Jesus and Judaism

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

On p.147 of 'Orthodoxy and Heresy' we concluded with the following:

 

(p.147) Obviously, this is a revolutionary theory on the origins of

Christianity, yet once one accepts this understanding as the inevitable outcome

of an unbiased reevaluation of the evidence, the seemingly mismatched puzzle

pieces in the New Testament suddenly fall into place and a bigger picture comes

clearly into focus. The picture which emerges may shock many traditional

Christians; for many it will be absolutely blasphemous. It is, moreover, a

picture that has the potential to tear apart many cherished " truths " and to

shatter a paradigm that has been in place for almost two millennia, but in its

place, it is possible to see a truer and nobler picture emerging.

 

The Brother of Jesus (And the Lost Teachings of Christianity) Chapter 8, pg.147.

 

Here now, is 'Jesus and Judaism'.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

 

Jesus and Judaism

 

(p.147) The controversial (at least to Christians) Jewish scholars Hyam Maccoby,

Hugh Schonfield, and Geza Vermes have seen all of this as clearly as anyone.

Schonfield in particular has long anticipated this new paradigm. [3] Maccoby

demonstrates how those who hold to the traditional Christian interpretation

(that Paul and the apostles were in agreement in abandoning the Law) explain

away the Law-observance of the Jewish Christians by representing it as

" re-Judaization, " nothing more than a case of backsliding into former beliefs

and practices--beliefs and practices, moreover, that Jesus had come to do away

with. As Maccoby sums up the traditional understanding,

 

[l]ater movements in Christianity, such as the Ebionites, are regarded as

re-Judaizing sects, which lapsed back into Judaism, unable to bear the newness

of Christianity. Re-judaizing tendencies are... [believed to exist] in certain

passages in the Gospels, especially that of Matthew, where Jesus is portrayed as

a Jewish rabbi: this, the argument goes, is not because he was one, but because

the author of the Gospel or the section of the church to which he belonged was

affected by a re-Judaizing tendency, and therefore rabbinized Jesus and tempered

the extent of his rebellion against Judaism. All the evidence of the Jewishness

of Jesus in the Gospels, on this view, is due to late tampering with the text,

which originally portrayed Jesus as rejecting Judaism. This is a line that was

fashionable at one time and is still to be found in many textbooks. Its

implausibility, however, has become increasingly apparent. [4]

 

The anti-Semitic undertones of the mainstream Christian view have also become

increasingly apparent. It is a view that has led to some of the greatest

atrocities that human has inflicted upon human. It is no exaggeration to state

quite bluntly that the ultimate blame for the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the

Holocaust can be squarely laid at the feet of this traditional understanding of

Jesus and the early church.

 

But there is a new paradigm emerging today, one that is increasingly revealing

the implausibility of the inherited paradigm. It is seen most clearly in the

so-called third quest for the historical Jesus, an approach that understands

Jesus as being thoroughly Jewish with no designs on starting a new religion. As

was the case with Martin Luther vis-a-vis Catholicism, Jesus simply wanted to

reform Judaism from within. The last thing Luther wanted to do was start a new

church; the last thing Jesus wanted to do was start a new religion.

 

The third-quest approach to the historical Jesus is well summed up by one of the

school's leading lights, the highly regarded E.P. Sanders (who sounds eerily

similar to Maccoby here):

 

We have again and again returned to the fact that nothing which Jesus said or

did which bore on the law led his disciples after his death to disregard it.

This great fact, which overrides all others, sets a definite limit to what can

be said about Jesus and the law. [5]

 

Indeed, this is the " great fact " that we have " again and again " run up against

in our investigation into James. All of the evidence we have uncovered attests

to the fact that James and the apostles retained their Jewish practice and

belief, while adding to it their unique belief that Jesus was the promised

Messiah of Israel. It can be claimed, as many have, that the apostles quickly

" backslid " into Judaism after the death of Jesus, but Hyam Maccoby clearly shows

that what we know of the earliest apostolic community disproves this claim:

 

The implausibility of the " re-Judaization " approach cannot be better illustrated

than when it is applied to the Jerusalem movement led by James and the Apostles.

This would mean that Jesus' new insights had been lost so quickly that his

closest associates acted as if they had never been. Of course, it may be said

that Jesus' closest associates never did understand him and, in support of this,

various passages in the Gospels may be adduced; e.g., Peter's altercation with

Jesus, upbraiding him for announcing the necessity of his sacrificial

death...But here the following question is appropriate: which is more likely,

that Jesus' closest disciples failed to understand his most important message,

or that Pauline Christians, writing gospels about fifty years after Jesus'

death, and faced with the unpalatable fact that the " Jerusalem Church " was

unaware of Pauline doctrines, had to insert into their Gospels denigratory

material about the Apostles in order to counteract the influence of the

" Jerusalem Church " ? Mark's story about Peter, so far from proving that Peter

misunderstood Jesus, is evidence of the dilemma of Pauline Christianity, which

was putting forward a view of Jesus that was denied by the most authoritative

people of all, the leaders of the Jerusalem movement, the companions of Jesus.

