Messianic History

1546 - Johannes Isaac - Hebrew Scholar, University Professor
Johannes Isaac came to faith in 1546. He became a professor of Hebrew at the University of Cologne.

1621 - Malachi ben Samuel - Polish Rabbi
Malachi ben Samuel, a Polish Rabbi, comes to faith in Messiah around 1621, several years after being impressed by a Yiddish translation of the New Testament. He is particularly surprised that marginal references to the Hebrew Scriptures are not distorted, as he had been told they would be. He writes, "My heart became full of doubt. No man can believe the pain and ache that assailed my heart. I had no rest day or night.... What should I do? To whom should I speak of these things?" He finally feels he has no choice but to believe.

1625 - Giovanni Jonas - Hebrew Scholar
Giovanni Jonas came to faith in Poland in 1625 and, working as a librarian, writes a Hebrew translation of the Gospels and a Hebrew-Chaldee lexicon.

1656 - Esdras Edzard - Hebrew Scholar
Esdras Edzard, who grew up studying Hebrew and the Talmud, and then studied in Leipzig, Wittenberg, and Basel, earns a doctorate and begins working among the Jews of Hamburg. He provides free instruction in Hebrew, helps the poor, and explains faith in Messiah to all. From 1671 to 1708 Edzard leads 148 Jewish people to faith. He emphasizes further study for those coming to faith, and almost all of those who joined him continue in faith. But according to the Jewish Encyclopedia you can not get the Jewishness out of him.. CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY - JewishEncyclopedia.com

1709 - John Xeres - Talmudic Scholar
John Xeres counteracts the slur that Jewish believers in Jesus are not well-educated in Judaism by emphasizing his Talmudic studies. Others on the list of learned Jewish believers include Ludwig Compiegne de Veil, Friedrich Albrecht Augusti, Paul Weidner, Julius Conrad Otto, Johann Adam Gottfried, and more.

1722 - Rabbi Judah Monis
Rabbi Judah Monis, after becoming the first Jewish individual to receive a college degree in America (M.A., Harvard, 1720), publicly embraces faith in Messiah Jesus. In 1735 he publishes a Hebrew grammar, the first to be published in America. Monis, the descendant of conversos, himself became a convert. Judah Monis - America's First Hebrew Teacher

1758 - Seelig Bunzlau - German Rabbi
Seelig Bunzlau, a revered German Rabbi, announces from the pulpit of his synagogue that he is has placed his faith in Messiah.

A Jew who became the bishop of the West Syrian Jacobite church.

ABU’L FARAJ, Gregory , also called BAR-HEBRAEUS(1226-1286) born in Melitena, son of the Aaron the Jewish physician who cured Saurnavinus, a Tartar general from a disease. Master of Greek, Syriac and Arabic, student of philosophy, theology and medicine, he became an Anchorite in Antioch and ordained Bishop of Gubos at the age of twenty by Mar Ignatius, Patriarch of Saba, then again Maphrian of the Eastern Church at forty. From then on, he was known as Bar-Hebraeus. As bishop of the West Syrian Jacobite church, he was renowned for his justice, integrity, great learning and cosmopolian leadership. His writings span a wide sphere including commentaries on Scripture, moral treatises (Ethikon), on commerce, science, astronomy, medicine, logic, philosophy, history, poetry, humorous fables and devotions. While clear and resolute on matters of church doctrine, he shunned ecclesiastical disputes as an abomination. "During his forty years' episcopate he was never known to have received a farthing from anyone …like Paul, he sought to be chargeable to no man and therefore supported himself by his own scholastic ability, giving his labors freely to the cause he loved. Churches were erected wherever he went. Even the Mohammedan body who would be naturally opposed to his belief held him in great respect. At his death, none were found in the Jacobite church to equal his spiritual stature. He was appropriately named Abu'l Faraj, meaning "father of comfort."

For those not familiar to the Jacobite church..Thomas the Apostle is credited by tradition for founding it in India.

BARON, David (1855-1926) David Baron and his Hungarian friend C.A.Schonberger found the Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel in London in 1893.Born from a Russian family in Poland, David studied the Talmud and was told that Jesus was a liar and charlatan, but after emigrating to England he read the New Testament for himself, became a missionary to his own people and also to British church leaders, whom he often finds to be ignorant of the Old Testament and thus presenting a shallow gospel. He edited the Scattered Nation, wrote The Visions and Prophecies of Zecharia , The Shepherd of Israel, The Servant of Jehovah, Anglo-Israelism Examined, and The History of Israel. When the Zionist Congress began in a rented casino in Basle, Switzerland, David attended.

