1000 Verses – a project of Judaism Resources

In the Image – by Jim

C. Paul,

You ask whether or not Buddhists are made in the image of God, “Hindus also”, “[a]nd on”. I should be surprised at this question, but I am less surprised than I would have expected.

In fact, if you pay attention carefully to Torah, or in fact at all, it does not require much in the way of care, it tells you that humanity was made in the image of God. See Genesis 1:26. It is not only the Jew who is made in the image of God, nor those from your particular sect of Christianity.

Every human being is precious, regardless of his religious errors. This is the reason given for the prohibition to murder: “Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind” (Genesis 9:6). Or do you think that you may murder a Buddhist or a Hindu? Do you deny that they are in the image of God?

In fact, God loves all people. Some do earn for themselves death. But God makes clear that He does not delight in the death of the wicked. He wishes, instead, that they turn from their wickedness and live. (See Ezekiel 18). Is this not clear from Jonah? God sent Jonah to the people of Nineveh, idolaters, with word that God was going to destroy them in forty days. This was a call to repentance, and it worked. The people repented and God relented. Now, if it is as you imply, that God has no concern for them, He would just destroy them. But as Jonah says, God is “merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing” (4:2).

It is true that Israel is God’s first-born son. That does not leave the rest of us in the cold. It implies that we are also his sons. The Jewish people have a special relationship with God and also greater responsibility. They are a light to the nations. They are a kingdom of priests. And if they are priests, they have a role to play to benefit the non-Jewish world. They are here to show the beauty and truth of serving God. They are to instruct us in their ways. You have acknowledged that they are witnesses, and so they are. They testify to the One God, beside Whom there is no other. They carry this light and testimony to the benefit of the non-Jew. They are a blessing to us.

The creation of Israel is a sign of God’s great love for the world. Solomon, when dedicating the Temple, prayed that if a non-Jew should hear about the good things going on in Israel and pray toward the Temple, that God would hear their prayer (I Kings 8:41-43). He hoped that by this the nations would know God and fear Him “as do your people Israel”. In the future, the nations will stream to Jerusalem to learn the ways of God. And they will be at peace.

It is clear that God has concern for the non-Jew. Torah does not claim that only the Jew is made in the image of God. Nor does it say that one who follows idols is no longer in God’s image. The Hindu must repent. He does himself a great wrong by bowing down to false gods. But he is still a special creation of the Creator. He is still in the image of God.

You have asked a good question. What does it mean to be made in the image of God? But you have jumped to hasty conclusions. Torah says nothing about the “Son of God”. This Christian invention does violence to the text and leads you to denigrate both Torah and your fellow human being. Whatever it means to be made in the image of God, we see from Torah that all human beings are made in the image of God, and they have intrinsic value. We see that God has concern for all human beings, not Israel only.

Jim

If you found this article helpful please consider making a donation to Judaism Resources by clicking on the link below.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

Judaism Resources is a recognized 501(c) 3 public charity and your donation is tax exempt.

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Eric,

Some time ago, you and I briefly discussed whether or not the Pharisees were trustworthy. You wrote that they are not, which started the conversation. If I recall correctly, one thing you held against them was that they covered up the resurrection of Jesus, according to Matthew. This proved to you just how treacherous they were. I pointed out that Matthew was not trustworthy, drawing as proof his abuse of the holy words of HaShem. You were unable to answer this charge. You wrote something about the other books of the NT being in existence as well and Matthew (and John) speaking for itself. This, of course, does not establish that Matthew is trustworthy. You found it outrageous that I would take your lack of defense as an admission that Matthew was not trustworthy. Meanwhile, without any evidence, you have determined that the Pharisees are not trustworthy, on the say-so of a man whom you could not defend. Now, as I mentioned before, Matthew does not write that the Pharisees paid the guards. It was the chief priest and elders, which I mention only for accuracy (because you and I both know that someone will claim that I do not know the story, if I get a detail wrong.) I propose that we briefly examine Matthew’s story and see if it is credible. Once we examine it, we will see that Matthew is untrustworthy, fabricating stories to malign his opponents.

