Who is Melchizedek?

[peace2u2]

My non-denominational friend says that the appearance of Melchizedek in Genesis is Jesus. I have read that it is Shem. Who is Melchizedek?

 

[Cyklist]

From the Berit Olam Genesis -commentary by David W. Cotter ©2003 The Order of Saint Benedict, Inc., Collegeville, Minnesota, (p.96) (scripture quotes from NRSV-CE):
The name Melchizedek means Righteous King, and it is this figure that has most interested the tradition. In Genesis 14 itself precious few details are provided about him. He offered some food, blessed Abraham, and was given a tithe. The latter two elements liken him to the priests of the much later Jerusalem Temple. To further that identification he is called a priest of God Most High. But how could he be a priest of a not yet existing Temple and a member of a hereditary priesthood whose founder, Levi, has not been born yet? The name appears only one other time in the Old Testament, in Psalm 110, and it is to that psalm that biblical readers looked for clarification. Psalm 110:1-4 will provde some context.
1 The LORD says to my lord,
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool.”

2      The LORD sends out from Zion 
your mighty scepter. 
Rule in the midst of your foes. 
3      Your people will offer themselves willingly 
on the day you lead your forces 
on the holy mountains.
From the womb of the morning, 
like dew, your youth will come to you. 
4      The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, 
“You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

The difficulty lies in v. 4, which can also be understood to mean “You are a priest forever by my order, O Melchizedek.” Thus God is the one who appointed Melchizedek to his priesthood, so he comes to be regarded as a heavenly or angelic figure.*
Another way of reading the problematic passage found favor among Christians. Psalm 110 was given a christological interpretation. The “lord” of v. 1 was understood to refer to Christ and, in accordance with the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, v. 3 was understood to refer to Christ’s preexistence.** The priesthood, then, was Christ’s and helped Christians understand how Christ’s death could both be the final and ultimate sacrifice and he could be the one who offered the sacrifice. This is the understanding found in the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews, where Melchizedek figures prominently (Heb 5:1-10; 7:1-4, 26-28).*** In short, the bread and wine he offered prefigured the Eucharist, and his non-levitical priesthood prefigured both the priesthood of Christ and the ministerial priesthood of the Catholic tradition of Christianity.****

• James L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998) 280.
  ** In the Septuagint, the psalm is numbered 109. Verse 3 reads, meta sou hē archē en hēmera tēs dynameōs sou en tais lamprotēsin tōn haiōn ek gastros pro heōsphorou exegennēsa se. According to A. Pietersma this should be translated:
  Rule is yours on the day of your power
  among the splendor of the holy ones.
  From the womb, before the morning star, I brought you forth.
  See Albert Pietersma, A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under that Title. The Psalms (New York: Oxford 2000)
  *** See Daniel Harrington, “Hebrews,” The New Collegeville Bible Commentary (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, forthcoming) for an excellent exposition of these texts.
  **** In the Rite for the Ordination of a Priest in the Roman Catholic Church, while the newly ordained priest is being vested in the stole and chasuble, garments appropriate to his ministry, Psalm 110 is chanted with the antiphon “Christ the Lord, a priest forever in the line of Melchizedek, offered bread and wine.” International Commission for English in the Liturgy, “Ordination of a Priest,” Rites of the Catholic Church, vol. 2 (New York: Pueblo, 1980) §28.

 

[Skeptic92]

My non-denominational friend says that the appearance of Melchizedek in Genesis is Jesus. I have read that it is Shem. Who is Melchizedek?

I don’t have it to hand, but read DR Brant Pitre (Foreword by Dr Scott Hahn) - Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper who deals with who Melchizedek is (I think his theory is that he is the Priest King of Jeru-SALEM as he is described as the King of Salem), I could reply later once I find the book for you if you wish?

 

[Nita]

My non-denominational friend says that the appearance of Melchizedek in Genesis is Jesus. I have read that it is Shem. Who is Melchizedek?

Hebrews 7:1-3 For this Melchiz’edek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, …He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. ** He is without father or mother or genealogy, and has neither beginning of days nor end of life,** but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest for ever.I’ve also read/heard about the tradition that says it might be Shem. But at the time of St. Paul, who was a learned Pharisee before becoming Christian, this tradition must not have been known. Or, if it was, then not given much credit, for St. Paul had only the above to say about Melchizedek. So,we don’t know Melchizedek’s lineage. And we don’t know where he was born, when he was born or when he died.

