Messiah Judaism Quotes & Sayings

When Maimonides says that the Messiah will come but that 'he may tarry,' we see the origin of every Jewish shrug from Spinoza to Woody Allen. — Christopher Hitchens

It's always very interesting to bet who's going to go first and who is going to have the most unbelievable death. It's always fun to play with that and create more expectation. It's an interesting part of horror movie. — Alexandre Aja

If a woman is fair and amiable, she is praised for both qualities, but especially the former, by the bulk of mankind: if, on the other hand, she is disagreeable in person and character, her plainness is commonly inveighed against as her greatest crime, because, to common observers, it gives the greatest offence; while, if she is plain and good, provided she is a person of retired manners and secluded life, no one ever knows of her goodness, except her immediate connections — Anne Bronte

If this be the Messiah, then I do not wish to see his coming — Ahad Ha'am

Lust and flirting are dangerous because at first they are not noticeable. — Sunday Adelaja

During the year that the atrocities in the Ukraine occurred, a young Turkish Jew of arresting personality and magnetism announced himself as the Messiah in the city of Salonika. This was the cabalist Sabbatai Zevi. Because the Jews of his day had the will to believe in a supernatural instrumentality that would save them from further disaster, he came as the answer to their prayers. Messianic hysteria swept like a conflagration over all of European Jewry. Tens of thousands liquidated their worldly affairs and readied themselves for the End of Days. — Nathan Ausubel

Some of the worst violence in the world today between estranged religious and ethnic groups happens not on the battlefields. It happens smack in the middle of living rooms and between people who share a lot, who have a lot in common. — Miroslav Volf

People think Judaism and Christianity are radically different from one another, and that the difference is straightforward. But on Ascension Day, I am struck by the deep similarity that lies just underneath. Both Jews and Christians live in a world that is not yet redeemed, and both us await ultimate redemption. Some of us wait for a messiah to come once and forever; others of us wait for Him to come back. But we are both stuck living in a world where redemption is not complete, where we have redemptive work to do, where we cannot always see God as clearly as we would like, because He is up in Heaven. We are both waiting. — Lauren F. Winner

(There is, however, one thing about which all the prophecies seem to agree: the messiah is a human being, not divine. Belief in a divine messiah would have been anathema to everything Judaism represents, which is why, without exception, every text in the Hebrew Bible dealing with the messiah presents him as performing his messianic functions on earth, not in heaven.) — Reza Aslan

Darling, you can nail my ass anytime, he said charmingly, and turned to go back to his table. — Charlaine Harris

One notorious apikoros named Hiwa al-Balkhi, writing in ninth-century Persia, offered two hundred awkward questions to the faithful. He drew upon himself the usual thunderous curses - 'may his name be forgotten, may his bones be worn to nothing' - along with detailed refutations and denunciations by Abraham ibn Ezra and others. These exciting anathemas, of course, ensured that his worrying 'questions' would remain current for as long as the Orthodox commentaries would be read. In this way, rather as when Maimonides says that the Messiah will come but that 'he may tarry,' Jewishness contrives irony at its own expense. If there is one characteristic of Jews that I admire, it is that irony is seldom if ever wasted on them. — Christopher Hitchens

pre-Christian Judaism, including the disciples during Jesus's lifetime, never envisaged the death of the Messiah. That is why they never thought of his resurrection, let alone an interim period between such events and the final consummation, during which he would be installed as the world's true Lord while still waiting for that sovereign rule to take full effect. What — N. T. Wright

A girl by any other name still smells as sweet, and, baby, you sure do smell good. — M.K. Schiller

Judaism says, "The Messiah is going to come, and that's the end of history"; Christianity says, "The Messiah is going to come back, and that's the end of history"; Islam says, "The Messiah came; history is irrelevant." One — Stewart Brand

Despite two millennia of Christian apologetics, the fact is that belief in a dying and rising messiah simply did not exist in Judaism. — Reza Aslan

On the job people feel skillful and challenged, and therefore feel more happy, strong, creative, and satisfied. In their free time people feel that there is generally not much to do and their skills are not being used, and therefore they tend to feel more sad, weak, dull, and dissatisfied. Yet they would like to work less and spend more time in leisure.
What does this contradictory pattern mean? There are several possible explanations, but one conclusion seems inevitable: when it comes to work, people do not heed the evidence of their senses. They disregard the quality of immediate experience, and base their motivation instead on the strongly rooted cultural stereotype of what work is supposed to be like. They think of it as an imposition, a constraint, an infringement of their freedom, and therefore something to be avoided as much as possible. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The traditional version of history bequeathed to us by the authorities of the Roman Church is that Christianity developed from the teachings of a Jewish Messiah and that Gnosticism was a later deviation. What would happen, we wondered, if the picture were reversed and Gnosticism viewed as the authentic Christianity, just as the Gnostics themselves claimed? Could it be that orthodox Christianity was a later deviation from Gnosticism and that Gnosticism was a synthesis of Judaism and the Pagan Mystery religion? — Tim Freke

How did you become this way?"
"Why is anybody the way they are? That's kind of hard to answer. — E.L. James