Understanding the Hebrew and Greek origins of Messiah, the diversity of Jewish expectations, and why the resurrection became the foundation of the apostolic proclamation.
A recent discussion on the Data Over Dogma podcast featuring biblical scholar Dr. Dan McClellan raises an important question about one of Christianity’s most familiar titles: Christ. McClellan correctly observes that Jesus was not the only person described as God’s anointed. Isaiah 45:1 identifies Cyrus, a Persian king, with the Hebrew term māšîaḥ—the word from which we derive Messiah. The ancient Greek Septuagint uses christos, the same word applied to Jesus in the New Testament.
This is neither linguistically controversial nor a threat to Christian belief. The real question is what distinguishes Jesus from the many people appointed to divine tasks. McClellan further proposes that Jesus was an unsuccessful political messianic claimant whose followers, following his execution, reinterpreted his mission as deliverance from sin and death. That historical reconstruction deserves examination, but it must not be confused with an established fact. The earliest Christian testimony offers a different account, centered on divine agency and the resurrection.
Messiah and Christ: Two Languages, One Basic Meaning
The Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (māšîaḥ) derives from מָשַׁח (māšaḥ), “to anoint.” The Greek χριστός (christos) likewise means “anointed” or “anointed one.” Neither word originally functioned as a surname. They designated someone appointed or consecrated to a responsibility.
Israelite kings and priests were anointed, while prophetic commissioning could also be expressed in the language of anointing. David refused to harm Saul because Saul was YHWH’s anointed (1 Samuel 24:6), even though Saul’s conduct was deeply compromised. Anointing did not guarantee moral perfection or designate every recipient as an end-times deliverer. Nor is “anointed” simply a synonym for “chosen”: divine selection and ritual anointing are related but distinct concepts. Some passages use anointing figuratively, without narrating a ceremony involving oil.
Cyrus: A Persian King Called God’s Anointed
Isaiah 45:1 reads in Hebrew: כֹּה־אָמַר יְהוָה לִמְשִׁיחוֹ לְכוֹרֶשׁ—“Thus says the LORD to Cyrus His anointed” (NASB 1995). The expression limshicho means “to his anointed.”
The Septuagint renders the key phrase τῷ χριστῷ μου Κύρῳ (tō christō mou Kyrō): “to my anointed, Cyrus.” Here christō is an inflected form of christos, and the Greek has “my” where the Hebrew has “his.” McClellan is correct: in this Greek text Cyrus is called God’s Christ in the ordinary sense of God’s anointed.
Isaiah 44:28–45:5 supplies the reason. Cyrus would facilitate Jerusalem’s restoration and the rebuilding of the temple. He was neither an Israelite king nor a Davidic descendant. Isaiah even says that Cyrus did not know YHWH (45:4–5). The point is divine commissioning, not that Cyrus possessed the whole range of later messianic expectations. God’s agency could operate through someone outside Israel’s covenant community.
From Anointed Kings to Messianic Expectation
The Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7:12–16) and royal texts such as Psalm 2 linked anointing with kingship and divine sonship. These texts first belonged to the historical world of Israel’s monarchy. After Jerusalem’s destruction and the loss of Davidic independence, however, they were read amid hopes for restoration. Isaiah 11 and Jeremiah 23:5–6 anticipate righteous rule associated with David’s line.
By the Second Temple period, expectations had developed in different directions. Some Jews hoped for a Davidic ruler and national liberation; others emphasized priestly renewal, prophetic leadership, heavenly judgment, or resurrection. The Community Rule from Qumran (1QS 9:11) refers to a prophet and the messiahs of Aaron and Israel—evidence against the assumption that every Jewish group expected one identically defined figure. Daniel and parts of 1 Enoch broaden the apocalyptic horizon, though their figures should not automatically be equated.
There was no single universally accepted checklist for the Messiah. Nevertheless, Israel’s restoration, righteous government, and God’s decisive intervention were enduring themes. Jesus entered this diverse religious environment.
