All posts by James Pyles

James Pyles is a published Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror author as well as the Technical Writer for a large, diversified business in the Northwest. He currently has over 30 short stories published in various anthologies and periodicals and has just sold his first novella. He won the 2021 Helicon Short Story Award for his science fiction tale "The Three Billion Year Love" which appears in the Tuscany Bay Press Planetary Anthology "Mars."
Torah Portion

Va’eira: Is This Egypt?

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hebrew_slaves_egyptSay, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the Lord. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I, the Lord, am your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians.

–Exodus 6:6-7 (JPS Tanakh)

G‑d reveals Himself to Moses. Employing the “four expressions of redemption,” He promises to take out the Children of Israel from Egypt, deliver them from their enslavement, redeem them, and acquire them as His own chosen people at Mount Sinai; He will then bring them to the land He promised to the Patriarchs as their eternal heritage.

from “Va’eira in a Nutshell”
Commentary on Torah Portion “Va’eira
Chabad.org

I had coffee with a friend after work on Wednesday. We see each other irregularly these days, but our conversations are always good. The main reason we met was because he wanted to borrow my copy of Boaz Michael’s book Tent of David: Healing the Vision of the Messianic Gentile. This, of course, was also one of the primary topics of our talk as I sipped my coffee and he sampled his tea.

One of the things I value about our relationship is that we don’t always see eye-to-eye. We never argue and conversations never become heated, but we do see things from different points of view. I think he’s interested if not intrigued about my return to church (although this could be projection on my part) and he struggles with the implications of going back into the church after having been “redeemed” from it. It’s an interesting metaphor.

In our discussion, he likened leaving the church to the Children of Israel leaving Egypt. It’s not a complementary picture of the church that he’s painting, but it’s one that I’ve encountered on numerous occasions during my sojourn in the Hebrew Roots movement. Egypt represents nothing good spiritually and morally and leaving Egypt is always seen as a positive action on the part of God toward the Israelites. But can non-Jewish believers leaving the church be seen in the same way? If the church equals Egypt, torment, and slavery, and being released from all that means coming closer to God, then when a Christian leaves church, where do they (we) go that is better and what do they (we) do when they get there?

Let’s back up a minute. In Judaism the process of God rescuing the ancient Hebrews from their slave status in Egypt and bringing them to Himself at Sinai involves what is called the “four expressions of redemption” based on the above-quoted Exodus 6:6-7. But what are these four expressions and what do they mean?

According to the Ask the Rabbi column at Ohr Somayach, they are:

  1. “I will take you out from under Egypt’s burdens – Vehotzeiti“
  2. “And I will save you from their servitude – Vehitzalti“
  3. “And I will redeem you – Vega’alti“
  4. “And I will take you as My nation – Velakachti“

This is actually a commentary on the four cups we see during a traditional Passover seder. The Ohr Somayach Rabbi further states:

We didn’t go from a slave nation to being the Chosen People at Mount Sinai overnight. There were different stages of redemption. The above phrases described these different stages. Each cup of wine represents one of these levels.

leaving_egyptThat’s fine as far as it goes, but to me, it’s not very revealing, especially if we are trying to compare these four expressions to how we might view a non-Jewish Christian leaving the church (which is being equated to Egypt).

OU.org expands on the meaning of the four expressions thus:

According to R. Bachya (Spain, 1263-1340), the explanations of the Four Expressions are as follows:

  1. “I will take you out” – Hashem would remove the slavery even before the Jews left Egypt, from all the Tribes of Israel, because of the growing perception by Egypt of Hashem, the G-d of Israel, as the One Almighty G-d.
  2. “I shall save you” – Hashem would take the Jews out of Egypt with plagues visited upon the Egyptians, their Pharaoh and their gods, “with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.”
  3. “I shall redeem you” – Hashem would perform the miracle of “Kriat Yam Suf,” the Splitting of the waters of the “Yam Suf,” and the creation of a dry path for the Children of Israel to walk upon as they crossed the Sea of Reeds. Then Hashem caused the piled-high waters to descend in a tidal wave upon the Egyptian Army, to permanently crush the World-dominating power of Egypt.
  4. “I shall take you” – Hashem took the Jewish People to Himself as a Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation. This was the spiritual component of the Redemption from Egypt. In fact, the spiritual Redemption was the Reason for the Physical Redemption.

The fifth expression, “I shall bring you to the land,” refers, of course, to the Land of Israel…

I must admit, I’m having a tough time mapping what I’ve been quoting from above to any image of why Christians should leave the church and where they are supposed to go. On the other hand, I’m kind of biased and truth be told, it wasn’t that many years ago that I might have accepted my friend’s metaphor relative to the Hebrew Roots movement.

But consider this. If Hebrew Roots is supposed to be the “Sinai” for Christians leaving the church, is it an attainable goal and is it right and accurate to say the church is Egypt in a spiritual (or any other) sense?

The Christians who, throughout the ages, have propagated this message and tried to soothe the hurting, feed the hungry, and speak to social injustice have been keeping the weightier matters of the Torah. Both Yeshua (Mark 12:31) and the Sages (Rabbi Hillel in b.Shabbat 31a and Rabbi Akiva in Sifra, Kedoshim 4:12) taught that love of neighbor is the essence of Torah. These are non-trivial accomplishments which speak to the robust, biblical ethical system which many devout Christians have embraced.

-Boaz Michael
“Chapter One: The Church is Good,” pg 49
Tent of David: Healing the Vision of the Messianic Gentile

You’ll have to read all of Boaz’s book to get the full flavor of why the church is good, but I believe he paints a very convincing picture of the modern “body of Christ” as it lives and breathes within the multitude of churches in our communities and around the world. Even today in the lives of people I know, Christians are doing wonderful acts of kindness in the name and spirit of Messiah.

We are seriously getting love aimed at us by a little church nearby. Out of the blue, the pastor had contacted me wanting to know if some of their members could do anything for us and he wouldn’t take no for an answer unless it really was no.

Today some amazingly nice folks showed up and hauled off to the dump our junk too big for our own vehicle, in one of the guy’s large truck.

Meanwhile, the ladies scoot in to do some cleaning while visiting with Heidi.

And meanwhile another great guy is walking me around our deck, explaining to me how he is going to prep the bannister and then paint it for us.

And they’re coming back tomorrow!

-Joe Hendricks

I originally quoted Joe in a blog I published last June. Sadly, since that time, Joe’s wife Heidi passed on, but the church he mentions continues to be a support in his life as he grieves and as he yet looks to the future by the grace of Christ.

afraid-of-churchThe church isn’t perfect. In fact, It’s taken quite awhile for me to overcome my own misgivings about going back to church (which can be reviewed in all their glorious details in my recent “Days” series, which culminated at Day Zero). In fact, I still periodically have to review Pastor Jacob Fronczak’s blog post Why I Go to Church to remind myself that a community can be imperfect and still be the will of God for the good.

