Digging Into the Sources – Mishnah

Series: Digging Into the Sources Categories: Digging In | Research

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• Digging Into the Sources: Video 3 — The Midrash — Jewish rabbis wrote about a suffering Messiah long before anyone said that was possible. This is where we saw it.

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A Law Code That Was Never Meant to Describe the Messiah — and Does Anyway

When most people look for Jewish evidence about the Messiah, they go straight to the Prophets: Isaiah, Micah, Daniel. The Mishnah is none of that. It is not prophecy and it is not poetry. It is a law code, compiled around 200 AD, and it is still studied in yeshivas around the world.

And yet, threaded through three of its tractates, there is a picture of the Messiah that its authors were not trying to paint. None of it was written with Jesus in mind.

If you have watched the video, you have seen the three passages. This post is what the video had no room for: the full text, who said what, the places where the rabbis disagree, and a few details that are more precise than a ten-minute video can afford to be.

Part One: What Is the Mishnah?

Not Scripture, Not Story: Law

The word Mishnah comes from the Hebrew root shanah (שָׁנָה), which means to repeat or to study by repetition. That fits what it is. For generations the Jewish people kept an oral tradition alongside the written Torah: interpretations, rulings and applications, passed from teacher to student. The Mishnah is that tradition, written down.

It is organized as law. It does not tell stories the way the Midrash does, and it does not translate Scripture the way the Targums do. It asks practical questions: what do I do, when, and why?

Why It Was Written Down

By the time the Second Temple was standing, the oral tradition had grown enormous. Then, in 70 AD, the Temple was destroyed and the priesthood scattered. Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi (Judah the Prince) saw the danger most people miss: the loss was not only the building, but the tradition that explained what happened inside it. Around 200 AD he compiled the Mishnah.

That detail matters for a Messianic reader. When the Mishnah describes what took place in the Temple, it is recording what had been practiced and watched by people who were actually there. It is our closest surviving record of what Jewish worship looked like in the world Jesus walked into.

Six Orders, 63 Tractates

The Mishnah is divided into six sedarim (orders), which hold 63 tractates in total. Each tractate is a subject, much like a chapter in a legal textbook.

Order	Subject	Where we visit it in this video
Zeraim (Seeds)	Agriculture and the laws of the land	—
Moed (Festival)	Sabbath, festivals and Yom Kippur	Tractate Yoma (Yom Kippur)
Nashim (Women)	Marriage, divorce and family law	Tractate Sotah
Nezikin (Damages)	Civil and criminal law, courts	Tractate Sanhedrin
Kodashim (Holy Things)	Temple service and sacrifices	—
Tohorot (Purities)	Ritual purity and impurity	—

Mishnah, Midrash and Targum

Each video in this series has looked at a different layer of Jewish literature. They are easy to confuse, so here they are side by side.

Text	What it is	Roughly compiled	Where we met it
Targums	Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible that paraphrase and interpret	First centuries AD and later (older traditions inside)	Video 2
Midrash	Interpretive storytelling that expands on Scripture	~400–1200 AD (older traditions inside)	Video 3
Mishnah	A written code of Jewish law	~200 AD	This video (Video 4)
Talmud	The Mishnah plus centuries of rabbinic discussion on it	~400–600 AD	Video 5

Part Two: The Crimson Strip (Mishnah Yoma 6:8)

What Leviticus 16 Leaves Out

Many people assume the full Yom Kippur ritual is in Leviticus 16. It is not. Leviticus gives us the two goats: one is sacrificed as a sin offering, and one is driven into the wilderness carrying the sins of Israel. What it does not tell us is a practical question the priests had to answer. The High Priest was standing in the Temple, and the goat was miles away in the wilderness. How would anyone know when it had arrived?

That is the question tractate Yoma answers, and the answer is one of the most striking details in Jewish tradition.

