{{Short description|Medieval Hebrew apocalypse}} {{Rabbinical Literature}} '''Sefer Zerubavel''' ({{langx|he|ספר זְרֻבָּבֶל|Sēfer Zərubbāḇél}}), also called the '''Book of Zerubbabel''' or the '''Apocalypse of Zerubbabel''', is a medieval Hebrew-language<ref name=stern/> apocalypse written at the beginning of the seventh century AD in the style of biblical visions (e.g. Daniel, Ezekiel) placed into the mouth of Zerubbabel,<ref name=strack/><ref>also spelled Zrubavel</ref> the last descendant of the Davidic line to take a prominent part in Israel's history, who laid the foundation of the Second Temple in the sixth century BC.<ref name=stern/> The enigmatic postexilic biblical leader receives a revelatory vision outlining personalities and events associated with the restoration of Israel, the End of Days,<ref name=reeves/> and the establishment of the Third Temple.<ref name=stern>{{cite book|title=Rabbinic Fantasies: Imaginative Narratives from Classical Hebrew Literature |first=Martha |last=Himmelfarb |author-link =Martha Himmelfarb |editor=David Stern and Mark Mirsky |page=67f|year=1998|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=0-300-07402-6}}</ref>
== History == The groundwork for the book was probably written in the Holy Land between 629 and 636,<ref name=silver/> during the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 for control of the region. These wars touched Byzantine Palestine and stirred Messianic hopes among Jews, including the author for whom the wars appear to be eschatological events leading to the appearance of the Messiah.<ref name=stern/> Armilus is thought to be a cryptogram for Heraclius, and that the events described in the ''Book of Zerubbabel'' coincide with the Jewish revolt against Heraclius.<ref>{{cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=5eB8rzNfcRwC&q=Armilus+Heraclius&pg=PA108| title = Jewish Martyrs in the Pagan and Christian Worlds| date = 2006|pages =108–109| access-date = 2014-01-10 | publisher = Cambridge university press. Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo| isbn = 9781139446020}}</ref>
However, firm evidence of the work's existence before the tenth century is elusive.<ref name=reeves/> The ''Zohar'' is cognizant of the legend of Hephzibah,<ref name=Hefzibah/> whom the apocalypse first names as the mother of the Davidic Messiah and a female warrior credited with killing multiple evil kings.<ref>{{cite book | url = http://palimpsest.stmarytx.edu/thanneken/th7391/secondary/Himmelfarb(2010)ApocalypseBriefHistory.pdf | title = The Apocalypse: A Brief History | date = 2010 | pages = 120–121 | access-date = 2022-12-21 | publisher = Wiley-Blackwell: A John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Publication. Malden (Massachusetts), Oxford, West Sussex | isbn = 9781405113472}}</ref> Saadia Gaon (892–942) and Hai ben Sherira (939–1038), both heads of the Talmudic academies of Babylonia, probably knew the book but never mention it by name.<ref name=reeves/>
The ''Book of Zerubbabel'' is extant in several manuscript and print recensions. What may be the oldest manuscript copy is part of a prayerbook reportedly dated to about 840 AD.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://thekcompany.co/news-release/green-scholars-discover-worlds-oldest-jewish-prayer-book-sept-26-2013/ |title=Green Scholars Discover World's Oldest Jewish Prayer Book - DeMoss - Thinking | PR |access-date=2013-10-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131001081745/http://demoss.com/newsrooms/greencollection/news/green-scholars-discover-worlds-oldest-jewish-prayer-book/ |archive-date=2013-10-01}}</ref>
The first publication was in 1519 in Constantinople within an anthology called ''Liqqutim Shonim''.<ref name=reeves/> It was reprinted again along with the ''Sefer Malkiel'' in Vilna in 1819, and again by Adolph Jellinek in his ''Bet Ha-Midrasch'' (1853–77) and S. A. Wertheimer in his ''Leqet Midrashim'' (Jerusalem, 1903).<ref name=reeves/> The fullest edition of the work was prepared by Israel Levi in his book ''L'apocalypse''.<ref name=reeves>{{cite book |title=Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader |first=John C. |last=Reeves |year=2005 |pages=40f |publisher=Society of Biblical Literature |isbn=1-58983-102-0}}</ref>
Because the book gave an unequivocal date (1058 AD) for the return of the Messiah, it exerted great influence upon contemporary Messianic thought.<ref name=silver/> The book is mentioned by Eleazar of Worms<ref name=silver/> and supposedly<ref name=reeves/> by Rashi.<ref name=silver/> Abraham ibn Ezra criticized the book as "unreliable."<ref name=reeves/>
One edition of the ''Pirqe Hekhalot'' gave a figure of 890 years until the return of the Messiah, making the Messianic year 958 AD, within a decade of the birth of Saadia Gaon.<ref name=silver/> That date perhaps led to a message sent by Rhenish Jews to Palestine inquiring after rumors of the Messiah's advent.<ref name=silver>{{cite book |title=History of Messianic Speculation in Israel—From the First Through the Seventeenth Centuries |first=Abba Hillel |last=Silver |pages=49 |chapter=II The Mohammedan Period |year=1927 |publisher=The MacMillan Company |isbn=0-7661-3514-4}}</ref>