So if the church isn’t Egypt, then do we have to be delivered from it? Is there someplace better to go to and what do we call it?

I can’t answer for every person out there who has once been in the church and, for whatever reasons, left it, either for some other religious organization or to pursue God as a solidary individual or family. I can only speak for myself and how I express my evolving understanding of God’s will for my life.

I don’t think we can get back to the “root” of our faith. I know that’s disappointing and maybe some of you disagree with me, but hear me out. At some point about 2,000 years ago, a sect  called “the Way” rose among the other movements in Judaism in the late Second Temple period. The Jewish disciples were devoted to a “dead Rebbe” rather than a living teacher, one who they said not only died, but rose again. He is the Mashiach, the Son of the Living God (Matthew 16:16), who sits at the right hand of the Father (Psalm 16:8, Psalm 110:1, Acts 2:33), and who is the High Priest in the Court of Heaven (Hebrews 4:14).

The “Christianity” of that moment in history was a wholly Jewish religious movement and it co-existed with numerous other Jewish movements in Roman occupied “Palestine” in those days. Acts 10 shows the first non-Jew who came into discipleship under Messiah within this sect without converting to Judaism, and the “ministry” of Paul, who as an emissary to the Gentiles, preached a Gospel not given by men but by Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:11-12). As more and more Gentiles in the diaspora began to hear the “good news” of the Jewish Messiah and apply it to their lives, slowly the Gentiles and Jews within the “Jesus movement” began to trace somewhat divergent trajectories. Those slight deviations in trajectory would later lead them on completely different paths through the progression of history, and for centuries now, they have both identified themselves as two completely different religions that once shared a common point.

Should Christians seek to leave the church and travel backward across the timeline, trying to recapture whatever idealized or “perfected” Christianity that may (or may not) have existed somewhere around the mid 40s CE? Is it even possible?

Or does the path that God has set before us lead forward into the future…a future that will summon the risen Messiah to come out of the sky in the clouds (Revelation 1:7), who will redeem his people Israel, and who will also gather his disciples from the nations? If this future-oriented path is the true one, then perhaps there is no “perfect Christianity” to go back into upon “leaving the church.” Regardless of whatever Christian or Jewish worship venue to which you are attached (including any form of Hebrew Roots or Messianic Judaism), chances are, you don’t belong to a perfect community. Chances are people in your congregation make mistakes. Chances are, when scrutinized by the King of All Glory, your theology may not be absolutely and totally 100% “kosher.”

Chances are, there is no perfect church, synagogue, community, or congregation for you or for any of us to join upon leaving “church.” Face it. All congregations that involve human beings and human relationships are “messy.” We have to start with where we are, not where we’d like to be.

Yes, the church could be improved. That’s the other very valuable (to me) chapter in Boaz’s book, “Chapter 2: The Church Needs to Change.” Frankly, we could also probably say, relative to God’s perfect understanding, that the synagogue needs to change as well. A better way to say it is that we all need to change, to be better, to draw nearer to God, to refine our understanding of who He is and who we are in Him, Jew and Christian alike. We travel upon our divergent trajectories but we have one Shepherd and one King, and God is One. Not that our ultimate unity under Him as His “peoples” means uniformity, but it does mean unity of devotion and fealty.

The Messiah will come. He will return Israel to its place as the head of all the nations, rebuild the Temple, defeat evil, and establish a reign of peace and tranquility for all peoples of the earth. All the Jewish people will be gathered unto him in their nation Israel, and we believers who reside across the four corners of the Earth will bow our knees to him and call him Lord over all (Romans 14:11, Philippians 2:10). That is our future.

But we’re not there yet.

two-roads-joinWe have to start where we are. If we are non-Jewish Christians in church, we should stay in church. We should bring our understanding of the Jewish Messiah King to where we are, not remove it from our fellow believers and hoard it for ourselves. If we are Gentiles in a Messianic community, then we should stay there (though there may be exceptions who will also attend a church) and use other platforms for communicating our understanding to the Christians we know or will come to know (compare to 1 Corinthians 7:18). For myself, I go to church not to change anything but to encounter God and His purpose for me, whatever it may be.

We may not always see the good in the church but it’s there. We may not see it because when we were introduced to the Hebrew Roots movement (for those of you reading this who are or were involved in Hebrew Roots), we were told the “church is Egypt.” However, if it’s been awhile since you’ve taken a look at the church, at the Christians in your community, at the believers you work with, live near, and consider friends, maybe it’s time you took another look. There are indeed two paths involved, but they’re not the two you have been imagining.

There are two paths:

One: Everything is for the good. Perhaps not immediately, but eventually good will come out from it.

The other: Everything is truly good—because there is nothing else but He who is Good. It’s just a matter of holding firm a little longer, unperturbed by the phantoms of our limited vision, unimpressed by the paper tiger that calls itself a world, and eventually we will be granted a heart to understand and eyes to see.

Eventually, it will become obvious good in our world as well.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Believing in G-d”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

To modify Rabbi Freeman’s commentary slightly, everything we encounter is for the good, and eventually good will be demonstrated by the church. We must be patient and help as we can. Also, everything in church is truly good because nothing else exists in our world but God who is Good (Mark 10:18). It’s just a matter of us holding on a little longer where we are, not allowing our limited vision of how we see Christianity to limit God’s work in the church.

Eventually, the good of God and of the body of Christ in our world will become obvious to us as the time for the return of our Master draws near.

Good Shabbos.

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Remembering Jerusalem

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poor-israel…and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.

–Galatians 2:9-10 (ESV)

James, Peter, and John gave Saul and Barnabas “the right hand of fellowship.” They commissioned them to go to the Gentiles while they themselves continued to witness Messiah to the Jewish people. Saul says, “They only asked us to remember the poor – the very thing I also was eager to do” (Galatians 2:10). How should this single caveat be understood?

It does not mean the apostles laid upon the Gentile believers no greater obligation to Torah than the commandment of giving charity generously to the poor. Saul did not say, “Only they asked the Gentiles to give charity to the poor.” He said, “Only they asked us to remember the poor.” In this context, “us” must be Saul and Barnabas.

In his commentary on Galatians, Richard Longenecker identifies “the Poor” in Galatians 2:10 as a shorthand abbreviation for the longer title that Paul gives them in Romans 15:26, where he refers to them as “the poor among the saints at Jerusalem…” Saul and Barnabas were to remember the Poor Ones of the apostolic assembly of believers in Jerusalem: the pillars, the elders, the assembly of James and the apostles.

D. Thomas Lancaster
Torah Club, Volume 6: Chronicles of the Apostles
from First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ)
Torah Portion Va’era (“and I appeared”) (pp 362-3)
Commentary on Galatians 2:1-18, Acts 12:25

I’ve talked about charity very recently. It was less than two months ago that I discovered that some folks at the church I attend believe that Christians have a special duty to support the poor of Israel based on the following:

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

–Matthew 25:37-40 (ESV)

I was trying to describe this to my (Jewish) wife just the other day, but I’m not sure she believed me. It’s not typical behavior from many churches. On the other hand, as we see from Lancaster’s teaching on Galatians 2, there is a rather clear Biblical precedent for the Gentile believers to “remember” the poor of Israel.

