Messiah

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In Judaism, the Messiah (מָשִׁיחַ Standard Hebrew Mašíaḥ, Tiberian Hebrew Māšîªḥ, Aramaic משיחא) —literally "anointed one— originally meant any person anointed by a prophet or priest of God, especially a Davidic king. In English today, it is used in two major contexts: the anticipated savior of the Jews, and any person who is anticipated as, regarded as, or professes to be a savior or liberator.

Samuel anoints David as Israel's future king.

In the first century B.C.E., Jews interpreted the prophecies of their scriptures to refer more specifically to someone appointed by God to lead the Jewish people in the face of their tribulations with the Romans. Christians believe that these prophecies actually referred to a spiritual savior, and consider Jesus to be that Messiah. The word Christ (Greek Χριστός, Christos, "the anointed one") is a literal translation of "mashiach" used in the Greek Septuagint version of the Bible, and derived from the Greek verb χριω: to "anoint in token of consecration" (Liddell & Scott's Greek-English Lexicon).

In Islam, Jesus (Isa) is also considered the Masih, or Messiah, and his eventual return to the Earth is expected along with that of another messianic figure, the Mahdi.

Some sch0lars believe that the Jewish concept of the Messiah originated in the Zoroastrian idea of Saoshyant, which was fused with the Jewish idea of the restoration of the Davidic dynasty during the Babylonian exile. For similar figures in other religions, refer to the "See also" section in this article.


In the Hebrew Bible

Israelite priests, kings, and some of the prophets were anointed with oil in consecration to their respective offices. The Bible contains a number of prophecies concerning a future descendant of King David who will be anointed as the Jewish people's new leader.

Pre-exilic references

One of the earliest of the messianic prophecies was written in the eighth century B.C.E. by the prophet Isaiah, who hoped for a more powerful and righteous ruler than the current occupant of David's throne. It refers to the coming of a king who will unite Israel and Judah and enable the return of the Israelites taken into captivity in the Assyrian Empire:

In that day the Root of Jesse [David's father] will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious. In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria... Ephraim's jealousy will vanish, and Judah's enemies will be cut off; Ephraim [Israel] will not be jealous of Judah, nor Judah hostile toward Ephraim. (Isa. 11:10-13)

The prophet Jeremiah, who lived roughly a century later than Isaiah but still during a time when Davidic kings occupied the throne, echoed Isaiah's prediction:

"The days are coming," declares the Lord, "when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord [is] Our Righteousness." (Jer. 23:5-6)

Thus, the earliest messianic references written when Davidic kings still ruled in Judah, look forward to a wise and righteous king arising from David's lineage, a king who will bring back the citizens of Israel taken captive by Assyria and unite the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah in triumph over their regional enemies.

Exilic references

The prophet Ezekiel, originally a citizen of Judah but writing from exile in Babylon after the dissolution of the Davidic monarchy, was the first to speak of the Messiah in terms of the restoration of the Davidic line:

I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep and another. I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the Lord have spoken. (Ezek. 34:22-24)

The Book of Isaiah's later prophecies (thought to have been written by disciples of Israiah during the Babylonian exile) envision a ruler of divine might and wisdom who would not only make Israel/Judah into a powerful regional empire, but even a world power:

Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the arm. Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come. (Isa. 60:3-5)
Cyrus of Persia, called God's "mashiach" by the Book of Isaiah.

