Quantitative analysis of the popular Messianic expectation?

Judaism has always been very guarded about such expectations as a result of both the growth of Christianity and the cataclysmic disappointment of Sabbatai Ẓevi in the 17th century. As a result it is not a subject that their literature is very open about, especially after the event.

When you look at the many revolts at or after the time of Christ (i.e. Bar Kokhba) it is very clear that Messianic expectations were rife, so that people were willing to revolt against Rome with only Messianic hope to protect them. There is no better proof than that.

see this book for some excellent overviews and responses to Messianism in Judaism...

https://www.logos.com/product/7225/answering-jewish-objections-to-jesus-messianic-prophecy-objections-volume-three

also this one (not in Logos yet) from the NAC Biblical Studies series...

http://www.amazon.com/Messianic-Hope-Hebrew-Studies-Theology/dp/0805446540/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451406961&sr=8-1&keywords=the+messianic+hope+rydelnik

this book also has several relevant articles...

https://www.logos.com/product/9191/eschatology-in-the-bible-and-in-jewish-and-christian-tradition

Here's a relevant article from Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary...

MESSIANIC MOVEMENTS IN JUDAISM. That Jews at the time of Jesus expected the coming of the messiah has been a central axiom of biblical studies. Recent critical analyses of Palestinian Jewish literature of late Second Temple times have indicated that there is little basis for that generalization (de Jonge 1966). The realization that “messianic” expectations were relatively unimportant in the literature of the time is also leading toward a more critical and confined use of the terms “messiah” and “messianic.” Partly because of their supposed importance and centrality in the Jewish context of Jesus, and partly because of the Christian theological claim that Jesus constituted the fulfillment of the Jewish expectation, “messiah/messianic” came to be used as comprehensive terms for Jewish expectations of future salvation in general. Expectations of future deliverance and well-being are extremely diverse in biblical and other Jewish literature in postexilic times. Various (and often multiple) divinely chosen or sanctioned agents of salvation are mentioned, including angels, suffering righteous ones, and prophetic figures. Often the salvific action is taken directly by God, with no human agent involved. A “messiah” is mentioned infrequently in late Second Temple Jewish literature, and even then is not necessarily portrayed as engaging in redemptive action. Thus, there is increasing momentum in biblical studies to cease using “messiah/messianic” as synthetic terms covering any and all agents of salvation and expectations of future well-being. The current move is toward greater precision in the conceptual apparatus utilized in attempts to understand biblical literature and history. Use of the terms “messiah/messianic” would thus be confined to literary and historical phenomena (a) where the Hebrew term “messiah” or its equivalent occurs, (b) where another term that can be clearly established as closely associated occurs, or (c) where a particular social-historical form is evident that has previously been associated with the term. Because “messianic” has been used so generally and synthetically, however, we should take note of historical figures and movements that have previously been included under the term.

A. Popularly Anointed Kingship in Biblical History
B. Popularly Recognized Kings in Late Second Temple Times
C. Popular Prophets and Prophetic Movements