Three Ways to Know

The Mishnah (Mishnah Yoma 6:8) offers three answers. The first is practical: platforms were built along the road, and people stood on them waving scarves to pass the signal back to Jerusalem. Rabbi Yehuda says that was unnecessary, because the nobles of Jerusalem walked a mil with the escort, waited the time it takes to walk a mil back, and so could calculate that the goat had arrived. Then Rabbi Yishmael offers a third indicator:

“Didn’t they have a different indicator? There was a strip of crimson tied to the entrance to the Sanctuary, and when the goat reached the wilderness and the mitzva was fulfilled the strip would turn white, as it is stated: ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they will become white as snow’ (Isaiah 1:18).”

Mishnah Yoma 6:8, Rabbi Yishmael (English: William Davidson Edition via Sefaria (CC BY-NC))

A word of precision that the video had no time for: the crimson strip is not stated as a flat fact by the Mishnah. It is Rabbi Yishmael’s contribution in a discussion about how the Temple knew, set beside two other, more ordinary methods. What makes it remarkable is not that it is the only view, but that a rabbi reached for it, and that he explained it by quoting Isaiah.

Why Isaiah 1:18 Matters

Notice what the rabbi does with the verse. “Though your sins be as scarlet, they will become white as snow” is not offered as a metaphor. It is offered as the explanation of what people physically watched happen on the holiest day of the year: sin enters as scarlet and leaves white. That is how the rabbis understood what forgiveness does.

There is a second half to this story. The Talmud records that this sign stopped working in the years before the Temple fell. That detail belongs to the next video in the series, so we will leave it there for now.

Part Three: Signs of the Messiah’s Approach (Mishnah Sotah 9:15)

A Passage Hidden in the Family Law Section

Tractate Sotah sits in the order of Nashim, the family-law section, and its subject is the woman suspected of unfaithfulness (Numbers 5). Its last chapter, though, turns into something else: a lament. It lists what ceased from the world as each great sage died, and then it describes the decline of the generations after the Temple was destroyed. In the middle of that lament, Rabbi Eliezer the Great describes what the world will look like ikvot meshicha, a phrase usually translated “the footsteps of the Messiah” or, in Sefaria’s English, “the times of the approach of the Messiah.”

This is not a prophecy about Jesus, and the Mishnah does not attach it to anyone in particular. It is a rabbi’s description of social breakdown.

“In the times of the approach of the Messiah, impudence will increase and high costs will pile up. Although the vine shall bring forth its fruit, wine will nevertheless be expensive. And the monarchy shall turn to heresy, and there will be no one to give reproof about this. … The youth will shame the face of elders, elders will stand before minors. Normal family relations will be ruined: A son will disgrace a father; a daughter will rise up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies will be the members of his household.”

Mishnah Sotah 9:15, Rabbi Eliezer the Great (English: William Davidson Edition via Sefaria (CC BY-NC); abridged)

One note on wording. Sefaria’s translation says the monarchy turns to “heresy.” The Hebrew word is minut, which is usually heresy; in the video the same line appears as “corruption.” Either way, the picture is of authority losing its moral footing and no one willing to say so.

Where Scripture Says It First

Several of these signs have older roots in the prophets, which the rabbis surely knew. The clearest is the family list.

In the Mishnah	Echo in Scripture	Notes
A son disgraces a father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a man’s enemies are his own household	Micah 7:5–6	Almost word for word. Micah wrote it around 700 BC; the Mishnah codifies it about 900 years later.
The youth will shame the face of elders	Isaiah 3:5	The young are insolent toward the elder.
The truth will be absent	Isaiah 59:14–15	Truth stumbles in the public square and is nowhere to be found.

Where Jesus Turns the List Around

Jesus quotes the Micah passage himself in Matthew 10:35–36, after saying that he has come to bring a sword, not peace (Matthew 10:34). Read next to Sotah 9:15, that is a notable move. The Mishnah says: watch for family division, because it marks the Messiah’s approach. Micah mourns the same division. Jesus says: I am the reason for it.

