The status of the Jewish law in the messianic era from the Biblical period to the seventeenth century /

This thesis covers the status of the Jewish law in the messianic era as it was anticipated in Jewish texts from the biblical period until the seventeenth century. Although the predominant perspective is the law's perpetuity, a future idealized version was particularized in each age and stylized by various groups. The view of the law's continuity was challenged by streams of thought and ambiguities in the texts that allowed for changes and cessations in the law in messianic times. Concrete messianic movements, such as that of the New Testament in the first century and the Sabbatean movement of the seventeenth century, brought some of these underlying currents to the forefront with their reinterpretations of the law and their antinomian behaviour