Three Assumptions

[MrMacSon]

I think this is pertinent, -

.
The Hebrew word mâšîah means "anointed one" and can indicate Jewish priests, prophets, and kings. During the sixth century BCE, the exiled Jews in Babylonia started to hope for a special Anointed One who was to bring them home and, in this sense, restore Israel ...

What evidence supports this assertion? I know of none.

.In the early first century BCE, the Jews were again suffering from repression, and the old prophecies became relevant again. Some people were looking forward to a military leader who would defeat the Seleucid or Roman enemies and establish an independent Jewish kingdom. . . .

Again, these are very common assertions. But they are all built on assumptions rather than evidence. There is no evidence to support any of these claims.

. Others stated that the Messiah was a charismatic teacher who would give the correct interpretation of Mosaic law. A third theory identified the Messiah with [a]/the Son of Man who would judge mankind. . . . .

There were a few writings about messianic figures but that's a long way from being evidence for popular anticipations ...

The livius.org site has some incredibly valuable resources, but its author is something on an apologist when it comes to studies of Christianity. Look for his sources for each assertion he makes.
.

Neil, what is your definition of a messiah? Who or by what criteria people of those times - say 100 BCE to 150 AD/CE - might have have been considered to be a messiah?

(perhaps without reference to so-called 'messiah-claimants' as we rarely if ever have first person accounts from those times)

[neilgodfrey]

Fwiw, here is part of a blog post that sets out what a few scholars have had to say about the "messianic idea" and the term "messiah":

The messianic idea

. . . . Understanding what was meant by “messiah” was much simpler throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Jewish and Christian scholars alike took for granted the existence of “the messianic idea” that was widely understood throughout the period of ancient Judaism. The evidence for this idea was not found in every text that made mention of a messiah, but it could be cobbled together by combining motifs from different documents.

So the Christian scholar, Emil Schürer, on the basis of the Apocalypse of Baruch and the fourth Book of Esdras, showed that this messianic idea entailed the following:

1. The final ordeal and confusion
2. Elijah as precursor
3. The coming of the messiah
4. The last assault of the hostile powers
5. Destruction of hostile powers
6. The renewal of Jerusalem
7. The gathering of the dispersed
8. The kingdom of glory in the holy land
9. The renewal of the world
10. A general resurrection
11. The last judgment, eternal bliss and damnation

Jewish scholarship did not substantially differ, as seen from Joseph Klausner’s list of ingredients that make up the messianic idea:

1. The signs of the Messiah
2. The birth pangs of the Messiah
3. The coming of Elijah
4. The trumpet of Messiah
5. The ingathering of the exiles
6. The reception of proselytes
7. The war with Gog and Magog
8. The Day of the Messiah
9. The renovation of the World to Come

Klausner conceded that no single text sets out this complex of ideas in full, but these points nonetheless are what the disparate texts mean when put together.

In other words, if a literary text lacks some of the pieces, that is the fault of the text, not of the messianic idea. The idea exists prior to and independently of the texts. (p. 37)

The messianic idea psychologized

What is more, in most modern accounts the messianic idea is described in specifically psychological terms: It is the force that animates the pious Jewish hope for redemption, either throughout Jewish history (in Jewish treatments) or at the time of Christ (in Christian treatments).

In this train we find discussions of the messianic idea arising out of a tenacious belief in a better future despite overwhelming troubles facing the present. Some authors have seen this as one of Judaism’s special gifts to the world alongside monotheism and ethical codes. Scholarly study has accordingly been less about the messiah figure than about the religious attitude and ideology that was the backdrop to various beliefs in such a figure.

The messianological vacuum

The concept of the “messianic idea” in Judaism started to unravel at the end of the Second World War with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Scholars increasingly argued that the words for “messiah” and “christ” in the Second Temple period “had no fixed content” (De Jonge) and may even have had no special significance or meaning at all (James Charlesworth, Jacob Neusner, William Scott Green). They were labels that could be, and were, applied to a wide variety of persons and things.

