The extracanonical Jewish works produced in the Second Temple period refer to the Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, and Philo.. Although end-time s
Trang 1one can say is that such references may have
eschato-logical overtones The second approach to messianism
is to investigate it from the broader perspective of
Is-rael’s eschatology It is undeniable that many passages
of Hebrew scripture envision some sort of an end-time
agent, whether human or angelic, who will restore
Is-rael and reestablish God’s original order on the earth
Most scholars feel that many of such passages are
sianic even though these passages do not mention
mes-siah The most important messianic fi gure in Hebrew
scripture is a future king in the likeness of David and a
descendant of David
There are basically two scholarly opinions about
the origin of messianism Some believe messianism
developed from the pre-exilic practice of venerating
Israelite kings as divine agents S Mowinckel was the
key proponent of this hypothesis Others believe that
either before or during the exile, the Jews borrowed
the concept of divine kingship from Egypt or Persia
and shaped it into messianism, a form more consistent
with Israel’s monotheism
Whatever the case may be, scholarly consensus
points to kingship as the primary matrix of Jewish
mes-sianism The extracanonical Jewish works produced in
the Second Temple period refer to the Pseudepigrapha
and Apocrypha, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls,
Josephus, and Philo Although end-time speculations
abound in much of these Jewish writings, direct mention
of the word messiah is found only in Philo, the Psalms
of Solomon, Jubilees, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, and 1 Enoch
Of these, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, technically speaking, lie
outside the Second Temple period, and Philo mentions
messiah only once in a quotation of Num 24:7 (LXX)
Also 4 Ezra is the only apocryphal writing that
men-tions the word messiah.
Inasmuch as the Apocrypha was passed down
with the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew
scripture, and preserved by the Christians, one might
have expected a more overt messianism in it In other
words, the actual occurrences of the word messiah in
the Jewish writings of this period are few and far
be-tween The reason may be that during the Hasmonean
period, when much of these works were produced, a
strong interest in a stable Jewish kingship here and now
tended to suppress messianism By far the most
interest-ing messianic material from this period is found in the
Dead Sea Scrolls, which speak of at least two—royal
and priestly—messiahs This development is due to the
fact that in Hebrew scripture not only kings but also
the priests, the sanctuary and its contents, and
some-times even the prophets were anointed
The title most frequently used for Jesus in the NT is
“Christ,” which is the Greek translation of messiah (cf
John 1:14) Paul, who uses this title most often, also uses
it as a virtual name for Jesus In Luke, Jesus reads a pas-sage from Isaiah at the beginning of his ministry to refer
to himself as the anointed: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18) In other words, in the NT messiah
is practically synonymous with Jesus (Christ) of Naza-reth But other messianic titles also occur in the NT The Gospel writers use the titles Son of David and Son of Man
in addition to Christ Hebrews use the title high priest for Jesus The image of Jesus as the High Priest of God also
fi gures prominently in Revelation These and other mes-sianic titles of Jesus in the NT share the common notion that Jesus is a suffering messiah
Rabbinic Judaism certainly knows of the messiah
The word messiah occurs in the Mishnah, the Eighteen
Benedictions, the Targums, and the Talmud Messian-ism, as a theological idea, however, has had little direct infl uence on the formation and development of rabbinic Judaism Notwithstanding, messianic movements have played a vital role in Judaism to this day
Nearly all messianic materials mention a connection with God’s end-time judgment The Qumran scrolls are noteworthy in this regard because they not only link together messianism and divine judgment but also de-velop them into elaborate end-time scenarios Similarly,
4 Ezra (cf 12:32) and 2 Baruch (cf 29:3) mention a messiah in close connection with visions of the end-time judgment, which in the two books is equated in part with the fall of Jerusalem Jesus and his followers also center their messianic messages on the announcement that the end-time judgment of God has fi nally arrived The followers of Jesus, like Paul, who believed that di-vine judgment had taken place in the death of Jesus, gave Jewish messianism its most notable and lasting expression
In short, messianism is an apocalyptic phenomenon that tended to become prominent in Jewish and Chris-tian communities that believed themselves to be under divine judgment
See also Bible translations; Judaism, early; Psalms; Zakkai, Yohanan ben
Further reading: Charlesworth, James H The Messiah:
Devel-opments in the Earliest Judaism and Christianity Minneapo-lis, MN: Fortress, 1992; Horbury, William Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ London: SCM Press, 1998.
P Richard Choi
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