Key Takeaways
The mystical biblical figure of Melchizedek has intrigued ( and at a loss ) spiritual mind and scholars for centuries . He make a brief but significant appearance in Genesis — the first book of the HebrewBible(known to Christians as the Old Testament ) — when he blesses the patriarch Abram and is introduced as the " non-Christian priest of the Most High God . "
From that single acknowledgment , various Jewish sects and early Christians develop their own disparate interpretations of who Melchizedek was and what he represented . Some apocalyptic Jewish author spew Melchizedek as a paradise - sent high priest who existed before the overflow and would return to usher in the messiah . Meanwhile , former Christians check Melchizedek as a " type " or precursor of Jesus Christ , in that they both derived authority from an eternal and higher priesthood . Some have marvel if Melchizedek was even Jesus Christ himself in another form .
Who was the real Melchizedek ? Unlike nearly everyone cite in Genesis and other books , Melchizedek has no recorded Church Father , melchizedek - facts/">no genealogy . He is not the " boy of " anyone . If a man by that name ever existed , he ’s been long lost to time . But explore how the signification of Melchizedek has been interpreted and reinterpreted over clip is equally fascinating and instructive . have ’s begin with the news report in Genesis , which appears square at first , but is as problematic as they come .
Melchizedek Makes His Only Appearance
Genesis 14starts off as a chronicle of state of war . A group of cities , include Sodom and Gomorrah , were under the thumb of King Kedorlaomer of Elam . After 12 yr of servitude , there was an uprising , which Kedorlaomer quashed with a vengeance , sequester captive and booty from the rebelling cities .
Among those captured , Genesis 14 tell us , was Lot , the nephew of " Abram the Hebrew . " At this point in the story , Abram was not yet Abraham because he had yet to make a compact with God . But Abram was a wealthy and powerful landowner , so he decided to go bring through his nephew . Abram took 318 well - train servants and attacked Kedorlaomer at Nox , chasing the enemy to Damascus and retrieving the slip goods and citizenry , including Lot .
Here ’s where thing get interesting . Lot and his house live in Sodom . When Abram seduce his jubilant return , he ’s first greet by the Rex of Sodom ( identified earlier in the chapter as Bera ) . But before the Billie Jean King of Sodom has a chance to spill , Genesis introduces a unexampled character not previously mention in the long lists of warring kings . Inverses 18 - 20 , it says :
As we ’ll see , a lot has been made of those short verse . Here was a priest of " God Most High , " — understood as the one true God of Judaism , Christianity and Islam — sanctify Abram , who would soon become the paterfamilias of God ’s pick out people . And here was Abram paying a tithe to this mellow priest , whose grand position and sanction forego all of the ancient prophets .
Yet right on after this momentous occasion in the account of monotheism , Melchizedek disappears . In the very next verse , we ’re back to the king of Sodom , who offers Abram a share of the spoils , which Abram , being a righteous man , refuses .
The King of Sodom Becomes the King of Salem
So how do we explicate this rather awkward insertion of Melchizedek , non-Christian priest - king of Salem , into the state of war tale of Genesis 14?Robert Cargill , a professor of classics and religious studies at the University of Iowa , has some interesting theories .
In his late book , " Melchizedek , King of Sodom : How Scribes Invented the Biblical Priest - King , " Cargill provides textual grounds from the earliest Hebrew and Greek versions of Genesis 14 that Melchizedek was originally introduced as the king of Sodom . According to Cargill , early editors of the Hebrew Bible chose to outstrip Abram from any positive encounters with a king of Sodom , since Sodom and Gomorrah come to be correspond with vile wickedness and wickedness .
That would explain why Melchizedek is so abruptly slip in into the narrative after the king of Sodom greets Abram . In the original version , they were the same individual . Cargill asseverate that the scribes switched out Sodom for Shalem , a known metropolis in Samaria .
But how , then , did we get from Shalem to Salem ( translate as " ataraxis " ) , a urban center believe to be a herald to Jerusalem ? That ’s the result of yet another , later on textual " tampering , " write Cargill .