Jesus Was Not the Only Religious Figure Attracting Followers
Jesus was not the only teacher or charismatic religious figure in the first-century Jewish world to attract followers and proclaim divine intervention. Roman occupation, competing interpretations of Torah, and popular expectations of deliverance fostered multiple prophetic and resistance movements.
Josephus describes Judas the Galilean’s resistance to Roman taxation around AD 6 (Antiquities 18.1.1). He also records Theudas, who around AD 44–46 promised a miraculous passage through the Jordan (Antiquities 20.5.1), and an Egyptian prophetic figure who gathered followers near Jerusalem (Antiquities 20.8.6). The latter two appeared after Jesus’ death and illustrate the broader period, not direct competition during his ministry. These men must not all be labeled self-proclaimed messiahs: some were prophets or revolutionary leaders, and our sources do not consistently document an explicit messianic claim.
Acts 5:36–39 also names Theudas and Judas in Gamaliel’s speech, although the sequence presents a chronological difficulty when compared with Josephus; the accounts should not be harmonized casually. Jesus’ own warning about false messiahs and prophets (Mark 13:21–22) reflects the issue of competing claims.
The presence of multiple claimants to religious authority makes the identity of Jesus a question to investigate, not a conclusion to assume.
Divine Agency: God Working Through Jesus
Jewish traditions of representation provide an important interpretive framework. A šālîaḥ (שָׁלִיחַ) is an emissary or authorized agent. Later Jewish legal formulations of agency should not simply be read back into Jesus’ lifetime, but Scripture already depicts individuals acting and speaking by delegated divine authority.
In Exodus 7:1, Moses functions “as God” to Pharaoh, while Aaron serves as his prophet. Moses was not thereby identified ontologically with YHWH. He represented God within his commission.
Peter describes Jesus in Acts 2:22 as a man attested by God through miracles, wonders, and signs that God performed through him. John 10:37–38 similarly appeals to Jesus’ works as evidence of the Father’s activity. In these passages, miracles function as signs of authorization. Yet Moses, Elijah, and Elisha also performed or were associated with extraordinary works. Miracles alone cannot establish that someone is the anticipated Davidic Messiah.
Jesus’ followers interpreted his signs alongside his proclamation of God’s kingdom, his teachings, his claims concerning forgiveness and judgment, and his relationship to the Father. Their recognition rested upon a cumulative understanding of his mission.
Why Was Jesus Rejected?
There was no single Jewish response to Jesus. Some Jews followed him; others disputed his authority, his interpretation of Torah, his temple actions, or his claims. Political expectations also mattered, particularly under Roman rule. His execution by crucifixion and the charge “King of the Jews” (Mark 15:26) reveal the political dimension of the conflict.
A crucified Messiah was an immense interpretive problem. How could the anticipated deliverer be executed by the empire under which Israel suffered? McClellan suggests that Jesus may have expected political restoration and that his followers reinvented his mission after his death. The problem is historically real. But the conclusion that Jesus therefore was a failed political Messiah is a reconstruction, not a directly observed fact. The apostolic sources offer another explanation.
The Resurrection: The Apostolic Basis for Messianic Vindication
In the earliest surviving Christian writings, the resurrection is not an ornamental miracle. It is the foundation of the proclamation. In Acts 2, Peter presents Jesus as attested by God, executed, raised, and exalted, concluding that God has made the crucified Jesus both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:32–36). Romans 1:3–4 likewise connects Davidic descent with designation as Son of God in power through resurrection.
Paul makes the stakes unmistakable: if Christ has not been raised, preaching and faith are empty, and believers remain in their sins (1 Corinthians 15:14–17). For the apostles, resurrection meant God had vindicated the one condemned by human authorities.
Historical inquiry can examine the testimony, the emergence of resurrection belief, and its effects on the earliest communities. It cannot, by its ordinary methods alone, compel belief in divine intervention. The Christian confession goes further: God actually raised Jesus from the dead. This is why, for Christians accepting the apostolic testimony, the resurrection is the decisive vindication of Jesus’ messianic identity—not simply an expedient explanation for a movement’s survival.
Did Christianity Replace Political Restoration with Spiritual Salvation?
