There was a pre-Christian belief in a Jesus

Jews looking for a Messiah While Con is correct in saying that many Jews did not believe the Messiah would be anything like Jesus, it is not correct to say that no Jew did. As Richard Carrier points out in his book “On the Historicity of Jesus”, the Jews were not unified in one belief of what the Messiah would do, what acts he would perform, etc. There were many sects. As long as there existed a single sect that had a belief of a Messiah like Jesus, then my opponents points are flawed. The reasons to believe that there might be Jews that were looking for a Jesus like Messiah are the following: 1) The Philo of Alexandria 2) The Talmud 3) Christians Points 1 and 2 are currently being debated as well, so I will expand on point 3 here. Many early Christians were once Jews that converted to Christianity. If Jesus, or at least the stories about him, did not fit the belief of a Messiah to at least one sect of Jews, we would not expect so many Jews to have converted. Since a lot of Jews, not all, converted, we can safely assume that there were some sects of Judaism that Jesus would fit in as the Messiah. The Philo of Alexandria I am sorry if the points I originally made were not clear enough. The similarities with Zechariah help us see a possible hidden meaning that could be interpreted. I will, once again, be using Richard Carrier’s “Not the Impossible Faith” for this section. I will quote the Philo passage here: ““Behold, a man whose name is the East!” A very novel appellation indeed, if you consider it as spoken of a man who is compounded of body and soul; but if you look upon it as applied to that incorporeal being who in no respect differs from the divine image, you will then agree that the name of the east has been given to him with great felicity. For the Father of the universe has caused him to spring up as the eldest son, whom, in another passage, he calls the firstborn; and he who is thus born, imitating the ways of his father, has formed such and such species, looking to his archetypal patterns.” While it does not mention Jesus, we can look at Zechariah for similarities. “The word of the Lord came to me: “Take an offering from the exiles, from Heldai, Tobijah, and Jedaiah, who have arrived from Babylon, and go that same day to the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah. Take silver and gold, make crowns and place them on the head of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest. You are to tell him: This is what the Lord of Hosts says: Here is a man whose name is Branch; He will branch out from His place and build the Lord’s temple. Yes, He will build the Lord’s temple; He will be clothed in splendor and will sit on His throne and rule. There will also be a priest on His throne, and there will be peaceful counsel between the two of them. The crown will reside in the Lord’s temple as a memorial to Heldai, Tobijah, Jedaiah, and Hen son of Zephaniah. People who are far off will come and build the Lord’s temple, and you will know that the Lord of Hosts has sent Me to you. This will happen when you fully obey the Lord your God.”” While the similarities are not obvious to us (as these are both passages in English), the word used for “Branch” in Zechariah is the same word used for “East” in the Philo of Alexandria, and can also be translated to mean “Rises”. While Zechariah was referring to a man (if he even existed) Jesus ben Jehozadak, high priest of the second temple, when translated it says “Jesus son of Jehovah the Righteous”. This means that someone reading this like a pesher (which many Jews did with the scriptures) that they could easily take this as a passage with a hidden meaning, which Philo did in his writing (and possibly, even probably, others before him). As Philo was writing this in Alexandria, Egypt between 20-40 CE, it is highly unlikely that any word of a man named Jesus preaching in Palestine would have reached him, and we can then assume that what he was writing was based off of already established beliefs from some Jewish sects. The Talmud Con has not done much, if anything, to refute the points I made regarding the Talmud. Just plain assertions. Sources: 1) Richard Carrier “On the Historicity” 2) Richard Carrier “Not the Impossible Faith”