The Jewish Annotated New Testament (142 page)

The Jewish practice of worshiping God, whether in the Temple of Jerusalem or in synagogues, without images, was highly unusual in the ancient world, and it gained the approval of some philosophers who disapproved of the worship of the divine through images. Nevertheless, the worship of one God exclusively was seen as very odd. Even the emperor had to recognize that the Jews would pray
for
him but not
to
him, because the Jews could not acknowledge the emperor as a god. Only a mad emperor like Caligula would try to erect a statue of himself in the Temple. As a result of this theological exclusivity, many Jews refused to partake of the meat that was distributed at civic festivals, what the Jews called “meat sacrificed to idols” (cf. Acts 15.29; 1 Cor 8.1–13). The social separation of the Jews was manifest to all.

“One temple for the one God,” says Josephus. Jews throughout the ancient world venerated the Temple of Jerusalem. They sent half-shekel donations each year (apparently beginning in the second half of the second century BCE), and especially after Herod rebuilt the Temple, providing it with a large forecourt and plaza, thousands of pilgrims would come at each of the three pilgrimage festivals. Diaspora Jews did not build competing temples, although beginning in the third century BCE they built synagogues. (Only one competing temple is known in this period, built in Leontopolis in Egypt by Onias, a high priest fleeing from the persecution of Antiochus IV in the 160s BCE. But this temple seems not to have had any impact upon, or following among, the Jews of Egypt; Philo never mentions it.) Some Diaspora Jews even went to Jerusalem to help protect the Temple against the Romans in the great war of 66–70 CE.

Josephus emphasizes the centrality of the Temple but not of the land; in his
Jewish Antiquities
he downplays biblical covenant theology, which posits a connection between God, the people Israel, and the land of Israel. This de-emphasis likely reflects the perspective of a diaspora apologist writing in Rome after the Temple’s destruction. Similarly, although Philo refers (
Flaccus
46) to Jerusalem as the “mother city” (Gk
mētropolis
) of the Jews, and although he went on pilgrimage once to the Jerusalem Temple (
Providence
2.64), he too, as a diaspora Jew living in Alexandria, does not attribute any theological advantage to the holy land.

In emphasizing Judaism’s openness to outsiders, Josephus is responding to the charge that the Jews are hostile to the rest of humanity (the charge of
misanthropia
). Josephus’s near-contemporary, the Roman historian Tacitus, says in a memorable passage:

The customs of the Jews are base and abominable, and owe their persistence to their depravity: for the worst rascals among other peoples, renouncing their ancestral religions, always kept sending tribute and contributing to Jerusalem … again, the Jews are extremely loyal toward one another, and always ready to show compassion, but toward every other people they feel only hate and enmity. They sit apart at meals and they sleep apart, and although as a race they are prone to lust, they abstain from intercourse with foreign women; yet among themselves nothing is unlawful. They adopted circumcision to distinguish themselves from other peoples by this difference. Those who are converted to their ways follow the same practice, and the earliest lesson they receive is to despise the gods, to disown their country, and to regard their parents, children, and brothers as of little account. (
Hist
. 5.5.1–2)

According to Tacitus, a hostile outsider, the Jews form boundaried communities with a clear sense of who is in and who is out, marked by social separation from general society: no sharing of food, no mixed marriage, and an attitude of hostility. Josephus does not deny that Jewish communities are marked by social separation, but he denies the charge of hostility. Tacitus sees converts to Judaism as an expression of social hostility; Josephus sees converts as proof of Judaism’s openness and tolerance.

Tacitus knows and Josephus elsewhere confirms that the act of circumcision is the act of male conversion; when a Gentile is circumcised, he has converted to Judaism. This is exactly the attitude of Paul in his letter to the Galatians. Josephus explains (
Ag. Ap
. 2.210) that Gentiles can convert to Judaism because affinity is established “not only by birth but also by choice in the manner of life.” In other words culture or religion can be changed even if birth cannot; achievement (changing one’s beliefs and practices) trumps ascription (birth). This is an important principle that will become central to later Jewish thinking about conversion. Some scholars have argued that priestly conceptions of identity, which emphasized birth above all else, militated against the possibility of conversion in this period, but Josephus, although a priest himself, represents the viewpoint that would triumph. Within the Jewish communities of the Diaspora and the land of Israel, converts were accepted as members. Even without converting to Judaism some Gentiles befriended Jews, were benefactors of local Jewish communities, or participated in some aspect or another of communal life. Jews sometimes called such Gentiles “venerators of God” or “fearers of Heaven” (e.g., Acts 10.2).

