SECTION II
Chapter 11 - The "Nature" of Jesus' and his Great Mission on Earth

  It has been argued that it is IMPOSSIBLE to write a detailed biography
of the historical Jesus. As one scholar put it:

  "We know virtually nothing of [Jesus'] parents, siblings, early years
  (childhood, adolescence, early adulthood), friends, education, religious
  training, profession, or contacts with the broader Graeco-Roman world.  We
  know neither the date of his birth, nor the length of his public ministry
  (the modern consensus of two or three years is an educated guess based
  largely on the gospel of John), nor his age at death (Luke 3:23 states
  that he was 'about thirty when he began').  Thus even an optimistic view
  of the quest [of the historical Jesus] can envisage no more than a
  collection of 'authentic' sayings and motifs devoid of context."
  (Gager, J.G., "The Gospels and Jesus: Some Doubts about Method", THE
  JOURNAL OF RELIGION 54 (1974), 261.)

  Other scholars operate under the assumption, that whenever Jesus is
depicted in a manner that is embarrassing to the official doctrines of
the early Church, then this MUST have been an AUTHENTIC account of the
historical Jesus.  For example, the accounts where Jesus appears to treat
women on an equal footing with men, his statement that he was sent only to
the "lost sheep of the house of Israel", and his popular greeting into
Jerusalem by his fellow JEWS are thought likely to be TRUE accounts of the
historical Jesus, because they are positions that are antithetical to those
taken by the later Christian church.

  Thus, despite the acknowledged historical difficulties, this has not
prevented scholars from trying to analyze how Jesus personally perceived
his true calling.  Several roles of Jesus will be presented below for the
reader's review.  It this author's opinion that they are informative--
not only for what they ADD to the background of Jesus Christ, but because
they also underscore how much really IS MISSING from the gospel stories.

Jesus, the Galilean

  In attempting to analyze the nature of Jesus, one place to start would
be to look at his roots growing up in his village in Nazareth, Galilee.
While two of the gospels (Matthew and Luke) indicate that Jesus was born in
Bethlehem, and  Matthew indicates that Jesus lived in Egypt for some
time--ALL of the gospels are agreed that Jesus spent the majority of his
life in Galilee.

  Galilee is located in the northernmost region of Palestine.  During the
times of Jesus, it was a densely populated rural area, containing over some
two hundred villages.  Judeans (which of course included inhabitants of
Jerusalem) considered Galileans to be more country-like--and commented
on the course guttural accent of Galileans.

 The Galileans had been forcibly converted to Judaism during the rule of the
Maccabees towards the end of the second century B.C.E. In previous centuries it
had been ruled by Persians, and then the Greeks, whose influence had remained
somewhat strong in the area. During the times of Jesus, the area still had a
large number of pagans  who had not formally converted to Judaism. Therefore
to picture Jesus' environment, we have to take into account both Jewish and
pagan influences. For example, Egyptian magical amulets are frequent finds
in archaeological digs. (Morton Smith, JESUS THE MAGICIAN, Harper, San
Francisco, 1978, p 68)

   Jews in southern Judea sometimes accused Galileans of not being "pure" Jews
because of their unorthodox attitude towards Judaism.--Typically Galileans
displayed little interest in matters of Jewish Temple ritual or formal
religious learning, (possibly because they were located relatively far away
from Jerusalem. For example, according to a note in the Jewish code of law,
the Galileans were not interested in paying the "half-shekel" tax used to
support the Jerusalem Temple.) Also, the Galileans were said to have had no
respect for the Jewish law, as formally taught by the scribes. (Colleen 
McDannell, HEAVEN: A HISTORY, p 24)

  In the tradition of the ('Pious') Hasidim, Galileans de-emphasized the Law
or ritual--instead stressing an intimate direct familiarity with God.
Galileans also were traditionally loyal to their country and religion. We
have already seen how many of the famous revolutionaries against the Romans
were Galileans.

  As Jews, Galileans believed in one God. Most of the people believed
in the existence of angels, demons, and other spirits. Miracle workers were
also very popular in the region. Acting as divine intermediaries between
God and the villagers, many Galileans felt they were living in desperate
times.  Miracles performed on the people were seen as evidence of God's
power, and the hope for a better life.


