For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[EGross]

And yes, Solomon (Shlomo) is a problem.

Unlike David, where there is at least one item that says "House of David", albeit 100 years after David lived, Solomon is more of an enigma. For a supposed wise person, he did way too many stupid things, so much so that the Abarbanel considered him one of the vilest of men, unworthy of reverence.

I did a google search for the Abarbanel - were they the Spanish family who were supposed to be descended from King David?

Probably was, depending on how people maintain their lineages. But the most important bit was that he was the financial person for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who initiatated the Spanish Inquisition and the exile of the Jews, telling him he was a good Jew and could keep handling the cash (he also intiated the funding for Columbus). He despised any monarchy by that point, flipped them the finger, and left with the rest of the Jews.

Hence his statement that there was never a good Jewish king except Yotam ben Uzziyahu, of which the Tanach writes that he ruled in place of his father while he ailedm and after he died. Nothing else. Hence, he was the only good one! Modern commentators are critical of the Abarbanel, and misue the Talmudic quote "Anyone who thinks that David (or Solomon) sinned is mistaken" and ignoring the fact that such a statement is then undermined and reversed.

If this article about Jewish Messianism is right it could explain a lot.

In Jewish eschatology, the term came to refer to a future Jewish King from the Davidic line,

Traditional and current Orthodox thought have mainly held that ‘the Messiah’ will be the anointed one (messiah), descended from his father through the Davidic line of King David,[5] who will gather the Jews back into the Land of Israel, usher in an era of peace, build the Third Temple, have a male heir and re-institute the Sanhedrin, among other things. Jewish tradition alludes to two redeemers, both of whom are called Mashiach and are involved in ushering in the Messianic age: Mashiach ben David and Mashiach ben Joseph. In general, the term Messiah unqualified always refers to Mashiach ben David (Messiah the descendant of David and Salomon) of the tribe of Judah. He will be the final redeemer who shall rule in the Messianic age.[1][2]

The Moshiach ben Yosef thing is weird in that there is only 1 reference to that in all of early rabbinical work (Mesechta Sukkah, 52b), and it speaks of one who will mislead people and will die, and people will mourn his death for the realization of the deception will come upon them.

It was originally a metaphor for all false messiahs, and then the Kabbalists got hold of it and then it sort of got absorbed into jewish philosophy, and the Christians, who if they knew the real meaning, would stop trying to refer to the first coming of Jesus as the ben Yosef, and the second coming as ben David, which they got from LATER Jewish legend, since the ben Yosef metaphor would not be developed until the 3rd-4th century CE.

If you're trying to promote the idea that the Messiah will be descended from David and Solomon you aren't going to say anything like "David established a small kingdom. His Jerusalem was very primitive with a few stone toilets being the height of luxury. His son, Solomon, was a stupid man and an awful king."

You do have the literalists among the Jews that pray intently that the "King Moshiach should arrive speedily in our days", but you also have the true scolars who see it as a day of dread, since nearly every king has been a disaster, and a monarchy where you serve a King and he in turn will serve God (or himself), is anything but appealing to those who even pause for a moment to consider what they are asking for. Heck, if they paused to consider what a 3rd Temple really meant, they'd bolt!

It seems, though, that not everyone was fooled by the fabricated account of Solomon being the wisest of men who ruled a glittering kingdom.

because of these two guys, the sages had to change the wording of the Torah a bit. Where is speaks of not marrying an Ammonite (Solomon did) or a Moabite (David's paternal line, hence the Book of Ruth), so that "Well, it uses these terms in the Masculine form, so obviously this only means that the Jewish males cannot marry the women. But to be consistant, when the commandment is made by God, it is made in the masculine. Are you to say it only applies to the males (oopsies) or males and females (oopsies)?

But since Boaz slept with Ruth, obviously he meant to marry her, too bad he died right after the had sex, and since he was a Judge, a later generation (after Judges) cannot undo the rulings of the previous, then it must be ok.

Or, in reality, somehow David got to be King, God said so, and so retroactively there must be a reason why it was ok.

So whe you hear of Messianism (Chabad is probably the worst cult in that respect), yeah, it's about "son of David", or his genetic heir, a paternal link through blood. And since Jesus didn't have a Jewish father, this whole thimg makes you go...

WTF???

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