As we all know, the english word `Messiah` comes from `Mashiach` which means “anointed”. The term, in hebrew bible, refers to figures such as kings and priests. It also refers to Cyrus the great.
In wikipedia, then, we read:
> In Jewish messianic tradition and eschatology, the term came to refer to a future Jewish king from the Davidic line, who will be “anointed” with holy anointing oil and rule the Jewish people during the Messianic Age. In Standard Hebrew, the messiah is often referred to as Melekh ha-Mashiaḥ (מלך המשיח), literally “the Anointed King”.
Question 1:
While it’s true, that Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15 talk about future king, it still doesn’t mention “messiah” and hence, comes my question: At what step/time did Jews start to attribute the word “Mashiaḥ” to the future king that was yet to come ? The word itself doesn’t have anything to do with “future” events, so since wikipedia clearly says that the term came to refer to a future jewish king, I am wondering when this started to happen.
Question 2:
We read in new tastement that high priests at the trial ask jesus: “Are you the messiah” ? Clearly, this word “messiah” in 1st century palestine context must have meant the same thing: “anointed” or “anointed king” since this oil was only put on priests/kings, but Bart also mentions that at Jesus’s time, Jews didn’t believe he was the messiah, because for Jews, Messiah must have been someone who would be all powerful. My question here is where we get information that Jews actually thought that the exact term: “messiah” must have been a future event where the king would be all powerful ?
I just don’t find the connection between “Messiah” and “future king”. (Note the `future`). Hope my question is somehow clear.
The unknown days of Samuel?
Way back when, all the way back in time to 2 Samuel 1:14 where King David speaks of the deceased King Saul being the LORD’s anointed. That is, any king is the LORD’s anointed in OT context.
The future King David has passages in Ezekiel. The resurrection of the dead (Valley of dry bones, Ezekiel 37:1-20) occurs before the arrival of King David. King David is resurrected from the dead and becomes the LORD.
Ezekiel 37:24-25 is the King David verse.
That the future King David mentioned in Ezekiel 37:24 is also the LORD is in and Zechariah 12:8 and even more so in Zechariah 14:9.
That is where the idea comes from, that the messiah will be a King and God. It wasn’t really a much later invention by Christians.
I think a lot of people get hung up in this mess.
My take is that there were many messiahs predicted and many came and went. for example, Isaiah 45:1 calls Cyrus the LORD’s anointed – a messiah. Clearly Cyrus fulfills that role. 2 Chronicles and Ezra pretty much say that Cyrus fulfills Jeremiah’s 70 year exile prediction, despite the years not actually lining up. What does closely line up is the tradition that the temple was restored in the 6th year of king Darius, which was 70 years after Jerusalem fell. No one called Darius the messiah and Cyrus sent the exiles home too early. Yet overall, nobody seems to care. Prophecy fulfilled.
The temple is rebuilt and the people from all the tribes (nations?) can worship there. All is well under Persian rule.
Things seem to fall apart somehow, so that by the time Nehemiah is writing, the Judean bodies were not their own, but were oppressed under the Persian rule. Its hard to say if this is simply a different viewpoint on foreign rule or if life was truly harsher in a later time period after the temple was restored.
Daniel later extends the time period from seventy years to seven times seventy years. That is 490 years by my math. There is a Dead Sea Scroll that calculates a period of ten Jubilees, again 490 years. Probably they mean to extend this to the time period of the author of Daniel or that DSS. I am not sure that exact math is a great requirement here, since we already saw that Cyrus completed a 70 year prophecy in like 49 years or so.
Here is where I cannot agree with most scholar’s on how they talk about Daniel and the later DSS. Often they say that earlier prophecies were not fulfilled and often the term ‘kick the can down the road’ is used to describe new attempts to extend old prophecies. It seems clear to me that the author(s) of 2 Chronicles and Ezra were clear that Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled. I cannot see any reason to question that. However, at a later time things fall apart again (as happens throughout the entirety of the Hebrew bible), and A messiah is needed, again.
