Will the Real Jesus Please Stand?

How much do we know about ancient Judaism, and what was the relationship of the man named Jesus of Nazareth to the religion of his own people? What do we know about the politics of the age, the anti-Roman agitation that was rampant across the land of Israel, and the “Zealot” movement? What were the various social and religious currents active in the land of Israel in the latter part of the Second Temple period, and where might Jesus fall with respect to them? A handy rubric for looking at all of these trends are the writings of the ancient Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, who famously described four major “philosophies” prevalent among the Jews of that era. They include the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes and the Zealots. To be sure, Josephus, love him or hate him, gives us a natural point of departure. The question of us is: “To which of Josephus’ ‘four philosophies’ was the historical Jesus closest?”

Josephus declared that he himself belonged to the Pharisees, who enjoyed the support and good feeling of the bulk of the population:

Now, for the Pharisees, they live meanly, and despise delicacies in diet; and they follow the conduct of reason … They are able greatly to persuade the body of the people; and whatsoever they do about Divine worship, prayers, and sacrifices, they perform them according to their direction; insomuch that the cities give great attestations to them on account of their entire virtuous conduct, both in the actions of their lives and their discourses also.

           When it comes to the discourses of Jesus, we can actually interpose his teachings into the larger debate between the Pharisee schools of the liberal Hillel and the more “conservative” Shammai. This comes as surprise to many, who think of Jesus as – at best – a not very observant Jew. It also comes as an understandable shock to those who are inclined to view the Pharisees, not only as Jesus’ natural antagonists, but as conspiratorial murderers, whose hypocrisy knew no bounds. To discover that Jesus’ famous “Golden Rule” is essentially a paraphrase of the Pharisee Hillel is surprising enough, but to find that the larger context of the great “Hillelism” (“That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor”) is a debate over conversion to Judaism opens the door to a much greater cognitive dissonance. This is because Shammai was said to have pushed away hopeful converts. Similarly, Jesus is said to have instructed his disciples not to go into the way of the Gentiles (Matthew 10:5). In what ways might this alter the traditional view of Jesus as the founder of a non-Jewish faith?

In fact, we might ask: did Jesus ever speak to non-Jews, much less seek to “convert” them? A common rejoinder is: “What about the ‘woman at the well,’ in John’s Gospel?” I point out, much to the chagrin of some, that John is not a “synoptic” gospel and is the least “reliable” as a historical account. But even if this story is accepted at face value, we are told that the woman is a Samaritan. While a mutual understanding came to be reached over the centuries that Samaritans are not Jews, the issue was far from settled in the first century. Consequently, we can hardly assert that Jesus went out of his way to address a “Gentile.” 

Another objection commonly raised relates to the episode of the Roman centurion, whose servant Jesus healed. True enough, we cannot imagine that the Roman military officer would have been Jewish, but some interesting details emerge when we look closely at the Gospel accounts. It becomes clear that while Jesus initially wants no dealings with the Roman, his disciples point out that “he built us a synagogue.” This single detail highlights an entire class of non-Jewish devotees of the faith of Israel known as “God-fearers.” They were fairly widespread in the Greco-Roman world, having abandoned paganism in favor of the only monotheistic option in late antiquity – Judaism. They voluntarily observed many Jewish customs and rituals and engaged in philanthropic endeavors on behalf of the Jewish people. But Jesus, as an observant Jew, would not deign to enter the “un-kosher” home even of a God-fearer. The centurion declares: “I am not worthy to have you come into my home. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed.” Indeed Jesus, though impressed by the man’s faith, does not enter his home, but performs a “long-distance miracle.” 

Quizzically, we might go on to reference the common expression in modern circles: WWJD – “What would Jesus do?” Perhaps the question should be slightly rephrased: “Where would Jesus daven?” (that is, perform Hebrew prayers). Provocative? Certainly, for those whose images of Jesus hardly correspond with an ancient “ultra-orthodox” Pharisee-oriented sage. 

Another common misconception is that the Nazarene must have been the equivalent of an “ultra-liberal,” ancient “Reform” Jew, intent on relaxing many provisions of Torah law. This was certainly not the case when it came to the question of divorce, on which the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel were notoriously divided. The more “conservative” Shammai was quoted as saying: “A man may not divorce his wife unless he has found unchastity in her.”

 Hillel, by contrast, declared that a man may divorce his wife “even if she spoiled a dish for him.”

 Jesus appears to side with the more “stringent” Pharisee, Shammai, being quoted as saying: “Anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery.” We can easily see Jesus taking a “conservative,” even a rigid position, hardly in-keeping with the image of a reformer bent on relaxing Jewish law. 

We also need to emphasize the fact that the Pharisees were known to have cultivated the concept of an “Oral Law,” communicated to Moses on Mt. Sinai and just as binding upon the Israelites as the written Torah. It’s common for many to imagine Jesus in strong opposition to this aspect of Pharisee “doctrine.”

