The subject of Jesus is a sore topic. Especially when combined with the history of the church. The opinions vary. On one hand, you have the Rambam who thought that Christianity is idolatry. And Rav Abulafia does not seem to disagree with that at all. But the opinion of Rav Avraham Abulafia is that Jesus was the messiah son of Joseph, --even though his opinion about the church was highly negative.
[The issue of Christianity however is approached differently in Tosphot in tractate Avoda Zara. By sitting and trying to learn that Tosphot with my learning partner, helped me see that Tosphot seems to have several different approaches.] My own opinion is that I go with Rav Abulafia.
Messiah son of Joseph is brought in the end of tractate Suka and in the Zohar and the Kol HaTor of the Gra and the Tikunim Hadashim of the Ramchal. What it means is simple. It refers to a preliminary stage before messiah son of David. [Rav Nahman also refers to this . Just today I was in the Na Nach place and opened up the LeM of Rav Nahman and saw that sometimes the same tzadik can contain both aspects in himself.]
I should add that there are souls of the world of Emanation in the Ari [The Arizal, Rav Isaac Luria]. These are souls that are Divine, in that they receive the light of God without any division in between God and them. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron Joseph, David. So when it comes to the subject of the messiah son of Joseph or son of David, we are talking about a spark of the soul of David or Joseph.
[I might add here that I think the idea of Emanation is the approach that Hegel took to this same issue--that is how I tend to read Hegel. [See the debates about Hegel between McTaggart and Cunningham (Logos is everything or penetrates everything?). At any rate, this idea of over flowing or Emanation seems to me to be what Hegel was saying concerning Logos and Jesus. And we know that Hegel was aware of the Ari and borrows from him concerning Adam Kadmon. So it is not to far to imagine that Hegel was thinking along these lines concerning more central issues in his system. So I am not claiming that this answers all the issues in Hegel. Certainly McTaggart and Cunningham would argue that the idea of overflow along with condensation might not answer the issues they were raising. Still this seems to me to be what Hegel was saying.]
[So what would McTaggart say? He would answer that my arguing that condensation of the light or flow of Logos does not answer the issues --because of the same problem--it is the same or it is not.[The law of the excluded middle.] So I am not saying I could answer this question. But rather that I think that this is what Hegel was saying.
So the question would be can incremental change cause a complete change in essence or some other variable.\This is answered in Chaos Theory and in fact is a suggestion of Kelley Ross on how evolution happens.
[Just to make myself clear I want to mention that I can see important points in Kant, Leonard Nelson Kelley Ross, Huemer and Hegel. ]