Jesus, the Jew

  Jesus was about thirty years of age when he began his ministry (see Luke
3:26).  Scholars have estimated that his ministry lasted, at most, somewhere
between six months to three years. This means he was probably in his early
thirties when he was crucified by the Romans.

   We know that Jesus spent HIS ENTIRE LIFE in the relative small, provincial
area of Palestine. That is, he never visited any of the more famous,
cosmopolitan cities of the world-- such as Rome, Athens, or Alexandria.
Instead, Jesus chose to preach in the smaller, more rural towns in and around
Galilee.  Even here, his sermons were directed towards the less educated,
lower strata of society--to the poor, the weak, and to undesirables--such as
prostitutes and other sinners. (The gospels also do NOT tell of Jesus
preaching in the LARGE Galilean towns of Tiberias, Capernaum, Bethsaida, and
Chorazin. The evangelists explain that Jesus chose not to speak in the large
synagogues as he favored the open areas along the Sea of Galilee and other
more rural regions.) (Michael Grant JESUS: AN HISTORIAN'S REVIEW OF THE
GOSPELS, (Charles Scrivner's and Sons, New York, 1977, p 75))

  According to the synoptic gospels, Jesus visited Jerusalem only once while
actively preaching.  Although he entered the city triumphant as the
prophesized messiah, it was only a short time later that he was crucified
there by the Romans.

 (Note: According to the gospel of John, Jesus visited Jerusalem several 
 times during his career. In John, the scene whereby Jesus throws the money 
 changers out of the Temple occurs towards the beginning of Jesus' ministry. 
 In Matthew, Luke and Mark, the purging of the Jerusalem Temple scene occurs 
 just prior to Jesus' arrest and crucifixion.)

  The only story that has come down to us about Jesus' childhood/early manhood,
is the incident (mentioned only by Luke) of the young Jesus who amazed his
elders at the Temple.  Except for this one story, the gospels are completely
silent as to how Jesus spent the first thirty years of his life before he
began his ministry.

  Despite the silence of the gospels regarding this period, it is almost
certain that Jesus almost certainly lived among the Jews AS A FELLOW JEW!--
(this despite strong efforts by later chroniclers to de-emphasize, or
even deny this).

  According to the gospel of Matthew, Jesus repeatedly emphasizes that his
mission was to the Jews, "AND TO THEM ALONE".  For example, in Matthew
he states "I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and to
them alone." Likewise when he dispatched the apostles on their missionary
travels he commanded them "Do not take the road to Gentile lands, and do not
enter any Samaritan town' (Note Samaria existed between Judea and Israel,
and was viewed as the most "non-Jewish" area).  This interpretation has been
collaborated by the letters of Paul, which stated that no missions to
the Gentiles were undertaken, until AFTER the crucifixion of Jesus.
(Michael Grant, 'JESUS, AN HISTORIAN'S REVIEW OF THE GOSPELS P 121)

  As a Jew who lived all his life in Palestine, several scholars have noted
the strong Jewish traditions and themes present in many of Jesus' teachings
and parables. For example in the gospel of Mark, when Jesus is asked for
the "first" commandment "of all", Jesus reportedly answered:

  "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and
  you shall love the Lord your God with all your hear, and with all your
  soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'  The second
  is this 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'. There is no other
  commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:28-31)

  Both commandments can be found in the Old Testament--  The first commandment 
can be found in Deuteronomy 6:4.  The other commandment is in Leviticus 19:18.

   The Jewish scholar, Rabbi Elias Soloweyczyk showed how many themes used
in Jesus' famous sermons on the mount, had their parallels in the Jewish
Talmud:

 The theme of  "Blessed are the poor in spirit ..." can be found in the
words  of Rabbi Levitas in the Talmud (Abot IV,4) who speaks of the benefits
of humility.
  "Blessed are they that mourn..." is reminiscent of the Talmudic expression
"unhappiness redeems souls" (Erubin 41 b)
  "Blessed are the meek..." likewise can find its parallels in the Talmud
text "The meek possess the earth and enjoy indestructible peace" (Sukkah 29 b)
  "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness..."
can be compared with the Talmud's sayings (Baby Batra 10 a) on justice and
charity.
  "Blessed are the merciful" can be compared with the Talmud's "If any
man pities another, God will pity him." (Shabbat 151 b).
  "Blessed are the peacemakers..." can find its parallel in the Talmud's
discussion of the "God of peace" (Shabbat 10 b)
  "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake..." can
be compared to the Talmud (Baba Kamma 93 a) which states " It is better
to be persecuted than to persecute"
  "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you and shall say
all manner of evil things against you falsely, for my sake..." can be
compared to the Talmud (Shabbat 118 b) which praises "those who let themselves
be insulted, without insulting in return."
(JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE HIDDEN YEARS, Robert Aron (translated from the
French by Frances Frenaye, William Morrow and Company, New York p 1962, p220)