When you read Matthew 28:11-15, you should notice something exceedingly strange about the entire story. A huge question should come into your mind when you read that they paid the soldiers to say that the disciples stole Jesus away. I do not mean the question that is so often asked, about how the guards would be able to admit that they fell asleep on duty without being killed for it, although that is a good question. I do not even mean how the guards could be expected to testify to an event that they are supposed to have slept through, although that is also good. No, there is a huge question that reveals how the whole story is a lie, that Matthew made it up. Think for a minute.

How did they know that Jesus was not going to show himself publicly?

Think about it. I’ll wait.

The chief priests and elders have just heard that Jesus is going to come back. They have no idea what he will do. They do not know that he is going to ascend to heaven in forty days. But the story shows that they expect never to see him. Why is that?

Well, the answer is obvious. This story was fabricated by Matthew much later. Jesus never made any public appearances. But the Jewish leadership could not know that was going to happen. Yet they did not worry at all what he was going to do. Instead, they somehow knew in advance that they could say the disciples took him. This makes no sense. They should have been expecting him to appear. They could not bribe the guards on the day that Jesus resurrected to say the disciples took Jesus, because nobody knew that he was not going to show up.

This story only makes sense after the disciples begin publicizing the resurrection but have no Jesus to prove it. It is only then that the accusation of the Jewish leaders that the disciples stole the body would make any sense. But according to the NT, this happened 47 days later than the plotting of the chief priests and elders. The Jewish leadership did not know that Jesus was not going to show himself, so the story they hatched does not make sense at day three after his death. The claim that the disciples took the body presumes that they know that there is no Jesus to show.

Matthew’s story is a fabrication. He overlooked the fact that the Jewish leadership would not know what Jesus was going to do. His story reflects the idea that the claim of his resurrection was made without evidence, without an actual resurrected Jesus. It is a neat trick he has pulled. He has made the Jewish leadership look like hypocrites and tried to establish them as witnesses to the resurrection. But he clearly invented this story, overlooking that their behavior is not consistent with those who believed that a man back from the dead could present himself. Their behavior is consistent with people who know that the disciples will claim he came back and then disappeared.

Let’s be frank. Matthew lied. He made up a story about the Jewish leadership to cover up the lack of Christian proof and malign critics of Christianity.

In fact, if you pay careful attention, you can see he has pulled another trick. He is trying to establish the timeline by attributing it to his critics. See, the disciples did not announce the resurrection until long after Jesus was supposed to come back. Now, I am not saying that the disciples stole Jesus’ body out of the grave, but they had much more than three days in which to do it, if they wanted to. They could have taken it at day 47. It is likely that he invented the story of the guards, to give the appearance that Jesus was back by day three, as he was supposed to be. It is a real problem that his resurrection is not publicized until day 50 and that he is not there to do it. So, Matthew invents a story about guards. He makes his opponents look like liars and hypocrites, while making them appear to testify to his story.

In fact, you can see how useless guards would be. The guards are only going to be posted for a few days. So, whenever they leave, that’s when you take the body (if you were going to.) And then you just make up a story about how the guards were paid off or whatever story you like. The guards are useless.

It is clear that Matthew is not trustworthy. His accusations against the Pharisees should not be trusted. His accusations against the chief priests and elders are obvious fabrications. His abuse of scripture shows that he is disinterested in truth and would distort even the words of Tanach if it suited him. His accusations are not to be believed.

Jim

If you found this article helpful please consider making a donation to Judaism Resources by clicking on the link below.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

Judaism Resources is a recognized 501(c) 3 public charity and your donation is tax exempt.

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

The Legitimacy of Questioning – by Jim

Is it fair that Jesus call his opponents “sons of the devil” and such names? Is he really just correcting (lovingly) those who were in sin? The Christian apologists here would have us believe that the invective Jesus spits at his opponents is perfectly justified, but let us examine the evidence.