Interestingly, one of the first uses of the actual term "Messiah" as the savior-liberator of Israel refers to a gentile king: Cyrus of Persia. This prophecy — also belonging to "Second Isaiah" — portrays Cyrus as a ruler anointed by God to bring the Jews back to their homeland and rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem:

I am the Lord... who says of Cyrus, "He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, 'Let it be rebuilt,' and of the temple, 'Let its foundations be laid.'" This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus... "I will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name." (Isa. 44:24-45:3)

Post-exilic references

The post-exilic prophets Haggai and Zechariah also name a specific messianic candidate. They indicate that Jerusalem's governor, Zerubbabel, a grandson of King Jehoiachin who returned to Jerusalem under Cyrus' sponsorhip, may in fact be the "branch":

"I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel," declares the Lord, "and I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you." (Hag. 2:23)... "What are you, O mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground. Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of 'God bless it! God bless it!'" (Zech. 4:7)

These prophets' hope in Zerubbabel apparently were not completely realized, for although the Temple itself was rebuilt, the dream of his ruling with God's royal authority did not come true. Several of Zechariah's messianic predictions, however, became important in later years. It was his prophecy which Jesus attempted to fulfill in his "trimphal entry" into Jeruslaem (see below). Zechariah also predicted the coming of two "anointed ones" interpreted to be a priestly messiah (a son of Aaron) and a kingly messiah (son of David):

Then I asked the angel, "What are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand?"... So he said, "These are the two who are anointed to serve the Lord of all the earth." (Zech. 4:11-14)

Some scholars believe the Zorostrian idea of the "Saoshyant" — a leader who will spread divine truth and lead humanity in the final battle against the forces of evil — influenced the messianic ideas of the Babylonian Jews returning from exile. It is not possible to say with certainly, however, how widespread or intense the messianic hope had become among the Jews by this point.

Inter-testamental developments

In the period between the writing of the last of the prophetic books and the first century B.C.E., the concept of the Messiah developed considerably, as did the Jewish people's hope in the coming of an anointed deliverer. (Note: the Book of Daniel is not included among the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible but is considered one of the "writings." Most scholars believe that it was written sometime in the second century b.c.e..)

The ideals of the books of Isaiah and Zechariah, emphasizing the Messiah as a Prince of Peace and a deliverer of Israel from oppression, represented one strain of thought. The Book of Daniel's promise of a supernatural "son of man" coming on the clouds of heaven represents another. The Books of Enoch, though of disputed authorship and never accepted into the Jewish canon, further demonstrate the apocalyptic trend in Jewish thought. At the same time, it should be remembered that the idea of the Messiah does not exist in many of the biblical books and that faith in the coming of a Messiah was far from universal. In terms of intertestamental literaute (the Old Testament Apocrypha), the Jewish Encylopedia points out that "Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobit, Baruch, II Maccabees, and the Wisdom of Solomon contain no mention of the Davidic hope."

Apparently, some Jews saw Alexander the Great as a messianic figure, and the Book of Daniel itself is seen by some as a messianic tract encouraging Jews to resist the desecration of the Temple by the Selucid ruler Anitiochus Epiphanes. The successful rebellion of Judah Macabbee was a quasi-messianic event, but hope in the restoration of a glorious Jewish kingdom faded as Judah's Hasmonean successors fell into corruption and collabation with Roman gentile rulers. The Qumran sect reacted against the corruption of both priestly and political authorities, forseeing the immiment coming of the Day of the Lord in which both and Aaronic and a Davidic Messiah whould arise to lead the "children of light" against the gentiles and other "children of darkness." Some among the emerging sect of the Pharisees, meanwhile, hoped in a Messiah as a political deliverer along the lines of the Book of Isaiah.

Messianic hopes flourished just prior to, during, and after the reign of Herod the Great (37-4 B.C.E.). Ever vigilant against possible threats to his throne, Herod slaughtered 45 members of the Sanhedrin — mostly Sadducees — that had supported the Hasmonean rebel Antigonus, who was seen by many Jews as a messianic forerunner. Later, he put do death several leading Pharisees who predicted the imminent birth of the Messiah would signal the end of Herod's reign. In Christian tradition, Herod slaughtered the infant boys of Bethlehem in fear that one of them was the Messiah.

The most famous of the several known messianic candidates of the era (see list below), of course, was the infant of Bethlehem who escaped Herod's massacred — Jesus of Nazareth. (He will be treated more fully in the section on the Christian view.) For now, let us mention that early rabbinic Judaism continued to develop its ideas of the Messiah in a dialectical relation against the Christians, who sought to prove that the resurrected Jesus was in fact God's anointed one.