  In his book JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN MORALITY, Rabbi Elie Benamozegh showed
that Christian CHARITY can find its parallels in Jewish tradition.
He cited, for example the words of the prophet Micah (6:8), who said:
"O man... what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to
love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"  He also quoted from the
Pharisee Simon the Just (who lived several centuries before Jesus) and
taught that society rested on the three pillars of the Torah, of worship,
and of general acts of kindness towards one another. Rabbi Akiba was said
to have taught to "love your neighbor as yourself, that is the great
principle of the Law." (ibid p 221-2)

  The Christian ideal of HUMILITY can also be found in the tradition
of the Jews.  For example, consider this Talmudic saying, "Remain hidden...
He that lowers himself shall be raised up, and he that raiseth himself up
shall be brought low.  He who humbles himself here on earth for the Law
shall be glorified in the life to come.  He who makes himself small for
the Law's sake shall be made great hereafter." (IBID P 222)

  And finally Jesus' Golden Rule "Whatever you wish that men would do to
you, do so to them" (Matthew 7:12) can find its parallel in the sayings
of Rabbi Hillel, and the BOOK OF TOBIT (4:15) (not to mention Confucius--
These latter authors however formulated the rule in the NEGATIVE instead of
positive sense: "Do not do to others which you would not wish them to do to
you." (See section VI, chapter 3 on Ethics)

  Throughout the gospels, Jesus expresses himself in the traditional
rabbinical style, using both the Pharisaic method of the parable and
the commentary to expound very Jewish themes. (Ibid p 224)  Many of
the parables told by Jesus have strong parallels in Pharisaic literature.
For example, the parable of the poor widow who donated two small coins
pre-existed in rabbinical literature. (Leviticus Rabba 3.5.as quoted
by Michael Grant JESUS: AN HISTORIAN'S REVIEW OF THE GOSPELS (Charles
Scribner's Sons New York p 57)

  Another example, is the parable of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus
(whose roles are reversed after death) and which is known to have originated
from an Egyptian folktale which had become very popular among the Pharisee
Jews. (J. Jeremias, JERUSALEM IN THE TIME OF JESUS (SCM. 1967), P 183 as
quoted by Michael Grant p 59)

   Because of these similarities, some scholars believed Jesus either was,
or had sometime been in his life, a Pharisee. Even though the gospel
stories show Jesus to be in opposition to the Pharisees, as we have already
seen the gospels stories have omitted some other important HISTORICAL
facts--such as the fact that Jesus' brother James (and later his nephew) were
the first leader(s) of the mother Christian Church, headquartered in
Jerusalem.

Jesus, the Moral Teacher

  Matthew's 'Sermon on the Mount' tells of Jesus promoting an ascetic life
style, where care is not taken for the material comforts of food, clothes
and the like but instead to concentrate on spiritual needs.  God would
come through to make sure their real needs were taken care of:

  "You cannot be the slave both of God and money.  That is why I am telling
  you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your
  body and how you are to clothe it.  Surely life means more than food
  and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds in the sky.  They do
  not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
  Are you not worth much more than they are?  Can any of you, for all his
  worrying, add one single cubit to his span of life?  And why worry about
  clothing?  Think of the flowers in the fields; they never have to work or
  spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his regalia was robed
  like one of these." (Matthew 6: 19-29)

   In focusing on one's sins and spirituality towards God, it was important
to give up one's materialistic interests in life. When a young man asked
Jesus what he must do to be perfect, he was saddened to hear Jesus' answer,
"Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor."  Jesus
taught, that one mustn't care for any physical possession they own, but
to be willing to give it freely away: "If a man... would have your tunic,
let him have your cloak as well" (Matthew 5:41).

     The book of Acts describes how Jesus early followers lived a
communistic lifestyle in Jerusalem after his death:

  '... all lived together and owned everything in common; they sold their
   goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves
   according to what each one needed.' (Acts 2:45).