OK, I know that according to Lancaster, James and the Apostolic council was telling Saul (Paul) and Barnabas to remember the poor of Israel, but look at the context. On the very heels of the council validating Paul’s mission to the Gentiles to bring them to covenant relationship with God through Messiah without requiring that the Gentiles convert to Judaism, and sending Paul and Barnabas back to the Goyim with their good graces, James, Peter (Cephas), and John added the caveat to remember the poor. How could that message then not be transmitted by Paul from the Apostolic council to the Gentiles in the diaspora?

Still don’t believe me?

Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem.

–1 Corinthians 16:1-3 (ESV)

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints…

–2 Corinthians 8:1-4 (ESV)

Which “saints” do you think Paul was taking about?

It sure looks like Paul was imploring, directing, even commanding the Gentile churches in the diaspora to take up a collection to be used as a donation to the poor among the Apostolic community in Jerusalem, even from the poor among the Gentile churches.

poor-israel2I’m not trying to beat a dead horse, I’m trying to inspire some life in the one we have, but the one we often ignore, most likely through ignorance. I said just yesterday that we translate and interpret the Bible based on our traditions and theologies. The obligation of the Christian church to support the poor among Israel has fallen through the cracks of our creaky theology for nearly twenty centuries. It’s time to fix the floorboards, firm up the foundation, and take back the responsibility that we were given by the first Apostles and the men who walked with Christ.

This does not absolve us of our responsibility to the poor of the nations, the poor of our country, our city, within our neighborhoods and our own churches. But it opens the door in our lives and in our spirits to remember Jerusalem, to remember Israel, and God’s special covenant people, our mentors, and the root of our salvation.

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!

–Psalm 137:5-6 (ESV)

If you’re hard pressed to know where to begin, then consider visiting meirpanim.net, colelchabad.org, or chevrahumanitarian.org. That’s just for starters.

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Searching for the Writer of Life

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writer-of-lifeThe Jews recognized that God no longer spoke to them in the same way as in the past. The prophets who persisted in seeing heavenly visions and hearing heavenly voices saw and heard in a manner very different from those of earlier times. As a consequence (cause?) of the cessation or permutation of prophecy, the Jews began to seek the word of the Lord not from people but from texts. The sacred traditions of the past were compiled and redacted, and the Torah was created. The words of the great prophets of the past were similarly compiled and redacted. This process, whose ultimate result was the formation of the Bible, raised two important questions. First, which books were to be considered canonical? Second, how were the canonical books to be interpreted, and who was authorized to interpret them?

-Shaye J.D. Cohen
Chapter 5: Sectarian and Normative, pg 126
From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, 2nd Ed

It is one of the oldest puzzles in the world. Investigators have been wrestling with it practically since the Bible was completed. As it happens, it did not start as an investigation into the authorship of the Bible. It simply began with individuals raising questions about problems that they observed in the biblical text itself. It proceeded like a detective story spread across centuries, with investigators uncovering clues to the Bible’s origin one by one.

It began with questions about the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These books are known as the Pentateuch (from Greek, meaning “five scrolls”) or the Torah (from Hebrew, meaning “instruction”). They are also known as the Five Books of Moses. Moses is the major figure through most of these books, and early Jewish and Christian tradition held that Moses himself wrote them, though nowhere in the Five Books of Moses themselves does the text say that he was the author. But the tradition that one person, Moses, alone, wrote these books presented problems.

-Richard Elliott Friedman
Introduction: Who Wrote the Bible? pp 15, 16-17
Who Wrote the Bible?

Yes, this is a continuation of yesterday’s morning meditation. I was prompted by the mention of Friedman’s book on Derek Leman’s blog post to check and see if my local public library had a copy available. It did and so I checked it out over my lunch hour (I work about a ten minute walk from the Boise Public Library’s main branch).

Depending on your thoughts and feelings about the origins of the Bible we have today, this could be dangerous stuff. In fact, questioning the traditions we have about the Bible has historically been very dangerous stuff.

At the first stage, investigators still accepted the tradition that Moses wrote the Five Books, but they suggested that a few lines were added here or there. In the eleventh century, Isaac ibn Yashush, a Jewish court physician of a ruler in Muslim Spain, pointed out that a list of Edomite kings that appears in Genesis 36 named kings who lived long after Moses was dead. Ibn Yashush suggested that the list was written by someone who lived after Moses. The response to his conclusion was that he was called “Isaac the blunderer.”

-Friedman, pp 18-19

But that’s not the half of it.

He (Bonfils) still thought that the passages in question were written by “one of the later prophets.” He was only concluding that they were not written by Moses. Still, three and a half centuries later, his work was reprinted with the references to this subject deleted.

Van Maes suggested that a later editor inserted phrases or changed the name of a place to its more current name so that readers would understand it better. Van Maes’ book was placed on the Catholic Index of Prohibited Books.

De la Peyrere’s book was banned and burned. He was arrested and informed that in order to be released he would have to become Catholic and recant his views to the Pope. He did.

Spinoza had been excommunicated from Judaism. Now his work was condemned by Catholics and Protestants as well. His book was placed on the Catholic Index, within six years thirty-seven edits were issued against it, and an attempt was made on his life.

Simon was attacked by other Catholic clergy and expelled from his order. His books were placed on the Index. Forty refutations of his work were written by Protestants. Of the thirteen hundred copies printed of his book, all but six were burned.

-Friedman, pp 18-21

jewish-traditionAt least up to the 17th century, it was worth your life to suggest that Moses didn’t literally write every single word that appears in the first five books of the Bible. Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant tradition vehemently defended this viewpoint and if you were a scholar who studied such matters, it was better to keep any opinions that deviated from tradition strictly to yourself.

But what about now? Are we as a body of believers more tolerant of serious, scholarly study of the Bible?

The answer is probably yes and no. I don’t believe that anyone in the modern era has ever been put in prison or (gulp) executed for having non-traditional beliefs about the Bible, but you rarely hear controvertial views on scripture spoken of in a Sunday morning sermon. For that matter, how much controversy about the Bible makes its way into the Rabbi’s discussion of the Torah portion on Shabbat?

In addition to the written scriptures we have an “Oral Torah,” a tradition explaining what the above scriptures mean and how to interpret them and apply the Laws. Orthodox Jews believe G-d taught the Oral Torah to Moses, and he taught it to others, down to the present day. This tradition was maintained only in oral form until about the 2nd century C.E., when the oral law was compiled and written down in a document called the Mishnah.

