In this article, I will list some sources within Judaism and rabbinic literature which teach (or at least suggest) that the Messiah is preexistent.
1 Enoch
"And in that place I saw an inexhaustible spring of righteousness and many springs of wisdom surrounded it, and all the thirsty drank from them and were filled with wisdom, and their dwelling was with the Righteous and the Holy and the Chosen. And at that hour that Son of Man was named, in the presence of the Lord of Spirits, and his name brought to the Head of Days. Even before the Sun and the constellations were created, before the Stars of Heaven were made, his name was named in front of the Lord of Spirits. He will be a staff to the righteous and the Holy, so that they may lean on him and not fall, and he will be the Light of the Nations, and he will be the hope of those who grieve in their hearts. All those who dwell upon the dry ground will fall down and worship in front of him, and they will bless, and praise, and celebrate with psalms, the name of the Lord of Spirits. And because of this he was chosen, and hidden in front of Him, before the World was created, and forever.....And on the day of their trouble there will be rest on the earth and they will fall down in front of him and will not rise. And there will be no one who will take them with his hands and raise them for they denied the Lord of Spirits and his Messiah." (1 Enoch 48:1-6, 10)
Many scholars have considered this passage as teaching the Son of Man/Messiah's preexistence:
"This poem, as it is preserved, further elucidates the figure of the Son of Man, particularly in terms of pre-existence." (Leslie W. Walk, The Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch and in Matthew, pg. 85)
“These texts obviously teach that the Son of Man existed in heaven before He was to be manifested on earth: He was named beside God in heaven (46:1); His name was named (48:2 and 3) and He was hidden with God before the creation. The statement that the Son of Man was both named and hidden creation leaves no doubt that He was thought to have existed creation, whether naming implies bringing into existence or not. … T.W. Manson’s objections, therefore, miss the point completely. Focusing attention on the ‘naming,’ he believes that there is no evidence of a belief in the ‘pre-mundane existence’ of the Son of Man; rather evidence of a ‘pre-mundane election.’ He concludes, ‘pre-mundane election does not necessarily involve pre-mundane existence except as a project in the mind of God.’ But the ‘naming’ is not the act which brings the Son of Man into existence, rather it implies that He already is in existence. The text, in fact, tells of the pre-mundane election of a pre-existent being who, since he is also to be ‘hidden’ certainly exists outside of God’s mind. … There can be no serious doubt, therefore, that the Son of Man was a pre-mundane, pre-existent, heavenly being, who was reserved in heaven until the appropriate time for the exercise of His office as eschatological judge and king.” (Robert Gerald Hammerton-Kelly, “The Idea of Pre-Existence in Early Judaism: A Study in the Background of New Testament Theology,” unpublished dissertation), pp. 67-70; )
Even liberal scholar Bart Ehrman says the following when discussing 1 Enoch in his book How Jesus Became God:
"At one point the cosmic judge of the earth is called the messiah–a term we will consider more fully in the next chapter. For now, it is enough to say that it comes from the Hebrew word for anointed and was originally more used of the king of Israel, God’s anointed one (i.e., the one chosen and favored by God. Now the ruler anointed by God is not a mere mortal; he is a divine being who has always existed, who sits beside God on his throne, who will judge the wicked and the righteous at the end of time. He, in other words, is elevated to God’s own status and functions as the divine being who carries God’s judgment on the earth. This is an exalted figure indeed, as exalted as one can possibly be without actually being the Lord God Almighty himself. It is striking that a later edition to the Similitudes, chapters 70-71, identifies this Son of Man as none other than Enoch. In this somewhat later view, it is a man, a mere mortal, who is exalted to this supreme position next to God. As this exalted being, the Son of Man is worshiped and glorified by the righteous." (Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee, pg. 67)
The Midrash and Talmud
Before we begin analyzing some more sources, it is worth noting what Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner says regarding the Midrash's theology of the Messiah:
“We focus upon how the system laid out in the Mishnah takes up and disposes of those critical issues of teleology worked out through messianic eschatology in other, earlier versions of Judaism. These earlier systems resorted to the myth of the Messiah as savior and redeemer of Israel, a supernatural figure engaged in political-historical tasks as king of the Jews, even a GOD-MAN facing the crucial historical questions of Israel’s life and resolving them: the Christ as king of the world, of the ages, of death itself.” (Judaisms and their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era, edited by Jacob Neusner, William S. Green, Ernest Frerichs, pg. 275, source)
Now we will be giving a long passage from Peskita Rabbati chapter 36 (source):
"In Thy light do we see light (Ps. 36:10). This is the light of the Messiah, as it is written, And God saw the light that it was good (Gen. 1:4). This teaches us that the Holy One, blessed be He, saw the generation of the Messiah and its deeds prior to the creation of the world. And He hid the light for the Messiah and his generation under His Throne of Glory. Satan said before the Holy One, blessed be He: “Master of the World! The light which is hidden under Your Throne of Glory, for whom is it [destined]?” He said to him: “For him who will turn you back and disgrace you, and shame your face.” He said to him: “Master of the world! Show him to me!” He said to him: “Come and see him!” When Satan saw the Messiah, he trembled and fell upon his face and said: “Surely this is the Messiah who in the future will cast me and all the princes of the nations of the world into Gehenna….” In that hour the nations became awestruck and said before him: “Master of the World! Who is he into whose hand we shall fall, what is his