The First Messiah: Investigating the Savior Before Jesus [Hardcover]

Michael O. Wise (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 17, 1999

In The First Messiah renowned Dead Sea Scrolls scholar Michael O. Wise brings to light the life of Judah, a forgotten prophet who predated Jesus as a messianic figure by a century and has had a profound impact on the course of Christianity and Western civilization.

Although Judah, known in the Dead Sea Scrolls as the Teacher of Righteousness, preached a message distinctly different from that of Jesus, the parallels between their lives are striking. Sharing with his successor a strong foundation in earlier written revelation, Judah came to believe--through meditation on Holly Writ--that he brought a divine message from God; like Christ, Judah's claims to messianic status led to his arrest and condemnation. Judah's warnings of Jewish apostasy and his apocalyptic prophecies, combined with powerful personal charisma, also built a movement that survived his death and even grew into an institution comprising bishops, priests, and laity.

Unlike Jesus, Judah left behind a personal testament, in his own words, of his relationship with God. By analyzing the Thanksgiving Hymns discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls, Wise uncovers the basis of a groundbreaking understanding of the prophetic mind. In so doing, Wise deepens our understanding of Christ, his impact on the Jewish community of his time, and even his interpretation of his own messianic role.

The parallels between Judah and Jesus blaze forth in sharp relief:

Both declared themselves prophets.

Both were hailed by followers as He Who Is to Come and worked attendant wonders.

Both founded vital and long-lasting movements before leaving this world.

In all these things, Judah was first, anticipating the far more famous prophet from Galilee. How can these similarities be explained?

A century before Christ, a man came to Jerusalem who became known as the Teacher of Righteousness. In The First Messiah, distinguished Dead Sea Scrolls scholar Michael O. Wise provides a detailed examination of Judah, a figure whose life and prophecies helped lay the foundation for the acceptance of Jesus as the savior. Drawing on ancient texts as well as contemporary anthropological thought, Wise reveals compelling parallels between early prophets such as Judah and Jesus, and messianic figures who have emerged through the ages to the current day in cultures around the world.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Most Christians don't know what to think about the Dead Sea Scrolls except that they predate Jesus, and simple interpretations of history and textual authority claim that whatever existed first must have the greatest authority. Michael O. Wise, a leading Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, now offers a smart, accessible argument about the relationship between Jesus and the Scrolls. The First Messiah: Investigating the Savior Before Jesus argues that Judah, a messianic figure described in the Scrolls, anticipated Jesus' coming in many respects--Judah was perceived by his contemporaries as fulfilling many of the same prophesies as Jesus, he taught many of the same principles Jesus taught, and after his death he inspired a movement that prefigured early Christianity. The First Messiah is not a hatchet-job on Jesus, however; Wise is not out to torpedo anybody's faith. Instead, he's offering readers a valuable lesson in humility. While respecting the possibility of Jesus' unique cosmic significance, he convincingly shows that Jesus' assumption of messianic status reenacts a social and religious drama that had clear historical precedents. This drama continues to be enacted by people around the world today. --Michael Joseph Gross

From Publishers Weekly

In a mix of historical research, sociological analysis and fiction, Wise (The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered) tells a story about a messiah called the Teacher of Righteousness in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Wise names this messiah Judah, and claims he is "the first messiah known to history [and] in a certain way the most important messianic claimant ever, because he was the first." Throughout the book, the author reminds readers that the life and work of "Judah" can be paralleled with the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth. Confusion reigns in this book, however, because it is difficult to sort out the story of "Judah" from Wise's commentary, his commentary from historical research, historical research from the author's reconstruction and the author's reconstruction from textual evidence. Even the endnotes, which are intended to provide some scholarly support to Wise's conjectures, are full of assumptions based on little evidence. While the book contains interesting insights into myths and dreams, the central thesis that "Judah's" influence shaped Jesus and, in turn, the whole of Christianity is an incredible leap of logic and faith.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; 1st edition (February 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060696451
• ISBN-13: 978-0060696450
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,122,277 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A reconstructed history of the Essene Teacher, January 25, 2000

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[e-mail] - See all my reviews

This review is from: The First Messiah: Investigating the Savior Before Jesus (Hardcover)

This is a truly remarkable book. Wise offers an interpretation of the enigmatic figure of the Teacher of Righteousness, who figures as a unique teacher and interpreter of the Bible in central texts of the Qumran scrolls. Many scholars have ascribed a large part of the Thanksgiving Hymns to him. Alphonse Dupont-Sommer regarded him as a forerunner of Jesus. Wise goes much further. Based on a close examination of the Hymns and other Qumran literature, Wise is able to reconstruct the life and career of the Teacher, who started out as a high-ranking Jerusalem priest, and ended up as an exiled rebel, but deriving strength from his firm belief that he is the Messiah of God. As a careful and highly respected scholar, Wise naturally realises that such a reconstruction has to be speculative. He therefore presents it as a kind of historical novel. The result is astounding But it is largely convincing. The story of the First Messiah comes to life. Wise presents us with a detailed picture of the inner life of a great religious figure. He starts his account with a review of various Messiahs of the modern world, finding several common characteristics. He ends by comparing the First Messiah with the Jesus of the New Testament, finding many parallels between them. But he derives the similarities rather from the psychological mind-set of all Messiah figures, not from more direct influences. Remarkably, he never even mentions the Essenes, considered by most modern scholars as the religious group responsible for the Qumran Scrolls, and thus the community in which the Teacher was working. It is also remarkable that Wise, when discussing the Jesus of the New Testament, does not bring out the very marked difference between the Jesus figure of Paul - remarkably similar to the Essene Teacher - on one hand, and the Jesus of the Gospels and Acts, on the other. The largely fictional nature of the latter figure is emphasized in recent books by George A. Wells (The Jesus Myth), Earl Doherty (The Jesus Puzzle), T. Freke and P. Gandy (The Jesus Mysteries), and myself (Jesus, - A Hundred Years before Christ). Altogether Wise's superlatively written book is a weighty contribution to our knowledge of Judaism and and its Christian offspring in the centuries around the beginning of our era.