But if that were the case, we might find an even greater affinity between Jesus and another class in ancient Judean society, known for having rejected the whole of the “Oral Torah,” and with it the concept of the resurrection of the dead (also heralded by the Pharisees). Indeed, if we assert that Jesus had some problem with Oral Law, we have just made him one of the Sadducees, of who Josephus wrote: 

The Sadducees … say that we are to consider to be obligatory only those observances which are in the written word…

In fact, we frequently see Jesus making reference to Oral Law in the teachings attributed to him in the Gospels, an example being the parable of the so-called “Good Samaritan.” Here we find a nameless man, robbed, beaten and left for dead by the side of the road. Who should come by but a priest (doubtless a Sadducee), who makes a “wide berth” around the victim, lest he ritually defile himself by possible contact with a corpse. The unlikely hero of the story is a “despised Samaritan,” who, unconcerned about ritual impurity, behaves in a manner consistent with the Oral Torah, specifically the “law of the goses” (the dying man). Acting like a liberal Pharisee, the Samaritan assumes “power of attorney” in the situation, binding his wounds and renting him a room at the local inn at his own expense.

Many are inclined to point out that Jesus is repeatedly said to have condemned the Pharisees, lambasting them as “hypocrites.” But what are the implications of such a charge vis-à-vis Christian attitudes toward Jews down through the centuries, given that rabbinic Judaism falls in a direct line of descent from ancient Pharisaism? To what extent is the anti-Semitism of the last two millennia rooted in the charge placed in the mouth of Jesus, and applied with broad strokes to the whole Jewish people? 

The clearest conclusion is that Jesus’ natural enemies were the Sadducees (enraged as they were by his violent act of overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple) and that his natural allies (notwithstanding the editorial polemic of certain Gospel narratives) were the Pharisees and perhaps the fiercely militant, anti-Roman Zealot faction. If any of this can be established through the tools of scholarship, what are the real-life implications with respect to Christian attitudes, down through history and in contemporary society, toward Jews and Judaism? What are the implications regarding the charge that “the Jews” rejected Jesus, becoming “Christ-killers”?

This “minefield” takes on yet another level of complexity as we evaluate the Christian textual sources to determine the historicity and message of the Jewish Jesus. How much can we learn about Jews and Judaism from non-Jewish sources? To what extent are the Christian Gospels the product of textual editing? What can we learn about the tools of literary criticism, common to a wide range of texts, from such analysis?

The work of New Testament researchers is critical, not only in finding correlations between Jesus’ teachings and those of the Jewish sects described by Josephus, but in mitigating some of the troublesome/ anti-Jewish flavor that occasionally comes across in the Gospels. The blanket condemnation of the Pharisees (supposedly in the mouth of Jesus) is a case in point. When it comes to the “passion” narrative, modern scholarship has asserted that the so-called “trial” of Jesus before the Jewish Sanhedrin was no trial at all, that the Gospels embellish the account to depict Jewish culpability for Jesus’ execution, and that the only responsible party was the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.

 Notably, the charge of “blasphemy,” present in both Mark and Matthew, is absent in Luke’s account. It might well be argued that Luke is, in this important recounting of the “trial” of Jesus, more evenhanded and less inflammatory that the other two synoptic Gospels, which could have significant implications in understanding the genesis of the charge of “deicide” – the murder of God.

 Not only does it not record a “Jewish conspiracy” to put Jesus to death; it instead reflects genuine grief and solidarity with Jesus on the part of the Judeans. 

Then there is the so-called “blood curse,” uttered by a mass of Jerusalemites who had hastily assembled themselves before Pontius Pilate: “Then answered all the people, and said, his blood be upon us, and on our children” (Matthew 27:25).

 Luke’s account, by contrast, conveys a very different narrative:

And there followed him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning to them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never gave suck!’”

We should in fact compare these verses with traditional Jewish lamentation recorded after the destruction of the Temple in the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch:

Blessed is he who was not born

Or he, who having been born, has died.

But as for us who live, woe unto us,

Because we see the afflictions of Zion…

Let not the brides adorn themselves with garlands;

And, ye women, pray not that ye may bear…

It’s noteworthy that in Luke, the words “for your children” form part of a tonally Jewish lamentation, whereas in Matthew the words “on our children” are imbedded in a different and much more sinister context. The remarks of Jesus to the women making lamentation are conspicuously absent in Matthew as well as Mark, along with mention of the sympathetic “multitude.” This accords well with the later tendency to blame “the Jews” for their “blindness.” It is a theme that would be echoed by countless ecclesiastical authorities, and arguably responsible for twenty centuries of anti-Semitic bombast. 

The importance of discussing such issues in the Gospels themselves can’t be overstated, because as we trace the dispersion of the Jewish people across the centuries, we find a long legacy of persecution, largely spurred by Christian theology and the specific charge that “the Jews” killed Christ. The implications are broad, even affecting Jewish-Christian relations today. 

In the final analysis, by entering “into the trenches” with Jesus and Jesus research, we engage in more than an academic exercise; we help shape the future contour of inter-religious understanding. We’d be hard pressed to find a more worthy goal. 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

In what ways do both Christians and Jews misunderstand Jesus as a historical character?

How does a study of Jesus enhance our understanding of Second Temple Judaism and the subsequent growth of rabbinic Judaism?

In light of our detailed discussion of textual source material regarding the teachings of Jesus and those of other ancient Jewish sects, to which of these movements was the historical Jesus most closely allied? 

How does a study of the historical Jesus impact interfaith relations, both in terms of appreciating the development of anti-Judaism/ anti-Semitism, historically, and present day Jewish-Christian dialogue?