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Messiah

The Hebrew word "messiah" means "anointed." The Greek word for Messiah is Christ.

In that form, the word appears 39 times in the Old Testament of the Bible. It occurs many more times in the form of "anoint" or "anointing."

It refers to a practice in ancient Israel in which kings, priests and prophets were anointed with oil, a ceremony that involved smearing a small amount of oil on a person who was selected to perform a special job or task. The selection or choosing often was done by God himself.

In Bible passage of Leviticus 21:10, for example, the high priest is referred to as having been anointed with oil.

King David is mentioned several times in connection with the Hebrew word for anointed. In 1 Samuel 16:1, the Lord tells Samuel to anoint David as the new king of Israel:

The LORD said to Samuel, "How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king." - 1 Samuel 16:1 (NIV translation).

The word can be phonetically represented in English in a variety of ways, including "messiah," "moshiach," "mashiach," "mashiyach," etc. This of course is where English speakers get the word "Messiah."

The words "Messiah" and "Christ" mean the same thing. The word "Christ" comes from the Greek translation of the Bible. That is because Greek was a widely used language during the dawn of Christianity about 2000 years ago. Many of the New Testament books were either written in Greek or were translated into Greek.

The word also is the name of a category of prophecies in the Old Testament called "Messianic prophecies," for which the prophets spoke of a messiah who would save the people of Israel, cleanse the world of sin, offer salvation to people throughout the world, and bring forth an era of peace.

Some Christian scholars, including Grant Jeffrey, say that there are more than 300 messianic prophecies in the Old Testament.

About 2000 years ago, there were Jews and Gentiles who proclaimed that Jesus was the Messiah who was promised by the Old Testament prophets. Their writings became the New Testament. They traveled far and wide to tell people the "Gospel," which means "good news," that the Messiah had come and that through him all who believe would be granted salvation and eternal life in Heaven.

Their evangelism work allowed Christianity to spread very quickly throughout parts of Asia, Africa and Europe, despite the fact that the Roman Empire was often severely oppressive to the Christian faith.

Today, Jesus is the only person widely regarded, throughout the world, as being the Messiah.

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