Israel–a just cause

CNN’s religious blog listed 15 predictions for 2012, and one of them had to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Cameron Strang, publisher of RELEVANT magazine said:

There’s no question the worldview of most younger Christians already differs from previous generations regarding social justice, cultural engagement and politics. The next issue of probable divergence? The conflict in Israel and Palestine. The American church has largely purported just one theology about the modern state of Israel, but now questions are being asked – especially by younger Christians learning of persecution and human rights issues happening in the region – if the church should have a more active role in peacemaking. Is there a way for the Church to be pro-Israel, pro-Palestine and pro-peace? (religion.blogs.cnn.com)

I think Strang is saying that younger Christians aren’t buying the Christian Zionist line, and tend to view the conflict in Israel strictly in social justice terms (generally with the Palestinians on the victim side of the equation). I see that trend among younger Christians myself, especially as evangelicals become more concerned with social justice, which is in general a good thing. Therefore, it’s urgent that advocates for Israel argue on the basis of justice and not solely on biblical prophecy. There are two claimants to justice here–Jews and Arabs–and we can defend Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in the Middle East on that basis.

On the other hand, if we rely on biblical prophecy alone, we limit ourselves to a smaller audience, and it’ll be one primarily of those who are already convinced. We’ll lose lots of younger people, who have seen many interpretations of biblical prophecy fall apart. In arguing for Israel from a justice standpoint, we can acknowledge Israel’s shortcomings, but insist these don’t invalidate it as a state. If we talk as if Israel is always right, we weaken our case. But Israel, as Alan Dershowitz points out, has a better human rights record than any nation ever facing the kinds of threats that it faces (http://youtu.be/OiTh730rk-Y). And Israel has demonstrated its ability to correct and reform itself in ways that no other Middle Eastern nation can claim at all.

The Jewish Annotated NT

For Hanukkah this year my lovely wife gave me a copy of The Jewish Annotated New Testament, edited by Amy-Jill Levine, Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt (and author of the highly acclaimed The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus) and Marc Zvi Brettler, Professor of Biblical Studies at Brandeis. It’s packed with commentary and notes by a host of world-class Jewish scholars, including Daniel Boyarin, Shaye Cohen, Pamela Eisenbaum, Mark Nanos, Adele Reinhartz, and Geza Vermes, all reading and explaining the New Testament texts from deep within Jewish space. (New Testament isn’t my favorite term for the apostolic writings, but we’ll just go with it here for simplicity’s sake.)

Needless to say, I’m thoroughly enjoying this book, including the silent arguments I’m having with different contributors over their interpretation of various texts. For example, when Yeshua explains that he can’t get rescued from those who arrest him, because the Scriptures “say it must happen in this way” (Matt. 27:54), the note points out that Matthew doesn’t cite any specific Scriptures here, and claims, “no pre-Christian sources predict the arrest, suffering, and crucifixion of the messiah.” Perhaps you can argue that about the arrest and crucifixion per se, but surely the theme of a suffering Messiah is well established in the Tanakh, as rabbinic literature amply recognizes in the following centuries. And sometimes the notes don’t go far enough. Since I got The Jewish Annotated NT for Hanukkah, I read John 10:22ff early on. It mentions, of course, that “the festival of the Dedication” here is Hanukkah, but it doesn’t say that this is the earliest reference anywhere to Hanukkah as a holiday, or explain the connection between the festival and this pericope in John.

But what’s most striking about The Jewish Annotated NT is its deep engagement and respect toward Yeshua and the writers of the New Testament. In the Introduction, the editors cite Lutheran scholar Krister Stendahl’s phrase “‘holy envy’ to express the idea that a religious tradition different from the one we practice may express beautiful and meaningful notions.” Of course, we Messianic Jews would like our fellow Jews to get more out of the New Testament than “beautiful and meaningful notions,” but we also need to be confident that Scripture itself can get through to people, if they’ll only read it, and this publication can help many Jewish people to do just that with the New Testament.

Another benefit of the book from a Messianic Jewish perspective is that the authors read the texts without the layers of Christian preconceptions and dogmas that color the reading of Yeshua-believers, Messianic Jews as well as Christians. Here’s one example:

A couple of weeks ago (before I got the book), I spoke at a Navajo One New Man conference here in New Mexico (see http://umjc.org/home-mainmenu-1/news-mainmenu-40/1-latest/729-navajo-nation-supports-israel). I opened with Revelation 7, where John hears the number of those sealed from the twelve tribes of Israel—144,000—and then sees “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands” (Rev 7.9 NRSV). I said that this was a picture of the One New Man that this conference was speaking about—not a homogenized humanity, but still Jews and Gentiles. John hears the perfect number of redeemed Israel, with the twelve tribes represented, and then sees a remnant from all the nations, representing humankind in all its diversity, ultimately Jews and Gentiles worshiping God and the Lamb.

