Posted on 09/25/2003 9:18:42 AM PDT by Greg Luzinski
Jewish leaders continue to decry Mel Gibson’s forthcoming Jesus movie for supposedly threatening to whip up anti-Semitism. Due out next April, "The Passion" identifies Jewish priests as instigators of the crucifixion. Maimonides, too, in his Mishnah Torah, affirms Jewish involvement in Jesus’ execution — which must make the greatest of medieval Jewish sages an anti-Semite, too.
But the film I’d like to see produced that would really make some Jews nervous, while teaching a healthy lesson: an honest depiction not of Jesus’ death, but of his preaching. The Christian Bible makes clear what was probably the main theme of his sermons. It is a theme that many liberal rabbis, to their discomfort, would feel obliged to endorse.
Today’s secular historians generally assert that Jesus was a loyal adherent of Pharisaic (rabbinic) Judaism. They argue against the conventional Christian understanding that Jesus radically critiqued Judaism. On this, the Christians are right.
True, Jesus is repeatedly quoted in the gospels as embracing Torah observance (e.g., Matthew 5:17-18). He must have accepted certain broadly defined mitzvot like the Sabbath and Temple sacrifice, because his followers were still practicing these commandments just after his death.
What Jesus rejected was the oral Torah that explains the written Torah. Essential to rabbinic Judaism, this notion of an oral Torah recognizes the Pentateuch as a cryptic document, a coded text. It posits that the Bible’s first five books were revealed to Moses along with a key to unlock the code — for a lock is never made without a key.
This oral tradition was passed from Moses to the prophets to the rabbis, later to be written down in the Mishnah and Talmud. At least that’s the theory presented in the first chapter of the Mishnah’s tractate Pirke Avot, a theory that still animates traditional Judaism.
On point after point, Jesus derides not the written Torah but its orally transmitted interpretations. He does so on matters like the details of Sabbath observance (no carrying objects in a public space, no harvesting produce or use of healing salves except to save a life), donating a yearly half shekel to the Temple, refraining from bathing and anointing on fast days like Yom Kippur, hand washing before eating bread and praying with a quorum.
Stated this way, laundry-list fashion, such commandments from the oral tradition might seem like trivialities, as they did to Jesus. But from the constellation of such discrete teachings there emerges the gorgeous pointillist masterpiece of Torah — not merely "the Torah," the finite text of the Pentateuch that the Christian founder accepted, but the infinite tradition of Judaism as a whole, reflecting God’s mind as applied to human affairs.
For Jesus, oral Torah was a manmade accretion without transcendent authority. He tells a group of Pharisees, "So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God," citing Isaiah. "In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men" (Matthew 15:7-9).
Elsewhere, "Woe to you lawyers also! For you load men with burdens hard to bear" (Luke 12:46).
From this position, it was a logical next step to that of the apostle Paul, who abrogated the Torah altogether, oral and written. Abandon the former and you’ll soon abandon the latter.
A phenomenally charismatic person, Jesus mocked the Jewish establishment of his day and was adulated by a following from Galilee, the region where he conducted his brief ministry, famous in this period (as professor Geza Vermes shows) for the ignorance of the local populace. Knowing no better, loathing Pharisees as their own teacher did, they thought Jesus uniquely had Judaism all figured out.
Sound familiar? Reform ideology has always viewed oral tradition as being pretty much nothing more than the "precepts of men," while the Conservative movement increasingly understands it as a human creation, "hard to bear." Having grown up in a Los Angeles-area Reform community, I can testify that most Reform and Conservative temples impart a level of lay education that is approximately Galilean. As radio commentator Michael Medved has memorably said, the majority of Jews in our country know little about Judaism other than that it rejects Jesus.
Yet when it comes to the oral Torah, most American Jews follow Jesus without know it.
Mr. Gibson, please consider making another movie, a prequel about his career before the crucifixion showing how much Christianity we have unwittingly absorbed.
Torah indeed necessitates rejecting Christianity, but that means rejecting also the Christian view on the most fundamental of concepts in all Judaism: oral Torah. A Jesus movie about his life as a preacher would be a good dose of reality, if unpopular with our beloved Jewish leaders — not, come to think of it, unlike the film that Gibson will give us next year.
David Klinghoffer’s new book is “The Discovery of God: Abraham and the Birth of Monotheism” (Doubleday, 2003).
Yeah, LOL, that poor ignorant Catholic who can't think for himself. Who has used it against Rome for a long, long time? Chapter and verse please? And who used it? Was it Augustine? Ireanus perhaps? Cyprian? Clement of Rome? Clement of Alexandria? Please name names. If they don't have credentials as Fathers, they don't count. I mean, Jimmy Swaggart, Tex Marrs, and James White really aren't in the same class. And, by the way, neither are Calvin, Luther or Huss.
