cms@gatech.edu (12/24/90)
The following is the results of some research I conducted into a
question posed to me in email. I thought the readers of src would
also find it interesting in light of the discussion on Isaiah 53. It
is a _long_ file (563 lines).
I'v got the following source books:
"The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on
Jewish Spirituality" by Gershom Scholem; "The Messiah Texts: Jewish
Legends of Three Thousands Years" by Raphael Patai; "Moses Maimonides:
the guide for the perplexed" by the same; "The Essential Talmud" by
Adin Steinsaltz; "Mishneh Torah: Hilchos Bais Habechirah" by the
Rambam; "The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism" by Dennis Prager
and Joseph Telushkin; "The Jewish Roots of the Christian Liturgy"
edited by Eugene J. Fisher; "The Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic
Age" by Gedaliah Alon translated and edited by Gershon Levi;
"The Talmud: Selected Writings" The Classics of Western Spirituality;
"The Mishnah" translated from the Hebrew with an Introduction and
Brief Explanatory Notes by Herbert Danby, D.D.; "The Talmud: Volume I
Tractate Bava Metzia Part I" The Steinsaltz Edition; "Talmud Bavli:
The Gemara: The Classic Vilna Edition, with an annotated,
interpretive elucidation, as an aid to Talmud Study: Tractate
Makkos" The Artscroll Series. Okay, I think that's all my sources.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot: "The Torah: A Modern Commentary" edited
by W. G. Plaut; and "Pentateuch and Haftorahs" edited by Dr. J. H.
Hertz, C. H. Late Chief Rabbi of the British Empire. Oops. A couple
more: "The Pentateuch and Rashi's Commentary: Genesis" and
"Everyman's Talmud" by A. Cohen. That's really everything.
Hertz's Haftorahs has this to say on page 202: "The most passage of
this class [favourite texts of Christian missionaries in attempting to
convert illiterate Jews or those ignorant of Scripture -- two
paragraphs up from this one] is the Fifty-third chapter of Isaiah.
For eighteen hundred years Christian theologians have passionately
maintained that it is a Prophetic anticipation of the life of the
Founder of their Faith. An impartial examination of the chapter,
however, shows that the Prophet is speaking of _a past historical
fact_ (emphasis Hertz's), and is describing one who has already been
smitten to death. Consequently, a reference to an event which is said
to have happened many centuries later is excluded. These three
instances may be taken as typical [reference to Psalm 2:12 and Isaiah
7:14]. Modern scholarship has shattered the arguments from the
Scriptures which missionaries have tried, and are still trying, to
impose upon ignorant Jews."
I checked the Scriptural index for Isaiah 53 in the Mishnah and it
wasn't there. At any rate, here is Isaiah 53 discussed in "Nine
Questions People Ask About Judaism" pages 89-90:
"A...significant example of an attempt to make a Jewish text
Christian is the use of Isaiah 53 as a Christological reference. In
this chapter Isaiah speaks of a suffering and despised "servant of
God." The contention of some Christians that this refers to Jesus is
purely a statement of faith. It has no logical basis in the biblical
text. The "servant of God" is either the prophet himself who, like
all the Jewish prophets, suffered for his service to God, or the
people of Israel, who are specifically referred to as the "servant of
God" nine times in the previous chapters of Isaiah (41:8, 9; 44:1,2,
21, 26; 45:4; 48:20; 49:3). This Christianizing of such a significant
Jewish concept led the Jewish philospher Eliezer Berkovits to write:
'God's chosen people is the suffering servant of God. The majestic
fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is the description of Israel's
martyrology through the centuries [and] the way Christianity treated
Israel through the ages only made Isaiah's description fit Israel all
the more tragically and truly. Generation after generaton of
Christians poured out their iniquities and inhumanity over the head of
Israel, yet they ''esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and
afflicted.'''. ['Faith After the Holocaust' (New York: Ktav
Publishing House, Inc., 1973) pp. 125-6.]