One of the claims that Jesus makes is that the Hebrew scriptures testify to him: “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39-40). This claim, however, is wholly unsubstantiated.

It is clear that anybody can make any claim for himself. It is another thing to prove the veracity of the claim. How would Jesus be able to substantiate the claim that the scriptures testify to him? This would be an exceedingly difficult claim, and we cannot be surprised that he never makes an attempt to support it. Instead, he browbeats his opponents, claiming, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe what he wrote how will you believe what I say?” (John 5:46-47). All Jesus has done here is attempt to humiliate his opponents and borrow the authority of Moses for himself, that and vilify his opponents. As is so often his way, he questions their sincerity.

But let us examine his claim. Is Jesus found in the scriptures? Did Moses write about Jesus?

The latter question is the easier to answer. Torah says very little about the Messiah. It is most certainly false that a reading of the Five Books would lead one to the idea that Jesus has propounded, that one should come to the Messiah (or specifically himself) for eternal life. One can see why Jesus did not appeal to one actual scripture. It is not likely he could find one. It is much easier to call people blind for not seeing something than to show it them where it cannot be found. No wonder then that he would rely upon invective rather than instructing the people.

And what about the scripture in general? Do they testify on Jesus’ behalf?

It is unclear what Jesus means that they testify on his behalf. Once again, it is important to note that the person of the Messiah is hardly mentioned. He is not the focus of the Writings or the Prophets anymore than he is the focus of Torah. Certainly nothing in them shows that the Messiah brings eternal life. Even if they did, that would not mean that Jesus brings eternal life, because he had not yet proven himself to be the Messiah.

It can be supposed that Jesus was making reference to the prophecies he was supposed to have fulfilled up to that point. However, if these are the same prophecies used by the Church, then it is no wonder that he referenced none of them. They would carry no weight with a knowledgeable person. And seldom could they be verified.

What could he say? “I was born of a virgin.” This would be an empty claim, because nobody could know that that was the case. The words would be empty without proof. And anybody with knowledge would know that no such prophecy exists. For anybody who knew Isaiah 7:14, it would be clear that Jesus was a confused person. Isaiah 7:14 is about a woman naming her child “Immanuel”. Jesus’ mother did not so name him. Clearly the prophecy had nothing to do with him.

Perhaps he could tell them that he was from Bethlehem. This would be useful, inasmuch as they thought he was just from Galilee (John 7:42). But this would not be proof either. Anybody could say they were from Bethlehem; that does not make it so. He had no birth certificate. Even today, some people question the birthplace of the current American president. Just saying you were born somewhere does not make it so. There were no witnesses to question about the event. It would be just another empty claim. (And certainly not everyone born in Bethlehem is the Messiah.)

Or, he could tell them how God called him out of Egypt. But any knowledgeable person would know that Hosea 11:1 was not about the Messiah. It was about Israel. And the same problem comes up as with the two previous ‘Messianic’ prophecies. Jesus has no witnesses. So, even if the prophecies had been about the Messiah, they would not be able to compare them to Jesus’ life and see how well they matched up.

Of course, I could go on, but all the supposed prophecies Jesus is said to have fulfilled have been tackled elsewhere. They have been shown not to be Messianic prophecies whatsoever, in most cases. And most anything Jesus is supposed to have fulfilled was a private event that could not serve as verification of his claims.

In short, Jesus’ claim that his opponents do not believe Moses is spurious. John does not have Jesus bringing any proofs, and it is obvious why. Jesus is not making a legitimate argument, proving his claims. Instead, he attacks their character. He vilifies his opponents, because he is actually asking for blind faith. He is demanding that people take him at his word. He will tolerate no investigation into his claims. So, rather than show how they are wrong, he attributes evil motives to them.

