[This is a MUST READ: a Jewish perspective on the historical Jesus from the book KOSHER JESUS by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Featured here is only the Preface and Introduction; the Table of Contents at the end of this excerpt gives more information on the 40 Chapters of this book. It is downloadable on the kindle app from amazon.com.]
Preface
This book tells what I believe to be the true story of Jesus of Nazareth.
Growing up in an Orthodox Jewish household, I held great antipathy toward Jesus. The very name reminded me of the suffering Christians laid upon Jewish communities for two thousand years: persecutions, forced conversions, expulsions, inquisitions, false accusations, degradations, economic exile, taxation, pogroms, stereotyping, ghettoization, and systematic extermination. All this incomprehensible violence and cruelty against us — against our friends and families — committed in the name of a Jew!I
In my neighborhood we did not even mention his name. We said “Yoshke,” a Hebrew play on his name, or some children learned to say “cheese and crust” in place of “Jesus Christ.” In a synagogue sermon, rabbis might refer to Jesus —exceedingly rarely — by saying “the founder of Christianity.”
Fundamentally, we understood Jesus as a foreign deity, a man worshipped by people. The Torah instructs us never to mention the names of other gods, as no other god exists except God. We also understood Jesus to be as anti-Jewish as his followers. Was he not the Jew who had rebelled against his people? Was he not the one who instructed his followers to hate the Jews as he did, instigating countless cruelties against those with whom God had established an everlasting covenant? Was he not also the man who had abrogated the Law and said that the Torah is now mostly abolished?
In truth, Jesus was not that man. The more I studied the matter, the more i discovered Jesus had done none of these things. The people who represented him in this way had a vested interest in doing so. They superimposed onto Jesus their own antipathy toward Jews. They ripped a Jewish patriot away from his people. They portrayed his teachings as being hostile to Judaism when, in fact, everything he taught stemmed from the Judaism he practiced.
I seek to correct this injustice at long last. Just as Christians would greatly benefit from a deeper understanding of Jesus the man, Jews need to accept that they have something to learn from Jesus as well, albeit in a manner very different from the way that Christians understand him. Nearly all his authentic lessons were restatements of classical Torah wisdom, and his ethical teachings still have the power to speak to us today. Awareness of their truths would enrich a Jewish community that, by rejecting the fictional, anti-Semitic Jesus, has mistakenly rejected the man himself.
In these pages, based on ancient Jewish sources as well as Christian scripture, you will discover the authentic story of Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus lived, taught and died as a Jew. He defined himself and his Jewishness in much the same way as today’s Torah-observant Jews. He conducted himself as a devout rabbi and Pharisee. He wore a Jewish head covering, prayed in the Hebrew language, ate only kosher food, honored the Sabbath, had the mezuzah parchment on the doorposts of his home, lit a Chanukah menorah, wore the tzitzit fringes, donned tefillin daily, waved an esrog and lulav on Sukkot, ate matzo on Passover, and studied the Torah regularly. He enjoyed the selfsame relationship with God shared by all Jews.
Though this book does not consider Jesus holier than any other human being and certainly not divine, I argue that Jews should claim him as one of our own. Through Jewish sensibilities, we can see in the Christian Bible one of our rabbis, Jesus, ever our brother. As Jews, we should celebrate the family bond we have with Jesus. We also have a bond with Christianity, even as our faiths differ considerably in many aspects. Ultimately, this book aims to initiate a wider celebration of both bonds and differences, for each delivers distinctive joy.
Introduction: Who was Jesus of Nazareth?
The genesis of this book is a simple question: Who was Jesus of Nazareth?
We all think we know who he was — the inspiration for the world’s most successful religion. The deliverer of faith, love, spiritual inspiration, and religious commitment to billions of people the world over for two millennia. Christians see him as the son of God, both wholly human and wholly divine, whose example, compassion, and self-sacrifice are a bulwark for the faithful worldwide.
But is that the whole story?
This question has dominated my twenty years of in-depth study of the New Testament and Christianity. The answers I have found have been sharpened by challenges, years of discussion, and debate (many available on YouTube and on my website) with leading Christian scholars all around the world. My opinions on Jesus have been profoundly shaped by the writings of Hyam Macoby and his compelling insights into the historical Jesus. This book would not have been possible without Mr. Macoby’s work, which serves as a pivotal foundation and central pillar for what follows here. More than any other works of scholarship, Macoby’s books get to the very heart of the historical Jesus, and I am profoundly indebted to him for his life-long research. His insights, more than anyone else’s, have illuminated for me the real truth of the Jewish Jesus, and I strongly encourage the reader to dip directly into his texts, as even this book is an insufficient substitute.
For all the undeniable good Christianity has done, even its most passionate adherents would admit it has also been directly and indirectly responsible for a great deal of suffering. Until the modern era, Christian history is rife with physical violence and discrimination. Awful acts of hatred and intolerance were committed in Jesus’ name. And for far too long, the received picture of Jesus has obscured a simple and powerful truth: Jesus would never stand as an enemy against his own people, nor would he tolerate his followers doing so.
