Did Jesus claim to be the Messiah?

Yes — Jesus presented himself as Israel's Messiah, more in deed than in word, and he died for it. He seldom used the title of himself, and he discouraged others from spreading it, likely because "Messiah" was a dangerous word under Rome. But when John the Baptist sent to ask, "Are You the One who was to come?", Jesus answered with a list — the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor (Matthew 11:3–6; Luke 7:20–23) — echoing the signs Isaiah tied to the anointed one (Isaiah 35:5–6; 61:1). (The raising of the dead is not in Isaiah 35 or 61; it appears beside them in a pre-Christian text from Qumran, 4Q521.) He chose twelve men to judge Israel's twelve tribes, rode into Jerusalem on Zechariah's pattern, and acted with authority over the temple. On Mark's account, when the high priest asked, "Are You the Christ?", he answered, "I am" (Mark 14:61–62), though the historicity of that night hearing is disputed. And Rome crucified him under the charge "The King of the Jews" (Mark 15:26), its way of naming a royal pretender.

No one strand settles it, and each has critics; the case rests on how they converge. It shows that Jesus made the claim, not, by itself, that the claim was true — that turns on what happened after the cross. The full case, with the objections from Wrede's "messianic secret" to the idea that the church made him Messiah after Easter, is in the deep dive.