New Testament understanding through the Jewish perspective

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The New Testament can be understood better through the eyes (perspective), among other things, of the Judaism of the First Century. We can understand the New Testament best through the interplay of Old Testment, and contemporary with the New Testament Jewish understandings and practice, thus avoiding reading in from our own post New Testament and cultural perspectives. This will not only help to the understanding of the New Testament, but also to the understanding of how to apply it rightly to our present situations.

Example 1.

We are so used to living in the Christian or Christian influenced world that we just assume monogamy, one man and one woman, to be the starting position from which we build our married life. We view polygamy as a deviation perhaps of Islam, paganism, and view the polygamy of the biblical forefathers - Abraham, and Jacob with their wives (and concubines) in particular, but King David, King Solomon (surely his many wives got him in trouble!) as well, as something special and antiquated, and basically bracketed out from our consciousness. In addition, we encounter the problems of the modern mission field involving multiple marriages of recent converts to the Lord. What to do? "Require" that they divorce all their wives but one? Which one should they keep. The first? Any other criteria? Perhaps, divorce none and have a polygyomous church grow up? And what of the benefit that has accrued in certain situations by polygamous marriage - such as tribes where the men have almost been wiped out in wars and an overabundance of starving woman and children? Who would take care of them but the remaining men? What is the solution?

But the practice of Abraham and Jacob did not stop with the first century. In European Ashkenazi Judaism it continued on into the Middle Ages; and may only have been forbidded then by the influence of Christianity, while the Jews of Arab lands continued polygamy until this century, The Yemenite Jews immigrating to Israel after 1948 often came with multiple wives, and only now is that generation dying out and single marriage, which the State requires, is the non deviating rule.

Kmowing the normalcy of polygamy through the ages gives us and advantage of how to understand the Bible and how to apply it.

We can see that a bishop or overseer, in I Timothy 3:2, is to have only one wife, is, first of all, not speaking in referance to divorce and remarriage , but to the situation of polygamy. Then we can see, the wisdom of the rule of one wife for elders of the church - there is just too much to do and be responsible for in the work of the church that any more than one wife will deprive from the church and deprive from the family. Then we can see, that these are not iron clan rules, deviation from which is sin, but good and responsible quides that Paul is giving Timothy for the chosing of the leaders (and servants) of the Church. Then we can see, how it all fits in with the other guides - Don't chose a man that can't love and manage his own family, nor a man that has a bad reputation or drinks too much to lose sobriety, etc. And we can understand that all that needs to apply to our own situation in our century. And we can see that these were recommendations primarily to Timothy who had a task probably different from most of us, so we must truly learn the principles behind to make the wisdom of God's Word then applicable and real for our lives today. And we can see that the activity of the Holy Spirit did not end with the first century- and must not end for us in this century, by we must learn, and be enabled by Him to now apply what He has already told us in the Holy Scriptures for our present generation with its particulur problems.

Example 2.

Telling without saying. Four methods of Jewish Biblical interpretation are:

Peshat = the meaning simply on the surface of the text

Remez = the hint or clue to the deeper meaning than the surface

Derash = a more searching of the all facets relevant to the text and involving stories, customs, sayings, even analysis of the Hebrew letters, and relating to all facets of life

Sod = the secret and hidden, sometimes esoteric meaning of the text.

Together the first letters (consonents) of these words spell PaRDeS = Paradise. The second word, Remez, means hint or indication, and that is "telling without saying". This method is used in the writing of the account of the Gospel of Matthew of the giving of the "Sermon on the Mount" beginning with the Beatitudes "Blessed are..." This is rightly seen, in this most Jewish of Gospels, as the new Law , or, better, Teaching (Torah) of the Kingdom of Heaven paralleling and then exceeding the Old Law of Mount Sinai.

In the account of Luke, it is the Sermon on the Plain. In Matthew, it is the Sermon on the Mount. Both are historically correct as the location on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee is a high hill fanning out to a plain and meeting the sea. Why does Matthew prefer to use a Mountain? Because this will recall to listeners and readers of the Gospel that other mount, Mount Sinai, which Moses had ascended to receive the now "Old Law".

Matthew 5:1,2. " Seeng the crowd of people, Jesus went up into the Mountain, and then sitting down, he called to him his followers, and then he opened His mouth, saying, 'Blessed are..'"

There was really no reason to tell us that He sat down - except that it is a Remez. It is an indication that the One wielding the authority was now, not Moses, but the Messiah come among His people. This follows from what was understood by the people, and can be understood, as well, by us, namely - Synagogues had within them the "Seat of Moses" . One can still see the Seat of Moses on the right side near the entrance of the ruins of the Chorazin synagogue on the hill above the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus gave a general caution to His twelve, His Apostles and Apprentices, not to be disobedient to what the Pharisees say - just don't do what they do! As it is they that now sit "on the seat of Moses".

