(Belated) Happy Birthday to E. P. Sanders

That's Covenantal Nomism (Not Covenantal Gnomism)!

With everything going on in the calendar last week, I almost missed the opportunity to point out the birthday (April 18) of New Testament scholar E.P. Sanders.   "Who's that?" you might be asking.

E. P. Sanders is known for achieving a paradigm shift in how New Testament scholars understand first-century Judaism.  Stuart Dauermann explains:

Sanders is one of the grandfathers of the New Perspectives on Paul.  In his blockbuster first book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, and in subsequent texts, he set out to consider methodologically how to compare two (or more) related but different religions; to destroy the view of Rabbinic Judaism which is still prevalent in much, perhaps most, New Testament scholarship; to establish a different view of Rabbinic Judaism; to argue a case concerning Palestinian Judaism (that is, Judaism as reflected in material of Palestinian provenance) as a whole; to argue for a certain understanding of Paul; and to carry out a comparison of Paul and Palestinian Judaism.

He is best remembered for his exploration of what he terms “covenantal nomism.”  This term names his conviction that for  Judaism, “obedience maintains one’s position in the covenant, but it does not earn God’s grace as such. It simply keeps an individual in the group which is the recipient of God’s grace.” (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 420) In other words: “obedience is universally held to be the behavior appropriate to being in the covenant, not the means of earning God’s grace.” (p. 421). For Sanders, “Israel’s situation in the covenant required the law to be obeyed as fully and completely as possible … as the only proper response to the God who chose Israel and gave them commandments” (p. 81).

In the conclusion to his Messianic Jewish response to Sanders' "new" perspective on Paul, Dauermann writes:

This is certainly not the Paul I was introduced to fifty years ago. But also, this is not the version of Judaism that most Christians I know of entertain . . . We can and should still commend the gospel. But we absolutely do not have to nor should we denigrate Judaism to do so!

Thoughts on Messiah Journal #109

Below are some thoughts on the most recent issue of Messiah Journal.

(Full disclosure:my own book review of the Jewish Annotated New Testament is published at the end of this issue.  I did receive a free copy of the journal.)

• Tzvi Sadan's article ("Halachic Authority in the Life of the Messianic Community"): I was glad to get to read this and glad that it's been put into print, since it articulates a number of important arguments in a succinct and eloquent way.  That said, in his treatment of Matthew 16, I was a little surprised that he failed to directly address verse 12 (unless I missed it)--in which it says that Yeshua "was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees."  I take it that Sadan reads this verse through the lens of Matt 23:1-2 and Luke 12:1, but I think it only weakens his argument for him not to state this explicitly.  (And even stated clearly, I think this is the one of the weak points in his argument...and this is coming from someone who shares Sadan's convictions in this area.)
• James Pyle's article ("Origins of Supercessionism in the Church") provides a helpful overview of supersessionism in Christian history.  I'm looking forward to his followup article on supersessionism today.
• Update (forgot to include this in my initial post): I enjoyed Rabbi Russ Resnik's initial article in a series he will be doing on "Living the Greatest Commandment" (the Shema) and very much look forward to further entries.  I'm particularly interested in seeing what Rabbi Russ brings out get integrated into our communal understanding, practice, and articulation of the Shema, including in public worship.
• Toby Janicki's article ("A Gentile Believer's Obligation to the Torah") has been a long time coming.  I've thought a number of times that the current discussion about Acts 15 is too reductionistic on the Gentile side of the equation--the "four prohibitions" of the Apostles aren't just four singular practices.  Rarely does anyone actually map the prohibitions onto the teachings of Paul or the other apostles, and I've longed for an ordered exploration of this topic.  Not only is Toby's article a great contribution towards that effort, but he also includes helpful forways into later Jewish and Christian interpretation on the issues.  A couple observations:
• I had never heard anyone propose the interpretation Toby proposes for Paul's perplexing reference to "baptisms for the dead" in 1 Cor 15:29.
• I also appreciated his take on Paul's reference to "the cup of blessing" in 1 Cor 10:16.   
• Another great scholarly take on the ritual demands of Paul's gospel to the Gentiles with respect to the Temple is Paula Frederksen's article Paula Frederiksen "Judaizing the Nations: the Ritual Demands of Paul's Gospel". 
• I also am intrigued by his proposal that Gentiles are enjoined to keep the "remember" portion of the Shabbat commandment (with respect to creation) but not the "guard" portion which relates to the exodus from Egypt.
• I do wonder about some of Toby's "these would only make sense if..." arguments, where he suggests that early Messianics must have been familiar with certain practices (such as benching), otherwise Paul's statement would make no sense.   Clearly, the Lord's Supper (even at it is practiced today) has its roots in mealtime blessings, but does the fact that few Christians today bench after meals prevent them from understanding Paul's reference to "the cup of blessing that we bless"?  So even though I wonder about the degree of adaptation that had already happened, I'm not at all threatened by the idea or by Gentiles recontextualizing the "cup of blessing" to reclaim .
• Aaron Eby's article ("The Writing on the Wall") is the second in a series on the destruction of the Temple; this time he surveys rabbinic responses to the Temple's descruction.  This series has been helpful for me in relation to discussions I've been having about the NT's theological evaluation of the Temple.
• The Levertoff excerpts are really great.  Keep 'em coming, FFOZ!
• The book reviews section includes two great book reviews from Jacob Fronczak (Scot McKnight's The King Jesus Gospel and David Rudolph's A Jew to the Jews).  The latter is rather expensive ($88.15 on Amazon.com), so Fronczak's review gives readers with a more limited budget an idea of what Rudolph covers in exquisite detail.  Also, Jacob's voice is relatively new to me (I discovered his blog, Hope Abbey, last summer), but I immediately welcomed his insightful contributions to the Messianic conversation.
• Last and least, my first contribution to Messiah Journal, a review of the Jewish Annotated New Testament.  I'll leave it to others to comment.  :-)