 

[just_came_back]

I believe he is either a)an OT incarnate version of Christ or b)Shem, son of Noah giving a LONG life

 

[TimothyH]

I think it is Shem, or a descendent of Shem.

Father’s blessed sons, and the fact that Melchizidek blesses Abraham is, I think, significant, possibly establishing Melchizidek as being from the line of Adam through Noah to Abraham.

Melchizidek is probably his throne name, taken when he became priest/king of Salem.

-Tim-

 

[patrick457]

As I’ve mentioned before, the identification of Melchizedek with Shem is only viable if you use the Hebrew text of Genesis; in the Septuagint and the Samaritan Torah Shem should have been already dead at the time of Abraham. This partly explains why the identification - originally proposed by Jewish rabbis of the later Talmudic period - never caught on much amongst early Christians (who used the LXX and deritative versions) and was limited to those who had access to the Hebrew and deritative versions. Granted, some of those who apparently knew this tradition attempt to either refute it or try to harmonize the two conflicting traditions by saying that Melchizedek is closely related to Shem, but is not Shem himself.

I wrote quite a lot on Mel a while back on another thread.

 

[just_came_back]

While I personally don’t subscribe to young earth creationism, I have actually taken the time to do a timeline from Adam to Abraham based on the # of years attributed to every patriarch in Genesis. Shem, based on the chronology, would have still been alive up to see Jacob and Esau born.

It’s time consuming, but should you ever want to give it a try, it’s fun. Based on the timeframes, did you know Noah was the only patriarch mentioned in Genesis 5 that NEVER saw Adam alive? Jacob and Esau also saw Abraham, as they would’ve been 15 years old when he passed. Just thought I would share.

 

[Taestron]

Interesting, I have never heard about Melchizedek’s relation to Shem. Why do you say it is only plausible from the Hebrew Text and not the Greek? In my own thinking, I do not believe it is possible to pin down exactly who this mysterious figure is. I think it is plausible that he might be a pre-figured Christ (much like certain people’s thinking of “the angel of the Lord”), however, it is also possible he was merely a Jebusite king of a city which may or may not be Jerusalem. Much more profitable is focusing on what he came to represent in later traditions. The priest that has no lineage, the one who would announce the perpetual jubilee, etc. These are the more fruitful pursuits in my opinion.

 

[peace2u2]

Thank you to all who replied. All the information is very helpful. There is so much to learn! Peace

 

[patrick457]

Interesting, I have never heard about Melchizedek’s relation to Shem. Why do you say it is only plausible from the Hebrew Text and not the Greek?

The thing is that, there is some divergence between the Hebrew, Greek, and Samaritan texts between the ages of the patriarchs.



All in all, the Septuagint has the tendency to make most patriarchs a hundred years older when they had children starting from Adam up to Nahor when compared to the Hebrew text; in Nahor’s case, he has an ‘extra’ 150 years. In addition, it also adds an extra patriarch, Cainan, in between Arphachshad and Shelah. Cainan only appears in the Septuagint, his name not being found in the Masoretic Hebrew or the Samaritan Torah (cf. Luke 3:36). If we do a little math, we would see that while Shem is still alive during the time of Abraham in the Hebrew text, in the Greek and the Samaritan versions he would have died long before Abraham was even born.

 

[patrick457]

In my own thinking, I do not believe it is possible to pin down exactly who this mysterious figure is.

Exactly.

I think it is plausible that he might be a pre-figured Christ (much like certain people’s thinking of “the angel of the Lord”), …] The priest that has no lineage, the one who would announce the perpetual jubilee, etc. These are the more fruitful pursuits in my opinion.

The thing is, the idea that Melchizedek is an otherworldly being is not new, nor is it unique to Christianity. A 1st century BC work found among the Dead Sea Scrolls known as The Coming of Melchizedek already portrays Mel as a sort of exalted divine being who will be the agent of the future Jubilee salvation. Another work known as the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice also seems to imply Melchizedek being a high-ranking angel, and the so-called War Scroll (aka War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness) seems to identify him with the angel Michael as the “prince of light.”