"Fortunately, in recent years many Christian scholars have also
acknowledged the illegitimacy of attempts to 'prove' Jesus's
messiahship from the Jewish Bible. J. C. Fenton, in his 'The Gospel
of St. Matthew,' wrote: 'It is now seen that the Old Testament was
not a collection of detailed forebodings of future events, which could
only be understood centuries later: the Old Testament writers were in
fact writing for their contemporaries in a way which could be
understood by them, and describing things that would happen more or
less in their own lifetime. Thus Matthew's use of the Old
Testament...is now a stumbling block to the twentieth-century reader
of his Gospel.' The distinguished Christian scholar and theologian
W. C. Davies likewise noted that the Gospels quote the Jewish Bible
selectively: 'There were some prophecies which they ignore and others
which they modify.' ['Torah and Dogma -- A Comment,' Harvard
Theological Review, April 1968, p. 99.] Another Christian scholar, R.
Taylor, noted in his commentary on Psalms 16:8-10 in 'The
Interpreter's Bible' that the New Testament interpretation misreads
the clear intention of the Psalmist.
"In sum, to call anyone who does not actually bring about the
messianic era the Messiah is untenable to the Jews. To equate anyone
with God, as normative Christianity does, is to Jews more than
untenable. It compromises their ideal of monotheism."
My attitude toward this kind of statement is, "Since the Gospels are
the Word of God, how do you reconcile this with the above stated
implication that Matthew and other works are incorrectly citing Old
Testament sources to prove their position?" My understanding of the
passages are that they do indeed refer to Israel. The Psalms of David
speak to the sufferings of all human beings and, thus, because the
Messiah (Jesus) was and is a human being, it speaks to his sufferings
also, which is why Jesus quoted the Psalms he had known and loved
since he was a little boy to comfort him as he hung dying on the
Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Read the rest of
the Psalm, and you'll see why. The Psalms and Isaiah, therefore,
speak as much *to* the Messiah as *of* the Messiah since the Messiah
is *of* Israel. They must speak to the Messiah or they cannot speak
of the Messiah. They speak to Him as an ordinary Israelite as well as
the Messiah since He is fully God and fully human. But that's my
opinion. What was in the mind of the authors as they wrote the
divinely inspired message of God may have worked in conjunction with
what was in the mind of God but that isn't equivalent to saying
they were exactly the same. Someone says to me, "Write down what you
see and hear," and I do so, not realizing that I saw something and
heard something the meaning of which I did not fully grasp at the
time, although the Inspirer did. But that's a common argument. I
happen to think it's the most valid one.
While searching through my one Maimonides text, the "Guide for the
Perplexed," I found nothing on Isaiah 53 (alas), but in my search,
came across an interesting comment. In the "Names of God" chapter, in
reference to Number 6:3, "The following remark is also found in
[Siphri] as follows: 'In the sanctuary [the name of God is
pronounced] as it is spelt, but elsewhere by its substitutes.'"
Although this has absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand,
as I was reading this, the question occurred to me "What if Channel 5
News decides to film this blessing and, since this is in the
sanctuary, the name of God is pronounced as it is spelled. Is it
lawful to air the saying of God's name where people may hear it
outside the sanctuary?" Were I the Rabbi, I would simply tell the
news team, "You may film all the time except during that brief moment
when the name of God is pronounced as it is spelled. The cameras will
be turned off at that point otherwise you must leave." Since I know
nothing of what goes on in a synagogue, I don't know if this would
ever be a problem.
Sorry for the digression. I found a relevant passage in "The
Messianic Idea in Judaism" page 18 (first): "There is, however, a
historical development in this character of the Messiah on which the
two aspects stressed here shed a great deal of light. I am referring
to the doubling of the figure of the Messiah, its split into a Messiah
of the House of David and one of the House of Joseph. This conception
of the 'Messiah ben Joseph' was again discussed only a few years ago
in a very interesting monograph by Siegmund Hurwitz which tries to
explain its origins in psychological terms. But I think it can best be
understood in terms of those two aspects with which we have been
concerned here. The Messiah ben Joseph is the dying Messiah who
perishes in the Messianic catastrophe. The features of the
catastrophic are gathered together in him. He fights and loses -- but
he does not suffer. The prophecy of Isaiah regarding the suffering
servant of God is never applied to him. He is a redeemer who redeems
nothing, in whom only the final battle with the powers of the world is
crystallized. His destruction coincides with the destruction of
history. By contrast, when the figure is split, all of the utopian
interest is concentrated on the Messiah ben David. He is the one in
whom what is new finally comes to the fore, who once and for all
defeats the antichrist, and thus presents the purely positive side of
this complex phenomenon. The more these two sides are made
independent and emphasized,the more this doubling of the Messiah
figure remains alive for the circles of apocalyptic Messianists in
later Judaism. The more this dualism is weakened, the less is the
doubling mentioned, and the special figure of the Messiah ben Joseph
becomes superfluous and meaningless.
