(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!

The 'Jewish Guilt' reading of Jesus

Note: what you are about to read is highly tongue-in-cheek.

The world of critical Biblical scholarship encompasses an ever-growing number of approaches to the Biblical text such as historical-critical, source criticism, form-criticism, and redaction criticism.  Postmodern literary theory also introduced us to a range of alternative readings via feminist, post-colonial, and identity theories.  It is in the latter vein that I humbly offer yet another vantage point into the words of these historical sacred texts: namely, the "Jewish Guilt" reading of Jesus.

"Jewish guilt" literary theory seeks to expound the ironic nature of the many logia of Jesus by reading them from the vantage point of the 20th century Jewish mother (or grandmother).

I hereby present the first in what might be a series of explorations of Jesus' logia from the "Jewish guilt" vantage point (with apologies to my own mother and grandmother).

No lamb on Pesach: the real reason

Recently I presented an argument for why Jews shouldn't eat lamb on Pesach.  This morning I realized I forgot to highlight an essential gloss on the traditional argument...from my very own family.  This one comes from my Grandma:

The wise [son], what does he say? "What are the testimonies, the statutes and the laws which the L-rd, our G-d, has commanded you?" You, in turn, shall instruct him in the laws of Pesach, [saying] `one is not to eat any dessert after the Pesach-lamb.'*

To this passage my Grandma always comments: "And that's why we don't eat lamb!"

Hag Pesach Sameach, friends.

(* My family always uses the Maxwell House haggadah; since I didn't have mine handy, the quote is from Sichos In English.)

The Jewish Roots of Passover

A holiday classic (HT Aaron Eby).

New Shalom Sesame: Pesach edition

What's an eruv?

Sitting around the Erev Shabbat table with some friends recently, my wife observed the connection between the mitzvah to observe the Sabbath and the deliverance from Egypt.  Specifically, she noticed the following line in the Erev Shabbat kiddush:

כי הוא יום תחילה למקראי קודש, זכר ליציאת מצרים.
For this [Shabbat] is the foremost of the holy days,
a remembrance of the exodus from Egypt.
(Az Yashir Moshe: A Book of Songs and Blessings)

We started talking about the connection between deliverance from slavery and the institution of a day of rest.  Then one friend raised a good question: when God first commanded Israel to observe the Shabbat, how did they know what the word Shabbat meant (and consequently how to keep it)?

Someone pointed out that the Torah actually does give details to the Israelites about what it means to observe the Shabbat: things like not doing any melakha (Exodus 31:12-17), not kindling fires (Exodus 35:3), and not leaving your place (Exodus 16:29).  That last command ("Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.") might be less familiar in our Messianic circles.  However, in Jewish tradition it became the foundation for the halakha of the eruv.  Historian David Rotenstein has the background:

Blues guitarist Buddy Guy frequently tells interviewers that when you stretch a string, you are stretching a life. When Orthodox Jews stretch a string to build an eruv, they are creating a community. Eruv is a Hebrew word and in English it means “to mingle.” An eruv is symbolic space created by Orthodox Jews to enable them to carry and push things on the Sabbath as they move around their neighborhoods and travel to and from synagogue. (Mapping MoCo's Jewish Courtyards -- the Eruvim (Updated)).

Also notable to Messianic Jews is the mention of this commandment in the Acts 1:12 reference to "a Sabbath day's journey."

For a more humorous take on the eruv (and a contemporary controversy over erecting one in West Hampton, Long Island), here's the Daily Show's hard-hitting investigative reporter Wyatt Cenac:

The Daily Show
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(HT: Rabbi Jason.)

While this video ends up being a commentary on the sad irony occurring when people from the same religion can't agree, it's even more ironic that the object of controversy is something which was originally intended to help promote community -- by creating a shared "place" where everyone can congregate.  To me, this is the real value of the eruv: it helps us to think more deeply about what it means to be in community and challenges us to observe the Shabbat in more holistic ways.

(Finally, for more on the connection between Yetziat Mitzrayim and Shabbat, check out Rabbi Joshua Flug's article in YUTorah's Pesach-to-Go 5771.)

God's not the only one who wants Jews to keep kosher...

HT Robin Parry.