Three Assumptions

[neilgodfrey]

I don't think Josephus is "silent" about the messianism of the Fourth Philosophy at all. He says that they expected "about that time one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth," and my guess is that this refers to "the Messiah" since this governor was expected to rule over "the habitable earth" and not just Judea.

This is the point in question:

These arguments, which are representative of a type, appear to suggest that the best way to learn about the messiah in ancient Judaism is to study texts in which there is none. — William Scott Green

It is assumptions all the way down. Yet there is no need. Just take the plain reading and hey presto, the Jews think and act, lo and behold, just like any other normal race faced with similar circumstances.

[arnoldo]

I don't think Josephus is "silent" about the messianism of the Fourth Philosophy at all. He says that they expected "about that time one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth," and my guess is that this refers to "the Messiah" since this governor was expected to rule over "the habitable earth" and not just Judea.

This is the point in question:

These arguments, which are representative of a type, appear to suggest that the best way to learn about the messiah in ancient Judaism is to study texts in which there is none. — William Scott Green

It is assumptions all the way down. Yet there is no need. Just take the plain reading and hey presto, the Jews think and act, lo and behold, just like any other normal race faced with similar circumstances.

Josephus wrote under extraordinary circumstances which must be taken into consideration.

Abstract
In the portrayal of David in his paraphrase of the Bible in the Antiquities, Josephus was confronted with a dilemma. On the one hand, as the beneficiary of so many gifts from the Romans, he could hardly praise David, who was the ancestor of the Messiah, and who ipso facto would lead a revolt against Rome and establish an independent state. On the other hand, David was a great folk hero, and his qualities of character could be used in answering the calumniators of the Jews. Josephus' solution was to adopt a compromise: thus he gives David a distinguished ancestry without stressing it unduly. He uses the figure of David to answer the denigrators of the Jews; he notes David's wealth to refute the canard that the Jews are beggars; he ascribes to him the cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, justice, and piety to counteract the charges that the Jews were not original, that they were cowards, that they were immoderate, that they lacked humanity (a corollary of justice), and that they were impious. When David is elevated, it is not so much for his own sake as it is to increase the drama of the situation.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23507841?s ... b_contents

[Ben C. Smith]

And the Fourth Philosophy was certainly engaged with the wider world, and as Josephus notes in Ant. 18.1.1, "the nation was infected with this doctrine to an incredible degree."

The thing is, Josephus may have motives for unduly playing up the influence of his "Fourth Philosophy" upon the nation, much in the same way that political parties today have motives for playing up the words and deeds of the more extreme factions among their rivals. Since Josephus is virtually our only source for whatever Jewish motives lay behind the war, we are in an unenviable position, and I do not want to be too quick to believe things that Josephus may be telling us tendentiously. But I have a lot more studying to do in that regard.

This is why I think post-OT messianism is a reasonable "assumption," because post-OT Judaism is messianic. I find it hard to understand the thinking that post-OT Judaism would not have been messianic for Jews who revered the OT. It is in the DNA of Judaism and presumably all the more so during times of disruption, as you say.

Apocalyptic predictions are built into the DNA of Christianity, too (the Olivet discourse, Paul, the entire Apocalypse of John, and so on), and yet many modern Christians do not spend much time on those particular parts of their Bible. Certain fundamentalist groups certainly do. I think that ancient Judaism had its version of those fundamentalist groups, and to varying degrees of extremity or expectation. (I think you may agree with this; just making sure.)

I'd like to see more of what Charlesworth says about this. I gather (and correct me if I'm wrong) that this citation is from his 1992 book The Messiah, and I don't have access to it, if so.

Personally, I have found Charlesworth to be mostly unhelpful to me on this particular issue, since he is arguing against positions I have never even been tempted to hold, to wit:

James H. Charlesworth, "From Messianology to Christology: Problems and Prospects," in The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity, page 6: Many books on christology and New Testament theology perpetuate without demonstration the following invalid assumptions: (1) One can move smoothly from Jewish messianology to Christian christology (2) What the Jews expected was fulfilled in the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who is then transparently the Messiah, Jesus Christ. (3) Jesus' followers were convinced of his messiahship because they saw how he filled the portrait of the Messiah.

