Front cover image for The scepter and the star : the messiahs of the Dead Sea scrolls and other ancient literature

The scepter and the star : the messiahs of the Dead Sea scrolls and other ancient literature

"In The Scepter and the Star, John J. Collins turns to the Dead Sea Scrolls to shed new light on the origins, meaning, and relevance of messianic expectations. The first Christians were Jews who believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the messiah - the Christ; Christians could be called "followers of the messiah." Other Jews did not accept this claim, and so the Christians went their own way and grew into a separate religion. The disagreement about the identity of the messiah is the root difference between Judaism and Christianity." "The recent disclosure of the full corpus of the Dead Sea Scrolls now makes it possible to see this disagreement in a fuller context than ever before. The most stunning revelation of the new evidence is the diversity of messianic expectations in Judaism around the beginning of the common era. The Hebrew word "messiah" means "anointed one." According to the scrolls, the messiah could be a warrior king in the line of David, a priest, a prophet, or a teacher. He could be called "the Son of God." Jesus of Nazareth fitted the expectations some Jews of the time had of the messiah. The majority of Jews, however, had quite different expectations."--BOOK JACKET
Print Book, English, 1995
Doubleday, New York, 1995
Prophecies
xi, 270 pages : illustrations, map ; 25 cm.
9780385474573, 0385474571
30360861
Messianism and the scrolls
The fallen booth of David : Messianism and the Hebrew Bible
A shoot from the stump of Jesse
The Messiahs of Aaron and Israel
Teacher, priest and prophet
A throne in the heavens
The Messiah as the Son of God
The Danielic Son of Man
Messianic dreams in action