 Jews for Jesus, Messianic Jews, and other evangelical Christian missionaries constantly approach Jewish people with the claim that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah and ask, why don't Jews believe in Jesus? At the core of this challenge is a simple question. What do we mean by Messiah? The word Messiah is often used in Western culture, but it is important for us as Jews to realize that the way the word Messiah is used, or rather misused in everyday conversation, in books, in movies, and especially by Christians in a religious sense, is not based on the words' original meaning and context. The English word Messiah is merely the anglicization of the Hebrew word Mashiach, which means anointed, or an anointed one or thing. In the Jewish Bible, it refers to someone or something that has been consecrated into the service of God by being anointed with oil. In the case of a person, the anointing refers to having oil poured onto the person's head. A good description of an anointing is found in Psalms chapter 133 verse 2. It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down into the collar of his robe. In fact, the word Mashiach comes from the Hebrew word, which means to pour. Objects such as the vessels and utensils used in the temple were also anointed by the application of oil. Each Jewish king, prophet, and high priest was anointed in this matter into the service of the Almighty, and as a result was referred to as an anointed one, or a Mashiach. There are several references in the Jewish Bible of people being called God's anointed, or Mashiach. The high priest is referred to as a Mashiach. King Saul is referred to as a Mashiach. Even the Gentile king Cyrus of Persia is referred to as God's Mashiach. So there are many people who can justifiably be called a Messiah. The Hebrew word, Mashiach, the Messiah, referring to the specific Jewish king who will usher in a future utopian age, never occurs in the Jewish Bible. The Jewish people, by convention, refer to this future Jewish king as Hamashiach, the Messiah. Where did Jews get the concept of the Messiah? Where does it come from? One of the central themes of biblical prophecies is the promise of a future age of perfection characterized by universal peace and universal recognition of and a knowledge of God. A good summary of the main Messianic prophecies is found in the Book of Ezekiel chapter 37 verses 21 to 28. Of the many prophecies throughout the Jewish Bible dealing with this future age, about 10 or 12 prophecies refer to a specific person, a descendant of King David through his son King Solomon who will be anointed king and rule Israel during this time of peace, security, and perfection. Since every Jewish king is a Messiah, Jews refer to this particular future Jewish king as the Messiah. It's important to realize that the Jewish Bible never speaks about believing in the Messiah. His reign will be a verifiable reality. It will be a matter of fact and not a matter of faith. It will be self-evident, universal peace, universal knowledge of God, all the Jews returning to the land of Israel and the temple rebuilt in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount. It's not like anyone will be able to miss such a radical transformation of the world. It's never happened before and it's precisely because no one has fulfilled this vision that Jews to this day await the coming of the Jewish Messiah as prophesied in the Jewish Bible. Over the millennia there have been Messianic contenders, Jesus of Nazareth, Bar Kokhba, David Rouveni, Shabbat Tzvi, and others. Despite some initial popularity, they have all been rejected by the Jewish people as a whole because they all share the same basic fundamental flaw. They never fulfilled the Jewish prophecies set out in the Jewish Bible. None of them brought about universal peace and universal knowledge of God. None of them ushered in the prophesied age of perfection. None of them rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem. None of them gathered all the Jews to the land of Israel. In order to try to explain away Jesus' failure to fulfill any of these Messianic prophecies, Christianity was forced to come up with the second coming theory. Christians claim that Jesus will fulfill the Messianic prophecies when he returns. Their second coming theory is by its own nature a blatant admission that Jesus never fulfilled any of the Messianic prophecies in the first place. The Christian claim that Jesus will fulfill the prophecies in the future does not give him any credibility for his first coming. It's important to realize that in the Jewish Bible the Messianic prophecies never speak of a Messiah returning. They have a first coming perspective only. If a second coming was so crucial to the Messianic plan, one would think that the prophets would have mentioned it at one point. They never do. One more important thing to appreciate is that the concept of the Messiah is a Jewish concept given by Jewish prophets in the Jewish Scriptures. Because of Christianity, virtually everyone in the West has heard the word Messiah and has to some extent a rough, albeit uninformed or misguided idea of what it is. 2,000 years ago, the Jewish people were the only ones who knew what the Messiah was. If we were to somehow go back in time and ask Julius Caesar or Cleopatra, what is the Messiah? They would be unable to answer that question because to them the very idea of the Messiah was a completely foreign concept. It is our duty as Jews to have a firm and accurate grasp of what the Messiah is and what he is supposed to accomplish. Once we fully understand this concept, we will be able to look at any Messianic candidate and determine if he has fulfilled the criteria that God himself has set out for us. We will not need Christian missionaries to show us the way.