And so the "greater than Moses" ascended also a hill, as Moses did in Sinai, and He "sat down" and they gathered around Him to hear, and "He opened His mouth and said". The "position" of authority is not standing (to preach) as it is in modern churches, but rather sitting *. It is not clear why this is so. Some suggestions: that authority was naturally derived from experienced distilled from age, and sitting was natural to older men; that sitting is the natural position of derived authority from Scripture which is spread before one in the form of Scrolls. Whatever the merit in these suggestions, sitting was the position of authority in 1st century Judaism. This probably influenced the posturing of the bishops of slightly later centuries as sitting with their clergy clustered aroung them.

"He opened his mouth saying...". The only way you can say, of course, is by opening the mouth, but here there is another Remez. It is the Biblical indicator of "speaking authoritatively" adapted from the (Hebrew - VaYa'an vaY'omer), and what came out was the Torah of the Kingdom of Heaven through the Messiah, a Torah at once fullfilling and then transcending the law of Moses given at Sinai. Blessed are the poor in spirit...

Other ramifications would be understood from these forms of expressions with their attendant associations. As "Moses on Mount Sinai" had entailed within it the forming of a new people, a nation to be, to be "spelled out" in the generations to come, so too, Jesus would be the "center piece" around which also would be formed a new people, spear- headed not by 12 tribes, but by 12 apostles, a nation quite like and quite unlike that which had preceded. The Nation of the New Israel, the Church built upon the Rock.

  • Note: the seat as a sign of authority is very ancient. For example, In Tel Dan in the north of the Galilee, one can see the 4 holes for the 4 posts of the King of Israel's judgement seat and to the left of it the seat of the city elders, just outside the winding main road leading to the top of the tell and within the outer city gates. This is where he rendered judgement in the Norther Kingdom of Israel. In the 1st century, the brother of Herod Antipas, Philip rendered judgement, according to Josephus, all throughout his Tetrachies of Gaulinitis, Trachonitus, and Batanea in the Decapolis, by traveling from place to place setting up his portable seat. It is this Phillip which gave the name to Caesarea Phillipi by the Banias at the foot of Mt. Herman where Jesus asked His disciples, Who do men say that I am?

Example 3.

Feeling the texture. Taking the hint.

Coming down low, often gives a true view of how things really are and how they differ from each other.

Many view the two accounts of the miraclulous feeding of the multitudes a literary fiction or at best a one time event told twice - with added color. Focusing on the literary and artistic creation of the form of the story, then, produces in us an unspoken and perhaps unrealized assuption that it never really happened, that it is a devise to make a point or teach a lesson, that it is not what it purports to be. But from down low and feeling the texture, we can see that these are differing stories, told for different reasons, and hence, without understanding fully, we are found with conviction as to their having actually taken place.

The first feeding was in the Jewish area of the north west shore of the sea of Galilee. He had come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and had sent out his followers to preach and practice the kingdom among the Jews, and not the Samaritans or the Gentiles. And it was in this area that he had the multitudes sit down on the green grass in groups of fifty and a hundred as Israel long ago had grouped in the desert. He had chosen His twelve to " sit on the thrones":of Israel, not abolishing Israel, but fulfilling Israel in the new nation and people he was forming. It was green grass at that time of year because of the season and because it was at the Jewish end of the north shore fed by the seven springs ("heptapeigon" in Greek) which would become linguistically corrupted to its present name of Tabgha. There these seven springs gushing forth from warm water underground sources brought a steady flow of warm currents into the Sea attracting the many fish, most notably, the fresh water Tilapia, "Musht" in Arabic, "Amnon" in Hebrew, and "St. Peter's" fish to the Christian tourist. Such was the case up until this warm flow was stopped up by the 1950's water diversion project of the State of Israel diverting the flow to the National Water Carrier taking irrigation to the Negev, causing "the flowers to bloom" . And there in the back of the present day Church of the Primacy at the lip of the Sea, and indeed the base of the church itself, can be seen the 1st century steps leading down to the little harbor where the fishermen disciples of Jesus, along with so many others in the 1st century, had tied up their boats and rigged and repaired their nets. In this area, up the hill a bit, Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, gave the blessing, and fed them all, through the hands of the disciples, filling thousands of their stomachs to the amazement of the disciples who saw it all happen before their eyes and from their own hands. And so the Messianic Kingdom was dawning then and there before their eyes. And in that spot, the Byzantines would build a church whose floor now appears as part of the floor of the present "reconstitued" Roman Catholic Church of the Multiplication, and there under the altar of both churches is the Byzantine Mosaic of the Feeding but with four loaves and two fish and not five loaves and two fish as so clearly presented in the Gospel of Mark. But the sensitivity of the Byzantines was accurate and thought out for they saw that the fifth loaf was Jesus Himself and His presence among them at the Eucharist. Of special note in the Gospel and for the early church (whose deacons distributed the blessed bread to the people of the Lord unable to attend the assembly) is that it was 12 baskets that remained over and distributed - a basket each for the reconstitued Israel descended from the 12 Fathers the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. All so Jewish, in the Jewish Tetrarchy of Herod Antipas.

