[2] Jewish tradition alludes to four messianic figures, called the Four Craftsmen, from a vision found in the Book of Zechariah.
[9] If necessary, Messiah ben Joseph will wage war against the evil forces and die in combat with the enemies of God and Israel.
With the ascendancy of Rabbinic Judaism, the Righteous Priest has largely not been the subject of Jewish messianic speculation.
[12]: 87–89 While the Dead Sea scrolls do not explicitly refer to a Messiah ben Joseph, a plethora of messianic figures are displayed.
[17]: 43 The choice of Ephraim as the lineage of the messianic figure described in the text seems to draw on passages in Jeremiah, Zechariah and Hosea.
[17]: 48–49 However, Matthias Henze suggests that this figure is not a reference to the Messiah ben Joseph who he believes is a later development but rather a pseudonym for the Messiah ben David and that Ephraim is simple a metonym in reference to Israel; Israel Knohl disagrees.
The Testament of Benjamin was probably expanded later to include a reference to Messiah ben Joseph by Jewish sources.
[19] The Talmud uses the Hebrew ben rather than the Aramaic bar when giving the lineage of these messiahs, suggesting a date before 200 CE.
[12]: 84 The similarity between 4Q175 and the Four Craftsman suggest that the Messiah ben Joseph probably existed in some form by the early 1st century BCE.
[12]: 87–89 Targumim were spoken paraphrases, explanations, and expansions of the Jewish scriptures that a Rabbi would give in the common language of the listeners.
[28] The texts are The Secrets of Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai[31] and Ten Signs[32] Dated after the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate in the 8th century, the midrashic The Secrets of Rabbi Simon ben Yohai is generally positive towards Islam.
it will be hidden by the angels with the bodies of the Patriarchs, until Messiah ben David comes, when God will resurrect him (comp.
[46] Following the apocalyptic battles the Messiah enters a pillar of fire which will hide him for twelve months.
[12]: 89 The Kol HaTor, written by Rabbi Hillel Rivlin, deals at length with the Messiah ben Joseph and his role in bringing back the exiles and rebuilding the Land of Israel.
It has been claimed that Messiah ben Joseph does not represent the leader of the Ten Lost Tribes and that he is never presented as such.
However some later Jewish sources do explicitly call the Messiah ben Joseph the leader of the Ten Lost Tribes such as the case with RambaN (Nachmanides) in his commentary to Genesis 48:16 where is also stated that "Ephraim" is a name designated for the Ten Tribes whose leader is the Messiah son of Ephraim: "AND LET MY NAME BE CALLED ON THEM.
The text deals at some length with the author's theory that parts of the ten tribes can be found among the Native Americans.
[49]: 17–56 In the text the author calls the Messiah ben Joseph the future leader of the ten lost tribes.
[49]: 43 In his commentary on Ezekiel 37 the Malbim also says that the Messiah ben Joseph will be the leader of the Ten Lost Tribes when they return.
If Messiah ben Joseph is killed it is not considered a sacrifice but rather a tragedy that will befall Israel proceeding the eschaton.
[43]: 123 [52]: 208 [53] According to 10th-century legend, the Antichrist would be the offspring of a virgin and the devil, and the 11th-century CE Midrash Vayosha describes "a monstrosity" anti-Messiah figure which will be defeated by the Mashiach ben Yoseph to come.
Being Gog's successor, his inevitable destruction by "Messiah, son of Joseph" symbolizes the ultimate victory of good over evil in the Messianic age.
He hoped that one in particular Rabbi Saadia ben Yitzchak Sanalmapi who he dedicated the work to would forgive him.
[59] In the Kabbalistic understanding, the Righteous Priest would be reincarnated as Abel, Seth, Noah and Shem.
It has been suggested that Messiah ben Joseph arose out of a Jewish collective memory of Simon bar Kokhba.
have argued that the idea of two messiahs, one suffering, the second fulfilling the traditional messianic role, was normative to ancient Judaism, in fact predating Jesus.
Instead, the Christian worldview holds that the Messiah ben Joseph is a rabbinic invention, composed in the Talmud centuries after Christ lived and after the New Testament of the Bible was formulated.
[69] With building the temple in Kirtland and later Nauvoo, faithful members of the church see him as the prophesied prophet of Restoration.
He claimed that, in the Kirtland temple, he received keys to the sealing power of the priesthood from Elijah, one of the major revelations recorded in The Doctrine and Covenants.
For these reasons, outlier Mormons speculate Smith and his brother allegedly fulfilled the role of the rabbinic invention of Messiah ben Joseph.