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Introduction
- Purdue University Press
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1 Introduction Zev Garber Though many articles, reviews, and books are not of one opinion on the life and time of Jesus, there is a general understanding in the dogma of the church and in the quests of the academy that the incarnate Christ of Christian belief lived and died a faithful Jew,1 and what this says to contemporary Jews and Christians is the focus of this volume depicting Jesus in the context of Judaism and its impact on Jewish and Christian traditional and contemporary views of the other. In the context of our time, Pope John Paul II challenged members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission to help Christians understand that the Hebrew Scriptures are essential to their faith (1997). That is to say, Catholic mysteries, including annunciation, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and redemption are derived from the Hebrew biblical Weltaschauung. To speak of Jesus in the context of Judaism is affirmed by the church’s acceptance of the Jewish Hebrew Bible as the Christian Old Testament, and this presents distinctive challenges to the visions of Judaism. When Jewish and Christian savants interweave the narrative and teaching of Jesus into the cultural and social life of first-century Judaism in the land of Israel under the rule of Caesar, they pinpoint the evolving Christology of Jesus believers, which conflicts with the viewpoints of the rabbis and jurisdiction of Rome. Second, Christians and Jews committed to reading scripture together are deeply motivated by an academic and reverential disposition toward rabbinic Judaism and the desire to correct the malign image of Jews and Judaism that emerges from erroneous readings of the Gospel sources. Arguably , contra Iudaeos biases happen when historicity (Pharasaic kinship of Jesus, Peter, and Paul) is conflated with apologetic (“give unto Caesar”) and polemic depictions (Jews are a deicidal and misanthropic people), and theological innovation (Christ replaces Torah). 2 ZEv GarBEr The desideratum is neither extreme skepticism nor full faith acceptance but rather a centralist position, somewhat contrary to an ecclesiastical tradition which teaches that truth is bounded and restricted to New Testament and early Christian kerygma (preaching) and didache (apologetics). Exploring the place of Jesus within Second Temple Judaism means to apply drash (insightful interpretation ) to peshat (plain meaning of the text). Why so? Because Jesus the historical being, that is to say, Jesus before the oral and written traditions, is transformed and transfigured into a narrative character that appears in the canonized New Testament. The Jesus in narratology is a fluid figure of creative, idyllic, and dogmatic imagination, whose realness cannot be fixed in any given episode, teaching , or telling. Thus, on reading the Gospel of John’s account of Jesus before the Sanhedrin , the trial before Pilate, and the sentence of death, one may project that the Evangelist’s Jewish opponents are the reason for the virtual negativity of the Ioudaioi towards Jesus in his teaching and trial. Also, the cry of the mob, “His blood be upon us and on our children” (Matt. 27:25) is neither an acceptance of guilt nor perpetual pedigree damnation for the death of Jesus but can be seen as an expression of innocence that says if we are not innocent of this man’s blood then may the curse be fulfilled (see Acts 18:6 and b. Sanh. 37a). Jewish-Christian Encounter The ground rule for Christian-Jewish scriptural reading and discussion is simple but complex. Let the Christian proclaim core Christian dogma (Easter faith) and dicta (e.g., Jesus “the living bread that came down from heaven” [John 6:51] is the savior of Israel) without a hint or utterance of anti-Judaism. Likewise, the Jewish observant needs to be aware and sensitive about claims of Christian identity. The objective in the quest for the rediscovery, and possibly reclamation, by Jews of the Jewish Jesus is to penetrate the wall of separation and suspicion of “law and grace” and enable the believer in the Second Testament to appreciate the saga and salvation of Israel experientially in terms of Judaism, that is to say, in accordance with the teaching of Moses and the exegesis of the sages of Israel. Reciprocally, the follower of the Torah way learns the how and why of the Christian relationship to the Sinai covenant as presented in the Christian spirit of scriptural inspiration and tradition, a strong sign that the centuries-old “teaching of contempt” is not doable for Christians and Jews in dialogue, where a shared biblical tradition is the surest sign that the...