How does one know that an
item in the Messiah, Talmuds, or Targums has not been derived from prior
Christian usage, viz. as a reaction to it? Here I should like to mention
the recent debate about Elias redivivus as the precursor of the Messiah.
As far as I can see, that Elijah was expected to return as the forerunner of
the Messiah is nowhere attested in the Old Testament or in any pre-Christian
Jewish literature. When the idea about Elijah as the precursor of the Messiah
first surfaces explicitly, it does so in the writings of Justin Martyr, Dial.
cum Tryph. 8.4; 49.1-7. So, when the idea emerges in the fifth or sixth
century in the Babylonian Talmud (t. b. ‘Erub. 43a-b), it may well be
under Christian influence. At least one an say that it is not certainly of
Jewish origin alone. Or again the saying attributed to R. Abbahu (of the third generation
of Amoraim) in the Palestinian Talmud, Ta’anit II.1 (65b), which in its
final form was redacted ca. A.D. 425:
אייר אבהו אם יאמר לך אדם אל אני
מכזב הוא, בן אדם אני סופו לתהות בו שאני כולה לשמים ההוא אמר ולא יקימינה.
R. Abbahu said, “If someone
says to you, ‘I am God,’ he is a liar, ‘I am a son of Adam (or: a son of Man),’
his end will be a regret to him. ‘I am ascending to heaven,’ that man has said
it (indeed), but he will not substantiate it.”
The Talmudic passage is
often explained by reference to Num 23:19, the oracle of Balaam in which one
finds the sole use of בן אדם in the Pentateuch. But R. Abbahu was otherwise
known for his disputations with Christians, and how does one know that he was
not referring to a saying of Jesus (e.g. John 6:62 [“Then what if you
will see the Son of Man ascending where he was before”]; 20:17 [“I have not yet
ascended to the Father”])? (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Problems of the Semitic
Background of the New Testament,” in The Yahweh/Baal Confrontation and Other
Studies in Biblical Literature and Archaeology: Essays in Honour of Emmett Willard
Hamrick—When Religions Collide, ed. Julia M. O’Brien and Fred L. Horton,
Jr. [Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 35; Lewiston, Maine: Mellen
Biblical Press, 1995], 89-90)
To Support this Blog:
Email for Amazon Gift card: ScripturalMormonism@gmail.com
Email for Logos.com Gift Card: IrishLDS87@gmail.com
