List of messiah claimants


This is a list of notable people who have been said to be a messiah, either by themselves or by their followers. The list is divided into categories, which are sorted according to date of birth, if it is known.

Jewish messiah claimants

In Judaism, "messiah" originally meant "a divinely appointed king" or "anointed one", such as Aaron the brother of Moses, David, Cyrus the Great or Alexander the Great. Later, especially after the failure of the Hasmonean Kingdom and the Jewish–Roman wars, the figure of the Jewish messiah was one who would deliver the Jews from oppression and usher in an Olam Haba or Messianic Age.
However the term "false messiah" was largely absent from rabbinic literature. The first mention is in the Sefer Zerubbabel, from the mid-seventh century, which uses the term, mashiah sheker,.
  • Jesus of Nazareth, a religious leader who was persecuted by the Roman Empire for alleged sedition and is believed by Christians to have been crucified and resurrected. Jews who believed him to be the Messiah were originally called Nazarenes and later they were known as Jewish Christians. Baháʼís, Muslims, and Christians believe him to be the Messiah.
  • Dositheos the Samaritan, Origen wrote that Dositheos wished to persuade the Samaritans that he was the Jewish Messiah..
  • Simon bar Kokhba, born Simon ben Koseva, who led the apical Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire. For three years, bar Kokhba ruled as the nasi, or prince, of a semi-independent secessionist state in Israel. Some rabbinical scholars, including the great sage Akiva, proclaimed bar Kokhba as the Messiah. He died during the rebels' last stand at the fortress of Betar, after which the rebellion was brutally crushed and the land was left largely decimated, cementing both the slowly growing Jewish diaspora and the schism between Christianity and Judaism.
  • Shlomo Molcho, born Diogo Pires in Lisbon to parents who were Jewish converts to Christianity. After meeting David Reuveni, he left his post as secretary to the king's council, traveled to Damascus, Safed, Jerusalem and later Solonika, where he studied kabbalah and became a mystic. He was eventually reunited with Reuveni, declared his aspirations as messiah, and was finally burned at the stake by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, for refusing to convert back to Christianity.
  • Sabbatai Zevi , a Sephardic ordained rabbi from Smyrna, who was active throughout the Ottoman Empire and claimed to be the long-awaited Messiah. He was the founder of the Sabbatean movement, whose followers subsequently were to be known as Dönmeh "converts" or crypto-Jews - one of the most important messianic movements, whose influence was widespread throughout Jewry. His influence is felt even today. After his death, Sabbatai was followed by a line of putative followers who declared themselves Messiahs and are sometimes grouped as the "Sabbethaian Messiahs".
  • Shukr Kuhayl I and Judah ben Shalom were a pair of preachers in Yemen in the 1860s and 1870s, who claimed to be the Messiah. Shukr Kuhayl I was an acsetic and was executed in 1865. Judah ben Shalom claimed in 1868 to be the resurrected Shukr Kuhayl and created an extensive, well-funded organization with himself at the head. Jacob Saphir wrote that most Temani Jews believed in them, and convinced rabbis in Jerusalem to publicly censure ben Shalom, leading to his defunding and downfall.
  • Menachem Mendel Schneerson, seventh Rebbe of Chabad Lubavitch; some of his followers believed that he was the Jewish Messiah during his lifetime, and some of them continue to believe so after his death in 1994. The number of believers grew in size after his death. Some of his followers believe that Schneerson never died. While Schneerson remained cryptic about such assertions, many of his followers do believe he was the Jewish Messiah. The issue remains controversial within both the Chabad movement and the broader Jewish community.