Jesus is nothing more than a demagogue. He demands belief without evidence. His castigation of them is not an act of love, of kindness. It is hateful and self-serving.

If you found this article helpful please consider making a donation to Judaism Resources by clicking on the link below.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

Judaism Resources is a recognized 501(c) 3 public charity and your donation is tax exempt.

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

I was raised like most other North American Jews- in an interfaith (Jewish mother, non-practicing Protestant father) in the suburbs of a large North American city. I was raised with a Jewish identity, went to Hebrew school, and had a bar mitzvah. We went to synagogue on the High Holidays, lit Shabbat candles on Friday night, and so on.

When I went away to university, I started getting involved with the local Jewish association- mostly Israel advocacy, some Jewish programming, and I was also learning more about my Jewish identity through getting involved at the local orthodox synagogue (although I was neither observant nor religious- merely started attending shabbat morning services).

Upon my graduation, I moved back to my home city, and started working. I don’t quite remember when I first came across the ‘messianic jewish’ movement, but I had always known of Jews for Jesus (et al), and one day I came across a messianic website featuring proofs texts of Jesus’ messiahship in the Hebrew Bible, and it caught my attention, so I looked at it, thinking I would get a good chuckle. Rather, I was very bothered- although I knew little about the Hebrew Bible, these arguments seemed compelling! The scriptural verses seemed to prove exactly their point! How was this possible?

To make a (very) long story short, this bothered me day and night. I read articles and watched videos online- there was messianic site after site offering proofs, and yet I had difficulty finding one or two competent Jewish websites offering refutations- I knew there must be some Jewish refutation- but nothing I found online was satisfactory.

The Christian arguments had dozens of verses, plus references to the Talmud and other Jewish works, and the Jewish refutations I found online seemed surprisingly bare-boned, and did not ease my doubts in the slightest.

This reached a fever pitch where, one night laying in bed, I asked myself- what good reason do I have NOT to accept Christianity? What other choice did I have? It was so abundantly clear that whatever Jewish arguments existed, I could not find them.

One morning, I asked G-d to teach me- to show me what He wanted me to do.

I got an answer.

That night, while on campus for an evening classes program I was taking, the guest speaker happened to be (obviously unknown to me) a rabbi from Jews for Judaism. That certainly caught my attention. I actually had met this rabbi once or twice in the past, and I scheduled a meeting with him to discuss what was causing me so much distress, and to finally hear what the Jewish responses were- and whether they were satisfactory.

We reviewed some of the big proof texts, and the major theological issues (repentance & atonement, divinity of messiah, etc.), and it caused me to take a big step back. The refutations he provided me were very clear and straightforward, and I did a lot more reading, and met with the rabbi a few more times, and after a while I felt that I had received a satisfactory answer to my questions. But some doubts persisted, but while I knew that I could not answer many Christian arguments, I was not plagued by the same fears I had before.

It was only later, when I came across Rabbi Blumenthal’s writings (Contra Brown and The Council of My Nation) did it become clear as day to me. Until then, all the arguments I had seen were when the Christian presented Proof Text A, and the Jew attempted to refute it. But when I read Rabbi Blumenthal’s articles, it put everything in a new light. It became clear to me that not only are the ‘messianic prophecies’ not pointing to Jesus, but the Jewish-Christian disagreement goes MUCH deeper: the fundamental teachings of the Hebrew Bible preclude the major theological teachings of Christianity, such as the required belief in the messiah’s divinity, his death as atonement, the nature of G-d, and so on. I also found one argument particularly convincing- that Christianity accepts wholeheartedly the Jewish biblical tradition- that the Jews knew how to identify correct prophets and reject false prophets, and that the Jews accurately kept, passed on, codified and canonized the books of the Hebrew Bible.

And yet, the same Christianity that believes the Jews met G-d at Mt. Sinai and transmitted His message to humanity- do not know how to identify their own messiah and do not know the nature of their own G-d. Once I reflected upon this more, the point made more and more sense- to accept the Jewish bible and reject everything the Jews say about their own bible – seemed to be utterly illogical.