From the very beginning, as Christianity branched away from Judaism to develop its own identity, Jesus was intentionally shorn of his Jewishness like Samson deprived of his strength. Christians obfuscated the idea of Jesus the Jew, preferring to see him as an innovator who at once transcended Judaism and brought it to a conclusion. This deception deeply alienated Jesus from the Jewish people and led to considerable torment and distress.
This is not to suggest that the chilly relationship between Christians and Jews have long avoided any connection to Jesus. Over the centuries, as he was slowly turned into a deity and violence perpetrated in his name against the Jews increased, they came to see him as a source of unrelenting persecution, the supreme example of heresy. They wanted no association with the patron saint of zealots who demeaned, attacked, and murdered them, and taught sacrilege in his name.
But times are changing. Christianity has opened its heart to the Jews.
The Catholic Church is today a great friend to the Jewish people. In May 2010,, as a guest of the Vatican, I met Pope Benedict: his warmth and regard for me as a rabbi were immediately in evidence. Evangelical Christians are among the most stalwart supporters of the State of Israel. Not only that, of the 3-45 million tourists who visited the Jewish homeland in 2010, 69 percent were Christians. I am personally in awe of the stalwart and unwavering support offered to the State of Israel by evangelical Christians, and I have thanked them time and again in their churches and in op-eds.
Christians are beginning to take a long-overdue look back on the common origins of our religious outlook with modern eyes and see how we get to where we are.
Now, perhaps it’s time and equally imperative that Jews recognize a long-obscured and essential truth: Rabbi Jesus was a Jew and should be counted among our nation. The heroic Jewish patriot you will encounter in these pages should not be severed from the people he loved and the people he died defending.
Supplanting Judaism
Unlike many other religions that came into being independently, Christianity entered the world claiming to fulfill Judaic prophesy. Competition with Judaism was built into Christianity from its inception, priming early Christians to harbor immediate hostility toward Jews despite, or perhaps because of, their religious commonalities.
Some early Christian fathers felt the need to directly discredit Jews and Judaism. To them the very idea of “righteous” Jews or “just” Judaism contradicted the Christian premise outright. How could Jews be just, they thought, when they’re practicing the wrong religion! Replacement theology, the deeply anti-Semitic belief that God discarded the Jews when they rejected Jesus and replaced them instead with Christians, has prevailed throughout Christendom for generations.
Until the deeply anti-Semitic Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) directly addressed the subject centuries later, early Church leaders held that Judaism would never survive. Even the powerful Roman Empire couldn’t resist the Christian juggernaut eventually capitulating and adopting Christianity as state religion. It wasn’t a stretch for Christians to surmise that all remaining Jews would eventually convert, wiping out the ancient religion. But against all odds, Judaism survived and flourished.
As the years went by the Jews failed to disappear. Christians grew anxious for an explanation. St. Augustine of Hippo provided it. The third most important figure in Christian theology after Jesus and Paul, Augustine argued that the Jews were actually part of God’s master plan. For their rejection of Jesus, the Jews were eternally cursed, their ongoing existence and failure to accept Jesus seen as a proof of his messiahship, instead of its refutation. The Jews were destined to live on, depressed and miserable symbols of God’s displeasure and the final triumph of Christianity over Judaism.
Insulting as this view was, it was something of an improvement. Many of Augustine’s predecessors had advocated policies of forced conversion. Resistance led to expulsion from the community and harrowing executions. Relatively speaking, Augustine’s position somewhat benefited Judaism since, even as he denigrated Jews, he at least argued Christians should not slaughter them.
Long after the violence and viciousness of this period ceased, enmity seethed under the surface. Jesus became the primary vehicle of controversy and disagreement between religions. Jews refused to study him, his teachings tainted by his role as the wellspring of anti-Jewish activities and hatred. Conversely, Christians ignored Jesus’ Jewishness because they saw Judaism as a despised and obsolete religion. Traces of these attitudes continue to hold sway, even into today’s era of heightened awareness and reconciliation.
Progress
Over the past few decades, the two faiths have become closer allies, and Jews and Christians increasingly see one another as spiritual kin. this new era of brotherhood was forged in the horrors of the past hundred years, and results from outreach by both the Catholic and Evangelical Christian communities.
Three courageous popes emerged in the latter half of the twentieth century and showed themselves to be heroic friends of the Jewish people. John XXIII, the greatest of all popes; John Paul II, a magnificent friend of the Jewish community and of all humanity; and Benedict XVI, the modern theological father of rapprochement with the Jews, who gets far too little credit for the enormous efforts at reconciliation he has made.
Pope John XXIII was responsible for calling the Second Vatican Council, which in the early 1960s changed the course of Christian doctrine. Just one of many forward-looking changes that resulted was the renunciation of the Jews as deicides, or killers of God, a theological relic of the vitriolic anti-Semitism that once haunted mainstream Christianity. John XXIII also had worked actively to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust. When he invited Jewish groups to the Vatican, he would dismount from his papal throne and say humbly to them, “I am your brother Joseph.” This is an unparalleled demonstration of humility and greatness that beggars belief.
