Deferred Engagement

We are tracing messianic footseps in early rabbinic literature. We are curious how the messianic ideas developed and evolved. We found roots of the ideas in the biblical literature, and an acute phenomena as Early Christianity. What?

Then we noticed there is less acute texts in the early rabbinic literature. Then we countered the traditional assumption that Bar Kochva was an early messianic prototype of rabbinic Judaism, an antithesis to the Jesus prototype, or perhaps underminding the Jesus messianic prototype. But why then?

Interpreting and Reflection

Understanding these texts in their context, interpreting them and reflecting on their messianic content is one thing. Stepping back and reflecting on what is happening and what we know and do not know is more difficult but important.

Before Jesus there is no evidence of acute messianism in Judaism.

How rampant were these views among the people and popular religion then? How established were these views before the time of Jesus, or did they follow? Ultimately we have scarce messianic texts, that themselves present as elite rabbis discussing perhaps eclectic matters. 

We can’t know how messianic the thought was and how messianic the people were, by these passages alone. This is challenged by the unknown - it was an oral tradition, certain items were omitted because they were not relevant to this tradition. So we carry on, through textual history. What was then, and why?

Within the Void / greater Questions 

So far we have encountered minute, obscure, minuscule textual engagement with messianism - though it is very possible that messianism of any level was rampant and central to the religious thought of the masses or the elites… 

But we don’t know! It is not reflected enough in the texts that we have in our hands. We glanced at the Mishna and the Onkelos translation and mentioned the prayer book the liturgical texts. We have material, but not enough. These are texts from before and after the destruction of the Second Temple, still early on, not too late - 1st - 2nd centuries. 

What we do have are the New Testament writings, which have an abundance of acute messianic content. We are struggling to assess how much of this was drawing from ancient Jewish traditions of the Second Temple era and early Rabbinic writing. 

Enter the Talmud

Generation after generation of scholars are interpreting the Mishna and the religious law. They often incorporate lengthy discussions, stories, homilies, theoretical discussions, practical conclusions, associative writing, bits of history.

Between the Mishna and the Talmud, let’s say it that way, messianism is engaged with, from a scarce suggestive manner by the Mishna, to a direct ample manner of engagement by the Talmud. The Mishna barely mentions messianism, while the Talmud engages with messianism quite plentifully for our purposes. 

Well, not THAT much, proportionately, if you consider the size of the Talmud… nonetheless, though relatively a very small portion of texts within the ocean of texts that constitute the Talmudic literature, the quantity in and of itself is ample, and it's existence of utmost importance. 

So here we go, finally, into the Talmudic Rabbinic engagement with messianism, it is a textual engagement, engaging with ideas re Messiah through interpretation and homiletics of the sacred texts, while creating and continuing authoritative textual tradition.

Delving Deeper

The central point in this chapter is that the normative authoritative rabbinical literature, at a relatively late stage, that is, not from the 2nd Temple era but centuries later on, deep into the beginning of the middle ages, the Talmud is engaging directly with messianism. 

It seems this issue was deferred historically, and finally the normative bodies engaged with, presumably by demand - there was a need to engage with messianism - the ideas and texts, presumably a demand by and for the people. 

The nature of engagement is textual, interpretive, comparing ideas. It is not a messianic movement, there is no messianic figure and following, but rather engagement with the ideas and texts of messianism. 

Now we can start to read and follow this process - much like the New Testament chapter, following the evolution of messianism within that textual tradition, in these textual tradition, we want to follow the development of messianism within. 

We will look at several texts to see this engagement. Then we can speculate what this engagement means, and what the particulars inside mean.

The texts we will show are all from one section, where there is an exceptionally high concentration of texts dealing with messianic ideas and interpretation of texts. That is, Sanhedrin, the tenth chapter, “perek chelek”, that deals with messianism within the context of ideas regarding “the world to come”.