At the heart of the earliest Christian self-understanding, explicit or implicit in much Christian use of the Old Testament, and crucial for Christian theology and interpretation, the concept of "messiah" in the Old Testament has, however, been eclipsed by the pursuit of other goals in Old Testament studies. Few recent sustained treatments have appeared from any school of thought. The Lord's Anointed aims to redress the balance. It also recognizes that the study of this topic must always be contemporary: Old Testament studies have changed dramatically in recent years, giving rise to new challenges as well as new opportunities for Christian reading of it.