Before the New Testament

If someone were to come from a land where the Monotheistic religions were totally unknown, and this person was given the Hebrew Bible to read, and upon reading the entire thing we asked: So, what say you about the Messiah and everything messianic?

We would have a slightly confused foreigner in our midst. We would not get a straight answer. The answer would be something like, well what exactly are you referring to? This passage, or that? This figure, or that tradition?

When we open the New Testament and read, we are given the opposite impression. It seems that, according to the New Testament, by that time, the Jewish people were well aware of a developed messianic idea, and some even expected this occurrence, or fulfillment.

The problem is that we are not sure besides the New Testament what the worldview was among the people, and how common it was. We could treat the New Testament as evidence of such a messianic idea. The New Testament, particularly the Gospels, show us that there was such an idea, and that it was fairly common.

However, we may critically question this impression from the New Testament. Perhaps this idea was not so common, not so clear, and not so developed then.

The New Testament would then be creative or constructive in regards to the messianic idea, it somehow wants to set a narrative surrounding Jesus, as a messianic figure or spiritual leader, in a context that suited his career, of widespread messianic anticipation in Israel.

What happened in the Bible? What happened between the Bible and the New Testament? What happened within the New Testament?

Some scholars argue that Paul the Apostle in his early writings is the first to assert a full-fledged “Messiah”, and does so by name, in Greek, translating the Hebrew mashiach to ‘Christos’.

If Paul was the first to write explicitly about Messiah, it depends on the definition of Messiah. If one’s definition of Messiah is so different, then Paul is not the earliest to refer to it so directly. But that is already a significant point: Paul is at least the earliest direct reference to an explicit idea of Messiah, according to some definitions.

This was still in the first half of the first century. His Messiah is not necessarily exactly the Messiah of the Gospels, but let us assume that the Messiah of the New Testament, including Paul and the Gospels, all lean on 3 elements, as a definition of sorts: associated or seed of David, a Davidic figure; he is a biblical fulfillment, or prophetic legend, and king, by the term ‘Messiah’; and he is the apocalyptic Son of Man.

Without getting ahead of ourselves, the special ‘Son of Man’ figure of Daniel 7 is quoted and associated with Jesus in the Gospels. This term is more common in the Gospels than the use of the term ‘Messiah’. Jesus is considered Messiah, a Davidic Messiah, and the Son of Man apocalyptic redeemer Messiah David.

These elements, Messiah, David, Son of Man, I will follow in the biblical writings, preceding the New Testament, to see what we find in that territory, and then we can look for what appears in texts from the 2nd Temple period before the New Testament, or parallel to it.

We are interested in varying definitions of ‘Messiah’, and how they developed, which form preceded the other, and how different definitions or ideas or schools of thought influenced or played off each other.