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Jesus was the son of Mary. But clearly, we read, he was not the son of Joseph. Mary was was related to Elizabeth, the
wife of a Levite priest. The Levites were forbidden to marry except other Levites. Hence, Mary was a Levite, too, then.
Jesus, through Mary, was a levite, and through God, the messiah. However, traditional Jewish understanding long expected two messiahs. The messiah ben Joseph would be followed by a messiah ben David. The
Christian understnding is that the messiah ben David is yet to appear in what they will recognize as The Second Coming. But,
according to this, Jesus, then, was the "suffering messiah, ben joseph.
The MESSIAH SON OF JOSEPH in Jewish Tradition in later generations, (after 32AD, as expressed in the Talmud which was written 300 years after Christ), was taken to be a symbolic figure. The MESSIAH SON OF JOSEPH was understood to represent an historical process in which the Jewish people would return to their land and rebuild themselves by natural means. Later the MESSIAH SON OF DAVID would appear and impart a spiritual dimension to the physical-material political structure that the process represented by the MESSIAH SON OF JOSEPH had prepared. However, in Jewish commentary,
this does not nullify the belief that the MESSIAH SON OF JOSEPH is to be an actual person. It merely
supplements it. It adds to it. It helps us understand it both ways, as possible interpretations in the
assumed absence of his appearance, according to the Jews. In some
sources the MESSIAH SON OF JOSEPH is called "The First Redeemer." The "Second Redeemer" will be the Messiah son
of David.
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