Symbols Used on the Cover

Magen David

The Magen David (Shield of David, or as it is more commonly known, the Star of David) is the symbol most commonly associated with Judaism today In the 17th century it became a popular practice to put a Magen David on the outside of synagogues to identify them as Jewish houses of worship. The Magen David gained popularity as a symbol of Judaism when it was adopted as the emblem of the Zionist movement in 1897.

Menorah

One of the oldest symbols of the Jewish faith is the menorah, a seven-branched candelabrum used in the Temple. It has been said that the menorah is a symbol of the nation of Israel and our mission to be “a light unto the nations.” (Isaiah 42:6).

Messianic Seal

This ancient symbol was found on Mount Zion, and is believed to have been created and used by the early Jewish believers who called themselves Nazarenes in the first Messianic Congregation. It consists of three separate but integrated symbols: a menorah at the top, a Star of David in the middle, and a fish at the bottom.

Torah Scroll

The word “Torah” refers to the Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy The Torah is dressed and decorated because it is holy and is considered the core of God’s communication with Israel. The manner in which it is dressed and decorated is symbolic of the garments worn by the High Priest of old when he served God in the sanctuary of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Chai

This symbol, commonly seen on necklaces and other jewelry and ornaments, is the Hebrew word Chai (living), with the two Hebrew letters Chet and Yud attached to each other. Some say it refers to the Living G-d; others say it simply reflects Judaisms focus on the importance of life. The concept of chai is important in Jewish culture. The typical Jewish toast is l’chayim (to life).

What The Scholars Are Saying...

This refreshing new book by Dr. Ron Moseley opens up the history of the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. Every Christian should read this book.

Brad Young, Ph.D.

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Oral Roberts University

Ron Moseley is a gifted educator of the Jewish roots of Christianity. Every disciple of Yeshua, the Rabbi from Nazareth, will find Ron’s latest work valuable and stimulating reading, as it illuminates the Jewish background to Jesus and His Jewish movement, the Church.

Dwight A. Pryor

President, Center for Judaic-Christian Studies

Written as a study text with useful review questions at the end of each chapter, Yeshua: A Guide to the Real Jesus and the Original Church is must reading for all serious students desiring to explore the historical and biblical linkage between synagogue and church. I enthusiastically recommend this enlightening study of origins.

Marvin Wilson, Ph.D.

Ockenga Projessor of Biblical Theological Studies

Chairman of the Department of Biblical Studies,

Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts

and one of the translators of the

New International Version of the Bible

At last there’s a common-sense, well researched approach to one of the most fascinating, yet controversial questions of the modern religious world – Just how Jewish was the historical Jesus, and how Jewish was the Church that came forth from His teachings? I believe that this book goes a long way toward enlightening the public about the reality of the birth of Christianity, and the pivotal days of Roman Palestine which forever changed the religious framework of the modern world.

Kenneth L Hanson, Ph.D.

University of Texas

President, Kedem, Inc., Tulsa, OK

We are living in the prophetic season in which God is calling Christianity back to the Jewish roots of the faith. In this book, Dr. Ron Moseley has done an excellent job helping us to understand the Jewishness of Christianity. I encourage every serious Christian to read this book.

Richard Booker

International Bible Teacher and popular author of

The Miracle of the Scarlet Thread,

Blow the Trumpet in Zion and other hooks.

Dr. Ron Moseley’s new book may prove to be a “one-stop shopping” source for students seeking easily accessed information related to the Jewishness of Jesus and the Hebraic roots of nascent Christianity.

Randall A. Weiss, Ph.D.

Doctor of Philosophy in Religious Studies,

Greenwich University

ICI University, Irving, Texas

YESHUA

A Guide to

the Real Jesus

and the

Original Church

Dr. Ron Mosley

With a foreword by Marvin Wilson, Ph.D.

Lederer Books

a division of

MESSIANIC JEWISH PUBLISHERS

Clarksville, Maryland

YESHUA

Jesus was a Jew who was born, lived, and died within first century Judaism.

His lifestyle was characteristic of the Jews o that day. Since the New Testament is highly Hebraic—background, writers, culture, religion, traditions, concepts, etc,.—any full understanding needs this perspective.

“This refreshing new book by Dr. Ron Moseley opens up the history of the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. Every Christian should read this book.”

BRAD YOUNG, PH.D.—Hebrew University of jerusalem, Oral Roberts University

“Yeshua: A Guide to the Real Jesus and the Original Church is must reading for serious students desiring to explore the historical and biblical linkage between the synagogue and church. I enthusiastically recommend this enlightening study origins.”

MARVIN WILSON, PH.D.—Chairman of the Department of Biblical Studies, Gordon College

Dr. Ron Moseley studied history at Princeton Theological Seminary, the University of Texas, Oxford Graduate School an Oxford University. He has a Masters in Divinity and Jewish Studies, a Ph.D. in Second Temple History, a D.Phil. in Religion and Society, and a D.Litt. in Research. He spent every summer for the twelve years studying at the Hebrew and Jerusalem Universities in Israel. In 2003 he was awarded the Chancellor’ Award for research from Oxford Graduate School. He is both a Fellow and a Scholar at the Oxford Society of Scholars and has written over eight courses for the Bible Colleges in over eighteen countries and lectures in Israel, the United Kingdom and the Unites States.

Copyright ©1996 by Ronald Wayne Moseley

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, except for brief reviews in magazines, or as quotations in another work when full attribution is given.

All quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible, unless otherwise noted.

ISBN 978-1-936716-00-5

Library of Congress Catalog Control Number: 99227069

Lederer Books

a division of

MESSIANIC JEWISH PUBLISHERS

6120 Day Long Lane

Clarksville, MD 21029

Distributed by

Messianic Jewish Resources International

Order line: (800) 410-7367

E-mail: lederer@messianicjewish.net

Website: www.messianicjewish.net

Contents

Foreword by Dr. Marvin Wilson

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

CHAPTER 1

Evidence of the Jewish Background of the Early Church

Jewish Leadership in the Early Church

The Influence of the Synagogue on the Organizational Structure of the Church

Jewish Customs in the Early Church

Hebraic Names for the Early Church

Study Questions

CHAPTER 2

Jewish Idioms and Ideas in the Teachings of Jesus

The Tzitzit and Prophecy

Binding and Loosing

The Parable of the Reed and the Oak

The Priestly Family

The Golden Vine

Disqualifying the Servant

Kal-ve-chomer

Secondary Burial

Sounding the Trumpet

The Good Eye

Study Questions

CHAPTER 3

Misconceptions Concerning the Law

The Goodness of the Law

The Law and Grace

The New Testament, A Better Covenant

The Holy Spirit and the Law

Paul and the Law

Marcion, the Source of Much Confusion Concerning the Law

The Law Was Only “Until John”

The Letter of the Law

Great Christian Leaders and the Law

The Purpose of the Law

The Curse of the Law

Study Questions

CHAPTER 4

The Old and the New: Different Covenants?

The New Covenant before Paul

Jews and Gentiles: Different Covenants?

The Noachide Laws

The Origin of the Term “Law”

Different Kinds of Law

The Problem With the Law

Paul Remained A Faithful Jew

Paul’s Conversation With James

Neither Jew Nor Gentile In Christ

Those Under the Law Must Keep It All

Fourth-Century Theology

Study Questions

CHAPTER 5

The New in the Old and the Old in the New

Changes after A.D 70

Old and New: The Same Basic Covenant

The Age of Grace before Paul

Grace and Gifts Before Christ

Confession and Forgiveness in Judaism

The Development of the Idea of Grace Replacing the Law

Understanding the Words “Abolish” and “Fulfill”

Understanding Being Delivered From the Bondage of the Law

The Relationship of the Law to the New Testament

Today’s Application of God’s Law

What the Law Is

Study Questions

CHAPTER 6

The Pharisees and Their Influence on the Original Church

Ecclesia and Synagoga

The Pharisees As Separatists

The Pharisees and the Essenes

The Pharisees and Excommunication

The Pharisees and the Oral Law

The Pharisees and the Passover

The Pharisees and Their Fences Around the Torah

The Theology of the Pharisees

The Authority of the Pharisees

The Pharisees, the Scribes and the Sadducees

The School of the Scribes

Jesus’ Criticism of the Pharisees

Pharisaic Study and Worship

Study Questions

CHAPTER 7

The Pharisees’ Rise to Power

The Duties of the Pharisees

The Communities (Havurot) of Pharisee

The Pharisees and the Synagogue

Seven Types of Pharisees

The Good Pharisees

Was Jesus A Pharisee?

Similarities Between Pharisees and Greeks

Pirkei Avot and the Pharisees

The Leaven of the Pharisees

The Pharisees: Heroes or Villains?

The Four Degrees for the Pharisees

Study Questions

CHAPTER 8

The Pharisees and their Teachings

The Pharisees and the Publicans

The Pharisees and the Samaritans

The Pharisees and Miracles

The Verification of Miracles

Jesus’ Endorsement of the Pharisees

Pharisaic Traditions That Nullified the Law

The Pharisees and Evangelism

Proselytes to Judaism

Pharisaic Teaching Methods in the New Testament

Study Questions

CHAPTER 9

The Pharisees: Riding High

The Pharisees As Protagonists of Memra

The Pharisees As Restorers of the Law

The Pharisees’ Responsibility for the Study of Torah

Similarities Between the Puritans and the Pharisees

The Pharisees and the Church

Josephus’ Description of the Pharisees

The Doctrines of the Pharisees

The Pharisees and the Triumphal Entry

The Pharisees and the Day of Atonement

The Pharisees and the Red Heifer

The Pharisees and the Ritual Bath

The Pharisees and Angels

The Harshest Ruling of the Pharisees

The Greatest of the Conflicts

The Pharisees: An Opposing Group within Judaism

The Schools of Hillel and Shammai

The Influence of the Pharasaic Schools

The Popularity of the Pharisees in the First Century B.C.

The Pharisees and the Bar-Kochba Revolt

The Pharisees and Ritual Purity

The Pharisees and the Division of the Jerusalem Church

Study Questions

Conclusion

Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Foreword

The earliest decades of Church history are both the richest and most complex of any period from antiquity to this present day. If one desires to be radically Christian, a thorough understanding of the Jewish origin of the Church is, by no means, optional; it is foundational. Ron Moseley has provided a great service for his readers by helping them to sort out the key players, struggles, and issues which emerged during this revolutionary period. Regrettably, many Christians think and live as though their Christian faith was invented out of whole cloth, like it came directly out of Heaven on a parachute. By using an abundance of Scriptures and other valuable sources, and by carefully outlining his work, Ron Moseley sets forth with clarity the Jewish background of the emerging first-century Church. Written as a study text with useful review questions at the end of each chapter, Yeshua: A Guide to the Real Jesus and the Original Church is must reading for all serious students desiring to explore the historical and biblical linkage between synagogue and Church. I enthusiastically recommend this enlightening study of origins.

Marvin Wilson, Ph.D.

Ockenga Professor of Biblical Theological Studies

Chairman of the Department of Biblical Studies

Gordon college, Wenham, Massachusetts

Preface

The primary problem that arises in the historical analysis of the proto-rabbi, proto-Judaism, and the practices of the early Church (the pre-A.D. 70 period) is that previous histories of Christianity have generally left out the Jewish factor. By beginning their research with the later second- and third-century Church, after it became predominantly a Gentile organization, they have lost the history of the first hundred years and the necessary understanding of Jewish roots. Many difficult Hebraic phrases and theological dilemmas can be understood by investigating the original Jewish context of the early Church.

Today, scholars agree, on the most basic level, that Jesus was a Jew who was born, lived, and died within first-century Judaism. His teaching methods, parables, proverbs, and symbolic style were characteristic of the Judaism of that day. Since both the Old and New Testaments are highly Hebraic, with the background, writers, culture, religion, traditions, and concepts being Hebrew, any analysis should be done from this perspective.

Although the assumption exists that because the New Testament was largely communicated in Greek, the study of its Greek roots should take priority over the Hebrew, contemporary scholars are turning with renewed interest to the Hebrew origins. Scholars Roy Blizzard, Jr. and David Bivin point out that 78 percent of the biblical text was written in Hebrew and only 22 percent in Greek.[1] Furthermore, when we add the highly Hebraic portions of the New Testament, such as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts 1–15, which account for some 43 percent of the New Testament, more than 90 percent of the Bible has a definite Hebraic texture. Aside from these startling percentages, all of it was written with a Hebraic mind-set.

The term proto means original and carries the idea of a prototype from which later editions followed. The most accurate method of analyzing the early Church is to investigate the earliest pre-A.D. 70 rabbis and their form of Judaism, of which both Jesus and Paul are examples. These early rabbis are known as proto-rabbis, and their religion was the proto-rabbinic Judaism of the period prior to the destruction of the Second Temple.

This book will show that the earliest Church and its first fifteen elders were Jewish and that the original organizational structure of the early Church came from the synagogal prototype. This investigation will examine major Jewish terms such as Torah, or Law, which, when communicated in the Greek mind-set, have been completely misunderstood. This study will show that the Pharisees of the first century were the orthodox fundamentalists who had within their camp both hypocrites and heroes. Finally, our study will suggest that the early Church was one of the many sects within first-century Judaism, which neither Jesus nor Paul ever tried to leave. Because the early Church remained within Judaism for the first hundred years, the proto-rabbi and the Hebrew culture are essential to understanding its organizational structure.

Although my personal convictions do not violate original Christian orthodoxy, I do believe that many scholars with varying doctrinal opinions are able to contribute to specific areas of research. Without permitting any to mold my theology, in this work I have used the findings of Jews, Christians, Trinitarians, non-Trinitarian, and liberals, as well as fundamentalists, when it was evident that their area of expertise was correct in investigating the truth concerning Church history. Although it would be a gross overstatement to say that everyone with an opinion should be quoted, it would be equally in error to leave out a scholarly review simply because it differed from my own.

Ronald W. Moseley, Ph.D.

Acknowledgments

As I reflect on those who have helped me so much in the preparation of this work, I feel a special debt of gratitude to my mentors in both Jerusalem and America who have for the past ten years permitted me to learn from them the details of the Jewish roots of the early Christian Church. These include Dr. Roy Blizzard, Jr., Dr. Marvin Wilson, Dr. Brad Young, Dr. Ken Hanson, and Dr. Jim Fleming. I also need to mention Dwight Pryor, President of the Center for Judaic Christian Studies, Dr. Rivka Fishman of the Hebrew University, and the faithful staff at the American Institute in Jerusalem. Some of these fine scholars were not officially members of my research committee; nevertheless, much of the credit for my research belongs to them. Without these scholars this project would not have been possible—although I will not hold them responsible for either the quality of my presentation or the conclusions I set forth.

Further acknowledgment is due to the people of Sherwood Bible Church, who have for many years unselfishly permitted me to study at major universities, both in and out of this country, for weeks at a time.

Introduction

Despite the multitude of volumes written about the history of Christianity over the past two millennia, there has long existed a sizable void concerning the Judaic nature of Jesus. This is due, in large part, to the changes each successive culture, from the first century on, has made to the his image to meet their needs. The practice of altering the image of Jesus has been so prevalent that one scholar lamented, “We are casting God in our own image.”[1] Since the end of the first century there have been a minimum of ten different “official” images of Jesus. A brief review of these shows why it is so necessary to understand the Jewish roots of Christianity and to recognize the significance of these roots to obtain an accurate perception of God.

During the first century, Jesus was one of many proto-rabbis teaching within the framework of pre-A.D. 70 Judaism. Although his message was similar to others, his mission and persona were different in that he was the Lamb, the High Priest, and the Sacrifice. Without an understanding of ancient Judaic customs and teachings, one could easily be inclined to view Jesus and Paul as rebels or outcasts from normative Judaism. But what indeed was normative Judaism?

Research indicates that there were some twenty-six to thirty different denominations within first-century Judaism—including the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes, Herodians, Boethusians, Galileans, Genistae, Meristae, Hellenists, and Nazarenes. As many as twenty-four of these sects were considered, at one time or another, to be outside the mainstream because of their questionable teachings.[2] It was the custom for the more orthodox groups to punish or persecute the smaller sects, while simultaneously considering them to be under the broad umbrella of Judaism. Jesus alluded to this practice in Matthew 10:17, when he mentioned that his disciples would be scourged in the synagogues. Apparently much of what we think of as normative first-century Judaism was somewhat less than normative. From this standpoint, the fact that the doctrines of Jesus and Paul differed from some orthodox teachings wasn’t all that unusual.