Given how Jesus and Melchizedek are compared to each other in Hebrews, some Christians have also arrived to the conclusion that Melchizedek and Jesus or the Holy Spirit must literally be the same people. (Some, like the Melchizedekians, even thought that Mel is a more superior being than Jesus! ) It was perhaps because of these ideas of Melchizedek as supernatural being, perhaps an angel or even as the Son of God or the Holy Spirit that different legends about him (which we see in works like The Cave of Treasures, The Book of the Bee, and The Ethiopian Book of Adam) being a full-blooded human, having a father or mother - albeit one who came in close contact with the supernatural and the fantastic - began to circulate, as a way to counter and refute these ideas.

however, it is also possible he was merely a Jebusite king of a city which may or may not be Jerusalem. Much more profitable is focusing on what he came to represent in later traditions.

In Jewish writings of the final centuries before Christ and first centuries AD, the emphasis was less on Melchizedek’s precise origins and more on his being (1) a righteous king and divinely appointed high priest, (2) the founder of Salem, which Josephus and later Targumim understood as referring to Jerusalem, and (3) a generous host – Philo, Josephus and the author of the Genesis Apocryphon (ca. early 1st century BC) all understood the text as meaning that Melchizedek brought out the “bread and wine” to feed Abraham and his men, i.e. as a feast (note that the text does not really specify for whom he intended these for, only that he brought them out). There was still no interest in his actual origins, though Josephus once seemed to suggest that Melchizedek was actually a Canaanite.

Abram camped in the valley of Shaveh, which is the valley of the king, the valley of Beth-ha-Kerem; and Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out food and drink to Abram and to all the men who were with him. He was the Priest of the Most High God. And he blessed Abram and said, “Blessed be Abram by the Most High God, Lord of heaven and earth! And blessed be the Most High God who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And Abram gave him the tithe of all the possessions of the king of Elam and his companions.

• Genesis Apocryphon (xxii.14ff)

Moreover, God made Melchisedek, the king of peace, that is of Salem, for that is the interpretation of this name, “his own high Priest,” without having previously mentioned any particular action of his, but merely because he had made him a king, and a lover of peace, and especially worthy of his priesthood. For he is called a just king, and a king is the opposite of a tyrant, because the one is the interpreter of law, and the other of lawlessness.

• Philo, Allegorical Interpretation 3.79

And when the great high priest of the most high God beheld him returning and coming back loaded with trophies, in safety himself, with all his own force uninjured, for he had not lost one single man of all those who went out with him; marvelling at the greatness of the exploit, and, as was very natural, considering that he had never met with this success but through the favour of the divine wisdom and alliance, he raised his hands to heaven, and honoured him with prayers in his behalf, and offered up sacrifices of thanksgiving for his victory, and splendidly feasted all those who had had a share in the expedition; rejoicing and sympathising with him as if the success had been his own, and in reality it did greatly concern him. For as the proverb says:–

“All that befalls from friends we common call.”

And much more are all instances of good fortune common to those whose main object it is to please God.

• Philo, On Abraham 235

And Habramos, having rescued those of the Sodomites who were prisoners (including his kinsman Lotos), who had previously been captured by the Assyrians, returned in peace. And the king of the Sodomites went out to meet him at a certain place that they call the royal plain. There the king of Solyma, Melchisedek, received him. And this signifies “righteous king.” And he was such indisputably, since for this reason he was also made priest of God. As to Solyma, they later called it Hierosolyma ‘Holy Solyma’; i.e. Jerusalem]. And this Melchisedek granted hospitality to Habramos’ army and furnished a great abundance of their needs, and in the feast he began both to praise him and to bless God who had subjugated the enemy to him. And when Habramos gave him the tithe of the spoil, he accepted the gift.

• Josephus, Antiquities 1.10.2 (179-181)

And thus was Jerusalem taken, in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, on the eighth day of the month Gorpeius [Elul]. It had been taken five times before, though this was the second time of its desolation; for Shishak, the king of Egypt, and after him Antiochus, and after him Pompey, and after them Sosius and Herod, took the city, but still preserved it; but before all these, the king of Babylon conquered it, and made it desolate, one thousand four hundred and sixty-eight years and six months after it was built. But he who first built it was a potent man among the Canaanites (Χαναναίων δυνάστης), and is in our own tongue called [Melchisedek], the Righteous King, for such he really was; on which account he was [there] the first priest of God, and first built a temple [there], and called the city Jerusalem, which was formerly called Salem. However, David, the king of the Jews, ejected the Canaanites, and set-tied his own people therein.

