The Talmud relates that Rabbi Joshua ben Levi one day ran into Elijah (which he is said to have done occasionally), and asked him when the messiah would come. Elijah told him to go ask the messiah himself, and explained where to find him. R. Joshua indeed found him and greeted him: “When will you come?” he asked; “Today,” was his answer. R. Joshua returned to Elijah and said, “He spoke falsely to me, stating that he would come today, but has not.”  Elijah answered him: “Actually, he was quoting Psalm 95:7: ‘Today – if you will listen to His voice.’”  (Bab. Talmud Sanhedrin 97)

Rabbi Joshua wants concrete information, assuming that a date has been determined.  The messiah says no, there is no date you can know, because the redemption is conditional on the nation’s behavior, and there is no way to predict when we will deserve redemption.  This story illustrates the debate, appearing on the same page, between Rabbi Eliezer, who insists that redemption depends on repentance, and Rabbi Joshua (a different Rabbi Joshua) who argues that God has a plan, and it doesn’t depend on us.

And then, in the twelfth century, the Rambam lists belief in the messianic redemption as #12 in his thirteen principles of faith:

“…to believe........

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