Furthermore, Jesus was not the only proto-rabbi who performed miracles. Others, such as Honi Ha-Me’Aggel, also known as Honi the circle-drawer, and Hanina Ben Dosa, were famous for their miraculous feats, especially in curing the sick.[3],[4] The difference in Jesus’ miracles was more that of character than fact, for his had a uniquely Messianic quality to them. Also, many of the idioms Jesus used further identified him as the Messianic Ancient of Days and Son of Man to discerning Jews, though these are often missed by those not familiar with Hebraic concepts.

The fact is, nothing that Jesus said or did disqualified him from being a “normative” proto-rabbi of the first century. This is evident in the New Testament where he is often called Rabbi by both Pharisees and disciples alike (see John 1:38, 49, 3:2, 26, 6:25 and 20:16). As David Flusser has pointed out, Jesus was actually claiming to be the redemptive factor of God when he identified Himself as the Son of Man. This expression is found not only in the New Testament, but also in the book of Daniel and the Jewish Apocrypha, in both cases referring to a seemingly superhuman judge who will sit on the throne of God and separate the righteous and the wicked to their eternal destiny.[5]

The first blurring of the true nature of Jesus may have been by the pseudo-Christian Gnostics, who portrayed him as a mystic teacher revealing the secret knowledge that would allow their spirits to rise above the physical contamination of this world. We find this concept today in some New Age teachings. Others saw Jesus as only a wise sage or philosopher, recognized for his knowledge, experience, and foresight. This concept continues to exist among Unitarian Universalists.

During the Byzantine period (A.D. 330–640), the predominant image of Jesus changed from the humble proto-rabbi to that of a grand emperor resembling Constantine the Great. This image has been passed down to us in many preserved mosaics from that period. During the Medieval period (A.D. 476–1450), Jesus was portrayed as the drooping, defeated victim hanging on the cross. This was indicative of the vanquished religious attitude of the Middle Ages.

Today, there are still those who see Jesus as an ancient guru leading his disciples in techniques similar to other Eastern methods of mystic meditation. These groups rely on the New Testament quotation found in Matthew 6:22 as their proof text. The phrase “If your eye be single” which, from long before the time of Jesus, referred to a liberal giver, is said to point to an ancient non-Jewish meditation technique known as the third eye or the single eye. According to esoteric psychology, this single eye technique designates a place in the center of the forehead as the spot which is the center of our spiritual being. When focusing on that spot, an individual is believed to become spiritually illuminated.

This view has even become popular in some churches that have adopted the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas as their foundational Scripture, claiming it to be older and more accurate than the canonical Gospels. This collection of the supposed sayings of Jesus was found in 1947 among the Nag Hammadi Library in Upper Egypt. Many, including some scholars, believe that Jesus, along with other gurus, came primarily to teach mankind how to dispel darkness and point people to this “truth.”

Since 1906, men such as Albert Schweitzer taught that Jesus was an apocalyptic sectarian consumed with a vision of the end of the world. Schweitzer was a London physician, philosopher, and a biblical exegete who spent forty years as a missionary in Africa ministering to the poor and sick. He is known for his book The Quest of the Historical Jesus, in which he portrays Jesus as not knowing he was the Messiah, yet trying to hasten God’s ultimate triumph in the world by his death.[6] Although Jesus was indeed apocalyptic and a sectarian, as were most Jews of the first century, Schweitzer’s lack of information concerning first-century Judaism and the Jewish idioms used by Jesus resulted in a gross distortion of truth.

In the United States, many people picture Jesus according to their successful, middle-class, American life-style. Some have even forsaken the darker Jewish look for the blond and tanned Hollywood-like appearance which is often displayed in modern art.

People of the Third World countries commonly see Jesus as the one who will liberate them from their oppression, much like the Jews of his day expected him to free them from the tyranny of Rome. The Jesus of Liberation Theology is a social activist siding with the poor and outcast against established governments and mainline religious institutions.

The thirst to recover the real Jesus out of this morass of distorted images has become so intense in recent years that two unique groups of scholars, representing nearly all mainline denominations, have come together to find the “actual words of Jesus.” The first team of scholars, known as the Jesus Seminar, meets several times each year to examine the Gospels verse-by-verse and vote on which statements are authentic and which were added later as editorial liberties of the copyist. This is not only flagrantly arrogant, but will eventually result in a totally new text consisting only of what they believe Jesus said, thereby conveying the Church’s view of Jesus rather than Jesus’ view of the Church.[7]

Fortunately, the second group is focusing more on understanding the real meaning of the Spirit-inspired words of Jesus, rather than declaring certain ones to be invalid. This group, known as the Jerusalem School for the Study of Synoptic Gospels, began as the collaboration between Professor David Flusser of Hebrew University and Robert Lindsey, who pastored the Narkis Street Baptist Church in Jerusalem for more than forty years. Both men were specialists in biblical Hebrew and Greek, one a Jewish scholar and one a Christian. As they began working together, they quickly realized two things: First, the canonical Gospels were extremely reliable; and Second, many difficult statements and phrases which made no sense in Greek could be perfectly understood when put back into the original Hebrew undertext and context. This approach has paved the way for many significant insights into the real nature of the gentle proto-rabbi we know today as our Savior and Lord.

Because of the Jewish underpinnings of both the historical figure named Jesus and the early Church he founded, it is impossible to do any meaningful historical analysis without a critical review of the proto-rabbi and the first-century Jewish roots. This book probes five areas of knowledge that will significantly increase understanding of Jesus Christ and his true Church: the commonly ignored fact that the Church was totally Jewish, long before it became the Gentile institution of today; the fuzzy picture of the organizational structure of the early Church, specifically in relation to its synagogue counterpart; the nearly complete absence of any knowledge concerning Jewish idioms used by Jesus; the difficulty understanding the purpose and requirements of the Torah (Old Testament Law), particularly pertaining to Christians; and the distorted image many have of the Pharisees.

CHAPTER 1

Evidence of the Jewish Background of the Early Church

Jewish Leadership in the Early Church

Contrary to what some believe, the first fifteen bishops of the original Church at Jerusalem were Jewish. In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius tells us that “The church at Jerusalem, at first formed of the circumcision, came later to be formed of Gentile Christians, and the whole church under them, consisted of faithful Hebrews who continued from the time of the apostles, until the siege of Jerusalem.”[1]

In his second-century historical work, Hegesippus describes the rivalry between a man named Thebouthis and others, seeking the position of bishop after the death of James, who was said to be the first pastor at Jerusalem.[2] According to Hegesippus, the Hebrew Christians finally chose Simeon, a cousin of the Lord, to succeed James. Epiphanius lists the remaining thirteen Jewish pastors of the Jerusalem Church as Justus, Zaccheus, Tobias, Benjamin, John, Mathias, Philip, Seneca, Justus, Levi, Ephrem, Joseph, and Jude, completing the historical record all the way up to the Bar Kochba Revolt (A.D. 132–135).[3] These Jewish relatives of Jesus who led the early Church were called desposynoi, meaning “heirs,” and were often persecuted because of their Davidic lineage and their relationship to the Messiah.

During the reign of Hadrian (A.D.. 117–138), the Jewish nation was crushed in what came to be called the Second Jewish War. Jerusalem was renamed Aelia Capitolina by the Romans, and Jews were forbidden to enter the city for one hundred years. As these dramatic events were unfolding, many of the Hebrew Christians fled to the mountains of Pella, located in present-day Jordan, in obedience to Christ’s instruction found in Matthew 24:16. This left only Gentile believers in control of the Church for the first time, and they quickly appointed a man named Mark as Jerusalem’s first non-Jewish pastor.[4],[5] According to Baring Gould’s history, the community of believers in exile, led by James and Simeon, was still clinging tightly to the old traditions while crouched at Pella.[6]

The Influence of the Synagogue on the Organizational Structure of the Church

Since the Hebrew Christians were not completely removed from Jerusalem until well into the second century, for its first one hundred years, the Church remained very much a part of first-century Judaism, and its leaders stayed involved in many Jewish affairs. There was no immediate split from the synagogue, as evidenced by Jesus’ warning that some synagogues would punish his followers for preaching a different brand of Judaism (Matthew 10:17). We know that this scourging by synagogue leaders was not an abnormal part of normative Judaism since it is mentioned a number of times in early rabbinical literature.[7]

The structure of the local synagogues was carried over directly into the structure of the early Church. A president, deacons, a precentor (song leader), and teachers can all be found in both the synagogue and the early Church. We know from early sources that there were between 394 and 480 synagogues in Jerusalem during the first century, one being located within the precincts of the Temple itself.[8] This is undoubtedly why the early pattern of the Church had its origins in the Jewish synagogue. Note the following similarities between the ancient synagogue and the early Church.

The principal leader of a synagogue was the nasi or president. In the Christian congregation, the leaders were still called president rather than pastor, as late as A.D. 150, by such non-Jewish writers as Justin Martyr.[9] In the synagogue structure, three of these leaders would join together to form a tribunal for judging cases concerning money, theft, immorality, admission of proselytes, laying on of hands, and a host of other things mentioned in the Sanhedrin section of the Mishnah.

These men were known as the “rulers of the synagogue,” because they took on the chief care of things, a title mentioned several times in the teachings of Jesus (see Mark 5:3 and Luke 8:41). This practice was still in use among the Gentile congregations at Corinth under the apostleship of Paul, where he spoke of the court within the congregation (1 Corinthians 6:1–2).

The nasi was the administrator of the synagogue, and we know that James, the half-brother of Jesus, was the nasi of the early Church at Jerusalem. Early documents such as the Didache suggest that the churches in Asia Minor and Greece treated the Church at Jerusalem with much the same authority as the synagogues did the Sanhedrin.[10],[11]

There also was a public minister of the synagogue, called a chazan, who prayed, preached behind a wooden pulpit, and took care of the general oversight of the reading of the Law and other congregational duties. He did not read the Law, but stood next to the one who did, to correct and oversee, ensuring that it was done properly. He selected seven readers each week who were well-educated in the Hebrew Scriptures. The group consisted of one priest, one Levite, and five regular Israelites (Luke 4:16). The terms overseer of the congregation, angel of the church, and minister of the synagogue all referred to this position.[12]

There were also three men known as almoners or parnasin who cared for the poor, distributed alms and were expected to be scholars of the Scriptures. Since they were also known as gabbay tzedakah, it may be from this function that we get the modern position of deacon. Some scholars hold that it was from these seven, the president, the ruler, the overseer, the chazan, and the three parnasin, that the idea of selecting “seven good men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom” came about (Acts 6:3). These men were appointed over the business affairs of the Church so the apostles would not have to be distracted from their study of the Scriptures and prayer.

In Jewish literature the question is asked, “Who is a scholar worthy of being appointed Parnas?” The answer is: “He who is asked about a law from any source, and is able to give an answer.” [13] In modern times the Jews use this term to refer to a lay person, who is also called an elder.

Another function in the ancient synagogue was the shaliach, or announcer. From this position we derive the term apostle, meaning one who is sent forth to announce the gospel, a role equivalent to that of our modern missionaries. There was also the maggid, a migratory evangelist of the first century who spoke to various congregations. Additionally, the batlan was a scholarly teacher, who was either independently wealthy or on some type of support. He would be available to answer questions. Each congregation needed at least ten batlanim in every congregation of one hundred and twenty members. There was even a tradition that a synagogue service could not commence without ten men present. [14] Jesus may have been referring to this tradition when he said, “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20).

There was also the zaken, a word meaning “old,” more in the sense of maturity than age. This person provided counsel to the people and was similar to a modern-day pastor or elder. In Judaism, those who had reached the age of forty were considered to have attained understanding, and those who were over fifty were considered worthy to counsel the younger people.[15] The rabbi was a prophet after the manner of the post-exilic prophets of Judaism. He carried the responsibility of reading and preaching the Word, exhorting and edifying the people (see 1 Corinthians 14:3). There was also an interpreter, known as the meturgan. This was a person skilled in languages, who stood by the one reading the Law or teaching in a Bet Midrash (a house of study) to interpret into the lingua franca of that day the Hebrew that was being spoken. The use of an interpreter goes back to the time of Ezra, when the interpreter was said to have added the meaning. The Talmud gives many details of the interpreter’s duties in the synagogue.[16] It is from this concept that we understand Jesus’ words, “What you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops” (Matthew 10:27, NKJV). This phrase was easily understood by those who were familiar with the system of study in the Bet Midrash, where the teacher would literally speak the message in the interpreter’s ear, who would then shout it out to others, both inside the classroom and out.

Jewish Customs in the Early Church

Besides the organizational structure of the early Church having its roots in the synagogue, many of its customs were also Jewish. All of the initial Christians were Jews either by birth or by conversion, and apparently there were no Gentile members for at least the first ten years. This conclusion is implied by several texts, including Acts 10, where, approximately ten years after his ascension, the Lord had to instruct Peter three times to go into the house of a Gentile. This strongly suggests that the Jewish Church had been meeting house-to-house and breaking bread only in Jewish homes up to that time (Acts 2:42–46). Furthermore, when Peter entered the house of Cornelius, he explained to his household that he still understood it to be unlawful for a Jew to enter the house of a non-Jew (Acts 10:28).

Further evidence of the Jewishness of the early believers can be found in an incident recorded in Acts 21:20, an incident which occurred some twenty-five years after the Lord’s ascension. When Paul returned to Jerusalem with some charitable contributions for the believers, he was told that during his absence many thousands of Jews had become believers, yet they continued to be staunch upholders of the Law.

Hebraic Names for the Early Church

Not only were the first fifteen elders of the Jerusalem Church Jewish, but so were the initial names applied to the early congregations. The term Minim, meaning “heretics” in Hebrew, was used by some in the Jewish community to describe the new believers. The Way, used in Acts 24:14 and 22, was a Messianic term taken from texts such as Isaiah 40:2, which refers to preparing “the way of the Lord.” The Nazoraioi is Greek for Nazarenes (Acts 24:5) and is obviously derived from Jesus’ Jewish hometown. The term Messianists is derived directly from the word Messiah. Epiphanius’ history says that before the believers were called Christians, they were for a short time known by the title Iessaioi, probably derived from the name Jesus,[17] a name saturated with the idea of salvation. Each of these names has a Hebraic background and is closely related to an Old Testament text.

The word Christian does not come from the Hebrew word for Anointed One but from a Greek word, and was not used by the Jerusalem Church at all. Christian was first used as a Gentile title for the believers at Antioch some forty to forty-five years into the first century (Acts 11:26). The phrase “were called” suggests that the name was coined by those outside the Church, perhaps to distinguish the disciples of Christ from unconverted Gentiles, as well as from other branches of Judaism. There is no evidence that the term was used extensively as a self-designation by the early Church, since it is only used three times in the New Testament and only once by a believer (see Acts 11:26, 26:28, and 1 Peter 4:16).

The word Christian does not appear consistently as a self-designation until the Didache,[18] and was used later by Ignatius during the late first or early second century.[19] The reason this term was not used earlier may be explained by a letter from the Roman Governor Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan around the year A.D. 112. The letter indicates that those identifying with this name were killed.[20]

In examining the Jewish roots of the Church, it is important to differentiate between the Hebrew Christians, such as the Nazarenes and Messianists at the beginning, and the Ebionites with their Judaizing traits, who were active around the turn of the first century. The early Hebrew Church was composed of those who believed in justification by faith, as well as those who stressed traditions that involved legalism. Although most Jewish believers continued to keep the Sabbath and the various laws that differentiated them from non-Jews, strictly as an identification code, they did not require it for their non-Jewish converts. This identification as a Jew had nothing to do with salvation, but was kept by Jews as a reminder of the special eternal Covenant that God had made with them as a chosen people. The Covenant reminded God’s people that they were the guardians of the Holy Land and were obliged to maintain and preserve the Law (see Genesis 15:18, 17:7–10, Deuteronomy 7:6, Psalms 105:45, Ezekiel 16:6, Isaiah 44:1 and Romans 3:1–2).

After an investigation of all Scripture relating to Israel, it appears that the chosen people status was not awarded as a special privilege, but because the people of Israel could be trusted to preserve the Law of God (see Psalm 105:45). Although some 170 of the 613 laws of the Torah apply to moral and ethical matters, few Christians recognize them as a part of modern theology and it has fallen to the Jewish people to preserve this aspect of God’s Law until the present.

Chapter 1

Study Questions

1. Early records show that the early Church was an active part of Judaism and that the first __________________ bishops were Jewish.

2. Hegesippus, in his second-century history, describes the early rivalry between a man named __________________ and others, seeking the position of bishop after the death of James, the first pastor at Jerusalem.

3. The Hebrew Christians chose ________________, who was a cousin of the Lord, to succeed James as the pastor of the Jerusalem Church.

4. The Jewish relatives of the Lord who led the early Church were called _________________.

5. During the first and second Jewish revolts (A.D. 66–70, A.D. 132–135), many Hebrew Christians obeyed Christ’s command in Matthew 24:16 and fled to the mountains of _________________.