• Josephus, Jewish War 6.10

The only work from this time in which the origins of Melchizedek are discussed in detail is 2 Enoch (late 1st century AD). Here Melchizedek, despite having human parents, is given some superhuman traits: he is born miraculously to the recently deceased wife of Noah’s brother Nir - obviously with no intercourse involved (a kind of virgin birth, if you will). As soon as he came out of the womb the child, marked on his chest with a priestly seal, speaks and praises God. In a night vision Nir is told of the impending flood; he is also informed that the archangel Michael will bring Melchizedek to paradise, thus enabling him to escape the flood waters. Melchizedek will eventually become the chief of priests among the people, and in the end of days he will be revealed yet another time as the chief priest. (We can see here some elements similar with the DSS works mentioned earlier.) In this version, Melchizedek is actually Noah’s nephew instead of being his son.

 

[patrick457]

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8626/24745470.png

The later Cave of Treasures and the Book of the Bee both posit that Melchizedek was the son of a certain Malah, who in turn was Cainan’s (the extra patriarch of the Septuagint!) son. This makes him Shem’s great-great-grandson. The Ethiopian Book of Adam meanwhile makes Melchizedek to be the other son of Cainan instead of Malah - and adds the detail about the pre-incarnate Word of God consecrating Melchizedek to the priesthood Himself (so it goes full circle: pre-incarnate Jesus consecrates Mel to the ‘order of Melchizedek’! ). The Melkite patriarch Eutychius of Alexandria in his Nazm al-Gawahir makes him the son of a certain ‘Phalek’. The author of The Bee, Mar Solomon was well aware of the curse of Canaan in Genesis 9:25-27 (some, perhaps taking their lead from Josephus, believed Melchizedek was an offspring of Canaan), because he noted that:

Neither the father nor mother of this Melchizedek were written down in the genealogies; not that he had no natural parents, but that they were not written down. The greater number of the doctors say that he was of the seed of Canaan, whom Noah cursed. In the book of Chronography, however, (the author) affirms and says that he was of the seed of Shem the son of Noah. Shem begat Arphaxar, Arphaxar begat Cainan, and Cainan begat Shâlâh and Mâlâh, Shâlâh was written down in the genealogies; but Mâlâh was not, because his affairs were not sufficiently important to be written down in the genealogies.

There is also another story attributed to St. Athanasius which attempts to provide a rather fantastic backstory for Melchizedek. There was once a queen in Salem whose son was named Salaad. Salaad in turn had a son caled Melchi, who had two sons by his wife named Salem: Melchi (Jr.) and Melchizedek. Now, this royal family was pagan: Mel only became aware of the true God through observation of the heavens and nature and renounced his idols. He then ran away from home to avoid the fate of his brother (who was sacrificed to the seven planets), went up Mount Tabor and asked God to punish those who had slain Melchi Jr., whereupon the earth opened up and swallowed all of his family: thus Melchizedek became “without father or mother,” as the writer of Hebrews says. With no more family, he lived almost naked in a forest on the mountain for seven years until his back ‘like that of a tortoise’. Abram, finding Melchizedek in this state, fetched him, pared his nails and clothed him in priestly garments: in return for this kindness, Melchizedek then blessed Abram and gave “a cup of pure wine and a morsel of bread to him and the three-hundred and eighteen men* who were with him” (cf. Genesis 14:14).

• The number 318 was very symbolic to the early Christians (Epistle of Barnabas 9:7-8; Tertullian, Against Marcion 3.22; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 6.11): in Greek, it is written TIH - T representing the Cross and IH representing the Name ‘Jesus’ (IHCOYC). Within this particular context, the 318 men is here also made out to be a prefigurement of the number of the council fathers who attended the Council of Nicaea in 325.

This tradition was apparently known in some form to the Armenian abbot Gregory of Datev, aka Grigor Tatevatsi (1346-1411), venerated as a saint in the Armenian Church. In his book Kirk Hartzmantz (The Book of Questions), he wrote that:

Melchizedek’s father was called Melchi, and his mother Sala; and they dwelt at Salem. From his birth he was consecrated to idols, but he was carried away to Mount Tabor, and fed there until he was grown up. One day a cloud descended from the mountain, and a hand stretched out of the cloud, ordained him priest saying, “Melchizedek, without father, mother or kindred, and like unto the Son of God;” because having been taken from his parents when quite a child, he had grown unlike them, not knowing them, and unknown to them. His dwelling was on Mount Golgotha where he sowed wheat with his own hands and made his own wine, so that when Abraham met him, he brought out to him some unleavened bread still warm and some wine; a figure of the Lord’s supper.

