It is generally recognized that Messianic belief at Qumran was not rigid. Some texts witness to two deliverers. Others are thought to have three: priest messiah, king messiah, and prophet [1]. I wish to suggest here that one text, so far understood as having three deliverers, has in fact four deliverers, and one of them is a Josephite Messiah.
Messiah ben Joseph
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!