Some commentators have noted that the earliest Christians lived not
unlike communists in their attitudes towards communal sharing. (Note, this
is not to be confused with Marxist communists-- who it could be demonstrated,
strayed from this ideal, by stressing obedience to authoritarian leaders.)

  Jesus stressed an urgency in preparing the people for the kingdom of
God.  When a disciple had lost his father and wanted to bury him first,
Jesus responded,

  "Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead." (Matthew 8:22)

  It was important for one to bury his personal ego in striving for the
spiritual state--"offer the wicked man no resistance.  On the contrary, if
anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other also' (Matthew
5: 39-40).  Other teachings by Jesus also "intensify" the code of ethics
given in the Torah.--Thus where murder is a sin (Exodus 20:13; Dt 5:17)
anger is the equivalent of murder.  Although adultery is a sin, having
lust in one's heart is also adultery (Matthew 5:28).  And where swearing
falsely is a sin (Lev 19:12), swearing itself is bad. Some scholars have
pointed out that this intensification of morality is typical of communities
that believe that the End is near. (Paula Fredriksen FROM JESUS TO CHRIST
p 100, who is quoting in turn from Theissen PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANITY PP 77-95).

    Jesus sometimes expresses great anger towards his opponents. For
example, Matthew records the following lines from an obviously ANGRY Jesus:

  "You are like tombs covered with whitewash; they look well from outside,
  but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all kinds of filth...
  You snakes, you vipers; brood, how can you escape being condemned to hell?"
  (Matthew 23:27-33)

  Jesus also advocated violence for the cause. For example, in Matthew
10:34-9, Jesus says:

  "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to
  bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to set a man against his father,
  and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law and a man's
  foes will be those of his own household.  He who loves father or mother
  more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more
  than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take his cross and follow
  me is not worthy of me.  He who finds his life will lose it, and he who
  loses his life for my sake will find it.  (Matthew 10:34-39)

  Because of these  scenes, some historical scholars believe that Jesus'
doctrine of 'turning the other cheek' and universal love were NOT founded
on a basis of "mildness", but instead resulted from a belief in the
irrelevancy of this world as compared to the superior world order that was about 
to be established by God.  (Michael Grant: JESUS, AN HISTORIAN'S REVIEW OF THE
GOSPELS, P 76)  (See Section VI, Chapter 3)

Jesus' Perception of the True Nature of his Mission

  Possibly the most difficult area for scholars, is to determine exactly how
Jesus HIMSELF understood his own role. According to Notre Dame's Father
Krieg, "While historical studies have NOT shown that Jesus called himself
God, they have shown--at the very least--that Jesus believed he possessed
an unusual intimacy with God, an intimacy so unusual it moved him to
undertake a bold mission and to call God ABBA, or papa".(Kerry Temple
"Who Do Men Say That I am?" NOTRE DAME MAGAZINE, Summer 1990, emphasis mine)

  Not surprisingly, scholars are divided as to how Jesus truly viewed his own
mission.  For example, was he merely one of many Jewish prophets preparing
his followers for the End of the World? Did events unfold in such a way,
that he became divinely adopted by God as the foretold messiah? Or did he--
from the beginning (possibly even from birth) consider himself a God in
his own right?

Some scholars believe that Jesus' parable of the Wicked Husbandmen
best expresses how he viewed his own relationship to God :

    " Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted
  a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a winepress in it, and
  built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into a far country:

   When the season of fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the
  tenants, to get his fruits; and the tenants took his servants and beat
  one, and killed another, and stoned another.  Again, he sent other
  servants more than the first: and they did to them. Afterward he sent
  his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.'

  But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, 'This is
  the heir; come, let us kill him, and have his inheritance.  And
  they took him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him.  When
  therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those
  tenants?"

  Jesus relays the question to the "chief scribes and Pharisees" which
answer that the lord of the vineyard "He will put those wretches to a
miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants who
will give him the fruits in their seasons."

  Jesus responds to them "Therefore  I tell you, the kingdom of God
will be taken away from you, and given to a nation producing the fruits of it."

   The chief scribes and Pharisees become angry at Jesus' analogy to them,

  "But when they tried to arrest him, they feared the multitudes, because
  they held him to be a prophet" (Matthew 21:33-46)

   According to this view, Jesus would have considered himself (as did
his fellow Jews in this scene) as a prophet.