== Contents == The sefer describes the eschatological struggle between the Antichrist<ref name=stern/> Armilus,<ref>also spelled Armilos, Armilius</ref> who is the leader of Rome and the Messiah ben Joseph, who fails in battle but paves the way for the Davidic Messiah<ref name=strack>{{cite book |title=Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash |first=Hermann Leberecht |last=Strack |author2=Gunter Stemberger |page=327 |others=Markus Bockmuehl (trans.) |year=1992 |publisher=Fortress Press |isbn=0-8006-2524-2}}</ref> and the ultimate triumph of righteousness.<ref name=stern/> The original author expected the Messiah would come in the immediate future; subsequent editors substituted later dates.<ref name=silver/>
Set after Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of Jerusalem,<ref name=strack/> the book begins with Zerubbabel, whose name was associated with the first restoration, receiving a vision after praying for "knowledge of the form of the eternal house."<ref name=stern/> In the vision he is transported by the angel Metatron to Ninevah, the "city of blood" representing Rome<ref name=silver/> by which the author likely means Byzantium.<ref name=stern/> There he finds in the marketplace a "bruised and despised man" named Menahem ben Ammiel who reveals himself to be the Messiah ben David, doomed to abide there until his appointed hour. Zerubbabel asks when the lamp of Israel would be kindled.<ref name=silver/> Metatron interjects that the Messiah would return 990 years after the destruction of the Temple (approximately 1058 AD).<ref name=silver/>
Five years prior to the coming of Hephzibah,<ref name=Hefzibah>also spelled Hephsibah, Hephzibah</ref> who would be the mother of the Messiah ben David, the Messiah ben Joseph, Nehemiah ben Hushiel, will appear but he will be slain by Armilus.<ref name=silver/> Afterwards, the Messiah ben David will resurrect him.<ref name=silver/> The Sefer Zerubbabel mentions Gog and Armilus rather than Gog and Magog as the enemies.<ref>{{cite book |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=TO6q6Je0r24C&q=Menahem+ben+Amiel| title = Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader | author= John C. Reeves |publisher = Society of Biblical Literature Atlanta| year = 2005 | page = 60 | isbn = 9781589831025 |access-date= 31 January 2014}}</ref>
In the narrative, Zerubbabel is led to a "house of disgrace" (a church), a kind of antitemple.<ref name=stern/> There, he sees a beautiful statue of a woman (the Virgin Mary).<ref name=stern/> With Satan as the father, the statue gives birth to the Antichrist Armilus.<ref name=stern/> Forces associated with Armilus and the antitemple come to rule over the entire world.<ref name=stern/> But in the end, these forces are defeated.<ref name=stern/> The work concludes with Zerubbabel's vision of the descent of the Heavenly Temple to earth.<ref name=stern/> Thus, the "form of the eternal house" is revealed; unlike the Second Temple, it is made in heaven.<ref name=stern/>
According to Martha Himmelfarb alongside a passage in the Tractate Berakhot 2.4 10ff in the Talmud Yerushalmi, dealing with the mother of the Messiah Menahem ben Ammiel, Sefer Zerubbabel is the only early Jewish text to import a mother of the Messiah into Judaism.<ref>Martha Himmelfarb, ''The Mother of the Messiah in the Talmud Yerushalmi and Sefer Zerubbabel'', in Peter Schäfer (ed.) ''The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman culture'': Volume 3, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2002, p. 369, "Through the centuries the Virgin Mary has played a central role in Christian piety. Unlike so many aspects of Christianity, veneration of the ...Here I wish to discuss two texts that actually import a mother of the messiah into Judaism, a passage from Tractate Berakhot in the Talmud Yerushalmi and the Hebrew apocalypse Sefer Zerubbabel. As far as I know, these two texts, together with several reworkings of the story from the Yerushalmi that appear in later rabbinic collections, are the only texts to make this daring move. The Talmud Yerushalmi took shape in Roman.."</ref> In the Sefer Zerubbabel, Menahem is Menahem ben Ammiel, and his mother is Hephzibah, the same name as the wife of Hezekiah and mother of Manasseh.<ref>Raʻanan S. Boustan ''From martyr to mystic: rabbinic martyrology and the making of Merkavah Mysticism'' (Studies & Texts in Ancient Judaism) (9783161487538) Page 107 2005 "Martha Himmelfarb has rightly argued that the figure of Heftsibah, the mother of Menahem son of Ammiel, the Davidic Messiah in Sefer Zerubbabel, "should be understood as a counterpart to the figure of the Virgin Mary in contemporary "</ref> Hephzibah plays an important role as she finds and uses Aaron's rod.<ref>{{cite book |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=TO6q6Je0r24C&q=Menahem+ben+Amiel| title = Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader | author= John C. Reeves |publisher = Society of Biblical Literature Atlanta| year = 2005 | page = 56 | isbn = 9781589831025 |access-date= 31 January 2014}}</ref>
== See also == *Jewish eschatology *Midrash Vayosha
== References == {{reflist}}
== External links == *[https://clas-pages.uncc.edu/john-reeves/research-projects/trajectories-in-near-eastern-apocalyptic/sefer-zerubbabel/ English translation of ''SEFER ZERUBBABEL'']
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zerubbabel, Apocalypse Of}} Category:Apocalyptic literature Category:Hebrew manuscripts Category:Jewish medieval literature Category:Jewish messianism Category:Last Judgment