The Qumran texts pointed to the depth of the motif of two messiahs — hardly supportive of the idea that a staple of Judaism was a uniform messianic idea. (A. S. van der Woude)

Texts that spoke of messiahs without any eschatological theme and others that addressed eschatology without any reference to a messiah were also drawn to the closer attention of the scholarly consideration. (Morton Smith)

References to a messiah in the Jewish writings of the Persian and Hellenistic periods are so few that one scholar has catalogued many ancient Jewish texts that he calls the “no hope list” — most of the Pseudepigrapha and Apocryphal writings contain no messianic ideas at all or employ terms other than “messiah” or its derivatives. (William Horbury)

“It is impossible to define, and difficult to describe the messianology of the early Jews. . . . There is no script the Messiah is to act out. There is no clear, widely accepted Jewish description of the Messiah. The references to him are frustratingly vague and imprecise.”(Charlesworth, quoted in Novenson, p. 41))

Neusner lays out the methodological rule that there is no messiah at all, nor is there even Judaism: there are only so many Judaisms and so many messiahs. (p. 41)

“In Jewish writings before or during the emergence of Christianity, ‘messiah’ appears neither as an evocative religious symbol nor as a centralizing native cultural category.” In other words, there is no “messianic idea” behind the texts. “Rather, it [“messiah”] is a term of disparity, used in few texts and in diverse ways.” . . . . The word, as a word, is “notable primarily for its indeterminacy.” (William Scott Green quoted in Novenson, p. 41)

This brings me up to date with my own reading of what “messiah” meant in the Second Temple period. I have as an amateur quoted Neusner, Green and Charlesworth in my posts addressing messianism. So it is with particular interest that I have picked up Novenson’s book to read his response to this scholarship.

But Messiah language did mean “something”

Novenson acknowledges the “messiah minimalism” of Woude, Smith, de Jonge, Neusner, Charlewsorth, Green and others has been “an important step forward” — but there is a problem.

What these scholars have really shown, says Novenson, is that in this Second Temple period of Judaism “messiah” did not mean “the messianic idea” that had been largely taken for granted throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But they were wrong to conclude that it had no particular meaning at all. They failed to see what it did mean, says Novenson.

It is not that messiah language does not have meaning, just that its meaning does not consist in the manifestation of a reified messianic idea. (p. 41)

Before exploring the meaning of the term, however, Novenson considers a compromise view put forward by William Horbury.

Horbury argued that despite the paucity of references to “messiah” in the Second Temple documents, Jewish societies nonetheless preserved a strong tradition of a “messianic hope”. This “messianic hope” was not the same as the earlier understanding of the “messianic idea”. So the word “messiah” in the texts of the period are indicators (not of the older “messianic idea” explained at the beginning of this post, but) of a widespread and more general sense of future hope.

Horbury has not convinced most scholars, Novenson informs us. Novenson does think that Horbury is right, however, to distinguish “messianic hope” from the earlier concept of “messianic idea”.

And Novenson takes the argument one step further. He reminds us that words have constant meanings within any society regardless of whether people love or hate, act upon or dismiss, the ideas expressed in the words. (I will not outline the scholarly linguistic arguments here.)

So when John Collins in Judaisms and their Messiahs at the turn of the Christian era speaks of the “messianological vacuum” in the period of the Maccabees and our difficulty in knowing when and to what extent messianic expectations seized the popular imagination from then up until the time of the revolt against Rome, Novenson points out that none of this sociological history is relevant for deciding what the word “messiah” itself meant in the literature.

It does not matter how many Jews were looking for the coming of the messiah; what matters is that members of the linguistic community were able to understand what was meant when someone talked about a messiah. (p. 44)

And again in his conclusion to this section:

Popular hope may have been more or less current at different times and places in early Judaism, but the meaningfulness of the language is independent of the fervency of the popular hope. People could know what the words meant whether or not they shared the sentiment expressed. (p. 47)

The Jewish linguistic communities shared a stock of common linguistic resources. Words took their meanings from these resources.

Novenson will argue that Second Temple Jewish references to the “messiah” regularly (and explicitly) link back to a small subset of passages in the Jewish scriptures, and that it is these passages in the Jewish scriptures that scholars must investigate to understand what the word meant to Jews at this time.

