writings of Philo and Josephus—use the term “messiah” infrequently and inconsistently. On their basis, there is no reason to think that the Jews of first century Palestine were anticipating a messiah. The idea of the messiah is barely present in the Mishnah, the foundational document of Rabbinic Judaism. A key reason for the unclarity about the messiah in these texts is that the Temple-centered religion practiced in Jerusalem and described in Scripture, which dominated ancient Judaism and is the