Shofar Supplements in Jewish Studies

Revelation, Reflection, Reclamation

Zev Garber

• Publisher: Purdue University Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781612491882
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

There is a general understanding within religious and academic circles that the incarnate Christ of Christian belief lived and died a faithful Jew. This volume addresses Jesus in the context of Judaism. By emphasizing his Jewishness, the authors challenge today's Jews to reclaim the Nazarene as a proto-rebel rabbi and invite Christians to discover or rediscover the Church's Jewish heritage. The essays in this volume cover historical, literary, liturgical, philosophical, religious, theological, and contemporary issues related to the Jewish Jesus. Several of them were originally presented at a three-day symposium on "Jesus in the Context of Judaism and the Challenge to the Church, " hosted by the Samuel Rosenthal Center for Judaic Studies at Case Western Reserve University in 2009. In the context of pluralism, in the temper of growing interreligious dialogue, and in the spirit of reconciliation, encountering Jesus as living history for Christians and Jews is both necessary and proper. This book will be of particular interest to scholars of the New Testament and Early Church who are seeking new ways of understanding Jesus in his religious and cultural milieu, as well Jewish and Christian theologians and thinkers who are concerned with contemporary Jewish and Christian relationships.

Section 1

Reflections on the Jewish Jesus

The Jewish Jesus: A Partisan’s Imagination

Zev Garber

My own approach to finding the historical Jesus in the text of the New Testament may appear to some as extreme. It seems to me that Mark, the earliest Gospel version on the life of Jesus compiled shortly after the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, contains authentic traces of the historical Jesus shrouded in repeated motifs of secrecy which are intended to obscure the role of Jesus as a political revolutionary sympathizer involved in the Jewish national struggle against Rome. When the Gospel of Mark is analyzed in its own light, without recourse to the special status which canonical tradition confers, it is less history and biography and more historiosophy and parable. It also features an astute polemic against the Jewish Christian believers in Jerusalem, whose influence diminished considerably following the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, and a clever apology to make early Christianity palatable for Rome by not identifying Jesus with the national aspirations of the Jews. The Markan account on the trial of Jesus and his execution, along with the portrait of a pacifistic Christ, are for the most part historically questioned by S. G. F. Brandon, who sees in these narratives attempts by the Gentile Church to win Roman favor by exculpating Pontius Pilate from his share in the crucifixion of Jesus.¹

I agree. Regarding the Synoptic Gospels’ (Mathew, Mark, Luke) account of Jesus before the Sanhedrin,² the trial before Pilate,³ and the sentence of death,⁴ the question of historical fairness intrudes into these accounts. Jesus is tried three times (the Sanhedrin night trial which found him guilty of blasphemy; the trial before Herod Antipas; the dawn trial before Pilate), and so which court condemned decisively Jesus?⁵ Where in the biblical-talmudic tradition is blasphemy defined by claiming that one is the “Messiah the Son of the Blessed?”⁶ Leviticus 24:13-23 and Sanhedrin 7.5 proclaim that whoever curses God is guilty of blasphemy.⁷ Rarely recorded are malediction and impious profanity by one who claims to be a messianic figure. True, Josephus recorded many messianic pretenders between 6-70 CE, but we have no record of any put to death. BarKochba was called messiah by Akiba but tradition does not speak ill of either second-century hero. And no less a personality than Maimonides relegated the messianic doctrine to a secondary position among the articles of faith rendered in his name. Also, one guilty of blasphemy was stoned to death and not killed by crucifixion, as recorded by Mark.⁸

That Jesus was sympathetic to the Zealot cause may explain why the charges of sedition were not overtly denied by Jesus when asked, “Are you the King of the Jews?”⁹ Other references support this view. One of the trusted disciples was Simon the Zealot.¹⁰ The Zealot movement, rooted in the tradition of being “zealous for the Lord,”¹¹ arose in the Galilee in the first decade of the first century. It may be assumed that the child Jesus raised in Nazareth would have listened often to tales of Zealot exploits against the hated Romans and how many of the former died martyrs’ deaths in a futile attempt to replace the bondage of Rome with the yoke of the “kingdom of heaven.”¹²

These childhood experiences listened to in earnest and awe caused the adult Jesus to sympathize with the anti-Roman feelings of his people. Thus, the “cleansing of the temple” pericope is not to be read as anti-temple but rather as a critique of the temple functionaries who collaborated with Rome.¹³ This episode appears to have coincided with an insurrection in Jerusalem during the period of Gaius Caligula (34-41), in which the Zealots appear to have been involved.¹⁴ The famous question concerning tribute to Caesar has Jesus saying, “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s,”¹⁵ thereby implying Jewish support of Roman fiscal and political policy. This is an assimilable position and it is very doubtful that the historical Jesus identified with it. Better to say, the Rome-based school of Mark coined Jesus’ answer for it and guaranteed that Jesus and his fellowship were loyal to Rome and opposed to Jewish nationalism. This was a necessary survivor mandate for Gentile Christians living in Rome during and after the Zealot-inspired Jewish war against Rome.

The ipsissima verba of Jesus, recorded in Matthew 10:34, namely, “I have not come to bring peace but a sword,” supports the militancy in the Jesus party mentioned in the Gethsemane tradition: Luke 22:35-38 portrays Jesus asking his disciples if they are armed and they reply that they are doubly armed. The size and arming of the arresting party “from the chief priests and the scribes, and the elders,”¹⁶ can be cited as evidence of nationalist loyalty by Jesus. The unknown disciple who draws a word and cuts off the ear of the high priest’s slave is identified in John’s Gospel as Peter.¹⁷

Others say, the question of Jesus, “Have you come out against a robber with swords and clubs to capture me?,”¹⁸ separates him from the Zealots. But can the parochial Jewish nationalism of Jesus be hidden in the image of the universal image of the Christ of peace? I think not. Yet Mark’s anti-Jewish bias and pro-Roman sentiments inspired him to lay the guilt of Jesus in the hands of Jewish authorities. According to the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus was not an insurrectionist nor did he commit a crime deserving death by Roman law.¹⁹ Later church narrative accepts this view without serious emendation and further presents Jesus as the “Prince of Peace.” An early source of this tradition is the editorial note in Matthew 26:52. Here a post-70 CE Jewish Christian evaluating the ill-fated Jewish War declared in Jesus’ name: “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”²⁰

A constant motif is the silence of the apostolic writings on matters pertaining to the political situation of the time. The Zealots of the period are essentially overlooked; episodes in which they are involved, as reported by Josephus and others, are not reported. Luke-Acts is silent about the identity and antecedents of James, Peter, and the other leaders of Jewish Christianity. Mark’s theology prejudices the historical situation and declares that Jesus could not have involved himself in political nationalism and other contemporary issues. Later apostolic writers submissively follow the Markan line. How far theology distorts history is further shown by denigrating the Pharisees as the bitter opponents of Jesus.²¹

The received gospel tradition appears to suggest that the catastrophe of 70 CE and its aftermath was brought about by Jewish leaders who plotted Jesus’ death, the Jewish mob who had demanded it, and the stiff-necked Jews who refused to follow the Jesus way. Also, the Jewish disciples do not know Jesus,²² and it is the Roman centurion at the crucifixion who recognizes Jesus as the Son of God.²³

Our thesis suggests that New Testament belief about “Who do the people say that I am?”²⁴ is more belief narrative than historicity. In my opinion, the genre of Christian Scriptures on the historical Jesus is expressed in the idiom of midrash. By midrash, I mean an existential understanding by man of his environment, history, and being. Its purpose is not to provide objective description of the world nor to relate objective facts, but to convey a particular cultural worldview rooted in a specific setting in the life of the people in a given historical moment (Sitz im Leben). Its content is doctrinal and ethical and its form is mythic. The very nature of midrash is an invitation to “demidrashize,” that is, to decode the original form and make the content more meaningful for different time and clime. Indeed, the New Testament shows evidence of this. For example:

Given: Jesus returns in the clouds of heaven

Pauline: Shifts the emphasis of the failure of Jesus’ return to the believer’s present life.

Johanine: Achieves the same Pauline goal with its conception of eternal life here and now present to the faith, and of judgment as already accomplished in the world which Jesus brings.

My Jewish reading of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels puts him in history and not in divinity. The Jesus of different Christologies could never find support in Judaism, since the God-man of the “hypostatic union” is foreign to Judaism’s teaching on absolute monotheism. As the promised Messiah,²⁵ he did not meet the conditions which the prophetic-rabbinic tradition associated with the coming of the Messiah. Indeed, there was no harmony, freedom, peace and unity in the land of Israel—signs of the messianic age—and enmity and strife abounded everywhere. Not a false but failed Redeemer of the Jews, as witnessed by the words of the “King of the Jews” at the cross: Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani (“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me”)?²⁶ Notwithstanding, he was a loyal son of Israel, whose commitment to the Torah²⁷—albeit radical and reformist—and his remarks about the great Commandment²⁸ were steadfast and comparable to Pharasaic Judaism of the day.

Arguably, the great flaw in pre-Vatican II Catholic traditionalism (as depicted in Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ) and Protestant fundamentalism in the teaching of the Easter faith is the heinous role played by the crowd, people, and Jews in the execution of Jesus. The cornerstone of supersessionist Christology is the belief that Israel was spurned by divine fiat for first rejecting and then killing Jesus. This permitted the apostolic and patristic writers and Protestant Reformers to attribute to Israel the mark of Cain and the evil of the Sodomites, and more, to assign the worst dire punishment on judgment day. These are not words, just words, but they are links in an uninterrupted chain of antisemitic diatribes that contributed to the murder of the Jews in the heartland of Christianity and still exists in a number of Christian circles today. How to mend the cycle of pain and the legacy of shame? The key is to separate the crucifixion of Jesus from the contra Iudaeos tradition by demystifying the composite Passion Narrative as taught and preached in ecclesiastical Christianity.

An illustration is in order. The nefarious words, “His blood be on us and on our children,”²⁹ seen by many as the scriptural flash point to the charge that Gibson’s film is antisemitic, were composed in the 90s, a generation after the death of Jesus. And if the words are credible, then may they not be seen as composed by an anti-Zealot Jewish Christian writer who opposed the Jewish revolt against Rome and reflected on the wretched havoc on the Jewish people because of it? Similarly, to portray Pilate as meek, gentle, kind—a Jesus alter ego—that he cannot resist the aggressive demands of the Jewish mob to crucify Christ, is historically unfounded and not true.³⁰

Finally, why the obsessive passion in Mel Gibson to portray endlessly the bloodied body of Jesus? May it not be this traditionalist Catholic’s rejection of reforms advocated by Vatican Council II to present tolerantly the Passion of Jesus Christ? Whether conscientious or not, cowriter, director, and producer Gibson revises scriptural anti-Judaism in visual media. He does so by portraying overtly a corrupt Jewish priesthood, and especially the high priest, Caiaphas, a ferocious blood-thirsty Jewish mob, an effeminate Satan who hovers only among Jews, satanic Jewish children, and a complacent Roman leadership that does the bidding of Jews. The subliminal message: the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple (the film’s climactic and penultimate scene) is sufficient proof for believers in Christ that God has pronounced dire punishm...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Section 1: Reflections on the Jewish Jesus
• Section 2: Responding to the Jewish Jesus
• Section 3: Teaching, Dialogue, Reclamation: Contemporary Views on the Jewish Jesus
• Annotated Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index