Who Is Melchizedek?

Hello and thank you for watching Melchizedek, he has to be one of the most fascinating biblical characters. It makes a brief appearance in Genesis 14. It appears in the very significant Psalm 110, where it is connected with the priesthood of the Messiah and, of course, features prominently in the letter to the Hebrews, especially in chapter 7. There are also writings not Biblical writings about him, first century Jewish literature, Josephus and Philo, the Dead Sea Scrolls, a document known as Second Enoch, and together these all give us a great picture. of this biblical figure from abraham's time, in fact, I was so fascinated by

melchizedek

that I spent a couple of years researching him and wrote my master's thesis on

melchizedek

, so what I want to do is look at the biblical evidence as well as the non-biblical evidence. biblical, especially from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Enoch, to help us have a better understanding of exactly what various people were saying about Melchizedek in the first century so that we can then approach a letter to the Hebrews and better understand exactly. what the letter to the Hebrews tells us about Melchizedek, so sometimes you want to ask if the real Melchizedek will stand because there are all kinds of identities that have been assigned to who exactly he is, from a Canaanite priest king, a historical figure to what some christians think is the preincarnate christ the appearance of the son of god before his incarnation jewish tradition identifies him as the son of noah shem simply known by a different name some jewish literature speculates that he was the angelic redeemer or the manifestation of the logos some say he was a latter-day priest and some of the early Christians thought he was actually the holy spirit, so as you can see, all sorts of identities have been assigned to Melchizedek.

Well, why don't we start first of all with what the scriptures themselves tell us that the first appearance of Melchizedek in the biblical canon is in Genesis chapter 14. Genesis 14, if you remember, is the story of when Abraham took his men and pursued the four kings who had captured their nephew Lot and many others. people and possessions Abraham and his men defeated those kings and brought back Lot and all the people to where they had lived, the king of Sodom comes out to meet them and then another king, the king of Salem, comes out to meet them, there It is where we choose above in Genesis 14.

Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine he was a priest of the most high god and blessed him and said blessed be Abram of the most high god possessor of heaven and earth and blessed be the most high god who has delivered your enemies in your hand and abram gave him a tenth of everything now it seems as if every detail of this particular text was extracted by the later later jewish writers when trying to identify exactly the meaning of melchizedek, from his name to the name from the city where he served as priest and king to his actions with abraham, bringing out bread and wine, as well as abram giving him a tithe of all possessions, so we will return to them as we go through everything.

For these other texts that tell us about Melchizedek, we first want to move on to the other Old Testament text that tells us about Melchizedek and its meaning. This is from Psalm 110. In fact, Psalm 110 is a very important psalm of all the Old Testament texts that are cited or alluded to in the New Testament. Psalm 110 has more than any of the others. It is the most important Old Testament text. old frequently cited in the new testament you may know the first verse that the lord said to my lord sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool, but you may not be as familiar with the fourth verse , this is where Melchizedek comes into the picture, he says the lord has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever according to order. of Melchizedek now not only is God's anointed the messiah going to sit at the right hand of Yahweh and put all his enemies under his feet like the victorious king but he is also going to be a priest but he is not going to be a priest like the priest from Aaron and his sons instead he is going to inherit the priesthood of Melchizedek whatever that means well we will wait to find out what that means when we get to the letter to the Hebrews but keep in mind that because this psalm put a connection an explicit connection between melchizedek and the messiah that invited many later jewish writings to speculate about who he was and his significance in the biblical narrative now one of these speculations about melchizedek comes from the dead sea scrolls which is known as 11 q melchizedek 11 because it was found in the cave 11 q because it is part of the Qumran and Melchizedek manuscripts because, of course, the subject of this particular document was written in Hebrew sometime within the span of 100 years, approximately 50 B.C. to 50 AD and was first made known to the world in an academic publication that came out in 1965.

What is 11q Melchizedek about and how does Melchizedek himself fit into this particular document? Well, the Lebanese Melchizedek divides history into jubilee periods, this was relatively common in Jewish literature of the time. It just so happens that this document is about the tenth and final jubilee in world history, so this is something like the end of the world. Melchizedek appears from heaven as the general of the heavenly armies, he is the visible representative of God and is the redeemer of the Lord's people. Not only that, but he appears on Yom Kippur on the day of atonement, indicating the priestly role that he is going to play in this end-time scenario and, as if that were not enough, he is called god el or elohim, so we have come a long way from Genesis chapter 14 when we come to 11 q Melchizedek because of suddenly we no longer have a historical king and priest in the city of Salem, but now we have this angelic heavenly redeemer figure who appears at the end of time as the leader of the armies of the lord to redeem the children of light, the followers of god, and begins this victorious march on yom kippur, the day of atonement, which of course is a highly priestly holiday in the calendar of Israel. so keep all that in mind as we jump to probably the strangest of the Melchizedek traditions and this is in a document known as second Enoch.