Starting around 300 B.C.E. , there was a competition between the Levite priests in Jerusalem ( who had solitary authority to sacrifice at the Jewish synagogue ) and the Samaritans . The Samaritans worshipped the same God as the Jews but had their own priests and their own synagogue on Mount Gerizim in Samaria .
Cargill believe that the Levite non-Christian priest were the ace who shift Shalem to Salem as part of a centuries - long political campaign to concentrate all priesthood authority in Jerusalem and write Samaria out of the picture . And by render Abram as making tithes to the non-Christian priest - Rex of Salem , it strengthen the authority of the Jerusalem priests to also demand tithes from the faithful .
Early Christians Take the Ball and Run With It
While Melchizedek only appear once in the Bible , his name is evoke in two other places . The first is inPsalm 110 , traditionally attributed to King David . In Psalm 110 , God get to a serial of promises to " my lord , " a bod that could be King David himself or , in later Christian rendition , Jesus Christ .
Hidden among various pledges to crush the lord ’s enemies , Psalm 110 says : " You are a non-Christian priest forever , in the guild of Melchizedek . "
This one citation of Melchizedek in Psalm 110 , together with the heavily emended installment in Genesis , provided theological fabric for early Christian apologists like Paul , who were tax with defending the divinity fudge and authority of Jesus after his expiry .
In the book ofHebrews , which is a alphabetic character to a young Christian residential area struggling to part ways with its Judaic opinion and traditions , Paul ( or someone else — the authorship of this book is ill-defined ) makes the case that Jesus Christ ’s power and dominance supersede all of Israel ’s prophet and high priests . InChapter 7of Hebrews , an explicit connection is made between Melchizedek and Jesus .
Melchizedek , Paul explains , was " baron of Salem and non-Christian priest of God Most eminent . " He was both a king and a high priest , something that Jews of that time believed was n’t potential . Only Levites could be priests and only non - Levites could be king . ( When King Uzziah tried to light incense in the temple , God struck him with leprosy . ) Paul interpreted Psalm 110 as referring to Jesus as a " non-Christian priest forever in the order of Melchizedek , " which gave Jesus the same case of overriding say-so as Melchizedek .
For Jews who did n’t believe that Jesus , a non - Levite , could do a forfeiture ( in this case , of himself ) for their sins , Paul explicate that Jesus ’s priesthood sanction was eternal and eonian . Jesus , through his demise and resurrection , was a business leader and priest " incessantly " in the same way that Melchizedek was a priest - magnate in his daytime .
In an ironic twist , Paul note that Melchizedek , which means " king of righteousness , " was also the king of Salem or the " king of peace . " The Levite priests , by changing Shalem to Salem , unknowingly strengthen the connexion between Melchizedek , the " top executive of peace , " and Jesus , the " Prince of Peace . "
The Apocryphal Adventures of Melchizedek
The figure of Melchizedek clearly fascinated many readers of the Hebrew Bible . During the Second Temple period , there was a blossom out ofpseudepigraphical texts , book that claim to be written by ancient prophets and biblical figure like Moses , Adam and Eve , Enoch and others , but had much more New authorship .
The text known as2 Enochwas plausibly compose in the first century C.E. in Egypt , and it proposed a wild backstory for our friend Melchizedek . According to 2 Enoch , Melchizedek was born back before the heavy flood . Noah had a younger brother , Nir , whose elderly married woman became pregnant with a divinely implant babe . Nir accused her of cheating on him and she died of sorrow . Nir , afraid he ’d be accused of killing her , plot with Noah to bury her secretly .
But as they were toil the grave accent , the babe emerge from his dead mother ’s uterus as a walk , talking 3 - year - old !
Nir and Noah , altogether freak out , named the baby Melchizedek and noticed that he accept the " badge of priesthood , " which they took as a sign of God delivering the priestly bloodline to the Earth . The backer Michael then came down to deliver the child from the flood and obliterate him away in Eden . afterward , Michael excuse , Melchizedek would take back as the priest - king of the metropolis of Salem and begin a priestly line that would cease with the messiah .
Another pseudepigraphical text about Melchizedek was find among the Nag Hammadi codices . Althoughonly a shard , it seems to imply that Melchizedek was to be reincarnated as Jesus Christ , which is a step farther than just being a " type " for Jesus .