5. The first non-Jewish pastor of the Jerusalem Church was named _______________ and did not take office until the end of the reign of ___________________ (A.D. 117–138).

6. The __________ by synagogue leaders was a part of normal Judaism and was not only expected, but is commonly mentioned in early rabbinical literature (Matthew 10:17).

7. The leader of Christian congregations as late as A.D. 150 was still called _________________ instead of pastor by such non-Jewish writers as Justin Martyr.

8. Much information on how the early Jewish/Christian congregational court system worked can still be studied in the _________________ section of the Mishnah (1 Corinthians 6:1–2).

10. According to early sources, there were between _____________ and __________________ different synagogues in Jerusalem during the first century.

11. The public minister of the synagogue preached behind a wooden pulpit, and took the general __________________ of reading the Law and other congregational duties. He did not actually read the Law, but stood by to correct or ________________ that it was done properly.

12. Each week ___________________ readers of the Law were selected. These consisted of one priest, one ________________, and five regular Israelites who were well-educated in the Hebrew Scriptures (Luke 4:16).

13. Some scholars hold that the original “seven good men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom” who were appointed over the early business of the Church, were the same as the seven leaders of the first-century synagogues. These included president, ruler, _____________, chazan, and three ____________________.

14. These men were also known as the gabbay tzedakah, from which we get the modern idea of .

15. In modern times the Jews use this term to refer to a lay person who is often called an _________________.

16. From the synagogue function of the shaliach we get the New Testament idea of the _________________.

17. From the synagogue function of the batlanim we get the New Testament idea of the _________________.

18. In Judaism those who had reached ____________________ had attained understanding and those who were over ______________ were worthy of counseling the younger.

19. The interpreter was known as the ____________ and was skilled in languages and stood next to the one reading the Law or teaching in the Bet Midrash (House of Study) to interpret into the lingua franca of that day the Hebrew that was being spoken.

20. The idea of the interpreter goes back to the day of _______________, when the interpreter was said to have “added the ____________________.”

21. Jesus’ phrase, “What you hear in the ear, preach upon the housetops” (Matthew 10:27), related to this concept in the Bet Midrash where the students were taught the message by it being spoken directly into their___________________.

22. All of the initial Christians were Jews either by birth or by conversion, and there appears to be little or no record of any Gentile members of the early Church for at least ________ years.

23. As long as twenty-five years after the Lord’s ascension, there were thousands of Jewish believers in the original Church who continued to be staunch upholders of the __________ (Acts. 21:20).

25. The first believers were called by several Hebrew names, including the Minim and the Nazoraioi, before being labeled by the Greek term ________________________ some forty to forty-five years into the first century (Acts 11:26).

25. The first time the word Christian appears as a self-designation is in the ___________________ and later by Ignatius during the late first or early second century.

Chapter 1

Study Questions

1. Early records show that the early Church was an active part of Judaism and that the first __________________ bishops were Jewish.

2. Hegesippus, in his second-century history, describes the early rivalry between a man named __________________ and others, seeking the position of bishop after the death of James, the first pastor at Jerusalem.

3. The Hebrew Christians chose ________________, who was a cousin of the Lord, to succeed James as the pastor of the Jerusalem Church.

4. The Jewish relatives of the Lord who led the early Church were called _________________.

5. During the first and second Jewish revolts (A.D. 66–70, A.D. 132–135), many Hebrew Christians obeyed Christ’s command in Matthew 24:16 and fled to the mountains of _________________.

5. The first non-Jewish pastor of the Jerusalem Church was named _______________ and did not take office until the end of the reign of ___________________ (A.D. 117–138).

6. The __________ by synagogue leaders was a part of normal Judaism and was not only expected, but is commonly mentioned in early rabbinical literature (Matthew 10:17).

7. The leader of Christian congregations as late as A.D. 150 was still called _________________ instead of pastor by such non-Jewish writers as Justin Martyr.

8. Much information on how the early Jewish/Christian congregational court system worked can still be studied in the _________________ section of the Mishnah (1 Corinthians 6:1–2).

10. According to early sources, there were between _____________ and __________________ different synagogues in Jerusalem during the first century.

11. The public minister of the synagogue preached behind a wooden pulpit, and took the general __________________ of reading the Law and other congregational duties. He did not actually read the Law, but stood by to correct or ________________ that it was done properly.

12. Each week ___________________ readers of the Law were selected. These consisted of one priest, one ________________, and five regular Israelites who were well-educated in the Hebrew Scriptures (Luke 4:16).

13. Some scholars hold that the original “seven good men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom” who were appointed over the early business of the Church, were the same as the seven leaders of the first-century synagogues. These included president, ruler, _____________, chazan, and three ____________________.

14. These men were also known as the gabbay tzedakah, from which we get the modern idea of .

15. In modern times the Jews use this term to refer to a lay person who is often called an _________________.

16. From the synagogue function of the shaliach we get the New Testament idea of the _________________.

17. From the synagogue function of the batlanim we get the New Testament idea of the _________________.

18. In Judaism those who had reached ____________________ had attained understanding and those who were over ______________ were worthy of counseling the younger.

19. The interpreter was known as the ____________ and was skilled in languages and stood next to the one reading the Law or teaching in the Bet Midrash (House of Study) to interpret into the lingua franca of that day the Hebrew that was being spoken.

20. The idea of the interpreter goes back to the day of _______________, when the interpreter was said to have “added the ____________________.”

21. Jesus’ phrase, “What you hear in the ear, preach upon the housetops” (Matthew 10:27), related to this concept in the Bet Midrash where the students were taught the message by it being spoken directly into their___________________.

22. All of the initial Christians were Jews either by birth or by conversion, and there appears to be little or no record of any Gentile members of the early Church for at least ________ years.

23. As long as twenty-five years after the Lord’s ascension, there were thousands of Jewish believers in the original Church who continued to be staunch upholders of the __________ (Acts. 21:20).

25. The first believers were called by several Hebrew names, including the Minim and the Nazoraioi, before being labeled by the Greek term ________________________ some forty to forty-five years into the first century (Acts 11:26).

25. The first time the word Christian appears as a self-designation is in the ___________________ and later by Ignatius during the late first or early second century.

CHAPTER 2

Jewish Idioms and Ideas in the Teachings of Jesus

Modern scholars have greater access to documents and research relating to first-century Judaism than at any other time in history. Many scholars, who only a few years ago were trying to disprove the Bible, are now working together to gain a better understanding of the ancient culture in which Jesus lived. Archaeological funds have become so plentiful that some have hailed these times as the beginning of a golden age of biblical archaeology.[1]

New discoveries, scrolls, and cultural data abound, such as the 1968 discovery of a crucified man outside Jerusalem whose wounds were strikingly similar to those of Jesus described in the Gospels. In 1961, an inscription was found at Caesarea Maritima, confirming that Pontius Pilate was the Roman prefect headquartered there. In 1985, at low tide during a period of drought, a first-century fishing boat was found on the west bank of the Sea of Galilee near Magdala. In 1990, the tomb and ossuary of Caiaphas, the high priest during the time of Jesus, were found in Jerusalem. Recently, new excavations have concluded that Sepphoris, an ancient capital just an hour’s walk from Nazareth, was a cosmopolitan city that would have exposed Jesus to the Greek culture, as well as the most advanced scholarship of his day.

All of these discoveries have not only given us further proof of the veracity of the Bible, but they have given us a greater understanding of the period in which Jesus lived out his life on the earth and further evidence of the Jewishness of his teaching. He was Jewish and his teachings reflect this Jewishness.

The church at Rome was admonished by Paul that the Christian faith was never intended to be a repudiation of its Jewish roots, but rather, the engrafted Gentile Church was actually a branch that grew out of these roots (Romans 11:18). He also asserted that the Jewish background of the Church was of great benefit because it was out of that Hebrew culture that the oracles of God were given (Romans 3:1–3). The essence of these teachings is that without Judaism there would be no Christianity.

Perhaps the most convincing evidence of the thoroughgoing Jewishness of Jesus is his method of teaching. Over the past fifty years, studies of the Jewish nature of the early Church have brought to light many new insights into the first-century documents, especially concerning the idioms and Galilean teaching methods of Jesus. This has largely come about by comparing the Jewish concepts revealed in such first-century documents as the Dead Sea Scrolls with portions of the Mishnah and various Talmudic references preserved from the Second Temple period. In the words of David Flusser, “Without knowing rabbinic parables, it is very difficult to leam what Jesus was teaching us with his Jewish parables.”[2]

Although volumes have been written on the Jewish idioms used by Jesus, in this book I will only provide ten examples of first-century Jewish concepts, ideas and idioms related to the life of Jesus and his disciples that authenticate the inherent Hebraic nature of the early Church and the Jewish teaching methods of Jesus.

The Tzitzit and Prophecy

The first Jewish idea, which is often missed in English translations of the Bible, concerns the story of a woman with an issue of blood, recorded in Matthew 9:20–21. Having heard that the Messiah was near, the woman said within herself, “If I may but touch His garment, I shall be whole.” The text indicates that it was specifically the hem of his garment that she touched, an important detail from an Hebraic viewpoint. The English word hem is a translation of the Greek word kraspedon, meaning “a tassel of twisted wool.” The woman was, in fact, reaching for the tassels on Jesus’ prayer shawl. In Hebrew, these tassels, which are attached to the corners of the prayer shawl, are called tzitzit. They were, and still are, worn by observant Jews in fulfillment of the biblical commandments found in Numbers 15:37–41 and Deuteronomy 22:12 and are intended to remind the people of God’s commandments.

In Numbers 15:38 the word translated “border” or “corner” is the Hebrew word kanaph, which can also be translated “wings,” as it is seventy-six times in the biblical text. For this reason, the corners of the prayer shawl are often called “wings.” Each tzitzit consists of five double knots and eight threads, a total of thirteen elements. This number added to six hundred, the Hebraic numerical value of the word “tzitzit,” points to the six hundred and thirteen commandments of the Torah.

In Jesus’ day, Jewish men wore a simple tunic called a halluq, both at home and at work. When appearing in public, they would cover their halluq with a large rectangular cloth which draped over the shoulder and fell to the ankles. This cloth was called a tallit and served as protection from the cold and rain. Hanging from the end of each of its four corners (wings) was a tzitzit in obedience to the biblical command. Through the centuries, during times of persecution, Jews were often forbidden to wear the tzitzit on the outside of their garments. This forced them to wear a small four-cornered tallit under their shirts. Today the prayer shawl is called a tallit.

During the first century there were several traditions associated with the tzitzit concerning Messiah. One was that these knotted fringes possessed healing powers.[3] Another, which has been passed down to later times, suggested that the tzitzit served as a sort of Jewish talisman or amulet.[4] Both of these traditions probably had their roots in the prophecy of Malachi 4:2, where the Messiah is said to be coming “with healing in His wings.” Certainly the woman with the issue of blood knew of these traditions, which would explain why she sought to touch the corner (the wings) of Jesus’ prayer garment.[5] The same word used in Numbers 15:38 for “corner” is used in Malachi 4:2 for “wings.”

With this understanding in mind, an ancient Jew, under the prayer shawl, could be said to be dwelling “in the secret place of the Most High and under His wings” (Psalm 91:1–4). When one realizes the significance of this concept to the first-century Hebraic mind, it becomes clear why this woman was instantly healed. She was expressing her faith in Jesus as the Sun of Righteousness with healing in his wings and declaring her faith in God’s prophetic Word.

Binding and Loosing

The second example is an idiom found in Matthew 16:19, where Jesus gives Peter the keys of the kingdom and says, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (NKJV). For years this text has been greatly misunderstood, causing much confusion throughout Christendom. In Judaism, however, it has long been understood to be a legal designation. During the days of Jesus, these antonyms were used to describe certain religious decisions: the term bind meant to forbid, and loose meant to permit. There are numerous examples of this in rabbinical literature.[6]

To understand this, we must know that first-century rabbis were constantly called upon by their communities to interpret scriptural commands. For example, the Bible forbids working on the Sabbath but does not define what specific activities constitute work. As a result, the rabbis ruled as to which activities were permitted on the Sabbath and which were not. They bound or prohibited certain activities and loosed or allowed others. Peter was given the keys, or the authority, to bind and loose concerning scriptural questions within the early Church. An example of this practice can be found in Acts 15, during the controversy over whether or not Gentiles should be admitted into the fellowship without first being circumcised. After the apostles and elders convened in Jerusalem, Peter showed an example of loosing when he ruled that both Jews and Gentiles were saved by faith, since circumcision was only a part of the Jewish Covenant (Acts 15:9). Then James, the pastor of the Church at Jerusalem, gave an example of binding when he required the believing Gentiles to abstain from the four characteristic practices of the pagans (Acts 15:13–20).

The Parable of the Reed and the Oak

The third Jewish concept is seen in a parable, when Jesus replies to the Jewish crowd in Matthew 11:7. Concerning John the Baptizer, he asks, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?” (NKJV). There was a well-known parable during first-century Judaism known as The Reed and the Oak Tree. Without an understanding of this parable it is difficult for us to grasp the imagery behind this passage.[7] According to the parable, a giant oak tree and a thin reed were both planted by the river. Whenever a storm came, the deep roots of the oak kept it firmly established, enabling it to withstand most winds. It could, however, be blown over by a wind of sufficient strength. There was nothing wishy-washy or compromising about the oak. The reed, on the other hand, would bend to the right or left, even with a slight breeze. The conclusion of the story was that the oak, because of its refusal to compromise, could end upon losing its life in the storm, but the reed, though it might survive, could only do so by continual bending. Jesus was clearly pointing to this familiar Jewish story when he asked, “Did you expect John to be a reed blowing in the wind?” In other words, “Did you expect this prophet of God to be a weak-kneed compromiser?” The Jews who heard this immediately understood what Jesus was saying and asked no questions.

Parables made up approximately one-third of Jesus’ teaching and, according to Mark 4:34, he did not teach without them.[8] Teaching with parables was a very common form of first-century Jewish teaching known as aggadah, and literally thousands of these ancient stories have been preserved. The Jews of Jesus’ day believed that legal references were for decisions, but aggadah was for inspiration.[9]

The Priestly Family

The fourth Jewish example is seen after the resurrection of Jesus, when Peter and John rushed to the empty grave. John 20:5 records that Peter went in immediately, but John stooped down and waited. The reason John hesitated was because he was from a family of priests, and according to Jewish law, he would have been defiling himself had he entered a room where there was a dead body. On another occasion John was permitted to enter the high priest’s quarters while Peter had to stay outside (John 18:15). In Acts 4:6 we are informed that John was a “kinsman” of the high priest.

Unfortunately, because several individuals in the New Testament are named John, the text is unclear about which person is being discussed. Scholars are uncertain which John accompanied Peter to the tomb of Jesus, but there is general agreement it was this same John because of his behavior.

The Golden Vine

The illustration of the True Vine in John 15:1 is best understood by the fifth Jewish concept. At the time of Christ, a golden grapevine was draped across the four columns at the entrance to the Temple. Josephus records that its beauty was such that it was known as “a marvel of size and artistry to all who saw with what costliness of material it had been constructed.”[10] The Mishnah says that people would sometimes make a freewill offering by purchasing a golden leaf, berry, or cluster which the priests would then attach to this vine.[11] Often those who gave generously to the Temple had their names inscribed on the golden leaves. This was a custom that all were familiar with in Jerusalem. When Jesus depicted himself as the true vine, he was undoubtedly contrasting himself with this artificial vine, suggesting that if the disciples would offer themselves to him to the degree that people offered their substance to this golden symbol, the result would be abundant spiritual fruit.

Disqualifying the Servant

A sixth example is found in Mark 14:47, where Peter cuts off the ear of a servant of the high priest. This was not just an ordinary servant, but was actually the chief assistant to the high priest known as the segan hacohanim. Western theologians often suggest that Peter’s intention was to take off the servant’s head. Actually Peter did exactly what he intended to do, for according to Judaic law, to lose an ear not only shamed the servant, but also disqualified him for service in the Temple. The basis for cutting off the ear was known by all those Jews present, having been derived from Leviticus 21:18–21, which declares that no man with a blemish can work among the Temple projects. According to the Septuagint, a man with such a blemish could not come near the offering.

Peter was actually not doing anything particularly new. There are several other similar incidents in history. In 40 B.C., for example, Antigonus, a Persian candidate for high priest, had the ear of his uncle, Hyrcanus II, cut off to shame him and disqualify him for the office. During the reign of Herod the Great this happened more than once, and Josephus mentions it in his history of the first century.[12] The Mishnah gives details of the practice, saying it was actually the ear lobe that was cut off.[13]

Kal-ve-chomer

A seventh example involves the text where Jesus instructs, “If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell” (Matthew 5:29–30). This verse, which seems absolutely absurd when taken out of its Jewish context, is a clear example of one of the most common Jewish teaching methods of Jesus’ day, a method known as kal-ve-chomer, “light and heavy.”