[6]

 

A difficult question that Maccoby raises here is whether the gospel writers were

as guilty of putting a Pauline spin on things as the Jewish Christian writers

were of putting a " Jamesian " spin on things. As Maccoby points out, the Pauline

communities faced quite a dilemma in the fact that James and Peter--who any

objective observer would agree knew the teachings of Jesus better than Paul (who

did not know the historical Jesus at all)--disagreed with Paul's understanding

of Jesus' teachings regarding the Law. Consequently, we see Paul constantly

trying to prove that his teachings are valid, especially in his arguments in

Galatians, but in most of his other letters as well. In fact, it could be said

that the purpose of almost all of Paul's letters was to counteract the

authority, beliefs, and practices of James and the Jerusalem church. We saw how

Paul lost this battle with Antioch, when Peter and Barnabas, at the urging of

James, parted ways with Paul over the issue of eating with Gentiles. On this

issue, the book of Acts tries hard to " Paulinize " Peter by omitting the salient

fact of Peter's break with Paul at Antioch.

 

That Acts does attempt to put a Pauline face on Peter is best illustrated in the

famous scene where Peter receives a vision that teaches him that he should

abandon Jewish dietary laws:

 

(p.150) About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching

the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted

something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw

the heavens opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered

to the ground by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures

and reptiles and birds of the air. Then he heard a voice saying, " Get up, Peter;

kill and eat. " But Peter said, " By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten

anything that is profane or unclean. " The voice said to him again, a second

time, " What God has made clean, must not call profane. " (Acts 10:9-15)

 

This famous passage has traditionally been understood to mark the point where

the cobwebs are swept from the brain of the dim-witted Peter, who is

ever-so-slow to understand that Jesus had come to sweep away the Law. As Maccoby

again astutely asks:

 

[W]hy was it necessary for Peter to have a special vision to tell him something

that, according to the Gospels, he had already been taught by Jesus? Why does

Peter say with such unthinking conviction that he even contradicts a voice from

God in saying it, " No Lord, no: I have never eaten anything profane and

unclean, " 'thus proclaiming his adherence to the Torah'? Peter, apparently, 'has

never heard of the abrogration of the Torah', so that now, several years after

the death of Jesus, he has to be slowly and painfully educated into abandoning

his unquestioning loyalty to it. The answer given in the Gospels is that Peter

and the other Apostles were thick-witted ...To be quite so thick-witted,

however, is incredible; and the solution, on the level of history, rather than

pro-Pauline propaganda, is that 'Jesus never did abrogate the Torah'. The

adherence of the leaders of the so-called " Jerusalem Church " to Judaism proves

that 'Jesus was never a rebel against Judaism'. The Pauline Church, however, was

not content to base its rejection of the Torah on Paul alone, for this would

have meant the abandonment of the authority associated with the prestigious

" Jerusalem Church, " and would have left a suspicious gap between Jesus and

Paul.... A gradual process of enlightenment is therefore ascribed to the leaders

of the " Jerusalem Church, " James and Peter, by which their obtuseness is slowly

dispelled, and they reach at last the realization that Jesus, during his

lifetime, was telling them something that they quite failed to comprehend at the

time. [7] (italics mine)

 

As Maccoby points out, Pauline Christianity could not relinquish the prestigious

mother church in Jerusalem. All of the evidence we have uncovered in our

investigation into James has brought us smack up against the " wall " of the

Jerusalem church, which increasingly stood as a dividing line between Jewish and

Gentile Christianity. Maccoby nicely sums up the situation that confronts us at

this point:

 

[E]verything points to the conclusion that the leaders and members of the

so-called " Jerusalem Church " were not Christians in any sense that would be

intelligible to Christians of a later date. They were Jews, who d to

every item of the Jewish faith. For example, so far from regarding baptism as

ousting the Jewish rite of circumcision as an entry requirement into the

religious communion, they continued to circumcise their male children, thus

inducting them into the Jewish covenant. The first ten " bishops " of the

" Jerusalem Church " ...were all circumcised Jews. They kept the Jewish dietary

laws, the Jewish Sabbaths and festivals, including the Day of Atonement (thus

showing that they did not regard the death of Jesus as atoning for their sins),

the Jewish purity laws (when they had to enter the Temple, which they did

frequently), and they used the Jewish liturgy for their daily prayers...

...the first follower of Jesus with whom Paul had friendly contact, Ananias

of Damascus, is described as a " devout observer of the Law and well spoken of by

all the Jews of that place. " (Acts 22:12)

 

We have seen the evidence in Acts that the early Christian community was not

only thoroughly Jewish, but on good terms with their fellow Jews and

distinguished only by their belief that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. And

this was not at all unusual or heretical in the eyes of their fellow Jews. Many

Jews around the time of Jesus believed that in other figures the Messiah had

arrived. Many of the followers of John the Baptist believed that 'he' was the

Messiah. That Jesus' disciples claimed him to be the Messiah would not

necessarily be seen as heretical, or even outlandish, by their fellow Jews,

especially if Jesus and his family were of Davidic descent.