I printed both these articles out, and I read them each dozens and dozens of times. I thought about them, reflected upon them, and argued with myself about the arguments presented in the book, and it knocked out any lingering doubts I had.

Peace had come upon me.

If you found this article helpful please consider making a donation to Judaism Resources by clicking on the link below.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

Judaism Resources is a recognized 501(c) 3 public charity and your donation is tax exempt.

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Saul’s Journey

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Proverbs 14:12

What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God. Romans 3:1-2

My religous journey really started at the age of 19. For 2 years, I had been reading political books, trying to find the right way for man. Of course, I couldn’t find it. God was the only possible option left. I never felt the need to question the existence of God. When I look back, I have never doubt it. But man is, in part, the product of his experience and environment. My family was not religious at all. A Jewish father, a Christian mother, but none really exhibiting any faith, and even less any practice. Coming from Eastern Europe, Communism left its marks. Their anti-communism was humanist and rational. How then could I believe in God? Only Him; blessed be He, knows the answer. I can’t explain it myself. I didn’t need the kalam argument, God’s existence was self evident.

Very quickly, the only religion i looked into was Christianity. An irrational choice. Why such a choice? I think the best answer I can offer is who I am. When you have a Jewish Father and a non-Jewish Mother, you never feel at home anywhere. For Jews, you are not Jewish. For non-Jews, you are a Jew (a fact any Jew should think about when the mixed marriage issue comes up). And as is often the case, man follows the majority. Now I can fully understand the warning God gave to his people, “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong”(Exodus 23:2). After a study of Church History, I became Orthodox Christian. The search for Orthodoxy is the recurrent thread in my life. Orthodoxy or Death would say some Greeks and Russians. I can say that, as many others, my belief in Jesus and his Church led me to the Bible, and not the other way. This will be an important point at last, since it is the case for many Christians and explains much of the Christian misunderstanding of the Tanakh. I came to the Bible with Christian glasses. As such, i could find Christianity and Jesus from Genesis to Revelation, and even in Ezekiel’s visions (and for this, you really need a twisted mind).

During my Christian journey, I also embraced the traditional anti-Semitism. I didn’t see it as self-hatred, after all, I’m not a Jew and I became Christian. And after all, aren’t Christians supposed to be the true Jews? With such a worldview, I was mainly opposing some reprobates who didn’t possess the Holy Spirit and who got blinded by Jesus. I was smarter than those fleshly Jews, since I had accepted the true Messiah! For 5 years, my practice went up and down. Mostly down. Jesus paid it all, and I’m saved by Faith. Let’s not be legalistic like those Jews! At some point, after my girlfriend left me, I felt lonely. This situation forced me to turn back to God. The world could fall apart, but God will remain and is faithful to those who look unto him sincerely. Before coming back to Church, after some months of desertion, I decided that it was time to reason about what I believed and why.

This was to be a turning point in my life. I gave up Eastern Orthodoxy. I won’t go into the details now, but i can in a separate message. I then became a religious UFO: Calvinist with Judaizing tendencies. Adhering to the principle of Sola Scriptura, I couldn’t but look for the Jewish roots of my faith. Now, it really looks like a domino effect. But the brutal reality was this: my faith made no sense. If Jesus intended us to follow the Law, why did it never really happen except for marginal sects that got off the map for more than 1000 years? I couldn’t make sense of what I believed in. There is a saying that the devil hides in the details. This was precisely the case with the New Testament. Jesus sends us back to the Law (Matthew 5:17-19). Not only to the Law, but to the Pharisees, “Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2″The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.3So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.” (Matthew 23:2-3).