A. Popularly Anointed Kingship in Biblical History
Starting with the popular kingships of Saul and David, a tradition of “messianic” movements developed in Israel, as reflected in the books of Samuel and Kings. Partly because of their struggles to maintain independence of the Canaanite city-states, the early Israelites apparently resisted any form of kingship, the understanding having been, apparently, that Yahweh was their king. In crisis situations, leadership was provided by charismatic “liberators” such as Deborah (Judges 4–5) and Gideon (Judges 6–8). Gideon reportedly refused to accept the institutionalized rule of hereditary kingship on the principle that “the Lord will rule over you” (Judg 8:22–23). In response to the severity of the Philistine crisis, however, a popular form of kingship emerged first in the recognition of Saul and then especially of David as chieftains or kings of the coalition of Israelite tribes. The rise of David from his origins as a warrior and bandit chief to being “anointed” king by the assembled Israelites shows that popular kingship was a distinctive social-political form. Whatever the terminology used (roš or nāśı̂ʾ), popularly recognized or “anointed” kingship was a form quite different from either banditry or that of the charismatic “liberators.” Whether known as “chieftain” or “king” (Num 31:8; Josh 13:21), the first popular kings of Israel, like the “chieftains” of the tribes, provided regularized, centralized political leadership (Bartlett 1969; Speiser 1967). David and his movement then provided the principal precedent and historical prototype for subsequent popular messianic movements.
Once the Davidic monarchy became established in its imperial domination of Palestine, it developed a self-legitimating royal ideology, with heavy borrowings of mythic motifs from Canaanite kingship. Much of the earlier scholarly discussion of messianic ideas and expectations drew heavily on this official royal ideology. That was understandable insofar as some of the texts that figured prominently in NT christology (e.g., Psalms 2 and 110) originated in the official royal Davidic theology. The imperial kingship, however, never completely replaced or suppressed the Israelite tradition of popular kingship in which David himself had begun. It lived on, particularly in the northern kingdom of Israel. Obviously its principal social location was not in the royal court but among the people, prophetic circles, and even the army. The tradition operated as a popular memory, capable of reappearance in concrete social movements (Tadmor 1968). It is an example of what anthropologists call a “little tradition,” as opposed to the official “great tradition,” although ironically our only evidence for it comes through the written narratives of the latter. Judging from their occasional appearances in biblical narratives, the popular messianic movements can be understood in terms of three principal characteristics: (1) kingship was constituted by popular anointing or election; (2) it was conditional, depending on the king’s maintenance of a certain social policy; and (3) the anointing of a new king was usually a revolutionary action.
Physical strength and military prowess may have been prerequisites for recognition as king or chieftain (1 Sam 10:23; 16:18; cf. Judg 6:12; 8:22). The hero was made king, however, by popular acclamation, whether by the people as a whole, by a representative assembly of elders, or by the assembled peasant militia (Wolf 1947; Tadmor 1968).
First, “the men of Judah” and then “all the elders of Israel” “anointed David king” over Judah/Israel (2 Sam 2:4; 5:3; cf. 1 Sam 11:15 on Saul). Consistent with popular election, popular recognition could be withdrawn and another person acclaimed. Once David had established a more imperial monarchy over Israel, a large proportion of the people rejected him in favor of his son Absalom, whom they anointed to be (king) over them (2 Samuel 15–19; esp. 15:10–12; 19:10). When Rehoboam threatened to intensify Solomon’s oppressive practices, Israel hailed Jeroboam “to the assembly and made him king” (1 Kgs 12:20; cf. 2 Kgs 23:30). It is a confirmation, not a contradiction, of the popular election of the king that Yahweh also “anointed” the kings through the hand of a prophet such as Samuel, Ahijah, or Elisha. Yahweh’s anointing anticipated the people’s action, and the popular election fulfilled the will of Yahweh (1 Kgs 11:26–40; 12:1–20; 1 Kgs 19:15–17; 2 Kgs 9:1–12; 9:13).
Secondly, as suggested in the abandonment of an alienated or oppressive king and the anointing of a new one, the popular kingship was conditional (CMHE, 221; 224; 233 n. 62). From their origins as a free people, the Israelites retained a sense of independence and a commitment to egalitarian social-economic ideals expressed in the Mosaic covenant. Their suspicions of established monarchy were rooted in earlier experiences of domination by Canaanite kings. Thus, when they experimented with a new political form in the Philistine crisis, they viewed kingship as subject to certain “covenantal” stipulations. Subsequent historical narratives portray the duties and responsibilities of kingship as “written up in a book and laid up before Yahweh” (1 Sam 10:25). The conditions of kingship were transmitted in covenantal traditions (Deut 17:14–20) and even found liturgical expression in the “great tradition” (Ps 132:12). Centuries later Jeremiah, in his prophecies against Davidic kings (Jer 22:1–9; 13–19), apparently gave voice to this same popular concern that kingship is properly conditional.
Thirdly, the people’s or prophet’s anointing of a king was a revolutionary act. In its very origins with Saul and David, popular kingship was a means of mobilizing centralized political-military power against the foreign domination threatened by the Philistines. Much of Israel, apparently including Judah, rose in rebellion against David in anointing Absalom over them. The revolutionary action of such messianic movements recurred in subsequent centuries. Like Ahijah’s and the people’s designation of Jeroboam as king, Elisha’s and the Israelite army’s anointing of Jehu brought a revolutionary overthrow of an established monarchy that had become intolerably oppressive. It would appear to be a manifestation of this same popular tradition when “the people of the land” anointed Jehoahaz in 609 following the fatal defeat of his father, Josiah, by the Egyptians, an action that was both resistance to foreign domination and, apparently, a rejection of the reactionary royal officials in Jerusalem. This last case shows how resilient the popular tradition of anointed kingship was, not just in the N kingdom of Israel but even in Judah, which had for centuries been dominated by the Davidic monarchy and its absolutist royal ideology.

