“Messiah” is a term that can take on an aura of familiarity, without a reader having a precise idea what it means. Its most ubiquitous place in pop culture outside of the Bible is Handel’s Messiah, which can lead one to the assumption that it is synonymous with “Jesus Christ” or “Son of God.” In this blog entry I will examine the meanings that a Jewish audience in Jesus’ time may have attributed to this term, and how it is used in the Gospel reading of this week’s lectionary, Luke 24:36-48.
This passage depicts Jesus’ appearance to the disciples after he has risen from death. Earlier in the chapter, Jesus has appeared to two disciples on their way to Emmaus, who at first do not recognize him. He overhears them discussing the events surrounding his crucifixion. One of them, Cleopas, expresses what might be surprise, disillusion, or a combination of the two: “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (24:21). The term “redemption” connects to the prophecy of John the Baptist’s father in Luke 1:68: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.” Jesus, who the men on the way to Emmaus initially do not recognize, refers to himself as the Messiah, specifically in the context of fulfilling prophecy in the Hebrew Scripture: “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory? Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures” (24:26-27). Passages from the Psalms that can be interpreted as presaging the Passion narrative include 2:7; 22:1-18; 69:1-21; and 118:22. In the passage from the lectionary, the term Messiah is used again:
36 While they were telling these things, he himself stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be to you."
37 But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing a spirit.
38 And he said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?
39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."
40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
41 While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?"
42 They gave him a piece of a broiled fish;
43 and he took it and ate it before them.
44 Now he said to them, "These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."
45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,
46 and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day,
47 and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
48 "You are witnesses of these things.
The word messiah comes from the Hebrew mashiah, or “anointed one.” According to NOAB, it can refer to a title for a king or other servant or agent of God, such as a priest, and in Isaiah 45:1 it is used to refer to the non-Israelite Cyrus of Persia. The corresponding Greek word would be christos, also meaning “anointed one.” Christian communities eventually took up this word to refer to Jesus.
The New Testament Scholar Amy-Jill Levine, in The Misunderstood Jew: the Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus, describes a lack of consensus in Jewish communities concerning the exact connotation of the term messiah:
“Not all Jews in the first century—or ever—have believed that a messiah was coming. Neither was there general agreement upon messianic attributes; there was no checklist that included
Being born to a virgin mother
Receiving a direct commission from God
Defeating Satan’s temptations
Walking on water” (Levine, 56).
According to Levine, with the exception of Paul, no Jewish source contains a prophecy that the messiah as a future king will be raised from the dead after three days. Although Hosea 6:1-2 includes a description of God striking down, and then healing, Israel after three days, the reference is not to a single person, but to a people. However, Levine does describe Jewish people who believed in the concept of a future primary messiah associating this figure with the coming of the messianic age, as described by the prophet Micah (Levine, 56-57). The messianic age is characterized by many nations, not just Israel, uniting in worship of one God; the cessation of strife; and the fulfillment of justice:
Many nations shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples,
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more;
but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
and no one shall make them afraid. (Micah 4:2-4)
Levine also notes that Luke 4:18 shows Jesus citing Isaiah 61:1-2 when describing the messianic age: “release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind.” The concept of the resurrection of the dead appears in later sections of Isaiah and the book of Daniel. The descriptions of the Saducees in the Gospels and Acts indicate that, while some groups of Jews believed in a bodily resurrection before time of Jesus, others did not. According to Acts 23:8, “The Saducees say that there is no resurrection, or angel, or spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.” Levine also cites Martha, the sister of Lazarus described in John 11, as indicative of a belief among first-century Jews of a resurrection of the dead: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” (Levine, 57-58).
Within this context, one can understand why many did not accept Jesus as the figure who would usher in the messianic age. If one associated the figure of the messiah with the realization of universal peace, justice, and shared allegiance to one God depicted in Micah 4, the continued existence of the Roman Empire, with its attendant inequities, would have clashed with this vision. Thus one can understand how different views of the term Messiah would lead people to whom the disciples preached to either reject Jesus as the harbinger of the messianic age, or to reevaluate and expand their conception of the Messiah as a figure who will undergo a Second Coming.
Other lectionary passages from this week: Acts 3:12-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 3:1-7.
--Elizabeth Fels
Sources:
Coogan, Michael, Ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible (3rd ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Levine, Amy-Jill. The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus. New York: HarperOne, 2006.
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