At this moment, I couldn’t make any sense of Jesus’s teachings. He asks me to go to the Pharisees. The Pharisees tell me to forget about Jesus. Which means, that to truly obey Jesus, I have to forget about him. Those thoughts are, I think, common to many former Christians who turned towards Judaism. No need to go into the details here, it would be too long; from Matthew confusing Jeremiah and Zachariah, the eating of human flesh and blood up to Stephen full of the Spirit making more mistakes than a catechumen. The whole Christian edifice got crushed under investigation. During this investigation, I must give credit to Rav Blumenthal. I was already in the process of leaving Christianity when I started to read his blog, but it helped me to make sense out of this process. Contra Brown is a masterpiece, and should be read by all, whether Christians, Jews, or even Muslims. From it, the main point is right at the beginning: “We must cast our mind back to the time before Jesus was born. We must ask ourselves how a Jew would have read the scriptures before the advent of Christianity. What was the total world-view that the Jewish scriptures imparted to the Jewish people? What would have been the perspective of the Jew who accepted the totality of the Jewish scriptures concerning the major theological issues that stand between Judaism and Christianity?” This point must be the central focus of any truth seeker. And when one tries to follow this methodology, the only logical conclusion is the truth of Judaism. Once the Christian glasses are put aside, one cannot but to see how off-track Christianity went when confronted with the Jewish Scriptures.

If I now feel better, this journey is not easy. When I look at my past Christian life, regrets invade my heart. Regrets for what I believed. Regrets for what I did. I cannot count how many nights I’ve spent without being able to sleep. Even for the future, I realize it will not be easy either. Leaving my job, I’ll also have to move from where I live. Everything is going to change. I feel both scared and hopeful. But following in the steps of Avraham, Ruth, or Rabbi Akiva’s parents gives me strength.

Many more points or events could be brought. I cannot tell everything in this message, and I can’t even remember everything. If my story can benefit Jews, reminding them their Godly heritage, or help Christians to open their mind to the message of the beloved people of God, I’ll be blessed. Any mistake is my own, everything good comes from Hashem. I pray that Hashem will forgive me, and that His people will accept me in their midst in the future.

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “In those days ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.’ ” Zechariah 8:23

“Then I will not be ashamed when I gaze at all Your mitzvot” Psalm 119:6

If you found this article helpful please consider making a donation to Judaism Resources by clicking on the link below.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

Judaism Resources is a recognized 501(c) 3 public charity and your donation is tax exempt.

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Boyarin presents us with an analysis of the hand-washing incident described in the seventh chapter of the book of Mark (TJG; pgs. 106-127). Boyarin concludes that, contrary to popular Christian opinion, this incident does not teach that Jesus abolished the dietary laws altogether. Rather, Jesus was opposed to the specific rabbinical enactment of hand-washing, which stands apart from the general dietary laws.

I find myself in agreement with Boyarin on this point. Reading the book of Mark with an understanding of Jewish law one recognizes that there is a distinction between the purity laws, which Jesus was contesting, and the general dietary laws, which Jesus does not mention. Boyarin however does not stop there. Boyarin goes on to argue that Jesus stood against all Pharisaic innovations and additions to the Law. This position is not supported by the Christian Scriptures, the only source we have for Jesus and his teachings.

Boyarin has ignored a significant piece of evidence in this discussion. The Talmud records that there was an inner-Pharisaic conflict concerning the hand-washing enactment, and that this conflict was still unresolved in the generation of Jesus (Shabbat 14b). In other words by taking a stance against the hand-washing enactment, Jesus is not standing outside of the Pharisaic community. Instead he was taking part in an inter-Pharisaic debate.

This is corroborated by Jesus’ teaching as recorded by Matthew: “the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you.” (23:2,3). Although Jesus goes on to malign the Pharisees for hypocritical behavior, but he does not take issue with their authority or their interpretation of the Law. In fact some of the laws he mentions and upholds in his subsequent diatribe (such as the tithing of spices) are of rabbinic origin.