B. Popularly Recognized Kings in Late Second Temple Times
Given the paucity of sources for Second Temple times, there is simply no way of telling whether, and how, this tradition of popular kingship may have remained alive among the common people. The fact that narratives of the popular anointing of kings such as Saul and David were included in the written documents of the great tradition makes it likely that the popular memory could have been reinformed through the continuing interaction of the official and popular traditions, particularly through the work of scribes and teachers whose responsibility it was to perpetuate the official tradition. There was certainly occasion for the memory of popularly elected kings to be revived in late Second Temple times when the Romans conquered Palestine and particularly when they imposed the tyrannical Herod as king. The Idumean strongman conquered the people with the aid of Roman legions, then taxed them heavily to support his lavish Hellenistic-style monarchy. As noted above, there is little by way of literary evidence for any longing for a messiah among the literate groups. But it would not be surprising if the ordinary people (who left no literary remains), suffering under an illegitimate and oppressive king installed by an alien imperial power, had been eager for an “anointed” king from their own ranks, like Saul or David of old.
Several movements, each headed by one who “claimed the kingship” or “was proclaimed king” by his followers, occurred around the time of Jesus. At the death of Herod in 4 B.C.E., revolts erupted in each of the principal Jewish districts of Herod’s realm. These movements were led by Judas in Galilee, Simon in Perea, and Athronges in Judea. During the first great revolt against Rome in 66–70, there was a brief “messianic” incident among the group known as the Sicarii; and then there was a very powerful movement led by the popularly acclaimed king Simon bar Giora that became the largest force resisting the Roman reconquest in 69–70. Josephus, our principal source for these movements in 4 B.C.E. and 66–70 C.E., avoids any explicitly “messianic” language. Yet we cannot dismiss the social form in which he reports of these movements as due merely to his use of the typical Hellenistic terminology for kingship, such as “donning the diadem.” The Israelite tradition of popular kingship had become embodied in biblical narratives and thus surely also in popular memory. Information to be gleaned from Josephus on certain aspects of these “kings” fits well with the interpretation of the biblical tradition concerning the popular “anointing” of kings (e.g., the great physical stature and military prowess of Simon, Athronges, and Simon bar Giora; Ant 17.10.6–7 §273, 278, likely reflects the tradition of the anointed king as a mighty warrior; 1 Sam 16:18; Michel 1967–68: 403). Furthermore, when we note that the prophetic figures and movements reported by Josephus were clearly informed by traditional biblical prototypes, the conclusion seems obvious that the groups led by the popularly proclaimed kings were “messianic” movements based upon the prototypical messianic movements of biblical history. In fact, Josephus’ Hellenistic terminology of kingship points up the political authority seriously claimed or exercised by these kings and their movements.
The heads of the movements that arose at the death of Herod were all of humble origins. Athronges was a “mere shepherd” as David has been, according to the tradition; and Simon had been a royal servant, perhaps a tenant or lower-level official on one of the royal estates in Perea (JW 2.4.2–3 §57, 60; Ant 17.10.6–7 §273, 278). In Galilee the popular king was the son of a famous brigand chief; i.e., Judas was leading the revolt at the death of the tyrant who had killed his father a generation previously. (This Judas, the popular king in 4 B.C.E., was different from Judas of Galilee who led the “fourth philosophy” and its resistance to the Roman tribute in Judea in 6 C.E., a figure whom Josephus describes as a teacher, sophistes; JW 2.8.1 §118). All three movements were based in the countryside, and the followers of Simon, Athronges, and Judas were largely from the peasantry. A number of them may indeed have been “desperate men” (Ant 17.10.5 §271; cf. 1 Sam 22:2) because of the deteriorating economic situation of the peasants who were faced with the multiple demands of tithes, tribute, and taxes. “The brigands he collected,” referring to Simon’s movement, may be Josephus’ pejorative phrase for the rebels, or it could be a reference to peasants who, having lost their land, had been drawn into bands of brigands who were hiding out in the mountainous terrain of Perea before joining Simon’s movement (JW 2.4.2 §57).
The groups participating in these movements appear to have been somewhat organized, at least into “companies” for military purposes. Athronges’ brothers served as heads of the divisions of the movement in Judea (Ant 17.10.7 §280–81). Josephus’ report that the Pereans proclaimed Simon king in their “madness,” and that they fought with “more recklessness than science,” indicates the special inspiration underlying these movements (Ant 17.10.6 §274–76). The movements appear to have had a double goal: to liberate the people from Roman-Herodian domination and to restore the traditional ideals of a more egalitarian social-economic structure. According to Josephus, the groups stormed the royal palaces at Sepphoris and Jericho not merely because of the intolerable Herodian tyranny, and not simply to obtain weapons, but also in order to take back the goods that had been seized by Herod’s officials (Ant 17.10.6 §274; JW 2.4.2 §57). They attacked the forces of both the Herodian and Roman rulers, and they raided the gentry’s estates as well as royal residences. The long-suppressed resentment over prolonged political domination and economic exploitation poured out into an egalitarian anarchism typical among peasant uprisings.
The movements led by Athronges, Simon, and Judas were far more serious than marauding bands of raiders or extensive rural riots. They were genuinely political movements that resulted in effective control of considerable areas for a time. The very size of the army that Varus, legate of Syria, deemed necessary to reconquer Jewish Palestine (three legions and four regiments of cavalry, plus auxiliary troops) helps us appreciate the scope and importance of these movements. Even then, the movement in Judea continued for some time before the Roman and royalist troops could finally subdue the various companies of Athronges’ peasant followers (Ant 17.10.7 §281–84). There is surely no direct connection between any of these movements and the later one focused on Jesus of Nazareth little more than a generation later. But the memory would have been fresh of the earlier movements of Jewish peasants, from villages near such towns as Bethlehem, Emmaus, and Sepphoris, who had taken action in common under a leader they recognized as king. As a reminder that we are dealing with actual people and places, it is worth noting that in 4 B.C.E., just a few miles N of the village of Nazareth, the town of Sepphoris was burned and its inhabitants sold into slavery by the Romans in retaliatory suppression of a popular messianic movement.