"Such mitigations of the dualism occur even in the talmudic
literature itself. Much as apocalyptic imagination fascinated many
rabbinic teachers, and varied as its continuing influence was in
medieval Judaism, more sober conceptions remained alive as well.
There were many who felt repulsed by apocalypticism. Their attitude
is most sharply expressed by the strictly anti-apocalyptical
definition of the Babylonian teacher Samuel of the first half of the
third century, which is often referred to in the Talmud: 'The only
difference between this aeon and the Days of the Messiah is the
subjection [of Israel] to the nations.' This obviously polemical
utterance provides the cue for a tendency with which we shall still
have to deal in terms of its effect and its crystallization in the
powerful formulations of Maimonides."
Page 27 gives some specifics of Maimonides's ideas: "Despite the
conception's immense power of attraction, the Messianic idea was
formulated only quite late into a positive basic dogma or principle of
Judaism. There were a great many enthusiasts among the Jews who
rejected in advance any selection of principles whatever, and who
demanded equal authority for all components of the tradition. When a
selection was made at all, it could remain doubtful whether next to
the principles of monotheism and of the authority of the Torah as the
norm of life, the Messianic hope as certainty of the redemption could
claim an equivalent sanction. It is surely worth noting in this
connection that Maimonides, who took this step more decisively than
several of his predecessors and who made room for the Messianic idea
among his thirteen principles of the Jewish faith, accepted it only
together with anti-apocalyptic restrictions."
Interlude: From the NOTES section (note number 21): "In the
Thirteen Principles which Maimonides set forth in the introduction to
the Sanhedrin, Ch. 10, of his Mishnah commentary, we find the
following: 'The twelfth principle concerns the Days of the Messiah.
It consists of believing and recognizing as true that he will come and
not thinking that he will delay. ''Though he tarry, wait for him.''
And one must not determine a time for him nor speculate on biblical
verses in order to bring about his coming. And the sages said: ''May
the spirit of those who calculate the End be extinguished.'' One
should rather believe in him...magnify and love him, and pray for him,
in accordance with the words of all the prophets from Moses to
Malachi. And whoever is in doubt concerning him or belittles his
glory, he has denied the Torah which explicitly promises his coming.'"
Continuation of previous paragraph: "Maimonides, who sought to set
down a firm authority for a rather anarchically organized medieval
Jewry, was a man of extraordinary intellectual courage. In his nearly
standard codification of Halakhah, he succeeded in including his own
metaphysical convictions as binding norms of religious conduct for the
Jews in general, i.e., as Halakhot, although crucial parts of these
theses have no legitimate basis whatever in the biblical and talmudic
sources and are rather indebted to the philosophical traditions of
Greece. And just as he is prepared at the beginning of his great work
to lend the power of law in the sense of Halakhah to his own
convictions, thus he acts no less arbitrarily in his radical
acceptance of the anti-apocalyptical elements of the talmudic
tradition and his decided exaggeration of them in the sense of his own
realm of ideas at the end of this work. In the last two passages of
his code of law, in the eleventh and twelfth paragraphs of the 'Laws
Concerning the Installation of Kings,' we find a portrait of the
Messianic idea. After we have become acquainted above with several of
the formulations of the apocalyptists, it will be of value to look at
several essential points of these contradictory remarks. Here we
read:
'The Messiah will arise and restore the kingdom of David to its
former might. He will rebuilt the sanctuary and gather the dispersed
of Israel. All the laws will be reinstituted in his days as of old.
Sacrifices will be offered and the Sabbatical and Jubilee years will
be observed exactly in accordance with the commandments of the Torah.
But whoever does not believe in him or does not await his coming
denies not only the rest of the prophets, but also the Torah and our
teacher Moses.