Now, traditionally Christian scholars have read Revelation through the lens of replacement theology and seen a “new Israel,” with 144,000 as a symbolic number for the redeemed, who appear in the next scene as the multi-national multitude that no one can count. Or, more recently, other Christians see the 144,000 as the literal number of Jews who will be saved during the great tribulation, even if the rest of Israel doesn’t make it. The multi-national multitude of those raptured before the tribulation worship before the throne while the drama plays out on earth. The Jewish Annotated NT, free of centuries of interpretive dispute, offers a simpler and more compelling reading of this passage: “John’s eschatology revolves around the restoration of the tribes of Israel, as in Ezek 37.15-22 . . . affirming the fundamentally ethnic ideology of this book.” The great multitude of 7:9 comprises “Gentiles who have devoted themselves to purity (white robes) and to the God and messiah of Judaism.” I might prefer to see Messiah capitalized, but I love the interpretation. It’s pretty much how I preached it to my Navajo brothers and sisters, but I was a little nervous about my interpretation until a Jewish scholar backed me up here.

I’m just starting to work with The Jewish Annotated New Testament, but I sense that it will provide lots of insights like this one as I incorporate it in my studies.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament, New Revised Standard Version Bible Translation, Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors.New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 637 pages, hardback.

Minority rules: Hanukkah 5772

Then came Hanukkah in Yerushalayim. It was winter, and Yeshua was walking around inside the temple area, in Shlomo’s colonnade. So the Judeans surrounded him and said to him, “how much longer are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us publicly!”

Yeshua answered them, “I have already told you, and you don’t trust me. The works I do in my Father’s name testify on my behalf, but the reason you don’t trust is that you are not included among my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice, I recognize them, they follow me, and I give them eternal life. (John 10:22–28a CJB)

People are often surprised to hear that Hanukkah is mentioned in the New Testament, and even more surprised that this is the earliest mention of the holiday in any literature. The books of the Maccabees are earlier than John’s Gospel, but they don’t mention Hanukkah itself, only the events surrounding it. Now, that’s a nice bit of biblical trivia—not that anything biblical is trivial, of course—but it doesn’t explain the connection between Hanukkah and the story that follows in John 10. Was there a Hanukkah-related reason for the Judeans to challenge Yeshua, “If you are the Messiah, tell us publicly,” or for Yeshua’s response about the sheep?

One of the more plausible Hanukkah connections is Yeshua’s repeated reference to his “works” (10:25, 32, 37, 38), the miracles of healing and deliverance that he had performed among them. Miraculous works are a theme of Hanukkah, cited in the blessing, “… for the miracles, the redemption, the mighty deeds, and the victories in battle which You performed for our ancestors in those days, at this time” (Koren Siddur). Yeshua is telling his critics, “We’re celebrating past miracles right now; how about recognizing the present-day miracles happening right around you?”

There’s another Hanukkah connection, though, that I haven’t heard so much.

Shema and Trinity, part 3

Here’s a final post—at least for now—on the question, “How can we say that God is one, as in the Shema, and believe in a Messiah who is God with us, or Immanuel?” Or to put it more abstractly, how can we affirm both the Shema and the doctrine of the Trinity? This question came to me indirectly from a 14-year-old Jewish girl who was interested in Yeshua as Messiah, but not sure that was OK.

The idea that the Christians worship three gods—which the Trinity definitely does not teach—does seem to be a big impediment for Jewish people who might otherwise be interested in Yeshua, especially when they realize they can believe in him and still be Jewish. But does believing him mean believing that he’s God? That’s a big problem.

Before we go any further, I should note that the New Testament doesn’t actually say in so many words “Jesus is God.” There are a couple of passages that almost say that, depending on the translation, but much more often what happens is that attributes that belong only to God are ascribed to Yeshua the Messiah. Indeed, in Revelation, the final book of the New Testament, the multitude of the redeemed “from all tribes and peoples and languages” worship God and the Lamb, or Messiah, “who is at the center of the throne” (Rev. 7:9–17). I could give lots more examples, but the point is not that a man became God, but that God become a man in order to be the Lamb of redemption, whose sacrifice redeems human beings for God and cleanses them from sin.

