Berger, an academic expert on Jewish responses to Christianity, particularly claims of Jesus messiahship and divinity, criticized what he viewed as similar assertions made by some religious leaders of the Chabad-Lubavitc movement about Schneerson shortly after Schneerson's death in 1994. Berger argues that the assertion a person could begin a messianic mission, die, and posthumously return to complete his mission has been unanimously rejected by the Sages and Jewish polemicists for nearly 2,000 years. An example of Berger's proof-texts is the passage in the Talmud which shows that Rabbi Akiva set aside his previous assertions of Simon bar Kokhba's presumed messiahship following Bar Kokhba being put to death. To Berger, the Messianists' viewpoint on this issue is outside the pale of accepte