-from “Torah: Oral Torah, the Talmud”
Judaism 101

Within these four methods of understanding Torah, there exist countless possible avenues of understanding. For example: There are many different ways to understand the Torah according to Peshat. That’s why there are many Torah commentators who concentrate on Peshat — Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Rashbam and many more – and they will very often (it seems, more often than not…) disagree on the literal meaning of a verse. In fact, according to Kabbalastic teachings there are 600,000 ways to understand Peshat, 600,000 ways to understand Remez, 600,000 ways to understand Drush, and 600,000 ways to understand Sod!

Any insight in Torah is acceptable as long as it (makes sense and) does not contradict any of our fundamental beliefs.

-Rabbi Naftali Silberberg
“How is the Torah Interpreted?”
Chabad.org

My wife tells me that in Judaism, one does not interpret Torah outside of tradition, so at least from an Orthodox point of view (her perspective was likely learned from the local Chabad Rabbi), it would be unacceptable practice to consider interpreting Torah from any viewpoint other than established Jewish halachah.

But what about Christianity?

The Bible is God’s Word. But some of the interpretations derived from it are not. There are many cults and Christian groups that use the Bible, claiming their interpretations are correct. Too often, however, the interpretations not only differ dramatically but are clearly contradictory. This does not mean that the Bible is a confusing document. Rather, the problem lies in those who interpret and the methods they use.

We need, as best as can be had, the guidance of the Holy Spirit in interpreting God’s Word.

Because we are sinners, we are incapable of interpreting God’s word perfectly all of the time. The body, mind, will, and emotions are affected by sin and make 100% interpretive accuracy impossible. This does not mean that accurate understanding of God’s Word is impossible. But it does mean that we need to approach His word with care, humility, and reason. Additionally, we need, as best as can be had, the guidance of the Holy Spirit in interpreting God’s Word. After all, the Bible is inspired by God and is addressed to His people. The Holy Spirit helps us to understand what God’s word means and how to apply it.

On the human level, to lessen the errors that come in our interpretations, we need to look at some basic biblical interpretive methods. I’ll list some of the principles in the form of questions and then apply them one at a time to a passage of Scripture.

-Matt Slick
“How to Interpret the Bible”
Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

You can click on the link I provided to read Mr. Slick’s ten principles for interpreting the Bible and everything else he has to say. I selected this resource basically because it was at the top of the Google search results for the “how do christians interpret the bible” search string. However, Mr. Slick and the carm.org web site don’t address the role of tradition in interpreting the Bible (except unintentionally by mentioning more than once that in Christian tradition, the Holy Spirit is required and considered always available to interpret the Bible).

How the Bible is translated from its ancient languages to English, for example, is driven by theology and tradition. Consider how Christian and Jewish translators address the text of the “Old Testament” let alone how they interpret its meaning. Sure, for the most part, reading a Christian Old Testament and a Jewish Tanakh will produce a similar experience, but it won’t be identical. Also consider, for example, how the text of Isaiah 56 is interpreted between Christians and Jews. Christianity largely believes that the Messiah, that is, the Christ, is being described, while its traditional in Judaism to say that Israel itself is the “suffering servant.”

Sofer-Sefer-TorahNot only is the origin of the Bible understood by various traditions, but what the text is supposed to mean is also interpreted in that manner, at least for the most part. I don’t doubt that there are certain individuals who are willing to take a wider look and a less dogmatic approach to the Bible, and certainly there are numerous scholars who will broach the subject of the authorship of the Bible, but how many of us, the “rank and file” of the church (or synagogue) are willing to take such a risk?

I say “risk” because if we aren’t able to detach our traditions from our faith, at least temporarily, in the study of the Bible, then we are likely to find ourselves approaching the edge of a very steep precipice and risk falling into the abyss of crisis. For some people, faith hangs in the balance.

But so does enlightenment. Frankly, if your faith can’t stand being shaken up a time or two, it probably isn’t very strong. Also, no one grows spiritually by playing it safe. Sure, it’s comfortable, and nice, and warm, and cozy inside the cocoon of tradition and pre-programmed belief systems, but who we are as disciples of the Master requires a modicum of courage at a minimum. Paul commended the Bereans (Acts 17:11) for examining the scriptures daily in order to verify what Paul was teaching. Can we do any less when addressing the scriptures themselves, including their sometimes mysterious authors?

Some people who do this, exit faith completely, unable to reconcile their relationship with God with the dissonance about the Bible. Some people abandon critical examination of the Bible and retreat into their former comfort zone, manufacturing some explanation about why such an examination is in error if not heretical. But some people actually grow.

I’m finding that Cohen’s and Friedman’s books seem to work well when read in parallel. However, it is important (to me, anyway) to stay grounded in the world of faith and not to stray too far into the area of objectification of the Bible. I still “just plain read” the Bible every day and more recently, I go to church every week. Every other week, I meet with a friend who has been a Christian for forty years. All this acts as an anchor on the shore as I also choose to explore deep (well, deep for me) waters.

In his book (Chapter 5), Cohen writes:

Judaism is a relativistic construct of human beings, and no variety of Judaism is any more correct or authentic than any other. This is the perspective of the historian.

Judaism is a body of absolute truths revealed by God and/or sanctioned by tradition, and those interpretations of Judaism that are more nearly approximate these absolute truths are truer and more authentic than those that do not. This is the perspective of the believer.

Following those definitions, of himself, Cohen writes:

In this book, I write as a historian.

I can see how the above definitions can be applied to how we view Christianity as well as Judaism, so it is possible to look at the Bible and its origins from either the historian’s or the believer’s point of view. I’m a believer but it is my opinion that my life as a believer can be enhanced by also looking at the Bible as a historian (with the aid or real historians and scholars such as Cohen and Friedman). It’s an adventure and as such, it presents a set of challenges and dangers.

If that doesn’t scare you off, I invite you to participate in the adventure along with me as I continue to read and comment upon Cohen and Friedman and their revelations about the Bible, tradition, history, and faith. May we all learn together and may we all draw closer to the One who is the Author of our lives and the Lover of our souls.

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Missing Author

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empty-bibleWho wrote the Torah? Most people you ask — depending on your circle of friends — will answer, “A group of very wise men got together and wrote it.” For the past 3,300 years the Jewish people have lived with the consciousness that the Almighty dictated the Torah to Moses who wrote it down word for word, letter by letter. Every Torah-educated Orthodox Jew believes that. Are they fools, fantasizers, misguided religious fanatics?

It will surprise some people to know that for the past 3,300 the Jewish people have taught their children the evidence for the belief that there is a God and that He dictated the Torah to Moses. Actually, I am sure that for the first hundred or two hundred years after the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai the authorship of the Torah was not even a question. For generations all a Jewish child had to do was to ask his father if he was at Mt. Sinai or if his father or grandfather was there. Even Moses himself tells all generations to “Go and ask … has a people ever heard the voice of God speaking … as you have heard and survived?” (Deuteronomy 4:32-35).

