Three Assumptions

[neilgodfrey]

arnoldo wrote:

Josephus wrote under extraordinary circumstances which must be taken into consideration.

Abstract
In the portrayal of David in his paraphrase of the Bible in the Antiquities, Josephus was confronted with a dilemma. On the one hand, as the beneficiary of so many gifts from the Romans, he could hardly praise David, who was the ancestor of the Messiah, and who ipso facto would lead a revolt against Rome and establish an independent state. On the other hand, David was a great folk hero, and his qualities of character could be used in answering the calumniators of the Jews. Josephus' solution was to adopt a compromise: thus he gives David a distinguished ancestry without stressing it unduly. He uses the figure of David to answer the denigrators of the Jews; he notes David's wealth to refute the canard that the Jews are beggars; he ascribes to him the cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, justice, and piety to counteract the charges that the Jews were not original, that they were cowards, that they were immoderate, that they lacked humanity (a corollary of justice), and that they were impious. When David is elevated, it is not so much for his own sake as it is to increase the drama of the situation.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23507841?s ... b_contents

I'm not sure how much David was a factor in the (in my view) messianism of the Fourth Philosophy given my view that Josephus' "ambiguous oracle" was based on the book of Daniel, which doesn't mention David at all.

Given the presence of Charlesworth in the room at the moment, one might like to hear that his essay demolishes Feldman's thesis root and branch. Feldman is trying to imagine why Josephus might not have wanted to write about David in a certain way and is thinking primarily of David's "reputation" for messianic associations. But Charlesworth points out that messianic association with Davidic interest was simply not a big deal in first century Judea -- hence the Romans are not likely to have been aware of it at all. Given Charlesworth's point about the lack of focus on David for messianic speculations in Josephus, it is far more likely that Josephus was merely writing from the more common perspective of David in his own day. Interest in David was prominent, Charlesworth writes, but not as a messianic figure. (David by this time had been exalted to a scribal status, a preeminently pious figure.)

In his An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament the former Dean of York, Alan Richardson, presents an insight that is worth quoting:

It is truly astonishing, in view of the weight of OT prophecy concerning the Davidic Messiah, how little the NT makes of the matter. The evangelists represent Jesus as the new Moses, the new Joshua, the new Elijah, and so on; but there is perhaps only one pericope in the tradition which sets forth Jesus as the new David, viz. the Walking through the Cornfields on the Sabbath (Mark 2.23-28).16

The OT passages that Richardson has in mind as referring both to David and the Messiah refer clearly only to David. The interest in David was impressively high during the time of Jesus, as we know more clearly now than when Richardson wrote, thanks to the recovery of compositions in the name of David—like the More Psalms of David—and writings which celebrate him, both among the Dead Sea Scrolls and elsewhere.17 We now know also that there were descendants of David living in Palestine during the time of Jesus.18

The “truly astonishing” reaction is the key for us; the NT writings do not elevate Jesus as a type of David. Jesus was not celebrated by his earliest followers as “a” or “the” new David. And despite the movement of “Christ” from title to proper name, the confessions preserved in the N'T writings celebrate Jesus as “Lord,” or “Son.” Conspicuously absent among the kerygmata and creeds is the confession that Jesus is the long-awaited Christ. The only true exception is Marks account of Peter’s confession.

Even if Mark accurately records Peter’s words, we have no way of discerning what Peter meant by “Christ.” Even if we knew exactly what he meant, we still would not be able to perceive what Jesus was thinking, since scholars throughout the world have come to agree that according to Mark Jesus did not simply accept Peter’s claim that he was the Messiah (contrary to Matthew’s version). (pp. 8 f)

[MrMacSon]

underlining and italics mine, -

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.

I think those two sentence-propositions/premises - the underlined and the bolded ones make a non-sequitur ie. the point that those figures were described as anointed is beside the point that, "by the Roman period, Jewish (and other Greco-Roman), talk of ritual anointing [only or mainly] pertained to holy artifacts and signified consecration to the deity".

Besides, in the 2nd century ad/ec Enoch would have been in a different category to accounts of Jesus of Nazareth and Shimon bar Kosiba/Kohkba, and significantly they were essentially likely consecrated deities.

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.

Yes, that would be nonsense.

But I think the next bit is pertinent, and helps support my view, -

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. 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. 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. It is, in other words, an exegetical enterprise.

Yes, they "use[d] the language of the past to talk about the present or the future. It [was], in other words, an exegetical enterprise."

