Messianism among Jews and Christians: Twelve Biblical and Historical Studies (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Messianism among Jews and Christians: Twelve Biblical and Historical Studies Wayne A. Meeks William Horbury . Messianism among Jews and Christians: Twelve Biblical and Historical Studies. London and New York: T and T Clark, 2003. Pp. ix + 417. Early in the Gospel according to John, a vivid scene portrays John the Baptist interrogated by emissaries from "the Pharisees" in Jerusalem. "Who are you?" the latter ask. "I am not the Anointed One," he replies. "What then, are you Elijah?" "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" "No." "Who are you then, that we may answer those who sent us?" (John 1.20-22). Almost uniquely among early Christian documents, this scene suggests the wide diversity of speculation among some Jews in the early Roman period about special messengers who might be sent by God at "the end of days." Reminders of that diversity of eschatological hope fit the rhetorical strategy of the Fourth Evangelist, but most Christian apologetics for the following nineteen centuries would follow a simpler construction, first clearly laid out in the two-volume work comprising the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. Its central theme may be summed up in a syllogism: The scriptures of Israel predict the coming of a single Messiah whose expected character and actions those scriptures delineate. The story of Jesus fits that prophecy perfectly. Therefore all sensible and honest Jews should have recognized him as the Messiah. Although the origins of this scheme in Christian apologetics are evident, some parts of it have continued to influence the common picture of Judaism in antiquity, even in nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship. The notion has persisted that some kind of Jewish "orthodoxy" existed, despite evidence for considerable variety in belief and practice, and that expectation of a Messiah was an important element in that orthodoxy. In recent decades the ground has shifted. Modern scholarship has tended more and more to emphasize the diversity of Jewish eschatological beliefs in the early centuries of the common era and, moreover, to suggest that such beliefs were less central to the lives of most Jews than Christians have assumed. While the identity of the early followers of Jesus was centered on the confession of his identity as "Messiah," the identity of most Jews was centered on their practical appropriation of the Torah—variously construed by various groups—and on their general allegiance to their ethnic communities in towns of the Diaspora. William Horbury, professor of Jewish and Early Christian studies at the University of Cambridge, has been laboring to reverse the current trend. He [End Page 336] argues that "messianism" is a central and defining theme in Judaism throughout the period "roughly from Haggai to Bar Kokhba," that it arises directly from themes in the Hebrew Bible, and that it is a feature of the "great stream of biblical interpretation" that can be discerned already in the translations of the Septuagint and then in the apocryphal and pseudepigraphical writings, in writings of the Jewish Greek-speaking Diaspora, in early as well as late rabbinic literature, and of course in early Christian documents. The twelve essays included here were originally published between 1981 and 1998. In 1998 Horbury also published a book drawing together their substance under the general theme "Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ."1 Because Horbury has updated the essays for the new publication, to some extent taking account of criticisms of the earlier book, the present volume represents the latest stage in an ongoing argument—if "argument" is the right word, for in fact there is surprisingly little argument in the book. Rather, there are repeated assertions of the main theses, juxtaposed without very clear logical connection with a treasure of mostly quite interesting evidence from an unusually broad spectrum of sources. Some of the scholars who interpret the evidence differently are mentioned, but only rarely does Horbury engage them in pertinent debate. There is very much that is valuable in the essays. Horbury is a keen reader of texts, and he has read from an assortment of literatures that for most of us are separated by the boundaries of academic disciplines or linguistic competence. His sources range across Greek...