I won’t try to explain how this can be; the doctrine of the Trinity seeks to do that (and the interpretation of the Shema in Maimonides’ second affirmation of Jewish faith seeks to prove that it’s impossible). But Revelation is still talking about the one and only God of Israel, and we see something similar in the Torah itself.

Shema and Trinity, part 2

I’m still thinking about the email I got a couple of weeks ago that mentioned a 14-year-old Jewish girl who is “interested in Yeshua as Messiah but has questions about the Trinity and the Shema balancing out.” As I noted in my earlier blog on this topic, you don’t exactly have to make the Trinity and the Shema balance out because they’re different kinds of statements. The Trinity seeks to describe the nature of God, whereas the Shema tells us who God is and how we are to relate to him. Still, the question remains, how can we say that God is one and believe in a Messiah who is God with us, or Immanuel?

Let’s stay in the neighborhood of the Shema itself, namely the Torah, while we consider this question.

Honor your neighbor

The middah* of honor is an essential part of “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which in turn is essential to the command to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and substance. If we don’t honor the people around us, can we really claim to honor the God who made them?

Honor looks beyond the outward circumstances and behavior of our fellow human beings to see the divine image in each one: “Every one a holy being.”  This understanding of human nature doesn’t seem to come to us easily. We’re ready to ignore, discredit, mock, and malign people around us, according to our own needs and prejudices.

Thanksgiving, mammon, and the super committee

I don’t know who set the November 23 deadline for the congressional super committee to agree on a plan for cutting our national debt by $1.2 trillion, but he or she was an unwitting prophet. November 23 is one day before Thanksgiving, a moment of sanity in the form of family gatherings and feasting before the nation plunges into its annual orgy of consumerism on Black Friday.

I’ve been dwelling on the second line of the Shema these days—“Love Hashem your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind”—and also studying Matthew with a few friends, in the new Delitzsch Hebrew-English translation (see  http://vineofdavid.org/resources/dhe/). This week we arrived at this:

A man is not able to serve two masters. For he will hate the one and love the other, or he will cling to one and despise the other. You are not able to serve both God and mamon. (Matt. 6:24)

Rabbi Yeshua is giving us an application of what he calls “the great commandment” to love God wholeheartedly. If we’re serious about fulfilling this commandment, we can’t also serve material comfort and increase, personified as the false god mamon. A divided loyalty just doesn’t work with Hashem our God.

Shema and Trinity

While I’m deep in my studies about the Shema, I receive this email from a colleague:

I have a question that relates to one of my children’s friends at school, who has a Jewish mother and a Christian father…  She is interested in Yeshua as Messiah but has questions about the Trinity and the Shema balancing out. I am trying to help my 14-year-old son to have these conversations with her.

Now I know how our sages Shammai and Hillel must have felt when a Gentile came to each one of them and said, “Teach me the whole Torah while standing on one foot.” Except it would have been a 14-year-old asking the question—and I’m not quite as smart as Hillel and Shammai.

But, let’s give it a shot.

Doing the Shema

Judaism doesn’t put the same kind of emphasis on creeds or statements of faith that Christianity does. A true-blue conservative Christian worries first about what you believe and whether it’s orthodox. Only after he settles that, does he get around to what kind of person you are. Jews tend to consider whether or not you’re a mensch—a decent, upright human being—before they worry about what you believe. (Unless of course you believe in Yeshua, in  which case a lot of Jews freak out even if you are a mensch, but that’s another story.)

On the other hand, some people think of the Shema as a sort of Jewish statement of faith: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. But is it really a statement of faith? Or is it just as much about behavior as about belief?

Positively bound up

The terms bound up, bondage, and binding usually have a pretty negative connotation. People normally think of the devil as the one who binds people up—at least those folks who believe there is a devil. But now that I’m focusing on the Shema more intently, I’m obeying one of its instructions, which says to bind Hashem’s words as a sign on your hand (Dt. 6:8). You could translate that as “tie them as a sign,” which sounds a little milder than “bind,” but the meaning is about the same. And “binding” certainly describes the experience. The hand-tefillin is placed on the biceps, and then its leather strap is wrapped seven times around the forearm, from the elbow down to the hand itself. My understanding is that you’re to wrap this tightly enough for it to make an impression in your flesh.

In The Year of Living Biblically, AJ Jacobs describes his experience with wrapping tefillin (both binding and wrapping are used to describe the ritual). It’s part of what the book’s subtitle calls his “humble quest to follow the Bible as literally as possible”: