The Encyclopedia of World Religions

messiah S 291

The word “messiah” is not used in the Hebrew B IBLE (Old Testament) in any of these ways. Instead, the word refers to people who have received a spe cial office through a RITUAL of anointing. It refers especially to priests and kings. The Hebrew Bible does contain passages that envision a future golden age. But none of the visionary passages connect this restoration with a figure called the messiah. I SAIAH comes closest to doing so. He calls Cyrus, the king of Persia, YHWH’s (“the Lord’s”) messiah (Isaiah 45.1). That is because, acting on YHWH’s behalf, Cyrus had conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to return home. A little before the time of Jesus, the idea of a messiah was joined to expectations of a future bliss coming at the end of time. Jews began to look for many messiahs. Some of them were priestly in nature; some were kingly. A community connected with the D EAD S EA S CROLLS seems to have expected two messiahs, one of each kind. In this climate the early followers of Jesus pro claimed that he was the messiah. They combined the idea that the messiah will come at the end of time with a notion that the messiah had already come. They also separated the ideal of the mes siah from the nationalist aspirations of the Jewish people. Very early on C HRISTIANITY became a move ment among non-Jews rather than Jews. With the destruction of the Second Temple (70 C . E .) and the failure of Bar Kokhba’s revolt (135 C . E .) expectations of a messiah grew within J UDAISM . These expectations addressed the life of an excluded and persecuted minority. Not only did Moses Maimonides (1135–1204) list belief in a coming messiah as one of the 13 beliefs that all Jews shared; messiahs often actually came. The most famous was Shabbatai Zvi (1626–76). He proclaimed himself the messiah and gained a large following among Jews in Turkey. Some of his fol lowers refused to abandon their belief in him even when, under pressure, he committed the unpar donable sin of converting to I SLAM . The experience of such false messiahs had its effect. Today many Jews downplay any expecta tions that a messiah will come. But some, such as Abraham Kook (1865–1935), have connected

They also believed that they could determine the character of the universe at a given moment by examining the entrails of sheep and, in the later period, by watching the stars and planets. SIGNIFICANCE Although Mesopotamian religions are no longer practiced, they have left behind a rich legacy in the world’s oldest literature. As the story of Atrahasis shows, Mesopotamian religions also had an impact on the religion of ancient Israel, and through it on J UDAISM , C HRISTIANITY , and I SLAM . Further reading: Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary (London: University of Texas Press, 1992); Jean Bottero, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer (New York: Harper & Row, 1983). messiah An English adaptation of the Hebrew word mashiah, which means “anointed with oil.” Technically, the messiah is a figure in Jewish tra dition. He will come in the future to restore the glories of Israel at the end of time and establish peace among the nations. Christians claim that the messiah has already come in the person of J ESUS . In fact, the word C HRIST —and thus the name for the religion—derives from the Greek word for “anointed with oil.” More loosely, messiah refers to any religious figure who will come and rescue a group of people from situations of suffering and usher in a golden age. The Mahdi of I SLAM fits this description. He will come at the end of time to reestablish order and faith in G OD when all around has become chaos. Similar figures, more or less messianic, include the future incarnation of the Hindu god V ISHNU known as Kalki; the BUDDHA who is to come known as Maitreya; and many religious leaders among colonized peoples in the 19th and early 20th centuries.