The Temporary Messianic Kingdom In Second Temple Judaism And The Delay Of The Parousia: Psalm 110:1 And The Development Of Early Christian Inaugurated Eschatology -- By: Alexander E. Stewart

Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 59:2 (Jun 2016)
Article: The Temporary Messianic Kingdom In Second Temple Judaism And The Delay Of The Parousia: Psalm 110:1 And The Development Of Early Christian Inaugurated Eschatology
Author: Alexander E. Stewart


The Temporary Messianic Kingdom In Second Temple Judaism And The Delay Of The Parousia: Psalm 110:1 And The Development Of Early Christian Inaugurated Eschatology

Alexander E. Stewart*

* Alexander E. Stewart is academic dean and assistant professor of NT language and literature at Tyndale Theological Seminary, Egelantierstraat 1, 1171 JM, Badhoevedorp, Netherlands.

Abstract: Some early Jewish apocalypses include the concept of a temporary messianic kingdom as a transitional period between the old and new age. This idea receives much more attention in later rabbinic literature but there is enough early evidence to argue that the first Christians would have been familiar with the concept. This article will discuss the earliest evidence in Second Temple Jewish literature and argue that the idea of a temporary transitional messianic kingdom provided the earliest Christians with some of the needed conceptual resources for understanding Jesus’s ascension and the delay of the parousia. The pre-existent Jewish idea of a transitional messianic kingdom was combined by the earliest Christians with Ps 110:1 in order to interpret the present time in terms of Jesus’s temporary and transitional rule and kingdom. Second Temple Jewish expectation of a temporary messianic kingdom laid the groundwork for early Christian inaugurated eschatology and the unexpected interval between the inauguration of the new age and the final consummation was perhaps not so unexpected.

Key Words: temporary messianic kingdom, Second Temple Judaism, Psalm 110:1, delay of the parousia, inaugurated eschatology, Jewish apocalyptic literature.

The earliest Christians were keenly aware that Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection did not lead to the restoration of the kingdom to Israel and their expected utopian future (Acts 1:6). A future return of Jesus was needed to lead to the final and full fulfillment of God’s promises, kingdom, and new creation; the parousia, along with the final consummation, was delayed.1 Few early Christian texts explicitly wrestle with the delay and it is hard to find concrete evidence that the earliest Christians viewed it as a problem.2 Whether or not the delay was a formative problem or an anachronistic projection of modern scholarship, inaugurated eschatology is now often put forward as a description of the early Christian belief that God’s promises had begun to be fulfilled in Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection but would

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