name and what is his nature?” The Holy One, blessed be He, said to them: “His name is Ephraim, My True Messiah. He will raise his stature and the stature of his generation, and will light up the eyes of Israel, and will save his people, and no nation and language shall be able to stand up against him…. All his enemies and adversaries will be affrighted and will flee from him… and even the rivers will cease to flow into the sea….” [When He created the Messiah], the Holy One, blessed be He, began to tell him the conditions [of his future mission], and said to him: “Those who are hidden with you [your generation], their sins will in the future force you into an iron yoke, and they will render you like unto a calf whose eyes have grown dim, and they will choke your spirit with the yoke, and because of their sins your tongue will cleave to the roof of your mouth. Do you accept this?” The Messiah said before the Holy One, blessed be He, “Master of the World! Will that suffering last many years?” The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: “By your life and the life of my head, it is a septenary of it that I decreed upon you. But if your soul is troubled, I shall banish them as from this moment.” He said before Him: “Master of the Worlds! With gladness in my soul and with joy in my heart I accept it, so that not a single one of Israel should perish; and not only those who will be alive should be saved in my days, but even the dead who have died from the days of Adam the first man until now. And not only they, but even the stillborn should be saved in my days; and not only the stillborn, but even those to whose creation You gave thought but who were not created. This is what I want, this is what I accept!” They said: In the septenary in which the Son of David comes they will bring iron beams and put them upon his neck until his body bends and he cries and weeps, and his voice rise up into the Heights, and he says before Him: “Master of the World! How much can my strength suffer? How much my spirit? How much my soul? And how much my limbs? Am I not but flesh and blood?…” In that hour the Holy One, blessed be He, says to him: “Ephraim, My True Messiah, you have already accepted [this suffering] from the six days of creation. Now your suffering shall be like My suffering. For ever since the day on which wicked Nebuchadnezzar came up and destroyed My Temple and burnt My sanctuary, and I exiled My children among the nations of the world, by your life and the life of your head, I have not sat on My Throne. And if you do not believe me, see the dew that is upon My head….” In that hour he says before Him: “Master of the World! Now my mind is at rest, for it is sufficient for the servant to be like his Master!” (Pesikta Rabbati 36 as cited in Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts: Jewish Legends of Three Thousand Years, pgs. 111-113)
This passage is problematic for those who reject Christ as the Messiah (and Muslims who reject him as God) in a couple of ways. First, this text clearly views the Messiah as preexistent. It says that the Messiah was "hidden under the Throne of his glory" and that the Messiah was the "light" of Genesis 1:4. Secondly, it clearly portrays the Messiah as accepting the task of suffering for the sins of people and "saving Israel".
Jewish scholar Rivka Ulmer says the following about this passage:
"The hidden Jewish Messiah relates to a preexistent heavenly being, resplendent, majestic, sitting on the Throne of Glory. Similarly, the Christian description of Jesus, occasionally referred to as the “Word” (John 1:14), claims the Christian Messiah was with God at the beginning of creation. The concept of the hidden Messiah continues in mystical midrashic literature, such as Midrash Konen, depicted a concealed Messiah residing in the Garden of Eden." (Rivka Ulmer, "Psalm 22 in Pesiqta Rabbati: The Suffering of the Jewish Messiah and Jesus" in The Jewish Jesus: Revelation, Reflection, Reclamation, edited by Zev Garber, source)
Now we will move on and consider some passages from the Talmud. Here is a quote from Pesachim 54a:
"Seven phenomena were created before the world was created, and they are: Torah, and repentance, and the Garden of Eden, and Gehenna, and the Throne of Glory, and the Temple, and the name of Messiah....The name of Messiah was created before the world was created, as it is written in the chapter discussing the Messiah: “May his name endure forever; his name existed before the sun” (Psalms 72:17)."
The same thing is said in Nedarim 39b:
"The name of the Messiah was created before the world was created, as it is written about him: 'May his name endure forever; his name existed before the sun' (Psalms 72:17). The name of the Messiah predated the creation of the sun and the rest of the world." (Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 39b)
Here are several sources commenting on the meaning of these Talmudic passages:
"Thus also the Rabbis. Of the seven things fashioned before the creation of the world, the last was the name of the Messiah (comp. Ps. lxxii. 17; Pes. 54a; Tan., Naso, ed. Buber, No. 19; and parallels); and the Targum regards the preexistence of the Messiah's name as implied in Micah v. 1 (A. V. 2), Zech. iv. 7, and Ps. lxxii. 17." (https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12339-preexistence#anchor4)
"12......A similar idea [the Messiah as preexistent] can be found in later Talmudic literature (e.g., BT Nedarim 39b, Pesachim 5a, 54b), but there is no particular person that preexistent status." (Michael L. Morgan, Steve Weitzman, Rethinking the Messianic Idea in Judaism, pg. 338)
The Midrash actually teach the Messiah is "the Spirit of God" (ruach Elohim) in Genesis 1:2:
“And the spirit of God hovers’ refers to the spirit of the Messiah, in line with the following verse of Scripture: ‘And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him’ (Is. 11:2).” The same point registers once more, now with reference to the four monarchies, Babylonia, Media, Greece, Rome, the coming of the Messiah by reason of Israel’s repentance. (Jacob Neusner, A Theological Commentary to the Midrash: Genesis Rabbah (Studies in Ancient Judaism) , Volume 2, p. 8, source)
With all of this evidence combined, we can see a fairly strong case for the Messiah's preexistence as being an idea present within rabbinic writings.
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