Challenge: Keep your Jesus, we have our OWN Messiah.

How can we get a large minority of Jews to believe the Messiah has come at last?

Conditions:

  • A POD after 500 AD.
  • The Messiah cannot be Jesus.
  • The religion has to survive for a least a century as a significant force.
  • Bonus points if he proclaims a New Promised Land, extra bonus points if it isn't in a conventional place. (Israel, Madagascar, Uganda count as conventional.)
 
What kind of attributes is the Messiah supposed to have? How exactly would he be recognised?

Let's do something evil with Henry Kissinger.
 
What kind of attributes is the Messiah supposed to have? How exactly would he be recognised?

He shall recapture Jerusalem and force the world's leaders to recognise him as a leader. The Jews shall be returned to their true Homeland, and an age of utopia shall come.

Let's do something evil with Henry Kissinger.

As far as I know, the rabbinical requirements for the Messiah do not include better legs than Hitler and bigger tits than Cher. But it could be a very interesting ASB TL.

Hmm.

I'll be back in a bit...
 
The POD's a little early, but my best bet is to have no Sack in 70, keep the whole messianic tradition simmering but never quite boiling over, then have somebody create an independant Kingdom of Israel in the 3rd Century Crisis or the end of the Empire. Technically its just like the Maccabees again, but you could make it more explicitly messianic.

..Of course, the "simmering but never quite boiling over" is the hard part - the Jews were just itching to kick out the Romans by 66.
 

Philip

Donor
How can we get a large minority of Jews to believe the Messiah has come at last?

I have one in a timeline I'm working on. He establishes his bona fides by defeating and expelling Christian and Zoroastrian overloads of his people in addition to being a highly devout Jew at a time when his neighbors are rather lax in their observances.

  • A POD after 500 AD.
Here, I am off. The PoD is 472. However, the relevant portion does not occur until later, after AD 600.

  • The Messiah cannot be Jesus.
His name is Yousha bin Dawood bin Adham, a 7th Century merchant from Himyar. He is one of several messianic figures who appear at that time.

  • The religion has to survive for a least a century as a significant force.
It is a (the?) major religion in the Near and Middle East until at least the 11th Century.

  • Bonus points if he proclaims a New Promised Land, extra bonus points if it isn't in a conventional place. (Israel, Madagascar, Uganda count as conventional.)
Sort of. Initially, it is Himyar/Yemen. After the reconquest of Jerusalem, The time in Himyar is considered analogous to Moses leading the Hebrews through the Wilderness.
 
I think Bar-Kochba claimed by the Messiah and ruled a new Israel for a time, until the Romans crushed him.

What if the Romans failed, for whatever reason?
 
I think Bar-Kochba claimed by the Messiah and ruled a new Israel for a time, until the Romans crushed him.

What if the Romans failed, for whatever reason?

If that happened, I doubt they'd just give up. They show weakness with a state like Israel, they'll lose prestige all across their borders. Their own conquered areas'd probably experience a "surge" of nationalism. The Empire'd be in for its darkest days, if it didn't crumble outright.

I think Israel'd become the primary target for the Romans until it became clear that they were beyond reach. Which, depending on who wants it, might be the day the Empire collapses.
 

Keenir

Banned
How can we get a large minority of Jews to believe the Messiah has come at last?

Conditions:

  • A POD after 500 AD.
  • The Messiah cannot be Jesus.
  • The religion has to survive for a least a century as a significant force.
  • Bonus points if he proclaims a New Promised Land, extra bonus points if it isn't in a conventional place. (Israel, Madagascar, Uganda count as conventional.)

well, there's Jews in Brooklyn, New York, who believe the Messiah died not long ago.

and there's an Ottoman Jew who was seen as a Messiah, 16th century or so....and his followers are still around too.
 
well, there's Jews in Brooklyn, New York, who believe the Messiah died not long ago.

and there's an Ottoman Jew who was seen as a Messiah, 16th century or so....and his followers are still around too.

Yep, you have to love the followers of Schneerson and Shabbatai Zvi for that.
 
The Khazars survive and put their full support behind David al-Roy. He gathers the Jews of Iraq and Syria and leads them with a Khazar army into Israel and revolts against whoever was in control at the time.

Or another idea I just had: in the 8th or 9th century, a movement spreads throughout Judaism (spread perhaps by the Radhanites) which portrays Khazaria as the new promised land. So we could get many more Jews immigrating to Khazaria (even more so than in OTL anyway) and possible the Khazars would be stronger as a result.
 
Muhammad, early on, is hit by the revelation that he's a son of David, and that his mission is to unite all the sons of Abraham to reclaim Abraham's patrimony for his descendants. This Muhammad, with a somewhat different career, has a son. Like Moses never entering the Promised Land, Muhammad never conquers the Levant, and like David, he never builds the Temple. Instead, it is his son that is the Messiah who leads the armies of the sons of Abraham against the Byzantines, and who orders the building of the Third Temple.
 
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