'Do not think that the Messiah needs to perform signs and miracles,
bring about a new state of things in the world, revive the dead, and
the like. It is not so....Rather it is the case in these matters that
the statues of our Torah are valid forever and eternally. Nothing can
be added to them or taken away from them. And if there arise a king
from the House of David who meditates on the Torah and practices its
commandments like his ancestor David in accordance with the Written
and Oral Law, prevails upon all Israel to walk in the ways of the
Torah and to repair its breaches [i.e., to eliminate the bad state of
affairs resulting from the incomplete observance of the law[, and
fights the battles of the Lord, then one may properly assume that he
is the Messiah. If he is then successful in rebuilding the sanctuary
on its site and in gathering the dispersed of Israel, then he has in
fact [as a result of his success] proven himself to be the Messiah.
He will then arrange the whole world to serve only God, as it is said:
''For then shall I create a pure language for the peoples that they
may all call upon the name of God and serve him with one accord
(Zeph. 3:9).''
"'Let no one think that in the days of the Messiah anything of the
natural course of the world will cease or that any innovation will be
introduced into creation. Rather, the world will continue in its
accustomed course. The words of Isaiah: ''The wolf shall dwell with
the lamb and the panther shall lie down with the kid'' (Isa. 11:6) are
a parable and an allegory which must be understood to mean that Israel
will dwell securely even among the wicked of the heathen nations who
are compared to a wolf and a panther. For they will all accept the
true faith and will no longer rob or destroy. Likewise, all similar
scriptural passages dealing with the Messiah must be regarded as
figurative. Only in the Days of the Messiah will everyone know what
the metaphors mean and to what they refer. The sages said: ''The
only difference between this world and the Days of the Messiah is the
subjection of Israel to the nations.'' (Sanhedrin 91b)
"'From the simple meaning of the words of the prophets it appears
that at the beginning of the Days of the Messiah the war between Gog
and Magog will take place...{With regard to these Messianic wars and
the coming of the prophet Elijah before the End, Maimonides then
continues:} Concerning all these things and others like them, no one
knows how they will come about until they actually happen, since the
words of the prophets on these matters are not clear. Even the sages
have no tradition regarding them but allow themselves to be guided by
the texts. Hence there are differences of opinion on the subjection.
In any case, the order and details of these events are not religious
dogmas. Therefore a person should never occupy himself a great deal
with the legendary accounts nor spend much time on the Midrashim
dealing with these and similar matters. He should not regard them as
of prime importance, since devoting himself to them leads neither to
the fear nor to the love of God....
"'The sages and prophets longed for the days of the Messiah not in
order to rule over the world and not to bring the heathens under their
control, not to be exalted by the nations, or even to eat, drink, and
rejoice. All they wanted was to have time for the Torah and its
wisdom with no one to oppress or disturb them.
"'In that age there will be neither famine nor war, nor envy nor
strife, for there will be an abundance of worldly goods. The whole
world will be occupied solely with the knowledge of God. Therefore
the Children of Israel will be great sages; they will know hidden
things and attain an understanding of their Creator to the extent of
human capability, as it is said: ''For the earth shall be full of the
knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea'' (Isa. 11:9).'"
There is a great deal of discussion following this passage in the
book, too lengthy to type in (I've probably typed in too much as it
is, as is my wont :-). A central idea seems to be that Maimonides is
uninterested in miracles or even in whether heaven intervenes on earth
in any way at all in determining who the Messiah is; rather, the
Messiah proves his identity by historical success. That is his one
criterion: that the Messiah succeed in his endeavors.
The NOTES (number 25) add: "In his 'Epistle to Yemen,' where
Maimonides pays great heed to the eschatological requirements of the
tradition which he later elminates, this element of miracle still has
its place, though it is presented in very sober fashion. With
manifest concervative regard for his Yemenite readers, Maimonides here
formulates the difference between the prophetic rank of the Messiah
and that of the other prophets from Moses to Malachi in this way:
'But his unique characteristic is that when he appears God will cause
all the kings of the earth to tremble and be afraid at the report of
him. Their kingdoms will fall; they will be unable to stand up
against him, neither by the sword nor by revolt. They will neither
defame nor slander him, but they will be frightened into silence when
they behold his miracles and wonders. He will slay anyone who tries
to kill him and none shall escape or be saved from him...That king
will be very mighty. All peoples will maintain peace with him, all
nations will serve him on account of the great justice and the
miracles which issue from his hand. All the words of Scripture
testify to his success and to our success with him.' ('Iggeret
Teman,' ed. David Hollub {Vienna, 1875}, p. 48.)"