Jesus, the Prophet

   At a minimum, Jesus was a great prophet.  In one passage, when Jesus
was ministering in Galilee, and had been warned by some friendly Pharisees
that Herod wanted to kill him, he responds:

  "It is unthinkable for a prophet to meet his death anywhere but in
  Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that murders the prophets,
  and stones the messengers sent to her" (Luke 13:33-4)

  Throughout the Old Testament, there is only one record of a prophet ever
being put to death.  This occurs in II Chronicles 24:22:2 where Zechariah,
the son of Jehoiada (not to be confused with the Zechariah who wrote the
book in the Old Testament) was martyred in Jerusalem around the ninth
century B.C.E. (Michael Grant, JESUS, AN HISTORIAN'S REVIEW OF THE GOSPELS P 
139)

  Still, Jewish tradition did uphold the belief in individuals being martyred
for God's cause. These ranged from stories of Maccabean heroes who died in
their battle against the Greek Seleucid aggressors--to recent memories of
Jews who lost their lives during the Roman occupation, such as John the
Baptist.

  Isaiah's description of the Suffering Servant served as the most important
model of a martyred figure. Popular Jewish tradition interpreted Isaiah's
prophecy of the Suffering Servant to symbolize either some faithful remnant
of righteous Jews-- or some future individual.  Although not directly
identified with the figure of the Jewish messiah, early Christian communities
(both those of Paul and the gospel writers) identified Jesus with the image
of Isaiah's suffering servant. Possibly Jesus saw himself in the role
of the Suffering Servant.  For example, in Luke 9:43-5, Jesus says to
his disciples,

  "'What I now say is for you: ponder my words. the Son of Man is to be
  given up into the power of men.' But they did not understand this saying;
  it had been hidden from them so that they could not grasp its meaning,
  and they were afraid to ask about it."

    In addition to the model of the Suffering Servant, some scholars
believe that Jesus may have perceived himself as acting out the prophecies
of Zechariah in the Old Testament. According to one of Zechariah's prophecies,
the people were to:

  "Rejoice, rejoice, daughter of Zion, shout aloud, daughter of Jerusalem;
  for see, your king is coming to you, his cause won, his victory gained,
  humble and mounted on an ass, on a foal, the young of a she-ass...He
  shall speak peaceably to every nation, and his rule shall extend from
  sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth. (Zechariah 9:9-11)

 In his last chapter Zechariah prophesized that in Jerusalem, the Lord
would go forth to fight all of Israel's aggressors in battle--his feet
firmly planted upon the Mount of Olives.

  Some scholars believe that Jesus himself was purposely tracing the
prophecies of the Old Testament to initiate the promised New Kingdom on
Earth.  The gospel of Mark states that when Jesus and his disciples
approached the Mount of Olives on the way to Jerusalem, that Jesus
instructed two of his disciples to:

  "Go into the village just ahead of you and as soon as you enter it you
  will find a tethered colt on which no one has yet ridden.  Untie it, and
  bring it here.  If anybody asks you, "Why are you doing this?" just
  say, 'His master needs him, and will send him back immediately'.

  The disciples did as they were instructed, and brought the colt to Jesus
  who entered into Jerusalem riding on the colt.  The crowds swarmed around
  Jesus, excitedly shouting 'God save him!--God bless the one who comes in
  the name of the Lord! God bless the coming kingdom of the father David!
  God save him from on high!" (Mark 11:1-10)

  The gospel of Matthew (whose entire gospel is characterized as portraying
Jesus' life as fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies) adds that Jesus
performed this in order to fulfill the prophet's saying '"Tell the
daughter of Zion. Here is your King, who comes to you in gentleness
riding on an ass, riding on the foal of a beast of burden."

