537 - Messianic Expectation in the Old Testament

Messianic Expectation in the Old Testament
By Joachim Becker
(trans. by David E. Green)
Philadelphia, Fortress, 1980. 96 pp. $7.95.

The expectation of a messiah does not arise, the author declares, until the second century B.C. or later. The Old Testament passages which some hold to be messianic "are not messianic in the usual sense" (p. 38). For example, the figure mentioned in Isaiah 9:6-7 refers not to a hoped-for messiah, but was "composed for the enthronement of a Davidic ruler" (p. 45). With these views the author reflects the opinion of the majority of biblical scholars who take a historical-critical approach to the Old Testament.

However, Becker is sensitive to the long tradition (in the New Testament itself) "that Christ was proclaimed in advance in the Old Testament" (p. 93). Yet a historical-critical understanding of the Old Testament does not lead to the above conclusion-as it is traditionally understood. Nevertheless, he contends, on the basis of a faithview of the history of Israel (pp. 93, 95), that the New Testament conviction is a valid one.

The major portion of the book discusses Old Testament texts, some of which see the future in terms of the monarchy or visualize it as a theocracy. The survey of these texts is exceptionally well done, but it does not prepare one for the conclusions in the all-too-brief last chapter which focuses on the New Testament.

Fredrick Holmgren
North Park Theological Seminary
Chicago, Ill.