-Rabbi Kalman Packouz
“Shabbat Shalom Weekly”
Commentary on Torah Portion Vaeira
Aish.com

This post may trouble some readers. It really shouldn’t. Religious leaders in some circles have sought to suppress the overwhelming evidence that something like the Documentary Hypothesis is true. Attacks against this idea usually claim that those who believe this theory simply disbelieve God. Such attacks also tend to refer to Julius Wellhausen and his views, which actually do not represent what is essential about the Documentary Hypothesis. The Documentary Hypothesis (DH) has many forms and is better known as JEDP. In my opinion, the best developed understanding of the DH is found in Richard Friedman’s work, including the very readable Who Wrote the Bible? (which was a bestseller).

-Derek Leman
“Exodus 6:2-3 and the Documentary Hypothesis”
Messianic Jewish Musings

I haven’t revisited this topic in a long time and even after I read Derek’s blog post, I was determined not to regurgitate it again from the murky depths so that it could come back up into the cold light of day. Then I read Rabbi Packouz and I was reminded that there is a fair distance between the stories we tell ourselves about the Bible and the story that the Bible tells us about itself (I know these gentlemen are specifically discussing the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, but I’m choosing to expand the discussion to the Bible as a whole).

I don’t mean the story the Bible tells in the actual text, but the history and evolution of the creation of the Bible as we have it today. I’m no scholar, but even I’ve read enough to realize that the Bible has lots and lots of warts, bruises, wrinkles, and other imperfections. No reliable and trustworthy Bible scholar would suggest that God literally dictated the Bible word-for-word to its various human authors.

So where is God in the Bible? No I don’t mean where is God mentioned, but is there anything of God in the actual composition of the Bible? Or is the Bible just the stories we tell ourselves about it? Frankly, we have told ourselves some pretty interesting stories about the Bible.

One way to establish and support an acceptance of Talmudic interpretation and judgment relative to Torah for post-Second Temple Judaism is to project the values and even the “reality” of Talmud (and later, Kabbalah) not only forward in time but backward. Peering at the Patriarchs through this lens, we can indeed “see” Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob studying Torah and Talmud in the study house of Shem when by historical knowledge and a plain reading of the Torah, such events seem very unlikely to have actually taken place.

-from my blog post:
The Rabbinization of Abraham

study-in-the-darkI periodically wrestle with this issue. Back on my previous blog, I wrote such articles as Reading the Bible in the Dark, The Bible is a Mystery Novel, and Who to Believe. I manage to “tame” the questions and conundrums by reading the Bible as if it were a series of Chassidic, or in my case, Messianic Tales. Maybe that’s the only way to make sense of the Bible, and especially the Gospels.

He read the Gospels in German. Then he obtained a Hebrew version and reread them. Though he was in the midst of a Gentile, Christian city where Jesus was worshiped in churches and honored in every home, Feivel felt the Gospels belonged more to him and the Chasidic world than they did to the Gentiles who revered them. He found the Gospels to be thoroughly Jewish and conceptually similar to Chasidic Judaism. He wondered how Gentile Christians could hope to comprehend Yeshua (Jesus) and His words without the benefit of a classical Jewish education or experience with the esoteric works of the Chasidim.

Taken from Jorge Quinonez:
“Paul Philip Levertoff: Pioneering Hebrew-Christian Scholar and Leader”
Mishkan 37 (2002): 21-34
as quoted from Love and the Messianic Age

But this presents a problem. During last Sunday’s sermon, Pastor said (I don’t have my notes with me, so what I’m about to write isn’t an entirely accurate quote) that the only way to show an unbeliever how to encounter God and come to faith in the Father through Jesus Christ is by reading and using scripture.

Um…whoa. Waitaminute.

Given everything I’ve said above, plus Derek’s commentary, plus just a boatload of Biblical scholars , scripture is not and cannot be the literally dictated words of the God of Heaven as whispered into the little, shell-like ears of the prophets and other writers of the books of the Bible.

In fact, I’m hard-pressed to tell you what the Bible is and who actually wrote it. Even portions of the New Testament weren’t in all likelihood, written by the people whose names are attached to them. Not all of the epistles written by Paul? Probably not. Did the Apostle John who (supposedly) wrote the Gospel of John also write Revelation?

Once you stop taking the Bible for granted, a lot of new territory opens up in front of you…in front of me.

In defense of the Bible (the Torah actually), Rabbi Packouz has this to say:

Perhaps the most powerful example is Shmitah (the Sabbatical year for the land). Modern agriculture science has taught us the value of letting the land rest and replenish itself. A sensible law would be to divide the Land of Israel into 7 regions and each year let one region lie fallow while people eat from the crops of the other 6 regions. However, that’s not the law of the Torah! The Torah writes, “For six years you may plant your fields … but the seventh year is the Sabbath of the land in which you may not plant your fields nor prune your vineyards (Leviticus 25:36).

The WHOLE land is to rest all at the same time! What happens to an agrarian society that stops farming for one year? Starvation! And how long does a religion last that advocates letting the whole land rest in the 7th year? My guess … about 6 years!

Perhaps they could avoid starvation by buying food from surrounding countries? A good idea and a reasonable idea … but the Torah has other plans. The Almighty says, “I have commanded My blessing to you in the sixth year and you will have produce for three years” (Leviticus 25:20-22).

Either one has to be God to have the “audacity” to make a law for the whole land to rest and then to promise a bounty crop 3 times as large as usual in the sixth year — or a stark raving mad lunatic!

Yet, the Jewish people neither starved nor abandoned the Torah! 3,300 years later a sizable portion of our people still adhere to the laws of Torah and still trust in the promises of the Almighty!

How could any human being promise in writing something that requires powers totally beyond his control?

And furthermore, why would anyone be willing to risk his own credibility and the legitimacy of his religion, when it would be easier to present a more rational solution and avoid the credibility issues.

Going to GodCan we accept that somewhere in the pages of the Bible we might actually be able to encounter the Divine? If so, where and how (apart from Shmitah)? If we can’t take the Bible as literally, page-by-page, the Word of God, then what do we consider it? If God is in there somewhere, then is it an intellectual and scholarly race to discover the secret location of the well of God’s Spirit?

Derek Leman seems to think that it’s possible to have a very questioning view of the Bible and yet still have faith:

People get from their religious background the idea that “Moses wrote all” or “Moses wrote almost all” of the Torah. For example, people will say “Moses wrote Genesis.”

This is complicated by things like Yeshua referring to “Moses and the prophets.” People take this to mean that Yeshua, who they suppose was omniscient during his earthly sojourn (but he was not) affirmed that Moses wrote all of Gen-Deut. He did not. His references to Moses actually writing all concern commandments, not narratives. With Moses as the originator of the commandments (or original vessel through whom they were revealed), all the five books are called “of Moses” but this need not mean authorship.

Anyway, because some of the earliest people to doubt Moses as the final author of Torah were skeptics, it is common for people to think anyone with a more complicated view than “Moses wrote it” are doing so because of a small faith or a lack of faith or a dislike of faith.

