Messiah
From Encyclopædia
{muh-sy'-uh} The term messiah comes from the Hebrew mashiach, meaning "anointed one." In the Old Testament it was used of historical personages such as the anointed kings and
priests of Israel. During the BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY (587-540 BC), Israelite hopes for a restored monarchy and priesthood flourished. With the return of the exiles to Jerusalem and the emergence of Zerubbabel and Joshua ben Jehozadak as political ruler and high
priest, respectively, these hopes were to some extent realized.The later fortunes of Israel, especially under the SELEUCIDS of
Syria, kept alive the hope for a future and final deliverance, sometimes with and sometimes without a messianic figure. The revolt of the MACCABEES briefly kindled the hope that in the Hasmonean line an ideal
priest-king had emerged. But the corruption of the later Hasmoneans led to the secession of part of the priestly
caste to
Qumran, where various forms of messianic hope were entertained, sometimes involving two messiahs--one from the house of
Aaron (a
priest) and one from the house of Israel (a king)--together with a prophet. The so-called Psalms of Solomon, which expressed the piety of the
Pharisees, looked only for a messiah descended from David.After the death of Herod the Great (AD 4) and the incorporation of Judea into the Roman Empire, a nationalist resistance movement, the ZEALOTS, hailed various leaders as the Messiah, the last being BAR KOCHBA during the great revolt of AD 132-35.In the Books of
Enoch, the figure of the Messiah coalesced with the apocalyptic "Son of Man," a supernatural judge and savior appearing at the end.Whether
Jesus Christ claimed to be the Messiah is disputed, though the Gospels affirm that he did (Mark 14:62). The post-Easter Christian community clearly ascribed the title Messiah to him (Acts 2:36) in a sense redefined by the crucifixion and resurrection faith. Translated into Greek, the title became Christos (see
CHRIST), which, improperly understood, became a proper name.Reginald H. FullerBibliography: Cullmann, Oscar, The Christology of the New Testament (1959); Fuller, Reginald H., The Foundations of New Testament Christology (1965); Hengel, Martin, The Son of God: The Origin of Christology and the History of Jewish-Hellenistic Religion (1976); Lockyear, H., All The Messianic Prophecies (1988); Mowinckel, Sigmund, He That Cometh (1954); Scholem, Gershom, The Messianic Idea in
Judaism (1972).
