Are You the One Who Is to Come?

The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question

Bird, Michael F.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781441205964
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Estudios bíblicos

Did Jesus claim to be the long-awaited "messiah"? Going against much contemporary scholarship, Australian scholar Michael Bird argues that he did. He begins by exploring the messianic expectations in the Old Testament and Second Temple Jewish literature. Next, Bird points out weaknesses in current arguments that "Messiah, " or "Christ, " was a title given to Jesus by the early church but not used by Jesus himself. Bird then examines the Gospels and related literature, finding in Jesus's words and actions evidence that he saw himself as the messiah described in the Scriptures of Israel and believed that Israel's restoration hinged on the outcome of his ministry.

1

“Jesus Who Is Called the Christ”

Matthew and Josephus both refer to “Jesus who is called ‘Messiah.’ ” Matthew places the remark on the lips of Pilate at Jesus’s trial, while Josephus mentions “Jesus who is called Messiah” almost as a side remark in his narration of the death of James the brother of Jesus, who was put to death at the instigation of the high priest Ananus in the early 60s CE.1 Both of these authors are writing in the last quarter of the first century of the Common Era and refer to Jesus who is called “Messiah.” But by whom was Jesus called “Messiah”? The obvious answer surely is, by Christians, and Josephus himself traces the name of the Christians back to the founder of their movement, to Jesus, which implies that he was known as “Christ” (Ant. 18.64).2 Matthew, in contrast, would have us believe that Jesus was known as “Messiah” during the course of his final ministry in Jerusalem and in particular at his trial. While no one disputes that Jesus was proclaimed and heralded as Messiah in the early church, the question as to whether or not he was recognized as such during his own lifetime is a much more complex and disputed topic. Moreover, it is equally debated as to whether Jesus claimed to be the Messiah and whether we can legitimately talk of a “messianic self-consciousness” on the part of the historical Jesus.3

Scholarship on the Messianic Question

This “messianic question” as to whether or not Jesus believed himself to be the Messiah is a recurring riddle of historical Jesus scholarship. Julius Wellhausen wrote that of all the problems facing scholarship on the life of Jesus, “among the most important questions is whether and in what sense he [Jesus] believed and claimed himself to be the Messiah.”4 Similarly, H. J. Holtzmann said that the messianic consciousness of Jesus was “the main problem of New Testament theology.”5 The nature of the dilemma, as Albert Schweitzer recognized long ago, is that researchers have had to wrestle with the problem of the purportedly nonmessianic character of Jesus’s public ministry in contradistinction to his messianic vocation and identity as affirmed by early Christian sources.6 Primitive Christianity was a messianic movement that venerated a figure with the appellation

(Christ/Messiah/Anointed One), and followers of Jesus were even given the name

(Christians/Messianists) to distinguish them from other Jewish sects. Did a self-professedly messianic claimant lie at the root of this messianic movement, or was the messianic identity of Jesus a subsequent development in the christological reflection of the early Christian communities that attributed the title to him in the course of their post-Easter theologizing? In the last one hundred years of historical Jesus research, mainly under the influence of William Wrede and Rudolf Bultmann, the consensus has largely rejected the position that the historical Jesus regarded himself as the Messiah. In fact, Martin Hengel goes so far as to state: “Today the unmessianic Jesus has almost become a dogma among many New Testament scholars. One is tempted to describe this phenomenon as ‘non-messianic dogmatics.’ ”7 Just in case one thinks that Hengel is exaggerating the state of scholarship, consider the following collection of comments:

For this is the truly amazing thing, that there is in fact not one single certain proof of Jesus’ claiming for himself one of the Messianic titles which tradition has ascribed to him. . . . Not a single one of his words speaks of the Messias designatus.8

Jesus is never once recalled as using the title “Messiah” of himself or as unequivocally welcoming its application to him by others.9

To claim Jesus is the Messiah is absurd.10

There is not a single genuine saying of Jesus in which he refers to himself as the Messiah.11

It seems that before the passion Jesus did not openly claim to be the Messiah.12

Scenes in the Gospels in which Jesus is addressed or acknowledged as the Messiah are very few and acceptance of that title by Jesus is marred by complications.13

There is thus no certainty that Jesus thought of himself as bearer of the title “Messiah.” On the contrary, it is unlikely that he did so: all the gospel writers so regarded him, but they could cite little direct evidence.14

Jesus never chose to call himself “Messiah” or “Son of God” and even when others questioned him about his Messiahship, he usually declines to give a straight answer.15

