Jesus

====Role====
Jesus taught that an apocalyptic figure, the "[[Son of man (Christianity)|Son of Man]]", would soon come on clouds of glory to gather the elect, or chosen ones.<ref>Mark 13:24–27, Matthew 24:29–31, and Luke 21:25–28.</ref> He referred to himself as a "[[son of man]]" in the colloquial sense of "a person", but scholars do not know whether he also meant himself when he referred to the heavenly "Son of Man". [[Paul the Apostle]] and other early Christians interpreted the "Son of Man" as the risen Jesus.<ref name="Britannica" />

The Gospels refer to Jesus not only as a messiah but in the absolute form as "the Messiah" or, equivalently, "the Christ". In early Judaism, this absolute form of the title is not found, but only phrases such as "his messiah". The tradition is ambiguous enough to leave room for debate as to whether Jesus defined his [[Eschatology|eschatological]] role as that of the messiah.{{sfn|Cross|Livingstone|2005|loc=Messiah}} The Jewish messianic tradition included many different forms, some of them focused on a messiah figure and others not.{{sfn|Theissen|Merz|1998|pp=533–40}} Based on the Christian tradition, [[Gerd Theissen]] advances the hypothesis that Jesus saw himself in messianic terms but did not claim the title "Messiah".{{sfn|Theissen|Merz|1998|pp=533–40}} Bart Ehrman argues that Jesus did consider himself to be the messiah, albeit in the sense that he would be the king of the new political order that God would usher in,<ref>{{cite web|last=Ehrman|first=Bart|url=http://ehrmanblog.org/judas-and-the-messianic-secret/|title=Judas and the Messianic Secret|website=The Bart Ehrman Blog|date=1 December 2015|access-date=15 February 2016|archive-date=23 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160223091403/http://ehrmanblog.org/judas-and-the-messianic-secret/|url-status=live}}</ref> not in the sense that most people today think of the term.<ref>{{cite web|last=Ehrman|first=Bart|url=http://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-claim-to-be-the-messiah/|title=Jesus' Claim to be the Messiah|website=The Bart Ehrman Blog|date=1 December 2015|access-date=15 February 2016|archive-date=23 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160223082758/http://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-claim-to-be-the-messiah/|url-status=live}}</ref>