The brief appearance of Menahem as a royal pretender toward the beginning of the Jewish revolt in 66 C.E. was really more of a messianic incident among the group called Sicarii than a movement. This incident has been misinterpreted by those scholars who use Menahem as evidence for a supposedly violent “Zealot messianism” that can serve as a foil for portrayal of Jesus as a nonviolent messiah. It is even claimed that Menahem stood in a Zealot messianic dynasty. It is now becoming recognized, however, that the Zealots proper did not originate until the middle of the Jewish revolt, in the winter of 67–68, by which time the Sicarii, who had previously been mistakenly identified with the Zealots, had long since withdrawn to Masada, where they sat out the duration of the revolt. The Zealots were involved in a social-revolutionary movement like the messianic movements; but the social form taken by the Zealot movement was not popularly proclaimed kingship but popularly elected priestly leadership. The claim that they were part of a “messianic dynasty” is rooted in a mistaken identification of Judas, the popular king of 4 B.C.E., with Judas of Galilee, the scholarly leader of the “fourth philosophy” in 6 C.E., from whom Menahem was descended. It is clear that Menahem could not have been a “Zealot messiah.”
The Sicarii had emerged in the 50s as an urban group engaged in terrorist activities, such as assassination—of high priests who were collaborating with Roman rule—and kidnappings—in order to extort the release of their members who had been taken prisoner (Ant 20.8.10 §186–87; 20.9.3 §208; JW 2.13.3 §254–57). Josephus does not even mention the Sicarii in his reports of the early stages of the revolt during the summer of 66. However, some of them had apparently joined the insurrection in Jerusalem in time to participate in the burning of the royal palaces, of the house of the high priest Ananias, and of the public archives (JW 2.17.6 §425–27).
Josephus finally reports three incidents involving Menahem, in rapid succession. First, Menahem obtained arms from Herod’s arsenal at Masada, whereupon he “returned like a king to Jerusalem and, becoming a leader of the revolt, directed the siege of the royal palace” (JW 2.17.8 §433–34). Second, although there is no indication that he became the main leader of the rebellion, he clearly became a prominent leader, for Josephus describes the garrison besieged in the royal palace as negotiating “with Menahem and the leaders of the insurrection” (437). Third, Josephus reports that the “infatuated” Menahem having become an “insufferable tyrant,” the followers of the temple captain Eleazar now “laid their plans to attack him in the Temple, where he had gone up in state to pay his devotions, arrayed in royal robes and attended by his suite of armed fanatics. Eleazar and his companions rushed upon him, and the rest of the citizens, to gratify their rage, took up stones and began pelting the arrogant doctor” (JW 2.17.9 §443–45). A few of the Sicarii managed to escape to Masada, where they sat out the remainder of the revolt. Menahem himself, having escaped temporarily, was soon caught, tortured, and killed (447–48).
This messianic incident among the Sicarii has some differences from, as well as similarities to, the popular messianic movements. While the Sicarii were attacked by the followers of the temple captain Eleazar, they apparently fought for the interests of the common people, having joined in the destruction of the public archives “to destroy the money-lenders’ bonds and to prevent the recovery of debts” (427). In connection with the popular kings of 4 B.C.E. and Simon bar Giora later during the great revolt, Josephus describes social-economic, political, and military activities. In his portrayal of Menahem, he includes a dramatic religious feature as well: the ceremonial celebration of Menahem’s claim to kingship in the temple. Finally, whereas the other figures who “claimed the kingship” were from the common people and were popularly acclaimed, Menahem was known as a scholar (sophistes, 445) like his (grand)father, Judas of Galilee, and he was also a leader of an urban-based group apparently without a broader base of popular support. In any case, having been cut short before it had a chance to build wider support, Menahem’s posturing as king in the temple appears to have been more a messianic incident than a true movement.
Historically, the most important messianic movement at the end of the Second Temple period was that led by Simon bar Giora, who became the foremost political-military commander in Jerusalem during the great revolt and whom the Romans executed with pomp and ceremony as, in effect, the vanquished king of the Jews. Josephus reports far more extensively on Simon and his movement than he does on the popular kings in 4 B.C.E. In those reports, Simon appears as an active organizer of the movement he led.
Like those proclaimed kings following the death of Herod, Simon was of humble background; as his name indicates, he was a mere “son of a proselyte.” He became the leader of a substantial force, as the insurrection erupted in the summer of 66, and was one of the heroes of the audacious Jewish victory over the Roman army that advanced on Jerusalem that fall (JW 2.19.2 §521). Once the high priestly aristocracy regained control of Jerusalem and organized a provisional government, however, the last thing they wanted was to have a popular military hero in command of a nascent peasant militia. Hence, they passed over Simon in making appointments of district commanders. With his great “physical strength and courage,” however, Simon continued to foment rebellion in the toparchy of Acrabatene (JW 4.9.3 §503–4; 2.22.2 §652–53). When the junta in Jerusalem attempted to suppress his activities there, he simply moved elsewhere.
After the death of the high priest Ananus (summer of 68?), one of the principal leaders of the provisional government in Jerusalem, Simon began building a movement more systematically. A number of parallels between the rise of Simon and that of the popularly “anointed” prototype David emerge from Josephus’ accounts. It is unlikely that this is due simply to the literary artifice of Josephus himself, who was especially hostile to Simon, probably because the “despot” had imprisoned his parents during the Roman siege of Jerusalem. Like David, Simon had begun as a leader of a guerilla band that posed a threat to the existing government, but then eventually he was followed by thousands of people as well as by a large army. The initial followers in both cases were the “worthless” and discontent (JW 4.9.3–4 §507–13; cf. 1 Sam 22:2); but with the people searching for effective leadership against impending foreign conquest, Simon, like David, came to be recognized as king by masses of people, including some of the notables. Moreover, when Simon moved first to consolidate control of S Judea before moving on Jerusalem, he may have had more than military strategy in mind. He may have been following the Davidic prototype, liberating Judea and establishing righteous rule there (Michel 1967–68). Establishing a firm base in Hebron, in particular, may have been especially symbolic; it was surely remembered as the place where David had first been anointed prince of Judah and from which, once he was recognized as king of all Israel, he went on to take Jerusalem and to liberate the whole country. Josephus’ digression just at this point in his narrative to the great antiquity of Hebron and its association with Abraham may well have been an attempt to divert attention from the Davidic associations of Hebron (JW 4.9.7 §529–34).