The Jewish Annotated New Testament

 

In case you haven't heard, the Jewish Annotated New Testament was just released.  This volume is a study edition of the NSRV translation of the New Testament with commentary and essays by Jewish Biblical scholars (including Jewish New Testament scholars) such as Marc Zvi Brettler, Amy-Jill Levine, Daniel Boyarin, and Mark Nanos.

Being the first study Bible of its kind, it's getting some attention on the web; here are some of the articles I've come across so far:

The Rosh Pina Project blog posts a review by Mark Oppenheimer entitled "'The more I study New Testament,' Dr. Levine said, 'the better Jew I become.'"

An article by Reform Rabbi Larry Bach entitled "My New, New Testament," in which he writes, "the New Testament — this New Testament, in particular — is a book that belongs in every Jewish home."

Rebecca at the Mystical Politics blog, who herself contributed the JANT article on diving beings, points to a New York Times article on the JANT quoting Amy-Jill Levine and herself. 

Said New York Times article.

John Hobbins from the Ancient Hebrew Poetry blog asks in "Jews Reading the New Testament": "Is that just another way of saying, 'Jews behaving badly'?"

And the most extensive review I've seen, by Messianic Jewish rabbi/author Derek Leman.

Feel free to post further reviews in the comments section as you come across them.  (It looks like this volume might make a great holiday gift!)

Disclaimer: I have not received a free copy of the Jewish Annotated New Testament.  However, I would welcome one!

"Sometimes silence is the best answer"

There is an old proverb that says “Sometimes silence is the best answer.”
This is a hard one for me. I like to talk. Hang out with me for a few minutes and you learn this.
Ask my wife. She has a hard day at work…maybe something didn’t go as planned. What’s my first response? To ask questions and and tell her what she can do to try to correct it now or at least make sure it doesn’t happen again. Good intention? Sure…but is it always the right thing to do???

Our society is getting louder and louder. People are increasingly talking about everything and nothing all the time with little relief. You can’t turn on the TV without being inundated by talking heads talking over each other…politics, business, sports, celebrities, court cases…So instead you turn on the radio: politics, business, sports, celebrities, court cases…and maybe a little music thrown in there.

You don’t even have to turn on the tv or radio. Go online! You’ll find plenty of people sounding off on every subject imaginable.

Obviously, I am not suggesting that talking is wrong. Some situations require it, but there is a balance to be found…I’m talking about the wisdom of speaking carefully and thoughtfully and the discipline of silence. Knowing when to talk and when to be silent.

Even in our weekly service here we have a time of silence when we recite the Amidah.

“Sometimes silence is the best answer.”

Silence is generally something we try to avoid. We aren’t comfortable with it. Think about the awkward silences we’ve each encountered and how often our response is to say something. We have a need to break the silence and perhaps too often we ignore the actual need FOR silence.