Early Jewish literature, however, cannot be mined to produce anything like a checklist of what the Messiah shall do.

Well, quite. One needs to construct a viable trajectory for #1, and #2-3 are too naïve as they stand. Also, a checklist is not a definition, nor a definition a checklist, a distinction which will become relevant later, as Charlesworth seems to treat the Messiah as a list of traits or characteristics rather than as a meaningful concept which the word can communicate.

Charlesworth also focuses too heavily for my purposes upon the word Messiah itself, rather than on the concept that it represents (despite granting that it may be myopic to limit the adjective "messianic" only to actual instances of the noun Messiah). If two texts describe a future figure whom the respective authors view as having been promised in the Hebrew scriptures, but one text (say, the Psalms of Solomon) calls that figure a Messiah/Christ while the other (say, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs) does not, I see no reason for the wringing of hands.

Finally, and most frustratingly, Charlesworth veritably ransacks the Pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea scrolls (as well as later literature) for references to and characteristics of the/a Messiah, but hardly even touches the Hebrew scriptures in which ancient Jews themselves found their Messiah figure(s) predicted. Thus, for example, when he comes to the Messiah's ancestry on pages 19-20, he expresses surprise to find out that the Messiah is called the son of David in two pseudepigraphical sources, associated with Enoch in another, associated with Moses (as the Taheb) in another again, and possibly polemically called the son of God rather than of David in yet another. All of this without even once noticing or pointing out why some exegetes might think the/a Messiah would be the son of David (= God's promise to David of an eternal throne!), why other exegetes might associate the/a Messiah with Moses (= God's promise to raise up a prophet like Moses!), or why other variations might be possible (= the limited but very real variety of future figures predicted in the scriptures). He does mention Psalm 2 in this section — even acknowledging that some Jews read it as pertaining to the/a Messiah figure — but only to remind us that Psalm 2 does not explicitly link its anointed king with the line of David! (Elsewhere in the chapter he states that some passages from the OT were "implicitly" messianic, but he seems to be operating in the direction of Messiah to scripture, rather than in the direction of scripture to Messiah; thus, he ignores these "implicitly" messianic passages while interpreting the later Jewish treatments of them.) As for Enoch, not even a whisper about how "that Son of Man" is consciously based on "the one like a son of man" in Daniel 7. Virtually all of these early Jewish sources are exquisitely clear about the Hebrew scriptures from which they are drawing their concepts of a Messiah, yet Charlesworth does not seem to notice. Very frustrating! And this bizarre blindness to what the texts are expressly telling us makes most of his analysis worthless for actually figuring out what ancient Jews meant when they employed, however commonly or rarely, the term Messiah.

[Charles Wilson]

Note to friends: Neil knows. Others as well. It's now known as Armstrongism but for many others, it was simply the Worldwide Church of God.
"Well, GREET-Tengs Frenz, this is Herbert. Double-Yuu. Armstrong with the GOODT News of the Woooorld Tomorrow..."
Son Garner took over from dad and there was never a smoother presenter on TeeVee. Go to YouTube and you will find that there are loads of videos from Garner's last days. There are many copies of "United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy" still around.
http://www.wolvertoon.com/bwapocalypse/page6.html
Somewhere in Storage there is a box that has my copy of "The Book of Revelation Explained At Last" with the black-and-white versions of Wolverton's visions. Look up the meaning of "Clear Channel". The WCG would buy time at 11:00 PM on Clear Channel Stations (WLS out of Chicago, f'rinstance.) and most nights you could pick up the "World Tomorrow" as far south as Central Florida. For several decades there was nothing like the World Tomorrow Broadcast. It was an amazing thing.

