Bibliography
| Title: "The Messianic significance of the ""Seed of Abraham"" concept in Pre-Christian Judaism" Type: Generic Year: 1988 Abstract: "The promise of seed to Abraham enjoyed a long history of transmission in the Old Testament as it was interpreted first in an individual sense of Isaac, and then in a collective sense, of the people of Israel. In the Old Testament the seed of Abraham is not explicitly associated with the hope for a messiah; the messiah is the seed of David, not of Abraham. In the New Testament, however, Jesus the Messiah is presented as both the son of David and the seed of Abraham (Matt. 1:1; Acts 3:25-26; Gal. 3:16). In the light of this development, a tradition-historical investigation was conducted to determine if the seed of Abraham concept had been associated with the Messianic hope in pre-Christian Judaism. Certain passages in the Pseudepigrapha suggest that the Messiah might have been considered to be the seed of Abraham (Jub. 16:26; Pseudo-Philo LAB 8:3; and the typology established in 4 Ezra 6:7-10 and 2 Baruch 57:1-3; 72:1-6). These passages are, however, very enigmatic and do not permit a description of an Abrahamic Messiah in contradistinction the Davidic Messiah. A thorough review of other Jewish literature (Apocrypha, LXX, Philo, Josephus, Qumran, Targums, Mishnah, Midrashim, and Talmuds) revealed that Abraham and David or Abraham and the Messiah are occasionally mentioned together in the same context, but there is no evidence that the traditions were merged as they were in the New Testament or that characteristics of Abraham affected the depiction of the Messiah. Therefore it was concluded that the presentation of Jesus as the seed of Abraham was a sui generis development by the New Testament writers; it was not based on pre-Christian Jewish tradition. The identification of Jesus as the seed of Abraham originated in the church's mission to the Gentiles, where it had kerygmatic and apologetic values. It enabled non-Jews to appropriate the blessings promised to Abraham, and it was used in arguments against the Jews who held that the Abrahamic promises applied to Israel only." Keywords: Theology of Ancient Judaism and early Christianity |