This method was used by Jesus repeatedly to contrast the two stages of sin, the first stage being the lighter and the second stage the heavier (see Matthew 23:23). The purpose behind this was to teach the principle that if we nip a sin in the bud while it is still in the light stage, or as Jesus says, “pluck it out or cut it off,” it can be prevented from ever reaching the far more destructive heavy stage. Wording similar to that used by Jesus can be found frequently in ancient Jewish literature, where a phrase such as, “The hand that promotes self-abuse among men, let it be cut off,”[14] simply refers to stopping the act at an early or light stage, not the actual cutting off of a hand.

Secondary Burial

The eighth example is taken from Matthew 8:21–22, where a disciple asks Jesus to let him first go bury his father before continuing his ministry. The seemingly piercing rebuke of Jesus was not aimed at this disciple’s care for his father, but toward a Jewish tradition concerning burial which violated the Scripture. This tradition required the body of the deceased to be placed in the ground on the day of his death (see Deuteronomy 21:22–23, John 19:31 and Acts 5:6–10). This was the first burial.

The family then observed a seven-day period of mourning called shivah, during which they were not even permitted to leave the house. After the body was placed in the burial chamber, it was left to decompose. The Jerusalem Talmud says, “When the flesh had wasted away, the bones were collected and placed in small chests called ossuaries. After the flesh had gone from the bones, and the bones were placed in the ossuaries, the son stopped mourning.”[15]

This transfer of the bones to an ossuary was known as the secondary burial. It was done by the oldest son, who took the bones either to the holy city of Jerusalem or to a family burial cave, where they were placed near the bones of their ancestors. This practice had become popular during the first century, but had an unscriptural concept behind it of which Jesus apparently did not approve.

Jesus’ disapproval was probably because of a corollary belief which held that the decomposition of the flesh between the first and second burials atoned for the sins of the dead person.[16] At the secondary burial, the son could rejoice as the bones of his father were laid with his ancestors, because only after the sinful flesh was off the bones were the sins atoned for.

Jesus was not hindering the son in his fulfillment of the fifth commandment, which required him to show his father due honor. But he was opposed to the secondary burial, which promoted the unscriptural idea that something other than the Messiah could deliver a person from sin. In all probability, the first burial of this disciple’s father had taken place a year earlier; otherwise he would have been in mourning and not with Jesus.

Some have suggested that this incident occurred just prior to the Feast of Tabernacles since Jesus and his followers were heading for Jerusalem. Perhaps the disciple thought that this would be a convenient time to transport his father’s ossuary to the holy city.[17]

Sounding the Trumpet

An idiom is the ninth example of Jesus’ Jewish teaching. Found in Matthew 6:1–4, Jesus warns the disciples about sounding the trumpet when giving their alms. The word “alms” was a synonym for a charitable gift given to the poor during the first century. Since he had previously declared that there would be a reward for charity and that he would bless all who participated, Jesus was obviously not against the principle of giving (see Deuteronomy 15:10).

Ancient Jews believed that the three virtues of prayer, charity, and repentance were the evidences of a heart which had truly turned from sin.[18] In the women’s court of the Temple, during the first century, there were thirteen collection boxes for alms. They were wide at the bottom and narrow at the top and resembled trumpets. These boxes made a very recognizable sound as the coins were dropped into them.[19] Often those Pharisees who wished to boast would drop a large number of coins in at once. This was called sounding the trumpet. It was this practice of letting everyone know how much they were giving that Jesus opposed.

The Good Eye

The final Jewish example is seen in the idioms good eye and bad eye, which Jesus used in Matthew 6:22–23. These were popular terms in ancient Judaism, but are often misunderstood by modern readers. In first-century Judaism the term good or single eye (aiyin tovah) meant that a person was generous. The bad or evil eye (aiyin ra’ah) meant he was stingy. A rabbi would say, “If a person gives a gift, let him give it with a good eye.”[20] During the first century, the rabbis in the school of Hillel taught that an individual who gave one-fortieth of his income had a good eye, but a person who gave only one-sixtieth of his income had a bad eye.[21] Everyone, of course, was expected to pay tithes (one-tenth of their increase).

Let me conclude this chapter by quoting the scholarly analysis of a leading professor in this field, David Flusser, as he affirms:

Jesus was a Jew in every way. Jesus was part and parcel of the world of the Jewish sages. He was no ignorant peasant, and his acquaintance with the Written and Oral Law was considerable.”[22]

Chapter 2

Study Questions

1. In the words of David Flusser, a leading scholar from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, “Without knowing_____________, it is very difficult to learn what Jesus was teaching us with his Jewish ________________.”

2. The “hem of the garment” mentioned in Matthew 9:21 was referring to the tzitzit or the border of the prayer shawl which in Hebrew meanas the same word as fringes or ______________________ (Malachi 4:2).

3. The tzitzit consisted of five double knots and eight threads making a total of thirteen. This number together with the Hebraic numerical value of tzitzit, which was _____________, pointed to the six hued and thirteen commandments found in the.___________________.

4. By the time of Jesus, Judaism had accepted the antonym of bind to mean _____________________ and loose to mean ___________.

5. A classic example of binding and loosing during the early Church is seen in Acts 15 during the controversy over whether Gentiles should be permitted into fellowship without first being._________________.After the apostles and elders convened in Jerusalem, Peter showed an example of when ______________ he ruled that both the Jews and Gen-tiles were saved by faith and that circumcision was only apart of the Jewish identification covenant (Acts 15:9). Then James, the pastor of the Church at Jerusalem, gave an example of ________________ when he required the believing Gentiles to abstain from four characteristic practices of the pagans (Acts 15:13 and 20).

6. The reference in Matthew 11:7 where Jesus makes mention 6. of John in the statement, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken in the wind?” was a common ____________ during first-century Judaism.

7. This parable was known as the ________________ and the Oak Tree, and the concluding principle of the story was that the oak tree, with its strong character, refused to_______________.

8. Parables made up approximately __________________ of Jesus’ teaching ministry.

9. During the Second Temple period, the participants gave free will offerings by purchasing a golden leaf, berry, or cluster on the __________________ vine in the Temple.

10. In Mark 14:47 Peter cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest in an effort to ______________ him as a man worthy of serving in the _________________.

11. The reason for cutting off the ear was known by all the Jews present and was derived from Leviticus 21:18–21, which states that no man with any ________________ could work among the Temple projects.

12. One precedent to this action was recorded in _______________ B.C.. when Antigonus, the Persian candidate for high priest, purposely had the ear of his Uncle ______________ cut off to shame him and disqualify him for the office.

13. Jesus’ words, “If your right eye offends you, pluck it out” (Matthew 5:29–30), is an example of the common teaching method known as____________________, going from light to heavy to make a point. This method was used to illustrate the concept of nipping sin in the bud before it totally destroys an individual.

14. The episode in Matthew 8:21–22 of the disciple asking permission to bury his father pertained to a ___________________ 14. burial, that was not necessary and was unscriptural.

15. The phrase “sounding the trumpet” in Matthew 6:1–4, was an ancient term used by the Pharisees when they wanted to __________________ by dropping a large number of coins into the ___________________-shaped containers.

16. The reference of the good eye was a Jewish idiom for a ____________ giver, while the bad eye was a term designating a _________________ giver.

17. The first-century rabbis said that an individual who gave _____________ of his income had a good eye, but the per-son who only gave _________________ of his income had a bad eye.

18. There were ______________ trumpet-shaped offering containers located in the _____________ court of the Temple complex.

19. The term alms was a synonym for ________________ to the poor during the first century.

20. Ancient Jews were taught that the three virtues of prayer, _______________ and _______________ were evidences of a heart that had truly turned from sin.

21. Archaeological funds have become so plentiful that some have hailed these times as the beginning of a new _____________ age of biblical archaeology.

22. In 1961 an inscription was found at Caesarea Maritima confirming that ______________________ was the Roman prefect with his headquarters there.

23. In 1985 during a low tide, a first-century fisherman’s _______________ was found on the west bank of the Sea of Galilee near ________________.

24. In 1990 the tomb and ossuary of ____________, the high priest during the time of Jesus, was found in Jerusalem.

25. According to Dr. David Flusser, “Jesus was a Jew in every way. Jesus was part and parcel of the world of Jewish ______________________________. He was no ignorant peasant, and his acquaintance with the Written and _________________________ was considerable.”

CHAPTER3

Misconceptions Concerning the Law

When the Church of the second and third centuries began to drift away from its Jewish roots, misconceptions developed concerning aspects of God’s Law, the Torah. This was due largely to the influence of Greek philosophy and pagan ideas.

The Goodness of the Law

The first misconception concerned the inherent goodness of the Law. The Greeks only had one word for law, which tended toward the negative and lacked the ability to convey the depth of the Jewish concept of Torah. To understand the cause of this error, it is necessary to examine the vast difference between the Greek concept of law (nomos) and the beloved Torah of the Jews.

To the Hebrew mind, the primary purpose of the Torah is to teach humanity how to hit the mark in life, as opposed to committing sin, to miss the mark. But because the Greek language had only the one term for law, whether speaking of the “law of God,” “the law of sin,” “the law of the Spirit of life,” “or the law of Christ,” it is often difficult to determine which law is being spoken of in the New Testament. In both the Babylonian cultural of the Aramaic language and the Hellenistic framework of the Greek, the word “law” had a negative connotation, as opposed to the positive image projected by the Hebrew word Torah.

The Aramaic word for law (dath) took on such an inequitable image that the story is told of a judge who corrected a wrong judgment by bending the law, the dath, to make a more just decision. To demonstrate that their law was never flexible, the people of Babylon flayed the judge, tanned his hide, and used it to cover the judgment seat to remind the next judge that the law was non-negotiable.[1]

The Law and Grace

The second misconception is that the Law and grace are opposites and that Torah was replaced by the age of grace. Once Torah is understood from the Jewish perspective, as instruction from God, this error is exposed. This idea was promoted primarily by those who adopted the false pagan view that the Jews were saved by works, while the Church was saved by faith. Many early Gentile believers mixed Gnostic ideas with their Christian theology and concluded that the God of the Jews was a harsh, legalistic God as opposed to the God of love described in the New Testament. The original Jewish Church understood Yahweh, the God of Israel, to be the one true God of eternity who is immutable, having but one plan of salvation in both the Old and New Testaments, a plan which involved faith in Messiah. In Daniel, written some six hundred years before Christ’s death, we see the Jewish concept of repentance and trust in Yahweh for mercy (grace), apart from any works of the Law (Daniel 9:18).

The New Testament: A Better Covenant

The third misconception is the idea that New Testament believers have a “better covenant” than God’s Law. The passages from the book of Hebrews, where this expression appears, are discussing the sacrificial system only, that is better in Christ, as God’s Lamb, as opposed to a literal lamb. The manifestation is better and has changed, but the covenant itself remains the same.

The Holy Spirit and the Law

The fourth misconception is that if a believer is led by the Holy Spirit he is not under the Law of God. This reasoning comes from a misapplication of the words of Paul in his address to the Galatians. There he reminds these believers that if they served the Lord by the Law of God and were led by the Spirit of God they would not be subject to the consequences of the law of sin (see Galatians 5:16–18). There are several verses concerning the law of sin in the writings of Paul to his Gentile congregations, which are often lifted out of context and applied to the Law of God.

Another example is found in Romans 6:14. Paul explains, “For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace” (NIV). The context demonstrates the reference is to the law of sin. This wording is sometimes confusing to modern readers, but in reading the entire chapter, one realizes that Paul has stated simply that a man becomes a servant to whatever law he yields to, whether to the Law of God or to the law of sin. As believers, we are instructed not to yield to sin and become subject to the law of sin, but, instead, to yield to the grace of God.

These four misconceptions suggest that in the early days of Christianity, a foreign concept of law, unknown to Jesus, Paul, or the early Church, with its Jewish perspective of Law and grace, crept in. But let us remember that in Paul’s day, the Tanakh (the Law, the Prophets, and the other Old Testament Writings) was the only Scripture the Church had. Both Jesus and Paul taught that believers should be guided by the Spirit of God into the fulfillment of the Law through faith and love. Although Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial or sacrificial part of the Law by dying on the cross, we still see the principles of the Law, such as the priesthood and the atonement, evidenced today in the ministry of the Church. In short, the manifestation has changed, but the spirit of the Law, which exposes sin and produces light and life, is still intended to be the center of New Testament teaching.

These misconceptions led to other erroneous misunderstanding of the Bible, particularly as it related to Jewish things.

Paul and the Law

The question is asked: What about Paul’s assault on the Law in his epistles? To answer this we must realize that Paul’s letters were addressed primarily to Gentile congregations. Clearly, with regard to personal salvation, Paul never taught that it had anything to do with the 613 Mosaic laws given to the Jewish people. It is understandable that Paul, apostle to the Gentiles, would get upset with those who have been called Judaizers. They hindered his work by requiring his Gentile congregations to keep Jewish customs as a prerequisite for salvation. Not once did Jesus or Paul stop, or even suggest that any Jew stop, keeping the life-style prescribed to them in the Law as a covenant people.

It should be noted that verses such as Mark 7:15, where it appears that Jesus is nullifying the Jewish dietary laws (when he points out the difference between physical and spiritual pollution), do not suggest that he abandoned the food laws given to all Jews. It should also be noted that many Jewish scholars of the New Testament, such as David Flusser, in his book titled Jesus, have concluded that Jesus as a Jew was faithful to the Law.[2]

Understanding Paul’s letters is similar to the game show Jeopardy, where contestants have the answers but not the questions. Because Paul’s epistles were written to correct misunderstandings among his Gentile converts, most of whom were not familiar with the ways of God, to the casual reader they sometimes appear to be against the Law of God. Actually, Paul only directs his seemingly

negative comments concerning the Law toward two groups: 1) those non-Jews who thought they needed to keep the Law for salvation and 2) some fundamentalist Jews who tried to make it a requirement that non-Jews keep the Law in order to be saved.

When a Christian suddenly becomes defensive at the mere mention of God’s Law, there is a temptation to ask, “Which law makes you uncomfortable?” Why should a Christian be put off by the Law, since the Law only condemns lawbreakers? Since the first century, the Church, for the most part, has misunderstood the Law, which both Jesus and Paul dearly loved and by which they both lived. There are at least three reasons for this distortion concerning the Law in the modern Church.

First, when the early Church gradually moved from Jerusalem to the West, many of the Roman converts who became church leaders retained certain of their pagan practices. As a result, these Roman leaders interpreted the Hebrew Scriptures in the light of their Greek background, imposing on the biblical text a non-Hebraic interpretive scheme. This had the effect of foisting incorrect information into the Church’s theology concerning God’s Law, information that was actually irreconcilable with the Word of God as taught by Jesus and Paul.

Second, Paul never attempted to start a new religion that opposed the Torah. His arguments that appear to be directed against the Law were actually against the misuse of the Law by those who were putting his Gentile congregations in bondage, teaching that keeping the Law was required for salvation.

Third, the teaching that the Law of God was superseded by, or in opposition to, the grace of God did not originate with Paul, but with a heretical sect called the Marcions and their interpretation of Paul’s writings.

Marcion, the Source of Much Confusion Concerning the Law

Marcion, who lived during the second century A.D., rejected the Old Testament completely. Having been greatly influenced by the Gnostics, he taught a demiurgic notion that the God of the Old Testament was cruel and a totally different God from the one revealed in the New Testament. He was so consumed with the belief that Paul’s message of God’s grace opposed God’s Law that he kept only an edited portion of Paul’s writings that agreed with his theology. Marcion’s view was so contrary to God’s Word that Polycarp, who was a student of John, called him “the firstborn of Satan.”[3]

Marcion went to Rome sometime around A.D. 139 and made a generous gift to the church. After examining his views, the congregation gave back his money and excommunicated him. Marcion subsequently founded his own church, which merged Gnosticism with orthodox Christianity, creating a theology that was sharply dualistic, violently antagonistic toward Judaism, strictly ascetic and celibate, and wielded a wide and destructive influence throughout Christendom. Unfortunately, some modern Christians have unknowingly endorsed his ideas.

Later, the Roman Catholic monk Augustine championed Marcion’s ideas about grace opposing God’s Law, and made them a significant part of his theology. At the time of the Reformation, men such as John Wycliffe, the first to translate the Bible into English, and Miles Coverdale, the translator of the first printed English Bible, were heavily influenced by Augustine. In 1514 Coverdale was ordained a priest and later entered the Augustine Monastery at Cambridge. The notion that grace was in opposition to Law was strengthened when the French Reformer John Calvin endorsed this position in his Institutes of Christian Religion, which became the guide for the reformed churches of Protestantism. Although these reformers did a great work in the area of faith, their mistaken idea of replacing the Law with grace has been the source of much confusion, even to the present.