The social-revolutionary aspects of Simon’s movement come through far more explicitly in Josephus’ reports than did those of the popular kings of 4 B.C.E. After decades of economic pressure on the peasantry under the exploitative rule of Herod and the double burden of having to pay tribute to Rome and dues to priests and temple, Simon and his followers were likely attempting to restore social justice. Simon’s proclamation of “liberty for slaves and rewards for the free” (§508) has the ring of prophetic promises. Justice for the poor was to be a feature of the future king, the righteous branch of David, according to prophecies such as those in Isa 11:1–9 and Jer 23:5 (cf. Jer 34:8–9).
Simon’s followers, however, were by no means simply an anarchic horde of peasants wildly plundering the estates of the wealthy and storming the barricades of the city. Judging from Josephus’ account, Simon and his movement were well organized and disciplined. They even thought ahead about the support system that would be necessary for a prolonged war of liberation. Apparently Simon also maintained a rigorous social discipline once he became the foremost leader in Jerusalem. Acts by Simon that Josephus bitterly condemns, such as the execution of deserters, may have been evidence of the social-political discipline necessary to maintain order among a people subject to a prolonged siege (Michel 1967–68: 406). Simon’s discipline can be understood in terms similar to those expressed in Psalms of Solomon 17. In the great “war” against the oppressive alien rulers, the anointed king would “thrust out sinners from the inheritance” and “not suffer unrighteousness to lodge anymore in their midst, thus purging Jerusalem, making it holy as of old” (Ps. Sol. 17:26, 29, 33, 36).
Two final symbolic events indicate unmistakably how Simon bar Giora had assumed the position of king of the Jews. Josephus reports that, as Jerusalem and the temple were being destroyed, Simon surrendered to the Romans in a highly dramatic act: dressed in a white tunic and a royal purple mantle, he arose out of the ground at the very spot on which the temple had formerly stood (JW 7.2.2 §29). The attire was that of a king, a symbolism that would have been clear to both Jews and Romans. This was the attire a king wore on formal state occasions, such as the funeral of Herod (JW 1.33.9 §671). Jesus of Nazareth was portrayed as being dressed in such garments when he was mockingly called “king of the Jews” (Mark 15:16–20). Not so clear, however, was the precise purpose Simon had in mind with this symbolic surrender. Was he, by this self-sacrificial surrender to the Romans as the unmistakable king and leader of the enemy, hoping to mitigate the Romans’ punishment that would otherwise fall on his people with great severity? Whatever Simon’s purpose in his dramatic surrender, the Romans indeed ceremoniously paraded him (appropriately robed), scourged him, and executed him as the enemy head of state and leader (was it explicitly as “king”?) of the Jews in one of the principal events of the triumphal celebration of the great Roman victory over the rebellious Jewish people (JW 7.5.3–7 §115–62). By contrast, Simon’s rival for leadership, John of Gischala, was simply imprisoned.
The case most clearly recognized in scholarly literature as a messianic movement was the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–35. Whereas there is very little occurrence of “messianic” ideas in Jewish literature prior to the messianic movements of 4 B.C.E., scholarly visionaries produced more explicit and elaborate pictures of a future messiah toward the end of the 1st century C.E., after Jerusalem and the temple had been destroyed (4 Ezra 13; 2 Baruch 29; 36–40; 72–74). Thus, the Bar Kokhba movement may have been influenced by more clearly developed expectations of a messiah as well as by the biblical tradition of popular kingship. In any case, the revered elderly Rabbi Akiba, who had not forgotten his peasant roots, proclaimed that Simon bar Kosiba, the leader of the insurrection in 132, was the fulfillment of the oracle in Num 24:17: “a star shall go forth from Jacob”; hence the name Bar Kokhba, which means “son of the star” (j. Taʿan. 4.68d). Other rabbis, probably the majority, were not only skeptical but critical. The same rabbinic tradition has Yoḥanan ben Torta answer: “Akiba, grass will grow out of your cheek-bones and the son of David will still not have come.” Other rabbinic traditions denigrate the leader of the rebellion with a pun on his name; that is, bar Koziba, or “Son of the Lie.” Akiba and the followers of Simon bar Kosiba, however, understood their leader in messianic terms. Coins from the first year of the revolt corroborate that Simon was regarded as the elect ruler, the “Prince (nāśı̂) of Israel.”
Undeterred by rabbinic rejections, large numbers of Jewish people must have joined the movement. Simon and his followers established their own government in extensive areas of Judea while defending themselves against Roman attempts at reconquest. Their coins, inscribed “Year I of the Liberation of Israel” or “Year II of the Freedom of Israel,” reveal that their assertion of independence from Roman domination had inaugurated a new era. Documents found at Muraba’at and Hever, moreover, indicate that Simon exercised a rigorous administrative and military discipline, and that he and the other leaders placed great emphasis on strict observance of traditional religious regulations. As in 69–70, the Romans sent a massive military force to reconquer the country, but Simon and his followers forced them into a prolonged war of attrition through skillful guerrilla operations based in caves and mountain strongholds. Only after extended campaigns and costly battles could the Romans finally “annihilate, exterminate, and eradicate” this messianic movement from the land (Dio Cass. 59.13.3).
That these popularly recognized kings and their “messianic movements” governed a limited area and were able to maintain the people’s sovereignty for only a short time—ranging from a few weeks (Judas, son of Hezekiah) to a few years (Athronges, Simon bar Giora, and Simon bar Kosiba)—does not lessen their significance. That several of these movements occurred within a few generations at the end of the Second Temple period indicates not only that the Jewish peasantry was capable of producing its own leadership and of taking collective action in a politically conscious way, but also that the actions took a distinctive social form because of the peasants’ memory of previous liberation and popular sovereignty.

