(8 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
Loading...In this installment of the Weekly Readers’ Mailbag, I’ll address two questions, one about the Jewishness of Jesus the other about my personal (bad) experience with editors. If you have a question, either send it via a comment here or zap me an email.
QUESTION:
What is it in the NT portrayal of Jesus that tends to obscure the centrality of his Jewishness?
RESPONSE:
The person who asked this question mentioned the fact that it is only in fairly recent times, since the second half of the twentieth century, that scholars have emphasized that Jesus was thoroughly Jewish. Prior to that, Jesus’ Jewishness was commonly downplayed. So the question is, what about the New Testament led scholars away from recognizing how thoroughly Jewish he was?
I have three things to say in response to this very good question. First, my sense is that in no small measure, the earlier scholars who did not see Jesus’ Jewishness were living and doing research in an environment that was itself anti-Jewish. Christianity, as we long know, has had an awful history of anti-Jewishness, and sometimes of even worse flat-out anti-Semitism. Anyone who devalues or even denigrates the Jewish religion, while believing in Jesus, is less likely to see Jesus as someone who thoroughly embraced it. For people like this, Jesus came to do away with Judaism, not to follow it. The most despicable form of this approach could be found, to no one’s surprise, in Nazi Germany, where there were New Testament scholars who actually insisted that Jesus was not Jewish. He was Aryan. Of course.
Second point: scholars who downplayed Jesus’ positive attitude toward Judaism could take comfort in…
THE REST OF THIS POST IS FOR MEMBERS ONLY. If you don’t belong yet, JOIN ALREADY! It costs less then a dime a post, and every penny goes toward fighting hunger and homelessness!!
Surely in the 1st half of 20th century, even a fundamentalist reading of the gospels would show beyond doubt that Jesus was thoroughly Jewish in his ethnicity, culture, practices and attitude to Jewish scriptures? Why is careful scholarship needed to establish that Jesus was thoroughly Jewish? Prima facie, why would one doubt from reading the gospels?
What seems obvious to one generation makes no sense to another. It can be shown repeatedly — and not just with respect to the Bible.
Wow. That’s disgusting. Call it an example of a modern textual variant by way of disgruntled scribe – the Orthodox Corruption of Script Ehrman! Was the book you were reviewing Jason BeDuhn’s book “Truth in Translation” by any chance? I haven’t read it myself, but I understand that in it he partly argues that the NWT isn’t as bad a translation as is often assumed.
Haven’t read it, I’m afraid to say. But he’s a fine scholar.
Wow, that would make you wary about submitting anything to a non-scholarly journal again.
I was asked to review a book for a European journal, which I did. I corrected the author on an important point in the history of scholarship, and the journal editor showed my review to the author of the book, and he asked me to remove that part of my review. I did not. Apparently, he had also asked the journal to remove that part of my review. The publisher of the journal was also the publisher of the book being reviewed. To their credit, they didn’t remove the critique. But the journal editor did change something in my review (can’t remember what), but, not being native English speakers, they messed up the grammar a little bit. Oh well.
As per the first question, it was popular in 19th century Germany to excuse Jesus’ emergence from the ancient Jews so that (to paraphrase Nietzsche’s proto-Nazi brother-in-law, Berhard Forester, whom Nietzsche thoroughly despised) the glory of Jesus would standout all the more brilliantly against the backdrop of an inferior peoples. So…that should give one an idea of the impeding mentality.
There is considerable debate as to whether the HB is against homosexuality. As someone who is learned in Hebrew would you be so kind as to give your opinion? For what its worth, my opinion is that the early Jews had no choice but to be against it. It was a matter of survival. A tribe of people living on an inhospitable land surrounded by great nations needed descendants if it was going to survive.
I don’t think any ancient sources are opposed ot what we call homosexuality, since people in the ancient world had no sense at all of sexual orientation. But biblical sources (Leviticus, etc.) *are* opposed to the idea of same sex sexual relations. Just as they’re opposed to doing any work on Saturday or to mixing two kinds of material in a piece of clothing….
You should have written to the journal editor quoting Revelation 22:18!
Ha!!! I should have thought of that!
You say you first published your textbook on the New Testament about 20 years ago. I see that it is in its 5th edition (or more?). You’ve studied a lot, published a lot, no doubt learned a lot the last 20 years. What major updates or corrections have you made to the textbook over time?
Sixth edition now! Lots of changes. Maybe I’ll add this to the Mailbox for a future fuller reply.
Thanks. 7th ed. Got it
You addressed this a bit back in 2014….
https://ehrmanblog.org/what-is-different-in-the-my-textbook/
What is your view of the New World Translation that Jehovah’s Witnesses use today, and what is your view of their interpretation of Matt. 24:45?
I haven’t studied it in depth, other than John 1:1, and don’t know how they render Matt 24:45.
About Mat 24:45, they apply it to an elite group today being the channel between God and the JWs, calling themselves “Faithful and Discreet Slave”, providing spiritual food to the Jehovah’s witnesses. Common rank and file members are not to doubt their claim as being directly chosen by God.
If you chose to do so, you will be excommunicated for “apostasy”, like it happened to me 6 months ago, been a JW for over 30 years and finally got out of this fundamentalist cult…
I see this verse as part of a parable that Jesus taught comparing a good and an evil slave to teach a lesson, and NOT to be taken literally to a specific group of people, and certainly NOT in our day and age…
Was just looking on your input about this part of chapter 24 of Matthew.
LOVE your podcasts by the way!
Ah, right. The parable, of course, is referring to the need to continue doing the Lord’s work before he comes, since he could come at any time, day or night. The implicatoin is that he is coming “soon,” but it was written to a group of people living about 1,960 years ago. So, well, we can do the math…