So what happens when, for example, Israel is kicked out of the land, the priests are ousted and denied their role in the temple cult, and/or the Davidic line is no longer on the throne? Well, those promises cannot have been false; they were uttered by God himself, after all. The current sorry state of affairs must be a temporary setback, and the time is coming when all will be set right again, the promises vindicated...

This was the Guiding Thought behind British Israelism.

Yes, indeed. And there is perhaps a warning bell here. British Israelism interpreted those prophecies in that way because they read them naively, as if they really were written in the time of the Kingdoms of Samarian and Judah.

Yet if archaeological and literary evidence does indeed point to their composition in either the Persian or Hellenistic eras then we need a better informed understanding of what those passages meant to their original authors and audiences.

Agreed! It even points to a reason for the Roman Engineering. If it could be shown that God had given the Promises made to Israel and Judah over to Rome then an Empire had God's Approval (See, of course: Josephus)! The OT was self contained and the complaints about faithless Israel were not to be taken by others - especially by the hated Romans! - and manipulated by them.

Another example: Flavius Constantinus Heraclius "shores up" support on the Eastern Front, dealing with the Tribal Dynamics. Heraclius is gone in ten years but the "Treaties", such as they were, have given a Rulership to those tribes that becomes Islam.

So the "Eternal Promises" of the Israelites must be True and "If God said it, I believe it and that settles it", as the bumper sticker states. Key word: "Israelites"

Which leads to

"...we need a better informed understanding of what those passages meant to their original authors and audiences.

This almost gets us to "Call and Answer" Scripture, to explain the various Schools that put together the OT (Esp. the Hasmoneans). To me, these nuances must have been known but there are things that may be known but cannot be said. Ohhh, those damn Romans...

Thank you very much, neilgodfrey.

[neilgodfrey]

Josephus wrote under extraordinary circumstances which must be taken into consideration.

Feldman is a very reputable and thorough scholar, but when he comes to trying to think up possible reasons why Josephus did not say very much about David and why he said things about David that we don't think are all that significant, and why he told stories of Ruth and the Flood with a different emphasis, he sums up with a list of points sprinkled with a dozen "may haves" "might haves" and "must haves" .... no evidence is at hand to support any of his points which are all mere ad hoc rationalizations, trying to think up as many reasons as he can why Josephus did not say this and that.

A more sound method is to work harder at what Josephus is trying to say, what his ideological interests are, and accepting a thesis that explains what he DOES say.

The conventional wisdom assumes a simplistic view of Josephus that stems essentially from the Christian narrative itself and is left doing what Feldman does in that essay: making up possible reasons much of his text DOESN'T say certain things we wish he did talk more about. Ad hoc.

[neilgodfrey]

Having added to some of Charlesworth's comments I feel some responsibility to clarify what his argument in more depth. Sorry, Ben, but I think you have overlooked some of Charlesworth's points.

Personally, I have found Charlesworth to be mostly unhelpful to me on this particular issue, since he is arguing against positions I have never even been tempted to hold, to wit:

James H. Charlesworth, "From Messianology to Christology: Problems and Prospects," in The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity, page 6: Many books on christology and New Testament theology perpetuate without demonstration the following invalid assumptions: (1) One can move smoothly from Jewish messianology to Christian christology (2) What the Jews expected was fulfilled in the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who is then transparently the Messiah, Jesus Christ. (3) Jesus' followers were convinced of his messiahship because they saw how he filled the portrait of the Messiah.

Early Jewish literature, however, cannot be mined to produce anything like a checklist of what the Messiah shall do.

Well, quite. One needs to construct a viable trajectory for #1, and #2-3 are too naïve as they stand.

Charlesworth is not arguing against any of those "positions". He in fact is about to do precisely what Ben said is needed: "to construct a viable trajectory for #1". As for #2 and #3, Charlesworth is not presenting them as some "naive proposition" but is pointing out that "many books on christology and New Testament theology perpetuate without demonstration the following invalid assumptions."