But I’ve never heard a satisfactory explanation of how other people do it. I only have how I do it and my “method” requires usually suspending disbelief for the sake of faith. I have encountered God before, so in an extraordinarily subjective way, I know He is real, He is alive, and He is God. I’m not going through the crisis of faith I had when I first faced this particular realization, but I do allow myself to periodically become aware of just how fragile a knowledge of God is if based solely on the Bible. On the other hand (and I’ve alluded to this already), basing knowledge of God solely on our experiences with the Holy Spirit can be just as hazardous, because most human beings have very little ability to tell the difference between an emotional experience and a spiritual one (barring the occasional saint or tzaddik).

I may not be able to take everything I read in the Bible and everything that Christianity and Judaism says about those events as actual, factual events (though some of them probably are), but I can still take what I read and what I study and try to apply them so that I can learn to live a better life.

The Patriarch Abraham was tested (by God) ten times and withstood them all. This proves Abraham’s great love for God.

-Ethics of the Fathers 5:3

Abraham was tested with ten trials of progressively increasing severity, ultimately culminating in the test of sacrificing his beloved son Isaac if God so willed.

Abraham successfully passed all the tests. Still, while he did demonstrate his intense loyalty and devotion to God, how did it prove his love for God?

In yesterday’s message we learned that God does not challenge people beyond their capacities. It follows, then, that as they advance in spiritual growth and strength, they actually render themselves vulnerable to trials of greater intensity. In the course of his many trials, Abraham detected this pattern. He could have logically decided to avoid any further spiritual progression, because it might subject him to even greater ordeals than those he had already sustained.

Abraham decided otherwise. He desired so much to come closer to God that he was willing to pay any price. Thus, when he was put to the ultimate task – to sacrifice Isaac – Abraham was not taken aback. He had fully anticipated such an eventuality.

We are not of the mettle of Abraham, and we pray every day, “Do not put us to test.” While we indeed wish to advance spiritually, we ask to be spared the distress of trial. Yet, should we experience adversity in life, we would do well to realize that this may be a testimony to our spiritual strength.

looking-upToday I shall…

try to advance myself spiritually. Although I pray to be spared from distress, I will try not to recoil if adversity does occur.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Tevet 26”
Aish.com

Thomas Gray once penned the famous words, “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise” (in the poem “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” 1742). I suppose many “Bible-believing Christians” feel very blissful as long as they don’t consider the rather troubling questions I’m bringing up this morning. On the other hand, once the “bliss bubble” is popped, then we can only face the painful trial of reality, if not the wisdom, of whatever we have left.

Chances are, Abraham never faced the ten challenges, at least as we see chronicled in Pirkei Avot (but not the Bible). Chances are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob never studied Torah in the academies of Shem and Eber as we learn from the Talmud. Maybe the only place we really encounter God is in our prayers. Or maybe we encounter God everyday, as long as we continue to seek Him.

According to Gedaliah Nigal’s book The Hasidic Tale, some of the goals of the hasidic story are to “rouse its hearers into action for the service of God” and to win “adherents, among them some outstanding individuals, to hasidim.” In relation to this, I’ve said:

The “Chasidim” of Jesus also made sure the stories of their Master were passed on from generation to generation, eventually being recorded and passed on to the future…to us.

Paul Philip Levertoff thought that the teachings of Jesus read like a collection of Chasdic tales. Perhaps as Gentile Christians reading tales of the Chasidim, we can also find a connection to the Messiah, the Prophet, and the greatest Tzadik, whose own death atoned for not just a few, but for all.

Having gone through all this again, I feel reassured.

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Message to the Sons of Solomon

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philip_and_the_ethiopianAnd King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all that she desired, whatever she asked besides what was given her by the bounty of King Solomon. So she turned and went back to her own land with her servants.

–1 Kings 10:13 (ESV)

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship…

–Acts 8:26-27 (ESV)

The Ethiopian history described in the Kebra Negast, or “Book of the Glory of Kings,” relates that Ethiopians are descendants of Israelite tribes who came to Ethiopia with Menelik I, alleged to be the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (or Makeda, in the legend) (see 1 Kings 10:1-13 and 2 Chronicles 9:1-12). The legend relates that Menelik, as an adult, returned to his father in Jerusalem, and then resettled in Ethiopia, and that he took with him the Ark of the Covenant.

-Budge, Queen of Sheba, Kebra Negast, chap. 61.
quoted from Wikipedia

I’ve written before about the section of Acts 8 that chronicles the encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in relation to D. Thomas Lancaster’s commentary in Volume 6 of the Torah Club: Chronicles of the Apostles. Today (as I write this “church report”), it was Pastor Randy’s turn to teach us his perspective during Sunday services where I go to church.

It was also Charlie’s turn to discuss it in Sunday school and it was interesting. I already knew that Charlie believed the Ethiopian was Jewish but as Pastor started delivering his message, he shared with us that he just that week had changed his opinion about the Ethiopian and now believes that he must have been a Jew! Interesting.

I’m torn between whether to write about the history of the Ethiopian Jews, which is a topic of some controversy and speculation, or if I should focus on why God found it necessary to send an angel to tell Philip to find the Ethiopian (Acts 8:26). I think I’ll focus on the latter.

Let me explain.

In teaching the Sunday school lesson, Charlie remarked more than once how unusual he thought it was for God to send “an angel of the Lord” to tell Philip to stop everything he was doing in Samaria and travel south on the desert road to find one man who was returning to his native Ethiopia after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Why was this one man so important?

From a traditional evangelical Christian point of view, converting a high-ranking official of a foreign country to faith in Jesus Christ is a great way to spread the gospel message to all of the other high-ranking government officials in that country as well as to the general body of citizens. But I don’t think we can exactly map 21st Century evangelical strategies to First Century CE Jewish devotion to the sect of “the Way.” Charlie thought, given how the message of Christ was transmitted first to the Jews, then to the Samaritans, and finally to the rest of the nations, that God believed the Jewish population in Ethiopia was close to the heart of their Creator, and that the “Good News” of Messiah was a message God intended for all Jews to embrace. After all, much of the New Testament text addresses the spread of the Gospel into Europe, Asia, and the Near East. What about the Jews to the south?

This is all speculation of course, and only one part of a single chapter in the New Testament is devoted to transmitting such a message in that particular direction, but what Charlie also said more than once got my attention. He said that God wanted to make sure all of the Jews got the message that God had changed the rules.

What? What rules?

(I should say at this point, when Charlie made his comment about “changing rules” I was seriously considering what I should say or do in response. I chose not to say or do anything, but given my sensitivity to the matter of supersessionism in the church, I was afraid that I would have to defend against such a theology at the cost of my budding relationship among these fellow believers. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that.)

