The term “Messiah” is used in the NT to describe Jesus. For many the term is a reference to Jesus’ last name. Of course the meaning of “messiah” is so much more than the modern understanding of the word “Christ.” The Christ/Messiah was a figure ancitipated by Jews living during the Second Temple period. However, references to Christ/Messiah in the OT are rare. In fact, in most Bibles the terms are not found at all in the OT. The root of the Hebrew word for Messiah does occur in the OT, however. Several references are very interesting and have led to great speculation. For example, most Bible dictionaries report that the word “messiah” comes from the word meaning “anointed one” (or better, “one who is smeared with oil”). These dictionaries often go on to say that in the OT biblical period there were three groups who were “anointed” to an office: prophet, priest, and king.
However, the term “messiah” in the New Testament come to mean something much more than a prophet, priest, or king. It is used to described an anticipated, eschatological figure should bring Israel/Judea its restoration. Jesus frequently resisted the political overtones that some assumed for him (and assumed would be the role of the Messiah). In the NT, the Messiah is Jesus. Jesus did act at times like a prophet, and in fact died like many prophets (martyred still preaching). Therein lies the surprise: If Jesus is the Messiah, why did he die? After all, there is no concept of a dying messiah. There is no one who believes that the Messiah dies and rises again. For Jesus during his ministry frequently sought to make educate his disciple concerning his death, but they rejected this line of thinking (cf. Peter in Mark 8 telling Jesus he will not die).
In spite of Jesus’ criminal’s death upon a cross, his disciples describe him as the Messiah. N. T. Wright says in the Victory of God that the only way to really make sense of this is that Jesus must have risen from the dead (Easter is the only explanation for the disciples calling Jesus the Messiah).
When one looks at the Second Temple Literature (whether in the OT, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the Jewish literature, etc.), there are many different perceptions of what the Messiah will look like (contra. W. Horbury, The Cult of Christ) including: kingly, priestly, of Aaron, of Israel, of David, of Josephus, an Elijah high priest, but especially a kingly messiah (J. A. Fitzmyer, The One Who is to Come, 2007, 183). Fitzmyer notes the Talmud does contain a belief in a messiah who precedes creates and is in some sense a “preexistent being” (Ibid.) He adds the comment, “How different that Jewish Messiah is from the Christian Messiah” (Ibid.)
Fitzmyer’s definition of Messiah: “the Messiah as a concrete eschatological figure, the king of the final age, the founder of the glorious kingdom, is far less prominent in the Old Testament then in the New.” (Actually a quote from S. Mowinckel, He That Cometh, 3-4). Fitzmyer is greatly concerned about the definition of Messiah. He notes the failure several notable scholars to accurate define Messiah as a figure who comes into being the second century BC. Specificially, T. L. Thompson (”Messiah” SJOT, 2001) defines the term too broadly (according to Fitzmyer) as a Near Eastern myth found in Egyptian and Babylonian materials. Fitzmyer says that Thompson is guilty of the “rubberband concept” (Fitzmyer, fn. 13, page 5).
In the looking at the concept of Messiah I have discovered wide and divergent opinions. William Horbury for example argues that the concept of “messiah” develops “coherently” throughout the OT and into the Second Temple period. Furthermore, he argues that this Jewish messanism becomes the “soil” in which the Cult of Christ grows. In a review of Horburys’ Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, Horbury is criticized for his interpretation of the development of Jewish messianism. His conclusion that there is a “cohesive” messianic concept is regarded as “swimming upstream” (i.e. contradictory to the evidence).
Horbury’s conclusion is contradictory to Fitzmyer who concludes in his new book The One Who Is to Come, that there were divergent messianic hopes in Second Temple Judaism (he contrasts messanism in DSS, 1 Enoch, and so forth). However, the RBL review of Horbury’s work does suggest that Horbury has a good argument for the relationship between the Cult of Christ and the “soil” of Jewish messianism. Here is his conclusion: “Fortunately, Horbury’s valuable discussion of the relationship between Jewish messianism and the Christ-cult does not demand acceptance of his views on the origin, prevalence, and coherence of messianism. On these matters, Horbury is clearly swimming upstream from the majority of recent studies, and for now at least, the downward current is the more persuasive.” (RBL 10/15/1999 by Kenneth Pomykala).
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