Jewish scriptures as linguistic resources

The scholarly pursuit for an understanding of what “messiah” meant to Second Temple Jews has concentrated on the literature of that time, but Novenson takes us back to the importance of the Jewish scriptures for shaping the concepts and meanings found in this literature. These scriptures have provided the common traditions that have unified the Jews across their wide-ranging linguistic and political settings.

[T]he Jewish scriptures functioned for their readers not only as a corpus of holy books but also as a pool of linguistic resources, a source of ways of speaking about things both sacred and mundane. (p. 48)

And for Novenson this means:

Talk about “messiahs” in early Jewish literature is just such a scripturally derived pattern of speech. (p. 48)

The key question will be which scriptural references for later Jews had special meaning and how Second Temple Jews interpreted those passages.

But first, what do the Jewish scriptures say about the messiah? The word appears thirty-eight times:

• Leviticus 4:3, 5, 16; 6:15
• 1 Samuel 2:10, 35; 12:3, 5; 16:6; 24:7, 11; 26:9, 11, 16, 23
• 2 Samuel 1:14, 16; 19:22; 22:51; 23:1
• Isaiah 45:1
• Habbakuk 3:13
• Psalms 2:2; 18:51; 20:7; 28:8; 84:10; 89:39, 52; 105:15; 132:10, 17
• Lamentations 4:20
• Daniel 9:25, 26
• 1 Chronicles 16:22
• 2 Chronicles 6:42

. . . . .

The post continues and addresses the texts most commonly cited as "messianic" -- even though, ironically, not one of them mentions a messiah!

(The post is part of a 7 or 8 post series setting out the argument of Novenson's book.)

But hopefully something there will contribute towards the problem of discussions about "messianism" -- at least that it will be recognized that I am not pushing my own theories but am trying to share what some of the scholarship has to say about it.

[MrMacSon]

Fwiw, here is part of a blog post that sets out what a few scholars have had to say about the "messianic idea" and the term "messiah":
< .. snip .. >
The post ... addresses the most commonly cited messianic texts in the OT.

(The post is part of a 7 or 8 post series setting out the argument of Novenson's book. I have not yet read his more recent Grammar of Messianism).

But hopefully something there will contribute towards the problem of discussions about "messianism" -- at least that it will be recognized that I am not pushing my own theories but am trying to share what some of the scholarship has to say about it.

Cheers Neil. I think that's helpful.

[MrMacSon]

FWIW, this may be helpful (happy to hear criticisms if or commentary about it), -

Balaam's prophecy as a literary motif, a web-article on Livius.org

[neilgodfrey]

Neil, what is your definition of a messiah? Who or by what criteria people of those times - say 100 BCE to 150 AD/CE - might have have been considered to be a messiah?

There was a distinct change after the fall of the Temple in the year 70 and it is only then that we find evidence for one heralded as a messiah (Bar Kochba). Before that time, there is none that I am aware of.

Before I saw your comment I posted an extract from a post discussing what Novenson and some other scholars say about the meaning of the term messiah. I hope that is of some use as a response to your question, or at least the full post that I linked can add more light.

But here are a few more quotations that have struck a chord with me. They come from

• Green, William Scott. 1987. “Introduction: Messiah in Judaism: Rethinking the Question.” In Judaisms and Their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era, edited by Jacob Neusner, William Scott Green and Ernest S. Frerichs, 1-13. Cambridge, Melbourne; Cambridge University Press.

The major studies [of the messiah at the turn of the Christian era] have sought to trace the development and transformations of putative messianic belief through an incredible and nearly comprehensive array of ancient literary sources – from its alleged genesis in the Hebrew Bible through the New Testament, rabbinic literature, and beyond – as if all these writings were segments of a linear continuum and were properly comparable. Such work evidently aims to shape a chronological string of supposed messianic references into a plot for a story whose ending is already known; it is a kind of sophisticated proof-texting. This diegetical approach to the question embeds the sources in the context of a hypothetical religion that is fully represented in none of them. It thus privileges what the texts do not say over what they do say.

. . . . .

The term “messiah” has scant and inconsistent use in early Jewish texts. Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Pseudepigrapha, and the entire Apocrypha, contain no reference to “the messiah.” Moreover, a messiah is neither essential to the apocalyptic genre nor a prominent feature of ancient apocalyptic writings.