There was much literature about Enoch that circulated in the early centuries. It was well known to the Jews of the first century, in fact, the first Enoch is cited in the New Testament or at least alluded to in this is the second Enoch, where Melchizedek makes his appearance. It's basically a midrash, which is a word for Jewish interpretation, it's often creative a midrash in Genesis chapter 5, where Enoch makes the appearance of him in biblical history it was probably written around the first century AD. All those scholars dispute its dating but it is for the first century AD. places it as a contemporary writing with the letter to the Hebrews now divided by scholars into 73 chapters.

The first chapters talk about Enoch's ascent through the seven heavens, his instruction by the angels and you get to the end and we have this wild and crazy story about the birth of a boy priest named Melchizedek, so that's how the story tells. story: Noah has a brother whose The name is near and near is married to Sophaneem, but this couple has no children, they have never been able to have children and suddenly, although Near and Sophonine are separated and therefore, having no sexual relations, she miraculously becomes pregnant when he is around. she discovers that he confronts her and the shock of the encounter actually kills Sopanim.

She dies before she can give birth to her son Noah and they almost abandon her body. They return to prepare for her burial and sitting on the edge of her bed is a child. a son who is fully developed has the insignia of the priesthood on his chest and opens his mouth to bless the lord it is at this time that he is called melchizedek later in the story the archangel gabriel takes melchizedek from earth to heaven to await the flood and then after the flood the archangel gabriel will bring Melchizedek back from heaven to earth where he will establish or reestablish the priesthood, so if the eleven keys of Melchizedek seem strange to you, the second Enoch is even stranger because now we have this predilution. -flood figure who doesn't seem to have a father and was born from a dead mother and is a precocious vunderkind, he is already fully developed and has this priestly insignia on his chest and is already opening his mouth to bless the lord and he becomes the establisher of this new priesthood after the flood, so with all this in mind, let's jump to a couple of other Jewish writers who, although they didn't say as much about Melchizedek, they expanded the biblical narrative and these two figures are Philo and Josephus we've talked so much about Philo Like Josephus in some of the previous videos Philo was a contemporary of Jesus, he was a Jewish philosopher who lived in Egypt, he left us a large amount of literature and in four of his writings he talks about Melchizedek, describes him as a king of peace, so he is Translating king of Salem as king of peace, which is the same as in Hebrews chapter 7, he also calls him a priest of God and not only that, not only is he a priest but he is also one. a visible representation on earth of the logos and all his thoughts are vast and sublime and he has not inherited the priesthood of anyone his inheritance his his priesthood is atomthey philo says that he is self-taught he is high in doctan is instinctive so philo goes beyond the biblical narrative to describe who Melchizedek is, but Josephus is not the only one, who is a little later than Jesus, he is from the end of the first century, a Jewish historian who has also left us a large amount of literature and in two of his writings on wars and antiquities also speaks.

About Melchizedek he describes him as a Canaanite chieftain, a righteous king who was the original founder of the city in which he lived and was also Josephus, he says the first to serve as a priest, the first to build a temple and he is the one who changed the name to Salem. Jerusalem, so even though Philo and Joseph are a little more conservative and what they have to say about Melchizedek compared to 11q Melchizedek and compared to Second Enoch, they still take the biblical story and expand on these details to tell us a little bit. a little more about who they thought Melchizedek was, let's take all of this together and regroup what we've learned so far before we jump to the letter of the Hebrews, what do we know?

We know that there are basically a couple of different trajectories that the speculations about Melchizedek go, one is that he is a historical figure, that he is a Canaanite chief, a priest, a founding king of Jerusalem, representative of the logos and that he has this enduring priesthood that is connected to the messianic king, but there is also a trajectory that places him more as a celestial figure where he is an angel or a divine redeemer, leader of the heavenly armies, a precocious child without a father and with a dead mother, the founder of a priesthood post-flood and is the priest of the end times in the final jubilee of world history, so all of this was floating around when the letter to the Hebrews was written.

