Who Was Jesus? From King To Messiah To Son Of God

by Rabbi Allen S. Maller

At some point in our lives, we are faced with the question. Who was Jesus? A prophet? A morals teacher? A Jewish Rabbi? The Son of God? Jesus asked this question to his own disciples in Matthew 16:13-16, Mark 8:27-29, and Luke 9:18-20. In all three accounts, Jesus first asks, “Who do people say I am?” (Mark 8:27) or “Who do the crowds say I am?” (Luke 9:18).

The disciples answer, “‘Some say John the Baptist; others say [prophet] Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets’”(Matthew 16:14, Mark 8:28). Or, in Luke 9:19, instead of “one of the prophets,” they say, “‘one of the prophets from long ago who has come back to life.’”

If the people who heard and saw Jesus himself were unsure who was; what about us today?

A great book for Christians, Jews and Muslims who want to learn why Islam and Judaism reject the Christian claim that Jesus was the Son of God is: The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, (San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 2020).

Here is one example from an article in the 12/19/20 Times of Israel (where I blog) titled: Psalm 2: Is the Messiah the Son of God? by Prof.Marc Zvi Brettler and Prof.Amy-Jill Levine; of how they explain one of the central Christian claims; that the Hebrew Bible of the Jews predicted Jesus to be both the Messiah Son of King David; and the Son of God, who is the only savior for all of mankind, replacing all of mankind’s previous and future Scriptures.

God declares to the Davidic king, “You are my son; today I have begotten you” (Psalm 2:7). For the New Testament, this verse is a central prooftext for Jesus’s divinity, but what did it mean in its original context and how did later Jewish interpreters understand it?

A central difference between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity is the Christian belief that Jesus of Nazareth was both the final messiah and “the only begotten” son of God. Muslim say Jesus was a messiah but not the son of God. Jews say that Jesus was not the Davidic messiah, but more important, that the very concept of a divine “son of God” contradicts the core principle of monotheism.

To support their claim, early followers of Jesus used Psalm 2:7, where God addresses his “anointed” (mashiach) with: בְּנִ֥י אַ֑תָּה אֲ֝נִ֗י הַיּ֥וֹם יְלִדְתִּֽיךָ, “You are my son; today I have begotten you.”

But Psalm 2’s original context was a focus on God’s support of Judah’s king against his enemies. Psalms 2:1-2 says: “Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against God and his anointed.”

The first two verses set the foreign kings against God’s משׁיח, “anointed one,” a term that means a king who was anointed with oil upon coronation. But why should God call the king “my son” during a coronation?

Psalm 2 is speaking metaphorically. Much biblical language about God is metaphorical: God is a king, shepherd, warrior, etc. A good example of such a metaphorical depiction, is God’s self-description in Isaiah as a woman in childbirth: (Isaiah 42:14) “I have kept silent far too long, kept still and restrained Myself; now I will scream like a woman in labor, I will pant and I will gasp.”

Prophet Isaiah is not asserting that God is anatomically female, and experiences real childbirth pain. Instead, the verse expresses graphically how God’s coming actions will suddenly but inexorably burst forth. Similarly, Psalm 2 expresses the boundless paternal support the Davidic king should expect from his God by having God refer to him metaphorically as His son.

This interpretation fits with two intertwined biblical metaphors: God is like a father to the People of Israel and Israel is like a son of God. Although this father/son metaphorical relationship is not as common in the Hebrew Bible as it is in early Judaism and Christianity, it appears in texts such as: Exodus 4:22 “Thus says the Lord: “Israel is My first-born son” and Deuteronomy 32:6 “Is not He the Father who created you, fashioned you and made you endure!” and 2 Samuel 7:14: “I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings.”

Thus, Psalm 2 would be utilizing the same father-son metaphor elsewhere used in reference to Israel to describe the intimate relationship between the Davidic king and Judah’s God.

Then the Davidic monarchy ended with the destruction of Judah and the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. As time passed, readers began to find other meanings for Psalm 2:7.