(Green 1987, p.2)

Bolding and underlining is mine, of course.

Then later:

Nearly a quarter of his study of the use of mashiah in the Hebrew Bible deals with passages in which the term does not appear. Likewise, Geza Vermes acknowledges that the meaning of “messiah” will appear variable

” . . . if each single usage of the term in the Pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls and early rabbinic sources is taken into account and accorded equal importance.”

But Vermes doubts the value of such a procedure:

“It would seem more appropriate to bear in mind the difference between the general Messianic expectation of Palestinian Jewry, and the peculiar Messianic speculations characteristic of certain learned and/or esoterical minorities.” (Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew, p. 130)

These arguments, which are representative of a type, appear to suggest that the best way to learn about the messiah in ancient Judaism is to study texts in which there is none.

(p. 6)

The quotes are extracted from a longer post.

[Ben C. Smith]

What is your own working definition of the term Messiah?

I don't think I've ever had one. Which is why I was and am keen to hear Neil's and others', such as your's.

(I'm beginning to think it may not be any easy thing to do in a concise way)

Actually, I think it is fairly straightforward, if not easy, at least once one divests oneself of modern preconceptions and looks to the texts themselves for the definition.

The fact is: the Hebrew scriptures repeatedly promise the advent of a native ruler — whether a king, a priest, a prophet, a warrior, or some other entity — or perhaps a set of native rulers, who will rule over the children of Israel with justice, restore their fortunes, and either conquer their enemies or at least keep them at bay. This promise is traced by multiple exegetes over multiple centuries through a handful of relevant scriptural passages, which passages would include Genesis 49.8-12 (scepter and Shiloh); Numbers 24.15-19 (star and scepter); 2 Samuel 7.8-17 (promise to David); Psalm 2.1-12 (Yahweh and his anointed/Messiah); Psalm 110.1-7 (109.1-7 OG; scepter from Zion); Isaiah 11.1-10 (the branch/shoot of Jesse); Amos 9.11 (the fallen booth of David); Daniel 7.1-14 (one like a son of man); and Daniel 9.20-27 (the seventy weeks); this list is representative, not exhaustive. Time after time we find later authors using one or more of these passages to explain what they mean when they write of a Messiah figure.

For example:

4Q252, column 5, lines 1-4: 1 The scepter shall [no]t depart from the tribe of Judah (= Genesis 49.10). While Israel has the dominion, 2 there [will not] be cut off someone who sits on the throne of David. For the staff is the covenant of royalty, 3 [and the thou]sands of Israel are the standards. ~ Until the Messiah of righteousness comes, the branch 4 of David. For to him and to his descendants has been given the covenant of the kingship of his people for everlasting generations (= 2 Samuel 7.16) ....

The author employs at least two of the basic passages I listed above in order to flesh out "the Messiah of righteousness." Another example:

Psalms of Solomon 18.5-7: 5 May God cleanse Israel against the day of mercy and blessing, against the day of choice when He brings back His anointed [Χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ]. 6 Blessed shall they be that shall be in those days, in that they shall see the goodness of the Lord which He shall perform for the generation that is to come 7 under the rod of chastening of the Lord's Christ [Χριστοῦ] in the fear of his God, in the spirit of wisdom and righteousness and strength.

Christ (Anglicized Greek) = Messiah (Anglicized Hebrew), as well you know by now. The "rod of chastening" is an allusion to the "rod of iron" in Psalm 2.9, which is a verse from another of those basic passages. Another example:

Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 93b: 93b .... Bar Koziba reigned two and a half years, and then said to the Rabbis, "I am the Messiah [אנא משיח]." They answered, "Of Messiah it is written that he smells and judges. Let us see whether he can do so" (= Isaiah 11.3). When they saw that he was unable to judge by the scent, they slew him. ....