  After entering Jerusalem, one of Jesus' first events (according to the
synoptic gospels) was to cleanse the Temple—after which he was quickly
arrested.  Interestingly enough, a reference to cleansing the Temple
also occurs in the gospel of Zechariah: For "a day is coming for the
Lord to act" and it is on "that day" when God's Kingdom will be established
that "no trader shall again be seen in the house of the Lord" (Zechariah
14:1,21)

  The fact is, that Jesus' cleansing of the Temple was temporary and seemed to
accomplished no real LASTING purpose--That is, the Temple operations
immediately reverted back to normal after Jesus was arrested. This has
led some scholars to argue that instead of being the fulfillment of these
Old Testament prophecies--that Jesus personally knew of these prophecies,
and purposely acted them out in the hope that this deed would initiate the
new Kingdom. (Michael Grant, JESUS, AN HISTORIAN'S REVIEW OF THE GOSPELS P 142-
149)

"SON OF MAN"

  When the gospel writers are quoting Jesus, the term HE uses most often
to describe himself is the "Son of Man". Examples include when Jesus says:

  "Thus whoever scorns the Son of Man will himself be scorned at
  Judgment time; the Son of Man must suffer and die in Jerusalem:
  the Son of Man will return in glory;

  Interestingly throughout the gospels, the term is only uttered by Jesus to
describe himself (ie others refer may refer to Jesus as a prophet or the
Son of God--but no person ever refers to Jesus as the "Son of man")
In the synoptic gospels, the term appears over sixty times, and is used
in the gospel of John as well.  Outside of the gospels, the term appears
only once in Acts 7:56 (where Stephen states before his execution that he
"can see the son of man standing at God's right hand") and twice in
Revelation 1:13 and 14:14.  That is, the term "Son of Man" is never used
by Paul or any of the epistle writers. (Vermes, JESUS THE JEW, p 160)

  The Old Testament also employs the term "Son of Man" in a variety of
meanings. In Ezekiel, it refers simply to the humaneness of "a man", in
all his weakness. In Psalm 8 it refers to an ordinary man, who is
destined to acquire authority second only to that of God. In Psalm 80
it symbolizes all of Israel, made strong from its weaknesses.

    In the book of Daniel (see 7:13-14) and in the book of Enoch, the term
"Son of Man" refers to a messianic savior-king.  It was no doubt, in the
Daniel sense, that the Gospel writers were referring to--whereby later
Christians attributed a DIVINE meaning to the term (as opposed to a man
who took on divine attributes).

  However, although the gospel writers used this designation in the
gospels, they seem uncomfortable with the term themselves.  The term
clearly imports less power than "Son of God" and "Christ", which Paul and the
other early Christian communities used in describing Jesus.  The
prominence of this term in the gospels (where it appears some fifty one times)
have led some scholars to speculate that this term must represent a
true tradition going back to how the historical Jesus referred to himself.
(Michael Grant, JESUS AN HISTORIAN'S REVIEW OF THE GOSPELS P 104)

"SON OF GOD"

   Likewise the term "Son of God" can be found in the Jewish scriptures to
refer to humans. The kings following God's laws were referred to as "son(s)
of God", whereby the ruler was understood to be divinely adopted by God
himself. This tradition had been established when God promised King Solomon
(son of King David) that his descendants would be treated as His "son":

  "I will be his father, and he shall be my son.  If he commit iniquity,
   I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the
   children of men." (II Samuel 7:14)

  Sometimes Israel was referred to the first born son of God, the father.
(Isaiah 63:6, Jeremiah  3:4, Exodus 4:22, Psalms 2:7) The title 'Son of
God', likewise, was not considered by the Jews to imply divine status,
as they were told "You are the sons of the Lord your God (Deuteronomy
14:1, Psalms 82:6) The Jews (like Jesus) even prayed to their God as
"Father". For example, there exists prayers from the Pharisees that are
believed to have been dated before the Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.,
which called upon God as a loving father:

 "Our Father, merciful Father, thou who art ever compassionate, have 
pity on us and inspire us to understand and discern, to perceive, learn
and teach, to observe, do, and fulfill gladly all the teachings of thy
Torah." (see DAILY PRAYER BOOK pp73-76 translated by P. Birnbaum)

  At times, the term "Son of God" is used to refer to divine beings such
as angels.  Paul used the term son of God to refer to anyone who
was under the Spirit of the Holy Ghost.

  When the Jewish term "messiah" was TRANSLATED into Greek, the term used
was "Christos" or "Christ" which did imply a DIVINE connection. (As we have
seen, the peoples in the Greco-Roman world strongly believed in miracles,
divine gods, and virgin births). Thus, Jesus became identified as one in
nature with the Father (ie a God himself). This became the "official"
view within Christendom during the fourth century C.E., when the Council
of Nicene declared that all other interpretations of Jesus would thereafter
be considered heresy. (See Section V, Chapter 2)