Many Messiahs, One King

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The centuries before and after Jesus was a time of intense conflict for the Jews. Jesus was not the first or last person to start a movement that many hoped would change the fate o f God’s people. In Simply Jesus, N. T. Wright highlights four historical figures (Judah the Hammer, Simon the Star, Herod the Great, and Simon Bar-Giora) to illustrate how Jesus’s ministry compared and contrasted with other Messianic movements of this time. He concludes, “This detour into the history of would-be royal movements in the centuries on either side of Jesus is designed to make two points that will, I hope, clarify various things about his public career. First, there was a well-recognized set of expectations for a ‘king of the Jews,’ with roots extending all the way back to the Exodus. The recitation of expectations has become almost monotonous with repetition; victory over the pagans and cleansing or rebuilding the Temple were high on the list. Second, it was to be expected that any such campaign would have (at least) two key ‘moments’: first, the time when the flag was raised, the initial proclamation was made, and the movements was launched, and then the moment when the final battle was won and the Temple rebuilt. Such movements would expect to live between these two moments, between an initial announcement and a final victory” (N. T. Wright, Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters [New York: HarperOne, 2011], 116). Show more