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will, Son of God may not mean 2nd person of the trinity. the Psalms refer to human kings that way. they're also annointed, and thus messiahs. for the greco-romans in the audience, Augustus uses a similar title. kingship and being the son of God is a long standing tradition in the area. what does Jesus mean by it? I think he meant he was the Messiah. Does that make him the 2nd Godhead? That's a far more difficult move to make from scripture...
to claim that an observant Jew would not claim to be the messiah is just not correct. several others claimed just that, and led jewish movements and uprisings in that time. at that point, you have to be Jewish to claim to be messiah, since messiah is a title and term defined by jewish tradition.
"An observant Jew wouldn't contradict the pharisees"
Except a whole lot of other observant first century Jews. The Saducees had no love lost for those upstarts, and the Qum'ran community appears to have little or no connection with them. They don't advocate violence like the Sicarii, at least as far as we can figure. The only source we have written by one of these Pharisees?
Paul's letters. Philo might be a hint, but he never identifies himself that way, and Paul does. So we're still pretty well in the dark about some of the major teachings. But judging by the fighting between them and the early church, i'd say they're often close...infights tend to be the nastiest. Again, this just cannot be correct. The High Priest at the time was certainly not a temple denying Pharisee, but a son of Zadok (Sadducee). Was he not an observant Jew? Or are we forgetting that there were multiple and contested ways of expressing worship of YHWH at this time?
and you're right...you are talking about what the church has taught for a long time. but they didn't initially...and it's pretty easy to prove. Christian first shows up in a bastardized form in a letter from one roman adminstrator to another, complaining about the followers of Chrispus (i'm not sure on the transliteration there but it's close). Acts talks of the people who follow "the way" and Paul speaks of those "in Christ." But niether of them think of that as being over and against a conceptual Judiasm.
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For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.
-John 3:16
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