In the New Testament, what appears to be the substitution of grace for Law is nothing more than a difference in the way God’s eternal principles of Law are manifested. In the Old Testament, the principle of sacrifice was portrayed through animals, but in the New Testament Christ is ever-fulfilling that dimension of the Law as the Lamb of God. Each time a life is redeemed, the spirit of the Law, with its principles of the sacrifice and priesthood of Messiah, becomes ever more evident than before.

The Law Was Only “Until John”

It is common to hear people point to the misunderstood phrase from Luke 16:16 and ask, “Doesn’t the New Testament say that the Law and the Prophets were only until John?” This question is usually followed by, “Aren’t we under the Age of Grace today?” But these questions only serve to demonstrate the shallowness and distorted understanding of many modern-day believers regarding the Law. Luke 16:16 is simply stating that the Law and the Prophets were the only Scripture in existence up to the time that John came on the scene. The implication is that God was soon to add more.

The New Testament, as we know it today, was not canonized until some one hundred and fifty years after Christ. Luke’s statement could not possibly mean that the Law of God had become obsolete, since it was used by the Church long after John the Baptizer had passed on. In fact, it is quoted from at least one 185 times in the New Testament. This is not to suggest that the writings of Luke were not inspired, only that it was not until approximately A.D. 200 that the New Testament was collected into a body of writings that were widely held to be authoritative and divinely inspired.

It is clear that Paul, like Jesus, never intended to be understood as replacing God’s eternal Law (see Matthew 5:17–20 and Romans 3:31). It is equally clear that Paul had strong feelings about his Gentile converts not having to live by, nor attain salvation through, the Law, which God had given as a covenant to the Jews (see 1 Corinthians 7:17–20).

The Letter of the Law

Jesus often instructed his disciples in the spirit of the Law, which actually goes beyond the mere letter of the Law. Examples of this can be seen in his warnings that when a married man lusts after a woman in his heart, he is already guilty of adultery, and if anyone calls a brother a fool, he places himself in danger of hell fire (see Matthew 5:19–30). These teachings go far beyond anything the Law ever stated.

Some may ask, “What was Paul’s intent when he taught that the letter of the Law kills?” (see 2 Corinthians 3:6). First, he did not mean that the Law of God is evil and will put people in bondage, as some have suggested. Paul kept the Law of God and encouraged Jews everywhere to do the same (see 1 Corinthians 7:18). We should remember, however, that this statement was written to the Gentiles at Corinth, not to Jewish believers. Even the best qualities of the Law of God have always been referred to as a “ministration of death” to those in sin, the purpose being that the very intent of the Law is to expose and define sin. For the Gentile converts to try to keep the Jewish life-style, without the godly and disciplined background, would have placed them under a burden that was neither necessary nor desirable.

In this context, Paul wrote “the letter of the Law kills”, but he went on to point out that “the spirit of the Law gives life.” He was addressing salvation to the Gentiles, and concerning this issue, the letter of the Law is death, for only through the Spirit can life come. The summary of Paul’s view is found in his statement to the Romans, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death....That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Romans 8:2, 4).

Great Christian Leaders And the Law

Was Martin Luther, the great reformer, against the Law? Not at all. In fact, he said, “The first duty of the gospel preacher is to declare God’s Law and show the nature of sin, because it will act as a schoolmaster and bring him to everlasting life which is in Jesus Christ.”[4] John Wesley said, “Before I preach love, mercy, and grace, I must preach sin, Law, and judgment.”[5] Wesley later advised a friend, “Preach 90 percent Law and 10 percent grace.” Charles Spurgeon, who is known as the Prince of Preachers, said, They will never accept grace until they tremble before a just and holy Law.”[6] Charles Finney, who is purported to have had an 80 percent success rate in his ministry, said, “Evermore the Law must prepare the way for the gospel; to overlook this in instructing souls is almost certain to result in false hope, the introduction of a false standard of Christian ex perience, and to fill the church with false converts.”[7] John Wycliffe, the Morning Star of the Reformation, said, “The highest service to which a man may attain on earth is to preach the Law of God.” [8] D. L. Moody, who is credited with making more than a million disciples for the Lord, put it in perspective, when he said, “God, being a perfect “God, had to give a perfect Law, and the Law was given not to save men, but to measure them.”[9])

Clearly, then, these great Gospel preachers understood a primary purpose of the Law. Paul believed this, but he also saw other purposes in the Law.

The Purposes of the Law

If we were to ask the Apostle Paul why the Law was given and whether or not it has any purpose in today’s world, his answer would undoubtedly be: “That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19). The most significant tribute to God’s Law came from the Savior himself when he said, “Whosoever shall do and teach them [the commandments], the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19). The sad truth is that since the turn of the century, various corrupt ideas have been substituted for the teaching of God’s Law, resulting in the fulfillment of Mr. Finney’s three fears, mentioned in the last section.

Even in the New Testament, apart from its being the guideline for God’s covenant people, Israel, the Law has at least a ninefold purpose for all people. This is not to say that the entire Law applies to all people, for much of it was given only as part of God’s covenant with Israel. The following are some of the universal aspects of God’s Law:

First, the Law teaches believers how to serve, worship, and please God (see Psalms 19:7–9 and Acts 18:13–14).

Second, the Law instructs believers how to treat their fellow man, how to develop healthy interpersonal relationships (see Leviticus 19:18, Galatians 5:14 and 6:2).

Third, the Law teaches believers how to be happy and prosperous by manifesting the power and authority of God’s reign in their lives (see Joshua 1:8, Psalms 1:1–3 and Luke 12:32).

Fourth, the Law measures a man’s deeds toward both God and his fellow man, revealing ways that are contrary to sound doctrine (see 1 Timothy 1:8–10,2 Timothy 2:5,1 Corinthians 6:1–12,3:13, Romans 2:12 and Revelation 20:12–13).

Fifth, the Law is a schoolmaster, leading us to Jesus, our Messianic justification (see Galatians 3:21–24 and Romans 3:19).

Sixth, the Law gives knowledge about and reveals the depth of sin (see Romans 3:20, 4:15, 7:7–8 and Luke 20:47).

Seventh, the Law reveals the good, holy, just, and perfect nature of God and serves as the universal standard of his will for man (see Romans 2:17–18, 7:12 and 2 Peter 1:4).

Eighth, the Law is to be established or accomplished through faith; hence, it is called the Law of faith (see Romans 3:27 and 31).

Ninth, the Law is written in our hearts by the indwelling Spirit, whom we can delight in and serve (see Romans 7:6–25).

The Curse of the Law

Phases such as “the curse of the Law,” “the bondage of the Law,” “works of the Law,” and “under the Law,” are better understood as consequences that comes upon those who violate God’s Law. There is no curse of the Law on anyone except, as Paul said, those who misuse it (1 Timothy 1:8). Remember, the phrases “under the Law” and “works of the Law” were only used by Paul when addressing Gentile congregations who had been mistakenly taught that they had to keep the Law of the Jewish covenant to be saved. It would be the worst of mistakes to believe that Paul taught that God’s Law was bad, especially since he clearly taught that the Law properly understood was “holy Just, and good” (Romans 7:12).

C. Cranfield, in his article “St. Paul and the Law,” points out that the Greek language of Paul’s day had no words corresponding to our modem words legalism, legalist, or legalistic. In view of this he concludes, “We should always be ready to reckon with the possibility that Pauline statements, which at first might seem to disparage the Law, were really directed not against the Law itself but against that misunderstanding and misuse of it...”[10] It is wrong to assume that such terms as “under the Law” and “bondage” refer to a person’s obedience to the good and godly precepts of God’s Law. Let us understand that Paul’s statements referred to those who were in subjection to the system that perverted the Law into legalism.

In his book Restoring the Jewishness of the Gospel, David Stem points out that the “curse of the Law” is not the curse of having to live within the framework of the Law, for the Law itself is good, but rather it is the curse for disobeying it (see Galatians 3:10 and 13).[11] The Apostle Paul points out that the curse falls on those individuals who try to obey the Law through efforts of legalism (see Galatians 3:11–12). This idea becomes clear when we realize that legalism is already disobedience, since the Law itself requires genuine obedience to come as an act of faith (see Habakkuk 2:4).

Chapter 3

Study Questions

1. The Greek word for law conveys both a weak and _________________ concept that was lacking in its ability to convey the depth of the positive Hebrew notion of Torah.

2. The Hebrew word for law—torah—portrays the image of God’s ________________ so we can hit the mark of life as opposed to the opposite idea of sin, which is to miss the mark.

3. Because the ancient Greeks only used _____________ term for law whether speaking of the Law of God, the Law of Sin, the Law of the Spirit of life, or the Law of Christ, it is difficult to determine which ________________ is being ad-dressed.

4. Many early Gentile believers mixed Gnostic ideas with their theology, concluding that the God of the Jews was a ________________ and __________________ God, different from the God of love in the New Testament.

5. This theory was promoted by those who mistakenly adapted the pagan view that the Jews were saved by _______________, the Church by _____________.

6. The original Jewish Church understood Yahweh as the one true God of all time who is immutable with one plan of salvation in both the Old and New Testaments, which required __________________ in the coming Messiah.

7. In Daniel, written some 600 years before Christ’s death, we see the Jewish concept of repentance and trust in Yahweh for mercy (grace) without _______________ of Law (Daniel 9:18).

8. The message of the Book of Hebrews, concerning “a better 8. covenant,” is referring to the _____________ system that is only better in Christ as the Lamb instead of a literal lamb. The ______________ is better and has changed, but this is the same covenant.

9. Paul is referring to the negative law of _________________ in texts such as Romans 6:14 and never refers to the Law of God as evil. The negative phrase “under the Law” applied to those who had violated God’s Law and fallen prey to the consequences.

10. Both Jesus and Paul taught that believers should be guided by the Spirit of God to fulfill the _______________ through faith and ________________.

11. The question is asked, What about Paul’s assault on the Law in his epistles? All the letters of Paul were addressed to predominantly __________ congregations, which, regarding salvation, had nothing to do with the 613 Mosaic laws given as the ________________ of the Jewish people.

12. It is understandable that Paul, apostle to the Gentiles, would be critical toward those _________________ who tried to hinder his work by requiring his Gentile congregations to keep Jewish customs for ____________________.

13. It should be noted that verses such as Mark 7:15, where it appears that Jesus is nullifying the Jewish dietary laws (when he points out the difference between physical and spiritual __________________) do not suggest that he abandoned the food laws given to all Jews.

14. Even Jewish scholars of the New Testament such as David Flusser of the Hebrew University point out that Jesus as a Jew was __________________ to the _____________________.

15. When the early Church gradually moved from Jerusalem to the west, many of the Roman converts who became church 14. leaders retained certain of their _________________ practices. As a result, the Roman leaders interpreted the Hebrew scriptures in the light of their Greek background, often imposing on the biblical text a non-Hebraic interpretive scheme resulting in ______________ theology concerning God’s Law.

16. The teaching that the Law of God was superseded by, or in opposition to, the grace of God did not originate with Paul, but developed as a result of the interpretation of Paul’s writings by a heretic named ________________.

17. Marcion rejected the Old Testament completely and believed that the God of the Old Testament was a cruel and totally _________________ God. Marcion’s theology was so contrary to God’s Word that the great pastor Polycarp, who was a student of John, called him the “first-born of ______________.” Although Marcion was excommunicated from the early Church, some ______________________ Christians have unknowingly endorsed his ideas.

18. A Roman Catholic monk named _______________ championed Marcion’s ideas about opposing God’s Law and made them a significant part of the Roman church’s theology.

19. The notion that ____________ was in opposition to Law was strengthened when the French reformer John Calvin endorsed this position in his Institutes of Christian Religion, which became the guide for the reformed churches of ________________.

20. The phrase “the Law was only until John” (Luke 16:16) is simply stating that the Law and the Prophets were all the __________ there was at that time. The New Testament was not canonized until some _________________ years later.

21. Paul’s reference that the letter of the Law ________________ was never intended to suggest a negative aspect of the Law as is noted by some today. This statement was made to non-Jews in Corinth and referred to the ministration of ___________________ for all who transgress God’s Law and live in sin. Paul kept the Law of God and encouraged Jews everywhere to do the same (1 Corinthians 7:17–18). He also exhorted the non-Jews to live according to God’s Law that the righteousness of the _________________ might be fulfilled in them (Romans 8:2–4).

22. John Wesley advised a friend, “Preach ____________ percent Law and ____________ percent grace.”

23. Charles Finney, who is said to have had an 80 percent success rate in his ministry, said, “The Law must _______________ the way for the gospel; to overlook this in instructing souls is almost certain to result in false _______________, the introduction of a false _____________ of Christian experience, and to fill the church with false _________.”

24. John Wycliffe, The Morning Star of the Reformation, said, “The highest service to which a man may attain on earth is to preach the _____________________ of God.”

25. Jesus gave the greatest tribute to the Law by saying, “Whosoever does and teaches God’s ___________________ will be ________________ in the kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:19).

26. List and summarize the ninefold purpose of God’s Law.

27. The often misunderstood phrases such as “the curse of the Law,” “bondage of the Law,” “works of the Law,” and “under the Law” could be better understood as the ____________ of the Word of God that comes to those who _____________ God’s Law.

28. The Greek language of Paul’s day had no words corresponding to our modern words legalism, legalist, and legalistic. As a result, the Pauline statements which at first seem disparaging to the ________________ were actually directed against the _____________________ of it.

CHAPTER 4

The Old and the New: Different Covenants?

The New Covenant before Paul

Since the second century, Christianity has distinguished itself from Judaism by using the term New Covenant, leaving the assumption that the Old Covenant was the Old Testament. Along with this idea came the belief that Christians were not even to read the Old Testament. In part, this was due to misunderstanding Paul..

To combat the problem of keeping his Gentile converts from thinking they had to keep Jewish customs in order to be saved, Paul used the already familiar term New Covenant to enable his Gentile congregants to distinguish it from earlier expressions of the Covenant. Actually, the term New Covenant originated some six hundred years before Paul, when Jeremiah declared that God would make a New Covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah, which would not be broken, as was the one from Sinai. According to the prophet, this covenant would be written on the heart (see Jeremiah 31:30–31).

Before Paul spoke of the New Covenant, the Dead Sea sect at Qumran used the term to distinguish their remnant from mainstream Judaism. Scholars date the writings of this sect, the Dead Sea Scrolls, from 200 B.C. to the middle of the first century A.D. This very strict Jewish sect taught that they alone were the “true Israel” and that the New Covenant pertained only to them.[1] Later, Paul connected the term to God’s covenant with his Gentile converts, letting them know that they, too, were part of “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16). Centuries later, the Protestants separated themselves from the bondage of the Catholic Church, in the days of the Reformation, by using the same terminology. Unfortunately, Church history reveals that other religious groups have used such terms as “Law,” “bondage,” and “Old Covenant” as a whipping stick for whatever threatened their doctrines.

Jews and Gentiles: Different Covenants?

Do Jews and Gentiles have different covenants? Yes, the two covenants have always been different. This difference is between the identification covenant, which is for the Jews alone, and the everlasting covenant, which concerns salvation for both Jews and Gentiles (see Hebrews 13:20). Originally, God made a covenant with the people of Israel and told them that the keeping of the laws and traditions contained in it would separate them from other nations, as a testimony that they were his Chosen People (see Ezekiel 20:12, 20 and 34–38). It is quite clear in the biblical text that Israel had a special covenant with the Lord, because they kept his commandments, while other nations followed different deities (see Exodus 19:4–6, Deuteronomy 26:18-19, Jeremiah 7:22–23, Amos 3:2 and Ho-sea 13:4).

There are two aspects of God’s election of Israel as the Chosen People. The first is that God had chosen them because he loved them and was keeping his covenant with them (Deuteronomy 7:7–8). The second aspect is that God gave all nations the same possibility of becoming his people, but only Israel was willing to accept his Law, while the other nations rejected this opportunity. Although this is a rabbinic idea that was later developed in Talmudic, philosophic, mystical, and contemporary Judaism, the Encyclopedia Judaica points out that this idea has been a central theme throughout the history of Jewish thought and is deeply rooted in biblical concepts.[2] Such texts as Amos 3:2, Genesis 18:19, 2 Chronicles 16:9, and Psalm 105:45 all point to the special relationship between God and his people, through the keeping of his statutes.

The Noachide Laws

The covenant with the Jews was that they were to keep the Law of Moses as a godly life-style, to set them apart from the other nations. The covenant with the believers among the other nations was referred to as the Noachian or Noachide Laws.

