John 1:25

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Augustine3

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They asked him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah or Elijah or the Prophet?” – John 1:25

Why is the Messiah and the Prophet distinctive in this verse? What’s the difference and significance?
 
Here is what St. Thomas Aquinas says

Through a misunderstanding, the Jews associated three great personages with the coming of Christ: 1) Christ himself, 2) Elijah, 3) and some other person, the greatest of the prophets, about whom Deuteronomy (18:15) says: “The Lord your God will raise up a prophet for you.” And although this greatest of the prophets is in fact none other than Christ, according to the Jews he is someone other than Christ. And so they do not ask simply whether he is a prophet, but whether he is that “greatest of the prophets.” And this is clear from the order of their questions. For they first ask whether he is the Messiah; secondly, whether he is Elijah; thirdly, whether he is that prophet.
 
The prophet Zechariah wrote…

On that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to purify from sin and uncleanness. (Zechariah 13:1)

The prophet Ezekiel wrote…

I will sprinkle clean water over you to make you clean; from all your impurities and from all your idols I will cleanse you. m I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:25-26)

Ezekiel goes further, in chapter 47, to describe water flowing from the four sides of the temple, with a “great many trees” growing along the side of the water. Trees often represent nations in the Bible, and Ezekiel is describing the many nations which will recieve blessing from God to fulfill one of the three promises given to Abraham - the promise of worldwide blessing.

The Messiah, the prophet, the “New Moses”, the “Annointed one of God” was to bring this all about. The Jews were actively looking for the Messiah as the 490 years of spiritual exile prophecied by Daniel (Daniel 9:24-27) came to a close. In their expecation, and in preparation for the Messiah, the entire nation of Judea was going out to John the Baptist.

At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him. (Matthew 3:5)

They expected the Messiah, the Christ, the prophet, the “New Moses”, and were actively seeking him.

-Tim-
 
COPLAND_3 said:
Here is what St. Thomas Aquinas says

Through a misunderstanding, the Jews associated three great personages with the coming of Christ: 1) Christ himself, 2) Elijah, 3) and some other person, the greatest of the prophets, about whom Deuteronomy (18:15) says: “The Lord your God will raise up a prophet for you.” And although this greatest of the prophets is in fact none other than Christ, according to the Jews he is someone other than Christ. And so they do not ask simply whether he is a prophet, but whether he is that “greatest of the prophets.” And this is clear from the order of their questions. For they first ask whether he is the Messiah; secondly, whether he is Elijah; thirdly, whether he is that prophet.
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Uh oh I can see the Muslims turning this around by saying it was not a misunderstanding but in fact proof of the expectation of Mohammed’s coming…

God bless,
 
I wonder if there is any Jewish documentation that talks about the Messiah and The Prophet?
 
Augustine3 said:
I wonder if there is any Jewish documentation that talks about the Messiah and The Prophet?
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I have a book called The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation: by Michael O. Wise, Martin Abegg Jr. and Edward Cook. It has translated the extra-Biblical manuscripts of the DSS. There are lots of things written by Messiah-type figures, I found this one to be related to what you are looking for.

In manuscript 4Q175 a group of Biblical passages are collected together. In the Introduction to that manuscript by the translators says this…

But why were these passages collected? What does their collocation mean? Many students of the text agree on the significance of the first three passages. They represent, respectively, the Yahad’s (group within the Judean Desert sect who chose to live communally) expectations for the coming of a prophet like Moses, a royal scion of David to lead in war, and a proper high priest. All three could be considered “messiahs” in the sense that each was to be “anointed” by God.

Then the manuscript begins by quoting together passages Deut. 5:28-29 and Deut. 18:18-19.

28. But as for you, stand here with Me, and I will speak to you all the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances which you will teach them, that they may do them in the land which I give them to possess. 29. Keep them to perform [them] as the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn aside either to the right or to the left.
18. I will set up a prophet for them from among their brothers like you, and I will put My words into his mouth, and he will speak to them all that I command him. 19. And it will be, that whoever does not hearken to My words that he speaks in My name, I will exact [it] of him.

This next quotation of Num. 24:15-17 is apparently foretelling the coming of a roayl messiah who would lead in war.

15. He took up his parable and said, "The word of Balaam, son of Beor, the word of a man with an open eye. 16. The word of the one who hears God’s sayings and perceives the thoughts of the Most High; who sees the vision of the Almighty, fallen yet with open eyes. 17. I see it, but not now; I behold it, but not soon. A star has gone forth from Jacob, and a staff will arise from Israel which will crush the princes of Moab and uproot all the sons of Seth.

The next quotes a portion from Deut. 33:8-11which foretells a future priestly figure.

8. And of Levi he said: “Your Tummim and Urim belong to Your pious man, whom You tested at Massah and whom You tried at the waters of Meribah, 9. who said of his father and his mother, ‘I do not see him’; neither did he recognize his brothers, nor did he know his children, for they observed Your word and kept Your covenant. 10. They shall teach Your ordinances to Jacob, and Your Torah to Israel; they shall place incense before You, and burnt offerings upon Your altar. 11. May the Lord bless his army and favorably accept the work of his hands; strike the loins of those who rise up against him and his enemies, so that they will not recover.”
 
Here are a few things that I have found interesting in the Damascus Document that was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

“The nobility of the people… to live by during the whole era of wickedness, and without these rules they shall obtain nothing until the appearance of the one who teaches righteousness in the Last Days.”

“So it is with all the men who entered the new covenant in the land of Damascus, but then turned back and traitorously turned away from the foundation of living water. They shall not be reckoned among the council of the people, and their names shall not be written in their book from the day the Beloved Teacher dies until the Messiah from Aaron and from Israel appears.”
 
Philo of Alexandria writes this in Special Laws 1.12.64

“but that some other Prophet will appear to them on a sudden, inspired like himself, who will preach and prophesy among them, saying nothing of his own (for he who is truly possessed and inspired, even when he speaks, is unable to comprehend what he is himself saying), but that all the words that he should utter would proceed from him as if another was prompting him;”
 
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