Not THE Messiah, but A messiah. The questions posed by gospel writers should be looked at as simply the work of gospel writers unless there is other new testament support for the concept.
Sorry if that was a bit long, and I am just a hobbyist with no formal training, so take this with a bit of salt.
@FocusMyView
That’s a good answer.
“Kick the can down the road” refers to the Orthodox Judaism teaching that a miraculous Act of God would fulfill the prophecy. The prophecy was not something that required any human will or intervention. By the 20th Century before WW2 the European Orthodox Judaism traditions had abandoned the idea that it would ever be fulfilled for obvious reasons. There has to first be a State of Israel for it to be fulfilled but there had not been a State of Israel for over 2000 years almost. The Orthodox were politically and philosophically opposed to the Zionists of the 20th century because that was not a fulfillment of a miraculous Act of God.
I am not sure about all of that, Colin. If its true, then it seems that it could have been a response to Christianity rather than the other way around.
It seems as if people take the writings of 3rd century Jewish folks and suppose that Jewish folks thought that way before the gospels were written as well. As if Judaism was immune to what was a great schism of sorts. I see early CE Judaism as focused on rejecting anything of their Greek age, and that would include what had become known as Christianity by that time.
I am not sure how much messiah was a concept in later CE Judaism, but I do think before the gospels and Paul came to dominate theology that a messiah was sent to save a people at a time. Each messiah for their own time period.
One day I will have to read the Mishnah and Talmud and stuff. But the way I se other people use it it seems to cloud their judgement on the earlier texts, so I postpone for now.
You could also look at two Early Church reports that Jesus became a Great King.
This is a king over multiple kingdoms, think Herod the Great, Agrippa the Great, and of course bigger fish like Cyrus The Great and Alexander the Great: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Pre-Islamic Arabians even preferentially chose the ‘sons of handmaidens to a Lord’ for rule, it’s very Ishmael-coded.
The Jewish folk ended up giving popular support to Agrippa and his Hasmonean lineage. Of course, Agrippa becomes known for liking to look fancy and had the Emperor as his childhood best friend, so perhaps it looked like he could deliver on autonomy hopes more.
The Hasmonean period is regarded as that period of autonomy but if you look closely, that’s right when the Nabataeans show up with their 25% road tax and hegemonic assistance. Later there’s even the raising of Judaea’s princes in their royal household, usually this indicates a heirarchal order – sonperhaps there was a type of confederacy relationship where Nabataea was the one dealing with empires?
In Revelation, it seems Jesus redefined Jerusalem in reference to the Lord removing his name from Jerusalem, and that could be a condition of fulfilling messianic prophecy?
“While it’s true, that Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15 talk about future king, it still doesn’t mention ‘messiah'”
Targum Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15 speak of an “anointed one.”
_The Targum of Jeremiah (The Aramaic Bible) (Volume 12)_ (1987), 206pp., on 111, 141
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Page 111
5. Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when
I shall raise up for David an Anointed One of righteousness^c [c: That is, A Messiah…],
and he shall reign as king and prosper,
and he shall perform true justice and righteousness in the land.
6. In his days those of the house of Judah shall be redeemed,
and Israel shall dwell safely;
and this is his name which they shall call him:
Righteous deeds shall be done for us before the Lord in his days.
Page 141
13. In the cities of the mountain,
in the cities of the lowland,
and in the cities of the south,
and in the land of the tribe of Benjamin
and in the environs of Jerusalem,
in the cities of the house of Judah,
the people shall yet eagerly pursue the words of the Messiah,
says the Lord.
14. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when
I will establish the upright word that I have spoken
concerning the house of Israel
and concerning the house of Judah.
15. In those days
and at that time
I will raise for David an anointed one^u of righteousness [u: Lit.: “a Messiah of Righteousness”; f.: “the Messiah of Righteousness.”],
and he shall perform true justice and righteousness in the land.