This one uses Isaiah 11.3, part of yet another of our passages, to describe the Messiah figure. These same passages keep cropping up, over and over again, in overtly messianic contexts. Finally, a different kind of example:

Josephus, Wars 6.5.4 §312-313: 312 But what lifted them up especially toward the war was an ambiguous oracle likewise found in their sacred writings, as at that season someone from their country should rule the inhabited earth. 313 This they took as belonging to their own house, and many of the wise men were misled in their judgment. But this oracle pointed to the leadership of Vespasian, who was appointed autocrat in Judea. / 312 τὸ δ᾽ ἐπᾶραν αὐτοὺς μάλιστα πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον ἦν χρησμὸς ἀμφίβολος ὁμοίως ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς εὑρημένος γράμμασιν, ὡς κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν ἐκεῖνον ἀπὸ τῆς χώρας αὐτῶν τις ἄρξει τῆς οἰκουμένης. 313 τοῦθ᾽ οἱ μὲν ὡς οἰκεῖον ἐξέλαβον καὶ πολλοὶ τῶν σοφῶν ἐπλανήθησαν περὶ τὴν κρίσιν, ἐδήλου δ᾽ ἄρα τὴν Οὐεσπασιανοῦ τὸ λόγιον ἡγεμονίαν ἀποδειχθέντος ἐπὶ Ἰουδαίας αὐτοκράτορος.

I have demonstrated that this "ambiguous oracle" derives from Daniel: the timing element, to be specific, derives from the seventy weeks in Daniel 9.20-27; the notion of world domination probably comes from Daniel 7.14. Here Josephus does not use the term Messiah, but he actually gives us a beefed up version of its most basic definition: "someone from their country" who would "rule the inhabited earth." (Not all versions of the Messiah had him ruling the entire earth, but many did.) Josephus is here describing the/a figure whom at least some other Jews would have called the/a Messiah, except that Josephus himself has put a twist on the concept by applying it to Vespasian (not a Jew!) on the grounds that his own troops declared to be Caesar on Judean soil right after Vitellius' accession to the principate of Rome.

There are lots of variations on and additions to what it means to be a Messiah in the literature, and of course Christianity and various Gnostic factions eventually lost touch with the original meaning of the term, with the unsurprising result that a lot of modern people have no earthly idea anymore. Furthermore, I am not certain what percentage of Jews expected a Messiah figure of any kind; the percentage, however, does not affect the definition of the term, and the core messianic concept for Jews of the period(s) in question generally points toward ideas deriving from those key passages in the Hebrew scriptures.

One more thing. Not every eschatologically expected figure was necessarily viewed as or called specifically a "Messiah." Elijah was supposed to return, for example, before the day of the Lord and do some restoring work, but he was not necessarily thought of as a Messiah, at least not early on. That fourfold typology of mine, based on 4Q175, contains four figures who were expected during the last days, and all four of those figures were eventually called Messiahs, but I am not certain how early they were called Messiahs. Nor am I certain that it matters for most discussions on the topic, since, if Elijah or Joshua is supposed to return at some point and do something to restore Israel to its former glory (or even greater), what label that figure is given is not always going to be very important; what matters is the expectation, honed by scripture, surrounding that figure.

You mentioned Theudas, for example. It is evident that, in the accounts we have from Josephus, both Theudas and the so called Egyptian were acting out some scriptural drama (parting the Jordan, willing the walls to fall) based upon the story of Joshua. It scarcely matters whether Theudas thought of himself as a Messiah, using that exact term, or whether anybody else would have used that exact term of him; what matters (to me, at any rate) in most historical contexts is that he evidently thought of himself as an eschatological Joshua figure who would do something grand for the Jewish people. Likewise, when the gospels speculate that John the baptist was Elijah, it does not matter whether Elijah was viewed as a Messiah figure; what matters is that Elijah was expected to return, and some people thought that John the baptist was he. It is easy to get tripped up on the exact language, especially since modern people use the term Messiah in so many different ways; what is more important is keeping an eye on what the ancient people in question actually meant by what they said or did.

ETA: The precise "mode" of a scriptural hero's return varied from person to person or from group to group, as well, I think. Was the "prophet like Moses" supposed to be Moses himself reincarnated? Moses himself descended from heaven? Someone "channeling" Moses, as it were? Someone acting in the spirit of Moses? I think there were various answers to these questions.

YMMV.

