Sometime in the year 448, one of the strangest incidents in the history
of messianic claimants took place. After the disastrous end of the Bar
Kochba rebellion against the Romans in 136 and subsequent Jewish
diaspora, messianic movements came to an end for centuries. But one
Talmudic interpretation led to an expectation that the Messiah would
appear in 440 or 471.
Against this backdrop, a man on the
island of Crete began to claim he was Moses, returned from his death at
the end of the Book of Deuteronomy. He proposed to lead Cretan Jews
directly back to Jerusalem through a part that would appear for them in
the Mediterranean Sea. A group of his followers was actually convinced
to walk over a cliff face to their deaths, while "Moses of Crete"
somehow escaped the scene and was never seen again.