Josephus, as an apologist, does not address apostasy, the mirror image of conversion. Just as there were Gentiles who were willing, even eager to join the Jewish community, there were Jews who were willing, even eager, to leave. There are only three named examples in the Second Temple period: Dositheus son of Drimylus, “a Jew by birth, who subsequently changed his religion and became estranged from his ancestral laws” (3 Macc 1.3); Tiberius Julius Alexander, the governor of Judea as well as the nephew of Philo, “who did not abide by the ancestral practices” (
Ant
. 20.5.2 100); and Antiochus of Ascalon, who publicly gave evidence of his “changeover [to the Greeks] and his hatred of the Jewish customs” (
J.W
. 7.3.3 50). This may suggest that the incidence of apostasy was relatively rare.

Although rabbinic law from approximately the second century CE on determined the status of the offspring of mixed marriage matrilineally (that is, the status follows the mother; see
b. Qidd
. 68b), this was not the accepted rule in either the biblical period or the Second Temple period. Josephus, Philo, the Qumran scrolls, the New Testament—none of these knows the rabbinic law. In Second Temple times the definitions of Jewishness were not yet firmly established, and the rabbinic rules were still centuries in the future.

THE LAW

Jonathan Klawans

When it comes to understanding the New Testament in its Jewish context, few topics are as controversial, confusing, or complicated as the Law. The topic is controversial because Jews and Christians have argued among themselves and against each other regarding the validity and force of biblical law. Traditional-minded Jews continue to practice many biblical (and Talmudic) laws, even as many modernizing or secular Jews reject the traditional laws partially or completely. Paul insisted that Gentile followers of Jesus did not need to practice circumcision (Gen 17.9–14; cf. Gal 5.2), Mark’s Gospel rejects the dietary restrictions (Lev 11.1–47; Deut 14.4–21; cf. Mk 7.19b), and many modern Christians have difficulty understanding why any Jews still practice such laws at all. Indeed, the stereotypically negative charge of Jewish
legalism
—tedious adherence to ancient rituals mixed with a misguided fascination with legal minutiae—has not fully evaporated from Christian critiques of Judaism, whether popular or scholarly. Yet anyone familiar with contemporary Christianity knows that the Mosaic Law has not been completely displaced. The Ten Commandments (Ex 20.1–17; Deut 5.6–21) are perhaps the most famous of the legal passages from the Torah whose literal meanings continue to have binding legal force for many Christians. Biblical prohibitions of homosexuality (Lev 18.22; 20.13) have also resurfaced in public discourse as passages taken literally and seriously by many conservative Christians, much to the chagrin of Christian liberals.

These controversies are further complicated by terminological confusion. The term “the Law” (
nomos
) appears nearly two hundred times in the New Testament, but no single understanding of the term applies in all instances. Moreover, the texts use other terms as well, including “commandment” (
entolē
, “charge, order, command”; e.g., Lk 15.29) and “tradition” (
paradosis
, “handing over, transmission”; e.g., Mk 7.9). Indeed the Gospel of Mark never mentions the term “law,” despite its numerous depictions of Jesus arguing with Pharisees about various biblical commandments and traditional ritual practices (e.g., Mk 7.1–23). The topic is further complicated by the fact that ancient Jewish and Christian sources attest that legal matters were subject to dispute and undergoing dramatic development throughout the period of the New Testament. Yet at the same time, there are some striking agreements among Jews and Christians when it comes to the Law—depending, however, on how the term is understood.

To bring some clarity to the situation, we do well to begin with the first (though not necessarily earliest) New Testament passage that mentions the Law: the Gospel of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount (5.17): “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” Here “law” and “prophets” refer to the first two sections of the Hebrew Bible: the Torah (Pentateuch) and Nevi’im (Prophets).