[neilgodfrey]

I think those two sentence-propositions/premises - the underlined and the bolded ones make a non-sequitur ie. the point that those figures were described as anointed is beside the point that, "by the Roman period, Jewish (and other Greco-Roman), talk of ritual anointing [only or mainly] pertained to holy artifacts and signified consecration to the deity".

The complete quote adds three more words that you've left out: "and nothing else". There is no expression for "the messiah" in the OT writings.

Besides, in the 2nd century ad/ec Enoch would have been in a different category to accounts of Jesus of Nazareth and Shimon bar Kosiba/Kohkba, and significantly they were essentially likely consecrated deities.

Yes, "would have been" and "likely" -- that's assumption, speculation. Not evidence.

But I think the next bit is pertinent, and helps support my view, -

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. 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. 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. It is, in other words, an exegetical enterprise.

Yes, they "use[d] the language of the past to talk about the present or the future. It [was], in other words, an exegetical enterprise."

Novenson is disagreeing with Karrer but Novenson himself rejects what I understand to be your view, or the conventional view, of the messiah or messianic idea. He is much closer to Charlesworth on that concept.

[neilgodfrey]

I have attempted to present enough of Charlesworth's essay From Messianology to Christology to enable a fair understanding of his point.

But for balance, and since I have been pointing to Novenson in this thread as well, here is where Novenson disagrees with Charlesworth:

James Charlesworth, for instance, has documented thoroughly the diversity of messiah figures in the Second Temple-period pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls;24 but he nevertheless writes in a geistesgeschichtlich vein about how “Jewish messianology exploded into the history of ideas in the early first century B.C.E.”2 (Grammar of Messianism, p. 7)

(Not all scholars agree that there was an "explosion" of messianiology in the early first century b.c.e.)

And a perspective that Ben no doubt would heartily endorse:

This felt compulsion to classify ancient texts as either “properly messianic” or not often leads, understandably, to a kind of taxonomic anxiety. Charlesworth, for instance, worries, “How can we be convinced that we have translated xxx or χριστός correctly as ‘the Messiah,’ rather than as ‘a messiah,’ or ‘the Anointed One,’ rather than ‘an anointed one?’ ”12S How, indeed? The reader will note the contrasts between the uses of the definite article (“the”) and indefinite article (“a”), capital initial letter (“Messiah”) and lowercase initial letter (“messiah”), transliteration (“messiah”) and translation (“anointed one”). These are so many ways of representing the self-same academic distinction between “properly messianic” and not. It is telling, however, that the primary sources themselves make none of these distinctions. Neither capitalization of initial letters nor the choice to transliterate rather than translate is a feature of ancient messiah texts. The definite article is a feature of some such texts (in languages that have a definite article), but it does not carry the significance in those texts that it does in Charlesworth’s usage here. This taxonomic anxiety, then, is misplaced. It is a manufactured problem. (Grammar, p. 29)

I have quoted hopefully enough for anyone interested to understand how Charlesworth would meet that objection.

Novenson, not Charlesworth, in fact is the one who does not even attempt to define the terms messiah or messianism:

In a departure from the prevailing approach, I opt not to begin this book by assigning a definition to messiah or messianism.126 Because my goal is to describe the grammar of messiah language, I count as evidence any and all uses of such language. (Grammar, p. 29)

As such, the two scholars are addressing quite different questions: Was there a coherent messianic idea at all among the Jews?

Another pivotal question seems to be: Why did the Jews not recognize that Jesus was the Messiah? Again this is a false question, because it assumes that there was a coherent concept of the Messiah among Jews. It also assumes that Jesus’ followers had no difficulty with this acclamation, and that his life and thought were unmistakably messianic and in line with prophecy and a checklist description of the task of “the Messiah.”

. . . .

Another question has been disclosed to be misleading: How did Jews distinguish between the concept of “the Messiah” and other concepts, such as “the Son of Man,” “the Righteous One,” and “the Elect One ”? It will come as a shock to many scholars that this is a very poor question. It is inappropriate because it assumes that all Jews made such a distinction.

(Charlesworth, p. 13)

For Novenson, on the other hand, his interest in Grammar of Messianisim is in the way the texts use the relevant terminology:

If we want to know where in antiquity a given scholar’s definition of messiah is attested, then the conventional approach will
surely lead us to an answer. But why (except in the cases of a few exceptionally interesting scholars) would we want to know such a thing? For historians and exegetes, a more productive question is: How do ancient writers actually use the word messiah and its attendant concepts?139 If we want to know that, then the conventional approach actually begs the question entirely. A more fitting course of action is to eschew all definitions of messiah, return to the pertinent ancient texts, and follow the way the words run.

(Novenson, p. 33)

----------------------

What's the current consensus?

As for "current consensus views", according to Novenson (Grammar of Messianism, 2017), (my formatting and sub-headings):

I take it that the two questions that have dominated modem research on the subject—

1. first, where is the phenomenon of messianism attested in antiquity?
2. and second, what are the major types of messiah figures represented in the sources?

—are more or less settled.37

Impact of the DSS

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars of ancient Judaism tended to claim that messianism was widespread in antiquity and that it centered on a single mythical ideal: the future king from the house of David?8 After the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a reactionary trend in scholarship argued that, in fact, messianism is attested only very sparsely in antiquity and that, even where we do find it, there is no consistency in the forms it takes?9

circa 1990 to the present -- if not a consensus . . .

In the past quarter century, several interpreters have suggested that this post-Dead Sea Scrolls reaction was an overreaction, and consequently the discussion of these two classic questions has arrived at, if not a consensus, at least a moderate common ground.40

1. Regarding the first question, as Collins writes, "We cannot be sure just how widespread messianic expectation was. Our sources do not permit us to speak with confidence about the majority of the Jewish people.”41 With this caveat, however, he notes, “The evidence suggests that messianism was virtually dormant from the early fifth to the late second century BCE.”42
2. Regarding the second question, as Schäfer writes, “The respective traditions range mainly within the triangle (Davidic) Messiah-king, priestly Messiah, and Son of Man.”43 Or, slightly differently, per Collins’s summary, “We shall find four basic messianic paradigms (king, priest, prophet, and heavenly messiah), and they were not equally widespread.”44 . . . .

(p. 10)

[MrMacSon]

I think those two sentence-propositions/premises - the underlined and the bolded ones make a non-sequitur ie. the point that those figures were described as anointed is beside the point that, "by the Roman period, Jewish (and other Greco-Roman), talk of ritual anointing [only or mainly] pertained to holy artifacts and signified consecration to the deity ...".

The complete quote adds three more words that you've left out: "and nothing else".

and I put in [only or mainly], to the same effect, I think.

There is no expression for "the messiah" in the OT writings.

I'm not sure what you're getting at with that: what point you're trying to make.

Messiahs - Hebrew: מָשִׁיחַ‎, romanized: māšîaḥ; Greek: χριστός, romanized: khristós - were savior and liberator figures in Jewish eschatology, who were believed to be the future redeemers of the Jewish people. While the concept of messianism originated in Judaism and in the Hebrew Bible, messiahs were not exclusively Jewish: the Hebrew Bible refers to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, as a messiah for his decree to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple.

Besides, in the 2nd century ad/ec Enoch would have been in a different category to accounts of Jesus of Nazareth and Shimon bar Kosiba/Kohkba, and significantly they were essentially likely consecrated deities.

Yes, "would have been" and "likely" -- that's assumption, speculation. Not evidence.

Yes, except I'm

1. distinguishing Enoch from accounts & perceptions of Jesus of Nazareth and Shimon bar Kosiba/Kohkba (at least seeking to do so); and
2. referring to the latter as revered.

Perceptions of or for messianism in the mid to late first century AD are unlikely to be fully based on or in Jewish theology as you seem to want to do. And Christianity and narratives of its key figure, Jesus the Christ, are not a continuation of old Jewish messianism, they are a break from it - "discontinuity with the Hebraism that preceded it." Rayner, John D. A Jewish Understanding of the World, Berghahn Books, 1998, p. 187.

"...the doctrine of Christ was and will remain alien to Jewish religious thought." Wylen, Stephen M. Settings of Silver: An Introduction to Judaism, Paulist Press, 2000, p. 75.

[MrMacSon]

I have attempted to present enough of Charlesworth's essay From Messianology to Christology to enable a fair understanding of his point.

Which is? You seem to be snowing this thread under with various (competing?) quotes from several scholar-authors without a clear message.

