The Messiah Confrontation: Pharisees versus Sadducees and the Death of Jesus

by Israel Knohl

Publisher:

Jewish Publication Society

, 2022

Overview

2023 Top Ten Book from the Academy of Parish Clergy

The Messiah Confrontation casts new and fascinating light on why Jesus was killed.

Grounded in meticulous research on the messianism debates in the Bible and during the Second Temple period, biblical scholar Israel Knohl argues that Jesus’s trial was in reality a dramatic clash between two Jewish groups holding opposing ideologies of messianism and anti-messianism, with both ideologies running through the Bible. The Pharisees (forefathers of the rabbinic sages) and most of the Jewish people had a conception of a Messiah similar to Jesus: like the prophets and most psalmists, they expected the arrival of a godlike Messiah. However, the judges who sentenced Jesus to death were Sadducees, who were fighting with the Pharisees largely because they repudiated the Messiah idea. Thus, the trial of Jesus was not a clash between Jewish and what would become Christian doctrines but a confrontation between two internal Jewish positions—expecting a Messiah or rejecting the Messiah idea—in which Jesus and the Pharisees were actually on the same side.

Knohl contends that had the assigned judges been Pharisees rather than Sadducees, Jesus would not have been convicted and crucified. The Pharisees’ disagreement with Jesus was solely over whether Jesus was the Messiah—but historically, for Jews, arguing about who was or wasn’t the Messiah was not uncommon.

The Messiah Confrontation has far-reaching consequences for the relationship between Christians and Jews.

Key Features

• Casts new and fascinating light on why Jesus was killed.
• Argues that Jesus’s trial was in reality a dramatic clash between two Jewish groups.
• Contends that had the assigned judges been Pharisees, Jesus would not have been convicted and crucified.

Contents

• 1. Birth of the Messianic Figure
• 2. Rejection of the Kingship Concept
• 3. Reconceiving the Messiah
• 4. Messianic Rise and Fall of “the Branch”
• 5. Shifting Sands of Torah Authority
• 6. Torah Distinctions between the Human and the Divine
• 7. Introducing Resurrection of the Dead into Jewish Thought
• 8. The Sadducees’ Denial of the Doctrine of Reward
• 9. Qumran Accounts of an Exalted and Suffering Messiah
• 10. The Pharisees’ Expectations of an Imminent Messiah
• 11. Jesus’s Messianic Conception
• 12. The Trial of Jesus

Praise for The Messiah Confrontation

Brilliant….scientific and detailed…..unfolds like a fascinating mystery…. Knohl’s thorough analysis has far reaching consequences for the relationship between Jews and Christians today.

—The Jerusalem Report

Knohl suggests that Jesus would not have been convicted and executed if tried by Pharisees instead of Sadducees. Accessible prose makes parsing scriptural texts and placing them in historical and political context enthralling, even for those unfamiliar with biblical criticism. This thought-provoking work fascinates.

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

This book really is a gift to those of us who wish to pursue Jewish-Christian dialog that allows for a conversation about Jesus. His book also helps us read the New Testament and its descriptions of the various religious parties and their interactions with early Christians. As such, The Messiah Confrontation offers us a helpful guide to the roots of Jesus’ own sense of calling and purpose, while allowing us to embrace the Jewish roots of the Christian faith more fully (especially the Pharisaic ones, to rehabilitate the Pharisees in the eyes of Christians).

—Word&Way

Product Details

• Title: The Messiah Confrontation: Pharisees versus Sadducees and the Death of Jesus
• Author: Israel Knohl
• Publisher: Jewish Publication Society
• Print Publication Date: 2022
• Pages: 224
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• ISBNs: 9780827615533, 0827615531
• Resource ID: LLS:MSSHCNFRNTTNJSS
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-10-30T20:43:17Z

About Israel Knohl

Israel Knohl is chair of the Bible Department of Hebrew University and on the faculty of the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He is the author of The Sanctuary of Silence and The Messiah Before Jesus. Knohl brings to his book an impressive background in Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship, research in messianism, and a thorough grounding in Rabbinics—a breadth of expertise rare among academics.