the death of the last prophets – Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

Jesus appeared on the scene approximately 350 years after prophecy had ended, and thus could not be a prophet.”
  1. Wikipedia on Judaism: “ According to [Rashi], there were 48 prophets and 7 prophetesses of Judaism.The last Jewish prophet is believed to have been [Malachi]. In Jewish tradition it is believed that the period of prophecy, called [Nevuah], ended with [Haggai], [Zechariah], and Malachi at which time the “[Shechinah] departed from Israel”.”
 
Sry for the delay I must have forgotten your post. I do apologize
 
Hhhmmmm that is a solid point. I do wonder if the context of what they were saying was meant to mean after they started inhabiting it. That is very interesting though. Very solid point. Thank you.
 
That doesn’t answer the very clear issue of the Jews being in captivity in Babylon while still having two Prophets.
 
If they were prophets before they were captured then they were still considered prophets until death
 
No I hadn’t seen this one… does it provide any light on the issue?
 
However now I’ve heard two different years; 586 bce and 313 bce. That isn’t a good sign for them
 
If I remember correctly, Ezekiel’s prophesying began during exile.
DiamondCraftH2O said:
However now I’ve heard two different years; 586 bce and 313 bce. That isn’t a good sign for them
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Well no kidding it isn’t a good sign, they’re full of you know what.
 
DiamondCraftH20,

Why not try saying three Hail Marys a day, asking Our Blessed Mother for her intercession for what you need?
 
DiamondCraftH2O said:
Can anyone shed some light on the subject if this invalidates Jesus’ being the messiah or if Jews at Jesus’ time believed that prophecy had ended
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Just to say that the question of the dating of the end of prophecy has never played a part in this particular Jew’s complete disbelief in Christianity. 🙂
 
It’s all part of the traditional “Christianity = Judaism plus Jesus/Judaism = Christianity minus Jesus” way of looking at things which I tend to leave alone when it’s an “intra-Christian” thing as it is here. After all, since I don’t think anybody involved is disadvantaged in the eyes of their Creator because they’re Catholic/other Christian/Muslim etc it’s not exactly crucial.

The OP had managed to wander into the boundaries of a kind of religious minefield and, understandably, got very worried and asked for clarification. Since then people have been shepherding him/her back into the intellectual fold and the Christian paradigm, the world through the Christian lens which is Ok, people being distressed isn’t a good thing.

Meanwhile, of course, a serious quest to find out about Judaism would require understanding it within its own context, not the context of an entirely different religion altogether.
 
DiamondCraftH2O said:
However now I’ve heard two different years; 586 bce and 313 bce.
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Two different events. First, Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian army conquered the kingdom ofJudah, as described in 2 Chron 36:13-21.

Second, after the death of Alexander the Great, there was not a clear, undisputed border between the two Hellenistic kingdoms of the Seleucids in Syria and the Ptolemies in Egypt. Fighting broke out from time to time, in and around the disputed border area.

 
Oh yeah we had known that it was two events, but thanks for the reply 🙂 the confusion came about why two different examples of times were given to make prophecy (ended) when it would have had to come back again to end again before Jesus’ time, in which case, why didn’t they say the later date both times. As if the story was inconsistent, in terms of their needed to have the temple up/a majority of the world’s Jews in Israel for prophecy to occur
 
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The question of whether or not somebody living in the Herodian period could legitimately claim the status of “prophet” seems, if I may say so, scarcely relevant to the much larger question of why most of Jesus’ contemporaries didn’t recognize him as the promised Messiah. That question is very fully dealt with in the Vatican document I linked to in my post #23. The unnamed author of that document is Henry Wansbrough, the British Benedictine monk who edited both the New Jerusalem Bible (1985) and the Revised New Jerusalem Bible (2019).
 
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DiamondCraftH2O said:
Not sure if they had to know or if just the Jewish leaders had to know this requirement for it to be valid.
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Even if they did think it, that doesn’t mean it’s a requirement. God can use anyone he wants as a prophet, and he’s never shown much concern about doing what his people expect him to do.
 
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