McClellan argues that Christianity shifted from temporal deliverance toward salvation from sin and death. The resurrection proclamation undeniably transformed how Jesus’ followers interpreted Israel’s Scriptures. But it does not follow that they simply abandoned Israel’s restoration hopes.
After the resurrection, the disciples still ask whether Jesus is restoring the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6). Jesus redirects them to the Father’s authority over the timing and to their mission; he does not explicitly declare restoration irrelevant. Acts 3:19–21 anticipates the restoration of all things. Paul’s account in 1 Corinthians 15 looks toward the defeat of opposing powers and, finally, death itself.
The apostolic proclamation therefore holds present and future dimensions together: repentance, forgiveness, and allegiance to Jesus in the present; resurrection, judgment, and the consummation of God’s kingdom in the future. Its ultimate hope is not merely the escape of a soul from physical existence, but the defeat of death and the renewal of creation. Jesus’ followers did not simply replace restoration with spirituality; they came to understand restoration as unfolding through his resurrection, exaltation, and anticipated return.
Isaiah 53 and the Interpretation of Scripture
McClellan also questions whether Isaiah 53 was originally composed as a messianic prediction. Its immediate literary setting must be respected. Isaiah 40–55 repeatedly calls Israel YHWH’s servant, while individual servant passages complicate the identity of that figure. It would be careless to assume Isaiah’s first audience understood chapter 53 as a straightforward prediction of Jesus’ crucifixion.
Yet a passage’s original historical setting and its later theological interpretation are different questions. The earliest Christians believed Jesus’ suffering and resurrection illuminated Israel’s Scriptures (Luke 24:25–27). That is a theological claim and should be identified as such. But a theological rereading is not, by definition, dishonest or evidence that the movement knowingly invented a replacement mission.
Why Christians Confess Jesus as the Christ
Saul, David, priests, and Cyrus could be called anointed. Jesus was not the only religious figure to gather followers or claim extraordinary authority. His uniqueness cannot be established by the word christos alone, nor by the Greek definite article the, whose use with titles does not automatically prove uniqueness.
The apostolic proclamation identifies Jesus as the promised Davidic Messiah through the convergence of his kingdom mission, delegated authority, signs, death, resurrection, and exaltation. Cyrus was commissioned for a historical work of restoration; David to rule Israel; Moses to lead Israel from Egypt. Jesus, according to the apostolic testimony, was vindicated as the Messiah through whom God would ultimately fulfill his kingdom purposes.
McClellan is right about the words and about the diversity of Jewish expectations. Where RAF departs from his reconstruction is the suggestion that Jesus was simply a failed political leader whose followers reinvented Messiahship to save their movement. That remains a possible historical interpretation, but not the only explanation of the evidence. The apostolic writings preserve a movement still awaiting resurrection, judgment, and final restoration, while confessing that God had already raised and exalted Jesus.
Jesus is not confessed as the Christ because no one else was ever called anointed. He is confessed as the Christ because the apostles believed that God raised, vindicated, and exalted him as the promised Messiah.
If their testimony is true, the crucifixion was not the failure of his mission, but a stage in the fulfillment of a mission whose consummation remains ahead.
Omnia in Christo.
References and Further Reading
Primary sources: 1 Samuel 16 and 24; 2 Samuel 7; Psalm 2; Isaiah 11; 44:28–45:5; 52:13–53:12; Jeremiah 23; Daniel 7 and 12; Mark 13 and 15; Luke 24; John 10; Acts 1–3 and 5; Romans 1:3–4; 1 Corinthians 15; Septuagint Isaiah 45:1; Community Rule (1QS 9:11); Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.1.1; 20.5.1; 20.8.6.
Secondary scholarship: John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star, 2nd ed. (2010); Matthew V. Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs (2012); Richard A. Horsley and John S. Hanson, Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs (1985); E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (1993); N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003).
Scripture quotations follow the NASB 1995 unless otherwise indicated. Original-language expressions are transliterated for accessibility. This article offers a critical response to an excerpt of a Data Over Dogma discussion, not a review of the entire episode.
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