That is the point the video was making. A household that divides over him is not a sign that the Messiah is near. It is what happens after he has arrived, and each person in the family has to decide where their allegiance lies.

The Chain at the End of the Chapter

The chapter closes with a different rabbi, Rabbi Pinehas ben Yair, and a ladder of virtues: Torah study leads to care in observing the commandments, then diligence, then a clean soul, then abstaining from evil, then purity, then piety, then humility, then fear of sin, then holiness, then the Divine Spirit. And the last step: “The Divine Spirit leads to the resurrection of the dead.” That ladder arrives at resurrection, which is exactly where the third passage begins.

Part Four: Who Has No Share? (Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1)

The Generous Opening

Tractate Sanhedrin sits in Nezikin, the civil law section. Its tenth chapter opens with a statement that sounds very generous:

“All of the Jewish people, even sinners and those who are liable to be executed with a court-imposed death penalty, have a share in the World-to-Come, as it is stated: ‘And your people also shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the land forever; the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, for My name to be glorified’ (Isaiah 60:21).”

Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1 (English: William Davidson Edition via Sefaria (CC BY-NC))

Then the Line

The very next sentence draws a line. Even people who fulfilled many commandments have no share in the World-to-Come if they hold one of three positions:

1. One who says there is no resurrection of the dead derived from the Torah.
2. One who says the Torah did not originate from Heaven.
3. An epikoros (a heretic), who treats Torah scholars and the Torah they teach with contempt.

Notice the exact wording. The Mishnah does not say these people are cut off from the covenant or from the Jewish people. It says they lose their share in the World-to-Come. The video described this as “covenant-defining,” and that is a fair summary of how central these beliefs are, but the Mishnah’s own wording is about the world to come. Rabbi Akiva and Abba Shaul then add further exceptions: reading external literature, whispering healing incantations over a wound, and pronouncing the divine name as it is written.

What the Talmud Adds

Resurrection comes first on the list, and the Talmud’s discussion of this Mishnah (Sanhedrin 90b) asks the obvious follow-up: where does the Torah teach it? It gives several answers, and two are worth knowing.

Rabbi	Verse	The argument
Rabbi Yochanan	Numbers 18:28	God tells Israel to give the priestly gift to Aaron. But Aaron never entered the land where it would be given, so he must be destined to live again.
Rabbi Simai	Exodus 6:4	God promised the land “to them,” meaning the patriarchs themselves, not only their descendants. So the patriarchs must rise to inherit it.
Rabban Gamliel	Torah, Prophets and Writings	Answering heretics who asked where the revival of the dead is taught, he said it can be proven from all three sections of Scripture, though they did not accept his proofs.

The same passage also invokes the principle of “measure for measure” (middah k’neged middah): punishment fits the sin. That helps explain why the denial of resurrection is treated so seriously.

Part Five: Three Passages, One Picture

Lay the three passages next to each other and they answer three questions that sit at the center of the Jewish-Christian conversation about the Messiah.

The question	The passage	What it records
How does forgiveness work?	Yoma 6:8	Scarlet becomes white. The rabbis explained it by quoting Isaiah 1:18.
What does the world look like before the Messiah arrives?	Sotah 9:15	Social collapse, and a household divided against itself.
What belief is non-negotiable?	Sanhedrin 10:1	Resurrection of the dead, listed first among the three exceptions.

None of these passages was written to describe Jesus, and the rabbis who wrote them did not read them that way. That is worth saying plainly. What the video is pointing at is a different thing: these are the rabbis’ own categories. A person whose followers say their sins were washed white, whose arrival divided families, and who is said to have walked out of a tomb, is a person the Mishnah’s categories happen to fit. Whether that is a coincidence or something more is the question I leave with you.

