Melchizedek was a king and priest revered by Abraham. In the Book of Genesis, Abraham rescues his kidnapped nephew, Lot, from the Mesopotamians, and on returning from battle he meets Melchizedek, king of Salem (His name was another name for Jerusalem), who gives him bread and wine and blesses him in the name of “God Most High.” St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews treats Melchizedek as a foreshadowing of Messiah Yeshua. Because Melchizedek was a mysterious biblical personality, whose name means “KING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS,” Genesis 14:18-20 mention the historical record about this priest-king. Psalm 110:4 and Hebrews 5:10; 6:20; 7:1-17 spoke about Melchizedek. A few eschatology experts believe that Melchizedek was a theophany of Messiah Yeshua before His incarnation in the womb of Virgin Mary because of the history and duration of His priesthood. Melchizedek represents the sunlight, while Abraham represents the moonlight during an age of paganism.

Jews today believe that Shem is Melchizedek because the Masoretic chronology has Shem living down past the birth of Jacob. It is impossible for Shem to be Melchizedek using the Septuagint chronology because Shem dies 600 years before Abraham is born. If we can find a single ancient literary source that shows that the Jews believed Shem was Melchizedek, this would falsify the theory that scribal elements within Jewish community corrupted the Hebrew chronologies of Genesis 5 and 11 at Zippori in 160 CE. In fact, just like the literary sources above all validate the longer LXX chronology, so too do all the literary sources refute the MT chronology because none of them equate Shem with Melchizedek. Before 100 BCE, the earliest Jewish literary sources make no connection of Shem was Melchizedek as witnessed in the Dead Sea Scrolls: 1QGenesis Apocryphon. At the time of Messiah Yeshua, Jewish messianic expectation was of the arrival of Melchizedek as a “heavenly being” not Shem as witnessed in the Dead Sea Scrolls: 11QMelchizedek. The earliest literary source that equates Melchizedek with Shem is Seder Olam Rabbah in 160 CE.   The Seder Olam again, is the first reference in history and was the basis for corrupting the pre-Masoretic text in the chronologies of Gen 5 and 11.