Actually, something important did change thanks to Christ.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…

–Matthew 28:19 (ESV)

While Israel had always been intended to be a “light to the nations” (Isaiah 49:6), this is the first indication that the Messiah wanted people from all of the nations, and not just from Israel, to become disciples of the Master and grafted in sons and daughters of God. As we progress forward and especially attending to Acts 10 and beyond, we see that God’s intent was not to require the Gentiles to convert to Judaism or abandon their own national and ethnic uniqueness in order to become disciples. The Holy Spirit was just as available to the Gentile disciple as to the Jew.

Walking TogetherIn this specific sense, something had changed. Prior to this moment in time, if a Gentile wanted to worship the God of Israel in a covenant relationship, he or she had to embrace Judaism (that’s more or less an exact quote from Pastor Randy). With the command of Christ, which the church calls “the great commission,” anyone from anywhere could worship God in a covenant relationship without converting to Judaism (the concept of conversion is complicated…it probably didn’t exist as such during the days of Moses or David, but it was a recognized practice during the late Second Temple period and beyond).

Did God want Philip to tell the Ethiopian that God changed the rules? A plain reading of the text doesn’t suggest such a thing. From my point of view, what God wanted Philip to tell the Jewish Ethiopian was the good news of the Messiah who had come and will come again, as revealed by Isaiah 53. Why God wanted this event to occur is up for grabs, but what the Ethiopian carried back with him to his land and to his people was the gospel message, or as much of it as Philip was able to transmit in the time they were together and related to the passages from Isaiah. What fruit resulted upon the eunuch’s homecoming and in the years and centuries to follow, we cannot know.

But if God changed anything, it wasn’t His “rules” or His Torah but rather access. God opened up covenant access to Himself for all peoples. There are two portions to the good news of Christ. Of course, there is the good news for the Gentile, that we can now come to God in covenant through the blood of His son. However, Christianity rarely considers the good news of Christ to the Jew who already had such a covenant relationship (which would include the Jews in Ethiopia), that the Messiah had come, the King of Israel had been born, that he died and rose and sits at the Father’s right hand, and that at the proper time, Messiah would cause a scattered Israel to be gathered together as a nation and one day, the King would rule from Jerusalem (I’m not suggesting two, separate paths of salvation, one for Gentiles and one for Jews, but because of Israel’s special unique relationship with God, the Messiah has more and different good news for the Jews in addition to the good news he has for the Gentiles).

On Friday May 24, 1991: Over the course of 36 hours, a total of 34 El Al Hercules c-130s – with their seats removed to maximize passenger capacity – flew non-stop.

14,325 Ethiopian Jews came home to Israel, to be greeted by thousands of Israelis who gathered at temporary absorption centers, hotels and hostels to welcome their brethren.

Operation Solomon saw the rescue of twice the number of Ethiopian Jews in Operations Moses and Joshua put together.

-from bluestarpr.com

A Christian group said Tuesday, June 7, it would help organize “the return of the last 8,700 Ethiopian Jews to Israel” by sponsoring what are known as “Aliyah” flights, the coming months.

“Last Ethiopian Jews to Return to Israel, Christian Group Says”
-from worthynews.com, June 8, 2011

I know I’m stringing together bits and pieces of scripture, news, and commentary in a less than rock-solid structure, but consider for a moment that Jews from all across the nations have been returning to Israel and are being gathered to their people. God has never forgotten them nor will He ever forsake them. Perhaps that’s why He made it a point to send an angel to Philip and to insure that the message of the Messiah would reach all of his people, including the Jewish Ethiopians.

Just a thought.

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The Evolution of Judaism, Part 6: Evolutions

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ancient_jerusalemThe best evidence that the temple was the locus of prayer during the First and Second Temple periods is the book of Psalms. Virtually all the biblical psalms, even those that lament personal or national catastrophes or that hail a king at this coronation, are hymns of praise to God. They range in date from the period of the monarchy, if not earlier (some of them are Israelite versions of Canaanite or Egyptian hymns), to that of the Maccabees.

All these texts imply that the recitation of prayers was a prominent feature of Jewish piety, not just for sectarians like the Jews of Qumran but also for plain folk. Jews who lived in or near Jerusalem prayed regularly at the temple. This is the plausible claim of Luke 1:10, “Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside [the temple],” and Acts 3:1, “One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon.”

By the third century BCE, diaspora Jews began to build special proseuchai, which literally means “prayers” but probably should be translated “prayer-houses.” Instead of “prayer-houses,” the Jews of the land of Israel had synagogai, which literally means “gatherings” but probably should be translated “meeting-houses.” Whether they prayed regularly in their “meeting-houses,” which are not attested before the first century CE, is not entirely clear.

The history of this (Amidah or Eighteen Benedictions) prayer is immensely complicated, but its basic contours were established no later than the second century CE, and its nucleus certainly derives from the latter part of the Second Temple times. It bears obvious similarities to the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4).

…by the end of the Second Temple period, sections of the Torah were read publicly in synagogues every week.

The purpose of all these rituals was, as the Torah repeatedly says, to make Israel a “holy” people (Exod. 19:6; Lev. 19:2; Deut. 7:6). To better achieve this objective, the Jews of the Second Temple period developed new rituals, broadened the application of many of the laws of the Torah, and in general intensified the life of service to God.

After the destruction of the temple, the petition was changed from a prayer for acceptability of the sacrifices to a prayer for their restoration, and the petition entered the Eighteen Benedictions. In rabbinic times, the prayer was still in flux.

This practice is based on the idea that God can be worshiped through the study of his revealed word.

-Shaye J.D. Cohen
Chapter 3: The Jewish “Religion:” Practices and Beliefs
From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, 2nd Ed.

Forgive the rather lengthy history lesson from different portions of this chapter in Cohen’s landmark book, but as I’ve continued to read from his work, I’ve been struck by how Judaism developed significantly in practice and in its comprehension of a life of devotion to God from the days of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) in the desert to the post-Second Temple era. Some time ago, I began a series of blog posts intended to outline the evolution of Judaism as it applies to Yeshua (Jesus), halakhah, and the “acceptability” of the various Judaisms in any given age and across time to the God who established Israel as a nation. You can follow the link at the end of Part 1 of the series to review all of my comments to date, which ends at Part 5. I had intended for Messiah in the Jewish Writings, Part 1 to be the “sixth” part of the series, but it was pointed out to me that certain “weaknesses” in the scholarship of the material from which I was quoting made it unsuitable for that purpose.

Before proceeding, you should probably review Noel S. Rabbinowitz’s paper “Matthew 23:2-4: Does Jesus Recognize the Authority of the Pharisees and Does He Endorse their Halakhah?” which can be found as a PDF as published in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 46:3 (September 2003): 423-47. That, along with reading the other “Evolution” blog posts in this series, should provide the foundation for continuing (and ultimately concluding) the discussion here.

In providing the series of quotes from Cohen’s book, I intended to illustrate how what was acceptable Jewish practice in worship, Temple sacrifice, and prayer developed over time and was never a single, static set of religious rules and procedures that perfectly reflected the intent of the Torah and God in the life of Israel. Sometimes in certain corners of Christianity and its variants, we find people who sincerely are seeking a more authentic method of practicing their faith, based on some sort of idealized and perfect template or model that was established, either by Moses or Jesus. Somehow that particular set of behaviors is believed to be what God wants us to do and is the only valid model by which we should construct our faith practices in the present age.