Now, we move on to the identification of Melchizedek with Shem. Some scholars think that this opinion was first proposed in the light of Jewish-Christian polemics as a response to the idea that Melchizedek was a “priest of El Elyon” who lacked any connection to the Jewish people or the later levitical priesthood. By identifying the priest-king as a distant ancestor of the Hebrews, Melchizedek is thus ‘domesticated’ and is made a less problematic figure, less of a poster-boy (man?) for the Christians. However, it could also be equally possible that this identification was indeed one which came about before any such Christian arguments came to the fore - and before the time when such arguments seemed to Jews to require refutation.

This argument enjoyed quite a bit of popularity (after all, it’s Biblically-consistent, as long as you’re using the Masoretic Hebrew text or something based on it ) that some Christians (specifically those who apparently knew Hebrew, or used versions close to the Hebrew text) began to adopt this idea. On the other hand - some of the Christians who still used the Septuagint or texts based on it found this opinion rather hard to swallow since according to the text that they use, Shem should have been dead at around the time of Abraham. Again, Gregory of Datev devotes a passage to answering it in his Kirk Hartzmantz:

But why does St. Ephrem in his writings say that Melchizedek was Shem (cf. Commentary on Genesis 11.2)? He had not two names neither is he a different person. But Irinos (St. Irenaeus?) gives the reason which is difficult to understand. Noah blessed Shem, but Shem had no son like himself to bless. Abraham, however, was of the family of Shem, and worthy of a blessing. But Shem was not then living, to bless him; and Terah could not bless. So Melchizedek took Shem’s place and did what Shem would have done: he blessed Abraham, and was called Shem.

(N.B.: The version of the Old Testament in use in the Armenian Church is based from the Septuagint according to Origen’s Hexapla)

St. Epiphanius of Salamis (Panarion 55.6) in fact argues against the very same idea of Melchizedek being Shem by invoking the Septuagint, though he makes a little blunder by attributing the belief to Samaritans instead of Jews (he attributes to Jews meanwhile the idea that Melchizedek was the offspring of a harlot and an unknown father).

But how many other fancies others have about this Melchizedek! Samaritans [sic] believe that he is Noah’s son Shem, but it will be found that they too are absurd. The sacred scripture, which safeguards everything with due order, has confirmed the truth in every way; not for nothing has it listed the time periods, and enumerated the years of each patriarch’s life and succession. …]

Now when he became the father of Abraham, Abraham’s father Terah was seventy years old, and that made about 160 years. Nahor fathered Terah at the age of seventy-nine, and that made 239 years. Serug fathered Nahor at the age of 130, and that made 239 years. Serug fathered Nahor at the age of 130, and that made 369 years. Reu fathered Serug when he was 132, and that came to the five hundred and first year. Peleg fathered Reu when he was 130, and that made 631 years. Eber fathered Peleg in the hundred and thirty-fourth year of his life, and that made 765 years. Shelah fathered Eber when he was 230, and that made 895 years. Kainan fathered Salah in the hundred ninth year of his life, and that made 1004 years. Arphaxad was 135 when he fathered Kainan, and that made 1139 years. And the Shem we spoke of, whom the Samaritans imagine to be Melchizedek, fathered Arphaxad in the hundred second year of his life, and altogether there were 1241 years until the time of Abraham, when he met Melchizedek on his return from the slaughter of the kings Amraphel, Arioch, Chedorlaomer and Tidal.

But Shem did not live that many years, as their foolish imagination would have it. He was 102 when he became the father of Arphaxad, in the second year after the flood. “And after that he lived 500 years,” as the sacred scripture says, “and begat sons and daughters, and died.” Now then, if he lived for 602 years and then died, how could he reach the age of 1241 years, they can call Shem the son of Noah, who lived ten generations before Abraham, Melchizedek? How much human error there is!

But if we go by the figure in other copies, there are about 628 years from the date of Shem’s birth until the time of Abraham’s meeting with Melchizedek, in the eighty-eighth or ninetieth year of Abraham’s life. Thus on no account can Shem have lived until Abraham’s time, to be thought of as Melchizedek. And the Samaritans’ jabber is likewise all wrong.

 

[Taestron]

Wow that was very thorough. Thank you for all the hard work:thumbsup:

 

[billcu1]

My non-denominational friend says that the appearance of Melchizedek in Genesis is Jesus. I have read that it is Shem. Who is Melchizedek?

