Jesus Messiah Books

[BenjaminDaVinci]

Hello there.

I need some books on the claim that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. I’d prefer scholarly works with extensive bibliographies/scriptural citations.

It’s just that I’m calling into question that Jesus even was the Messiah since he seems to miss many important qualifications.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Fauken]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0770435483/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_p6.qFb2VJH505

This doesn’t focus solely on Jesus claiming to be the Messiah, but it does talk about it. Dr. Brant Pitre is an excellent source for linking first century Judaism to Catholicism. Unfortunately he does not seem to have a book which solely looks at Jesus and His Messianic claims.

 

[Fauken]

I just thought of this, I don’t know if they’ll help, but you may want to ask the Association of Hebrew Catholics what convinced them of Jesus being the Messiah. They’re converts from Judaism and practice Jewish traditions as Catholics.

Association of Hebrew Catholics – Central site for the AHC

 

[BartholomewB]

If you’re looking for a specifically Catholic book, here’s a good place to start. You can download it free of charge, courtesy of the Holy See: The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, 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/congregations/cfaith/pcb_documents/rc_con_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.