16. In those days
the men of the house of Judah shall be redeemed
and Jerusalem shall dwell safely; …
Targum Jonathan on Jeremiah
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About This Text
Composed: Talmudic Israel/Babylon, c.150 BCE – c.350 CE
Targum Jonathan is an Aramaic translation of the Neviim (Prophets).
Authorship of the Targum is attributed to Jonathan ben Uzziel, a prime student of the great Talmudic sage Hillel.
In Talmudic times, the Targum was read verse-by-verse, alternating with the Hebrew text of the haftarah.
=============================
Jintae Kim, “Targum Isaiah 53 and the New Testament Concept of Atonement” (2008)
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Before examining these passages, a brief statement concerning the antiquity of the tradition in Targum Isaiah is in order.
Targum Isaiah is usually considered part of the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, who lived in the first century BCE, but the dating of the Targum cannot be exactly determined, since the Talmud assigns some portions of it to Joseph ben Chija (c. 300 CE).^6
The text now extant is presumably the result of an editorial process.
It is primarily Chilton’s contribution that identified the two-tier editorial process of Targum Isaiah.^7
Chilton compared the exegesis incorporated in Targum Isaiah with departures from the Hebrew text evidenced in the LXX, the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, the scrolls of Qumran, the New Testament, and the rabbinic literature, and concluded that targumic traditions were incorporated within an exegetical framework, a version of Isaiah in Aramaic composed by a meturgeman who flourished between 70 and 135 CE.
That work, according to Chilton, was completed by another meturgeman, associated with Joseph ben Chija.
Chilton makes an important point:
‘Within that early framework, materials were incorporated which appear to reflect the interpretations of earlier periods, including the period of Jesus.’^8
There is much evidence that the translation tradition preserved in _Targum Isaiah_ is very old.
Jeremias provides examples that point to the antiquity of _Targ. Isa_. 53:
“Isa. 6:10. the HT reads: …
The Tg. transl. very differently: …, ‘and they shall be forgiven’;
… (‘to heal’) is confused with … (‘to remit’), Schl. Mk. on 4:12.
This version of the text is very old, for it appears in sy^p : …
and Mk. 4:12: …
(cf. T.W. Manson, _The Teaching of Jesus_ [1948], 77…).
As concerns Is. 53 in particular, it is easy with the help of LXX, Peshitta, ‘A, Σ, Θ, to give many instances of the antiquity of the text preserved in the Tg.
A few examples may be offered: …”
…
There are also evidences from Qumran that indicate the antiquity of _Targum Isaiah_.
Of particular importance are two witnesses that are directly related to _Targum Isaiah_ and four others that are indirectly related:
(1) the messianic interpretation of Targ. Isa. 52.13 and 53.10 is paralleled by an interpretive alteration of the Hebrew text in 1QIsa^a 52.14.^10
(2) In place of the Hebrew … in Isa. 53.10, the targumist seems to have read a similar verb form … as attested in an Isaiah scroll from Qumran (1QIsa^a 53.10).
(3) Minute remains of both Targum Leviticus (4QtgLev) and Targum Job (4QtgJob; 11QtgJob) were discovered in Qumran caves 4 and 11.
J.H. Charlesworth argues on the basis of this that
‘it is now clear that the earliest traditions in the other, but much later, targums must be included in an assessment of early Judaism’.^11
(4) The Tannaitic authorities (_b. Šab_. 115a) state the antiquity of written Targum.
According to Churgin,
‘the official Targumim were in a definite shape in the time of R. Akiba’ (second century CE), and
‘Certain traces in the Targum carry unmistakable evidence of a Babylonian re-cast, which was, however, of a very limited scope’, and ‘the substance was left untouched’.^12
(5) The author of the Habakkuk Scroll seems to have borrowed his interpretation of Hab. 1.6 directly from the Targum to the Prophets.^13
(6) There is evidence for Targum Jonathan at the time of Josephus.^14
…
_Targum Isaiah_ agrees with the LXX in its handling of illnesses as transgressions.
