Where to Begin

Messianism is everything that relates and stems from the idea of MESSIAH, the anointed one. There is a lot of confusion and argument over these terms, not just between religions, particularly Judaism and Christianity, but over the ages within Judaism, and in modern times within Israeli society. 

In order to put order to this topic, the need is to delve deep into the broad sources and history. Order is needed because of all the confusion and ideological associations. 

I began to research this topic during my university years, first in a biblical studies course on Messiah in the biblical and 2nd Temple texts, which raised some questions in my mind as to how it came about. Later while reading a bit from the famous Jewish mysticism scholar Gershom Scholem on Shabtai Zvi and messianism in Jewish history I was surprised that I had never known of this major historic event. 

Later, a teacher told me that Paul’s writings are the earliest mentions of “Messiah”, though translated to Greek, Christos, so I began researching Paul the Apostle as an early messianic thinker. But then I needed to get a better understanding of the bigger picture, and started reading and collecting books on messianism.

It was surprising to me that the academic literature was not comprehensive on the topic of Messiah, many seemed outdated, insufficient, and with lots of contradictions. Some books are too theoretical, others I found too focused on particular messianic cases. So I tried to get a hold of any scholarly book on the topic, not just of a particular messianic figure here and there or a variety of messianic texts, but rather material on messianism as such. 

I found lots of books that focus on what I consider subcategories or particular cases of messianism. There are many books on messianic figures or candidates, big or small. For example, a book on Shlomo Molcho. Other books review messianic texts in certain eras. For example, messianic texts in Aggada literature. 

Some books list messianic candidates. Some books review writings without an actual messianic movement surrounding a particular man. Another study researches messianic calculations. Another book lists names of Messiah.

Here we will consider the variety of messianic phenomena, whether messianic figures, influential texts and schools of thought, and more. I am not interested just in the messianic figures, or just the worldview regarding Messiah, but all of these.

This series is not academic but is drawn from mostly academic books and reading texts directly. I will reference books generally as we go along, especially for someone interested in reading more, and I will present and review some actual texts.

The intention of this research is not to criticize religion in a negative way, though it will be somewhat critical. This was for me an intellectual pursuit, as well as an existential journey.

Definitions

Messianism is a discussion that is hard to begin as you need an initial definition to get started, but any definition is already throwing us into contested territory. 

The purpose of this series is in its entirety to provide a definition, and one should be able to make a definition or choose a definition at an advanced stage of learning here. 

Having said that, I will give my initial simplistic definition, and so we begin. Messianism and messianic relate to a messiah. Messiah as a word and concept is a figure associated with David the legendary king of Judah, is part and parcel with a great redemption of Israel, and bears superb if not supernatural qualities. 

Granted, the points in my definition may be contested, but we have to start somewhere. I will present arguments against my definition, and I will also at some point present definitions and types of messianism according to scholars that I disagree with but find interesting and helpful. 

Methodology

The working definition will serve us as we begin with a bird’s eye view of Jewish history. There are 2 outstanding phenomena of Jewish messianism: Early Christianity, or the Jesus messianic movement in the first century; and the Sabbatian messianic movement of the 17th century, surrounding the mystical messianic figure Shabtai Zvi.

It is sensible to approach messianism to some degree orbiting around these 2 cases. Other cases do not come close. I believe it is logical to observe these 2, and observe what preceded them, and what followed them.

So I have arranged the segments of this series into evolutionary or developmental stages. What led to early Christianity, what happened there, what followed it. What led to Sabbatianism, what happened there, what followed it. 

Granted, the 2 pillars above of messianism in Jewish history are also contested, many Jewish historians wouldn’t consider Early Christianity as part of Jewish history, or lacking influence on ideas within Judaism, and many would not choose to present Sabbatianism is a great influence on Jewish history and the ideas within Judaism. 

Perhaps Early Christianity and the Sabbatian movement do not represent mainstream Jewish messianism. I have not said that they represent, but that they are the great messianic examples, and surely are worth analyzing. They are worth approaching looking for where to start. They definitely were influenced by the idea of Messiah in Judaism and influenced from then on. 

Besides minding these 2 pillars of messianism in Jewish history, the focus here has a developmental or evolutionary approach, so what is featured are the cases which impacted the trajectory of ideas of Messiah and messianism in Judaism and Jewish history. 

We seek not just the famous cases, but more so the innovative and creative.

What is interesting here would be - what led to or what was the new medium of messianic thinking that was a platform for the Sabbatian movement, and what followed the Sabbatian movement that other messianic texts maintained from the heretical Sabbatians.

Or, what ideas were prominent in Judaism that the New Testament writers used, how much did they create new ideas or continue them, how did rabbinic literature handle and deliver all the popular messianic ideas after the Jesus movement and early Christianity.

Many historians would present other phenomena as bearing greater influence, for example the rabbinic writings and classic medieval scholars and thinkers such as Maimonides (13th century) and Abarvanel (16th century). These and others are of great importance and they will be mentioned in this series. However, I believe they are prominent presentations of ideas that we find earlier in rabbinic literature, they are not new ideas so much as they expand older ideas. 

This series is meant to lay out all these cases, the figures and the ideas and the texts and what not, so that they can be understood in the broader context. 

There will be plenty of room in this series to discuss some important cases or texts of messianism that do not receive attention in the main developmental process, such as: Don Isac Abarvanel, Messiah Son of Joseph and Messiah Son of David, Sefer Zerubavel, writers and Philosophers on Messianism, and more.