Judaism as a Foundation for Christianity?

[Divine Insight]

I believe this topic is fundamental for discussions of Christianity and Apologetics.

Everyone knows that Jesus was a Jew. And he often referenced the Torah. But how did Jesus himself view the Torah and Judaism in general? Was there even a consistent view of Judaism in those days? According to the gospels I think it's fair to say that the Pharisees held a view of the Torah and God that Jesus did not support.

Were the views of the Jewish Pharisees the orthodox views of Judaism? Or did many Jews, like Jesus, hold views that were quite different from what the Jewish Pharisees held?

I would very much like to hear views on this question:

Question for debate: "Was there a consistent view of Judaism in the days of Jesus?"

And if so, what exactly did that view entail?

[Divine Insight]

For me to cite the new testament as a reliable source flies in my own face but, in this instance I would refer you to Matthew 10:5 wherein he instructs his disciples to "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, enter no town of the Samaritans but go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." From this I deduce that Jesus saw himself as an orthodox Jew, angry at the many fallen away Jews and he intended for his disciples to preach orthodoxy and bring them all back to the true traditions. Now as I said at the start because their were so many splintered sects, and nowhere can you find what Jesus thought was the true tradition, I'd say go with Jesus being a Traditionalist. Which could be interpreted as a "big trouble maker"!

I have come to the conclusion that Jesus had actually been highly influenced by Mahayana Buddhism. This is a philosophy that actually views specific religion as being unimportant. Therefore Mahayana Buddhism itself was not actually a "religion" but a philosophy. A philosophy that Jesus may very well have embraced.

For me, this would explain why Jesus would instruct his disciples to only preach in the house of Israel and not to the Gentiles or Samaritans, because if they approach that audience they would most likely get into debates about religion in general, whereas if they stuck with just the Jews they would only be troubled by the various sects which would be far less problematic.

Although clearly it ended up being highly problematic for Jesus himself, at least according to the gospel rumors. It's really hard to say whether those rumors have any merit at all on any level. The more I think about it, it does make more sense to just recognize that the Jesus of the gospels was indeed a totally fabricated myth. If there was an actual historical figure that gave rise to these myths it was probably a collection of various preachers of the day as others have suggested.

[ThatGirlAgain]

Jesus obviously followed the Pharisee view.

If that were true, then why was Jesus constantly butting heads with the Pharisees?

1) Jesus appeared to be butting heads with AUTHORITY, and with the hypocrisy that goes along with people in power. However,

2) We don't know what Jesus actually did. However, the Gospels seem to have been written AFTER the Christians were told they couldn't worship at the synagugues, since they were too far from being Jewish. That , I am sure, caused bad blood between the groups.

Don't forget that the Gospel writers were trying to curry favor with the Romans and exonerate them for Jesus's death and make the Jews the bad guys.

First the ‘curry favor’ part…

Far too simplistic a view. Luke is clearly trying to tone down Matthew’s strong association of the Jesus movement with messianic Judaism. To Jews and Romans alike, that association would have been a turn off because of the recent disastrous Revolt, instigated by the messianic Zealots. The always clever Luke takes a number of themes from Matthew and inverts them, e.g., the genealogy, the nativity story, the New Moses trope, the importance of Judaism and the Law and various parts of the Resurrection story.

But note that all four of the Gospels explicitly reference the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem even though this is well after the putative time of Jesus. Why bring up bad blood if the idea is to placate the Romans?

Mark wrote his Gospel about four decades after the Jesus supposedly lived. He explicitly mentions that Jesus was expected to return within the lifetime of some of his hearers and in that generation. We can see this kind of expectation in Paul’s letters as well so apparently it was well known. Otherwise Mark would hardly have invented something so embarrassing. The inordinate delay is one issue that Mark has to deal with. Another is the association of messianic movements with the disastrous Revolt. The Pauline take on things was that the resurrection of Jesus was the opening of the messianic age. Mark takes his cue from the prophecies in Daniel and makes the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem as the sign of the real opening of the messianic age. (See Mark 13) In this way he executes two avians with one projectile. He both solves the time lag problem and changes a terrible defeat into a sign of hope. Matthew and Luke follow suit with this idea but with caveats here and there to explain away the continued post-Mark delay. John, written even later, claims that the ‘not taste death’ prophecy was just a misunderstanding.