[neilgodfrey]

FWIW, this may be helpful (happy to hear criticisms if or commentary about it), -

Balaam's prophecy as a literary motif, a web-article on Livius.org

It does appear that Numbers 24:17 was interpreted messianically in the Second Temple era, but again, we come back to the point that "messiah" is not used in the Testament of Judah (unless I am mistaken). Sure, the star in Numbers 24 is read as a symbol of what other passages say a messiah will do, but without a reference to messiah it also looks like the idea of messiah per se was not that big a deal. The attention was on a coming ruler from God. The Testament of Judah appears to suggest the ruler will be divine. If so, we are reminded of early Jewish interpreters finding the messiah in the heavenly Son of Man in Daniel 7.

Various terms and verses (literary motifs) have been interpreted as messianic like this one here. Interpretations of what was a messiah varied widely, but more often apocalyptic prophecies made no mention at all of any messiah.

To account for the wide variations, again from the blog post:

Some messiah texts are written in Judea
-- Others in the Diaspora

Some date second century B.C.E.
-- Others date second century C.E.

Some favour the temple cult
-- Others oppose the temple cult
-- Others were written after the destruction of the temple

Some are Qumranite
-- Others Christian
-- Others Enochic
-- Others mainstream

[MrMacSon]

The fact is: the Hebrew scriptures repeatedly promise the advent of a native ruler — whether a king, a priest, a prophet, a warrior, or some other entity — or perhaps a set of native rulers, who will rule over the children of Israel with justice, restore their fortunes, and either conquer their enemies or at least keep them at bay. This promise is traced by multiple exegetes over multiple centuries through a handful of relevant scriptural passages, which passages would include Genesis 49.8-12 (scepter and Shiloh); Numbers 24.15-19 (star and scepter); 2 Samuel 7.8-17 (promise to David); Psalm 2.1-12 (Yahweh and his anointed/Messiah); Psalm 110.1-7 (109.1-7 OG; scepter from Zion); Isaiah 11.1-10 (the branch/shoot of Jesse); Amos 9.11 (the fallen booth of David); Daniel 7.1-14 (one like a son of man); and Daniel 9.20-27 (the seventy weeks); this list is representative, not exhaustive. Time after time we find later authors using one or more of these passages to explain what they mean when they write of a Messiah figure.

Excellent. thank you.

For example:

4Q252, column 5, lines 1-4: 1 The scepter shall [no]t depart from the tribe of Judah (= Genesis 49.10). While Israel has the dominion, 2 there [will not] be cut off someone who sits on the throne of David. For the staff is the covenant of royalty, 3 [and the thou]sands of Israel are the standards. ~ Until the Messiah of righteousness comes, the branch 4 of David. For to him and to his descendants has been given the covenant of the kingship of his people for everlasting generations (= 2 Samuel 7.16) ....

The author employs at least two of the basic passages I listed above in order to flesh out "the Messiah of righteousness."

Another example:

Psalms of Solomon 18.5-7: 5 May God cleanse Israel against the day of mercy and blessing, against the day of choice when He brings back His anointed [Χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ]. 6 Blessed shall they be that shall be in those days, in that they shall see the goodness of the Lord which He shall perform for the generation that is to come 7 under the rod of chastening of the Lord's Christ [Χριστοῦ] in the fear of his God, in the spirit of wisdom and righteousness and strength.

Christ (Anglicized Greek) = Messiah (Anglicized Hebrew), as well you know by now. The "rod of chastening" is an allusion to the "rod of iron" in Psalm 2.9, which is a verse from another of those basic passages.

Another example:

Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 93b: 93b .... Bar Koziba reigned two and a half years, and then said to the Rabbis, "I am the Messiah [אנא משיח]." They answered, "Of Messiah it is written that he smells and judges. Let us see whether he can do so" (= Isaiah 11.3). When they saw that he was unable to judge by the scent, they slew him. ....

This one uses Isaiah 11.3, part of yet another of our passages, to describe the Messiah figure. These same passages keep cropping up, over and over again, in overtly messianic contexts.

