King and Messiah
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Any student of the New Testament must be conscious of the competing expectations in ancient Jewish thought of what and who the Messiah would be. In King and Messiah, Aage Bentzen offers a fascinating glimpse into this topic, which preoccupied the most eminent Scandinavian biblical scholars of the mid-twentieth century.
Beginning with the Messiah described in many of the Psalms, representing a demythologised form of the Oriental concept of kingship, Bentzen proceeds to the eschatological Messiah of Isaiah and Micah. He next discusses the later, prophetic-Messianic Moses Redivivus of Deutero-Isaiah, reaching the final stage of Old Testament Messianic thought in the description of the Son of Man in Daniel 7, which carries the 'eschatologising' process still further. Bentzen shows how all of these Old Testament types are synthesised in the Christology of the New Testament - Jesus is the new Adam, the present Messiah, the suffering Prophet, the new Moses and the future Divine King - and yet simultaneously superseded. The Christian 'myth' adds its own adornment to the complex question of Jesus' identity.
Aage Bentzen (1894-1953) was a prolific Danish biblical scholar, and from 1929 was professor of biblical studies at the University of Copenhagen. In 1950 he was appointed the first president of the International Organisation of Old Testament Scholars, and was instrumental in setting up its journal, Vetus Testamentum. King and Messiah is typical of his work, which emphasised historical narrative in the study of ancient Israel.