 

(p.152) In fact, what is becoming increasingly accepted in historical Jesus

studies, especially in the third-quest approach exemplified especially in the

work of N.T. Wright, is that Jesus did indeed claim Davidic messiahship for

himself.* Many beyond the circle of his immediate disciples also accepted that

claim. Thus, it is becoming increasingly clear that the traditional

understanding, portrayed in the gospels, of large numbers of Jews turning

against Jesus as a false messianic claimant, and in fact calling for his death,

is a ruinous anti-Semitism that appeared only decades after Jesus' death as the

Pauline/Gentile form of Christianity grew and gained power. This development is

seen especially in John, the latest of the four gospels.

 

Maccoby also points out some fascinating things about the way Jesus is portrayed

in the book of Acts that most Christians miss, probably because Maccoby is

reading the Christian literature through Jewish eyes. Intriguingly enough, he

claims the accounts in Acts are " evidently based on early records of the

Jerusalem Nazarenes " :

 

[N]othing is said here about the founding of a new religion. The doctrines

characteristic of Christianity as it later developed under the influence of Paul

are not present. Thus Jesus is not described as a divine figure, but as " a man

singled out by God " [see Acts 2:22]. His resurrection is described as a miracle

from God [see Acts 2:23], not as evidence of Jesus' own divinity; and Jesus is

not even described as the son of God. Everything said, in fact, is consistent

with the attitudes of a Jewish Messianic movement, basing itself entirely on the

fulfillment of the Jewish scriptures, and claiming no abrogation or alteration

of the Torah.

The belief that Jesus had been resurrected was...the mark of the movement

after Jesus' death. Without this belief, the movement would simply have ceased

to exist, like other Messianic movements. But this belief did not imply any

abandonment of Judaism, as long as it did not involve a deification of Jesus or

the abrogation of the Torah as the means of salvation.

 

The belief in Jesus' resurrection was indeed the hallmark innovation (as

Maccoby makes painfully clear, the 'only' innovation) that the followers of

Jesus brought into Judaism. (p.153) Maccoby then goes on to conclude:

 

It is abundantly clear...that James and his followers in the Jerusalem movement

saw no contradiction between being a member of their movement and being a fully

observant Jew; on the contrary, they expected their members to be especially

observant and to set an example in this respect.

 

Since Hyam Maccoby is a Jew, many Christians will claim his view is biased,

that he fails to understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But it is interesting

that the conclusions of many contemporary Christian historical Jesus scholars,

especially of the third-quest school, largely agree with Maccoby. Furthermore,

the conclusion of the widely respected mainstream Christian scholar James Dunn

sound remarkably like Maccoby:

 

t is evident that 'the earliest [Christian] community in no sense felt

themselves to be a new religion, distinct from Judaism'...[T]hey saw themselves

simply as fulfilled Judaism, the beginning of eschatological Israel...Indeed we

may put the point more strongly:...the earliest Christians were not simply Jews,

but in fact continued to be quite orthodox Jews.

...[T]his is the group with whom Christianity proper all began. Only their

belief in Jesus as Messiah and risen...mark them out as different from the

majority of their fellow Jews. None of the other great Christian distinctives

that come to expression in and through Paul are present...

If we now shift our glance from the beginning of Christianity forward 150

years or so into the second century and beyond, it at once becomes evident that

the situation has significantly altered: Jewish Christianity, far from being the

only form of Christianity, is now beginning to be classified as unorthodox and

heretical. [8]

Dunn's analysis was in fact already recognized and accepted by liberal Christian

scholars in Germany in the 1800s, most notably F.C. Baur. As Maccoby notes,

" Nineteenth-century New Testament scholarship, on the whole, recognized these

facts and gave them due weight. It has been left to twentieth-century

scholarship, concerned for the devastating effect of this recognition on the

conventional Christian belief, to obfuscate the matter. " [9]

The Brother of Jesus (And the Lost Teachings of Christianity)

Chapter 8, pg. 147-153

Jeffrey J. Butz

Inner Traditions - Rochester, Vermont

ISBN 1-59477-043-3

Notes:

[3] Of Schonfield's many works, see in particular 'Those Incredible Christians'

(New York: Bantam, 1969).

[4] Maccoby, 'The Mythmaker', 128.

[5] E.P. Sanders, 'Jesus and Judaism' (Philadelphia, Fortress: 1985), 268.

[6] Maccoby, 'The Mythmaker', 128-29.

[7] This and the following three excerpts are from ibid., 124-33.

* Ever since Bultmann, belief in the literal Davidic descent of Jesus has been

suspect in liberal Christian scholarship where the Davidic sonship of Jesus has

been generally understood as metaphorical. Even the idea that Jesus claimed

messiahship for himself has been suspect.

[8] Dunn, 'Unity and Diversity', 239.

[9] Maccoby, 'The Mythmaker', 127.