The ancient Jews long expected the Messiah. The promise of the Messiah is in their canonical text, as well as extra-canonical ones. One of the first classes I took in seminary was on the Old Testament. Admittedly, even after doing decently well in two Old Testament classes, I hardly know anything about the Old Testament, and my guess is it will forever remain a mystery to me.
When I read the Old Testament, trying as best as possible to read it as an ancient Jew would, I see a Messiah that does not look like Jesus. As I pretend to be a Jew of the first century, the Messiah would look to me like a powerful, eschatological figure who would liberate Israel from its captors and restore Israel to a mighty nation. I doubt my reading is much different from the Jews who knew Jesus and were his disciples. They asked Jesus,
Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel at this time? (Acts 1:6)
These disciples had been with Jesus, witnessed his awesomeness, seen him die, and experienced his resurrection, yet they still were looking for a restoration of the kingdom to Israel. This, however, did not happen.
How do we reconcile the Jewish expectation of the Messiah in the Old Testament with the Jesus we know from the New Testament account? Do we read the Old Testament from the vantage point of New, or is that taking away the voice of the Old Testament? Is there a way to let the Old Testament stand with its own story about the Messiah, and do this without neglecting the New Testament? What is your view of the Messianic expectation of the ancient Jews?
the archives near Emmaus 
I have a few thoughts:
(1) We should read the Old Testament references to this Messianic figure, as well as other Second Temple literature, in order to see the complexities of this expectation. I do not see a single vision of Messiah. In fact, we may see competing Messianic visions.
(2) I do not think it is possible to read the Old Testament “meaningfully” without seeing Jesus. I know many exegetes do not want to read “anachronistically”, but I think this fails to understand literature, texts, and meaning. As Gadamer has shown “meaning” occurs when the reader engages the text. The history of the text is not something that can be discarded (by this I mean the interpretive tradition of a text) for some sort of “original meaning” because I do not think there is some sort of pristine “singular meaning” to be found. Language is too complex.
(3) The exercise form here is to see how Christ himself transformed the “meaning” of these text by his actions. Christ does conquer the enemy and as the evangelist show this has less to do with Rome (though we shouldn’t take Rome completely off the table) and more to do with the “actual” force behind all evil power structures–the Satanic kingdom. I think this is why the Second Gospel presents Christ as trying to keep his Messianic identity secret. If he says he is “Messiah” then people will automatically attempt to force him into the mold of their expectations. Jesus deconstructed the word “Messiah” and he defined it.
To summarize: We should let the OT and STL speak for itself in order to see how the expected Messianic figure was perceived by diverse groups but we should less the NT inform us of how Christ actualized the messianic vocation and redefined those expectations.
Great post John. This is something that I have never considered before. I can clearly see that I have been reading the Old Testament from the vantage point of a believer in Jesus. In my limited knowledge of the Old Testament, it seems like the ancient Jews were expecting a great political leader who would arise in great power and maybe even fear. This is so far from the reality of what happened that I can’t blame people for their skepticism.
It really depends on what you mean when you say “read the Old Testament” (= what?) and “Jewish expectation” (=which Jews, when?).
Are you thinking in terms of the separate oral prophetic oracles and individual psalms as products of the pre-exilic period?
Or are you thinking of a Scripture collection made up of texts that were composed and edited in light of each other in the Second Temple period–e.g., written prophetic literature, and the Psalter?
Thanks to other Second Temple period texts, we actually know the context in which the latter is being shaped and read, and we know the various forms that “Jewish expectation” takes in this period. It is only to be expected that hope for the agent(s) sent by God to address certain problems would look somewhat different during the Second Temple period than it would in earlier times. You might, for example, see a shift in hope for an ideal Davidic king to a hope for an eschatological Davidic king.
re: Brian’s post above: perhaps the wording “how Christ transformed the meaning of these texts” is a bit too strong, given your other comments about the diversity of perspectives in the text. The fact that Jesus and the NT authors are linking the diverse ‘messianic’ roles (e.g. Davidic King, Heavenly Ruler, Prophet like Moses, Servant of Yhwh, etc) together is not new; this is already happening in the Second Temple period. The odd/surprising thing is the way Jesus prioritizes one role (Servant) above the others. So: is this really “transforming the meaning of texts,” or is this simply correlating certain texts together along one of several possible trajectories present in the Scripture collection?
Also: Brian, I see a certain tension between your comments “I do not think it is possible to read the Old Testament “meaningfully” without seeing Jesus” and “As Gadamer has shown “meaning” occurs when the reader engages the text” 🙂
@Michael: I guess I ought to expand what I mean by that. It did come across as a bit of a misnomer. I am saying that “meaning” is the reading process that includes both the reader and her presuppositions as well as the content of the text and what it is attempting to communicate. This is in contrast with the Schleiermacherian view where meaning is something objectively found in the text alone that we can “exegete” using the historical-grammatical-psychological approach. For Gadmer the play of reading brings forth meaning.
For example, if Paul believes he has seen the resurrected Christ there will be elements of the OT that he will read differently because how is it possible to read them with a static “meaning” once you have seen the resurrection? While Gen. 3.15 likely would not have had most of the implications we associate with it (let alone Paul’s interpretation) in that the “seed”/”decedent” could have meant many things to many readers over the centuries, is there any way in which we Christians cannot help but find the “meaning” of the text to be a combination of the words of the text and our own experience post-the resurrection?
Brian,
re: your clarification–quite. Of course texts don’t “have” meanings; authors and readers have meanings. And of course our experiences influence our reading.
I’m dubious, however, about the value of invoking Gadamer to argue for the post-resurrection experience of a reader as *sufficient* grounds for explaining in toto the reading strategies of the NT authors. “Necessary,” certainly; but not “sufficient”–because we have to account for pre-existing exegetical motivations that come from earlier Second Temple period reading strategies. Unless you want to include this in “experience” as well–that works for me 🙂
re: “how is it possible to read them with a static meaning once you have seen the resurrection?”–I could just as easily ask you, how would it be possible for 1st century Jews to interpret the experience known as “the resurrection” without drawing on pre-existing readings of Scriptural texts as resources?
@Michael: I don’t mean to indicate that Gadamer’s hermeneutics is a “method” accessible to first century writers (esp. since Gadamer doesn’t attempt to explain methodology as much as an observation of how communication occurs). I am using it as an example of the reader-text interaction from which meaning emerges. Wiith that I think your last paragraph is a valuable point. It is the circle of event –> text —> event –> and on and on the circle goes.
Michael,
Thanks for that clarification. I was thinking in terms of the Scripture collection. Concerning eschatological Davidic king you mentioned, this seems to be part of the reason why Jesus is accepted and is also rejected. There is definitely an eschatological element to Jesus that makes Jesus the Messiah for some, but the very fact that he didn’t make things final also leads to his rejection for others.
Brian: “We should let the OT and STL speak for itself in order to see how the expected Messianic figure was perceived by diverse groups but we should less the NT inform us of how Christ actualized the messianic vocation and redefined those expectations.”
I think your solution is helpful. At the same time, I wonder how things might look if we read the New Testament in light of the Old Testament. In my mind, the similarities would be primarily eschatological. So where there are the differences, how would we let the OT inform the NT? After all, all the earliest church had to work with was the OT. Do you think this is viable?
Josh: I resonate with your entire comment, particularly about the not placing blame on people for their skepticism. What do you get out pastorally out of this?
@JohnDave: Yes, as Michael rightly noted above, there does need to be the realization that the influence goes both ways. Paul interpreted the OT through the resurrection, but we should note he understood the resurrection, in part, because of his reading of the OT (and likely we should add his tradition as a Pharisee).