The Gospels were intended to protect and revivify the Jesus movement in the aftermath of the Revolt, not to placate the Romans.

Moving on…

The anti-Pharisee attitude is best understood in context. In the putative era of Jesus, there were two kinds of Pharisee. The dominant House of Shammai believed in strict literal observance of the Law. The ‘underdog’ House of Hillel took a more liberal view, emphasizing the spirit of the Law. Imagine Jesus as growing up in the era of Hillel (before 10 CE) and being influenced by the teachings of that great man. Now imagine him as opposing the Shammai Pharisees who he would have perceived as hypocritically following the letter and ignoring the spirit. Fits nicely, doesn’t it?

Matthew goes overboard in his criticism of the Pharisees. When he wrote his Gospel (ca. 75-80 CE) the newly emerging rabbinic Judaism would have been competing for the mantle of true inheritors of historic Judaism in the post-Temple era. Matthew’s Gospel is one big argument that the Jesus movement is the true inheritor of that tradition. It is not surprising that Matthew would take Mark’s accounts of Jesus clashing with the literalist Pharisees of his day and amplify them into the tirade of Matthew 23. Matthew’s reference there to the Pharisees liking to call themselves Rabbi is a dead giveaway. The irony of course is that the Pharisees busy inventing rabbinic Judaism were of the pacifist House of Hillel who escaped Jerusalem where most of the Shammai Pharisees died fighting alongside the Zealots.

Now…

Why associate the death of Jesus with the Jews? Read the Gospels with an unbiased eye and you will see this upstart preacher ticking off the Pharisees as already noted and the Sadducees. (In addition to the insult to their authority, I wonder how much that Temple tantrum cost them in lost business.) But this Jesus character was really popular with the mobs and they did not want another uprising happening. (Note that Mark tells us there was one uprising already in the past few days, involving Barabbas. Ref) Solution: get the Romans to do it. Judas informs on Jesus claiming royal aspirations and promising his followers earthly rewards. (See the end of Matthew 19 for one example.) Tell the Romans about this ‘King of the Jews’ and let the notoriously strict Pilate do the rest. If the Jews were to be blamed to the exclusion of the Romans, the story would have had Jesus stoned to death, not crucified. Look at this part of the Gospels as a piece of more or less accurate tradition and it makes a lot more sense.

All very well said, and I can find little here to disagree with; my own remark was, indeed, a fine example of oversimplification, while your post here is much more detailed and accurate.

That said: There is certainly an element of whitewashing in the NT. The bogus story of Pilate's freeing one condemned prisoner at Passover, and of course the handwashing scene -- from what is known of Pilate in actual history, those are about as likely as his fluttering above the crown on white wings. He was a coarse and brutal man with little but contempt for the Jews he ruled.

No, placating the Romans wasn't the Gospel writers' agenda; but they certainly weren't eager to provoke them.

The Barabbas story is a mystery. There is absolutely no record outside of the Gospels of any custom of freeing prisoners for Passover. But Barabbas means 'son of the father' and early Greek texts call him Jesus Barabbas. So the crowd wanted to free Jesus son of the father??? Ref

The Gospel narratives concerning Pilate can almost be read as Pilate refusing to be told what to do by the Jewish authorities but not passing up an opportunity to publicly humiliate and execute a rabble rouser who claimed to be King of the Jews. All of that would be in character.

Matthew did not intentionally provoke the Romans. I doubt he ever intended his Gospel to be read outside the community he was trying to preserve. It is too focused on fighting off the competition. But given a wider audience it could be perceived as such - the hero being a very Jewish messiah figure - and so Luke decided to write an alternative to ward off Matthew.

