Talk:List of messiah claimants

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Contents 1 Linking? 2 Naming? 3 Jesus 4 Categories 5 Merging 6 Moved Baha'u'llah 7 People needing more details 8 Cyrus the Great 9 Shifts, and standards for being on this page. 10 Li Hongzhi 11 Overlapping categories 12 Can you have a non-Jewish/Christian messiah?

[edit] Linking?

I had an existential crisis, trying to decide—should I backlink this to list of people by belief or list of people by occupation

(the next time some officious technocrat asks me for my occupation, I might just fill in messiah. If nothing else, it'll be good for a discount on my car insurance) Martin

[edit] Naming?

Would List of claimed messiahs be better than List of messiah claimants? The article says that it also includes people whose followers asserted that they were messiahs. -- Oliver P. 01:18 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

Claimant also has a secondary meaning of one who has claim on something and would thus encompass those who followers assert has a claim to being a messiah. The primary meaning is true for most if not all on the list. SCCarlson 06:02 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Jesus

I think that asserting that "Jesus did not claim to be the Messiah" is unnecessarily tendentious. Some people claim he did; some people claim he didn't, and we don't have to decide the question in order to place him on this list. I also don't see much need for "His followers formed Christianity" which is true but seems tangential. YMMD. -- Someone else 06:50 22 May 2003 (UTC)

So did no one claim before Jesus? lysdexia 15:55, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

I broke this list down into 3 manageable bites, Jewish, Christian, and Other messiahs. Ignus 03:56, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merging

There is a lot of duplication between this article and Messiah. I propose to merge. ≈ jossi ≈ 04:17, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

I would perfer not to merge... i've been working toward the goal of having "Messiah" be about the concept, and each of the claimaints listed on the messiah page being given their own page, which would be referenced from the list page. However, i'm pretty new at all of this.

Ignus 04:40, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

The concept of Messiah is already discussed in that article. It makes no sense to have two lists that share 90% of their names in it. ≈ jossi ≈ 22:27, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Moved Baha'u'llah

I moved Baha'u'llah as he wasn't a Christian messiah claimant in any normal meaning of the term. He wasn't really a Mahdi claimant either, but it's closer--T. Anthony 04:58, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

uh, what else can I say: yes he was? Baha'u'llah claimed to fulfill the return of Christ and claims his religion will unite the world and reign for one thousand years, as prophesied in Revelation. He also claims to be the 5th Buddha, the Kalki Avatar, the Shah Bahram, the Islamic prophesy of Jesus, the culmination of a universal religious cycle begun by Adam, and the first of a new cycle which will last 500,000 years. Cuñado - Talk 07:17, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Then I guess we could double-dip and put him both places. Or we could contact the three Bahai Wikipedians I find:

1. Brettz9-I asked him/her, but then found out s/he's deemed "missing."
2. Cyprus2k1
3. Exir Kamalabadi A Chinese Baha'i, also asked him/her but felt a bit guilty so hedged on it.--T. Anthony 10:17, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I think my difficulty listing him as Christian is he was born and raised Muslim, but was never at any point a Christian. So he is in least a Muslim who reportedly became a Messiah claimant. Anyway I have him in both places for now and contacted Brettz9 about it.--T. Anthony 07:56, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Which would also make him the only thoroughly non-Christian Christian messiah claimant. Hong Xiuquan was influenced by Protestant Liang Fa and took instructions from Issachar Jacox Roberts.--T. Anthony 14:17, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Maybe you're right, he could go in either/both categories. I think Islam has a connection to Christianity, just like Christianity has to Judaism, so it's hard to define things like this. In my opinion he represents more the return of Jesus than any other category, but I'm not interested in arguing cause it really doesn't matter, as long as he's on the page somewhere. Cuñado - Talk 18:09, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

oh, and I'm a Baha'i, I guess I didn't mention that. Cuñado - Talk

I realized that later and felt a bit embarrassed. He's a bit of an odd case in that many, maybe even the majority, of the Bahai were/are from Christian countries and he did communicate with Christians. Yet to many Christians, like me, his own life story seems more tied in to the history of Iran and the Ottoman Empire. Hence more the story of a Muslim who began/discovered(whatever the right term is here) his own religion. Also before you told me this I thought Bahai viewed Jesus as basically the same as Zoroaster, Muhammed, or the Buddha.--T. Anthony 21:49, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay Brettz9 actually responded and agreed either or both is acceptable. I'd thought s/he was missing, but anyway if you want to revert it to the original that's fine too.--T. Anthony 09:04, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

tr:Sözde peygamberler

[edit] People needing more details

Can people who are more know more than me add more details for these people:

Jewish section:

Simon (c. 4 BCE) - The link is to the name 'Simon' and I could not tell who this refered to.--Zabdiel 11:50, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cyrus the Great

This article is incomplete without mention of Cyrus the Great, whom the prophet Isaiah called the messiah. Isaiah 45:1

[edit] Shifts, and standards for being on this page.

