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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
The agenda for this volume was set by J. Neusner in a number of communications over the past few years. He puts it in a statement of 7 November, 1982:
The organizing category is the social group, its world-view and way of life (“Judaism”) and the uses and conceptions of the figure of the Messiah within that social group's world-view. The essential issue is the larger conception of Israel's history and destiny expressed within, and by, the group's version of the Messiah-myth (or: expressed without reference at all to that myth).
In what follows I have attempted to look at the way the Messiah is presented in one apocryphal apocalypse, and rather than stressing the detailed analysis of the actual information offered about the Messiah, I have attempted to clarify why Neusner's agenda is very difficult to follow in this case. There is, I think, a good deal to be learnt from that difficulty.
The issue we wish to investigate is how the view of the Messiah in 4 Ezra is related to the way that the community responsible for 4 Ezra sees itself. In order to do this, a number of different questions must be approached.
What does 4 Ezra say about the Messiah?
From a broader perspective, what role do ideas of redemption play within the thought structure and religious dynamic of the book? How do his views of Messiah function within this context?
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