Also, a checklist is not a definition, nor a definition a checklist, a distinction which will become relevant later, as Charlesworth seems to treat the Messiah as a list of traits or characteristics rather than as a meaningful concept which the word can communicate.

Charleworth begins his essay with a definition of the term messiah that he is about to discuss. I believe it is actually pretty close to Ben's own definition:

DEFINITION

It is helpful to define what I mean by “Messiah,” “messianic,” “messianol­ogy,” and “christology.” Scholarly publications on messianology and christol­ogy are frequently garbled by the different definitions which are used; many of which are never clarified.2 For the most part, I am convinced, Jewish mes­sianology developed out of the crisis and hope of the nonmessianic Maccabean wars of the second century b.c.e. 3 Palestinian Jews yearned for salvation from their pagan oppressors. For an undeterminable number of Jews the yearning centered on the future saving acts by a divinely appointed, and anointed, supernatural man: the Messiah. This eschatological figure will in­ augurate the end of all normal time and history. I, therefore, use the term “Messiah” in its etymological sense, to denote Gods eschatological Anointed One, the Messiah.4 The adjective “messianic” refers to images, symbols, or concepts either explicitly or implicitly linked to ideas about the Messiah. The noun “messianology” denotes Jewish ideas or beliefs in the Messiah. The noun “christology” is used here in a narrow sense; it is reserved for reflec­tions on Jesus as the Christ. My concern now is to discern how and why reflections about a Palestinian Jew, namely Jesus of Nazareth, could move from messianology to christology. By exploring this issue I am not implying that christology did somehow flow from the messianology. (pp. 3f)

Charlesworth also focuses too heavily for my purposes upon the word Messiah itself, rather than on the concept that it represents (despite granting that it may be myopic to limit the adjective "messianic" only to actual instances of the noun Messiah).

I think we have missed the point of Charlesworth's essay here. Having clarified his definition of the term at the outset he proceeds to test the validity of it against the evidence. It is "the concept itself" that he is testing. And that's where the checkpoints come in.

If two texts describe a future figure whom the respective authors view as having been promised in the Hebrew scriptures, but one text (say, the Psalms of Solomon) calls that figure a Messiah/Christ while the other (say, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs) does not, I see no reason for the wringing of hands.

A tad unfair, I suggest. According to C's essay, if one text calls the Messiah X, but another does not, that does not mean X is nullified -- it means that X stands. Charlesworth's "wringing of hands" happens when one text calls the Messiah X and another text says it is Not-X. Now that's a problem.

Finally, and most frustratingly, Charlesworth veritably ransacks the Pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea scrolls (as well as later literature) for references to and characteristics of the/a Messiah, but hardly even touches the Hebrew scriptures in which ancient Jews themselves found their Messiah figure(s) predicted.

Again, I think we have missed C's point. C explains his reason for focusing on first century texts. It is because he is exploring first century thought. Where those first century texts address Hebrew Scriptures then we are informed what the first century authors were thinking about those Hebrew Scriptures.

What shaped first-century Jewish thought? The only sources we possess for ascertaining the ideas of the Jews in Palestine before the burning of the Temple in 70 C.E. are their writings. Hence we must turn to texts, acknowledging that we have only a portion of the influential literature produced by the early Jews. . . . . (pp. 13f)

Thus, for example, when he comes to the Messiah's ancestry on pages 19-20, he expresses surprise to find out that the Messiah is called the son of David in two pseudepigraphical sources, associated with Enoch in another, associated with Moses (as the Taheb) in another again, and possibly polemically called the son of God rather than of David in yet another. All of this without even once noticing or pointing out why some exegetes might think the/a Messiah would be the son of David (= God's promise to David of an eternal throne!), why other exegetes might associate the/a Messiah with Moses (= God's promise to raise up a prophet like Moses!), or why other variations might be possible (= the limited but very real variety of future figures predicted in the scriptures). He does mention Psalm 2 in this section — even acknowledging that some Jews read it as pertaining to the/a Messiah figure — but only to remind us that Psalm 2 does not explicitly link its anointed king with the line of David!