Timing his continental tours to include the annual conference in his itinerary each year, as a reporter David obtained a permit to sit in with the delegates. He personally knew Theodor Herzl, the visionary and chairman of the congress. At one conference, a delegate stood and began to vent his spleen on Christian Jewish missionaries. Herzl's response was to quietly leave the rostrum and come down and seat himself by the side of Mr. Baron and a few of his fellow missionaries.

In 1911, he used the term ‘Messianic movement’ to describe a belief among Hebrew Christians that: “It is incumbent on Hebrew Christians, in order to keep up their "national continuity," not only to identify themselves with their unbelieving Jewish brethren, in their national aspirations—as expressed, for instance, in Zionism and other movements which aim at creating and fostering "the national idea" and regaining possession of Palestine—but to observe the "national" rites and customs of the Jews, such as the keeping of the Sabbath, circumcision, and other observances, some of which have not even their origin in the law of Moses, but are part of that unbearable yoke which was laid on the neck of our people by the Rabbis.” He disagreed with this "rather grand-sounding designation [which] does not describe any movement of Jews in the direction of recognizing our Lord Jesus Christ as the Messiah, but an agitation on the part of some Hebrew Christian brethren, who have evidently yet much to learn as to the true character of their high calling of God in Christ Jesus, supported by a few no doubt well-meaning excellent Gentile Christian friends, who…do not understand the real tendency of this 'movement'."

Messianic congregations have multiplied throughout the earth, and his negative judgment may have been too hasty, but his warnings have merit in view of some heretic fringes of the Messianic movement which at times de-emphasize Yeshua’s central role and Divine sonship. His life is at senac.com - Chat dating Resources and Information. This website is for sale! and testimony at http://www.shalom.org.uk/Testimonies/David Baron.htm

A Jewess of the Russian Orthodox persuasion.

BEHR-SIGEL, Elizabeth (1907-) born of a Protestant father and Jewish mother in Strasbourg, France, she was among the first women to be admitted to the theology faculty at the University of Strasbourg in 1926. She continued her studies in Berlin and Paris where she first encountered the Orthodox Church and was received in it by Fr Lev Gillet.

She became close friends of Russian Orthodox clergy Sergius Bulgakov, Nicolas Berdiaev, Mother Maria Skobotsova and lay theologians, Paul Evdokimov and Vladimir Lossky. She was allowed to officiate as a lay pastoral officiate during WWII due to a severe shortage of clergy.

She published essays on the Russian Orthodox spiritual tradition and did her doctorate on 19 th century Russian theologian Alexander Bukharev.

Commenting on Gal 3:27, “There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freemen; male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”, she wrote, “This proclamation of Paul, which does not abolish the differences but does away with all the contempt and enmity that may exist between them, has resounded through the centuries.

http://www.syndesmos.org/content/en/publications/syndesmos_news/teyxh/18_1/pages/1_to_4.pdf

BEN MEIR, Moshe Yimanuel. Orthodox Israeli whose journey in faith to Yeshua at the beginning of the at the beginning of the twentieth century is told in his autobiography From Jerusalem to Jerusalem http://www.netivyah.org.il/Store/Netivyah Store.htm
He is one of the pioneers of the Messianic Jewish movement in Israel.

For clarification.. this is a Jew who became a protestant missionary.

BETTELHEIM, Dr. Bernard , (Orthodox Hungarian Jew and linguist, 1811-1870) was a physician, teacher and translator of parts of the Bible in Chinese and Japanese.

Messianic Good News - Boldly proclaiming that Jesus Christ is the Messiah

For clarification purposes.. this is a Jew who became a evangelist for Jesus

BIESENTHAL, Joachim Heinrich Raphael begins 37 years of missionary work to German Jews in 1844. He uses the knowledge gained in Talmudic academies and while earning a doctorate at the University of Berlin to write commentaries on many New Testament books as well as a History of the Christian Church that shows the Jewishness of the early church.

BIESENTHAL, JOACHIM HEINRICH - JewishEncyclopedia.com

Just another Jew who has come to believe in Jesus.

BLOCK David, Dr. A professor of Applied Mathematics and Astronomy in South Africa, became a believer in Christ. He wrote, "I'd listen in shul as the rabbis expounded how God was a personal God and how God would speak to Moses, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, and wonder how I fit into all of it. And by the time I entered university I became concerned over the fact that I had no assurance that God was indeed a personal God.... Where was the personality and the vibrancy of a God who could speak to David Block?

