Many Christian beliefs about Jesus aren't Jewishly heretical

Yisrael Eliashiv (@shevereshtus), an excellent Orthodox Jewish follow on X/Twitter and author at MagenYehudi, on Jewish beliefs about the Messiah.

"Are any of these positions, that Mashiach will descend from the clouds, be an entirely new created being instead of a human being, an angelic creature, predates the creation of the world, any less “controversial” than stating that Mashiach can possibly come from the dead? Yet they are all sourced in our Torah, presented as possibilities, and obviously not all of them will come to fruition. Still, no one who believes in them can be considered a heretic, G-d forbid."

He gives lengthy evidence that seemingly heretical views about Messiah, such as:

• The Messiah will descend from the clouds
• The Messiah will be an entirely new creation, not merely a human being
• The Messiah will be angelic
• The Messiah predates the creation of the world
• The Messiah will die, be resurrected, and then be crowned king over the Jews
• The Messiah will come from the dead (e.g. a resurrected King David or other prophet)
• The Messiah will come with a retinue of angels

...are not Jewishly heretical. They may be wrong, he argues, but they are not heresy. He shows Jewish sages and thinkers throughout history who have held these beliefs because they are rooted in Torah and Talmud.

His goal with these claims is to show that Chabad Meshichists (that is, Orthodox Jews who believe the 20th century Rabbi Schneerson to be the Messiah) are not heretics for accepting some of these high views about Messiah.

But his statements are important to me because followers of Yeshua have often been accused of believing non-Jewish things about Messiah. 

When we say Yeshua will come on the clouds of heaven, it is often seen as idolatry. "The Messiah is just a man, not some demigod from heaven!" When we say Messiah existed before the world was created, it is seen as heresy and we are accused of being idolaters of the highest order. But as Shevereshtus shows, these views about Messiah are sourced from the Tenakh itself.

And we shouldn't be surprised by the similarity between these Jewish views of Messiah and Christianity. Christianity was at its foundation a Jewish faith.

That's not to say Christians are A-OK by Jewish standards. We're not. Despite surprisingly high views of Messiah in Jewish history, the Christian understanding is higher still: We believe Messiah to be the divine son of God, not a created being, a person and appearance of God himself. That's heresy according to modern Judaism! But it's worth understanding where the line between Judaism and Christianity is really drawn.

Shevereshtus also notes differing views on whether Messiah will live forever.

The Rambam records that some people expect Mashiach to live forever, and other traditions emphasize this, but he himself holds that this will not be the case. He believes that the Messianic Era might last thousands of years, though we’ve seen considerable disagreement regarding how long it will last before the World to Come comes to fruition. He believes the resurrected will die again, while others like the Ramban and others maintain that the resurrection will continue in perfected bodies. The Rambam believes the World to Come will be entirely spiritual, while the Ramban and others hold it will be in a perfected physical world. The Rambam claims that Mashiach will clarify tribal ancestry, while the Mishnah in Eduyot says Eliyahu will be in charge of this. The revelation of Mashiach himself, whether it will be a supernatural event or natural, is swept aside by the Rambam, who only mentions a natural revelation without miracles associated with a figure descending from Heaven with a retinue of angels in tow.

It gets a bit dicey when the Rambam states that if the presumed Mashiach is killed, he is excluded as having been Mashiach. He might have been a presumed Mashiach, but was not definitely Mashiach. This seems to contradict both verses in Torah and statements in the Talmud and Midrash, but it can be easily explained by his use of the word killed rather than died. Picking specific opinions from the Talmud and saying this is how things will unfold is one thing. To say that something the Gemara presents in both Bavli and Yerushalmi as a possibility is, in fact, not a possibility at all is something else entirely.

Ultimately, none of those disagreements matter. According to the Rambam’s own 12th Principle and introduction to the 10th chapter of Sanhedrin, details about Mashiach and the Messianic era, as long as they are rooted in the teachings of our Sages, might be wrong but certainly are not heresy.

This reminds me of an interaction recorded in the New Testament. The great Jewish sage R. Gamliel addresses the Sanhedrin,

Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered.  

Gamliel is saying, "Look, remember all those men who claimed to be Messiah? They died and came to nothing."

That seems to suggest Gamliel shared the same view Rambam held centuries later: that a Messiah who is killed is disqualified from being Messiah.

It seems Yeshua's disciples, too, held this view. When Yeshua is put to death by the Romans, do the disciples celebrate and go around spreading Christianity? No! They go into hiding assuming they too will be killed for supporting a false messiah. His chief disciple famously denies even having known him. 

Perhaps fresh in the minds of the disciples was R. Gamliel's words: if Yeshua isn't Messiah, then he'll be killed and his movement come to nothing, just like all the other failed messiahs.

Shevereshtus notes that Rambam's view that dying disqualifies a Messianic candidate seems to be contrary to Torah, Talmud, and Midrash. He resolves it by distinguishing between a Messiah who is "killed" a Messiah who "died".

We Christians too use such a distinction but in a different way. 

A Messiah who is dead is no Messiah at all. The disciples thought this too. Christianity would not exist today if Yeshua died and stayed dead. The disciples and the early Christians genuinely believed they saw, experienced, walked with Messiah who had been killed. He was the risen Messiah: God raised Yeshua from the dead, vindicating his Messianic claims.