It’s traditional when visiting people sitting shiva to wait for the mourners to say something…and if nothing is said to simply sit there in silence. My mom calls this “sitting in the mud together”. Sometimes words are not appropriate and harm more than they help.
In his blog Rabbi Dr. Michael Schiffman wrote this:

"When my grandmother passed away, we were sitting “Shiva” (traditional mourning period in Judaism) at my parent’s house. One of my grandparent’s neighbors came to “cheer up” my grandfather. She sat with him and told him he was very lucky to have had my grandmother for so long and that she was not in pain anymore and in a better place. My dad and I were in the kitchen listening in, and I was relating to my dad what our “visitor” was saying. I told him she was making my grandfather cry. My father asked what we should do. I suggested throwing her off the balcony, but my dad shook his head. I went in and said we had to get ready for something and told our visitor she needed to go. She left feeling like she did a mitzvah, and my grandfather pulled me aside and thanked me. It wasn’t that she said anything bad. They were things we all thought ourselves. The problem was that she was having the effect of pouring salt into an open wound."

You know, this past Tuesday was the 17th of Tammuz. We remembered the breach of the walls of Jerusalem. The next few weeks are a time of mourning and introspection for the Jewish people which culminate on Tisha B’av…a day where the Jewish world sits together mourning the destruction of the Temple and the exile of Israel.

In todays NT passage we witness Yeshua’s silence. In many other places the gospel writers recorded His words. He always had the right words for the situations, didn’t’ he? This time however, was different. He didn’t say anything. Or did He? Perhaps His silence said more than words could have.

In the latest issue of The Set Table Ben Ehrenfeld had this to say:

"Yeshua’s silence in this week’s portion is almost unbearable. How could he, with the authority to cast out demons, raise the dead, stop storms, change hearts, and renew minds stay silent while Roman guards made a mockery out of him and his people?
Furthermore, Yeshua endured the cross out of obedience to his Father’s will. Yeshua did not know all of what would ultimately transpire in this world. There is at least one thing he did know. He did know hard days were coming and he must have realized he was experiencing a manifestation of what Rome would ultimately do to the Jewish people. He was taking the hit for a people who, for the most part, were too scared, angry or indifferent to care.

Why doesn’t he open his mouth?! Every time I read this passage I want to hear something that reminds that he is a man, only to be left with that same deafening silence. This is no way for the manifestation of God to be treated. This is no way for a man to be treated. He’s treated like an object: five verses that show he was so robbed of his humanity that he couldn’t even carry his cross himself. The son of God, the Son of man, treated like a scapegoat for every misguided fear and hate that ever entered into the human mind."
He goes on to say:

"Abraham Joshua Heschel would sometimes speak of God in terms of the “meaning beyond absurdity.” Such a view can be very helpful when encountering passages like this week’s Besora portion.

Nevertheless, we only have five verses and all they speak of is absurdity.

Maybe it is worthwhile to sit with the absurdity for just a bit, lest we numb ourselves to think that injustice and malice are “normal.” Maybe we have to face the pain of knowing the terrible cost for the redemption of the world."
One last quote from Rabbi Schiffman:

"We are exhorted to let our deeds be many and our words few. Words can comfort and heal, but words can also be no more than noise. We need to be intentional about how we use words, and make sure we aren’t just creating noise. We are intended to have a healing effect on the world. Much of that healing is done in silence."
There is an old Jewish proverb that says “If a word is worth 1 coin, silence is worth 2.”

Certainly, we see that Yeshua’s silence here was worth much more than 2 coins. His silence initiated with authority the reconciliation of The Creator with His creation in a fullness not previously seen.

May the words of our mouths AND the meditations of our hearts…those times spent in silence, not be mere reflections of that proclamation, but tangible evidences of it.

Paula Frederiksen on sacrifice and sin

In a recent video shared at the Rosh Pina Project blog, N.T. Wright muses out loud about a need for  more study of sacrifice actually meant.

I thought I'd also point out that Paula Frederiksen's 3-part lecture series on the concept of sin in the ancient world is really excellent--and quite relevant, I think, to Wright's point.

HT: Carl Kinbar of Midrash, Etc for telling me about these lectures last fall.

