Why did the Christian messiah fail to fulfill the messianic prophecies?

Well in part yes. Firstly the "Son of Man" reference goes to Daniel 7 where the "Son of Man" is being presented to the Ancient of Days. That coming is a heavenly vision and not an earthly one. However, it goes on to say that the "Son of Man" will be given dominion over an everlasting Kingdom that will be established in an earthly setting and extend beyond time to eternity. Christ's Kingdom or His church now exists throughout the world, and was established in the life times of those Jesus was speaking to.AbE I just thought I'd add that I realize this is not going to convince you of anything but I do want to give you the Christian POV. Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

Not at all. They were looking for a warrior king but Jesus' point that the enemy was evil itself and that the weapon to be used against evil is love. They were looking for a messiah to rebuild the Temple but Jesus said that the Temple was being rebuilt in Him and in the hearts of His followers.In other words He fulfilled the prophesies but not in the way that they had expected.

That was their assumption based on their world view of how the enemy was to be defeated. He fulfilled the prophesies by coming with love and brotherhood. That was the way the enemy, (evil), was to be defeated. Well, we don't all know that. The Temple was the place where God was suppose to dwell, or where God was incarnate. Essentially that was foreshadowing of the Word of God incarnate in Jesus. Ok. We now have nearly 2000 years of recorded history. In that time the "Kingdom of God" as announced by Jesus has been spread word wide and even though it has had a very spotty record it has also led in huge advances in civilization.Your version has still not seen a messiah. I don't have to tell you about what has happened to the Temple and Israel exists because of the politics of gentile countries and is a secular state. Just what of the prophesies as you understand them has been fulfilled?I don't mean this to sound confrontational. Essentially I see Christianity as largely Jewish. I realize that Jesus knew that what He was doing was going to be divisive, (mind you there already were many divisions within the ranks of the Jews of that day ), but I don't think that He would have imagined that there would be a separate church. Jesus was a Jew in a Jewish culture. He lived His life in that culture, and of all of His initial followers were Jewish. We're all brothers who have a bit of a disagreement over our historical roots. It does all boil down to what we believe about the resurrection.Edited by GDR, : typo

This is based on your misconceptions of Christianity. Jesus taught that we are to keep the commandments, not because by keeping them that we will have God on our side, but because they are written on our hearts and that we find joy in keeping them.That teaching is completely consistent with Torah.This is from Matthew 22.

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34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37 Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

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Jesus is referring back to Dt 6.

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4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

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and Lev 19.

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18 " 'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.

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Again, it is all about the heart.

I think that by now it is quite clear that JC DID fulfill the messianic prophecies, so it should also be quite clear that he WAS the messiah.You have been shown how he defeated the enemy, (evil), and how he rebuilt the temple, not as a building, but in the hearts of those that are followers of His message of loving others as we love ourselves.

Yes and no. For the Jews the Temple was where one could go to meet with God, or in other words the Temple was where God 's world or dimension overlapped with our world or dimension. Jesus said that the overlap occurred in the hearts of those that had faith in His message of loving others as they loved themselves, and went further in saying that the temple had been corrupted..

Some Jews did and some didn't. I don't believe that Jesus ever did see the Christian Church evolving the way it did. I think that He understood that what He was doing was the fulfillment of the Israel story, that involved the return of Yahweh to His people which Jesus embodied as the Jewish messiah.It is what separates the beliefs of Jews and Christians today as it did then. One of the things the messiah was supposed to do was to rebuild the temple. The temple was by Jewish custom the place where God could be found. Jesus' claim was that He was the place where God was to be found. In other words Jesus was redefining the idea of Temple.This is from John 2

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18 The Jews then responded to him, What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this? 19 Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days. 20 They replied, It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days? 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

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This is from Paul 1st letter to the Corinthians chap 3:

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16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?

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In other words Jesus did rebuild the temple but it was in people's hearts, thus fulfilling the messianic mission.

One quote was from a gospel, however that understanding is also taken from the general context of the entirety of the NT. It was Jesus who redefined how establishing the Kingdom and the rebuilding of the Temple was to be accomplished. Fine if you want to believe in a literal anti-christ.

Hardly. He understood that was His God given vocation and a vocation that would lead to his death. What He was called to do was upsetting everyone in positions of power and He knew what happened to those who did what He was doing.

Not really. There was a number of messianic beliefs of which the most popular was the belief that the messiah would be a military leader that would lead them to defeat their enemies. This is consistent with the majority of religious beliefs. The usual idea is how to get your deity on side with what you want him,her, or it to do.Jesus' understanding however can be found in the Hebrew Scriptures, in passages like the suffering serveant in Isaiah, or even in my signature. Jesus simply understood through study and prayer what God actually had to say through the reading of their scriptures. It wasn't about getting God to serve themselves but about getting them to serve others.Certainly this wasn't His whole message but it was and is a big part of it.

No. Jesus was the fulfillment of the Israel story, and as part of that He fulfilled the messianic requirements, but not in the way the majority of Israelites expected.Incidentally, being the messiah did not in itself deify Jesus. A messiah was simply the anointed one of Yahweh who would redeem Israel. Understanding Jesus as part of the godhead or trinity is another issue which is IMHO best understood in the first chapter of John, (the Word or Wisdom of God became flesh), as well as in Daniel's dream where the "Son of Man" is presented to the Ancient of Days" and given dominion in Daniel 7.

The Israelites were still wanting a god that would do what they wanted. They wanted power in the here and now, and even though they were in the promised land they were still under Roman rule and still in exile. Jesus' message was not about gaining military power but about influencing the enemy with kindness, truth and love. That sold then just about as well as it does today. Further, the message became that God was not just a God for the Jews but for the whole world. It wasn't a message that everyone wanted to hear.Many believed but many didn't.

It is interesting to discuss the ways in which Jesus fulfilled the messianic mission but in the final analysis it isn't really about how we interpret the texts. What is important is God's reaction to the life and message of Jesus. God confirmed and vindicated Jesus by resurrecting Him.If God hadn't resurrected Jesus then there is no reason to think that any of His followers, (or later on Paul for that matter), would have considered Him any more than just another failed messiah, and we wouldn't be having this discussion today.

Once again though it all comes back to the resurrection. If Jesus is resurrected by God then we can have confidence in Jesus' self understanding. If the resurrection is not true then the whole point is moot anyway.As I said in my other reply if Jesus wasn't resurrected then He would simply have been another failed messiah and His followers would simply have disappeared back to their fishing etc.

Well we don't actually know whether or not anybody else understood the messianic prophesies the way Jesus did. What we do see in the Gospels are people who understood them in the way that would benefit them. So what? That seems to be a big part of human nature.The point isn't about what people think they mean. The important part is what God intended. Again, if Jesus is resurrected then we can have confidence that Jesus had it right, and subsequent to that a great many people have come to believe that Jesus got it right.