After the Jewish rebellion, the destruction of the Temple by Rome, and the dispersal of the Jews of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., Jewish messianism lived on as Jews hoped desperately, if in vain, for a deliverer from Roman oppression. The most successful of the messianic pretenders was Simon Bar Kochba, who gained the support of the famous Talmudic rabbi Akiva and succeeded in establishing a state independent of Roman rule from approximately 132-135 c.e.. His rebellion was eventually crushed at a cost estimated to be as high as half a million Jewish lives, and from then on rabbinic Judaism took a decidedly anti-messianic stance.

Christian view

Christianity emerged in the first century C.E. as a movement among Jews (and their Gentile associates) who believed Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah. The very name, "Christian," refers to the Greek word for "Messiah" (Kristos). Although Christians commonly refer to Jesus as "Christ" rather than "Messiah," the two words are synonymous.

Jesus enters Jerusalem as disciples proclaim him "Son of David."

According to the New Testament, the disciples believed that Jesus was the Messiah that Jews were expecting. John 1:41-42 says:

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.

Scholars today debate whether Jesus actually considered himself to be the Messiah. In the synoptic Gospels his indenty as Messiah is kept secret from the public until his triumphal entry into Jerusalem a few days prior to his death. In that scene, Jesus rides into the city on a donkey to shouts of "Hosanna! Son of David!" (Mt. 21:1-9) in conscious fulfillment of Zechariah's messianic prophecy:


Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zech. 9:9)

Although the Gospels reflect a later theology in which Jesus' rejection and death on the Cross are predestined by God, it is likely that during Jesus' life, his disciples thought of his mission in terms similar to the Jewish messianic concept of a political deliver and teacher of righteousness. Luke's gospel shows that after Jesus' crucifixion, the disciples were shocked and disillusioned, seemingly having no inkling that Jesus' death was part of his plan:

Now that same day [Eatser Sunday] two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem... [The unrecognized risen Jesus] asked them, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?" They stood still, their faces downcast... "About Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. (Luke 24:13-21)

In the Book of Acts, Luke indicates that the disciples continued to hope that the risen Jesus would perform the role Israel's political redeemer rather than primarily a spiritual savior: "So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6)

Eventually however, the Christian concept of the Messiah grew into something fundamentally different from the Jewish concept. Rather than being primarily a deliverer of the people of Israel from political oppression, in Christian theology, the Christ/Messiah serves four main functions:

  • He suffers and dies to make atonement before God for the sins of all humanity, without which no one can share in the eternal life of his resurrection.
  • He serves as a living example of how God expects people to act.
  • At his Second Coming, he will establish peace and rule the world for a long time.
  • He is an incarnation of God, who pre-existed his human birth as the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.

(Ankerberg & Weldon, pp. 218-223)

In developing these doctrines, Christians came to interpret several passages of the Old Testament very differently from Jews. For example:

  • The Servant Songs of Isaiah were interpreted not as descriptions of Israel's suffering and redemption, but as predictions of the redemptive suffering of Jesus as the Messiah.
  • A minor prophecy of Isaiah, namely his prediction of the birth of Immanuel (Isaiah 7), was interpreted to refer to Jesus' Virgin Birth, rather than to the normal birth of child in Isaiah's day.
  • The "son of Man" passages in the Book of Daniel were interpreted as refering to Jesus' Second Coming on the clouds of heaven.
  • Similarly, the exepectation that the Messiah, as the Prince of Peace, would re-establish David's Kingdom on earth was postponed to the Second Coming.

The Islamic View

In the Qur'an, the scripture of Islam, Isa (Jesus) is described as a Messenger of God as well as "the Messiah." The belief is that he was raised to heaven and will return at the end of days to live out the rest of his natural life.