But quite different, the second feeding, then after a "foray" of Jesus passing out of the Tetrachy of Herod Antipas, and Through the Valley of the Doves, the way that led to Gush Halav, where the Apostle Paul's parents had been born and lived and from which (Jerome) had been exiled to Tarsus in Cilicia, and coming into the non Jewish Phoenicia, and seeing such faith as never had been in Israel, and knowing what the promise of the Father had been that all the peoples of the world would be blessed in the choosing and the seed of Abraham, and knowing that that is also why he was called and where it would all lead, Jesus returned and passed into the Gentile area of the Tetrachy of Herod Antipas' brother Philip and to the Roman Decapolis, to the eastern gentile shore of the Sea of Galilee, and there, this time not on the green grass but on the barren hill, He did the same, He blessed the bread and this time there were many small fish, the Galilee "sardines", and fed the gentiles just as He had the Jews, miraculously, and to their stomachs full, and this time there were Seven baskets left over. For seven was known to be the number, not only of completion, and perfection, and fulfilling of the epoch, but also it was the number signifying "all the peoples of the world." For it was seven nations that Israel had dispossed coming into the Land (Deut. 7:1) - the Hittites, Girgashites (these were still living in the Decapolis in the first century), the Amorites, Canaanites, Perrizites, Hivites, and Jebusites. And it was, according to first century thinking as well as Biblical formulation, 7x10 = 70 peoples which constituted the whole of the peoples of the world around Israel (Gen. 10). And so the Kingdom of Heaven would now be open to all the peoples of the world, and "unto the ends of the earth."

From close to the ground - two stories, two Feedings, two messages (with one Church to embrace them both), and two real occurances. .

Example 4. What is real is real in many ways and the smallest of matters are great with portent.

Jesus said : Don't think that I have come to destroy the law and the prophets but to fulfill. I tell you with the fullest force that until heaven and earth pass away not one yod (jot) or a letter's ornament (tittle) shall pass away from the Torah (law) until every thing shall come to be. Therefore whoever shall loosen one of the most minor of these commandments and teaches others will be be called "minor" in the Kingdom of Heaven.And whoever does and teaches others to do, this one will be called "great" ("rav") in the Kingdom of Heaven. Matt. 5:17-20.

The "yod" is the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet and the tittle or decorative flip of the scribe's pen made in the writing of the letter (or, according to the script, radiating lines) is likewise small in size. But also known and internalized in the Jewish perspective, this letter and this decoration are opposites as well as similar in size. In Aramaic and Hebrew, the yod, despite its size, is pregnant with meanings. Inserted it can change "luck' or a particlular god (gad) into a goat (gedi) or ligament (gid). Suffixed it can turn God into "my God (Eli). With verbs, it can turn active to passive as in "written" (ktiv). It can change "you have come" to "I have come", and "come!" to a woman, It can serve as a consonent as in the English word "You" or as a vowel as in the word "healthy", and many, many other meanings does a Yod supply.Unlike the yod, the tittle has only one meaning, if it can be called a meaning. It adds beauty. That is all. But beauty has with it, integrally, the sense of fittingness, wholeness, holiness, and warming of the heart. All of these, are part of the text and within the text, inseparable from the text.

The text is the Torah, usually translated as the "Law" - as in "the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings" (the Old Testament). But Judaism knows of a more precise term for "Law". It is Halakha, from the root for "walking". This is the term for legal prescriptions. This is in disctinction from Aggada - telling or recitings, and which takes in stories, parables, narratives, anecdotes. The Torah, the 5 books of Moses, is Aggadic as well as Halakhic. Therefore "law" doesn't do it justice (or rather, our sense of "law" is inadequate}. Illuminating Instruction is better ("Torah" is from the root "to instruct")

Jesus said something strange, something unthinkable for any Rabbi, Teacher, or notable to say.; These could say,"I have come to obey, or practice and teach, to maintain and uphold the Torah". but Jesus said, " I have come to fulfill the Torah." That has a double connotation. Jesus Himself fills up the whole variegatated content, impulsesof meanings, and beauties of the Torah, and Jesus Himself in some sense brings a closure to the Torah, a pivotal transition to something new - And this he does in the sermon, not on Mount Sinai, but the Mount of Beatitudes by the Sea of Galilee. Thus the New Covenant of Jeremiah 31:31 forecasts the New Covenant of the Lords Supper and of Calvary, but receives its concretization and "authorization" from the very words of Jesus Himself - " I have come to fulfill". Jesus, the Fulfillment of Torah, then becomes for His followers the new and true principle of interpretation by which, in their obedience, their love, their prayer, they either enact the Truer and Deeper Torah, and so become "great", or in their failures to obey, become "minor" in the Kingdom of Heaven"

If understanding of transition "from" and transition "to" is true, it ought to be be shown in other ways and places in the New Testament as the New Testament is no mere theological textbook but a book of real life. And that it does.

"By calling this Covenant 'new' [Jeremiah 31], He has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear". Hebrews 8:13, See Acts Chapter 15 for the transition in life of the Church from exclusively Jewish to predominently Gentile and the transition away from the Law of Moses.

The inclusion of these words of Jesus concerning His fulfilling of the Law, are from the times of Jesus on earth and no invention of the later Gentile dominated church. At the later time, there would have been no need for these Jewish oriented and Jewish pervaded discussion concerning the Mosaic Law. The Church was dynamic and in transition and full of real life.




See Also

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