Suffering Messiah?

In Luke 24, on the road to Emmaus, an undercover Jesus walked with some of his disciples after his death and described from scripture how the messiah would "suffer" (i.e. die), and "enter into glory". Jesus started "with Moses" and then "all the Prophets" to prove this idea. This is way more than just the 53rd chapter of the book of Isaiah. Ever wonder what passages he used? Wouldn't it have been amazing to sit in on that Bible study! One scholar, David Mitchell, has a pretty good suggestion on what some of these passages might be. It seems that specific scriptures kept leading rabbis to talk about a dying and rising messiah, but these traditions have been indexed under a hard to find name -- messiah son of Joseph.

Mitchell is not the first to bring attention to suffering messiah traditions within Rabbinic writings, but he seems to be the first to gather all of the traditions about Messiah ben Joseph (not all are in English) and assess them in a comprehensive way. He also asserts these traditions pre-date Christianity. 

The result is controversial. If these Jewish traditions of a suffering/atoning messiah arose before Jesus, the questions becomes why did the rabbis not believe them? If the traditions were created after Jesus, why did the rabbis "create another messiah in the image of the one they rejected?" In my experience, Christianity readily copies aspects of Judaism, but I have never encountered a single instance of Jewish theology copying Christianity.

It is difficult to wade into these waters because there are different, even contradictory, traditions about messiah within Judaism. Within Rabbinic Judaism there is even more than one messiah! Frequently, the conquering deliverer type of messiah is typified by David, and a suffering (and resurrecting) messiah is typified by Joseph, sold as a slave, counted as dead, rising to rulership.

But wait, doesn't the New Testament identify the messiah to be from the line of David of the tribe of Judah, not the tribe of Joseph? What Mitchell brings to light is that the New Testament is doing several things at once. The New Testament explicitly calls Jesus the heir of king David, yes. Yet the New Testament also implicitly quotes known messiah-of-Joseph traditions, aka the tribe of Ephraim, aka the northern Israeli kingdom, aka Samaria. In other words the New Testament combines both traditions, one of a messiah of David, and of a messiah of Joseph into one super charged fulfillment. 

Side Note: The blood line of the Northern kings of Israel intertwines with the blood line of David through Athaliah, daughter of Ahab, who marries a Judahite king, becomes Judah's only ever queen, and gives birth to Ahaziah, king of Judah of the house of David. Omri, Ahab's father, almost certainly was of the tribe of Ephraim for him to be accepted by them as leader. Thus, the blood line of Joseph entered the blood line of David early in divided monarchy. Thus Jesus descends from both David and Joseph. 

I have a theory about why the New Testament is explicit about Messiah son of David, and implicit about Messiah son of Joseph. The Jewish people in northern regions readily accepted Jesus as the Ephraimite Messiah, and for the Samaritans the "Taheb" to come. It was southern Jewish people that resisted, in geographic Judah, Davidic territory, and eventually killed Jesus. The Gospels don't need to convince people that Jesus was a northern messiah. They need to convince southerners that Jesus is a southern messiah too. Hence the emphasis on "son of David" while not relinquishing "son of Joseph" imagery.

So what are these Old Testament passages? Mitchell finds a common origin for these traditions in the blessings given to the twelve sons of Israel (Gen 49 and reaffirmed in Deut 33). These blessings mirror the suffering and ascension of Joseph himself. Then in the book of Zechariah, prophecies about messiah interleave blessings from both Judah and Joseph in one individual. This suggests that the later Rabbinic traditions about various different kinds of messiahs are founded on an early bedrock of scriptural tradition.

While reading Michell's research, I felt like Jesus was in the room with me. It was an odd sensation, to read something I've believed for years, but only now had confirmation of its legitimacy in print. Christian scripture and Rabbinic tradition alike agree on the existence of a coming suffering messiah. The barrier to identifying this individual is frail and perforated.