The next note, number 26, is equally interesting: "Abraham Cardozo,
the very differently oriented follower of Sabbatai Zevi, surprisingly
referred to this discussion of Maimonides even after his apostasy. He
sought to support his thesis that it is in the nature of the Messiah
for him to behave in such a fashion as to nurture doubts regarding the
legitimacy of his mission until his authority is finally established."
Number 27, "The conception of the Last Judgment plays no role at all
in Maimonides's writings. There is no future retribution in the sense
of escahtological reward and punishment." Number 28, "Of course he
also excludes conceptions like that of the pre-existence of the
Messiah and of the Messiah ben Joseph."
Page 32 notes that Saadia's "Book of Beliefs and Opinions" has ideas
that are the opposite of Maimonides along with other Messianists of
the Middle Ages such as Abraham bar Hiyya's "Scroll of the Revealer"
in the twelfth century.
Page 33, "Their [the apocalyptists] opponents do exactly the
opposite. As much as possible, they try to refer biblical passages
not to Messianic, but to some other circumstance. They detest
typology. The predictions of the prophets have for the most part
already come to pass in events at the time of Ezra, Zerubbabel, the
Maccabees, and the perid of of the Second Temple in general. Many
passages which the one group interprets to refer to the Messiah are
interpreted by the other as predictions regarding the destiny of the
entire Jewish people (like that famous chapter 53 in Isaiah, which
speaks of the suffering servant of God). The second tendency, then,
is to restrict the valid scope of the Messianic as much as possible.
However, there is also an apologetic impulse at work which must not be
underestimated. The representatives of the rational tendencies stood
in the forefront of the theological defenses mounted against the
claims of the Church. The more biblical exegesis could reduce the
purely Messianic element, the better it was for the defenses of the
Jewish position which were often made necessary by the application of
external force. But the apocalyptists were not in the least
interested in apologetics. Their thought has its locus beyond such
disputes that occur on the borders, and they are not concerned with
fortifying the frontiers. This is no doubt the reasons why the
statements of the apocalyptists often appear freer and more genuine
than those of their opponents who often enough must take into account
the diplomatic necessities of anti-Christian polemics and therefore do
not always permit penetration to the true motives of their thought.
In rare individuals the two tendencies come together. The most
important codificiations of the Messianic idea in later Judaism are the
writings of Isaac Abravanel (ca. 1500) and "The Victory of Israel" by
the "High Rabbi Loew," Judah Loew ben Bezalel of Prague (1599). The
authors are not visionaries but writers who endeavor to embrace as a
whole the legacy of ideas which has been trasmitted in such
contradictory traditions. Despite their otherwise reticent manner,
they richly avail themselves of the apocalyptic traditions."
Pages 96-97 discuss the idea that the Messiah must descend into
apostasy (a folk-myth). Thus, the tragic element is apostasy instead
of crucifixion. In this novel idea, the King Messiah must give a "new
Torah" and the commandments of the Law (mitzvot) would be abrogated in
Messianic times. "Speculations of this nature could be found in
various Midrashim and Aggadot, but possessed no particular authority
and were easily challenged by means of other exegetical passages to
the opposite effect, with the consequence that, in Jewish tradition,
the entire question had hitherto been allowed to remain in abeyance."
The apostate Messiah "ideology reached a peak in the writings of the
Lurianic Kabbalah, which strove to inculcate in every Jew a sense of
duty to 'elevate the sparks' and so help bring about the ultimate
tikkun of the Creation.
"Here the 53rd chapter of Isaiah played a key role, for as it was now
reinterpreted the verse 'But he was wounded because of our
transgressions' was taken to be an allusion not only to the Messiah
ben Joseph, the legendary forerunner of the Redeemer who according to
tradition was to suffer death at the hands of the Gentiles, but to the
Messiah ben David as well, who 'would be foreably prevented from
observing the Torah.' By a play on words, the Hebrew ve-hu meholal,
'but he was wounded,' was interpreted as meaning 'from sacred he [the
Messiah] will be made profane [hol].' Thus,
all Gentiles are referred to as profane [hol] and kelipah,
and whereas Israel alone is called sacred, all the other
nations are profane. And even though a Jew commit a
transgression, as long as he remains a Jew among Jews he is
called sacred and an Israelite, for as the rabbis have said,
'Even though he has sinned, he is still an Israelite.' It
follows that there is no way for the King Messiah to be made
profane except he be removed from the Community of Israel
into another domain.
