Royal Messianism and the Jerusalem Priesthood in the Gospel of Mark

Bernardo K. Cho investigates how Jewish messianism from the mid-second century BCE to the late first-century CE envisaged the proper relation between the Israelite king and the Jerusalem priests in the ideal future, and then proceeds to describe how the Gospel of Mark addresses this issue in depicting Jesus.

Cho responds to claims that the Markan Jesus regards the kingdom of God as fundamentally opposed to the ancient Levitical system, and argues that, just as with most of its related Jewish literature, the earliest Gospel assumes the expectation that the royal messiah would bring the Jerusalem institution to its eschatological climax. But Mark also depicts Jesus's stance towards the priests in terms of a call to allegiance and warning of judgement. Cho concludes that the Markan Jesus anticipates the destruction of the Jerusalem temple because the priests have rejected Israel's end-time ruler and thus placed themselves outside the messianic kingdom.

• Table of contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Justification for the Study
• Chapter One: The Royal Messiah and the Jerusalem Priests in the late Second Temple Period: The Dead Sea Scrolls
• Chapter Two: The Royal Messiah and the Jerusalem Priests in the late Second Temple Period: The Pseudepigrapha
• Chapter Three: The Messiahship of Jesus in Markan Christology
• Chapter Four: The Royal Messiah and the Jerusalem Priests in Mark 1–10
• Chapter Five: The Royal Messiah and the Jerusalem Priests in Mark 11–16
• Conclusion: The Markan Jesus among the Royal Messiahs
• Bibliography