And many women were there beholding afar off, which had followed Him, ministering unto Him, Mary Magdalene, and MARY THE MOTHER OF JAMES, AND JOSES, and the mother of Zebedee's sons." . . . And these first see Jesus; and the sex that was most condemned, this first enjoys the sight of the blessings, this most shows its courage. And when the disciples had fled, these were present. But who were these? HIS MOTHER, FOR SHE IS CALLED MOTHER OF JAMES, and the rest." So you're saying that Chrysostom, who wrote the Eastern Liturgy which calls Mary "Ever Virgin", believed that James was Jesus' literal brother? And yet Chrysostom says this elsewhere:As we said above, the Bible calls Mariah wife of Joseph's before Christ's birth and not afterwards. "Take the child and his mother" says the angel to Joseph. "This was said, not in order for you to suspect that afterwards he [Joseph] came to know her [i.e. consummated the marriage] ... The word "Ýùò" many times and continually, in the holy Bible, do we find it written [with this meaning]" (Migne E. T. 78, 102). The Mother of James and Joses is not Mary,the Mother of Jesus. You're misunderstanding Chrysostom in your quote.
For also JAMES, THE BROTHER, ACCORDING TO THE FLESH, OF CHRIST OUR GOD Yes, a cousin would also be "A Brother according to the Flesh". Find me a quote that says Mary had other children,or Mary is the Mother of James and Jesus.Not the Chrysostom one,please, as he clearly said otherwise elsewhere.
http://www.cathinsight.com/apologetics/mccarthy/Perpetual-Virgin.doc
Could you provide the exact quotes, the name of the book or letter, and the chapter number please? I'm having trouble finding any quotes using that phrase in my ECF software. Thanks.
Like the fact that Jesus uses different words (petros and petra specifically) when He said, "You are Petros, and on this petra I will build my Church"? Or like the fact that rock and stone are used dozens upon dozens of times in both Testaments--and every single other time, it is Christ and God that they refer to? Or perhaps that the phrase "the gates of hell" has nothing to do with a protection against error? ("Hell," Hades, or Sheol in the Bible has nothing to do with Satan's kingdom--rather, it is a holding place for the dead. Thus, death will not swallow up the Church entirely before Christ returns, and when He comes, He will reverse death per 1 Thess. 4:15-17.)
Yes, what Jesus said was "You, Peter, are a pebble but ON THIS ROCK(pointing to Himself) I will build My Church". Yup. That was the true meaning that we were waiting all these years for.
One problem: Jesus spoke Aramaic. There aren't two words for "rock" in aramaic. Jesus said, "Thou art Kepha, and upon this Kepha I shall build My Church". The reason the Greek translation of Matthew uses two different words is because "petra" is a feminine noun. It would have been awkward to use a feminine noun for a man's name, thus the two words. But the fact that Jesus spoke Aramaic-and that, according to those pesky Fathers again, Matthew's original text was written in Aramaic-shows the falsity of this Protestant argument.
The rest of your post is foreign to the belief of the Early Church. Protestants in later centuries had to think of theories like this to counter the Catholic claims.
And now I'm going to bed.
Here's one quick quote before I retire for the evening:
Athanasius "Let those, therefore, who deny that the Son is by nature from the Father and proper to his essence deny also that he took true human flesh from the ever-virgin Mary" (Discourses Against the Arians 2:70 [A.D. 360]).
Sounds like a troubled girl to me who is rebelling against her family and seeking publicity. Wouldn't be the first time it had happened.
Sounds like a troubled girl to me who is rebelling against her family and seeking publicity. Wouldn't be the first time it had happened.
Why don't you try reading her story first before making judgements? Or does her conversion to Catholicism, even though it's cost her her family, make her every action suspect?
You Reformed Apologists. So full of the love and compassion of Christ.
First, you have already demonstrated that you don't understand sola scriptura, so how can you decide that the quotes of the fathers I provided don't match the sola scriptura position?Second, my Chrysostom quote in post 135 specifically says "HIS MOTHER, FOR SHE IS CALLED MOTHER OF JAMES." Not only do you not understand sola scriptura, but you're not reading my posts either!
Finally, you do not understand the Catholic position on scripture, because I provided you plenty of passages from the fathers that teach against today's Catholic position. Remember the story of the rich man in hell who asked the Lord to send him back to his family so that they might believe? The Lord told the man that he had already sent them Moses and the prophets and yet they still did not believe. Don't take my analogy too far -- I'm not doubting your salvation -- but you have seen all sorts of evidence that the Catholic Church is not who she claims to be, yet you choose to continue in your blind walk. The object of your loyalty should be God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit -- not the Magisterium.
Why not get the three volume work THE FAITH OF THE EARLY FATHERS by William Jurgens? It's cheap, it's in print, and you can order it online via Amazon or B&N? Here's a link to the first volume on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814604323/qid=1064587944/sr=2-3/ref=sr_2_3/103-3469713-4561416
Oh, please -- that's just the same old tired arguments that ultimately boil down to this quote:""It seems clear that if Mary had had other children, this would not only or not even primarily have detracted from Mary’s dignity, but also, and more importantly, from Jesus’ dignity."All that shows is how much the "sex is bad" heresy of Gnosticism infected the early church.
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