

  This is a good point.  Christ was hardly the only person who claimed to be
the Messiah--in fact, a number of "Messiahs" were active in the area from the
time of the Roman conquest to after the fall of Masada.
  Many of the statements made by the apostles--especially their repeated
attempts to give Jesus a sword (give him military power) point to the fact that
they didn't realize the true nature of his reign until after the fact.  Many of
the statements in the Bible can be seen as being oriented toward explaining 
this new definition of "Messiah" to the Jews who were being preached to.