As a possible role model he was more hostile than welcoming to the idea of the royal messiah.16

The historical-critical work on the Gospels regarding the question of the work and the self-understanding of the “earthly” Jesus leads to the following result: Jesus did not designate himself as “Messiah.”17

Such skepticism is unsurprising given that Jesus in the Gospels never explicitly refers to himself as the Messiah, but he is called the Messiah, King, or Son of David by others, such as Peter (Mark 8:29/Matt. 16:16/Luke 9:20), Bartimaeus (Mark 10:47–48), the high priest (Mark 14:61), Nathanael (John 1:49), the Galilean crowds (John 6:15; Matt. 12:23), Passover pilgrims (Mark 11:9–10), and Martha (John 11:27). By itself such data might suggest that Jesus inspired messianic hopes but did not embrace the title himself.

In Quest of Jesus’s Self-Understanding

One may wish to look elsewhere in the hope of finding more explicit evidence that Jesus claimed to be a messianic figure. There are several places where Jesus accepts the title of “Messiah,” according to the evangelists. In John 4, during Jesus’s encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, she claims, “I know that Messiah18 is coming

. . . . When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us,” to which the Johannine Jesus replies, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you” (John 4:25–26). In the Markan trial scene the high priest asks Jesus: “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” and Jesus replies, “I am” (Mark 14:61b–62; but see the different responses in Matt. 26:64; Luke 22:67–68; John 18:33–34). Elsewhere Jesus does refer to the Messiah, but never with first-person personal pronouns. In Mark we read: “For I tell you the truth, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you are of Messiah

will by no means lose the reward” (Mark 9:41). A titular occurrence appears also in Matthew: “Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah

(Matt. 23:10). Jesus warns of false messiahs

in the Olivet Discourse of the synoptic tradition (Mark 13:21–22/Matt. 24:24) and poses a riddle about the Messiah as the Son of David (Mark 12:35–37). Since most of these texts comport with the Christology and kerygma of the primitive church, scholars have been reluctant to regard them as historically authentic and usually suppose that they are accretions to the Jesus tradition by the early church, which invested the tradition with its own christological convictions concerning Jesus’s identity.

The notion that Jesus of Nazareth never claimed to be the Messiah has thus remained a well-worn position in modern research, although it is probably not as strongly held as it once was. There has been a reevaluation of the messianic question in some quarters of research inspired partly by more nuanced studies on the diversity of Jewish beliefs in the Second Temple period, as well as further studies on the various messianisms of ancient writings, and aided by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. All of these have led to renewed interest in Jewish and Christian notions of the Messiah. Scholars operating in the “Third Quest”19 for the historical Jesus exercise a range of views on the matter, as a mere comparison of Geza Vermes, N. T. Wright, and E. P. Sanders demonstrates. As such, any bifurcation between a “messianic” or “nonmessianic” consciousness on the part of Jesus can obscure the complexity of the subject as it has been handled in contemporary discussion. There are four main ways in which the messianic question has been handled:

1. Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah, and the early church proclaimed Jesus as Messiah as an inference based on belief in his resurrection or more generally out of their post-Easter faith.20

2. The disciples or crowds proclaimed Jesus as Messiah during his lifetime, but Jesus himself rejected the title.21

3. Jesus did not claim the title “Messiah” for himself in his ministry, but neither did he actually reject it at a key moment at his trial, which resulted in the erection of the titulus on the cross.22

4. Jesus claimed to be the Messiah of Israel even if he revised the meaning of the role.23

The subject is quite complex. To make matters worse, it is further complicated by debates concerning messianic expectations in Jewish and Christian sources, by issues relating to the development of primitive Christology, and by questions about the authenticity of messianic texts in the Gospels. Be that as it may, the goal of this work is to argue for the fourth position: that Jesus of Nazareth did claim, in action and speech, to be the Messiah of Israel. In brief, I want to reopen the messianic question and place it at the forefront of studies in Christian origins and the historical Jesus.

That said, I do not like the term “messianic self-consciousness,” since the mental st...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• 1. “Jesus Who Is Called the Christ”
• 2. Messianic Expectations in Second Temple Judaism
• 3. Messiah Jesus—a Role Declined?
• 4. Messiah Jesus—a Role Redefined?
• 5. Messiah Jesus—a Crucified Messiah?
• 6. Toward a Messianic Christology
• Bibliography