    Christian messiah claimants

The Christian Bible states that Jesus will come again in some fashion; various people have claimed to, in fact, be the Second Coming of Jesus. Others have styled themselves new messiahs under the umbrella of Christianity.
The Synoptic gospels all use the term pseudochristos for messianic pretenders.
  • Ann Lee, a central figure to the Shakers, who thought she "embodied all the perfections of God" in female form and considered herself in 1772 to be Christ's female counterpart.
  • John Nichols Thom, who had achieved fame and followers as Sir William Courtenay and adopted the claim of Messiah after a period in a mental institute.
  • Abd-ru-shin, founder of the Grail Movement.
  • Lou de Palingboer , a Dutch charismatic leader who claimed to be God as well as the Messiah from 1950 until his death in 1968.
  • Ahn Sahng-hong, founder of the World Mission Society Church of God and worshiped by the members as the Messiah.
  • Sun Myung Moon, founder and leader of the Unification Church established in Seoul, South Korea, who considered himself the Second Coming of Christ, but not Jesus himself. It is generally believed by Unification Church members that he was the Messiah and the Second Coming of Christ and was anointed to fulfill Jesus's unfinished mission.
  • Anne Hamilton-Byrne, founder of The Family, Australia, claimed to have been the reincarnation of Jesus.
  • , founder of the Victory Altar New Religious Movement, which refers to him as “the Victor Christ” and “God incarnated”. Died in the midst of a series of legal battles in which he was alternately convicted and acquitted on charges of fraud and instigation of the murders of multiple opponents.
  • Lee Man-Hee, founder of Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a new religious movement based in South Korea. Also known as The One Who Overcomes, he claims to be chosen by Jesus to be the next immortal savior of the world
  • Jung Myung-seok, a South Korean who was a member of the Unification Church in the 1970s, before breaking off to found the dissenting group now known as Providence Church in 1980. He also considers himself the Second Coming of Christ, but not Jesus himself. He believes he has come to finish the incomplete message and mission of Jesus Christ, asserting that he is the Messiah and has the responsibility to save all mankind. He claims that the Christian doctrine of resurrection is false but that people can be saved through him. Jung Myung-seok was convicted of rape by the Supreme Court of Korea and spent 10 years in prison. He was again indicted in South Korea on October 28, 2022, for sexually assaulting two female followers between 2018 and 2022.
  • Claude Vorilhon, now known as Raël "messenger of the Elohim", a French professional test driver and former car journalist who became founder and leader of UFO religion the Raël Movement in 1972. Raëlism teaches that life on Earth was scientifically created by a species of extraterrestrials, which they call Elohim. He claimed he met an extraterrestrial humanoid in 1973 and became the Messiah. He then devoted himself to the task he said he was given by his "biological father", an extraterrestrial named Yahweh.
  • José Luis de Jesús Miranda, founder and leader of Creciendo en Gracia sect, based in Miami, Florida. He was a Puerto Rican preacher who had claimed to be both "the Man Jesus Christ" and the Antichrist at the same time, and exhibited a "666" tattoo on his forearm, a behavior his followers also adopted. He has referred to himself as Jesucristo Hombre, which translates to "Jesus Christ made Man". He claimed he was indwelled with the same spirit that dwelled in Jesus. Miranda died on August 14, 2013, due to liver cancer.
  • Inri Cristo of Indaial, Brazil, a claimant to be the second Jesus.
  • Apollo Quiboloy, Filipino founder and leader of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ religious group, who claims that Jesus Christ is the "Almighty Father," that Quiboloy is "His Appointed Son," and that salvation is now completed. He proclaims himself to be the "Appointed Son of God". On November 11, 2021, Quiboloy was indicted by the United States Department of Justice for allegedly coercing girls and young women to have sex with him. These victims were threatened with eternal damnation and physical punishment if they didn’t comply. The indictment also included allegations that Quiboloy ran a sex-trafficking operation. Girls as young as 12 were allegedly trafficked through the fraudulent California charity “Children’s Joy.” Quiboloy was arrested by Philippine police on September 8, 2024.
  • Brian David Mitchell was convicted May 25, 2011, for the 2002 kidnapping and rape of Elizabeth Smart. He believed himself the fore-ordained angel born on earth to be the Davidic "servant" prepared by God as a type of Messiah who would restore the divinely led kingdom of Israel to the world in preparation for Christ's Second Coming. Mitchell's belief in such an end-times figure – also known among many fundamentalist Latter Day Saints as "the One Mighty and Strong" – appeared to be based in part on a reading of the biblical Book of Isaiah by the independent LDS Hebraist, Avraham Gileadi, with whom Mitchell became familiar as a result of his previous participation in Sterling Allan's American Study Group.
  • Ante Pavlović, a Croatian self-proclaimed chiropractor who claimed to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ.
  • Sergey Torop, who started to call himself "Vissarion", founder of the Church of the Last Testament and the spiritual community Ecopolis Tiberkul in Southern Siberia.
  • Alan John Miller, founder of Divine Truth, a new religious movement based in Australia. Also known as A.J. Miller, he claims to be Jesus of Nazareth through reincarnation. Miller was formerly a Jehovah's Witness.
  • Yang Xiangbin is believed to be the identity of a woman referred to as "Lightning Deng" and "the female Christ" in the literature of Eastern Lightning, a Chinese Christian new religious movement. Zhao Weishan, founder and administrative leader of Eastern Lightning, claimed that Yang revealed herself to be the Second Coming of Christ in 1992.