C. Popular Prophets and Prophetic Movements
Certain prophetic figures who appeared in Judea in the mid-1st century C.E. have been labeled “messianic” prophets or “prophetic pretenders to messiahship” (TDNT 6:812–28; Hill 1979). These labels, however, obscure both the distinctive character of the figures and the movements they led and their distinctive difference from the movements led by popular kings that can more appropriately be designated “messianic.” Contrary to suggestions by some and the misleading label “messianic,” there is no overlap or confusion between these two types of movements and their leaders. Our principal source, Josephus, writes explicitly that Theudas and “the Egyptian” appeared as prophets, and he mentions nothing to suggest that they also assumed some royal posture.
Prophets such as Theudas and “the Egyptian” must also be distinguished from other prophetic figures active in this same period. Reports about these figures in Josephus and the Gospels, when placed against the background of earlier (biblical) Israelite prophetic phenomena, indicate that these prophets were of two distinctive types, each reminiscent of or in continuity with a biblical tradition. Prophets of both types apparently arose from among the people, and not from one or another of the literate groups such as the Pharisees or Qumranites. But some of them, such as Jesus, son of Hananiah, and probably John the Baptist as well, were primarily individual spokespersons for God, delivering oracles of judgment related to their respective historical situations. Jesus is particularly reminiscent of Jeremiah in his lament over the doomed city of Jerusalem. During the Jewish revolt, other prophets (none of them named by Josephus) proclaimed oracles of deliverance. Judging from Josephus’ reports, some of these may have been more apocalyptic in their inspiration and style, but the visionary imagery suggests that these prophecies concerned historical deliverance, not any “end of the world.” These prophets, whether their oracles were of judgment or of liberation, were individual messengers, and none of them (including John the Baptist) appear to have organized or led a mass movement.
The prophets such as Theudas and “the Egyptian,” on the other hand, inspired and led mass movements that were suppressed by Roman troops. On the basis of Josephus’ general descriptions of several such movements along with his accounts of Theudas, “the Egyptian,” and a Samaritan prophet, we are justified in discerning here a distinctive type of prophets and prophetic movements. That is, these prophets, while also messengers of God, did not simply announce the will of God but (1) led actions of deliverance (2) involving “revolutionary changes” (3) in accord with God’s “design” and (4) corresponding to one of the great formative historical acts of deliverance led by Moses or Joshua.
According to Josephus’ summary statements, there must have been several prophetic figures who at some point or another led their followers out into the wilderness in anticipation of new deliverance (JW 2.13.4 §259; Ant 20.8.6, 10 §168, 188). The most important, judging from their recollection in the NT as well, were those led by Theudas and “the Egyptian.”