Here is Charlesworth's justification for his narrow approach:

Since the Enlightenment, we Western scholars have sought focused and precise language; yet phenomena are usually ambiguous. . . . As the authors of some pre-100 C.E. Jewish writings stressed, specifically the authors of the Psalms of Solomon and 4 Ezra, no sage can describe, clarify, or identify the Messiah. God has preserved the Messiah in a secret place, will reveal him at the proper time, and he alone knows the identity of the Messiah. To understand early Jewish theology our terms must be as representative as possible; we simply cannot continue to use the adjective “messianic” as if it is synonymous with “eschatological,” even though an influential scholar, Professor Oscar Cullmann, encouraged us to continue such a
method.51

We must not claim as clear what is intentionally imprecise. We must heed the words of the discerning philosophical mathematician, F. P. Ramsey, when he warns that the “chief danger” of the scholar is to treat “what is vague as if it were precise. . . ,”52 A revered New Testament scholar, Krister Stendahl, formerly Professor of New Testament at Harvard and Bishop of Stockholm, recently cautioned against the ancient and modem “authority figures . . . who claim more precision in their definitions than is good for theology.”53 In summation, the allegory in the Dream Visions may at best be allegedly messianic; but it will not influence the following synthesis of messianic ideas in the Pseudepigrapha. (p. 19)

(Elsewhere in the chapter he states that some passages from the OT were "implicitly" messianic, but he seems to be operating in the direction of Messiah to scripture, rather than in the direction of scripture to Messiah; thus, he ignores these "implicitly" messianic passages while interpreting the later Jewish treatments of them.)

That is correct. And the reason is he is testing the common conventional definition of the term -- the definition that I think is close to your own. To work in the other direction would be circular reasoning. Confirmation bias at work.

Let's look at some of the problems that Charlesworth's "checklist" brings out:

Can the ancestry of the Messiah be discerned? The evidence is uncertain. Some texts say yes, he is from David, others seem to imply some other origin, perhaps even "God's son". Is he Davidic? Some say so, but others say he is "Mosaic", "Enochic" . . . etc.

We are left with uncertain, and perhaps fluid, traditions. (p. 20)

Is the Messiah a militant warrior? 2 Baruch 72:6 says the messiah will slay with the sword; but 4 Ezra 13:4-11 says the messiah will not use the sword or any other weapon. 2 Baruch says the messiah will bring bloodshed; Ps Sol and 4 Ezra reject this notion.

Why does the Messiah slay or defeat the nations? Because they are full of sinners (1 Enoch 45)? Because they ruled Israel (Pss Sol 17, 2 Baruch 72)? Perhaps not all will be destroyed (2 Bar. 72)?

Will Messiah purge Jerusalem? Yes (Pss Sol. 17); No, (4 Ezra 7).

Will he judge the world? Yes, (most texts); No, (4 Ezra -- judgment begins only after Messiah dies.)

Does he begin a new age? Ditto.

Who will be resurrected at his coming? Only the righteous (2 Baruch); Both righteous and unrighteous (4 Ezra)

Will he establish peace forever? Yes (1 Enoch 38, 48-52; 2 Baruch 73-74); No, (2 Baruch 36-40; 4 Ezra 7)

Will he be human? Yes, like the ancient kings of Israel (2 Baruch) and from the posterity of David (4 Ezra 12); But elsewhere he is said to be a man who rises out of the sea (4 Ezra 13-14)

There are more, but that gives you the idea.

Which brings us back to the Charlesworth point, the need for a trajectory "from Jewish messianology to Christian christology", as Ben rightfully recognized as a necessity.