"Many similar homilies were written on the rest of the chapter,
especially on the verse, 'And he made his grave with the wicked.' Yet
another favorite verse was Deuteronomy 33:7 ('And this for Judah, and
he said: Hear, Lord, the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his
people'), which was assumed to allude to the Davidic Messiah of the
House of Judah, whose destiny it was to be taken from his people
(hence Moses' prayer that God bring him back to them). Endless
biblical verses were cited to prove that the Messiah was fated to be
contemned as an outcast and criminal by his own people. Clothed in
Messianic radiance, all the typical arguments of the Marranos were
applied to Sabbatai Zevi:
And similar to this [the apostasy of Sabbatai Zevi] is what
happened to Esther, who was the cause of great salvation to
Israel; for although most of the people, being ignorant, most
certainly despised her for having given herself to an
idol-worshiper and a Gentile in clear violation of the bidding
of the Torah, the sages of old, who knew the secret [of her
action], did not regard her as a sinner, for it is said of her
in the Talmud: 'Esther was the ground of the entire world.'
In the same vein, the familiar aggadic saying that 'the last Redeemer
will be as the first' was taken to mean that just as Moses lived for
many years at the court of Pharoah, so the Messiah must live with 'the
Turk,' for as the exile draws to a close the Messiah himself must be
exiled to atone for Israel's sins."
I'm writing too much, I'll be accused of plagiarism before too long
:-), but Rabbi Joseph Taitatsak of Salonika said, "when the rabbis
said that the Son of David would not come until the kingdom was
entirely given over to unbelief [Sanhedrin 97a], they were thinking
of the Kingdom of Heaven, for the Shekhinah is destined to don the
garments of Ishmael." Page 99 speaks of an old rabbinic concept of
"mitzvah ha-ba'ah ba-averah," literally, "a commandment which is
fulfilled by means of a transgression." So the Messiah's apostasy is
not a transgression but is a fulfillment of the commandment of God,
"for it is known through Israel that the prophets can do and command
things which are not in accord with the Torah and its laws."
In my other book, "The Messiah Texts," I couldn't find the other two
authors mentioned, but I did find some Rashi on page 59:
His disciples asked R. Yose ben Qisma: 'When will the Son of David
come?' He said: 'I am afraid that you will ask me for a sign.' They
said to him: 'We shall not ask you for a sign.' He said to them:
'When this [city]gate will fall and will be rebuilt, and fall again,
they will have no time to rebuild it again until the Son of David
comes.' They said to him: 'Our Master! give us a sign!' He said to
them: 'Did you not tell me that you would not ask me for a sign?'
They said to him: 'Nevertheless.' He said to them: 'If so, let the
waters of the Cave of Pamias [the source of the Jordan River] turn
into blood!' And they turned into blood. In the hour of his death he
said to them: 'Dig a deep grave for my coffin, for [in the wars of
Gog and Magog] there will be no palm tree in Babylon to which the
Persians will not tie their horses, and no coffin in the Land of
Israel from which a Persian horse will not eat straw.'
(B. Sanh. 98a--b, with Rashi's comments)
"The rabbis taught: 'The proselytes and those who play with children
hold back the Messiah.' This is understandable as far as the
proselytes are concerned, for R. Helbo said: 'The proselytes are as
bad for Israel as a sore on the skin'; but why those who play with
children?...This refers to those who marry little girls who are not
yet able to bear children, for R. Yose said: 'The Son of David will
not come until all the souls are emptied from the Guf [lit.: 'body';
the celestial place where the souls of the unborn are kept], for it is
said: For the spirit that enwrappeth itself is from Me, and the souls
which I have made (Isa. 57:16) -- that is: The spirits that I
destined to be born are thus kept back....'
(B. Nid. 13b and Rashi ibid.)"
"The Messiah Texts" notes in the Introduction concerning Isaiah's
suffering servant: "As to the identification of this "Servant," there
is no scholaraly consensus to this day. However, the Aggada, the
Talmudic legend, unhesitatingly identifies him with the Messiah, and
understand especially the descriptions of his sufferings as referring
to Messiah ben Joseph."
