1000 Verses – a project of Judaism Resources

Undoubtedly, one of the most important doctrines of Christianity is the moral purity of Jesus.  The missionary would have one believe that Jesus lived a perfectly sinless life, which makes him the spotless Passover lamb.  This doctrine must be taken on faith, of course, because none of the witnesses to Jesus saw the entirety of his life.  Moreover, only God knows a person’s heart, wherein Jesus may not have been pure.  If Jesus were morally perfect, he certainly would have been a remarkable man, worthy of respect and admiration, though not worship.  But, perhaps he was not perfect; perhaps he was a man just like any other with his own temptations and human frailty.  How can one know?  One way to scrutinize this claim of the missionary is to analyze how Jesus’ hometown received him.  In so doing, one will see that it is highly unlikely that Jesus was morally perfect or even as wise as the missionary would have one to believe.

In two of the gospels, Jesus returns to Nazareth, his hometown, some time after his ministry has already begun.  It appears his mother and brothers may have brought him home, because they approach him a little before his trip to Nazareth.  The people of Nazareth are nonplussed after hearing Jesus teach in the synagogue.  They wonder from where he gets his wisdom and power.  They identify him as a carpenter’s son, the son of Mary; they know his family.  They cannot understand from where Jesus gets the ability to teach with such authority or perform miracles.  And because of the disbelief of Jesus’ townsfolk, he is unable to do great works, only minor ones.  (Matthew 13:54-58 and Mark 6:1-6)

A similar story is told in Luke, but his version comes earlier in Jesus’ career.  He has Jesus begin teaching at home before he leaves Nazareth.  In Luke’s version, he reads an Isaiah scroll and says it has been fulfilled.  They marvel at “Joseph’s son”.  He angers them, and they become so enraged that they are prepared to throw him off a cliff.  Of course, he escapes, and then he begins his ministry outside Nazareth.  This seems to be the same incident only moved in time.  It is not impossible that they were two separate events, but it is hard to believe that Jesus went back home to Nazareth to try again after they already wanted to pitch him off a cliff.  Also, in Luke, Jesus’ mother and brothers come to see him, but he does not go to Nazareth afterward as in Mark and Matthew.  (Luke 4:16-30)

In all three stories, Jesus has an explanation for why the townsfolk do not accept him: “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house” (Mark 6:4).  Jesus’ explanation appears totally reasonable.  The people closest to one see all his faults and weaknesses. He does not appear special.  He is ‘one of us’.  The Nazarenes’ familiarity with Jesus has bred contempt.

But this explanation only appears to be reasonable; let the reader consider:

If Jesus was a morally perfect human being, he must have been anything but too familiar to the people.  Rather he must have always seemed otherworldly.  He would be known for his tremendous integrity and honesty, his patience and forbearance.  Jesus is to have never committed even a minor infraction.  He is to have been eminently loving, always concerned with the well being of others.  Even as a child, he is assumed to have been morally perfect, not even exhibiting the selfishness and self-centeredness usual for a child.  His speech was never coarse.  And, if he lived according to the standard he later preached, as is reasonable to suppose, he always did more than was asked of him.  Such a person would be noted for his goodness.

One can understand that not everyone would love such a person.  Standing next to a morally perfect person, it would be quite understandable if some people felt uncomfortable around him.  His perfection would draw attention to their own imperfection.  In some people, this might even inspire hate, resenting all the time this man who never made the slightest moral miscalculation, who was never petty, never selfish.

Others would have loved him.  Moved by his goodness, they might seek to be around him.  Or they might wish to do kind deeds out of their love for him.  Rather than resentful of his perfection, some would admire him.  They might come to him for comfort or aid, knowing they would receive it.  He would inspire gratitude in people.  Some would bear him great affection, wanting to perform acts of kindness for this good man.

It is unfeasible, however, that they thought of him as nothing more than the carpenter’s son.  Though among them, he would never exactly be one of them.  He would never be just another Nazarene.  It is beyond belief that such a figure would be scorned for his background.  The Nazarenes should have known better than anyone just how different he was.  To no one more than they should Jesus’ calling have made sense.

When one considers that Jesus was supposed to have been astoundingly wise as well, their reaction makes even less sense.  They ask from where Jesus got his teaching as if they had never before noticed how perceptive he was.  Remember that at the age of 12, according to Luke, Jesus taught in Jerusalem, asking amazing questions and giving incredible answers to difficult questions.  Surely the people who watched Jesus grow up noticed that he was exceedingly wise, exceedingly insightful.  Surely they noticed his wonderful grasp of Torah.  And surely they noticed the way in which he could see into their own souls.  How is it possible that they thought of Jesus as nothing more than the son of a carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, another Nazarene?

Yet when Jesus begins teaching the people who must have been most aware of his ethereal qualities, his otherworldly goodness, his transcendent wisdom, they show shock, expecting nothing of the sort from a carpenter’s son.  Their confusion reflects no inherent greatness in Jesus but mundanity.  To them, there was nothing special about him.

This suggests that the NT has exaggerated his moral purity and wisdom.  It is unlikely that Jesus was a morally perfect person.  If so, his fellows would have commented on that, not on his parentage.  The fact that they think of him as a carpenter’s son suggests that they did not think of him as a fellow that never sinned, whose kindness excelled that of other human beings, and whose wisdom was beyond compare.  It is reasonable to think that Jesus did sin, just as other men do, that at times he lost his temper or acted selfishly.  It is reasonable to believe that, even if he was a very fine fellow, he was not perfect.  It is reasonable to conclude that he was not ‘spotless’.

