How it came to pass that in the first century C.E., everyone was expecting the Messiah.
In Matthew 22:42, Yeshua poses a question to the Pharisaic scholars: “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?”1 The scholars answer right off, “The son of David,” but the question had been presented in such a way as to suggest that there could yet be some debate about it. When this discussion took place, a Jewish tradition that had been long in the making was just coming to maturity.
“Messiah” is the Anglicized form of Hebrew mashiach, which is rendered in the Greek Testament as either Messias (a transliteration) or Christos (a translation). It means “anointed,” but especially a certain person who is anointed. In ancient Israel, a person was made king not by coronation but by anointing—pouring oil on his head.2 Priests were also anointed, but the expression is used far more frequently for kings.3 This expression was really only one of several that were used to refer to the great hope of Israel.
The time of David was regarded as the Golden Age of Israel, a time long past but longed for. The Jewish people believed that the Lord is in control of history and that He will restore the fortunes of Israel in a glorious new golden age, the Kingdom of God. What made this hope so vivid and poignant was that it contrasted so dramatically with their actual situation. They had been given over into the hands of sinners or, alternately, of their enemies. They were humiliated; they were suffering. Already in Psalm 72, there is a prayer that there may be a king’s son who will “judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice” and “crush the oppressor,” a king who will have dominion over the heathen. To tell the truth, even most of Israel’s own kings came far short of the ideal. But even worse, they were often under the heel of heathen conquerors.
The prophets foretold that there would be a dramatic reversal of Israel’s fortunes, a great time when Israel would be gathered and restored in a kingdom of peace, justice, brotherhood, and righteousness.4 This new Golden Age would be associated with a righteous king who was variously referred to as the son of David, the Branch (or Shoot), and the Messiah.5 As time went on, this figure was viewed by the seers in ever more glorious light. Embodying in his own person the nation of Israel, he was the Son of Man in Daniel 7:13–14. The Targum of Isaiah even identifies him with the Suffering Servant pictured in the last part of Isaiah.
Called by various titles, this Messianic figure and the fulfillment of the Messianic hope were subject to diverse expectations that were often disappointed. After the return from Babylonian exile, some looked to Zerubbabel to fulfill the role. He was a descendant of David, and the Persian king appointed him governor of Judæa. But it was folly to suppose that he could challenge the might of the Persian Empire.
The Persians were followed by Greeks, and the Greeks by Romans. A work dated from the last decades before the Common Era (Psalms of Solomon, chapter 17) hymns the expected Son of David, who would rule in righteousness, restore Israel, defeat enemies, and be empowered by the Holy Spirit. He is pictured as a mortal man, but larger than life and sinless. Significantly, the hymn concludes with the declaration, “The Lord Himself is our King for ever and ever.”
The people of the Qumran community, who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls, also had lively hope in this future righteous king. He would be the Messiah, but lower in rank than the priests. One passage in the Scrolls (Rule of the Community 9.11) seems to speak of two Messiahs, “the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel”—a priestly Messiah and a royal Messiah.
Other literature produced in the first century C.E. describes a Messianic figure, either priestly or royal, but at the same time affirms that the coming kingdom will be ruled by God Himself.6 A work called 2 Esdras (chapters 11–12, 13) identified the Messiah with the Son of Man (see Daniel 7), who will die but then be resurrected.
All these lines of thought and expectations converged in the first century of the Common Era to produce fervent anticipation and heightened hopes that were too often dashed to pieces. There arose many false Messiahs and impatient men who thought to bring in the reign of God through violence. Such were Judas the Galilean, his father Hezekiah, and his descendant Menahem. There was a man named Theudas, an unnamed Jew who came from Egypt, and no doubt many others whose names are now forgotten. The Romans crushed them all. Early in the second century, the great Rabbi Akiva hailed Bar Kokhba as the long-awaited Messiah, but both were killed by the Romans. Untold thousands of people perished in the rebellions sparked by all these men.
The hopes were only intensified by the difficulty of the situation and the seeming improbability of their fulfillment, for had not Daniel the prophet predicted: “There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book” (Daniel 12:1). The present troubles were but the “birthpangs of the Messiah”! The Messianic expectations were white-hot in the first century of the Common Era, partly because of calculations based on the time prophecies of the book of Daniel. Evidence for this conclusion comes from an unexpected source: the Babylonian Talmud.
In a celebrated passage beginning near the end of Bavli Sanhedrin 96b7 we find remarkable speculations about eschatology (the end of time). They are remarkable because the Rabbis who produced the Talmud were not keen on apocalyptic ideas, which had only produced disaster in the past, as far as they could see. They did not want to give aid and comfort to another Bar Kokhba. And then there was the matter of Yeshua and the claims of his followers. The presence of this passage in the Talmud, then, is exceptional, and it probably represents the tip of an iceberg. It is the meager remnant of a widespread way of thinking that was common in the age of the Tannaim. And since the Rabbis had long since put eschatology on the back burner, it must come down from an earlier age.
It begins with an allusion to Daniel 7:13, for it identifies the Messiah with “Bar Nafle”—a Greco-Aramaic expression meaning “Son of the Clouds.” Then follows a long discussion of the “Messianic woes,” the troubles that will precede the coming of the Messiah, which will occur when it is not expected. The unexpectedness of the coming of the Messiah is insisted upon by Rabbi Zera in opposition to scholars who were calculating the time of the Messiah’s coming (97a). Examples of such calculations are then presented. One method is based on the “Cosmic Week"—six millennia of history followed by a sabbatical millennium. Another counts the number of jubilees. Yet another relies on the prophecies of Daniel (specifically those in Daniel 7:27), Haggai, or the Psalms. But all this is interrupted by the dictum of Rabbi Samuel ben Nahmani in the name of Rabbi Jonathan: “Blasted be the bones of those who calculate the end. For they would say, since the predetermined time has arrived and yet he has not come, he will never come.”
The importance of such calculations in the first century is hinted at by some of the language of the New Testament. The Gospel of Mark thus summarizes the message of Yeshua when he began his preaching ministry in Galilee: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15). Paul said, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Galatians 4:4).
Our Talmudic passage transitions from the question of when the Messiah will come to that of the necessary preconditions. “Rab said: All the predestined dates have passed, and the matter depends only on repentance and good deeds.” There follows a debate by Tannaim. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus argues that the coming of the Messiah can be hastened by repentance, while Joshua ben Hananiah insists that all depends on the sovereign purpose of God, and human beings can do nothing to hasten or delay it.
Perhaps the most astute remark is credited to Rabbi Johanan: “The son of David will come only in a generation that is either altogether righteous or altogether wicked."
The Messianic hope in late Judaism, then, was an object of keen interest and the subject of considerable debate. As to Yeshua’s question, “What do you think of the Messiah?" early Christians had their own answer.
1 All biblical quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
2 See, for example, 1 Samuel 10:1; 16:1, 12-13.
3 The noun mashiach occurs 39 times in the Tanach. Of these occurrences about 27 refer to a king, 6 to a priest, 2 to patriarchs, and the rest to various others (people, Cyrus, Saul’s shield).
4 See passages such as Amos 9, Isaiah 11, and Hosea 3.
5 Some of the passages that speak of this ideal king and his reign are Isaiah 11:1-7; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Ezekiel 34:20- 31 and chapter 37; Micah 5; and Zechariah 9:9-10.
6 See, for example, the Testament of Daniel 5:10-13.
7 Quotations are taken from translation in the Soncino edition of the Babylonian Talmud, except that some of the supplied words (those placed by the translator in square brackets) are sometimes omitted here.