The repurposing of psalm 2 from a celebration of a royal coronation, into a prophecy of the already long established concept of a Messianic age ruled by a future Davidic king, may have begun as early as c.175 B.C.E, when the Jews suffered under the forced policies of Hellenization associated with the Syrian Greeks and Antiochus IV; and was further sparked in 63 B.C.E. when, after nearly a century of independent Jewish rule under the Hasmoneans, the Roman general Pompey conquered Jerusalem, and Judea found itself under Roman rule.

The new messianic reading of Psalm 2 appears in the post Biblical Psalms of Solomon (17:23–24), composed in response to Pompey’s conquest, and his entry into the Jerusalem Temple’s Holy of Holies. These psalms quote Psalm 2:9 in relation to a future Davidic king, who will “smash and shatter” Israel’s enemies: “See, O Lord, and raise up for them their king, the son of David, at the time which you chose, O God, to rule over Israel your servant. And gird him with strength to shatter in pieces unrighteous rulers, to purify Jerusalem from nations that trample her down in destruction” (Psalms of Solomon 17:21-22)

The reinterpretation of Psalm 2 as a prophecy sets the stage for its use by Jesus’s early followers. As James L. Mays correctly observed, Psalm 2 “is the only text in the Old Testament that speaks of God’s king, messiah, and son in one place, the titles so important for the presentation of Jesus in the Gospels.”

Mark, the earliest Gospel, likely dating to the 70s C.E., opens with the line, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). The title finds a partial antecedent in Psalm 2, but it is also Mark’s counter to Roman imperial propaganda which identified Caesar as divi filia, the “divine son” or “son of a god.”

In the Gospel’s first scene, Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan River, we are told: Mark 1:10 “And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 1:11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Mark has no story of Jesus’s divine conception. Consequently, this voice from heaven signals that at the moment of baptism, the “today” of Psalm 2, Jesus of Nazareth becomes God’s son. Or as Richard Hays puts it, his baptism could be seen as a “disguised royal anointing.”

Jesus clearly thought of himself not as the “Son of God”, but as the “Son of Man”. In the four Gospels, “the Son of Man” is Jesus’ favorite self-designation. The term "the Son of Man" appears 81 times in the Greek text of the four Gospels: thirty times in Matthew, twenty five times in Luke, 14 times in Mark (the shortest of the Gospels), and 12 times in John (the latest and least historical of the Gospels).

Yet in Paul's epistles, it is never used for Jesus. In fact, the term “Son of Man” appears in the whole New Testament only 4 times (5%) outside of the Gospels. Indeed, in early extra-biblical Christian writings during the generations following Paul's letters; the term “Son of Man” that Jesus preferred for himself, is never used at all.

The Gospel of Mark sees Jesus as having become God’s son at the baptism, but the other gospels see Jesus as always having been God’s literal son. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke each open with birth stories, offering variant versions of Jesus’s divine conception, and the Gospel of John goes even further and proclaims Jesus as both God and God’s only begotten son.

Jews of course rejected this view of Jesus, as does the Qur’an: “O People of the Book! Do not go to extremes regarding your faith; say nothing about Allah except the truth. The Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, was no more than a messenger of Allah and the fulfillment of His Word through Mary and a spirit ˹created by a command˺ from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers and do not say, “Trinity.” Stop!—for your own good. Allah is only One God. Glory be to Him! He is far above having a son!” (4:171)

The Author

Allen S. Maller is an ordained Reform Rabbi who retired in 2006 after 39 years as the Rabbi of Temple Akiba in Culver City, California. His web site is: www.rabbimaller.com. He blogs on the Times of Israel. Rabbi Maller has published 400+ articles in some two dozen different Christian, Jewish, and Muslim magazines and web sites. He is the author of two recent books: "Judaism and Islam as Synergistic Monotheisms' and "Which Religion Is Right For You? A 21st Century Kuzari".

Filed in: externally authored, jesus

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