Messianic movements
Messianic movements. Movements centred on the Jewish hope for the coming of the messiah. Jesus of Nazareth was believed by his Christian followers to be the messiah. According to Josephus, at the end of the 1st cent. BCE, Judas the Galilean condemned the people for ‘consenting to pay tribute to the Romans and tolerating mortal masters after having God for their Lord’. Slightly later, other claimants came forward, e.g. Theudas and a Jew from Egypt ‘who gained for himself the reputation of a prophet’. The revolt against Rome in 66 CE must be seen in the context of messianic aspiration, and in the uprising of 132 CE, the great Rabbi Akiva recognized Simeon Bar Kokhba as the king–messiah. Further claimants arose, both in Muslim lands (such as the 7th-cent. Abu Isa), and in Christian Europe (e.g. the Karaite Kohen Solomon in the 12th cent.). The 12th cent. in particular saw many messianic movements, possibly induced by Crusader violence. One claimant, Moses Al-Dari, was even admired by Maimonides, and David Alroy persuaded the sophisticated Jews of Baghdad of his authenticity. Abraham b. Samuel Abulafia saw himself as the forerunner of the messiah in the 13th cent. and Hasdai Crescas believed that the messiah had been born in Castile. Messianic expectations continued to be aroused in the late Middle Ages until the time of the great kabbalistic claimant, Shabbetai Zevi, in the 17th cent. See also MESSIAH.
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Messianic movements