The LXX renders the Hebrew word … with the Greek … and interprets the whole verse in terms of the Servant bearing the sins of the unnamed ‘we’.
Furthermore, this understanding of illness as sin is also found in Mk 4.12, which follows Targ. Isa. 6.10, and this implies the antiquity of the tradition.^19
…
10. W.H. Brownlee, ‘The Servant of the Lord in the Qumran Scrolls’, _BASOR_ 132 (1953), pp. 8-15 (11).
The variant is found in 1QIsa^a 52.14, which may be translated
‘As many were astonished at you—
I so anointed (…) his appearance beyond anyone (else),
and his form beyond that of (other) sons of men.’
The difference between … in 1QIsa^a 52.14 and … in the MT is only one consonant.
As suggested by Brownlee, the variant reading cannot be correct since it is not suited to the context; rather, it is a pun upon the word … (‘marred’), which was made for the purpose of interpretation by adding a single Hebrew letter yod (y).
This is the clearest case of alteration for the purpose of giving the Servant a messianic interpretation.
11. J.H. Charlesworth, _The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha_ (2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1983), I and II, p. xxvii.
…
19. Seidelin, ‘Ebed Jahwe’, p. 212 n. 55;
Manson, _Teaching of Jesus_, p. 78;
Black, _Aramaic Approach_, pp. 213-14;
B. Chilton, ‘Four Types of Comparison between the Targumim and the New Testament,’ _Journal for the Aramaic Bible_ 2 (2000), pp. 163-88 (166-67).
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Pinkhos Churgin (1894-1957), _Targum Jonathan to the Prophets_ (1927), on 19-21, 42
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But this does not imply that no change was introduced in the existing official Targumim.
Certain traces in the Targum carry unmistakable evidence of a Babylonian recast, which was, however, of a very limited scope.
This will be discussed later.
The substance was left untouched.
Consequently, we may rest assured there was no unified authorship even to the extent of a thoroughgoing redaction.
But before advancing other views with regard to the authorship, we might well direct our attention to evidence preserved in the Targum.
It should be noticed at the outset that tradition assigns an early origin to the official Targumim.
The same tradition which vaguely ascribed the Targum to late authorities is sponsor of the statement that they originated far back of the age of these authorities.
Of Jonathan the tradition makes clear that he “said” the Targum from the mouths of the Prophets Haggai, Zachariah and Malachi.
With regard to Onkelos the tradition explains that Onkelos only restored the Targum, which originated with Ezra.
The latter was inferred, in the name of Rab, from the interpretation of Nehemiah 8:8, according to which … carries the meaning of … (R. Judan, Nedarim 37a; Gen. r. 36, end).
Making all allowance, the Targum Jonathan contains evidence pointing to a comparatively early date.
Evidence of a general character consists, first, of the textual deviations which abound in Jonathan as well as in Onkelos.
The same may be said with reference to the unacceptable Halaka, found in Onkelos.
This fact points to a date when these matters were still in the balance.
Why, however, they were permitted at a later age to remain in the Targum can easily be explained.
There was first of all the tradition referring the Targumim to the last Prophets and Ezra, which cast a halo over them, and none would venture either to question the propriety of the rendering or attempt to emend them, just because they appeared amazingly striking.
There was no cause for general alarm.
The Targum was read verse for verse with the Hebrew Text, which would bring home to the reflection of the hearer the established reading.
Still, precaution was sought to exclude a possible impression that the Targum represents the right reading.
I am persuaded to interpret the causes for the limitations placed upon the reading of the Targum in the light of this supposition.
The elimination of anthropomorphisms, so persistently carried through in the official Targumim, goes back to an early period.
…
Although the official Targumim were in a definite shape in the time of R. Akiba, the process of transformation had been still going on to a comparatively late date.
It affected both the literal and exegetical rendering.
Some older exegetical renderings were rejected and replaced by others.
Of the rejected, some have been preserved in the Ps. Jonathan, which in itself is an Aramaic Jalqut comprising also later Agadic material.
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