An Honest Note

Two cautions keep us honest. First, the Mishnah was compiled around 200 AD, after the New Testament was written, so we cannot use it to prove what first-century Jews believed on its own. Its traditions are older than its compilation, but how much older is a matter of scholarly debate. Second, a shared vocabulary is not a proof. The strongest use of the Mishnah is the one the video makes: not “the rabbis secretly agreed,” but “here is how the rabbis’ own words sound when you read them alongside the New Testament.”

Part Six: How Much Weight Does the Mishnah Carry?

The Mishnah is not Scripture and it does not carry the authority of Torah. But it carries more weight than the Targums or the Midrash, because it is the legal foundation of rabbinic Judaism itself. The Talmud is built on it, and Maimonides wrote a commentary on it. In his introduction to the tenth chapter of Sanhedrin he set out his Thirteen Principles of Faith, and the thirteenth is the resurrection of the dead.

So when the Mishnah preserves a picture of forgiveness, a list of signs, and a belief it treats as non-negotiable, that is not a fringe opinion. It is the mainstream of Jewish legal thought, and it is available to anyone willing to read it.

Find These Sources Yourself on Sefaria

All of the passages in this post are free on Sefaria. Search for the tractate name and the chapter and verse.

Passage	Sefaria link
Mishnah Yoma 6:8 (the crimson strip)	https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Yoma.6.8
Mishnah Sotah 9:15 (the signs of the Messiah’s approach)	https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Sotah.9.15
Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1 (no share in the World-to-Come)	https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Sanhedrin.10.1
Talmud Sanhedrin 90b (resurrection in the Torah)	https://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.90b

The Mishnah appears on Sefaria in two forms: on its own, and embedded inside the Talmud with commentary. Both are worth reading side by side. The English translations quoted here are from the William Davidson Edition on Sefaria, licensed CC BY-NC.

Scripture References

Reference	Connection
Leviticus 16	The two goats of Yom Kippur; the goat sent into the wilderness
Isaiah 1:18	Scarlet sins made white as snow, quoted in Mishnah Yoma 6:8
Micah 7:5–6	Division inside the household, echoed in Mishnah Sotah 9:15
Isaiah 3:5	The young shame the elder
Isaiah 59:14–15	Truth is lacking in the public square
Matthew 10:34–36	Jesus quotes Micah 7:6 and speaks of a sword, not peace
Isaiah 60:21	All Israel righteous, quoted in Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1
Numbers 18:28	Rabbi Yochanan’s proof of resurrection (Sanhedrin 90b)
Exodus 6:4	Rabbi Simai’s proof of resurrection (Sanhedrin 90b)

Primary Sources & Further Reading

Source	Link or citation	Relevance
Mishnah Yoma 6:8	https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Yoma.6.8	The crimson strip and Isaiah 1:18
Mishnah Sotah 9:15	https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Sotah.9.15	The approach of the Messiah and the ladder to resurrection
Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1	https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Sanhedrin.10.1	Who has no share in the World-to-Come
Talmud Sanhedrin 90b	https://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.90b	Where the Torah teaches resurrection
Maimonides, Introduction to Perek Helek	Commentary on the Mishnah, Sanhedrin chapter 10	The Thirteen Principles of Faith

Discussion Questions

1. Before watching this video, had you heard of the Mishnah? What surprised you most?
2. Rabbi Yishmael explained the crimson strip by quoting Isaiah 1:18. What does it tell you that a rabbi reached for that verse to explain forgiveness?
3. Mishnah Sotah 9:15 and Micah 7:6 describe the same family breakdown as a sign. Jesus says he came to cause it. How do you read that difference?
4. Resurrection comes first on the Mishnah’s list of non-negotiables. If you are Jewish, what does your tradition teach about it today?
5. Which of the three passages stood out most to you: the crimson strip, the signs of the Messiah’s approach, or the line drawn around resurrection?

Next in the series: the Talmud, the Mishnah’s companion, with centuries of commentary built on top of everything we looked at today.