Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE QUESTION OF JESUS' SELF-UNDERSTANDING §15.5
its reference was too clear, in which case Jesus seems to have declined it. Or its
reference was unclear, in which case the debate as to whether Jesus laid claim to
it does not advance the discussion very far. And though the first Christians certainly
did use it, they did so only by transforming its reference in the light of Jesus'
teaching and death. But if our concern is to know what Jesus thought on the
matter as the best explanation for the impact which he made as attested by the Jesus
tradition, it is as well to focus our attention elsewhere.
15.5. Priestly Messiah
For the sake of completeness we need at least to mention this further strand of
Jewish expectation at the time of Jesus. For from various sources it is evident that
some of Jesus' contemporaries invested considerable hope in the other most
prominent anointed figure in the life of ancient Israel — the anointed priest. The
development is usually traced back to Zechariah 4, where two anointeds are envisaged,
not only Zerubbabel, the royal figure, but also Joshua the high priest. 177
The influence of Zechariah's vision is already evident in ben Sira 45-50, 178 but
comes to full flower in the Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs, where Levi (the
priest) is superior to Judah (the king), 179 and in the Qumran scrolls, where the
priestly Messiah (the Messiah of Aaron) takes precedence over the Messiah of
Israel. 180
From the perspective of the present study, the most striking feature of this
messianic expectation is that it was apparently never seen as an option for Jesus.
Presumably this was because it was well enough known that Jesus was not of the
appropriate tribe; he was not descended from Levi. Equally notable is the fact
that when the possibility of presenting Jesus as (high) priest is followed up, the
author to the Hebrews has to develop a unique argument: Jesus does not belong
to the priestly order of Aaron, but to that of the mysterious Melchizedek (Heb.
4.14-5.10; 7).
177. Hesse, TDNT 9.500-501, 507-508.
178. 49.11-12; Aaron is extolled at greater length (45.6-22) than David (47.2-11).
179. Most clearly T. Jud. 21.2-4: the Lord 'set the kingship beneath the priesthood. . ..
As heaven is higher than the earth, so is the priesthood of God higher than the kingship on the
earth'; full detail in Hollander and de Jonge, Testaments 56-61, 222. A small fragment of
T. Levi reads 'the kingdom of priesthood is greater than the kingdom . . .' (1Q21 [lQTLevi ar]
Fragment 1).
180. 'The Messiah of Aaron': 1QS 9.11. In lQSa (lQ28a) 2.17-21 the Messiah of
Aaron stretches out his hand to the bread before the Messiah of Israel; in lQSb (lQ28b) the
blessing of the high priest precedes that of the prince of the congregation (see further Collins,
Scepter and Star 74-77, 83-95).
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