The Noachide Laws are derived from the moral and spiritual principles established in Genesis 9:4–7, among other texts. These principles instruct humanity to avoid pagan practices and to serve the true God. From ancient times there have been Gentiles who became believers in the one true God and his Messiah and kept only the Noachide Laws rather than the 613 laws of Torah. Examples of these converts who became Noachides include Helena, Queen of Adiabene, and her son, Izates. There is also evidence that the powerful wife of Nero, Poppaea Sabina, was a God-fearer who lived by the Noachide Laws. Other references are found in Josephus, the book of Maccabees (from the Apocrypha), and several New Testament texts, such as Acts 13:16 and 10:22.

In his book Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, David Flusser asserts that these God-fearers accepted certain Jewish obligations, at least the Noachide precepts. Flusser emphasizes that the Noachide precepts were seen only as a minimal condition for Gentiles to be recognized as God-fearers, and that while the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) decided to lay no burden upon the Gentile believers beyond the Noachide precepts, it did not object to their voluntary observance of Torah.[3] Of course, it was understood that they also had to repent of their sins and endorse the concept of the Lord as their God, knowing that he provides a Redeemer, whom they trust as Messiah.

Flusser also points out in his book Jewish Sources In Early Christianity, that the ancient messianic beliefs of the Jews were reflected in the New Testament. He refers to various shades of Jewish messianic belief, including the image of the Bar Enash, the more-than-human judge, who is to sit on the throne of God and separate the righteous from the wicked, granting the righteous everlasting life and casting the wicked into everlasting punishment.[4] Ancient references to the eternal Messiah can be found in Luke 20:42, Daniel 7, Psalm 110, the 15th benediction of the Shemoneh Esreh, the ancient Prayer of Judith 9:11, and the Midrash to Psalm 43:1.

According to Aaron Lichtenstein, in his book The Seven Laws of Noah, even the ancient Jews recognized that the godly believers among the Gentiles who kept the Noachian commandments instead of the six hundred and thirteen laws of Moses had a part in the life to come.[5] Lichtenstein quotes texts such as Isaiah 54:8–9, which refers to the Lord their Redeemer showing mercy, as he did in the time when he established the rainbow covenant with Noah. The laws of Noah are essentially the same as the principles of the New Testament. They required Gentile converts to love their neighbor, avoid sexual sins, avoid pagan rites, avoid idolatry, and worship the one true God. The early Church leaders restated the Noachide Laws in Acts 15:28–29 as the “necessary things” required of the Gentile converts.

The original Church was one body made up of both believing Jews and believing Gentiles. They were united in Jesus, the Messiah, who broke down the wall of partition between them (Ephesians 2:14). The Acts 15 decision was regarding Gentile converts who had embraced the one true God and his Messiah, and these “necessary things” were the only part of the 613 Jewish laws required of Gentile converts.

Originally there were three Noachide Laws. These were expanded into a list of seven. A shorter listing of four categories also was used, as in Acts 15. In studying these laws one can actually find some sixty-six or sixty-seven biblical imperatives which are offshoots of these main categories.

Those Gentiles who lived by the Noachide Laws were called by various names, including: “Righteous Gentiles,” “Proselytes of the Gate,” and “God-fearers.” Jewish law divides all non-Jews into three categories: (1) Akkum, those who do not observe the Noachide Laws; (2) Ben Noah, those who do observe the Noachide Laws; and (3) Ger Toshav, those who declare before a Jewish court their intention to adhere to the Noachide laws and are permitted to reside in Israel.

While the Jews were expected to keep all of the 613 Laws of Torah, for identification as the Chosen of God, the believing Gentiles had a different system based on the Noachide Laws. David Stern, in his Jewish New Testament Commentary, explains that the New Testament is not actually a “new” covenant, but that the Law of God was given through Jesus the Messiah to the Gentiles, just as the original Law was given through Moses to the Jews, and that this is the actual meaning of Hebrews 8:6 concerning the term “better covenant.”[6]

The Origin of the Term “Law”

Concerning the origin of the word “law,” Roy Blizzard says, “The English word law is used to translate the Hebrew word Torah. Torah is the feminine noun from the root yarah. The root yarah means “to throw,” or “to shoot,” or “to cast” (as in the casting of lots), or “the shooting of arrows.” It also means “to point out,” or “to show,” as well as “to direct,” “to teach,” or “to instruct.” A moreh, in Hebrew, a teacher, is “one who throws out,” or “points out,” “directs,” “instructs.” Torah is direction or instruction. It sets forth the way man is to live. It instructs man as to how he is to live in an ethical and moral way among his fellow man and before God.”[7]

Christians today who suggest that the Law of God has been updated or abolished, as though it were some Athenian or Roman decree, have a misconception of the true definition of the Law. The Dictionary of Christian Tradition, published by Regency and Zondervan, defines God’s Law as “the will of God expressed in commandments of a positive and negative kind.” This source book goes on to say that the people of God “obey Him (and thus the Law), not to earn salvation, but out of gratitude and love for him.”[8]

This idea of obeying the will of God by our obedience to the principles already laid down in the Law is evidenced in Paul’s teaching to the Romans in chapter 12. The Hebrew word halakhah comes from the root word for “walk” and stresses the idea of teaching believers how to walk with and before the Lord. With Paul’s frequent use of the concept of the believer’s walk with God, it is sad that Christians have been taught that the only manual Paul had for describing this walk has been abolished.

Blizzard further states, “The idea of law in Hebrew is not something that, if transgressed, is going to get you zapped. Torah is instruction that, if followed, will enrich one’s life; if ignored, will diminish it.”[9] In the biblical text, Law is frequently viewed as that which God has commanded. The Hebrew word translated commandment is mitzvah, which comes from the root tzava, and actually means “to lay charge upon, or to give charge to. A mitzvah is a charge or a commandment.” According to Blizzard, commandments, when performed, designate the individual as moral and ethical, benefiting all involved and pleasing God[10]

Different Kinds of Laws

When one considers the subject of Law, there must be a differentiation between the various kinds of laws. The moral or ethical laws that are necessary for human beings to live together in harmony are known as mishpatim, which is generally translated “judgments.” The second group, the rituals and festivals which are intended to reawaken man to important religious truths such as the Sabbath, various feast days; the tefillin (placed on the head and hands) and the mezuzah placed on the doorposts, are known as edot, which is translated “witnesses.” The third group, known as chukim or “decrees,” refers to the moral, civil, and judicial laws.

According to modern scholarship, the English word “law” is a poor translation of the Greek word nomos, which Paul used frequently in his epistles.[11] The meaning and scope of nomos is far greater than the idea behind our English concept of law. Paul was 100% Jewish, and when he spoke of the Law, he was thinking in terms of Torah, the way of life for the believer.

The Problem With the Law

Blizzard writes that the Torah is a magnificent demonstration of God’s grace. He goes on to say, however, “The problem with Law is not that it is not good or spiritual, or holy. The problem is that we have problems keeping it. The Law is not weak; the Law is not imperfect. We are weak. We are imperfect. But, thanks be to God, we are declared to be righteous — in a right relationship with God — based not upon what we do but upon what he is. Jesus’ purpose was to establish God’s Torah among the Jews. Paul’s purpose was to extend forth God’s Torah to embrace the non-Jews. For both Jesus and Paul, Torah was grace.”[12]

Paul Remained A Faithful Jew

Only through the twists and turns of modern theology is it conceivable that Paul could have left his Jewish faith and practices when he began preaching to the Gentiles. Both the New Testament and ancient literature indicate that Jewish believers continued to keep the Jewish Law, with its many feasts and traditions. Jewish believers kept the Law, not for salvation, but to identify themselves as God’s chosen people. It was not until much later, during the time of Justin Martyr (A.D. 160), as the Gentile church began to flourish, that we begin to encounter Replacement Theology, the idea that the Church replaces the Jews as God’s chosen people.

Jesus, Peter, James, Paul, and John are known to have continually maintained respect toward the Law, which continued until the end of their lives. This attitude was common among believers as late as fifty to sixty years after the Ascension. There is not one instance where Jesus or Paul attacked the Law or any of its ordinances; they supported the Law as the Word of God. Believers in Messiah are commanded to walk by faith and to fulfill the Law by applying its moral principles to their relationships with fellow believers (see Matthew 5:17–20).

Paul told Timothy that the Law was good if an individual used it lawfully, and that the only ones who would be crowned or rewarded would be those who lived lawfully (1 Timothy 1:8 and 2 Timothy 2:5). He taught that he was not living without the Law of God, but was rather “under the law to Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:21). Before the high priest and Felix, Paul boldly proclaimed that those who accused him could not prove that he actually broke the Law. Then he confessed that he worshiped God and believed all things which were written in the Law and the Prophets. To make sure there was no misunderstanding, Paul reminded his listeners that he continually brought offerings and alms and went through the Temple purification(seeActs 24:13-20).

Dan Harrington, in his book Paul on the Mystery of Israel, affirms that “Paul never disavowed his Judaism. He never said, ‘I am no longer a Jew.’ In fact, at several points, he lists his credentials as a Jew (see Philippians 3:5–6, 2 Corinthians 11:22 and Romans 11:1l).”[13] Harrington further notes that one recent approach by scholars to understand Paul’s words involves viewing them in the context in which they were written.

In his epistles, Paul often used the language and slogans of his opponents, or at least of the people he addressed. One extremely significant concept that many modern believers seem to miss is that according to Paul’s writings, the Law was intended to direct people into a right relationship with others, while Christ alone, the redemptive factor of God, could bring about a right relationship with the Father.

Paul’s Conversation With James

It is particularly interesting to note the four points of discussion when Paul returned to the Jerusalem church and was confronted by James and the elders concerning several issues of the Law (see Acts 21:17–25). They are as follows:

1. The many thousands of Jews who believed were all zealous for the Law.

2. A problem arose when people were mistakenly informed that Paul was teaching Jews to forsake the Law and not circumcise their children. The point Paul had actually made was that Gentile converts were not required to keep the Jewish ritual laws. James was not critical of that, but he objected to anyone teaching Jews not to keep their identification covenant and traditions (Acts 21:21).

3. James declared to Paul that this misconception must be clarified immediately. It should be noted that Paul agreed 1. with James and did what was requested of him, proving his loyalty, as a Jew, to the Law (Acts 21:24). Unfortunately, many theologians still hold misconceptions about Paul and the Law.

4. The phrase, “as touching the Gentiles which believe,” suggests that there was a different standard for the Gentiles, and they did not need to identify with the Covenant as did the Chosen People. They were believers in the Jewish Messiah and had to respect the Noachide precepts, stressed at the Jerusalem Council, by avoiding pagan practices (see Acts 21:25 and 15:28–29).

Neither Jew Nor Gentile in Christ

Concerning the promises regarding individual salvation, Paul pointed out that there was “neither Jew nor Greek [Gentile], ...slave nor free,...male nor female,” but that all were “one in Christ” (Galatians 3:28). This does not mean that the Jews no longer existed as God’s Chosen People, any more than it means that there are no more women, no more slaves, or no more Gentiles. It is clear that Paul is speaking only about salvation “in Christ.” The same point was made to the Ephesians in showing them that in Christ there was no distinction or dividing wall (see Ephesians 2:14–19).

On the other hand, we would have to disallow many scriptures concerning promises to the Nation of Israel, to believe that there is nothing unique about this nation that embraced God and the polytheistic nations that did not. Israel is mentioned 2,293 times in the Bible, with at least 15 references to God’s everlasting covenant with them. In Ephesians 2:12 “the commonwealth of Israel” is used as an exalted phrase and in Acts 4:27, well after the beginning of the Church, Luke differentiates between the Gentiles and the people of Israel. Romans 3:1–2 tells us that there is “much advantage in every way” to being a Jew, especially because the oracles of God were originally from their people. With these points understood, one can easily see what Paul meant by his words, “Is any man called being circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called” (1 Corinthians 7:18, 20).

Those Under the Law Must Keep All of It

What did James mean when he wrote, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all?” (James 2:10) Some see this as meaning that a person must keep all of the Law of God or else the Law is of no use. Actually James was saying that if you break any part of the Law you have violated the Law as a whole, which of course is true of any body of law. What James was addressing in this chapter was trying to exercise faith in Jesus Christ while having sin in your life (James 2:1). Problems arise when believers fail to realize that the Law was not given as a means to salvation but to expose and remove sin from the life of people.

The incorrect idea that a person can live by faith without any rules, commit sin and claim “liberty” or “grace,” while simultaneously believing the Jews are under the Law, is the old heresy of antinomianism. The truth is, there can be no grace without Law, and all who are without the Law of God are under the sentence of death—because they are unable to recognize their sin. They, therefore, do not qualify for the grace of God (Romans 5:13-14).

James was not writing to the Jews only, but also to the Gentiles who thought they were living by a different “law of liberty” (James 2:8-14). He was saying that even the Gentile believers had to fulfill the royal law of the Scripture by loving their neighbor as themselves. This is the spirit of the whole Law: that each individual must be given due honor, lest we show discrimination and be judged for breaking the Law of God.

Fourth-Century Theology

It is obvious that neither Jesus nor Paul ever renounced Judaism, deviated from the Jewish faith, or attempted to start a new religion. At this point, a major question needs to be answered. If Jesus and Paul did not form a new anti-Jewish religion, who did?

A quick look at church history shows that as the church moved westward and away from its Jewish roots, the Roman church leaders of the fourth century developed theologies which virtually did away with all that was Jewish. The most fundamental change was the teaching that the Law was evil and stood in opposition to the grace of God.

By the fourth century, the Roman church had changed the church’s fundamental teaching of keeping the Law to a religion whose message avoided anything having to do with the term. Pseudo-Christian writers taught that the Law of Moses had been fulfilled by the coming of Christ, but they redefined the word “fulfilled” to mean abolished or canceled, which was the exact opposite of its true meaning as used by Christ (Matthew 5:18–19). To Jesus, as in the rabbinic literature of his day, to “fulfill” the Law meant to keep the Law and correctly interpret its teachings.[14] We can see from Paul’s writings that he also understood the phrase “fulfill the Law” to mean that the Law is only fulfilled through love for God and our fellow man (see Galatians 6:2 and Romans 13:10).

The new ideas opposing Law in Christianity began to spring up as early as A.D. 160–220 in the Roman African communities represented by Tertullian, and were spearheaded by popular speakers such as Bishop John Chrysostom in Antioch (A.D. 349–400). From the mid-second century through the seventh century, Roman theologians developed doctrine upon doctrine in opposition to authentic biblical teachings. Origen, for example, a third-century Christian philosopher, took Paul’s phrase “the letter of the Law,” and developed a completely new teaching on legalism. By suggesting a dichotomy between “the letter” and “the spirit,” he set the stage for the term “legalism” to become synonymous with Judaism, both of which he condemned.

Paul’s use of the phrase “letter of the Law” was solely against Judaizers who misused the Law, claiming it was the means of salvation even for Gentiles. He never criticized the Law of God as being legalistic. In fact, it was Paul who argued that before the Law death reigned and that the Law has dominion over believers while they live, because the Law is holy, just, good, and spiritual (see Romans 5:14 and 7:1–25). He insisted that the Law of God is the will of God, and that if we believe it, God will write it on our hearts, and it will be manifested in our lives (see Romans 2:17–18 and 207ndash;29).

Chapter 4

Study Questions

1. Since the ____________ century, Christianity has distinguished itself from Judaism by using the term ___________________ Covenant, leaving the assumption that the Old Covenantwas the______________________________.

2. Combating another problem, Paul used the term New Covenant to enable his Gentile converts to distinguish it from ______________ expressions of the covenant.

3. The term New Covenant actually had its origin some ____________ years before Paul with ________________ as he declared that God would make a New Covenant with the House of _______________ and ______________.

4. Before Paul, the Jewish group at __________ used the term New Covenant to distinguish their group from basic Judaism.

5. Later, Paul used this same term to describe his Gentile converts, adding that they too were the ________________ of God (Galatians 6:16).

6. Even later, _____________________ separated themselves from the bondage of the ________________ Church in the days of the Reformation by using these same terms of New Covenant and bondage.

7. Although all people have always been saved by faith, since the Jews were God’s first followers, he has given them a separate covenant signifying that they are his _________________ People (Ezekiel 20:12 and 20:34–38).

8. Describe the two aspects of God’s election of Israel as his Chosen People: ________________________ and __________________________________________.

9. Briefly describe the difference between the Noachide Laws and the covenant with the Jews that set them aside fromother nations.__________________________________________________.

10. List three famous examples of Gentile converts who kept the Noachide commandments: _______________________________, __________________, and ______________________________.

11. It should be noted that when we say all that was required of these ancient believers was to keep the Noachide commandments, it is with the understanding that they had also ___________________ of their sins and endorsed the concept of the Lord as their God, knowing that somehow, someday, he would provide a ___________________ of whom they also trusted as _____________________.

