Israel's Messiah in the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Israel's Messiah in the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by Richard S. Hess and M. Daniel Carroll R. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003, 192 pp., $17.99 paper.

This book is the publication of the papers delivered at a conference hosted in February 2001 by the Denver Institute for Contextualized Biblical Studies at Denver Seminary. The plan and layout of the book reflect its origin, even to the point of retaining a healthy degree of the usual give and take of such conferences on key issues of biblical theology. The book also reflects the wide spectrum of ideas and approaches represented at the conference. The editors of the book are to be commended for remaining faithful to the conference goals.

The book, as was the conference, is organized around four central papers, each reflecting the topic of "Israel's Messiah" within its varied contexts: in the OT, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the NT, and in Latin American theology. One might think of other equally important contexts, but this selection proves well adapted to the topic and purpose of the conference and carries over nicely into the book. There is, in fact, a good deal of the chemistry of the conference itself preserved in the organization of the book. Each of these topics makes its own important contribution. Also contributing to the value of the book as a whole is the apparently conscious decision not to reedit the papers for publication. For the most part, the papers retain their original colloquial style and collegiality. That spirit of openness, as it turns out, allowed for the airing of a considerable degree of difference between the major papers and their respondents.

In the first section, on the "Messiah in the OT," the main paper is that of Daniel I. Block. After briefly admonishing those who may, in Block's opinion, see too much of the Messiah in the OT for their own good, Block turns to the main point of his paper, the question of how the writers (and original readers) of the OT "perceived" the Messiah when they were, in fact, thinking messianically. Though his point is principally to demonstrate that the Messiah in ancient Israel was chiefly understood as a future (Davidic) king, and not, as many have suggested, also a priest and a prophet, his respondents, J. Daniel Hays and M. Daniel Carroll R., eagerly take him to task not only on this main point but also on a number of other important issues (mostly hermeneutical) that call into question the importance, if not the legitimacy, of major parts of his argument. One quickly gets the impression that there is still much work to be done on both sides, and, happily, both sides appear to be genuinely listening.

I am tempted to revive here some of the helpful debate represented by the respondents in this first section. But, alas, the reader will have to explore that on his/her own. I cannot move on, however, without calling specific attention to M. Daniel Carroll R.'s one-page discussion on the Servant Songs of Isaiah (pp. 79-80). I found very helpful the way he has framed the issue, and the sense of what he says about it. His (and Daniel Hays's and Karen Jobes's) comments are typical of the high caliber of responses given throughout the book.

The second major section of the book is devoted to Craig A. Evans's paper on the Messiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls. What can I say other than that here one finds a definitive paper on a central topic by one of the leading scholars in the field? The only missing element, which is not unique to this section, is somewhat of a lack of linkage between it and the other sections of the book. Although it is not fair simply to ask for more of a good thing, it can be argued that there is a perceptible missing link between Evans's paper on the Dead Sea Scrolls material and the previous section on the Messiah in the OT. But here we are more likely getting into questions, not about the book and the papers, but about the structure of the conference. It would, for example, have been interesting to have planned a brief response to Evans's paper by the OT presenter. Richard S. Hess, in his response to Evans, wisely alludes to some of this material in the earlier sections, but as it is, the reader is for the most part left to himself/herself to tie together the loose ends.

In some respects the third section, Craig L. Blomberg's excellent and important paper on the "Messiah in the New Testament" is, in the case of this book, a missed opportunity. In his opening paragraph, Blomberg states that a biblical-theological "focus on the distinctive contributions of each NT author or corpus to the varied portrait of Jesus" has "been done repeatedly and accurately" and "requires more than one chapter of a book to accomplish in any detail" (p. 111). He thus decides not to do it but, instead, to "tackle" the specific question of whether the Greek word Christos is used in the NT as a proper noun or a title. That is quite a scaling down of objectives! Perhaps this is where the strong hand of an editor could have intervened by insisting he stick to the game plan of the book. In any case his conclusion is important, if still very tentative and of consequence to only a relatively small circle of the book's readership. He finds there is no unambiguous evidence to suggest that any of the 531 occurrences of "Christ" in the NT was ever understood as Jesus' last name. His respondent, William W. Klein, applies equal scrutiny to his own 529 occurrences of "Christ," amicably demonstrating along the way several methodological pitfalls in Blomberg's arguments. Both papers, which are of highest quality, should have been published in a NT journal, rather than in this book.