Alvar Ellegård, University of Göteborg, Sweden.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Scholarship, April 1, 2006

By 

S. E. Moore (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The First Messiah: Investigating the Savior Before Jesus (Hardcover)

This book, along with Israel Knohl's "The Messiah Before Christ" (see my review) present conflicting but very credible theories concerning the Qumran Teacher of Righteousness and how he may have been a catalyst for Jesus' self understanding as the Messiah of Israel.

Wise identifies the Teacher as an individual named Judah who started a breakaway movement about 76 b.c. in opposition to the Pharasaic takeover of the Temple. We can surmise that this may be the Essene leader of the same name mentioned in Josephus but Wise leaves that up to the reader.

Wise goes through each of the hymns he believes were written by Judah which gives us the only authentic self portrait we have of a Jewish messianic leader almost contemporaneous with Jesus. These writings are crucial to our understanding of Jesus and the New Testament. Rather than undermining the New Testament, which so many sensationalists have done, the Thanksgiving Hymns actualy support the claims that were made about Jesus. They also explain why Jesus may have been so hostile to Pharisees since these were Judah's antagonists as well.

Wise claims that the "Self Glorification Hymn" was probably written after Judah's martyrdom by his followers which is strikingly similar to what Jesus' followers handed down to us in the New Testament.

Even if you don't agree with Wise's theories, he gives us an outstanding and in depth overview of the Dead Sea Scroll community. The Damascus Document gives us a history of the community similar to the Book of Acts. The progression of the hymns written by Judah reveals how his own movement progressed and was in danger of collapsing when many of his followers turned on him. It reveals the diversity of Judaism and how they were pitted against eachother even though the ultimate enemy was the foreign invader ie Rome. The War Scroll is a cryptic diatribe against Rome, similar to the Book of Revelation, and that Rome would be desroyed on a cosmic and supernatural scale, not by human political movements.

Jesus probably became familiar with Judah's legacy through John the Baptist who was probably a member of this community at one time. After John was killed, Jesus took the messianic role upon himself which Judah had done a hundred years prior.

The most important idea in this book is that if Judah could believe this about himself, why not Jesus?

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended, except for the last chapter, September 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The First Messiah: Investigating the Savior Before Jesus (Hardcover)

Michael O. Wise's book The First Messiah is well worth reading for those interested in ancient history, especially Palestine during the first century B.C. This book is a page-turner. It is chock-full of interesting stories from obscure corners of history. Its only drawback is the weak final chapter, which talks about Jesus.

The main topic of Wise's book is crisis cults, in particular, a crisis cult called the Judah cult which began in about 76 B.C. A crisis cult is a cult led by a charismatic figure who persuades a group of people who are in crisis that something is going to happen to change their lives for the better. The something in question is a definite event in space and time. In other words, the leaders of these cults make unambiguous predictions that can easily be confirmed or disconfirmed by anyone. Most of the time these predictions do not come true, which causes profound confusion and disappointment in their followers.

The Judah cult began when a priest in Jerusalem found himself on the outs after a change in political power which produced a change in religious power and practices as well. Railing against the new establishment openly, he found himself exiled permanently. The number of his followers kept dwindling until a prediction of his came true, after which the numbers increased dramatically. But they fell to almost nothing when a second prediction, concerning the year 36 B.C., failed to come to pass.

History has forgotten Judah, if indeed he ever existed and if he was named Judah (Wise isn't sure about the name). Wise and his student Michael Douglas discerned that such a person existed, was exiled, and led a cult on the basis of a new and exciting interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of which have turned out to be from the cult and even from Judah himself. One point left unexplained by Wise is why these texts ended up in Qumran, for the group that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls seems entirely separate from the Judah cult (or did I miss something?).

The weakest part is the final chapter, the chapter about the Jesus cult. Throughout the book, Wise talks in general terms about crisis cults and what they are like as well as talking about the Judah cult. Repeatedly, he implies that the Jesus cult is like other crisis cults and that it is like the Judah cult in particular. So I was expecting him to draw certain conclusions about the Jesus cult, which he unaccountably didn't draw. For example, the followers have to decide what to do when the leader's predictions do not come true. I expected Wise to talk about what Christians had to do when Jesus' prediction of returning in the lifetime of the disciples failed to happen. But he says nothing about this. And I expected him to talk about the cultural milieu in which Jesus existed, that he was like other would-be Jewish messiahs in that he felt that the rule of the Romans was the result of sinful practices and that if the Jews could just abandon those practices, then everything would turn out right. Such a messiah would hardly be interested in founding a religion distinct from Judaism. Again, though, Wise says nothing about this. The last chapter is a disappointing end to an otherwise enjoyable book.