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Bible 819 has been commenting on this blog for a while now. He/She has not engaged in dialogue, but has been preaching with his/her ears closed. Here is one of Jim’s enlightening responses to this closed-minded commenter.  

Bible819,

You present us with an interesting choice. You say that one cannot trust the judgment of the Jewish people. You claim that they have been unfaithful to their mission. You claim that they are no longer the witnesses of God upon the face of the earth. But of course I know that these claims do not originate with you. Of course not; they originate with the Church. And against the claims of the Church, we have the appointment of the Jewish people by God. So now we must consider the claims of these two parties, that of the Church and that of God.

According to the Church, the Jewish people rejected the prophets, as if universally. This claim is obviously exaggerated, because it was those same Jewish people who preserved the words of the Prophets. In fact, there were extended periods of faithfulness among the Jewish people to God. This is evident by reading Kings and Chronicles. While it is true that some of the Jewish people, at times even the majority perhaps, turned away from HaShem and His Torah, always some have remained faithful to Him and preserved His Message.

The exaggerated claim of the Church is necessary, of course, to establish its own authority (having been granted none by God). It is incredible, however, that the Church would so readily cast aspersions upon the Jewish people for failing to live up to the Torah. First, inasmuch as the Church considers it an impossible task to keep the Law of God, they have no business condemning those who failed to do it. One cannot be condemned for failing to do the impossible. Second, the Church is guilty of great crimes itself. What a bloody history the Church has! From nearly the beginning it was a schismatic body. The members of one sect resent the existence of another sect and they are at war. And we cannot overlook their massive oppression of the Jewish people. It is bad enough the way the Church has maligned the Jewish people, but they have done far worse: expelling them from their homes, burning their Torah scrolls, and at times even killing them. Those that live in stained-glass cathedrals…

Considering the fragmentation in the Church it is astounding how they will brag about their numbers. Even though many sects do not consider many others actual Christians, still they will claim their numbers to bolster their position. So many protestants revile the Catholic Church as antichrist, but that does not mean the numbers of the Catholic Church cannot be used to establish the authority of the Church. No, for that they count. Surely these inflated numbers cannot be proof of anything.

The Muslims are not far behind the Christians number wise. When they surpass the Church (if they do) will that mean that Islam is the true religion? Will their judgment then be supreme? Will the Church turn to them and say that Islam must be fulfilling the prophecy that the knowledge of God will fill the earth? Doubtful, which means that numbers do not indicate anything.

And in fact, the claim that the Church has spread the knowledge of God is rather specious. Certainly, much of the world is Christian. And yet, horrible acts of violence and robbery continue unabated, and on a terrific scale. The Christian ‘King of Peace’ has not ushered in peace; rather wars have continued and have been raged in his name. The last decade saw millions killed in horrific ways as the number of Christian continues to grow. It is clear that the Church has not brought the knowledge of God to the world.

Certainly Jesus did not. One of the strangest claims that Christians make is that Jesus was a light to the gentiles, bringing to them the knowledge of God. Actually Jesus largely avoided gentiles. According to the NT, he was sent to the lost sheep of Israel. He did not come for the gentiles. Others, later, in his name, taught something nominally connected to the God of Israel. But that understanding was distorted. The authors of the NT frequently, nearly always, misrepresented the teachings of Torah and the Prophets. They gave the gentiles a bad understanding of God and turned their attention to a man rather than God. Still, if one were to hold that the Church was teaching truth, it would be Paul who served as a light to the gentiles, not Jesus. Paul, according to the NT, spent much more time instructing the gentile world than Jesus did and in many more places.

But in the end, the real question is only who did God entrust with the truth? The scriptures the Church holds to be true tell us that it was the Jewish people. As much as the Church might like to usurp that authority, they cannot remove what God gave to another people. God made the Jews his witnesses. This can be seen in Deuteronomy, especially chapter 4. The last half of Isaiah is also full of it. God appointed the Jewish people to tell people about God.

And he never replaced them. Look in the prophetic books you reference. Zechariah writes that 10 non-Jews will grasp the hem of the Jew, looking to learn about God from them. Some of us are asking for their wisdom and knowledge already. Isaiah says that the law will come from Jerusalem. People are going to come to the temple in Jerusalem, and it will be a house of prayer for many nations. It is clear from the prophets that the Jewish people have not lost their mission. And though many have failed at it, thankfully we have people like our Pharisee Friend to keep the knowledge of God alive in the world. For this we must surely be grateful. Had it been left up to the Church, that light would have been extinguished before now.

The Church can make for itself whatever claims it wishes. But I am not fooled, and neither should you be. The Church has no authority to set itself up as the Witness. The One with that authority set up the Jewish people. To establish itself, the Church ignores the beam in its own eye and draws everyone’s attention to the speck in the eye of the Jewish people. It makes grandiose claims about its own enlightening of the world, even as they are great perpetrators of violence and as we have seen horrible acts of violence grow. But even if the Jewish people were entirely wicked and the Church entirely good, it would be presumptuous of the Church to usurp the mission of the Jewish people. God appointed His witnesses. Let us listen to what they have to say.

Jim

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Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal