What Happened to Jewish Expectations?
THE collection of ancient Jewish writings known as the Babylonian Talmud contains the following comment regarding the Messiah, dating from the early second century:
“‘And the land shall mourn’ (Zech. 12:12). What is the reason of this mourning? . . . R[abbi] Dosa says: ‘[They will mourn] over the Messiah who will be slain.’”
Curiously, this passage speaks of the Messiah as being slain; yet we have seen that such a concept was incomprehensible to the Jews of the first century. What accounted for the change in viewpoint?
The idea of a dying Messiah appears to have gained popularity during the second century of our Common Era, particularly since the death of Simeon Bar Kokhba. Bar Kokhba was a warrior, a political revolutionary. He was widely acclaimed as the Messiah. Even Rabbi Akiba ben Joseph, who has been called “the most influential of all Rabbinic Sages,” hailed Bar Kokhba as the Messiah.
Eventually Bar Kokhba led a Jewish rebellion against the Roman government. After an initial victory against the legions of Rome, Bar Kokhba fought off the returning Roman armies for three years in a struggle that claimed over a half million Jewish lives. However, the rebellion was squashed in 135 C.E. and Bar Kokhba was killed.
The generation that wholeheartedly endorsed Bar Kokhba now found itself in a strange situation. The death of Bar Kokhba brought into question not only the Messianic hope but also the honor of Rabbi Akiba. Dr. Joseph Heinemann of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem explains the impact of Bar Kokhba’s death on his contemporaries:
“This generation must have attempted, by hook or by crook, to achieve the impossible: to uphold Bar Kokhba’s messianity in spite of his failure. This paradoxical position could find no more suitable expression than in the highly ambivalent legend of the militant Messiah who is doomed to fall in battle, and yet remains a genuine redeemer.”
But how could the Jews reconcile this idea of a dying Messiah with the fact that the Messiah was to rule as king? As Raphael Patai notes:
“The dilemma was solved by splitting the person of the Messiah in two: one of them, called Messiah ben Joseph [or, son of Joseph], was to raise the armies of Israel against their enemies, and, after many victories and miracles, would fall victim. . . . The other, Messiah ben David [or, son of David], will come after him . . . and will lead Israel to the ultimate victory, the triumph, and the Messianic era of bliss.”
This motif of a dying Messiah continued to develop in the years following Bar Kokhba’s death and eventually came to be applied to a yet future Messiah who would die in battle. Elucidating this, Patai explains: “One suspects that what one must understand is that . . . [the Messiah] as the Son of Joseph, will die on the threshold of the End of Days, but then will come back to life as the Son of David and complete the mission he began in his earlier incarnation.”
How strangely parallel this is to the beliefs of the first-century Christians! Both groups were claiming belief in a Messiah who would die and be resurrected before the foretold era of peace!
New Objections Arise
In the early centuries of our Common Era, the pagan Roman Empire converted to Roman Catholicism, and anti-Semitism now became popular among those professing to follow Jesus. In the years that followed, Jews witnessed such atrocities as the Crusades and the Inquisition, acts that clearly violated God’s command to “love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Leviticus 19:18) Furthermore, those who professed to follow Jesus acquired un-Christian beliefs, such as the worship of a triune God. Yet Moses had taught, “THE LORD IS ONE.” (Deuteronomy 6:4) So while the original objection to Jesus as a dying Messiah could no longer be viewed as valid, a new objection arose, an objection to the unscriptural conduct and beliefs of those professing to follow Jesus. Hence, Judaism continued to reject Christianity.
The Messiah—Real or Ideal?
The Messianic hope in Israel continued down through the centuries. For example, when the medieval rabbi Maimonides formulated his Thirteen Articles of Faith, he included the following: “I believe . . . with complete faith that the Messiah will come, and although he may tarry, yet each day I will wait for his coming.”
Yet, in more modern times, the entire idea of a personal Messiah has passed into oblivion among many Jews. For example, a century ago Joseph Perl wrote: “The truly educated Jews by no means picture the Messiah as a real personality.”
Such Jews view the Messiah, not as a real individual, but as an ideal and thus prefer to speak of a messianic age rather than the Messiah. However, without a personal Messiah there could be no messianic age.
But when would this Messiah come? What do the Hebrew Scriptures say?