The complexity of messianic ideas, the lack of a coherent messianology among the documents in the Pseudepigrapha and among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the frequently contradictory messianic predictions prohibit anything
approximating coherency in early Jewish messianology.83 If we were statisticians, we might conclude that we should ignore Jewish messianic references because they are so meager, and when present so vague or contradictory. There is no smooth transition from messianology to christology. (pp. 28f)

To be even clearer, contrast C's comment on Jesus as a messiah figure:

Jesus’ actions were decidedly not those often associated with the Messiah. He certainly performed miracles, as we know assuredly from studying the Evangelists’ sources, Josephus, and Rabbinics; but the Messiah is not portrayed in Early Judaism as a miracle worker (even though he does perform wonders in 4Ezra 13). Jesus suffered and was crucified; and despite attempts from scholars for over one hundred years to prove otherwise from our vastly increased store of primary sources, we still have no evidence that Jews during the time of Jesus considered that God’s Messiah would come and suffer.14 The rabbinic references to two Messiahs, one of whom will die, postdate the second century C.E., and, therefore, are too late to be used to portray the messianology of the early Jews.15 The reference to the death of the Messiah in 4 Ezra 7:29 is not a Christian interpolation into this Jewish apocalypse. But the death of the Messiah here is not efficacious and is clearly distinct from the Christian affirmation about Jesus. According to 4 Ezra 7, the Messiah’s death serves to mark the end of a set period of time and history. (p. 8)

Charlesworth's conclusion:

CONCLUSION

We have seen why it is impossible to define, and difficult to describe the messianology of the early Jews.93 There is no discernible development in messianic beliefs from the first century b.c.e. to the first century c.e. (pp. 31 f)

Charlesworth's concluding summary (my formatting):

Summary. The major conclusions of this study may be summarized as follows:

(1) Jewish messianology exploded into the history of ideas in the early first century b.C.e., and not earlier, because of the degeneration in the Hasmonean dynasty and the claim of the final ruling Hasmoneans, especially Alexander Jannaeus, to be “the king,” and because of the loss of the land promised as Israel’s inheritance to the gentile and idolatrous nation Rome.

(2) Jews did not profess a coherent and normative messianology.

(3) New Testament scholars must read and attempt to master all the early Jewish writings; there is much to admire about the genius of early Jewish theology. The Jewish social and ideological contexts of Christian origins are not the background for, but the foreground of, Jesus and his earliest followers.

(4) One can no longer claim that most Jews were looking for the coming of the Messiah.

(5) The gospels and Paul must not be read as if they are reliable sources for pre-70 Jewish beliefs in the Messiah.

We have seen that it is not easy to describe the messianology of pre-70 Jews. We have been left with numerous questions, most notably this one: Why did Jesus’ followers claim above all that he was the Messiah?

Very frustrating! And this bizarre blindness to what the texts are expressly telling us makes most of his analysis worthless for actually figuring out what ancient Jews meant when they employed, however commonly or rarely, the term Messiah.

It is, and I think that is his message. The term is not at all clear.

[John2]

And the Fourth Philosophy was certainly engaged with the wider world, and as Josephus notes in Ant. 18.1.1, "the nation was infected with this doctrine to an incredible degree."

The thing is, Josephus may have motives for unduly playing up the influence of his "Fourth Philosophy" upon the nation, much in the same way that political parties today have motives for playing up the words and deeds of the more extreme factions among their rivals. Since Josephus is virtually our only source for whatever Jewish motives lay behind the war, we are in an unenviable position, and I do not want to be too quick to believe things that Josephus may be telling us tendentiously. But I have a lot more studying to do in that regard.

Rabbinic writings echo Josephus though.

