Kingship and messianic language and ideologies pervade the Apocalypse; however, readers rarely appreciate the extent to which this rhetoric shapes the text. The Introduction explores how and why these lenses have been relegated or ignored altogether in modern scholarship.

Perhaps most influential was F.C. Baur’s notion of the decisive victory of “Pauline” Christianity over “Petrine” Christianity, whereby the “primitive Jewish” conceptions of a coming Messiah of the latter were replaced with “universal” non-Jewish Christologies of the former. This degradation of Jewish messianism in Paul paved the way for future commentators to make even further-reaching claims. For example, Wrede argued that Jesus own self-understanding was non-messianic, while Bousset claimed that gentile Christian communities appropriated Jewish messianic claims, but divested them of their erstwhile Jewish connotations and eventually replaced them altogether.

The so-called Postwar Turn identified the anti-Jewish underpinnings of this trajectory, recognizing both the extent and importance of messianic ideologies throughout New Testament Christologies, including especially in Pauline epistles and Gospel texts.

Kingship and messianic language and ideologies pervade the Apocalypse; however, readers rarely appreciate the extent to which this rhetoric shapes the text. The Introduction explores how and why these lenses have been relegated or ignored altogether in modern scholarship.

Perhaps most influential was F.C. Baur’s notion of the decisive victory of “Pauline” Christianity over “Petrine” Christianity, whereby the “primitive Jewish” conceptions of a coming Messiah of the latter were replaced with “universal” non-Jewish Christologies of the former. This degradation of Jewish messianism in Paul paved the way for future commentators to make even further-reaching claims. For example, Wrede argued that Jesus own self-understanding was non-messianic, while Bousset claimed that gentile Christian communities appropriated Jewish messianic claims, but divested them of their erstwhile Jewish connotations and eventually replaced them altogether.

The so-called Postwar Turn identified the anti-Jewish underpinnings of this trajectory, recognizing both the extent and importance of messianic ideologies throughout New Testament Christologies, including especially in Pauline epistles and Gospel texts.

In this chapter, we seek to understand the Mishnah and its meanings in its final form. We consider the shape of the Mishnah, the subjects it does and does not include, the qualities of its language and rhetoric, its relationship to canonical scripture and other parts of the pre-rabbinic tradition, and so forth. Crucially, we analyze a variety of key examples of the Mishnah to gain a genuine sense of its approaches. With an eye toward these considerations, we review the range of characterizations that have been offered for the Mishnah. We consider the theories of modern scholars who have made claims for the meaning of the Mishnah in its late antique Palestinian context and suggest some refinements of our own. In the end, we emerge with an appreciation of both the Mishnah’s rhetoric of tradition, on the one hand, and its bona fide radical qualities, on the other. Having characterized the Mishnah, to the best of our abilities, we then consider the question of when the Mishnah came to the precise shape we know, and ask about its realm of authority, whether among the rabbis or beyond.