I'm doing some fairly major revamping of the List of Messiah claimants. I tried to get rid of suspect additions that got in there as pranks or simply as poorly researched; unfortunately a lot of the Jewish messiahs aren't well known, so it's not easy to find stuff. I also tried to keep the summaries quick and to the point, while still letting people know what basically happened.

Note that I don't think this page should be used for people who simply randomly said that they were Jesus once while drunk; there were a few entertainers on the list who may have been added for that reason, but their wiki-articles and Google didn't turn up much. You should have gotten at least some small following to be here, or be notable for other religious reasons.

Jeff3K, Bahá'u'lláh was previously listed twice in both the Christianity and Islam sections, and frankly should have been listed in the other section as well. Since he claimed to be the successor to all religions (not just Christianity and Islam), and to not pigeon-holing him in just Islam or Christianity, he seems best to be put in the "Other" section. It reduces repetition and is more accurate, in my opinion. SnowFire 02:29, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

In the Baha'i tradition, Baha'u'llah clearly is the return of Jesus Christ. He has written, when writing to Pope Pius IX:

"O Pope! Rend the veils asunder. He Who is the Lord of Lords is come overshadowed with clouds, and the decree hath been fulfilled by God, the Almighty, the Unrestrained." [1].

This claim is understood by Baha'is to fulfill the return of Christ in both Christian and Islamic senses (Islam also states that Jesus will return after the coming of the Mahdi). In that Baha'i belief states that Baha'u'llah is also the expected "messiah" (for lack of a better word) of other religions does not take away from the first claim, because in Baha'i belief all those expected people are one and the same: the spiritual return of a Manifestation of God:

"These Manifestations of God have each a twofold station. One is the station of pure abstraction and essential unity. In this respect, if thou callest them all by one name, and dost ascribe to them the same attribute, thou hast not erred from the truth. Even as He hath revealed: “No distinction do We make between any of His Messengers!” For they one and all summon the people of the earth to acknowledge the Unity of God, and herald unto them the Kawthar of an infinite grace and bounty. They are all invested with the robe of Prophethood, and honoured with the mantle of glory. Thus hath Muhammad, the Point of the Qur’án, revealed: “I am all the Prophets.” Likewise, He saith: “I am the first Adam, Noah, Moses, and Jesus.” Similar statements have been made by ‘Alí. Sayings such as this, which indicate the essential unity of those Exponents of Oneness, have also emanated from the Channels of God’s immortal utterance, and the Treasuries of the gems of divine knowledge, and have been recorded in the scriptures." [2] -- Jeff3000 02:46, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Nonono. I understand all that, and I'm not saying that because the Baha'i believe him to fulfill all religions that somehow means he isn't the return of Jesus as well. I just think that the only reasonable categorization is either in both Christianity and Islam, or in the "Other/Combined" section. SnowFire 20:38, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the combined section is appropriate because it does not make clear what claim they are making, by seperating it out. Someone who is looking for Chrisitan Messiah claimants will miss those that are in the combined section. An other section may be appropriate. -- Jeff3000 20:43, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Li Hongzhi

would Li Hongzhi, founder of Falun Gong, make this list?? Chensiyuan 12:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd say yes. In most of his online lectures he posits himself as the source of an upcoming "rectification" of the universe. I'd probably use the word "saviour" over "messiah". Li does compare himself (favourably) to Jesus, however. --Fire Star 火星 19:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Overlapping categories

High-five to the editors of this article! It's a great model for how the various self-claimed deity categories ought to be organized. I'm hoping someone less busy than me will undertake the task of organzing the overlap. --TheEditrix2 15:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can you have a non-Jewish/Christian messiah?

An interesting article, but it's threatening to grow exponentially. I wonder if it should be limited to the Judeo-Christian tradition, partly in order to make it manageable, and partly to avoid confusing those who claim, or are claimed, to be the 'anointed king' based in the Biblical tradition with those who are merely somewhat similar but based in a different tradition? For example, the 18th century Burmese king Bodawpaya viewed himself as the world-ruler promised at the end of time in Buddhist tradition, and consequently embarked on a series of wars against his neighbours. In the very broadest sense he could certainly be said to have viewed himself in terms similar to those in which the Jewish Messiah was sometimes viewed, but when you look at the details the similarities fall away. I'd even leave the Islamic tradition of the Mahdi out - like the Buddhist tradition, it's a view which centres on a millenarian figure, but it's not connected with the Jewish Messiah described in Kings. (Is there an article about millenarianism? perhaps that's the place for these figures to be discussed). PiCo 05:07, 13 May 2007 (UTC)