Messiah Ben Joseph: a Sacrifice of Atonement for Israel

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MESSIAH BEN JOSEPH: A SACRIFICE OF ATONEMENT FOR ISRAEL

David C. Mitchell

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 I have proposed that, contrary to current opinion, his essential characteristics derive from Deut. 33:17 and so predate the turn of the era.2 Here, I chal- lenge another popular misconception, the widespread claim that Messiah ben Joseph’s death has no atoning power. Thus, for instance, Strack and Billerbeck state: However all the sources that we possess about Messiah ben Ephraim agree on this, that they ascribe no atoning power to his death. It is indicative in this respect that never a word from Isaiah 53 is applied to Messiah ben Ephraim.3

1 See particularly D.C. Mitchell, “Firstborn Shor and Rem: A Sacrificial Josephite Messiah in 1 Enoch 90.37–38 and Deuteronomy 33.17,” in JSP 15.3 (2006), pp. 211–228. See also my “Messiah bar Ephraim in the Targums,” in Aramaic Studies 4.2 ( July, 2006); “The Fourth Deliverer: A Josephite Messiah in 4Q175,” in Bib 86.4 (2005), pp. 545–553; “Rabbi Dosa and the Rabbis Differ: Messiah ben Joseph in the Babylonian Talmud,” in Review of Rabbinic Judaism 8 (2005), pp. 77–90; “A Josephite Messiah in 4Q372,” in JSP 17.1 (2007). I cite six apocalyptic midrashim dealing with Ben Joseph in Hebrew with ET in my The Message of the Psalter: An Eschatological Programme in the Book of Psalms (Sheffield, 1997), pp. 304–350, and tra- ditions that apply the Psalms to him in my “Les psaumes dans le judaïsme rab- binique,” in RTL 36.2 (2005), pp. 166–191 (187–189). 2 The view that Messiah ben Joseph derives from Deut. 33:17 is, of course, not new. It is found throughout Rabbinic literature and in a number of eighteenth and nineteenth century commentators. But, in the last hundred years, it has been mar- ginalized by the idea that Messiah ben Joseph arose from the downfall of Bar Kokhba. (For the proponents of the different views, see the final pages of “Messiah bar Ephraim”). Part of my task has been to remake in detail the case for the biblical origins of Ben Joseph. 3 “Alle Angaben aber die wir über den Messias b. Ephraim besitzen, stimmen darin überein, daß sie seinem Tode keine Sühnkraft zuschreiben. Bezeichnend ist in dieser Hinsicht, daß auf den Messias b. Ephraim nirgends ein Wort aus Jesaja 53 gedeutet wird;“ H.L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (Munich, 1924/1928), vol. II, p. 297.

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Likewise G.H. Dalman: None of the passages concerned with him gives his death an atoning value, none speaks of suffering preceding it.4 And J. Klausner: It is not necessary to speak at all of the view of those Christian the- ologians who wish to see in “Messiah ben Joseph” a Messiah who makes atonement for the sins of Israel or of all mankind (a theme found later in the Kabbalistic books, for example, “The Two Tables of the Covenant” by Isaiah Horowitz).... Messiah ben Joseph, who is slain, affords no atonement by his blood and his sufferings are not vicarious.5 And D. Castelli: In no stage of the tradition is it said that the Messiah son of Joseph must suffer as an expiator of sins; it is only said there that he will die in battle.6 And H.H. Rowley: . . . there is nothing to suggest that the death of the Messiah ben Ephraim was vicarious.... Still less is there any evidence that the suffering Servant of Is. 53 had anything to do with the Messiah ben Ephraim.7 All these writers deny any atoning or expiating power to Messiah ben Joseph’s death. Moreover, Strack-Billerbeck and Rowley deny any connection between Messiah ben Joseph and the suffering servant of Hinneh avdi (Is. 52:13–53:12). Dalman suggests that there is no mention of Messiah ben Joseph’s suffering before his death. Klausner dismisses the idea of Messiah ben Joseph’s making atonement for the sins of Israel as a Christian idea, even as he cites by way of example a later work of impeccable Jewish credentials.

4 “Keine der mit ihm sich beschäftigenden Stellen gibt seinem Tode einem Sühnwert, keine [Stelle] redet von einem demselben vorangehenden Leiden;” G.H. Dalman, Der leidende und der sterbende Messias der synagoge im ersten nachchristlichen Jahrtausend (Berlin, 1888), p. 22. 5 J. Klausner, The Messianic Idea in Israel (London, 1956), pp. 483, 530. 6 D. Castelli, Il Messia Secondo Gli Ebrei (Florence, 1874), p. 228. 7 “The Suﬀering Servant and the Davidic Messiah,” in The Servant of the Lord and Other Essays on the Old Testament (Oxford; 2nd rev. ed. 1965 [1952]), pp. 63–93 (76, 74).