[cnorman18]

The Barabbas story is a mystery. There is absolutely no record outside of the Gospels of any custom of freeing prisoners for Passover. But Barabbas means 'son of the father' and early Greek texts call him Jesus Barabbas. So the crowd wanted to free Jesus son of the father??? Ref

Yeah, I know about that one, and it is intriguing. (BTW, the 1961 movie Barabbas with Anthony Quinn in one of his best roles is a classic. If you haven't seen it, rent it._

The Gospel narratives concerning Pilate can almost be read as Pilate refusing to be told what to do by the Jewish authorities but not passing up an opportunity to publicly humiliate and execute a rabble rouser who claimed to be King of the Jews. All of that would be in character.

Hmmm. Well done. I never thought of that. Of course, I don't devote a lot of time to thinking about Jesus these days...

Matthew did not intentionally provoke the Romans. I doubt he ever intended his Gospel to be read outside the community he was trying to preserve. It is too focused on fighting off the competition. But given a wider audience it could be perceived as such - the hero being a very Jewish messiah figure - and so Luke decided to write an alternative to ward off Matthew.

Also well said. I guess we can agree on this, anyway; that these were all literary works, probably based in part on real events and real people -- but the degree to which those literary works bear a relationship to those real events and people is probably unrecoverable at this late date. Speculation is fascinating, but it isn't likely to be conclusive -- though it IS good to weed out the oversimplifications and sloganeering, such as my own.

Thanks. You are certainly a scholar, and my hat is off to you.

[ThatGirlAgain]

The Barabbas story is a mystery. There is absolutely no record outside of the Gospels of any custom of freeing prisoners for Passover. But Barabbas means 'son of the father' and early Greek texts call him Jesus Barabbas. So the crowd wanted to free Jesus son of the father??? Ref

Yeah, I know about that one, and it is intriguing. (BTW, the 1961 movie Barabbas with Anthony Quinn in one of his best roles is a classic. If you haven't seen it, rent it._

I have not seen it but will check it out when I get the chance. I thought the expansion of the Barabbas character in King of Kings was interesting though.

I saw Quinn in a number of films and was rather impressed. But I still think of him in the role I first saw him in – Zeus in the Hercules TV movies.

And speaking of movies…

You want proof that Jesus was the Son of God? The Duke said so and that’s good enough for me. [/John Wayne impersonation]

The Gospel narratives concerning Pilate can almost be read as Pilate refusing to be told what to do by the Jewish authorities but not passing up an opportunity to publicly humiliate and execute a rabble rouser who claimed to be King of the Jews. All of that would be in character.

Hmmm. Well done. I never thought of that. Of course, I don't devote a lot of time to thinking about Jesus these days...

Mark 15:9-11 “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?� asked Pilate, knowing it was out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.

John 19:19-22 Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.� Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.�

Mark was the first Gospel written, and that 40 years after the ‘fact’. And John was the last one written, perhaps another 25-30 years down the line. Whether these accounts have any basis in fact is debatable. But they show that the attitude of the Gospel writers concerning Pilate and the Jews was not universally like the one in Matthew where a meek Pilate washes his hands and the whole crowd chants together in claiming responsibility and blame. (Did they practice I wonder? “No no Moshe! It’s ‘on our children’, not ‘chilblains’! Let’s try it again.�)

Matthew did not intentionally provoke the Romans. I doubt he ever intended his Gospel to be read outside the community he was trying to preserve. It is too focused on fighting off the competition. But given a wider audience it could be perceived as such - the hero being a very Jewish messiah figure - and so Luke decided to write an alternative to ward off Matthew.

Also well said. I guess we can agree on this, anyway; that these were all literary works, probably based in part on real events and real people -- but the degree to which those literary works bear a relationship to those real events and people is probably unrecoverable at this late date. Speculation is fascinating, but it isn't likely to be conclusive -- though it IS good to weed out the oversimplifications and sloganeering, such as my own.

The idea of accurate historical narrative was not well known in those days. Josephus was a rarity. Liberties were accepted and even expected. The speeches given at coronations or royal funerals were usually full of whoppers about the person’s life. The Gospels were intended to build up the Jesus character in similar ways. They are more like Hollywood scripts for a ‘historical’ film than scholarly history.