Are You the One Who Is to Come?:The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Questions by Michael Bird

Did Jesus claim to be Israel’s Messiah? To most evangelicals the answer would be in the affirmative but most “liberal” scholars deny that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah and that the biblical records declaring him so are early church reflections and are not from the historical Jesus. It’s for this reason that Michael Bird, New Testament tutor at Highland Theological College, has written Are You the One Who Is to Come?:The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Questions in order to affirm that Jesus did in fact claim to be Israel’s Messiah.


Bird is carefully to argue not that Jesus used the title “Messiah” but “that Jesus saw himself in messianic categories, enacting a messianic role or messianic vocation as part of his aim to renew and restore Israel though his various activities” (p.29). Birds seeks to establish his thesis by first reviewing the messianic understanding in the 2nd Temple Judaism (Ch. 2) and refuting major arguments for the denial of Jesus' claim to be a Messiah such as Wrede’s “Messianic Secret” and the early Christians’ “scripturizing of the Jesus tradition” (Ch.3).


Bird spends the next two chapters exploring the messianic question through the Jesus tradition. First, Bird examines certain patterns and themes like “the Son of Man”, “the Anointed One”, kingdom, and “I Have Come” sayings (Ch. 4) then he analyzes the stories leading to Christ’s death, his death, and it’s aftereffects on the early Church. After carefully examination of the relevant texts, Bird makes a masterfully case that Jesus saw himself in messianic categories. Finally, Bird concludes with a final chapter describing the significances of Christ being the Messiah (Ch. 6).


I really appreciate a lot of Bird’s book. I found his review of the relevant texts to be careful and his conclusions to be extremely balanced. I was also excited to see Bird emphasis “the story of Israel”which I believe is the interpretative key in understanding Jesus. He writes “The story of the Messiah can only be understood as part of the story of Israel...Jesus was not a timeless heavenly redeemer imparting esoteric truths to receptive human vessels. The vision of the New Testament authors and of proto-orthodox Christianity is that the day of salvation has been brought to the world through the Messiah of Israel” (pg. 163).


It’s important to note that this is an academic book and some might not be familiar with some of the issues, but those who do or are willing to patiently work through them I highly recommend this book.

Jesus and Restoration of Israel

About a year ago, I started to focus my reading on the gospels (currently, I am reading Bock's Luke Commentary) and the historical Jesus instead of Pauline stuff, especially as it relates to justification and New Paul Perceptive. And so far, I found that the key in unlocking the gospels is the understanding of Jesus' mission and relationship with Israel[1].

Here's a good quote from Scot Mcknight describing Jesus connection with Israel:

"It follows, then that Jesus cannot be understood if the described exclusively, ore even primarily , in the category of a spiritual master, or as one who was primarily concerned with the inner religious life and its disciplines for the individual. First and foremost, Jesus was a Jew whose vision of the proper religious life centered on the restoration of the Jewish nation and on the fulfillment of the covenants that God had made with the nation. The most important context in which modern interpreters should situate Jesus is that of ancient Jewish national disaster. Jesus' hope was not so much the "Church" as the restoration of the twelve tribes (cf. Matt.8:11-12;10:23;and19:28), the fulfillment of the promises of Moses to national Israel, and the hope of God's kingdom (focused on and through Israel) on earth. Thus, when Jesus sent out the Twelve (cf. Matt. 9:35-11:1), the "disciples were not evangelistic preachers sent out to save individual souls for some unearthly paradise. They were couriers proclaiming a national emergency and conducting a referendum on a question of national survival." [2]

[1] For a great lecture on understanding Jesus, check out Rikki Watt's talk dated "January 14, 2001)


[2] Mcknight, A New Vision for Israel: The Teaching of Jesus in National Context, see pp. 10-11

Dr. Craig A. Evans at HBU on April 17th to 18th 2008

I just found out that Dr. Craig Evans, a very respected NT scholar will be speaking at HBU on April 17 to the 18.The title of his presentation will be 'Fabricating Jesus- How Today's Society Distorts the Gospel', which appears to be based on his most recent book.

Here's the schedule.

God’s Promises

In Christopher Wright’s “Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament”, he reminds us that God doesn’t give his people “flat predications” but promises which involves more of a personal and dynamic commitment. Wright states that because there is a relationship behind God’s promises “the material form in which it is fulfilled may be quite different from the literal form in which it was original made, and yet it is no less a valid fulfillment of the promise. (pg. 71)”

To help the reader understand this point, Wright gives a wonderful analogy of a father and a son. He writes:

“Imagine a father who, in the days before mechanized transport, promises his son, aged 5, that when he is 21 he will give him a horse for himself. Meanwhile the motor car is invented. So on his 21^st birthday the son awakes to find a motor car outside, ‘with love from Dad’. It would be a strange son who would accuse his father of breaking his promise just because there was no horse. And even stranger if, in spite of having received the far superior motor car, the son insisted that the promised would only be fulfilled if a horse also materialized, since that was the literal promise. It is obvious that with the change in circumstances, unknown at the time the promise was made, the father has more than kept his promise. In fact he has done so in a way that surpasses the original words of the promise which were necessarily limited by the mode of transport available at that time. The promise was made in terms understood at the time. It was fulfilled in the light of new historical events. (pg 71)”

I think this idea is helpful in understanding things like God’s promising the land of Canaan in the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 17:8) to his people and Paul redrawing it to include the whole world (Romans 4 :13).

Lord Jesus Christ, Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Part 3)

Hurtado notes two important features of Jewish monotheism:

"First, in addition to refusing to accept and worship any of the other deities of the Roman religious environment, conscientious Jews also maintained a distinction between the God of Israel and any of the exalted figures who could be seen as prominent in God's entourage, such as principal angels or revered human figures like Moses or Enoch. This distinction was most clearly maintained in discouraging the worship of these figures; and devout Jew insisted that worship was to be given to God alone".

"Second, the Jewish monotheistic stance forbade apotheosis, the divinization of human figures, and thus clashed with a major theme in pagan religion of the time. "

-pg 95

Lord Jesus Christ, Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Part 2)

Hurtatdo's 4 historic forces/factors that initiated and formed an early Christ-devotion:


1) Jewish exclusivist monotheism
2) The impact of Jesus, particularly the polarizing effects of his career (people either loved or hated him)
3) Revelatory religious experience that communicated that Jesus had been given heavenly glory and that it was God's will for him to be given extraordinary reverence in their devotional life.
4) The encounter with larger religious environment, particularly the dynamics of countering Jewish polemics and of differentiating and justifying Christian devotion over against the dominant pagan practices. [1]

[1] pg.78

Lord Jesus Christ, Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Part 1)

There are some scholars who believe that worship of Jesus Christ did not originate with the original Jewish-Christian groups but appeared later, after a long period of time, in a more Hellenistic-Christian groups.

In Larry Hurtado's book, "Lord Jesus Christ, Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity", he argues against the idea above by making 3 points [1]:

1) Early stage of devotion to Christ
2) Unparalleled and intense devotion to Christ
3) Devotion to Christ was made in the context of strict Jewish monotheism



[1] pg 2 and 3