12. The Noachide Laws were basically the same as the spiritual principles listed in the ________________________ for Gen-tile converts requiring them to love their neighbor, avoid sexual sins, pagan rites, _______________________, and to worship the one true God.

13. Noachide Laws were commonly summarized into a list of seven, and then often a shorter record of ___________ cat-egories as we see in Acts 15. In studying these we actually find some ______________ to _______________ biblical imperatives as offshoots of these main categories that pertain to the Noachide system.

14. These Gentile believers keeping the Noachide commandments were often called by several names. Name three of these titles._________________, ____________________, and _____________________.

15. Give a brief description of Roy Blizzard’s definition of the term Law._________________________________.

16. Describe the use of the Hebrew word halakhah or Law coming from the root word walk, and how Paul used it to describe the manner in which converts should live.

17. Describe briefly the difference between judgments, ritual laws, and decrees.

18. The Jewish believers kept the Law, not for salvation, but in ______________________________ to identify them as God’s __________________________________ People.

19. It was not until much later, during Justin Martyr’s day (A.D. ______________), when the Gentile church began to flourish, that we began to encounter Replacement Theology.

20. Describe Replacement Theology.

21. Paul told Timothy that the Law was ______________ if it was used __________________ (1 Timothy 1:8 and 2 Timothy 2:5).

22. List the four major points of Paul’s discussion with James over the misconceptions about the Law.

23. When Paul makes the statement “there is neither Jew nor Gentile,” he is speaking only concerning _____________ as he indicated by the words ____________________________.

24. Describe the actual meaning of James’ misunderstood phrase, “those under the law must keep all the Law.”

25. Why was the fourth-century Church a different religion from the original Church of the first century?

26. From the mid-second through the seventh century, Roman theologians continued to develop new ___________________ that opposed original biblical concepts.

27. Describe what new ideas the third-century pastor Origen developed concerning the phrase, “the letter of the Law. “

CHAPTER 5

The New in the Old and the Old in the New

Changes after A.D. 70

After the Temple was destroyed, in A.D. 70, two religious groups survived from among the many sects of Jesus’ and Paul’s day. The Pharisees had fled Jerusalem to Yavneh and were spared, while the Jewish followers of Jesus had fled to the mountains of Pella and also survived (see Matthew 24:16).[1] From these two groups came two separate religions known as Rabbinic Judaism and the Christian Church.

Today, neither Rabbinic Judaism nor the Church, which formed much of its theology from fourth-century Roman ideas, holds the same views as the pre-70 Judaism of Jesus’ and Paul’s day. Both Judaism and the Church have developed reactionary theologies aimed at keeping this separation permanent. The Church forbade believers from keeping the Jewish feasts and began to meet on Sundays. In reaction to the Christians kneeling for prayer, the Jews adopted the standing position while praying the Amidah.

Because of the changes in both groups since the time of Christ, the serious student of truth must research the culture of pre-70 Judaism in which most Scripture was written.

Old and New: The Same Basic Covenant

The terms “Old Covenant” and “New Covenant” are found only four times in the entire biblical text. Following the New Covenant fulfills the oblication to obey the Old. In the New Covenant, nothing has been replaced, except the blood of animals being replaced with the blood of Jesus. The difference, as well as the advantage, is that Christ has opened the gates of the kingdom for all mankind.

Hebrews 8:13 speaks of a new covenant which has made the first covenant “old” and “ready to vanish.” To understand this, we must realize that the subject of this letter was the priesthood and sacrificial system, which was about to change for two reasons: first, because the Temple, along with its sacrifices, was about to be destroyed (or was already destroyed, depending upon when this letter was written); and, second, because Christ had come as a different manifestation of the sacrifice and high priesthood. Under no circumstances did Paul or any Jewish Christian writer suppose that God’s unchanging nature, which stands behind the Old Covenant, was about to vanish. Even Christians whose theology opposes the Mosaic Law must admit that God’s moral and spiritual principles of the Law are still in effect. In his commentary on Hebrews, Paul Ellingworth writes, “This refers to the replacement of the old cult by the new, not to a change in the ethical or civil requirements of the Torah.”[2]

The Age of Grace before Paul

The notion that the grace of God originated with Paul is not only wrong, but shows a grave negligence on the part of the Church concerning its roots in Jewish history and faith. Abundant records, written in Jewish literature before the time of Christ, speak of the grace of God as the sole means of salvation. The Thanksgiving Scroll (one of the Dead Sea Scrolls) is an excellent example. It declares, “Only by Your goodness is man righteous or justified and by the multitude of Your mercy ... and by Your magnificence have You glorified him.”[3] How much clearer could it be than when this scroll says, “By Your grace You did save my soul, for from You is my step”?[4] The scroll also says, “And all the sons of Your truth You bring forgivingly before You to purify them from their sins by the plenty of Your goodness and the multitude of Your mercies to make them stand before You forever.”[5]

Grace and Gifts Before Christ

The Thanksgiving Scroll also contains a prayer for spiritual gifts among its many references to grace. Note the petition: “To purify me by Your Holy Spirit and to draw me near by Your good will according to the greatness of Your graces or spiritual gifts.”[6] The members of the Dead Sea sect called themselves the Sons of his Will and the Sons of Grace and referred to their covenant as the Covenant of Grace.[7]

The grace of God can be found throughout the Old Testament if the reader knows that the Hebrew word meaning grace, chanan, is sometimes translated mercy, lovingkindness, or favor. Examples of the grace of God in the Old Testament are Deuteronomy 7:9, Nehemiah 1:5, 9:32, Daniel 9:4, and 2 Chronicles 6:14. According to David Blumenthal, in his book, The Place of Faith and Grace In Judaism, God’s grace is manifest in three ways: first, in creation; second, in his covenants; and third, in his forgiveness toward all who repent.[8]

Confession and Forgiveness in Judaism

A brief review of the ancient Jewish prayer of forgiveness (selichah) and confession (vidduy) reveals that the grace of God was the major factor even in Old Testament days. According to The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion, confession is one of the three essential elements of true repentance,[9] the other two being regret for the sin and a resolve not to repeat it. The sin offering in the Temple was accompanied by confession, and according to rabbinic doctrine, there can be no remission of sin without confession. The rabbis confirm that in a human court a man may occasionally escape punishment by denying his guilt, but before God, who knows the truth about everything, only genuine confession appeals to his forgiving mercy. The wording of the confession of sin is based upon the example of the high priest in the Temple when he declared, “And Aaron shall...confess all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins...” (Leviticus 16:21).

Rabbinic literature suggests this example: “I confess before You for all the wrongs which I have committed. I have taken the path of evil. I hereby renounce all the wrongdoing which I have hitherto committed. May it be Your will, O Lord, my God, to pardon me for all my iniquities, forgive me for all my transgressions, and grant me atonement from all my sins.”[10] Many Jews today make public confessions on penitential days and fast days, as well as every Monday and Thursday. Private confessions are made by individuals whenever the need arises, as well as on one’s deathbed.[11]

According to David Flusser, the ancient Essene sect believed there were three stages of salvation. The first was preordained election. The second was the actual operation of grace, which began the moment an individual entered the community and started to live by the covenant (repentance and faith). The third was the eschatological redemption in the future with its reward for the elect.[12]

The Development of the Idea of Grace Replacing the Law

During the second century, many heretics arose, one of the most prominent being Marcion, with his teaching that the God of the Old Testament was a lesser God than the God of the New. According to this teaching, the Old Testament was to be completely rejected and Jesus was simply a revealer of divine truth rather than the Messiah.

Paul’s writings were seen as a new gospel which liberated everyone from the Law so they could rely entirely on revelation knowledge. According to Brad Young, “The difference between Jesus and Paul on the one hand, and Marcion on the other, many be summed up in one word, Torah (law).”[13] In Romans 11:20, Paul warned Christians against this kind of arrogant rejection of the Jewish roots of the Church.

Although the early Church identified Marcion as a heretic, today many theologians have accepted his views as sound doctrine. It was Marcion, however, who adopted Matthew 5:17 as proof text that God’s Law had been superseded by grace. Historian E.C. Blackman has noted how Marcion changed the meaning of Matthew 5:17 by “inverting the order of the clauses so as to give exactly an opposite sense.”[14]

According to Marcion’s interpretation, Jesus said, “Think not that I have come to fulfill the Law, I have not come to fulfill but to abolish it.” Young further points out that while few modern Christians would willfully change the words of the Bible, they often interpret the words of Jesus in a way that suggests a sharp contrast between God’s Law and God’s grace.

Understanding the Words “Abolish” and “Fulfill”

Greek words translated by the English words “abolish” and “fulfill” have Hebrew equivalents that can help us understand what Jesus was actually saying. In rabbinic literature, the idea behind the word abolish is to interpret incorrectly while the idea behind the word fulfill means to interpret properly. This word also means to cause it to stand erect and upright.

With this understanding, it is obvious that Jesus did not come to start a new religion or to destroy the only Word of God available, but rather to properly interpret the Law and show that he was a new manifestation of the old truth. Brad Young points out that the three key words Torah, abolish, and fulfill possess quite different meanings in their modern English translations than in ancient Jewish thought.[15]

By accepting so readily the idea of abolishing the Law, we have lost a lot. For instance, have you ever wondered what has happened to the holy reverence that once accompanied the Bible, God’s ministers, and the Church? It seems to have disappeared about the same time that the Bible, prayer, and discipline began to be frowned on in our society.

Biblical scholar Abraham Heschel says in his book, God In Search of Man, that while the Greeks studied to comprehend, and Western thinkers study to apply their knowledge in a practical way, the ancient Hebrews studied to revere God.[16]

The ancient Jews, including Jesus, believed that the study of Torah led to reverence and that reverence led to obedience. Could it be that many modern ideas about the Bible and religion, especially those that leave out discipline, study, and days set aside for the awe of God, have cost us something? I, for one, am sure of it.

Understanding Being Delivered From the Bondage of the Law

One of the most misunderstood texts in the writings of Paul is Romans 7:1–14. It is in this passage that he speaks of being “delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter” (verse 6). Does this mean that Paul was against the Law of God? He answers that question in Romans 7:7, where he declares, “God forbid!” and spends the next seven verses explaining how great and spiritual the Law is and what good things it has done for him personally. Brad Young explains that Paul is using a well-known concept in Jewish law and is actually referring to the death of the flesh, not the death of God’s Law.[17]

To illustrate his point, Paul uses an analogy to marriage, saying that when a husband dies, he is free from all laws relating to that union. Young concludes, “It is imperative to recognize that the saying, ‘when a person dies he is free from the law and the commandments,’ was a well-known concept in halakhah (law), which probably was almost proverbial in ancient Jewish thought” (Bab. Niddah 61b and parallels). Note that Paul was writing to those who knew the Law (Romans 7:1). Certainly the Jews in the congregation of Rome would have been familiar with such an illustration.

Paul was teaching that when a person is living in sin, he is in bondage to the law against that sin, until such time as death frees him from that law. In the words of Rabbi Simeon ben Pazzi, as he spoke of a man’s flesh being released from the evil inclination, “When he dies, he is freed.”[18] Ancient rabbis taught that as long as a man lives he is servant to both God and the evil inclination, but after death he is set free to serve only God.[19] Both Jesus and Paul declared that believers are to die to sin, because we cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Romans 7 speaks of the individual’s death to sin, not to the Law of God.

The Relationship of the Law to the New Testament

In order to understand the Law as it relates to the New Testament, we must learn to understand the Apostle Paul, who wrote half of the books comprising the New Testament. According to Peter, Paul wrote some things which are “hard to understand,” and when in the hands of those “unlearned in the scripture and unstable” are often twisted to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:15–16). Such unlearned interpreters were unaware of the Jewishness which undergirded the way Paul thought and expressed himself.

In our day, we have a similar problem in that many theologians and church members are not trained to recognize Paul’s frequent use of Hebraic terms. Only after one understands the Jewishness of Paul’s writings can he obtain an accurate interpretation of the text.

For the truth about what the New Testament says concerning the Law, we must go to the source. Note twelve clear statements that the New Testament registers concerning the Law of God:

1. The hearers of the Law are not justified before the Lord, but the doers of the Law will be justified (Romans 2:23).

2. The promises of God come out of the Law, which Paul told the Ephesians they must obey, that things would go well with them and they might live long on the earth (Ephesians 6:2–3, Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 5:16).

3. The writer of the Book of Hebrews confirms that the New Covenant is the same covenant of God’s Law that he promised to renew by writing it on our hearts and minds (Hebrews 10:16).

4. James writes that the person who commits sin, is transgressing the Law (James 2:11; 8–26).

5. By keeping the Lord’s commandments, one can know he knows God (1 John 2:3–4).

6. Prayers are answered when the Lord’s commandments are kept and people do what is pleasing in his sight (1 John 3:22).

7. Keeping the commandments, causes God to dwell in us and gives assurance through his Spirit (1 John 3:24).

8. Keeping God’s commandments, proves our love for God and fellow believers is real (1 John 5:2, 3).

9. The definition of biblical love is to walk after God’s commandments (2 John 6).

10. Only those who keep the Lord’s commandments will have the right to the Tree of Life (Revelation 22:14).

11. Referring to the Old Testament, the only Law available, James wrote, “Whosoever looks into the perfect Law of Liberty, and continues therein, being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:25).

12. The man who says he knows the Lord but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him (1 John 2:4).

These often overlooked teachings are an integral part of the very fabric of New Testament thought. The apostles never taught that the Law of God was superfluous. Neither did they suggest that grace was a license to sin. Quite the contrary. In fact, Jude wrote this Spirit-inspired admonition to the Church of all ages: “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 3–4, NKJV).

Today’s Application of God’s Law

Today, more and more Christians are “getting back to basics.” It is my hope that this analysis will be a reminder that the positive commandments of God, which have been cast in such a negative view, are actually the moral underpinnings of Christianity. Without God’s moral principles, it is impossible for any group of people to live in harmony with one another. Let us remember the words of David, “The Law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul” (Psalm 19:7, NASB). I hope that each of us will choose the eternal principles of God’s Law that produce the good life (see Deuteronomy 30:15).

The question is often asked, “How many of these 613 Laws in the Old Testament can be applied to our lives today?” Since the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, the observance of many commandments has become impossible. In 1931, the Chafetz Chayim (Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan) compiled a list of the positive and negative commandments applicable to the Jew today. In this list, the Chafetz Chayim recorded seventy-seven positive and one hundred and ninety-four negative commandments that should be kept by the observant Jew.[20] Although the non-Jewish believer is not required to keep the 613 laws that identify the Jews as God’s Chosen People, there are many moral and ethical principles in the Law of God that should be kept by all believers. The basic categories of these were previously mentioned as the “necessary things” for the Gentile converts in Acts 15:28.

Several years ago, Solomon Schonfeld published a new version of the Law with his notes called The Universal Bible. This excellent work, which was the result of twenty years of intensive research, lists those parts of the Pentateuch that are applicable for all mankind, rather than just the Jews.[21] Omitted from his list are Sabbath-keeping, the dietary laws, the laws pertaining to animal sacrifices, and various Jewish customs. The list includes, however, such New Testament themes as the fear of God, prayer, study, monogamous marriage, family responsibilities, God’s abhorrence of divorce and sexual perversion, respect for property, and how to live at peace with our fellow man. I personally counted a minimum of thirty-three out of the seventy-seven positive commands, as well as one hundred and thirty-five out of the one hundred and ninety-four negative commands that could and should be obeyed by all non-Jews today. Note these examples:

Positive commands:

1. To return items taken in robbery (Leviticus 5).

2. To show reverence for the house of worship (Leviticus 19:30).

3. To learn God’s Word and teach it (Deuteronomy 6:7).

4. To say grace at meal time (Deuteronomy 8:10 — note that the biblical text says “after meals”).

5. To pay wages to an employee as soon as the job is finished (Deuteronomy 24:15).

Negative commands:

1. Not to swear in the name of an idol (Exodus 23:13).

2. Not to wrongfully retain anything belonging to one’s fellow man (Leviticus 19:13).

3. Not to oppress one’s fellow man with words (Leviticus 25:17).

4. Not to cause one’s fellow man to stumble in any way (Leviticus 19:14).

5. Not to tell someone things that another person said against him (Leviticus 19:16).

None of the above, nor any of the 168 laws pertaining to good relationships, should be avoided by any believer. These 168 laws do not apply solely to being Jewish, but teach how to live a spiritual life and how to treat our fellow man in a proper and godly way.