Finally, a different kind of example:

Josephus, Wars 6.5.4 §312-313: 312 But what lifted them up especially toward the war was an ambiguous oracle likewise found in their sacred writings, as at that season someone from their country should rule the inhabited earth. 313 This they took as belonging to their own house, and many of the wise men were misled in their judgment. But this oracle pointed to the leadership of Vespasian, who was appointed autocrat in Judea. / 312 τὸ δ᾽ ἐπᾶραν αὐτοὺς μάλιστα πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον ἦν χρησμὸς ἀμφίβολος ὁμοίως ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς εὑρημένος γράμμασιν, ὡς κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν ἐκεῖνον ἀπὸ τῆς χώρας αὐτῶν τις ἄρξει τῆς οἰκουμένης. 313 τοῦθ᾽ οἱ μὲν ὡς οἰκεῖον ἐξέλαβον καὶ πολλοὶ τῶν σοφῶν ἐπλανήθησαν περὶ τὴν κρίσιν, ἐδήλου δ᾽ ἄρα τὴν Οὐεσπασιανοῦ τὸ λόγιον ἡγεμονίαν ἀποδειχθέντος ἐπὶ Ἰουδαίας αὐτοκράτορος.

I have demonstrated that this "ambiguous oracle" derives from Daniel: the timing element, to be specific, derives from the seventy weeks in Daniel 9.20-27; the notion of world domination probably comes from Daniel 7.14. Here Josephus does not use the term Messiah, but he actually gives us a beefed up version of its most basic definition: "someone from their country" who would "rule the inhabited earth." (Not all versions of the Messiah had him ruling the entire earth, but many did.)

Josephus is here describing the/a figure whom at least some other Jews would have called the/a Messiah, except that Josephus himself has put a twist on the concept by applying it to Vespasian (not a Jew!) on the grounds that his own troops declared to be Caesar on Judean soil right after Vitellius' accession to the principate of Rome.

There are lots of variations on and additions to what it means to be a Messiah in the literature, and of course Christianity and various Gnostic factions eventually lost touch with the original meaning of the term, with the unsurprising result that a lot of modern people have no earthly idea anymore. Furthermore, I am not certain what percentage of Jews expected a Messiah figure of any kind; the percentage, however, does not affect the definition of the term, and the core messianic concept for Jews of the period(s) in question generally points toward ideas deriving from those key passages in the Hebrew scriptures.

One more thing. Not every eschatologically expected figure was necessarily viewed as or called specifically a "Messiah." Elijah was supposed to return, for example, before the day of the Lord and do some restoring work, but he was not necessarily thought of as a Messiah, at least not early on. That fourfold typology of mine, based on 4Q175, contains four figures who were expected during the last days, and all four of those figures were eventually called Messiahs, but I am not certain how early they were called Messiahs. Nor am I certain that it matters for most discussions on the topic, since, if Elijah or Joshua is supposed to return at some point and do something to restore Israel to its former glory (or even greater), what label that figure is given is not always going to be very important; what matters is the expectation, honed by scripture, surrounding that figure.

Cheers, thank you. And note

Josephus, Wars 6.5.4 §312-313: 312 But what lifted them up especially toward the war was an ambiguous oracle likewise found in their sacred writings

You mentioned Theudas, for example. It is evident that, in the accounts we have from Josephus, both Theudas and the so called Egyptian were acting out some scriptural drama (parting the Jordan, willing the walls to fall) based upon the story of Joshua. It scarcely matters whether Theudas thought of himself as a Messiah1, using that exact term, or whether anybody else would have used that exact term of him; what matters (to me, at any rate) in most historical contexts is that he evidently thought of himself as an eschatological Joshua figure1 who would do something grand for the Jewish people. Likewise, when the gospels speculate that John the baptist was Elijah, it does not matter whether Elijah was viewed as a Messiah figure; what matters is that Elijah was expected to return, and some people thought that John the baptist was he. It is easy to get tripped up on the exact language, especially since modern people use the term Messiah in so many different ways; what is more important is keeping an eye on what the ancient people in question actually meant by what they said or did.

I agree, though as far as (1) goes, Josephus had a Joshua bent himself ie. he might have been happy to use tropes of Joshua to describe or to frame Theudas. Not that it specifically matters, except for perceptions of claims v portrayals. Which you address in your eta: -

ETA: The precise "mode" of a scriptural hero's return varied from person to person or from group to group, as well, I think. Was the "prophet like Moses" supposed to be Moses himself reincarnated? Moses himself descended from heaven? Someone "channeling" Moses, as it were? Someone acting in the spirit of Moses? I think there were various answers to these questions.