Some Muslims claim the Messiah was prophesized in the "testimony of Levi" in Genesis as a descendent of Levi, and that the prophecy about "the shoot of Jesse" was displaced in antiquity from the Joshua section to other Prophets scrolls, and that both Joshua prophecy and the Testimony of Judah (the star, shoot) were already achieved in David.

The Mahdi (al-Mahdi, Imam Mehdi, etc.), is a different person from Jesus/Isa and is another messianic figure in Islam. The Mahdi will usher in a new age of peace, and restore a perfect Islamic society. Shia and Sunni opinions on al-Mahdi differ somewhat, but both sects agree that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah.[citation needed]

As for Islamic sources, they do not mention a King-Messiah who restores the kingdom of David or a Priest-Messiah who restores the temple rites. Not only the Qur`an does not mention the King-Messiah or the Priest-Messiah, but it also does not give much importance to the institutions of kingship and priesthood. (Shafaat, 2003)


Section references: Vaca, 2001; Shafaat, 2003


Later Jewish Views

Early rabbinic thought about the Messiah as expressed in the Talmud is not consistent, as the Talmud typically presents a record of often conflicting opinions of various rabbis on the subject. Generally, the Messiah brings peace to all mankind, and and the Messnianic era is a period of freedom and peace.

The basic Jewish understanding of the Messiah can be found in the writings of Maimonides. His views on the Messiah are discussed in the Mishneh Torah, his 14-volume compendium of Jewish law. In the section Hilkhot Melakhim Umilchamoteihem, chapter 11. Maimonides writes:

"The anointed King is destined to stand up and restore the Davidic Kingdom to its antiquity, to the first sovereignty. He will build the Temple in Jerusalem and gather the strayed ones of Israel together... Whoever does not believe in him, or whoever does not wait for his coming, not only does he defy the other prophets, but also the Torah and Moses our teacher."

Maimonides stressed that signs and miracles were not necessarily part of the Messiah's task.

"Do not imagine that the anointed King must perform miracles and signs and create new things in the world or resurrect the dead and so on. The matter is not so: For Rabbi Akiva was a great scholar of the sages of the Mishnah, and he was the assistant-warrior of the king Bar Kokhba, and claimed that he was the anointed king. He and all the Sages of his generation deemed him the anointed king, until he was killed by sins; only since he was killed, they knew that he was not. The Sages asked him neither a miracle nor a sign..."

Rather, it is by the accomplishment of the messianic task itself that he shall be known:

"And if a king shall stand up from among the House of David, studying Torah and indulging in commandments like his father David, according to the written and oral Torah, and he will coerce all Israel to follow it and to strengthen its weak points, and will fight Hashem's [God's] wars, this one is to be treated as if he were the anointed one. If he succeeded {and won all nations surrounding him. Old prints and mss.} and built a Holy Temple in its proper place and gathered the strayed ones of Israel together, this is indeed the anointed one for certain...

Maimonides' sensible pragmatism gave way in the later middle ages to a wave of mystical thought based on the Kabbalah, combined with various medieval superstition and magical thinking. The potent mix provided a fertile ground for active messianic expectations as Jews faced persecution in Christian Europe. One particular messianic figure deserves special mention: Shabbetai Zevi, for he won the allegiance of a very large proportion of European and near Eastern Jewry. Even his eventual apostasy to Islam did not put an end to messianic hopes in him, as his followers rationalized it as a sacrificial act of "tikkun," or restorative healing. Later Shabbataeans were accused of moral outrages born of this doctrine, under which the worst sins allegedly became acts of purification. This phenomenon produced a reaction in normative Judaism against messianianic tenendencies that persists to this day.


Present-day positions

Orthodox Judaism maintains that Jews are obligated to accept 13 Principles of Faith which is based on the Prophets, including an unwavering belief in the coming of the Messiah as traditionally defined.

