Below you’ll find some of my publications on Messiah ben Joseph.
Messiah ben Joseph is the most fascinating figure in rabbinic literature. In case you don’t know, he is a Galilean Messiah who dies at the gate of Jerusalem to atone for the sins of Israel and all the world.
He appears in the Pseudepigrapha and in the Dead Sea Scrolls. He is in the targums and the Talmud. You can also find him in the homiletic, exegetic, and apocalyptic midrashim. And, in the middle ages, he is in the Zohar, in the rishonim and the aharonim.
Some of these articles first appeared in specialist journals. Two saw the light of day in the Review of Rabbinic Judaism. Two more appeared in the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha. Yet others were published in Aramaic Studies and Biblica. One is the text of a talk which I gave to the Senior Old Testament Seminar in Oxford. Finally, one or two of them are blogs based on chapters of my book.
You’ll find pdf versions of some of these papers on my Scholarly Articles page. Some of them are on my Youtube channel too. But if you really want to understand the topic properly, you should get a copy of my book, Messiah ben Joseph (2016). It’s the biggest book ever written on this subject, and the first ever in English. Happy reading!
Since I published Messiah ben Joseph in 2016 I often get questions about this mysterious Messiah son of Joseph. Here are some of the questions I am asked most often and the answers.
This is quite a long video. So, if you want the full info, stay tuned. Or if you want an overview of the questions that interest you most, you’ll get the list of questions and their time-slots down below. Let’s go.
THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS have provided the greatest source of new insights into biblical studies in the last hundred years. The story is well known now. A Bedouin shepherd boy discovered the first scrolls in 1946. Later, other scrolls were discovered, making a total of thousands of documents which originated from the Judean state in the years 200 BC to AD 70.
Whose son is Messiah ben Joseph? If you’ve read my earlier posts, you’ll know that Messiah ben Joseph is the slain messiah of the rabbis. But where does he come from? Or, to put it another way, whose son is Messiah ben Joseph?
Does Messiah ben Joseph die as a sacrifice of atonement? Scholars say no. But I believe that is a misconception which we should challenge.
I have recently addressed common misunderstandings about Messiah ben Ephraim ben Joseph, the eschatological Ephraimite king who is slain before the coming of Messiah ben David.[1] In particular, I have proposed, contrary to current opinion, that his essential characteristics derive from Deut. 33:17 and so predate the turn of the era.[2]
I would now like to challenge another popular misconception: that is, the widespread claim that Messiah ben Joseph’s death has no atoning power.
Messiah bar Ephraim (Messiah ben Joseph) appears in the targums of Zech. 12:10, Exodus 40.9-11, and the Song of Songs. I examine all three passages here. I conclude that the Targumic Tosefta to Zech. 12.10, where Messiah bar Ephraim is vanquished, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Exod. 40.9-11, where he is the vanquisher, both predate the Christian period. The apparent conflict between his suffering and conquering roles may indicate a belief that Bar Ephraim’s death effects the final redemption. References in the Targum to the Song of Songs are also considered.
Two mysterious bull figures, a firstborn shor and a rem, feature in 1 Enoch 90 and in Deuteronomy 33. All agree that the figures in 1 Enoch speak of the Messiah. But what about those in Deuteronomy? Could they be about the Messiah too? Here I argue that they are. In fact, they speak about a Josephite Messiah, that is, a Messiah ben Joseph.
There are three references to Messiah ben Joseph in the Talmud. They all appear on a single page of the Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 52. This paper discusses the interpretation and dating of these texts.
In our last post we saw how Rabbinic literature features the figure of Messiah ben Joseph, the slain Galilean Messiah, and how his origins lie in the Seed of the Woman promised to Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 3, and in the Shepherd-Rock from Shaddai, promised to Joseph in Genesis 49. But it’s when these two promises are joined together in the book of Deuteronomy that we see Messiah ben Joseph as a dying and rising figure.
What are the origins of Messiah ben Joseph? Some people think he originated after the Romans sacked Jerusalem. But actually Messiah ben Joseph is first found in the Book of Genesis. Read on to find out why…
What is the Dead Sea Scrolls Text called the Joseph Apocryphon (4Q372) really about? I propose here that it is about a dying and rising Josephite Messiah.