If God is truly God, I reasoned, then why had he suddenly changed his character?" A Christian colleague told Block that a minister would be able to answer his questions; he reported, "My parents had taught me to seek answers where they may be found, and so I consented to meet with this Christian minister. [He] read to me from the New Testament book of Romans where Paul says that Y'shua (Jesus) is a stumbling block to Jewish people, but that those who would believe in Y'shua would never be ashamed.

Suddenly it all became very clear to me: Y'shua had fulfilled the messianic prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures, such as where the Messiah would be born and how he was to die.... I knew that Jesus was the Messiah and is the Messiah. And I surrendered my heart and my soul to Him that day." He concluded, "It might seem strange to some that a scientist and a Jew could come to faith in Jesus.

But faith is never a leap into the dark. It is always based on evidence. That was how my whole search for God began. I looked through my telescope at Saturn and said to myself, Isn't there a great God out there? The logical next step was to want to meet this Designer face-to-face." See more at http://www.shalom.org.uk/library/JewsWhoBelieved/DavidBlock.html

CASPARI, Karl Paul (1814-1892) began to teach in 1847 as professor of theology at Christiana, Norway. Carl Caspari was born of Jewish parents in Dassau, Germany, in 1814. As a young man he studied Hebrew and Arabic at the university of Leipzig, producing an Arabic grammar which for many years was the standard work in its field. While at the university, he was powerfully confronted with the claims of Jesus Christ as both Lord and Messiah. Caspari found the evidence irrefutable: in 1838, on the day of Pentecost, he was formally baptized and took on the baptismal name of Paul. Caspari continued his studies in Berlin until the year 1847, when he was urged by Gisle Johnson, a visiting young scholar from Norway, to apply for a vacant chair as lecturer at the University of Oslo. He did so, was appointed, and spent the rest of his life as a lecturer and professor of the Old Testament. In 1861, Carl Paul Caspari became the first chairman of the Committee for the Mission among the Jews, which had been established in Oslo that year. Caspari’s work as a scholar and a believing Jew served to enrich three generations of Norwegian pastors, bringing the Psalms and Prophets to light in a fresh, dynamic way. His pioneering research into the history of the early Christian Creeds virtually established this specialized field of research as a new discipline. It is in his honor that the Caspari Center for Biblical & Jewish Studies was named in Jerusalem in 1982 (Caspari Center).

DELITZSCH, Franz (1813-1890) Jewish scholar who translated the New Testament in Hebrew (now available online at äáøéú äçãùä) and wrote a multi-volume commentary known as the Keil and Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament now available from BibleSoft in CD Rom at http://store.biblesoft.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=Keil+and+Delitzsch+Commentary

DISRAELI, Benjamin, Lord Beaconsfield (1804-1881), British stateman and writer, was elected Prime Minister of Britain in 1868. Both the Conservative Party leader and the author of popular novels such as Sybil, emphasizes Christianity's dependence on Judaism: "In all church discussions we are apt to forget the second Testament is avowedly only a supplement.

Jesus came to complete the 'law and the prophets.' Christianity is completed Judaism, or it is nothing. Christianity is incomprehensible without Judaism, as Judaism is incomplete without Christianity." He hopes that Jews "will accept the whole of their religion instead of only the half of it, as they gradually grow more familiar with the true history and character of the New Testament."
DISRAELI, BENJAMIN, EARL OF BEACONSFIELD - JewishEncyclopedia.com

ELIAKIM, Ephraim Ben-Joseph, also called Haham Ephraim, a rabbi in Tiberias, Palestine, who after studying biblical prophecies believed that Jesus is the Messiah. Eliakim underwent tremendous harassment from his former colleagues. He awakened some other rabbis in Jerusalem where he died and was buried next to another brother in Messiah, of Arabic race (30 th August 1930) in Jerusalem.

One reporter noted that "Jew and Arab were laid one beside the other, and Jews and Arabs were standing with bowed heads by the two open graves, touched and softened the one toward the others."

For a most interesting story of his life go to... HaGefen Publishing - Biographies - Rabbis who followed Yeshua - Ben Joseph Eliakim, Ephraim 1844-1930

jcpro said:

Are they really Messianics? Do you really want to claim Zamora or Monis? For Zamora conversion was pure survival and for Monis pure opportunism. That's pretty much the story of conversions in the bad old days.

Click to expand...

We have Hebrew Christians on this area of the forum who consider themselves to be Messianics.. It is like this.. if you are leaving Judaism as a Jew and find Jesus, even a catholic version, to be your savior, can you call yourself a Messianic Jew. Messianic meaning you believer Jesus is your messiah, and Jew because of your bloodline. Or should I delete that Jew because he didn't keep his Judaism when he became a catholic?