RT Book
T1 Jewish messiahs in a Christian empire: a history of the Book of Zerubbabel
A1 Himmelfarb, Martha 1952-
LA English
PP Cambridge, Massachusetts
PB Harvard University Press
YR 2017
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1744562431
AB Introduction -- Text and context -- The mother of the messiah -- The messiah son of David and the suffering servant -- The servant-messiah beyond Sefer Zerubbabel -- The dying messiah son of Joseph -- Sefer Zerubbabel after Islam -- Conclusion -- Appendix : translation of Sefer Zerubbabel according to the Sefer Hazikhronot manuscript.
AB Sefer Zerubbabel, the Book of Zerubbabel, is a Hebrew apocalyptic work composed during the wars between the Byzantine and Persian empires in the early decades of the seventh century of this era, shortly before the Muslim conquest of the Middle East. Himmelfarb places Sefer Zerubbael's narrative in the context of Christian tradition and contemporary Byzantine culture on the one hand and earlier Jewish eschatological traditions on the other. The impact of the Christian messianic narrative can be seen in Sefer Zerubbabel's depiction of the messiah son of David in terms of Isaiah's suffering servant and in the death and resurrection of the messiah son of Joseph, while contemporary Byzantine ideas about the Virgin as the patron and protector of Constantinople help to make sense of Sefer Zerubbabel's otherwise startling depiction of the mother of the messiah as a warrior defending Jerusalem. Sefer Zerubbabel also shows many points of contact with traditions about the messiah in rabbinic literature, but, the author argues, it is not dependent on the rabbinic formulation of those traditions. Rather, both the rabbis and Sefer Zerubbabel drew on popular traditions, which they reshaped for their own purposes. The rabbis tend to play down messianic hopes while Sefer Zerubbabel embraces them more enthusiastically. Thus reading Sefer Zerubbabel and rabbinic literature side by side allows us to recover some elements of the popular Jewish messianism of the early centuries of the Christian era. The book concludes by considering Sefer Zerubbabel's impact on a corpus of Jewish eschatological texts from the centuries after the rise of Islam.--
NO Includes bibliographical references (pages 159-206) and index
CN BM615
SN 0674979087
SN 9780674979086
K1 Sefer Zerubbabel
K1 Apocalyptic Literature : History and criticism
K1 Eschatology, Jewish
K1 Christianity : Influence
K1 Apocryphal books (Old Testament) : Criticism and interpretation
K1 Judaism : Byzantine Empire : History : Medieval and early modern period, 425-1789 : Sources
K1 Messiah : Judaism
K1 RELIGION ; Judaism ; General
K1 RELIGION ; Eschatology
K1 Judaism ; Medieval and early modern period
K1 Apocryphal books (Old Testament)
K1 Apocalyptic Literature
K1 Christianity ; Influence
K1 Messiah ; Judaism
K1 Sources
K1 History
K1 Criticism, interpretation, etc
K1 Byzantine Empire