On page 165, in reference to Rachel giving birth to Yosef (Ge.
30:24), saying, "May the Lord add [yosef] to me another son," a
Midrash fragment explains: "Hence [we know] that the Anointed of War
will arise in the future from Joseph...[And Rachel said:] God hath
taken away [asaf] my reproach (ibid. v. 23) -- because it was
prophesied to her that the Messiah would arise from her" (BhM 6:81).
In another Midrash fragment the two Messiahs are compared: "In the
Future to Come, the Anointed of War will arise from Joseph. And the
Messiah who will arise from Judah [i.e., Messiah ben David] will be
stronger than he" (BhM 6:96).
The whole reason behind splitting the Messiah in two is because of
the belief that the Messiah had to be slain, of course. Thus, the
first Messiah is slain, and the second Messiah completes the work of
Redemption.
This is from Y. Suk. 55b: "And the land shall mourn, every family
apart (Zech. 12:12). Two have interpreted this verse. One said:
'This is the mourning over the Messiah,' and the other said: 'This is
the mourning of the Evil Inclination' [which will be killed by God in
the Messianic days]."
From B. Suk. 52a: "And the land shall mourn (Zech. 12:12). What is
the reason of this mourning? R. Dosa and the rabbis differ about it.
R. Dosa says: '[They will mourn] over the Messiah who will be slain,'
and the rabbis say: [They will mourn] over the Evil Inclination which
will be killed [in the days of the Messiah]...'"
From B. Suk. 52a: "The rabbis have taught: The Holy One, blessed be
He, will say to Messiah ben David, may he be revealed soon in our
days!: 'Ask of Me anything, and I shall give it to you, for it is
written, ''The Lord said unto me, Thou art My son, this day have I
begotten thee, ask of Me and I will give thee the nations for they
inheritance (Ps. 2:7-8).''' And when he will see that Messiah ben
Joseph will be slain, he will say before Him: 'Master of the World!
I ask nothing of you except life!' God will say to him: 'Even before
you said, ''life,'' your father David prophesied about you, as it is
written, He asked life of Thee, Thou gavest it to him (Ps. 21:5).'"
What seemed to me a rather bizarre description is given in Otot
haMashiah, BhM 2:58-63, but, frankly, I'm too tired to type it in.
Pages 311-316 of "The Messiah Texts." I can't figure out whether it's
supposed to be an apostate Messiah being killed for the Redemption
because this Messiah says, "I am your god," and the people are
confused, saying, "But Torah says, worship only God, etc.," but then
Messiah commands them to testify that he is their god, and some wicked
Armilus gathers armies of the world to a great battle and the Messiah
of God is slain, and the angels come and take him and inter him with
the Fathers of the World, and the heart of Israel melts, and their
strength is weakened, and the wicked Armilus doesn't know that Messiah
died, for if he did he wouldn't leave any survivors or a remnant of
Israel. Then all the nations expel Israel, then Michael sorts out the
wicked from Israel, and all Israel flee to the deserts, and those
whose heart will doubt his judgment will return to the nations of the
world and say: 'This is the Redemption for which we have been
waiting, for the Messiah has been killed." And all those who did not
expect the Redemption will be ashamed of it and return to the nations
of the world. Then the judgment and all the wicked die. Later,
Messiah ben David comes with Elijah, and then they fight Armilus
again, but the Lord doesn't require the Messiah to fight, but says,
"Sit on My right!" Then God kills Armilus. Then Michael blows the
shofar and Messiah ben David and Elijah go and revive Messiah ben
Joseph, who has been gathered into the gates of Jerusalem, and
Messiah ben David is sent to the remnant of Israel scattered in all
the lands, and then, in triumph, the Holy One will open for them the
sources of the Tree of Life, and will give them to drink on the way.
That was badly summarized because I'm tired but I urge you to look it
up, it's fascinating stuff. Clear as Revelation.
Yours in Christ,
Cindy Smith
p.s. You can post this on soc.religion.christian, if you like.....
Sorry the presentation is so haphazard, I just threw together
materials related to the subject....
--
Sincerely,
Cindy Smith
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Although not a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court,
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