The term “law” remains uncapitalized in the quotation above, as is the case throughout the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). Jewish translators, however, often prefer to capitalize the words used to translate
torah
. In 1 Kings 2.3, for instance, the NRSV renders the Hebrew
torat moshe
as “the law of Moses.” The New Jewish Publication Society (NJPS) translation, by contrast, reads: “the Teaching of Moses.” The latter is in keeping both with the traditional Jewish reverence for the Torah, as well as a more nuanced meaning of the Hebrew word
torah
. The NJPS translation appropriately reflects the fact that the Pentateuch contains not only laws but also many narratives—teachings that are non-legal in nature (e.g., Genesis, the beginnings of Exodus and Deuteronomy).

If the NRSV’s lower-case “law” can be traced to non-Jewish sensibilities, it must be pointed out that the translation itself—“law” over “teaching”—can reliably be traced back to ancient Jewish authorities. With nearly perfect consistency, the Jewish translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek (produced piecemeal throughout the Hellenistic period and collectively known as the Septuagint [LXX]) render the Hebrew word
torah
with the Greek term
nomos
, which means “law.” At times, the word
torah
does mean “law” (e.g., Lev 11.46). But perhaps more significant is the fact that the Torah, though it has important nonlegal, narrative components, is chock-full of laws, statutes, and ordinances (cf. 1 Kings 2.3). For these reasons, Greek-speaking Jews likely adopted the name
Nomos
(“Law”) for the Torah.

This is not to say that Torah and the Law were synonymous for ancient Jews. As the Gospels and other writers are aware (e.g., Mk 7.1–23; Josephus,
Ant
. 18.297), first-century Pharisaic Jews in particular also adhered to nonbiblical traditions, such as the rule advocating hand-washing before meals. The Dead Sea Scrolls attest to a number of laws not found in the Hebrew Bible, such as a ruling prohibiting divorce (CD 4.19–5.6). Later rabbinic Jews derived many other laws from biblical texts by means of exegesis—that is, by midrash. For example, the biblical prohibition against putting a stumbling block before the blind (Lev 19.14) is understood in rabbinic texts to prohibit various kinds of deception by word or deed (
Sifra Kedoshim
, on Lev 19.14). Eventually, rabbinic Judaism comes to articulate a firm belief that divine revelation occurred in both written and oral forms: In a famous Talmudic story, the sage Hillel patiently instructs the would-be proselyte who has begun to study with him that there are two Torahs: one written down and the other oral (
b. Shabb
. 31b). Once this belief in a dual divine revelation (written and oral) takes root, entire realms of Jewish practice concerning food, Sabbath, and the synagogue (among other matters) can develop with hardly any basis in scripture whatsoever. These rulings come to be justified not by an appeal to scripture but by the belief that they derive from the Oral Torah. So while the (Written) Torah can reasonably be called “the Law,” not all traditional Jewish law appears in the (Written) Torah.

Because “the Law” (Torah) is not the only or final word on what Jews considered to be law, it becomes be clear why, in Matthew’s sermon, Jesus on the one hand asserts his desire to “fulfill the law” and at the same time asserts that the plain sense of a given passage from the Torah is insufficient. Consider Matthew 5.38–39: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.” Although early rabbinic law offers no precise parallel to the principle of nonresistance, its understanding of the law of the
talion
(“an eye for an eye”; Ex 21.24–25; Lev 24.17–19; Deut 19.21) controverts the plain meaning of these biblical passages no less than does Matthew 5.39. Where the Pentateuch literally mandates corporal punishment in equal measure, rabbinic law mandates payment of fines commensurate with the pain, suffering, and lost abilities of the injured party (
m. B. Kamma
8.1;
Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Nezikin 8
, on Ex 21.24–25). Consider also Matthew 5.31–32: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce’ [the reference is to Deut 24.1]. But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery.” A tradition preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls (CD 4.19–5.6) also suggests that divorce results in adultery. Both traditions apparently contradict at least one way of understanding the permission to divorce and remarry ostensibly granted (in Deut 24.1–2). These examples illustrate that ancient Jewish law is not defined by the plain, literal sense of any given passage from the Torah. Paradoxically, therefore, Jesus’
fulfillment
of “the law” as articulated in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount can question the plain meaning of passages from “the Law” (the Pentateuch), even as it reaches some conclusions that are commensurate with Jewish law generally speaking.