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From: lisa@phs.UUCP (Jeff Gillette)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Jesus, N'tzarim, and Yirmiyahu Ben David (pt 1)
Message-ID: <940@phs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 29-Sep-84 18:05:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: phs.940
Posted: Sat Sep 29 18:05:48 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Sep-84 04:00:49 EDT
Organization: Duke Physiology
Lines: 99
> We're talking about a figure (Jesus) who differs considerably between
> the historical figure (Yeshua or Y'shua) and the (mythical) image
> created of him later by pagans of the Roman Empire (the Christian
> Jesus). ... Y'shua taught Torah in synagogues while Jesus died to
> save the world from the Jewish law of sin and death. The historical
> N'tzarim sect which followed Y'shua kept the Sabbath and even offered
> sacrifice in the Temple until the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE.
> The heretical evolution of Christianity didn't get rolling well until
> 110 CE when the N'tzarim leadership was booted out of Jerusalem with
> the other Jews and the first gentile "bishop" was installed. ...
> You have every right to practice Christianity if you want, but I don't
> think you should disguise it in a mantle of pseudo-scholarship.
After much thought I have decided to respond to this article, not
so much because historical reconstruction has any merit, but
because Yirmiyahu has raised the very important question of how
Jesus fits into Christianity!
First, Yirmiyahu has done a great service in reminding us that Jesus
(or Yeshua) was a Jew. In a very real sense the founder of Christianity
was not a Christian at all! It was his followers who elaborated on his
words and expanded his ideas, and ultimately broke with Judaism (or
more probably vice versa) to go their own way.
The question Yirmiyahu poses is, basically, whether Christianity as it
is practiced today (or in the first centuries of the "Common Era" - CE)
is really true to the intentions and implications of Jesus' teachings.
To say that Jesus "taught Torah in the synagogues" and that his earliest
followers were "observant Jews" is both right and wrong. In one sense
this means nothing more than saying Jesus was a First Century Jew. All
Jewish teachers taught the Law of Moses (Torah), all participated in
synagogue worship, and all were "observant" (e.g. Sabbath keeping and
dietary laws).
On the other hand, "observant" Jews today practice Judaism according to
the interpretations of the Torah laid down in the writings of the Rabbis
(the Mishna, the Talmud, and various other legal and homiletical tractates).
The earliest of these writings stem from the Third Century, and few (if
any) of their teachings predate Jesus (the best "popular" treatment I have
seen is Jacob Neusner, "From Politics to Piety: The Emergence of Pharisaic
Judaism," NY:KTAV, 1979).
Judaism in the First Century was almost as diverse as Christianity in
the Twentieth Century. The rigid (like the school of Shammai) held every
letter of the Law to be inspired and every regulation to be interpreted
literally. Philo (in Egypt), on the other hand, believed that Greek
philosophy was just as valid as the Torah (in fact, Philo suggested that
the Greeks stole all their best ideas from Moses). The Saducees were the
"high churchmen" of their day, and the Qumran sectarians (Essenes) went off
to the dessert to wait for the end of the world (when God would fry everyone
who didn't belong to their group). All of these were "observant" Jews.
All "taught Torah in synagogues."
The real question is whether the followers of Jesus who wrote the books
of the Christian covenant properly applied their Master's teachings to
the new situations they found themselves in, and whether their followers
correctly understood the Scriptures in formulating doctrines like the
trinity, the deity of Christ, etc. This is the question I will take up
in a second posting (this one is already too long).
A footnote on the name the earliest followers of Jesus went by. Yirmiyahu
mentions the "N'tzarim" - a term that does not appear in either Jewish or
Christian Bibles. I assume he is referring to the Hebrew word "Netzer"
(branch or sprout). Isaiah 11.1 does refer to a "branch" (netzer) which
will grow from the roots of Jesse - a reference to the king who shall
preside over the renewed earth. Some think this verse is referred to by
Matthew ("... that which was spoken by the prophets, ... 'He shall be
called a Nazarene'" - 2.23). There is no verse in the Hebrew Scriptures
that predict this, and there is some similarity between the words
Nazarene and Netzer (but there are other Hebrew words that would be
more similar). All of this notwithstanding, the word "N'tzarim" does
not appear anywhere in the Christian testament, nor in any early
Christian writings with which I am familiar.
It is at Antioch, we are told by Luke, that the followers of Jesus were
first dubbed "Christians" (the term appears to have been intended as an
insult). The church in Palestine is referred to as followers of "the
way," the "poor," and "little ones" in the New Testament. There is no
evidence that Jewish followers of Jesus stopped thinking of themselves as
Jews, nor that Jewish society kicked them out, until the last decades
of the First Century. Peter and John attended prayer at the Temple,
Paul preached in synagogues, and James refers to the "synagoguing" of
believers (2.2). There is no evidence to suggest that followers of
Jesus continued to offer sacrifices in the Temple (the writer to the
Hebrews made a theological point about this), but there is also
no evidence to suggest they didn't (at least in the early years).
Jeff Gillette ...!duke!phs!lisa
The Divinity School
Duke University
Durham, NC