Maimonidean Messiah and the Messianic Era

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 부산외국어대학교 지중해지역원
· 수록지 정보 : 지중해지역연구 / 13권 / 3호 / 107 ~ 146페이지
· 저자명 : 최중화

초록

It is no easy task to reconstruct Maimonides’ idea about the Messiah and The Messianic Era, especially when we encounter contradictory accounts in his works. In this paper, we have examined several points.
First, we have examined the internal and external factors which might have evoked Maimonides’ messianism. While the internal factor, the long–winded and diverse traditions, seems to have provoked Maimonides to perplexity and an indefinite and passive attitude, the external factor, the historical request for raising his voice, obliged him to articulate his messianic idea in public. And it is possible that the disharmony between the two factors might have influenced Maimonides’ attitude towards the Messiah and the Messianic era with which we can try to understand his incoherent voice.
Second, as for the unresolved question if the arrival of the Messiah is deependent on human action or divine discretion, the well–known features of Maimonides’ earthly and non–supernatural messianism should not be overemphasized and generalized with the conclusion that human action brings the Messiah. On the other side of coin, the concept of “miracle” in Maimonides shows us that the earthly nature of the Messianic Age does not exclude God’s intervention. Rather, it is said that “miracle” as a part of the earthly nature which God planned from the time of creation suggests to us that the coming of the Messiah is also in the realm of God from the Creation. In this sense, the motif of “miracle” is important to understand this topic.
Third, several criteria were drawn by Maimonides to determine who the real Messiah was: for example, seed of David, great prophet, possession of wisdom, zeal for Torah and success in rebuilding the sanctuary and gathering in dispersed tribes of Israel. We can understand these criteria better by allowing the defensive nature of these criteria which were used to refute certain messianic impostors. In this sense, we can understand Maimonides’ confession that “Only Hashem will identify the Messiah.” In other words, he is saying that although only God will identify the Messiah, we need to draw some criteria to determine the messianic impostors.
Fourth, there are two reasons why Maimonides’ Messianic Age was shaped in an earthly and political way. One seems to be the conception of the unchanging nature of the Law, and the other, the distinction between the World to Come and the Messianic Age, which seems to have been designed for several reasons: not to disappoint Jewish people, to avoid the risk of explaining the future on the flimsy basis of the biblical passages, and finally to empower rabbinic authority.
Fifth, Maimonides’ messianic idea has various dimensions. It is political, practical, national and Jewish, while at the same time general, universal, utopian, and human. These ambivalent natures of Maimonides’ messianism seem to have resulted from his attempt to adapt Judaism to new environment.
Sixth, Maimonidean messianism is unique, because he is the first to elevate Messianic belief to an exalted dogmatic rank.
Finally, however, his messianism is not a clear deviation from traditional concepts, because: first, he seems to cling more to the original meaning of the word, משיח ; second, the kingly and prophetic Messiah expressed by Maimonides are quite traditional; third, the warrior messiah is in no way an innovation; finally, his way of presenting himself and his respect of rabbis clearly show us that he never intended to deviate from normative Judaism.
|CHOI, Jung Hwa| Maimonidean Messiah and the Messianic Era | 143Hope is a category of transcendence, by means of which a man does not permit what he senses and experiences to be the sole criterion of what is possible. It is the belief or the conviction that present reality (what I see) does not exhaust the potentialities of the given data. Hope opens the present to the future; it enables a man to look ahead, to break the fixity of what he observes, and to perceive the world as open–textured. The categories of possibility and of transcendence interweave a closely–stitched fabric. Hope says that tomorrow can be better than today.

참고자료

· 없음