Quote of the Day

A provocative quote from New Testament scholar Michael F. Bird:

The Jerusalem council achieved a via media by finding in Scripture a justification for the inclusion of Gentiles within the church without requiring circumcision and placing upon Gentiles only the obligation to avoid idol food and sexual immorality. Yet the Jerusalem council also permitted the existence of two parallel theologies: one theology where the Gentiles were uncircumcised equals in a renewed Israel with holiness constituted by the Spirit and another theology where uncircumcised Gentiles were guests in an Israelite remnant that still defined holiness through Torah observance. The Jerusalem council’s decisions seem optimized in a setting where Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians remain in parallel rather than integrated, especially in relation to shared meals. The council did not stipulate the standard of law observance to be upheld for Eucharistic fellowship to ensue.

J-BOM: the Empire in fresh perspective

In recent years, a number of New Testament scholars have highlighted the anti-imperial themes contained in the New Testament. Consider the following from a paper by N. T. Wright's entitled "Paul's Gospel and Caesar's Empire" (*Disclaimer: Though Wright places significant theological significance on the Jewish meanings inherent in the gospel message, nevertheless his supercessionist viewpoint comes through clearly in this paper. Be challenged by it, but don't take it as the only word on the matter.):

"Paul's declaration that the gospel of King Jesus reveals God's dikaiosyne [righteousness] must also be read, I suggest, as a deliberate laying down of a challenge to the imperial pretension. If it's justice you want, you will find it, not in the euangelion that announces Caesar as Lord, but in the euangelion of Jesus."

After being exposed to a little of this line of thing, it became relatively easy for me to picture Rome as the evil Empire!

Thus, I was particularly struck by the following passage from Milton Steinberg's As A Driven Leaf, in which the central character, Elisha ben Abuya, reflects on how the Roman Empire had changed his world...for the better!?!

Month after month for over a year he pored over records of the nations, Berossus on the Babylonians, Manetho on the Egyptians, Herodotus, Thucydides and numberless chroniclers of Greece and Rome. And the more he read, the more he was confirmed in that judgment of the role of the Empire at which he had first arrived in the chambers of Clarus. For until Rome had conquered the world the entire career of civilized man had been apparently nothing but a harrowing succession of wars. Armies had marched incessantly across all lands, murdering, burning, looting. Thousands of lives had been extinguished in each generation, millions had been subjected to bereavement, pain and misery, treasures on which hosts might have lived in luxury had been consumed--all to no point or purpose.
The motives of the Romans in subduing the peoples were by no means altruistic, and their treatment of the lands under their dominion had not always been beyond reproach, but the effects of the spread of their power could not be denied. Wherever they had gone they had brought back the Pax Romana. It was a precious boon which Italy had forced civilization, that of peace. And with it had come security for the individual and the opportunity to live out his life without hindrance in pursuit of the dreams of his heart. Of what account compared to this was the coerced surrender of their political independence by the nations, whether Gauls, Spaniards, Egyptians or Jews?
Reliving the unhappy past of humanity, Elisha reflected often that a rabbi-priest had once put it well, saying:
"Pray ye for the welfare of the Empire, for, had it not been for the awe of it, men would long since have swallowed one another alive."

Elisha is captivated by the human achievements seemingly made possible by the pax Romana.
But later on in the story, other characters remind Elisha of the signs of Rome's "justice"--people buying and selling other human beings as if they were stone carvings, and roads lined with the crosses of those who had been considered disloyal to Caesar. The Roman justice which so impressed Elisha with its impartiality later proves to be impotent to counteract the will and whim of Caesar himself, and ultimately it cruelly betrays Elisha and dashes his faith in "Roman justice."

In my opinion, it's easy to pick up this anti-Empire theme and run with it. In recent times, more than a few people have cast the Western World (or even the U.S.A.) as the Empire. (Scot McKnight explains here: "So what does 'empire mean'?")

Reflection and honest self-criticism are important. But I think the analogies of the U.S. to "Empire" are often made too lightly, emphasizing the injustices we're still struggling with yet ignoring the breakthroughs we've experienced. I think we ought to be suspicious of allowing our nation to be cast as the "evil empire" in our own thinking.

Back to Elisha: his wonderment at the contribution of Rome to human history deepens my understanding of what it meant to speak out against the Roman Empire in the time of Yeshua and his apostles. They weren't just daring to speak out against a clearly oppressive, evil power. They were also looking at what many saw as the most successful political venture yet and pointing out the ways that it still fell short of true peace and true justice, and that it required a level of allegiance that at times bordered on idolatry. Most importantly, they were preaching and living for the day when the God of Israel caused his kingdom to come fully on the earth, under the authority of his chosen regent, the Messiah, the Son of David.