These speculations about Melchizedek would have been known to the Jews. They would have known the various myths, speculations and traditions about Melchizedek, so keep that in mind when we jump in. in the letter to the Hebrews because this is going to be important in understanding exactly why the author of the Hebrew, seemingly out of nowhere, chose Melchizedek to talk about his connection to the messiah, let's first jump to the most important chapter in Hebrew to understanding melchizedek and that is chapter 7. this is how the chapter begins this melchizedek king of salem priest of the most high god met abraham who was returning from the massacre of the kings and blessed him and abram distributed a tenth of everything to him which is first by the translation of his name king of justice and then he is also king of salem that is to say king of peace he has no father or mother nor genealogy he has no beginning of days nor end of life but he looks like the son of god he continues to be a priest forever now we are going to return to those points in just a minute but keep in mind that the main reason the author of the Hebrews mentions Melchizedek is to say that the messiah according to Psalm 110 has a priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek and not according to the order of Aaron is showing that Christ has a priesthood like that of Melchizedek and Melchizedek has a priesthood that is superior to that of Aaron and his sons is prior to the priesthood of Aaron and to Abraham himself this great patriarch paid tithes to Melchizedek and received a blessing from Melchizedek, therefore, according to the author of Hebrews, it indicates that Melchizedek is superior even to Abraham, so that is the way it begins when we come to answer the question who is Melchizedek, there is a Couple of things to keep in mind about who it's not first. everything in the book of hebrews melchizedek is not a typical type of compare then contrast figure like many other people in the book of hebrews, so what the hebrews will do is compare christ to the priests, but then show how christ is superior to the priest or we will compare Christ with Moses but we will show how Christ is superior to Moses he does the same with Aaron but although they compare themessiah and melchizedek are united with each other it is never said that the messiah is superior to melchizedek they are only united with each other in the priesthood that they share secondly this is not an old testament christophany melchizedek is not a preincarnate appearance of christ because it says who looks like the son of god or is made like the son of god and who continues to be a priest forever, but these are two separate figures.

I say this because there are some Christians who believe that he is actually a preincarnate appearance of Christ, but we have no biblical justification for that. two are compared to each other they are not equated as if they were the same figure now let's jump to what is by far the most unlikely or at least unexpected description of who Melchizedek was in the book of Hebrews this is from those verses I already read where There is this chain of without these primitive alphas in the Greek in which it is said that something is missing so he is without father without mother without genealogy without beginning of days without end of life and he is made like the son of god now that he goes Continuing with everything This, I would say, based on what we have learned, based on everything we have heard from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Enoch and the speculations in both Philo and Hebrew, what is happening here is that the The author of Hebrews is simply reflecting various traditions and speculations about the person of Melchizedek.

He is not saying anything that his audience did not already know. They were part of the spirit of this day. They were immersed in this Jewish culture in which these various traditions about biblical figures circulated. there, so what the author of Hebrews was telling them was not going to be radically new. They were familiar with what was said about Melchizedek in his time, so the author of Hebrews is relying on this speculation based on everything. these various traditions about Melchizedek to further his argument for the superiority of Christ's priesthood, then what is happening, he is the author of Hebrews, echoes the views of others in his culture regarding Melchizedek without necessarily To embrace those views as true is simply saying you've heard of this Melchizedek, you've heard what people say about him, that he has no father or mother, no genealogy, no beginning of the day, it's the end of your life. , you know these traditions about these Jewish traditions about Melchizedek and that's the way he is. as the son of god well this is not something that only happens here in the new testament paul does something similar to this when he quotes in second timothy 3 verse 8 he quotes the non-biblical names of the egyptian magicians janies and jamborees or yanez and yambres now, If you go back to the book of exodus, the names of the Egyptian magicians are not given there, but rather these names were Jewish traditions that were attached to these particular Egyptian magicians, we have these names that are reflected in other Jewish literature that was contemporary with Paul. we have it, for example, in the Damascus document, which was another text found among the Dead Sea scrolls and found in places as far away as the genizah in Cairo and the synagogue there that also had a Damascus document. located in This and the disappearance of the Damascus document, as Paul does, is simply using this tradition to talk about these Egyptian magicians, just as the author of Hebrews is reflecting these traditions about Melchizedek.

Paul does the same when he reflects those traditions on their names. Egyptian magicians all of this to help us understand the meaning of reading non-biblical literature when we interpret the scriptures themselves if you didn't know about 11k Melchizedek if you didn't know about 2nd Enoch if you didn't know I don't know what Philo and Josephus were saying about Melchizedek, in other words , if you were not aware of these traditions that were present in the first century outside of the biblical canon, what the author of Hebrews says would not make any sense, but now that you know that swirl around the people to whom the letter to the Hebrews, as well as the author, now that you know that all of these traditions were there, you can see why he said what he said at the beginning of Hebrews chapter 7.

He was reflecting traditions that were present in that particular culture to advance his argument for the superiority of Christ's priesthood. He is not necessarily embracing the veracity of these speculations; He is simply using them as a springboard through which he can speak more about the priesthood of Christ. Christ, if you find this fascinating like I found it fascinating, I'm going to put in my notes a link where you can read it in its entirety or read parts of the thesis I referred to earlier on Melchizedek and the biblical and non-biblical. traditions, but most of all I hope you find it helpful to understand why we read not only the Bible when we interpret it, but why we read literature outside of the Bible so that we can better understand that each biblical author was situated in a unique place.

Somewhere in time they were surrounded by texts, traditions and myths in their culture and all of these had the potential to shape their worldview and the way they express themselves, so reading this literature outside of the Bible helps us to better understand the Bible itself. As always, thanks for watching, I hope everyone is doing well and I look forward to making more of these videos in the future. Peace be with you all, thank you.