Jesus is described as observing the Passover Seder according to rabbinic tradition (Luke 22:18-20). When Jesus is accused of breaking the Sabbath law, an accusation that only makes sense according to the Pharisaic understanding of the Law, he never exonerates himself by arguing against the Pharisaic definition of the Law. Jesus’ defense always assumes that the Pharisaic definition of the Law is correct, it is only the application of the Law in those particular instances (i.e. for the purpose of healing) that Jesus takes issue with.

Many of Jesus’ followers considered themselves Pharisees long after Jesus had died (Acts 15:5). These people were prominent figures in the community of Jesus followers and their opinion was taken seriously. A comparison between the debate described in Acts 15 and Paul’s dispute with Peter recorded in Galatians 2:14 shows that Peter, the prime disciple of Jesus, was of the “Pharisee party”. Paul accuses Peter of “compelling the Gentiles to live as do the Jews”. This was the opinion of the Pharisaic segment of the early Christian community as recorded in Acts 15 and Paul attributes this outlook to Peter. A straightforward reading gives us to understand that Peter himself belonged to this group.

If, as Boyarin claims, Jesus took a clear stance against the Pharisee approach to the Law, why would his followers accept this very approach that he discredited? It is clear that Jesus did not reject the Pharisee approach to the Law as a whole it was only some details of the Pharisaic application, details that were being disputed within the Pharisee community itself that Jesus was rejecting.

In the book of Mark (7:8-13) we do indeed find Jesus striking out at the general concept of the traditions. He rebukes the “Pharisees and all the Jews” (Mark 7:3) for using the traditions to make the Law of God null and void. However, the example that Jesus uses to demonstrate how the Jews were using the traditions to nullify the Law of God, is perplexing. Mark’s Jesus accuses the Jews of using the law of taking vows as a method of avoiding honoring their parents. The technical aspects of this accusation are confusing enough (the laws of taking vows are Biblical in nature (Numbers 30:3) and not a part of the traditions as Mark’s Jesus seems to believe). But what is really difficult to understand is that in all of the rabbinic writings, there is not one statement that can be taken as an encouragement to avoid honoring one’s parents. The consistent position of Pharisaic Judaism, according to every historical record, places the honor of parents on the highest pedestal. In sharp contrast, the Gospels leave us with several statements that seem to go against the spirit of the Fifth Commandment (Matthew 10:37; 12:48; 19:29; Mark 3:33; Luke 14:26). The targets of Jesus’ invective left us a literature that is far more extensive than the 4 books of the Gospels, yet nothing equivalent is to be found in their writings.

This would lead us to one of two conclusion; either the group that Jesus was castigating was a fringe sect that never left their mark on mainstream Judaism, or we can conclude that the redactors of the Gospels put this anti-Pharisaic tirade into their book long after Jesus died and were not familiar with the ways of the Jews. Either way, Boyarin’s conclusion that Jesus was anti-Pharisaic cannot be substantiated from this enigmatic passage, especially in light of the totality of the available evidence.

It is interesting to note, that Boyarin does not hesitate to slice up the Hebrew Bible and attribute various sentences in the same narrative to different authors who subscribed to conflicting theologies (TJG, pg. 43). He does this without any explicit evidence for the existence of the conflict that he assumes as the root of this editing procedure in the text of the Hebrew Bible. Yet he takes the Christian Scriptures at face value despite the fact that the same Christian Bible admits that there was deep discord in the early Church between Paul and a faction of “super-apostles” who opposed him. Had Boyarin taken the same irreverent attitude towards the Gospels as he does towards the Jewish Bible, he would have realized that the most probable explanation for the pro and anti-Pharisaic tendencies in the Gospels reflects the tendencies of two conflicting communities in the early Church. The Christian Bible itself acknowledges this rift in the early Church, there is no reason to assume that this controversy left no mark on the editing process of the books produced by these conflicting communities.

If you found this article helpful please consider making a donation to Judaism Resources by clicking on the link below.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

Judaism Resources is a recognized 501(c) 3 public charity and your donation is tax exempt.

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal