The Jewish Annotated New Testament (137 page)

Third, as church demographics shift increasingly to Asia and Africa, new forms of anti-Jewish biblical interpretations develop. Christians from these areas lack direct memory of the Shoah, the Holocaust, and so may be less sensitized to the dangers of detaching of Jesus from his Jewish tradition. Any negative stereotype flourishes more easily when there are no personal contacts to combat it, when there is limited access to Jews and Jewish resources, and when the challenge to anti-Jewish teaching—such as might be raised by a Jewish Board of Deputies or the Anti-Defamation League—is not part of the culture.

Fourth, biblical studies does, appropriately, speak to contemporary issues. In the effort to deploy the biblical text for purposes of liberation, interpreters insensitive to the issue of anti-Jewish teaching sometimes present Jesus as the liberator from his social context, namely Judaism, which they depict as analogous to present-day social ills. The motivations of such politicized readings are profound and laudable: social justice, alleviation of poverty, and cessation of ethnic strife, and the like; the real difficulties facing these interpreters must be acknowledged. However the means by which their argument is made are sometimes unintentionally anti-Jewish.

Fifth, and perhaps most pernicious, the problem of ahistorical, anti-Jewish interpretation is not always acknowledged. Fortunately, most ministers and religious educators take care in addressing the obviously difficult passages (e.g., the “blood cry” of Mt 27.25 that depicts “the people as a whole” [Gk
pas ho laos
] saying, “His blood be on us and on our children!”; Jn 8.44a, where Jesus accuses the “Jews”: “You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires”). But problems enter when homilists or teachers do not know Jewish history or theology and out of ignorance construct a negative Judaism over and against which they position Jesus, or when they presume that Jesus’ numerous insightful and inspirational comments are original to him rather than part of his Jewish identity.

Anti-Jewish stereotypes remain in some Christian preaching and teaching in the following ten areas. (For additional details, see annotations to the NT passages that this essay references.)

First, as part of a broader theological view that contrasts Jewish “law” with Christian “grace,” some Christians may believe that the Law (Torah) is impossible to follow, “a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear” (Acts 15.10), as opposed to Jesus’ “easy yoke” (see Mt 11.29–30). In actuality, Jews, then and now, did not find Torah observance any more burdensome than citizens in most countries find their country’s laws today. As Deut 30.11a states, “surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you.” Furthermore, modern states have more laws than there are in all the ancient Jewish sources combined. In fact, Jesus sometimes makes observance more stringent: Torah forbids murder (Ex 20.13; Deut 5.17), but Jesus forbids anger (Mt 5.22); Torah forbids adultery (Ex 20.14; Deut 5.18), and Jesus expands the definition of adultery to encompass both lust (Mt 5.28) and remarriage after divorce (Mt 19.9; Mk 10.11–12; Lk 16.18).

Jesus himself was halakhically obedient: he wears fringes (
tzitzit
—see Num 15.38–39; Deut 22.12) to remind him of the Torah (Mt 9.20; Lk 8.44; Mt 14.36; Mk 6.56); he honors the Sabbath and keeps it holy; he argues with fellow Jews about appropriate observance (one does not debate something in which one has no investment). It is from Torah that he takes his “Great Commandment” (Mt 22.36–40): love of God (Deut 6.5) and love of neighbor (Lev 18.19).

A second misconception, and correlate to the first, is the view that Jews follow Torah in order to earn God’s love or a place in heaven. Therefore, Judaism is a religion of “works righteousness” rather than of grace. This view fails to observe that the election of Israel is based on grace, not merit or works. Jews do not follow Torah in order to “earn” divine love or salvation; the Mishnah (
m. Sanh
. 10.1) states that “all Israel has a share in the world to come”—it is part of the covenant. Divine love is already present; it is not earned. Some texts contemporaneous with the New Testament (e.g., the Dead Sea Scroll text 4QMMT) can be read to suggest a works-righteousness model, but this is by no means the majority view, at least as can be determined by the literature of the period.

A third misconception connected to Torah is the view that purity laws were both burdensome and unjust. For example, numerous commentators explain that the priest and the Levite of the parable of the good Samaritan (Lk 10.30–37) bypass a wounded traveler because they are commanded by Jewish law to avoid touching a corpse. The parable, however, does not give this as the rationale for the priest and the Levite’s behavior. Indeed, it could not have been the rationale, since the priest is “going down” from Jerusalem (Lk 10.31), not “up” to it, where purity in the Temple would have been an issue. Although Lev. 21.1–2 forbids priests from contact with corpses save for those of near relatives, no such injunction applies to the Levites. In rabbinic literature, the responsibility to save a life supersedes other commandments (e.g.,
b. Yoma
846). Next, Samaritans had the same purity laws as did Jews. Josephus (
Ag. Ap
. 2.30.211) insists that Jews are “not to let anyone lie unburied; the Mishnah (
m. Naz
. 7.1) mandates that even a high priest must assure an unattended corpse receives proper burial. Consequently, Jews would have expected the priest and Levite to provide care, and part of the shock of the parable is that they do not. The parable mentions priest and Levite for rhetorical, not legal reasons: it leads listeners to expect to hear “Israelite,” the typical third member of the priest-Levite-Israelite trio, and thus listeners are shocked again when the third person is revealed to be a Samaritan.

Similarly, many sermons claim, incorrectly, that by touching a woman suffering from hemorrhages (Mt 9.20–22; Mk 5.25–34; Lk 8.43–48) and a corpse (Mt 9.23–26; Mk 5.35–43; Lk 8.49–56), Jesus violates purity laws or social taboos. First, Jesus does not touch the woman; she touches him. Second, hands do not convey menstrual impurity. The point of the healing is that Jesus restores a woman to health (and to ritual purity), not that impurity, which is a natural part of the world-order, is evil. Regarding the corpse: again, no law forbids touching a corpse; although corpses convey serious ritual impurity, being in a ritually impure state is not prohibited unless one is going to the Temple. In fact, attending to a corpse is an important
mitzvah
(commandment) in the book of Tobit (2.1–7), in rabbinic literature, and in the New Testament, as we see, for example, when the disciples of John the Baptist claim their teacher’s body (Mk 6.29; Mt 14.12), when Joseph of Arimathea claims Jesus’ body (Mk 15.43–46), and when the women visit the tomb (Mk 16.1; Lk 24.1).

Women who have just given birth are ritually impure, but Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, were not marginalized or demeaned following parturition. Ritual purity along with Sabbath observance, avoiding certain foods such as pork, making sure meat was slaughtered in an appropriate manner, and tithing certain agricultural products also helped Jews resist assimilation, served as a sign of Jewish identity, helped support the poor, and otherwise reminded them that they were Israel, the covenant community. For additional details, see The “Law,” p.
515
.

The fourth misconception is the view that early Judaism was so misogynistic that it made the Taliban look progressive by comparison, and that Jesus liberated women from this oppressive system. For example, numerous commentators express surprise that Jesus would have permitted Mary to sit at his feet (Lk 10.38–42), because “rabbis” were forbidden to talk to women. This idea of a “feminist” Jesus amid a retrograde Judaism serves several expedient purposes. Since Jesus is not proactive concerning women (e.g., no women are appointed among the twelve apostles; no women are explicitly mentioned as being present at the Transfiguration, the Last Supper, or Gethsemane), then if Jewish women could be depicted as no better than property, any interaction Jesus had with a woman would be seen as progressive. The case for describing women as oppressed by Judaism was then made by very selective citations of rabbinic statements, ignoring significant counterexamples (e.g., Beruriah, the well-educated wife of Rabbi Meir, whose legal rulings are authoritative), and ignoring the role of patrons and guests in private homes.

The New Testament, as well as other Jewish literature of the period, from the deuterocanonical texts to Josephus and Philo to inscriptional evidence to early rabbinic sources, tells us that Jewish women owned their own homes (see Lk 10.38 [Martha]; Acts 12.12 [Mary the mother of John called Mark]); served as patrons (Lk 8.1–3); appeared in the Temple (which had a dedicated “Court of the Women”) and in synagogues; had use of their own property (from the poor widow who puts her coins in the Temple treasury [Mk 12.42; Lk 21.2] to the rich woman who anoints Jesus, whether on the head [Mt 26.6–13 || Mk 14.3–9] or on his feet [Lk 7.36–50; John 12.1–3]); had freedom of travel (as with the women from Galilee who accompany Jesus to Judea); appear in public; and so on. Clearly it was not because of Jewish oppression that women joined Jesus. Perhaps some women outside of marital situations (widows, single women, divorced women) were particularly attracted to Jesus’ movement given its possible focus on celibacy (see Mt 19.12), nonprivileging of child-bearing (Lk 11.27–28), and alternative family structures (see Mt 12.50 || Mk 3.35).

The fifth misconception, related to the fourth, is that Jesus forbids divorce in order to protect women, because “the rabbis” stated that men would divorce their wives for the flimsiest of reasons (see
m. Git
.). This view fails to note that in addition to some liberal rabbinic divorce comments, we find much more stringent ones that restrict divorce to cases of adultery; this view also fails to note that the Jewish wife had a marriage contract (Heb
ketubah
) that protected her financially in case of divorce. Jesus’ concern is not the protection of women, but theological. Mark 10.6–9 explains: “From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

The sixth problem is a matter substantially of vague rhetoric: the claim that Jesus ministers to the “outcasts” and “marginals.” Many pastors and teachers do not explain: Cast out by whom? Cast out from what? Marginal to what? For example, that Jesus eats with “sinners and tax collectors” (e.g., Mk 2.16) is seen as an example of his ministering to the “cast out.” Groups ranging from the sick, the women, and the Gentiles (such as centurions) to children and the poor are seen as “marginal.” This is historically inaccurate. Sinners and tax collectors are not “cast out”; rather, they are people who violate the welfare of the community and who have deliberately removed themselves from the common good. Nor are they “cast out” of anything: to the contrary, Luke 18.10 locates a “tax collector” and “sinner” in the Jerusalem Temple. Second, the majority of people suffering from diseases in the Gospels are part of larger familial or social groups. Women are not cast out or marginal, and children are so loved that their parents and care-givers bring them to Jesus for a blessing. Nor are Gentiles “cast out”; Luke reports that a Gentile centurion built a synagogue in Capernaum, and depicts the Jewish elders as pleading on his behalf to Jesus (Lk 7.1–10). Gentiles were welcome in the Jerusalem Temple and in synagogues. Judaism of this period was not an egalitarian or universalist utopia, but nor was it in general a system that “cast out” women, children, the poor and sick, and so on. It is therefore important that pastors and teachers be more cautious when they use terms like “marginal” and “outcast.”

The seventh misconception is the view that all Jews wanted a militant messiah and therefore rejected Jesus because he proclaimed love of enemies. First-century Judaism had no single messianic blueprint. Some Jews expected a priestly messiah, others a shepherd, still others thought John the Baptist was the messiah. And still others had no such expectations. Missing from this view of the pacifistic Jesus vs. militant Judaism is also contrary evidence from the New Testament. For example, Jesus’ followers are armed, as we see in the attempts to prevent his arrest in Gethsemane. Jesus instructs his disciples, “The one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one” (Lk 22.36b) and disciples respond: “Lord, look, here are two swords” (22.38).

Eighth is the view that for early Judaism, God had become a transcendent, distant king, and that Jesus invented the idea of a heavenly “father”; connected to this view is the still-heard claim that when Jesus addressed God as “abba” (Mk 14.36; see also Rom 8.15; Gal 4.6) that he used an intimate term meaning “daddy” that would have been offensive to his fellow Jews. These claims miss the numerous biblical and postbiblical uses of “father” for the divine, including Ps 68.5 [Heb v. 6]; 89.26 [Heb v. 27]; Isa 64.8; Jer 31.9;
Ant
. 7.380, etc.; 1QH;
b. Ta’an
. 23b (on the grandson of
Ḥ
oni the Circle Drawer); and
b. Ta’an
. 25b (
avinu malkeinu
—“our father our king”).