Two questions for Jews regarding the Messiah ...?

Question

1) How many believe the Rambam's conclusions on how to recognize the Messiah? Do you view this as a conclusive list, as he does?

http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/cjso/Chabad/moshiach/rambam.html

2) At paragraph 4, the Rambam stresses only six things that qualify such a man (i.e. descended from David; rebuilds the Temple; is a Torah scholar; compels all Jews to follow the Torah; fights to re-establish the worship of God; and gathers all dispursed Jews back to Israel). Why does the Rambam not stress the other Messianic identifiers that most of us quote to each other? (i.e. born in Bethlehem, the dead are resurrected, complete world peace, etc?)

Hattie, the AC will NOT be Jewish -- he will be Gentile. Please read your Bible more carefully.

Hello, Lojique! Good to see you! I didn't know you are Jewish, LOL ...

Allonyoav, as usual you have given an excellent answer. Thank you!

XX, the prophecy is found at Micah 5:1 in the Tanakh (Micah 5:2 in my Bible):

"1 But thou, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from ancient days." (JPS English translation)

XX, you will probably disagree that this is a Messianic prophecy. Please take a few minutes and read this:

http://www.hadavar.org/Micah_5_2.html

Answer 1

Rambam is a minority opinion in this matter. The Rambam in many cases follwed a rationalist approach, trying to give forth as scientifically sound an explanation as he could. He spent a lot of time arguing against, and trying to reduce the influence of, superstiton and the following of philosophical and occult practices from outside of Judaism. Ii is why he Moreh Nevuchim (the Guide for the perplexed).

In Moreh Nevuchim he in many cases directly quotes and then argues against popular philosophies of his day- many times bringing direct statements out of the Kaballah to do so. This work was very controversial at the time and he was very nearly excommunicated because of it- the Ramban (Nachmanides) ruled that he should not be since the work was needed, but he did state that it should not be studied by most- except for those it was aimed at bringing back into Judaism proper and for whom such subject matter was needed to entice them away from following other types of spirituality.

So, we don't follow the opinion of Rambam in this matter. It is generally accepted that we follow the majority opinion in which include the elements he left out such as the resurrection of the dead, world peace etc

Answer 2

Where do you get the "born in Bethlehem" requirement? I know that when I see Christians talking about "hundreds of prophecies about the messiah" I usually see hundreds of things unrelated, misconstrued, or mistranslated, and maybe a few that might have to do with Jewish prophecies concerning the Moshiach. There just are not that many prophecies about the Moshiach....


You are, right, I think that is quite a stretch there to make that a messianic prophecy..

Answer 3

As always false religion says only part of the true but not all the true.

Answer 4

the anti christ is Jewish