Thanks. I think all that encapsulates the greyness of the concept and transmission of it then and today, and, mostly as an aside, aligns with some of the Livius commentary.

[MrMacSon]

Neil, what is your definition of a messiah? Who or by what criteria people of those times - say 100 BCE to 150 AD/CE - might have have been considered to be a messiah?

There was a distinct change after the fall of the Temple in the year 70 and it is only then that we find evidence for one heralded as a messiah (Bar Kochba). Before that time, there is none that I am aware of.

Before I saw your comment I posted an extract from a post discussing what Novenson and some other scholars say about the meaning of the term messiah. I hope that is of some use as a response to your question, or at least the full post that I linked can add more light.

Yes. Thank you.

I note

The term “messiah” has scant and inconsistent use in early Jewish texts. Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Pseudepigrapha, and the entire Apocrypha, contain no reference to “the messiah.” Moreover, a messiah is neither essential to the apocalyptic genre nor a prominent feature of ancient apocalyptic writings.

(Green 1987, p.2)

Nearly a quarter of his study of the use of mashiah in the Hebrew Bible deals with passages in which the term does not appear. Likewise, Geza Vermes acknowledges that the meaning of “messiah” will appear variable

” . . . if each single usage of the term in the Pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls and early rabbinic sources is taken into account and accorded equal importance.”

But Vermes doubts the value of such a procedure:

“It would seem more appropriate to bear in mind the difference between the general Messianic expectation of Palestinian Jewry, and the peculiar Messianic speculations characteristic of certain learned and/or esoterical minorities.” (Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew, p. 130)

These arguments, which are representative of a type, appear to suggest that the best way to learn about the messiah in ancient Judaism is to study texts in which there is none.

(p. 6)

The quotes are extracted from a longer post.

[neilgodfrey]

From Matthew Novenson's Grammar of Messianism (p. 265):

[F]or radical critical reassessment, one can hardly do better than Karrer’s Der Gesalbtef. Laying an ax at the root of hundreds of years of research on messianism, Karrer argues that, by the Roman period, Jewish (and other Greco-Roman) talk of ritual anointing pertained to holy artifacts and signified consecration to the deity, nothing else. When, therefore, early Jewish and Christian texts speak of persons (e.g., Enoch, Jesus of Nazareth, Shimon bar Kosiba) as “anointed,” they mean not that such a person fits a mythical job description (“messiah”), but simply that he is “heilig, Gott nah, Gott übergeben.” If it is right, Karrer’s thesis changes everything. . . .

Ouch.

But if you don't like that thesis then Novenson offers this followup for reassurance:

. . . . The question is whether it is right.

With all due respect to an ingenious argument, I think that it is not, and Tg. Ps-J. to Exod 40:9-11 illustrates why. Karrer’s hypothesis, which is prima facie quite sensible, is that early Jewish “anointing” language tracks with contemporary anointing practices. Thus, early Roman-period texts that call persons “anointed” cannot mean the term in the old biblical royal sense, because royal anointing had long since fallen out of practice. They must, so the argument goes, mean it in the late-Second-Temple cultic sense of the consecration of artifacts to the deity.10 But Tg. Ps-J. to Exod 40:9-11 reasons in exactly the opposite direction: not from royal anointing to cultic but vice versa, not forward but backward, not contemporizing but archaizing.11 And in fact, this is the way ancient messiah texts normally work, as when Ps. Sol. 17 uses the idiom of 2 Sam 7, or Rom 15 does Isa 11, or Mark 12 does Ps 110, or 4 Ezra 12 does Dan 7, or b. Sank 93b does Isa 11, or any one of scores of other such cases.12 Contra Karrer, as a rule, early Jewish “anointing” language does not track with contemporary anointing practices, but rather adopts the outdated idiom of the scriptures. It is deliberately archaic; that is the point. It uses the language of the past to talk about the present or the future.13 It is, in other words, an exegetical enterprise.