You said in another post, -

But Charlesworth points out that messianic association with Davidic interest was simply not a big deal in first century Judea -- hence the Romans are not likely to have been aware of it at all. Given Charlesworth's point about the lack of focus on David for messianic speculations in Josephus, it is far more likely that Josephus was merely writing from the more common perspective of David in his own day. Interest in David was prominent, Charlesworth writes, but not as a messianic figure. (David by this time had been exalted to a scribal status, a preeminently pious figure.)

A lot of that gives mixed messages about perceptions of David and messianism. I'm not sure any of that is that relevant, other than perhaps "Josephus was merely writing from the more common perspective of David in his own day."

But for balance, and since I have been pointing to Novenson in this thread as well, here is where Novenson disagrees with Charlesworth:

James Charlesworth, for instance, has documented thoroughly the diversity of messiah figures in the Second Temple-period pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls;24 but he nevertheless writes in a geistesgeschichtlich vein about how “Jewish messianology exploded into the history of ideas in the early first century B.C.E.”2 (Grammar of Messianism, p. 7)

(Not all scholars agree that there was an "explosion" of messianiology in the early first century b.c.e.)

The issue for me is not the notion there had been an explosion of messianiology in the first century b.c.e - or even in the first century a.d./c.e. It is the context in which the gospel and other NT and pseudepigraphical writers wrote, perhaps engaging with narratives reflected in texts such as those of Philo, Plutarch, Josephus, Seutonius or Tacitus, etc, or even reflecting some of those texts, and how others then engaged with the Christian texts in conjunction with those of Philo, Plutarch, Josephus, etc.

And that quote just outlines Charlesworth's views, not a disagreement with them.

(geistesgeschichtlich = intellectual history)

[Ben C. Smith]

Messiahs - Hebrew: מָשִׁיחַ‎, romanized: māšîaḥ; Greek: χριστός, romanized: khristós - were savior and liberator figures in Jewish eschatology, who were believed to be the future redeemers of the Jewish people. While the concept of messianism originated in Judaism and in the Hebrew Bible, messiahs were not exclusively Jewish: the Hebrew Bible refers to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, as a messiah for his decree to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple.

The term "anointed" was not originally a technical term, at least not in any sense greater than our saying that the President has been "sworn into office," or the like. Kings were anointed (1 Samuel 24.7, 11; 26.9, 11, 16; 2 Samuel 19.21/22, for example). Priests were anointed (Leviticus 4.5, 16; 6.15, for example). Sometimes prophets were anointed (Psalm 104/105.15, for example). Second Isaiah said that Cyrus was "anointed" because Cyrus was in God's plan to perform a particular task (which had to do with restoring Israelite exiles back to the land after the Babylonian captivity).

But none of these usages of the term is quite the same thing as expecting a future messianic figure. Kings and priests had been anointed for a long time; Cyrus was already doing his thing when Second Isaiah wrote about him. Those instances were past and present.

For me, the single most important thing about the future Messiah figures expected in various quarters is that they were expected because of scriptural promises which had been made to Aaron and the Levites, to David and the Judahites, to Joseph and the Ephraimites, and to Israel in general. This is what the Second Temple (and later) texts tell us over and over: this or that (future) Messiah is the figure promised in such and such a passage in the scriptures. As you said/quoted in one of your posts, MrMacSon, it was an "exegetical enterprise." You are spot on about that.

The ancient "anointed ones" (be they kings, priests, prophets, or Cyrus) obviously served as inspiration for certain aspects of the Messiah figures who were expected. The Davidic Messiah, for example, was often described in terms reflecting either his status as a conqueror or his way with words as a psalmist, or both. Such details could change according to the author writing about the expected figure in question. What does not change very much — what virtually all of the references to such figures have in common — is their basis in the "exegetical enterprise" of figuring out how God's promises to Aaron, to Moses, to David, and to Israel in general were going to be fulfilled. That is why I gave that list of highly representative scriptures involving a divine promise whose natural fulfillment could be viewed (and was viewed, according to our evidence) as involving the advent of some appropriate personage in the future. Defining the term Messiah without reference to the very texts whence the authors employing that term got the notion (whether validly or not) in the first place is like defining a carburetor simply as a device which mixes air and gasoline. The best, most useful definitions of a carburetor will include the fact that its function is to provide the gas-air mixture for a combustion engine (that is the point of a carburetor); in the same way, the best, most useful definitions of a Messiah will include the fact that he is this or that figure promised (according to our early exegetes, anyway) in the scriptural prophecies (that is the point of a prophet like Moses, a king like David, a priest like Aaron, and so on). The "exegetical enterprise" (I really like that term) is fundamental to any decent definition or understanding of the term Messiah.

Yes, except I'm distinguishing Enoch from accounts & perceptions of Jesus of Nazareth and Shimon bar Kosiba/Kohkba (at least seeking to do so); and referring to the latter as revered.

I think that Enoch, insofar as he is called "that Son of Man" and "Messiah" (among other things) in the Parables of Enoch (= chapters 37–71 of 1 Enoch), ought to be distinguished from the various scriptural messianic inspirations (Aaron, Moses, David, and the like): there was no promise that Enoch would return, no guarantee that his seed would do something forever. His translation to heaven made him a prime candidate for certain apocalyptic functions, but that is not really the same thing as the scriptures making promises that only some Enochic figure can fulfill. What is happening with Enoch is that the Parables of Enoch are tapping in, quite consciously, to one of the other "messianic scriptures" on the list: Daniel 7.13-14. (This is clear, for example, in 1 Enoch 46.1-2.) Thus, Enoch himself, after seeing visions of "that Son of Man" (= the "one like a son of man" from Daniel 7.13-14), either becomes or realizes that he himself is "that Son of Man" (1 Enoch 71.14-17, but not in the R. H. Charles translation; Charles makes an unjustified and repeated emendation throughout this entire passage: "you are" to "he is"). The whole scene is weird and unique, but the same exact game as usual is afoot: the Messiah figure in question is said to be the figure which Daniel 7.13-14 primes the attentive reader to expect. The Danielic "one like a son of man" is the one who is parallel to Moses and David and the rest. But that figure (the "one like a son of man"), when he comes, is going to be Enoch, according to the Parables. (I have many more thoughts on this entire issue, especially as it pertains to the Petrine tradition and to Jesus as the Son of Man in the gospels, but those thoughts will have to await a more complete development.)

YMMV.

[neilgodfrey]

Messiahs - Hebrew: מָשִׁיחַ‎, romanized: māšîaḥ; Greek: χριστός, romanized: khristós - were savior and liberator figures in Jewish eschatology, who were believed to be the future redeemers of the Jewish people. While the concept of messianism originated in Judaism and in the Hebrew Bible . . . . [/b].

This is what a number of scholars debate. It is an interpretation, a long-established view, but not necessarily a fact. Its a viewpoint that needs to be demonstrated.

Perceptions of or for messianism in the mid to late first century AD are unlikely to be fully based on or in Jewish theology as you seem to want to do. And Christianity and narratives of its key figure, Jesus the Christ, are not a continuation of old Jewish messianism, they are a break from it - "discontinuity with the Hebraism that preceded it." Rayner, John D. A Jewish Understanding of the World, Berghahn Books, 1998, p. 187.

Was there a single Jewish theology at all in the Second Temple era? I don't think there was. Novenson in Christ Among the Messiahs is all about how "Christ" as applied by Paul to Jesus was indeed entirely within the constellation of Jewish theological ideas of the time. Your statement is one interpretation, mine is another. To go further we need to delve into the respective arguments made for each case.

"...the doctrine of Christ was and will remain alien to Jewish religious thought." Wylen, Stephen M. Settings of Silver: An Introduction to Judaism, Paulist Press, 2000, p. 75.

As per above: this traditional viewpoint is now questioned.

[neilgodfrey]

Which is? You seem to be snowing this thread under with various (competing?) quotes from several scholar-authors without a clear message.

Correct. I was not expressing my own viewpoint. I was pointing out two competing ideas. Anyone interested is free to follow up.

I'm really not particularly interested in pushing my own views because they keep changing anyway and I'm certainly no authority. What I'm interested in is exploring the range of scholarship into such questions and learning what I can along the way. But if I see comments that appear to be made without awareness of alternative viewpoints or more recent challenges to their ideas I do like to do my bit to try to raise awareness.

[neilgodfrey]

That is why I gave that list of highly representative scriptures involving a divine promise whose natural fulfillment could be viewed (and was viewed, according to our evidence) as involving the advent of some appropriate personage in the future.

This is a point widely disputed now as per authors mentioned above and those set out in other linked sources. While it has long been tradition for us to associate eschatological prophecies with a messianic figure, the fact remains that many such prophecies demonstrate no interest in such a figure. There was far less interest in "messiahs" as a position description and role in eschatology than our Christian heritage has taught us to assume. Many eschatological prophecies allow no thought at all for "a messiah" figure.