In the Talmud, the Zealots are the non-religious (not following the religious leaders), and are also called the Biryonim (בריונים) meaning "boorish", "wild", or "ruffians", and are condemned for their aggression, their unwillingness to compromise to save the survivors of besieged Jerusalem, and their blind militarism against the rabbis' opinion to seek treaties for peace. However, according to one body of tradition, the rabbis initially supported the revolt up until the Zealots initiated a civil war, at which point all hope of resisting the Romans was deemed impossible. The Zealots are further blamed for having contributed to the demise of Jerusalem and the Second Temple, and of ensuring Rome's retributions and stranglehold on Judea. According to the Babylonian Talmud, Gittin:56b, the Biryonim destroyed decades' worth of food and firewood in besieged Jerusalem to force the Jews to fight the Romans out of desperation. This event directly led to the escape of Johanan ben Zakai out of Jerusalem, who met Vespasian, a meeting which led to the foundation of the Academy of Jamnia which produced the Mishnah which led to the survival of rabbinical Judaism. The Zealots advocated violence against the Romans, their Jewish collaborators, and the Sadducees, by raiding for provisions and other activities to aid their cause.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zealots#In_the_Talmud

And the support some Pharisees had for the Fourth Philosophy makes sense given that Josephus says the latter "agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions" in Ant. 18.1.6 (like Josephus himself and in my view the Pharisee Christians in Acts 15:5 and eventually Paul as well).

Apocalyptic predictions are built into the DNA of Christianity, too (the Olivet discourse, Paul, the entire Apocalypse of John, and so on), and yet many modern Christians do not spend much time on those particular parts of their Bible. Certain fundamentalist groups certainly do. I think that ancient Judaism had its version of those fundamentalist groups, and to varying degrees of extremity or expectation. (I think you may agree with this; just making sure.)

Sure. As I said upthread, "I wouldn't suppose that 'almost all' [using Charlesworth's language] first century CE Jews expected 'the Messiah' to arrive then (or at any particular time)". And thanks for the Charlesworth feedback!

[John2]

arnoldo wrote:

Josephus wrote under extraordinary circumstances which must be taken into consideration.

Abstract
In the portrayal of David in his paraphrase of the Bible in the Antiquities, Josephus was confronted with a dilemma. On the one hand, as the beneficiary of so many gifts from the Romans, he could hardly praise David, who was the ancestor of the Messiah, and who ipso facto would lead a revolt against Rome and establish an independent state. On the other hand, David was a great folk hero, and his qualities of character could be used in answering the calumniators of the Jews. Josephus' solution was to adopt a compromise: thus he gives David a distinguished ancestry without stressing it unduly. He uses the figure of David to answer the denigrators of the Jews; he notes David's wealth to refute the canard that the Jews are beggars; he ascribes to him the cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, justice, and piety to counteract the charges that the Jews were not original, that they were cowards, that they were immoderate, that they lacked humanity (a corollary of justice), and that they were impious. When David is elevated, it is not so much for his own sake as it is to increase the drama of the situation.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23507841?s ... b_contents

I'm not sure how much David was a factor in the (in my view) messianism of the Fourth Philosophy given my view that Josephus' "ambiguous oracle" was based on the book of Daniel, which doesn't mention David at all.

[arnoldo]

arnoldo wrote:

Josephus wrote under extraordinary circumstances which must be taken into consideration.

Abstract
In the portrayal of David in his paraphrase of the Bible in the Antiquities, Josephus was confronted with a dilemma. On the one hand, as the beneficiary of so many gifts from the Romans, he could hardly praise David, who was the ancestor of the Messiah, and who ipso facto would lead a revolt against Rome and establish an independent state. On the other hand, David was a great folk hero, and his qualities of character could be used in answering the calumniators of the Jews. Josephus' solution was to adopt a compromise: thus he gives David a distinguished ancestry without stressing it unduly. He uses the figure of David to answer the denigrators of the Jews; he notes David's wealth to refute the canard that the Jews are beggars; he ascribes to him the cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, justice, and piety to counteract the charges that the Jews were not original, that they were cowards, that they were immoderate, that they lacked humanity (a corollary of justice), and that they were impious. When David is elevated, it is not so much for his own sake as it is to increase the drama of the situation.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23507841?s ... b_contents

I'm not sure how much David was a factor in the (in my view) messianism of the Fourth Philosophy given my view that Josephus' "ambiguous oracle" was based on the book of Daniel, which doesn't mention David at all.