Conservative Judaism takes a more flexible stand. Its statement of principles declares:

"Since no one can say for certain what will happen in the Messianic era each of us is free to fashion personal speculation. Some of us accept these speculations are literally true, while others understand them as elaborate metaphors... For the world community we dream of an age when warfare will be abolished, when justice and compassion will be axioms of all... For our people, we dream of the ingathering of all Jews to Zion where we can again be masters of our own destiny and express our distinctive genius in every area of our national life... We echo the words of Maimonides based on the prophet Habakkuk (2:3) that though he may tarry, yet do we wait for him each day."

Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism generally do not accept the idea that there will be a personal Messiah. Many, however, believe in the ideal of a "messianic age" which all Jews are obligated to work towards.

In 1976, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the official body of American Reform rabbis, authored "Reform Judaism: A Centenary Perspective". While not an official statement of principles, it is meant to describe the spiritual state of modern Reform Judaism. In regard to the messianic era, it states:

"Previous generations of Reform Jews had unbound confidence in humanity's potential for good. We have lived through terrible tragedy and been compelled to reappropriate our tradition's realism about the human capacity for evil. Yet our people has always refused to despair. The survivors of the Holocaust, being granted life, seized it, nurtured it, and, rising above catastrophe, showed humankind that the human spirit is indomitable. The State of Israel, established and maintained by the Jewish will to live, demonstrates what a united people can accomplish in history. The existence of the Jew is an argument against despair; Jewish survival is warrant for human hope. We remain God's witness that history is not meaningless. We affirm that with God's help people are not powerless to affect their destiny. We dedicate ourselves, as did the generations of Jews who went before us, to work and wait for that day when "They shall not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."

Other Messiahs

See Jewish Messiah claimants for an overview of such claimants and links to more detailed articles.

In Stregheria, Jesus Christ is believed to have been a sort of "evil messiah" or false messiah, while Aradia de Toscano is seen as the true saviour who came to free the poor and the oppressed from the bondages of Christianity.

Adherents to the Unification Movement consider Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon to be the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

The Shakers believed that Jesus was the male Messiah and Mother Ann Lee, the female Messiah.

For the Rastafari movement, Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was the messiah.

The Ahmadi/Ahmadiyya religion, considered heretical by mainstream Islam, believes that the Messiah and Mahdi have come in the form of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, India (1835-1908).


Jewish messiah claimants

This list features people who are said, either by themselves or their followers, to be the Jewish Messiah.

Christian messiah claimants

This list features people who are said, either by themselves or their followers to be Jesus Christ, or a Messiah under the umbrella of Christianity.

  • Aldebert (eighth century)
  • Tanchelm of Antwerp (c. 1110)
  • Ann Lee (1736-1784) central figure to the Shakers.
  • John Nichols Thom (1799-1838), Cornish tax rebel
  • Hong Xiuquan, China (1812-1864), claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus.
  • Bahá'u'lláh (1817-1892), claimed to be the promised one of all religions, and founded the Bahá'í Faith.
  • Haile Selassie of Ethiopia (1892-1975), Messiah of the Rastafari movement.
  • Georges-Emest Roux (1903-1981), the Christ de Montfavet, founder of the Eglise Chrétienne Universelle
  • Sun Myung Moon (b. 1920), founder of the Unification Church
  • Abbott "Vaughn" Meader (1936-2004), grammy-winning comedian and impersonator.
  • Vince Taylor (1939-1991), rock and roller who ended his career by claiming to be Jesus.
  • Michael Travesser, born Wayne Bent (b. 1941). Claims to be the beginning of the Second Coming of Jesus.
  • Inri Cristo (b. 1948) a claimant to be the second Jesus in Curitiba, Brazil
  • David Koresh (1959-1993)
  • Maria Devi Christos (born 1960), founder of the Great White Brotherhood
  • Sergei Torop (b. 1961) who started to call himself "Vissarion," founder of the Church of the Last Testament

Muslim messiah claimants

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Islamic tradition has a prophecy of the Mahdi, who will come alongside the return of Jesus. The following people claimed to be the Mahdi.