But as the title of this series implies, perhaps the human practice of worshiping God can never be static nor was it ever intended to be a single set of rigid rules and concrete regulations that never modified in the slightest across the long centuries between Sinai and the present.

I don’t mean that right and wrong don’t have timeless value and that God changes His requirements for humanity at a whim, but humanity changes, circumstances change, and what seems right to do at one point in human history seems very much different at another point on the timeline of existence. Surely how Solomon viewed what was proper worship differed greatly from what the Rambam might have considered right Jewish practice, and yet can we say that either one of them (or both) was wrong? They were both certainly convinced that they were doing what God required, but who they were, where they lived, and the demands of history upon both of these men (and the untold scores that lived before and since) were radically dissimilar.

But while you may understand this relative to the history of the Jewish people, what at all does this have to do with believers in Jesus and who we are in Christ?

Agrippa’s first full year as king over Judea (41/42 CE) was a Sabbatical year. Drought had already begun to hamper the land. The people were gathered for Sukkot to pray for rain and to hear the new king read from the Torah (see Deut. 31:10-11). The apostles and the disciples of Yeshua were present along with the rest of the pious of Israel to witness the historic event. Their hearts burned within them, jealous for the Master. They longed for the day when King Messiah will stand in the Temple and read the Torah aloud to the assembly of Israel.

-D. Thomas Lancaster
Torah Club, Volume 6: Chronicles of the Apostles
from First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ)
Torah Portion Shemot (“Names”) (pg 329)
Commentary on Acts 12:1-24

Yom Kippur prayersLancaster is no doubt taking a bit of poetic license in describing whether or not the hearts of the apostles were “burning” on this occasion, but it does cast the early Jewish disciples of “the Way” in a light that integrates them with overall Jewish religious and social participation. In the church, we tend to think of the “early Christians” as a body wholly apart from the various Judaisms that surrounded them, but as I’ve mentioned before, the Jews who were devoted to the Messiah as part of “the Way,” were just as much a valid sect of Judaism as any of the other Judaisms (Pharisees, Essenes, and so on) with which they co-existed.

In fact, the Jewish disciples of the Master in the days recorded by Luke in the book of Acts can only be separated from overall, normative Judaism anachronistically.

The King James Version of Acts 12:4 translates the Greek “pascha” as “Easter.”

The Greek word “pascha” (which transliterates the Hebrew “pesach”) occurs 27 times in the New Testament. In every instance except Acts 12:4, the King James translators rendered it as “Passover.” In Acts 12:4, they retained William Tynsdale’s anachronistic, Christian rendering and translated it as “Easter.”

The translation betrays a theological bias. It assumes Christianity replaced Judaism. Christ cancelled the Torah, and the Christian Jews would not have been keeping Passover any longer. In reality, the apostles had never heard of a festival called Easter. They had no special Christian festivals. They kept the Passover along with all Israel in remembrance of the Master, just as He had instructed them… (Luke 22:19)

-Lancaster, pg 338

Lancaster continues in his commentary, explaining that the separate Christian observance of Easter wouldn’t be established until the Second Century CE as the Gentile believers in Rome began to neglect observing Passover, but began to revere the Sunday that fell during the week of Unleavened bread as the day of Christ’s resurrection. As you can see, the passage of time and the demands of history have resulted in both Judaism and Christianity evolving and changing how they practice their divergent methods of worshiping God. In fact, the divergence of “the Way” from the rest of the Judaisms post-Second Temple is likely part of those historical requirements.

Is all this desirable? Probably not. That is, it would be great to have a Christianity that actually remained a normative part of Judaism and was able to include Gentile practitioners who came to faith in the Messiah, but such was not to be.

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

–Romans 11:25 (ESV)

Paul seems to be telling us that the schism between the Gentile and Jewish believers was inevitable for the sake of the Gentiles and that, referencing Isaiah 59 and Jeremiah 31, by doing so, all Israel will be saved. (see Romans 11:26-27)

If Judaism was practiced differently and in fact, in radically different ways between the ancient times of Moses, David, and Solomon, the time of the Babylonian exile, the time of Herod, the Second Temple, and the rise of “the Way,” and in the post-Second Temple rabbinic period, can we say that all of these Judaisms are “valid?” I don’t think we have much of a choice but to say that they are. If you disagree, then you have to point to some place in history and say “here’s where the Jews made their big mistake.” I know that many Christians will point to Jesus and say that the Jewish rejection of their own Messiah caused them to become lost and gave rise to the “age of the Gentiles,” but be careful. For the first fifteen years post-ascension, only Jews were disciples of Jesus Christ. Even after Peter’s fateful meeting with Cornelius and the subsequent mission of Paul to the Gentiles of the diaspora, Jews remained in total control of the “Jesus movement” within Judaism until the fall of Jerusalem and the scattering of the vast majority of the Jewish population among the nations (there has always been a remnant of Jews living in the Land). It is rumored that there were Jews in synagogues acknowledging Yeshua as Messiah into the second, third, and possibly even up to the fifth century CE or later.

Rabbi Joshua Brumbach wrote a blog post called Rabbis Who Thought for Themselves which records the lives of a number of prominent 19th century Rabbis who all came to the knowledge and faith of the Messiah in the person of Yeshua (Jesus), and we know of a remnant of Jews in the 21st century who also have come to faith and yet have lives that are completely consistent with modern Jewish halakhah.

At no one point in history will you find the quintessential moment where you can say “that is the true Judaism” or for that matter, “that is the true Christianity.” Humanity in all our forms has been struggling with our relationship with God, what it means, and how to live it out since the days when God walked with Adam in the Garden. We never get it quite right because we live in a broken world and our vision of who we are, who God is, and what it all means is fractured and distorted, even with the Spirit of God residing with us as a guide.

staring-at-the-cloudsWe can look at the mistakes we have made and are making even now, but we cannot say that “at such and thus time, we got it all right.” We never got it right, we just made different mistakes. But faith and devotion have been a constant thread running through the tapestry and that is what we can find tied to our own heartstrings. We can then grab hold of that thread and pull ourselves along the line, touching the lives of the saints and tzaddikim who came before us, who like us, got some things right and some things wrong, but who like us, did their very best to serve the God of Heaven.

It’s easy to point a finger at history and at men who have been dead for hundreds or thousands of years, and vilify them in order to make ourselves look better, but in reality, they were no different from us in the important ways of how human beings work. Our only constant is love of God and of each other. We look to God to be the unchanging part of our own ever-changing universe. And we wait for the day when King Messiah will stand before Israel in Jerusalem and before the body of believers from the nations, and read the Torah aloud, and we will all hear his voice, and we will all know that we are his.