Hi Hannah,
I believe that the contrast between the anticipated Messiah and the one believed to be the Messiah by Christians is such an enormously important aspect to the Christian faith. When one understands this contrast to be a component of the historical context in which the New Testament was written, I believe one comes away with a different understanding of the differences between two different religions.
What I mean here is that this type of understanding brings one to the realization that the difference between the two faiths is not as adversarial as has historically been insisted upon by those distorting Christianity for bigoted purposes. Instead, two largely similar ethical systems are better understood as divergent faith traditions rather than one another’s antithesis.