  • Syed Mohammad Jaunpuri (1443 - 1505) of Northeastern India.
  • The Báb in 1844 declared to be the promised Mahdi in Shiraz, Iran.
  • Bahá'u'lláh (1817-1892): Here as well as he'd been born Shiite and relates to both Islam as well as Christianity.
  • Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835 - 1908) of Qadian, 'the Promised Messiah' return of Jesus, founder of the Ahmadiyya religious movement in Islam.
  • Muhammad Ahmad in the late 19th century founded a short-lived empire in Sudan.
  • Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan of Somaliland engaged in military conflicts from 1900 to 1920.
  • Juhayman al-Otaibi seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca in November of 1979.
  • Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran (1900-1989) was believed by a number of followers to be the Mahdi. Upon his return to Iran from exile in 1979, the headline on Tehran's largest-circulation newspaper read, "The Mahdi Returns!"

Other messiah claimants

This list features people who are said, either by themselves or their followers to be some form of a messiah outside of the sphere of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

  • Aradia de Toscano (b. 1313) active in Italy, said to be the human incarnation of the Roman demigoddess Aradia.
  • Jacob Joseph Frank (1726-1791), founder of the Frankist movement.
  • André Matsoua (1899-1942), Congolese founder of Amicale, proponents of which subsequently adopted him as Messiah.
  • Maitreya (unknown), A messianic figure promoted by Benjamin Creme through his organization, Share International.
  • Rashad Khalifa (1935 - 1990), claimed to be a prophet after the Prophet Muhammad and even included his name in his translation of the Quran.
  • John Nichols Thom(1799-1838) was a Cornish self-declared Messiah in the 19th century.


References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Hogue, John Messiahs: The Visions and Prophecies for the Second Coming (1999) Elements Books ISBN 1862045496


  • Philosophies of Judaism by Julius Guttmann, trans. by David Silverman, JPS. 1964
  • Mishneh Torah, Maimonides, Chapter on Hilkhot Melakhim Umilchamoteihem (Laws of Kings and Wars)
  • Mashiach Rabbi Jacob Immanuel Schochet, published by S.I.E., Brooklyn, NY, 1992
  • Moses Maimonides's Treatise on Resurrection, Trans. Fred Rosner
  • Emet Ve-Emunah: Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism, Ed. Robert Gordis, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1988
  • Reform Judaism: A Centenary Perspective, Central Conference of American Rabbis

External links


References

Books

  • Evangelical Christian:
  • Ankerberg, John and Weldon, John [1997]. "Chap. 11. Biblical Prophecy-Part One", Ready With an Answer for the Tough Questions About God (paperback) (in English), Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers. ISBN 1-56507-618-4. 
  • McDowell, Josh [October 22, 1999]. New Evidence that Demands a Verdict—Fully Updated to Answer the Questions Challenging Christians Today, The (hardcover), 1st Ed. (in English), Nelson Reference. ISBN 0785243631. 

On-line

Judaism

  • See also: Jewish Messiah claimants: General Bibliography.

Christianity

Islam

  • Shaukat Ali: Millenarian and Messianic Tendencies In Islamic Thought: Lahore: Publishers United: 1993
  • Timothy Furnish: Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, Jihads and Osama Bin Laden: Westport: Praeger: 2005: ISBN: 02759833838
  • Abdulaziz Abdulhassan Sachedina: Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahdi in Twelver Shi'ism: Albany: State University of New York Press: 1981: ISBN: 0873954580

Non-specific religious


General

See also

  • Anointing of Jesus
  • Chosen one, a person who was chosen, usually by fate or God (or a godlike being), to save a group of people.
  • God complex
  • Jewish Messiah
  • Kalki
  • Mahdi
  • Maitreya
  • Messianic prophecy
  • Millennialism
  • Muhammad al-Mahdi
  • Messiahs in fiction and fantasy
  • Sun Myung Moon
  • Saoshyant
  • Second Coming
  • Shambhala
  • List of people considered to be avatars

External links

Non-specific religious

Jewish

Christian

Moslem

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