During the period when Fadus was procurator of Judaea, a certain impostor named Theudas persuaded the majority of the masses to take up their possessions and to follow him to the Jordan River. He stated that he was a prophet and that at his command the river would be parted and would provide them an easy passage (Ant 20.5.1 §97).

There came to Jerusalem from Egypt a man who declared that he was a prophet and advised the masses of the common people to go out with him to the Mount of Olives … For he asserted … that at his command Jerusalem’s walls would fall down, through which he promised to provide them an entrance into the city (Ant 20.8.6 §169–70; cf. JW 2.13.5 §261–62).
The placement of Theudas prior to Judas of Galilee (6 C.E.) in Acts 5:36 is merely either a result of chronological confusion or a lack of solid information by Luke. In Acts 21:38 Luke has simply confused “the Egyptian’s” movement with the terrorism by the Sicarii during the same period under the governor Felix (52–60 C.E.). The fundamental reality of all of these movements appears to be that the prophets were leading their followers into some great anticipated liberating action by God.
Josephus says that these prophets were “fostering revolutionary changes” (JW 2.13.4 §259). From his explicit reference to “the masses” and “the common people,” it is clear that the social base of these movements was the Judean peasantry. Their quest for “rest from troubles” and “freedom” or “liberation” suggests a rejection of the established order in hopes of attaining an independent life free of oppressive burdens. Some of these movements appear simply to be acts of withdrawing from an intolerable situation. The prophet from Egypt is more explicitly confrontational: he apparently led his followers out to participate in God’s overthrow of the Roman-dominated established order in Jerusalem. There is no indication in our texts that any of these movements were violent, let alone armed, as has sometimes been suggested. But the brutal suppression of these movements by overwhelming military force indicates just how threatened the ruling groups were about the “revolutionary changes” that these prophets and their followers anticipated. At the very least, of course, if the participants abandoned their fields in anticipation of divine deliverance, then these movements posed a genuine threat to the productive base on which the ruling groups were economically dependent.
The report that the prophets would show their followers “marvels and signs that would be wrought in harmony with God’s design” (Ant 20.168) should be read against the background of Jewish apocalyptic literature. “God’s design” is apparently a reference to the “mystery” or plan of God for the resolution of the current crisis that figures so prominently in Daniel and the Qumran texts. The hostile Josephus writes that “deceivers and impostors, under the pretence of divine inspiration … persuaded the masses to act like madmen” (JW 2.13.4 §259). That is, stated in more positive, traditional biblical terms, these prophets, filled with the Spirit of God, inspired their followers with the conviction that they were called to participate in God’s imminent liberating action.
A new action of deliverance anticipated by these prophets corresponded to one of the great historical acts of deliverance. The historical analogies according to which the new acts of salvation were imagined are clear, at least in general. The prophet from Egypt and his followers were clearly motivated by the great battle of Jericho; in similar fashion, God would now dramatically liberate Jerusalem from Roman domination. The “charlatan” who promised his followers “deliverance and rest from troubles if they chose to follow him into the wilderness” (Ant 20.8.10 §188) was surely attempting to realize a new exodus from bondage out into the wilderness, in imitation of Moses of old. The precise analogy in Theudas’ case is less clear. Perhaps it should be seen as a new exodus and/or entry into the land: as Moses parted the waters for the deliverance from Egypt and/or as Joshua had parted the waters of the Jordan for the entry into the promised land, so Theudas was acting as God’s agent in the new deliverance from Roman oppression and/or in reentry into the land of promise.
Israelite traditions had long since juxtaposed the Exodus from Egypt and entry into the land. And prophetic traditions such as that in Isa 51:9–11 had already conceived of new redemption along the lines of the original formative acts of redemption. Contrary to generalizations often found in scholarly literature, there is virtually no literary evidence for the currency of an expectation of an eschatological prophet like Moses in the 1st century (Horsley 1985a). In the cases of Theudas, the “Egyptian,” and “the charlatan,” however, there did occur concrete movements led by prophets in actions of liberation that correspond typologically to the great constitutive historical actions led by the prototypical prophets Moses and Joshua. Even though Josephus is careful to say only that Theudas and the “Egyptian” claimed to be prophets and that such leaders were really “deceivers and imposters,” he nevertheless used for them the same distinctive language that he used in his accounts of Moses and his “signs and miracles” of deliverance (Ant 2.13.3 §286; 2.15.4 §327; cf. 20.8.6.10 §168, 188; JW 2.13.4 §259). Josephus’ reports thus indicate that there must have been a distinctive social form of prophetic movements in 1st century Palestinian Jewish society, parallel to but different from the popular messianic movements.

