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idx: Messiah
Bibliology on Books on the Messiah
Essentially the concept of the Messiah (Hebrew) or Christ (Greek for the same word) is that specially anointed one. This refers to that one anointed by God for the mission of saving the world. This same person is God himself, the second person of the Trinity, which had the task to undertake Salvation by the offering of himself as a human sacrifice for mankind.
Within these concepts, Messiah occurs very scarcely in the Old Testament, but it does occur. In the New Testament, Jesus quickly picked up on that term “Christ” for himself. So there are two concepts here that diverge or become different. What the Old Testament Jew believed as “Messiah” which the New Testament believers rightfully assigned to Jesus. And what the New Testament Jews (and Jews after that) that rejected Jesus as the Messiah distorted.
Wikipedia.org explanation.
GotQuestions.Com – What does Messiah mean? Good general article.
GotQuestions.Com – What does Christ mean? Good general article.
CRI – Jesus is the Messiah. Excellent background article.
Jona Lendering – Overview of articles on Messiah – I don’t know that this lady is saved or not, but it appears to be a survey of different people through history that claimed to be the Messiah.