Right Shem. Noah’s son. You read about those people living hundreds of years. They sometimes faked deaths and lived more like 1,000’s of years. It is good to seek. This is from kabbala in judaism.

Bill

 

[nordskoven]

If the scenario was that Shem and Japheth had to come into Egypt to stop Cham from spreading heresy and violence–he was the maniacal brother–then the Great Pyramid built, as Herodotus notes, on the hill where Philition (Lover of Righteousness) grazed his flock may refer to this Shem-or-Shem-school of orthodoxy. King of Righteousness Shem-or-Shem-school had to flee Egypt after the bad guys turned the people against him. The Great Pyramid was to have been an ossuray for Adam’s bones (heiroglyph stating "the sacred bones of Ra/Adam were on the sacred boat of Nu/Noah). There was a boat buried at the base suggesting of a shrine to salvation through the Great Flood. But a revolt against their hated boss which may be Shem-or-Shem-school led to the Lover of Righteousness becoming a hunted exile who was King of Righteousness in Salem. Herodotus knew the Egyptians were covering up something and that would be entailed in ascribing to the Shepherd-King Shem (or Shem school) the office of merely despised, stinky shepherd.

 

[beehumble]

Hebrews 7:1-3 For this Melchiz’edek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, …He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. ** He is without father or mother or genealogy, and has neither beginning of days nor end of life,** but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest for ever.I’ve also read/heard about the tradition that says it might be Shem. But at the time of St. Paul, who was a learned Pharisee before becoming Christian, this tradition must not have been known. Or, if it was, then not given much credit, for St. Paul had only the above to say about Melchizedek. So,we don’t know Melchizedek’s lineage. And we don’t know where he was born, when he was born or when he died.

Melchizedek is a real person so it still could be Shem even w/o Paul mentioning it. He did not mention it since that is not important to his point, which is:
this person is a type for the Catholic priesthood (bread/wine/tithes given), which is a stand-in for Jesus who is the first and High priest. Catholic priests act in the person (not the name) of Christ. Since the Catholic priesthood is Jesus in person so to speak (how many times has Jesus told mystics that when you confess to a priest, it is Him you are talking to who is present in the person of that priest), it can be said He has no father or mother and existed for all time, and exists forever. So the Catholic priesthood existed for all time, first in the person of Jesus in Heaven, (then possibly Shem and others), then Jesus incarnate, then the Twelve, then the others they ‘ordained’ via the laying on of hands, up to the present day, and on into the future, and forever.

The Old Testament is full of types that depict the real nature of the coming Kingdom of God, which breaks into this world with the arrival of Jesus Incarnate. This is another one of them, dealing this time with the priesthood of the Kingdom of God. Sometimes it is best not to get too lost in the minutiae that are unimportant - everything that matters is provided to us in Scripture; since the real identity of Melchizedek is not given with certainty, it means it does not matter so it might be a mistake to get stuck on that point and miss the bigger point of the typology of the priesthood existing in the Kingdom of God.
I personally find a lot of OT typology to be best understood on a macro, not micro, level.

God bless you.

 

[billcu1]

My non-denominational friend says that the appearance of Melchizedek in Genesis is Jesus. I have read that it is Shem. Who is Melchizedek?

There was supposed to be an old god cannanite or older called ‘sedek’. My-king-is-Sedek. Or Melchizidek. A rabbi from a chabad house told me once he was Shem so looking into our Jewish heritage and anciet archeology would help with this.

 

[billcu1]

As I’ve mentioned before, the identification of Melchizedek with Shem is only viable if you use the Hebrew text of Genesis; in the Septuagint and the Samaritan Torah Shem should have been already dead at the time of Abraham.

Don’t let them fool you. They can die in front of you and you turn around and they’re standing there. Just because even if a death is recorded, such as our John, That’s not the end.God has no limits. There is no death. Jesus said “What is it to you that I should have him live until I return?” “[To he who is worthy of my secrets I will teach] let not your left hand know what your right hand does.” We have a record of John’s death. That doesn’t mean he’s dead. Sorry for slightly jumping OT but though it would explain something.

This partly explains why the identification - originally proposed by Jewish rabbis of the later Talmudic period - never caught on much amongst early Christians (who used the LXX and deritative versions) and was limited to those who had access to the Hebrew and deritative versions. Granted, some of those who apparently knew this tradition attempt to either refute it or try to harmonize the two conflicting traditions by saying that Melchizedek is closely related to Shem, but is not Shem himself.

I wrote quite a lot on Mel a while back on another thread.