Feldman does state “Josephus never mention David in the context of the Messiah.” Allegedly, the "ambiguous oracle" was cited by Josephus in order not to offend the Romans.

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[MrMacSon]

... what is meant by the term "messiah" more generally?

< ... snip ...>
I am influenced in part by Mathew Novenson's Christ Among the Messiahs. Novenson argues that the popular notion today of the messiah figure of ancient Judea (a figure to come -- from David, of course -- and trounce the Romans and restore Israel to world dominance) was not the standard view of a messiah in the Second Temple era. In fact he argues that the messiah ("christ") figure of the letters of Paul was very much a comfortable fit within the kaleidoscopic messianic concepts of Second Temple Judaism.

"not the standard view of a messiah in the Second Temple era" implies there were a variety of views of a messiah in the second century, as does "the kaleidoscopic messianic concepts of Second Temple Judaism".

I am also influenced by William Scott Green, Jacob Neusner et al as per Judaisms and Their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era

That title implies there were Judaic "Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era" ...

In conclusion, I suppose, I think the term "messiah" should be read where we see it spelled out, literally, in the text, and it should be interpreted according to the context of that text. We are on thin ice when we assume passages that make no mention of the term are really about that same term they do not mention. This is especially so when those passages fit our modern assumptions about the meaning of the term messiah.

I would argue that the fact the word or term "messiah" is not used explicitly does not mean there were not early to mid first century figures or persons (or even 2nd C figures or persons, such as Simon bar Kosiba -> Kohkba, 'son of the star') who were perceived to have been messiah in their time or some time after.

So we come to Josephus and all those stories of bandits and rebels and prophets (always false prophets) who are interpreted by modern readers as "messianic pretenders". Here is where the gratuitous assumptions of modern readers tend to muddy the waters. Let's assume the various peoples of Palestine and Syrian, Galilee and Samaria and Judea, were essentially like any other peoples of that time and region. Are we not over-reaching when we read into every revolt, every prophet, every bandit king, a "messianic pretension"?1 I think we are.

1 I disagree. And you use emotive language, viz. "when we read into every revolt, every prophet,very bandit king" - I doubt many are reading into every account of Josephus of rebels, prophets, or bandit [kings].

The issue is as much what subsequent others might have thought or conveyed or portrayed other entities as, due to the influence of the accounts they had read or heard.

And you admit that Josephus is likely to have changed his representation of various people, -

We often read that Josephus did not mention messianic pretenders for fear of offending his Roman readers. But that rings hollow: Josephus mentioned many classes of persons who had the potential to supposedly offend his Roman audience. And Josephus loved good prophets, and thought of himself as one -- but was quite capable of denigrating "false prophets". He could surely have just as easily got rid of "false messiahs", had they really existed, by the same epithet: "false messiahs".

And what you subsequently wrote goes to the crux of my point/s -

Then we have messianic figures mentioned in Second Temple literature, including the DSS. I challenge anyone to explain exactly how a mention of a messianic figure in those texts is evidence of popular messianic expectations that inspired a nation to rebel against Rome in the later part of the first century. Intellectual or theological metaphors, speculations, even prophecies, on the part of certain scribal interests, do not ipso facto translate into popular enthusiasms and hopes -- except in the minds of moderns who are looking for evidence of those hopes. After all, such popular hopes would help flesh out traditional or conventional narratives about Jesus.

The way you frame that, especially by implying and emphasising it is all due to "the minds of moderns" denies the fact that, post the first roman-Jewish War in the mid 2nd century, and possibly also after the 2nd [major] Roman-Jewish war in the early 130s ad/ce, Jewish people would have been hoping for someone to lead them to restoration and various stories to that effect would have found favour.