John Paul II was a leader of extraordinary humanity and humility in his own right. He will always be remembered for opening Christian hearts to Jews, continuing the work that John XXIII began, and changing the tenor of Jewish-Christian relations. John Paul was the first pope in history to visit a synagogue, in this case the beautiful one in Rome.
Benedict XVI has also proven himself a great friend of the Jewish people. While he’s received his share of criticism for the Church’s mishandling of the pedophile priest scandal, it must not be forgotten that he did more as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to extend the Church’s hand in friendship to other peoples and faiths than nearly anyone who preceded him. As of this writing, Benedict has visited three synagogues in the six years of his papacy.
Theologians did their part to warm relations as well. In the 1960s and ’70s, Krister Stendahl, among others, initiated a sea-change in Jewish-Christian friendship by reevaluating the mandate for Christians to convert Jews. Examining Paul’s letters to the Romans, Stendahl found “an affirmation of a God-willed coexistence between Judaism and Christianity in which the missionary urge to convert Israel is held in check.” He argued the Church had ignored this fact, permitting the relationship between gentiles and Jews to become all too focused on conversion instead of cooperation. This was a thoroughgoing reversal of established Christian doctrine. As its ramifications percolated through seminaries, world events further advanced Christian respect for Judaism.
The 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and the massed forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan gave American Christians a bona fide opening to embrace the miraculous nature of the modern Jewish state. The conflict ended in a stunning Israeli victory, pushing American Evangelicals to reconsider their stance on the Jewish nation. Their conclusion? In 1980, as dyed-in-the-wool as Christian Evangelical as Jerry Falwell wrote in his book Listen America, “Israel still stands as shining testimonial to the faithfulness of God.” Gone were discussions of conversion and exhortation to evangelize the Jews. Instead, Falwell spoke of Israel in the highest terms. “There is no way that the tiny nation of Israel could have stood against the Arabs in the miraculous six-day war had it not been for the intervention of God Almighty.”
In the years since, the American Evangelical community has proven the most stalwart and reliable friend of Israel in the United States. In spite of a flare-up of discordant ideas resulting from Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ, a movie I excoriated for its historical revisionism and blatant anti-Semitism, Evangelicals remain engaged and devoted friends of Israel and the Jewish people.
Christianity has established itself as a strong and independent religion both valuable to the world and capable of tremendous good. It no longer defines itself by its opposition to Judaism. For the most part, Christians no longer feel the same antipathy toward Jews that they had for centuries.
It is time to build on these overtures of peace and address the first and lasting point in the relationship between Christians and Jews: their common claim on Jesus.
[There is much more to read in this book, so please get a copy; it is downloadable on your kindle app from amazon.com. The topics that are discussed are the following: The Future of Jesus and the Jews, Enriching Christianity with a Heavy Sprinkling of Jewish Spice,
Part I: The Rabbi
Chapter I: The Rabbi and the Stranger
Chapter 2: Romans and Jews
Chapter 3: The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Zealots
Chapter 4: Jesus the Rabbi
Chapter 5: Jewish Law
Chapter 6: Miracles
Chapter 7: Jesus the Healer
Chapter 8: Jesus Never Claimed to be Divine
Chapter 9: The Fantasy of the Evil Jews
Part II: The Death of Jesus
Chapter 10: The Crucifixion
Chapter II: Did Judas Really Exist?
Chapter 12: Brutal Pilate
Chapter 13: Barabbas
Chapter 14: A Political Death and the Trial of Jesus
Chapter 15: Jesus’ Crimes
Chapter 16: Paul the Pharisee?
Chapter 17: Paul and the Original Apostles
Chapter 18: Placating Rome
Part III: What Christians Have to Learn from the Jewish Jesus
Chapter 19: Jesus, Lover of Israel
Chapter 20: Jesus Against Evil
Chapter 21: Tinkering with the Divine
Part IV: Why the Jews Cannot Accept Jesus
Chapter 22: The World’s Most Successful Idea
Chapter 23: Why Jews Cannot Believe in the Divinity and Messiahship of Jesus
Chapter 24: Divinity
Chapter 25: Judaism and Paganism
Chapter 26: The Virgin Birth
Chapter 27: Splitting Up Divinity
Chapter 28: Original Sin
Chapter 29: Salvation and Repentance
Chapter 30: A Davidic Messiah
Chapter 31: Jesus and the Messianic Prophecies
Chapter 32: An Eternal Covenant
Chapter 33: Evangelist Methods
Chapter 34: This World and the Next
Chapter 35: Diversity and Uniformity
Chapter 36: Embracing Jesus as a Jew
Part V: Restoring Judeo-Christian Values
Chapter 37: What We Can All Learn from Jesus
Chapter 38: Jesus as a Bridge Between Religions
Chapter 39: Jesus and American Values
Chapter 40: The Hyphen that Unites Us
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