Bibliography
Bartlett, J. R. 1969. The Use of the Word rōʾš as a Title in the Old Testament. VT 19: 1–10.
Fitzmyer, J. A. 1974. The Bar Cochba Period. Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament. Missoula, MT.
Hill, D. 1979. Jesus and Josephus’ Messianic Prophets. Pp. 143–54 in Text and Interpretation, ed. E. Best and R. McL. Wilson. Cambridge.
Horsley, R. A. 1979. The Sicarii: Ancient Jewish “Terrorists.” JR 59: 435–58.
———. 1984. Popular Messianic Movements Around the Time of Jesus. CBQ 46: 47–95.
———. 1985a. “Like One of the Prophets of Old”: Two Types of Popular Prophets at the Time of Jesus. CBQ 47: 435–63.
———. 1985b. Menahem in Jerusalem: A Brief Messianic Episode Among the Sicarii—Not “Zealot Messianism.” NovT 27: 334–48.
———. 1986. Popular Prophetic Movements at the Time of Jesus: Their Principal Features and Social Origins. JSNT 26: 3–27.
Horsley, R. A., and Hanson, J. S. 1985. Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs. Minneapolis.
Isaac, B., and Oppenheimer, A. 1985. The Revolt of Bar Kokhba: Ideology and Modern Scholarship. JJS 36: 33–60.
Jonge, M. de. 1966. The Use of the Word “Anointed” in the Time of Jesus. NovT 8: 132–48.
Michel, O. 1967–68. Studien zu Josephus. NTS 14: 403–8.
Roth, C. 1960. Simon bar Giora, Ancient Jewish Hero. Commentary 29: 52–58.
Speiser, E. A. 1967. Background and Function of the Biblical NASI. CBQ 25: 111–17.
Tadmor, H. 1968. The People and the Kingship in Ancient Israel: The Role of Political Institutions in the Biblical Period. Cahiers d’histoire mondiale 11: 46–68.
Weisman, Z. 1976. Anointing as a Motif in the Making of the Charismatic King. Bib 57: 378–83.
Wolf, C. U. 1947. Traces of Primitive Democracy in Ancient Israel. JNES 6: 105–7.
RICHARD A. HORSLEY

Freedman, D. N., Herion, G. A., Graf, D. F., Pleins, J. D., & Beck, A. B. (Eds.). (1992). In The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday.

Exported from Logos Bible Software, 10:43 AM December 29, 2015.

also do a basic search for...

Messianism AND Judaism 

or...

Messianic Hope AND Jewish

and various combinations of these terms

Veli Voipio said:

I've tried to find out how much actually the Jewish population expected the Messiah.

I've just finished reading a book called The First Days of Jesus: The Story of the Incarnation, by Andreas J. Köstenberger, and Alexander Stewart. It's not available in Logos, but it has a very helpful appendix on Messianic expectation, which mostly gathers primary sources together.

In Logos, I'd start with the entry for Messianism in the Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism. There's a very helpful bibliography there, too. If you don't have that dictionary, there are also entries in the Dictionary of NT Background, and Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. For balance, you may want to read the entry on Messiah in the Encylopaedia of Judaism, which (IMO) lacks balance, to say the least!