What the Law Is

As we come to see the Law of God as a series of teachings and instructions to believers, showing them how to live in ethical and moral harmony with their fellow man and before God, we can better understand its lofty place in the early Church. Although some aspects of the Law applied to sacrifices the Jews made during the Temple period, the spirit of the Law has changed only in its manifestation and now comes through Christ for all the world to fulfill by faith.

One aspect of the Law that applies to all believers is found in Leviticus 19:18, where we are told to love our neighbor as ourselves. Following are thirteen conclusions that can be drawn from the teachings of this chapter:

1. The Law of God did not just last until John the Baptizer, but was even used by Paul.

2. Jesus went beyond the letter of the Law in his instructions for all believers.

3. Successful Christian leaders of the past have always realized that the Law reveals God’s will.

4. The ninefold purpose of God’s Law produces happy and successful relationships for all involved.

5. The curse of the Law is only on lawbreakers.

6. The term New Covenant was in use long before the time of Paul.

7. There is one identification covenant for those Jews who are repentant and believe in Messiah, which identifies them as God’s Chosen People, and another covenant for Jews, as well as the rest of humanity, to become believers through the Messiah.

8. The true understanding of the word law develops a desire for a deeper understanding of Torah.

9. There are different kinds of laws, some that pertain to sacrifices that were strictly for the Temple period, and some that apply to relationships with other people today.

10. After the fourth century, the Church’s view concerning God’s Law changed.

11. Grace is God’s nature and existed before Paul.

12. The words abolish and fulfill had very specific meanings during the time of Jesus, but have been redefined in many circles today.

13. The New Testament teaches many positive things about the Law of God.

In this chapter we have seen that according to the biblical text, no promises or blessings can be obtained outside the Law. With this understanding in hand, every believer should endeavor to take an unbiased and openhearted look at God’s Law.

Chapter 5

Study Questions

1. What two new religious groups grew out of the pre-70 Judaism of Jesus’ and Paul’s day? ____________________ and _________________

2. List some of the reactionary theologies of both Judaism and the Church aimed at keeping the separation final.

3. In the New Testament covenant, actually _____________ has been replaced from the Old Testament and the difference, as well as the advantage, is seen in that the ________________________ is far better in Christ, in that he opened the floodgates of the kingdom for all mankind.

4. When Hebrew 8:13 speaks of a new covenant that made the first covenant old and ready to vanish, we must remember the subject of this letter was the old priesthood and ____________________ system that was about to be destroyed with the destruction of the Temple, which was imminent (A.D. 70).

5. Describe the Age of Grace before Paul.

6. The Thanksgiving Scroll mentions a prayer for spiritual gifts among other references of ____________________ long before the time of Paul. Note one example: “To purify me by Your Spirit and draw me near by Your good will according to the greatness of Your ___________________ or spiritual gifts.”

7. List four examples of the grace of God found in the Old or Original Testament._______________,___________ , ____________________________, and __________________________.

8. What three ways is the word grace used in the biblical text?____________, __________________, _________________.

9. A brief review of the ancient Jewish prayer of forgiveness (selichah) and confession (vidduy) will show that the __________________ of God was a major factor.

10. According to The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion, the three essential elements of repentance are ________________,_________________, and ____________________.

11. According to the ancient Jewish Essene sect which lived hundreds of years before the time of Paul, what were the three stages of salvation?

12. Give a brief description of how the idea of grace replacing Law came about.

13. In ancient times, what did the words “abolish” and “fulfill” mean?

14. The ancient Jews, including Jesus, believed that the study of Torah __________________ led to reverence and that reverence led to ____________________.

15. When Paul speaks of being delivered from the bondage ofthe Law, he is actually using a well-known concept in Jewish law and is referring to the death of the _______________________ and sin and not the death of God’s _____________________.

16. Review the twelve basic statements in the New Testament concerning the Law of God and list the five most important to you:________________,___________________, _______________________,_________________________, and ______________________.

17. David said, “The Law of God is ______________________, restoring the ______________“) (Psalms 19:7).

18. Although the non-Jewish believer is not required to keep the identification life-style laws of the Jews that are found 18. in the 613 laws, there are many moral and ethical principles in the laws of God that should be kept by all believers. The basic categories of these were previously mentioned as the _______________________ things for Gentile believers in Acts 15:28.

19. Solomon Schonfeld edited a version of the Law with his notes called The _______________ Bible which lists parts of the Torah that apply not only to the Jewish people but for ___________________ mankind.

20. In a casual perusal of the 613 Laws in the biblical text, one can easily find a minimum of thirty-three of the positive and 135 of the negative commandments that could and should be obeyed by all believers today. List four positive and four negative commands that should be observed today. ________________ ________________, ___________________, __________________ and __________________, ___________________, ___________________, ___________________.

21. In a short paragraph, summarize the thirteen conclusions of the Law of God.

CHAPTER 6

The Pharisees and Their Influence on the Original Church

Ecclesia and Synagoga

Because of the many struggles between Judaism and Christianity during the Middle Ages, it was not unusual for Christians to be unaware that two great faiths emerged from ancient Judaism as fraternal twins, born of the same womb. Ecclesia and Synagoga, a pair of contrasting statues, decorated the facade of churches like the 13th-century cathedral of Strasbourg in France: Ecclesia depicting the Church triumphant, crowned and holding a cross in one hand and a chalice in the other; Synagoga representing the Jews as a blindfolded,, carrying a broken staff and crushed tablets of the Law.

Often in Christian-Jewish polemics, the Jews maintained that Christianity was totally separate from Judaism, while the Medieval Christians contended that the Church was a new religion, replacing Judaism. Despite attempts to sever their roots, ancient, as well as modern, historians remind us that Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity are simply different outgrowths of ancient proto-Judaism.[1] French scholar Andre Paul speaks of Judaism as “something with a double face. It can be seen as proto-Judaism, or proto-Christianity depending on which face is observed.”[2]

It is impossible to analyze the early Church without an accurate understanding of the proto-rabbi and the Pharisees of proto-Judaism. This chapter will show the predominant influences of the different branches of Pharisaism on the early Church.

The Pharisees As Separatists

The Hebrew word for Pharisees is perushim[3] meaning “separatists.” This title was undoubtedly born of the fact that the Pharisees did not associate with the Am Ha-Aretz, the common people who did not tithe, were ritually impure, and knew nothing of the Law (see John 7:49). Early sources indicate that the appellation Pharisee originated with their opposers, the Sadducees and the Boethusians, along with such outsiders as Nicholas of Damascus (Josephus, Bellum Judaicum I 5:2, first century B.C. ). The Pharisees regarded themselves as the practitioners of the principles of holiness as described in the Priestly Code of Ezra. Leo Baeck points out that they called themselves the Holy Community of Jerusalem. The members of this separatist society called one another haver,[4] meaning “comrade,”[5] and their teachers were called hakhamim, meaning “men of wisdom.”[6] The expression “members of the synagogue” (bene ha-keneset) was sometimes used to distinguish the followers from the leaders, the scholars, or the scribes.[7] The exclusivity of these Jews gave rise to the accusation of being separatists. The Greek equivalent of perushim is pharisaioi, from which we get the English word Pharisees.

Scholars have differed as to the exact origin of the Pharisees, but many, including Baron, Finkelstein, and Finkel, assert that the sect developed during the second century B.C. Apparently there was a severe clash between the priestly Sadducees, who embraced many Hellenistic ideas, and other men of learning, who opposed all Greek ideas as abominations.[8] This battle resulted in a distinct division between the plebeian Pharisees and the urban patrician aristocrats, who were mainly Sadducees. According to S.B. Hoenig, “The aristocratic Sadducees were mainly conservative while the democratic Pharisees were liberal and progressive.”[9] Jewish scholar Abraham Geiger suggests that the Pharisees were successors of the earlier movement of Hasidim (pious ones), while the Sadducees were primarily descendants of the priestly house of Zadok and were closely allied with the Boethusians.[10]

Under John Hyrcanus (134–104 B.C. ), the conflict between the Pharisees and the Sadducees became so great that he expelled the Pharisees from membership in the Sanhedrin and branded them with the name Separated Ones. The first historical mention of the Pharisees is in the two books of Maccabees, written during the second century B.C.[11]

Although we know of some twenty Jewish sects that existed during the time of Christ, Josephus mentions only three: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. He describes the Pharisees as “the most accurate interpreters of the laws.”[12]

The Pharisees and the Essenes

Both the Essenes and the Pharisees have their roots in the Hasidim of the Maccabean period (second century B.C. ). According to the Damascus Document and the Manual of Discipline, these sects had many common beliefs and practices, including: (1) categorizing members as priests, Levites, Israelites, or proselytes,[13] (2) observing precise rules for admission which allowed only those “whose days are completed” to be included among “them that are mastered,”[14] (3) setting a minimum age for membership at twenty, possibly derived from Numbers 1:3,[15] (4) requiring a preliminary examination before granting membership, administered by a scribe,[16] (5) requiring an oath of entry once the supervising scribe had made known to the candidate the secret maxims of the community,[17] (6) imposing a two-year probationary period, (7) punishing serious transgression with temporary or permanent expulsion,[18] (8) establishing an age requirement of between thirty and fifty for all supervising scribes,[19] and (9) reporting all transgressions to the supervising scribe who would either “bind or loose” the judgment.[20] The supervising scribe watched over the community as a shepherd caring for his sheep.[21] Along with the judges, the supervising scribe would collect charitable gifts from the community and see to their distribution.[22]

The Pharisees and Excommunication

Functional holiness was considered a badge of personal piety by the Pharisees, who relied heavily on Tanakh passages such as Leviticus 11:44–45. Rabbi Pin Hasben Jair, a well-known Jewish teacher of the third century A.D., described the Pharisees’ four stages of separation, writing, “Heedfulness leading to diligence, diligence to cleanliness, cleanliness to separation, and separation to holiness.” This is similar to the Apostle Paul’s instructions in Romans 5:3–5.

In the event a Pharisee failed to maintain the standards required by the society, he was declared “suspect,” and if his guilt was proven, he was expelled by a vote of the Sanhedrin.[23] Those found guilty were declared menuddeh (defiled) and went through the process of niddui, where they were demoted to the status of the Am Ha-Aretz and shunned by the other Pharisees. This shunning was based on the fear that the demoted one would defile those who were clean. Out of this system of niddui came the elaborate details of excommunication which were used in both the Synagogue and the Church. The Talmud records three cases of scholars being excommunicated, each for Levitical impurity.[24]

The Pharisees and the Oral Law

According to Josephus, the Pharisees were distinguished from the other sects in that they were the most rigidly observant and most skilled in interpreting the Mishnah, the Oral Law.[25] The Pharisees believed that the Oral Law was the detailed explanation of how to keep those sections of the written Law, such as the feasts, sacrifices, and disciplines that are mentioned but not explained. According to tradition, the Oral Law was handed down from Moses to the elders and then to the people, and consisted of some thirty-one customs that covered every law and tradition.

The strict code of the Pharisees governing the keeping of Sabbath was compared to “mountains hanging on hairs.”[26] A listing of twenty-two works forbidden on the Sabbath was known to have existed as early as the Hasmonaean period, and later an expanded list of thirty-nine became the code that remains until today.[27] Although the Pharisaic rules were often contested by the Sadducees, who lived only by the written Law, the Pharisees were able to designate many new rules related to the original written precepts. These included declaring the Sabbath a day of joy, as well as a day of reading Torah, reciting prayers, and delivering sermons.[28]

The Pharisees and Passover

The Mosaic code states that the fourteenth day of Nisan “between the evenings” is the Feast of the Paschal Lamb, and the days from the fifteenth to the twenty-first are to be observed as the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. These feasts are also described in the post-exilic writing of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 45:21).[29] The Sadducees, Samaritans, and later the Karaites, all appointed the time of the slaughtering of the lamb to be at the onset of evening, while the Pharisees permitted this preparation to begin at midday.[30] Note that the gospels give the account according to the Pharisaic tradition, from the sixth to the ninth hour (midday until three o’clock; see Matthew 27:45, Luke 23:44, Mark 15:33 and John 19:14).

The Pharisees and Their Fences Around the Torah

Rabbinic literature describes the special discipline which the Pharisees observed: (1) they re-tithed any doubtful fruit or product obtained from a non-Jew; (2) they kept themselves in ritual purity at all times; and (3) they were so cautious not to break even one of the six hundred and thirteen Laws of the Torah that they arranged fences or hedges of protection around each Law.[31]

The Pharisees counted 613 Laws in the Torah, consisting of 248 commands to action and 365 prohibitions. To make sure they did not break even one of these by accident or ignorance, they created a hedge around the Laws. These hedges are called traditions in the New Testament. The idea was to establish enough traditions around the Law that an individual would have to break a tradition before he could go all the way to breaking an explicit provision of the Law. Perhaps the best known example of these traditions is the thirty-nine acts prohibited on the Sabbath. To the Pharisee, such things as full tithing distinguished them as the truly faithful haverim, and showed their genuine loyalty to God.

Serious problems began to arise when the practice of establishing fences reached such a severe level that the Pharisees began determining a person’s orthodoxy by his respect for the fences. Based on Deuteronomy 17:9, where the priests, Levites, and judges made decisions as to the interpretations of Scripture, they established new laws to fill in what they perceived to be gaps—issues of life that were not sufficiently covered by the Word of God. It was these new laws called gezerot (sg. gezerah) to which Jesus and many other Jews objected.[32]

An example of a gezerah can be seen in the Pharisaic demand that everyone fast twice a week, which during the time of Jesus was on the second and fifth day of the week, at least. According to William Coleman, Jesus condemned the Pharisaical concept of fasting on three counts.[33] First, he taught that those who are fasting should be cheerful and not sad (see Matthew 6:16–17). Second, he taught that those who fasted were not to have a self-righteous attitude (see Luke 18). And third, Jesus rejected the Pharisees’ attempts to impose their rules on everyone else (see Mark 2:18–20). Jesus didn’t object to the Pharisees fasting as much as they wanted, but when they began to teach that God expected everyone to do it just like them, the Lord challenged them (see Luke 18:12).

The Theology of the Pharisees

The theology of the Pharisees differed from their Sadducean opponents concerning the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, the existence of angels, divine providence, the free will of man, and the use of the Oral Law—among other things. Surprisingly, the Pharisees’ theology was actually more closely aligned with New Testament teachings than any of the other Jewish groups of the first century. Jesus probably held to the beliefs of the fundamentalist Pharisees, although not to all the fences that were added. It was Jesus who exhorted the disciples to do what the Pharisees taught, but not what they did, because, in his words, “they say and do not” (Matthew 23:3).

A document known as the Assumption of Moses, written during the first century A.D., reproaches the Pharisees for being men who “at every hour of the day love to banquet and gorge themselves,” who from “morning till evening love to say: we want feastings and plenty to eat and drink.”[34] This is reminiscent of the Tosephta’s and the Talmud’s descriptions of the “sons of the synagogue” and the “communities of Jerusalem,” which some say also refer to the Pharisees.[35] Similar accusations are recorded against Jesus in Matthew 11:19 and Luke 7:34, when he was accused of being “gluttonous and a winebibber.”

The Authority of the Pharisees

The masses looked to the Pharisees for religious leadership because they studied both the written and the Oral Law more than any other group. In the synagogues, the conduct of prayers, as well as the reading and expounding of the Scriptures, was done by scribes who were Pharisees. The authority of the Pharisees can be seen in their ability to instruct even the high priest, who was a Sadducee. Up to the time of the Maccabean Revolt (175–135 B.C), the high priests were all of the family of Zadok.

The more scholarly Pharisees, influenced by Ezra and the men of the Great Synagogue, demanded the submission of the high priests to their authority. Consequently, the high priest was compelled to take an oath the night before the Day of Atonement, to ensure that he would conduct the service in accordance with Pharisaic traditions. According to Josephus, the Pharisees were “able greatly to influence the masses of people. Whatever the people do about divine worship, prayers, and sacrifices, they perform according to their direction.”[36]

The Pharisees, the Scribes and the Sadducees

The Pharisees had a more humane attitude toward slaves and criminals than did the Sadducees. They also were more practical in their application of such biblical concepts as “an eye for an eye,” particularly when it concerned monetary compensation for personal damage. The Sadducees believed that Temple worship was the main purpose of the Law, while the Pharisees, like Jesus, stressed the individual fulfillment as the reason for man’s existence. Josephus relates that the Sadducees wanted the death penalty for several offenses but that the Pharisees opposed this, in general being more lenient in matters of punishment.[37]

The Pharisaic philosophy on punishment was once expressed: “A Sanhedrin executing capital punishment once in seven years is considered a murderous court.”[38] Under Pharisaical rule, capital punishment was only administered in extreme cases. When the Sadducees were in control of the Temple, however, records indicate that they administered cruel punishments on their fellow members. It is recorded that if a priest was found serving in the Temple in a state of impurity, the priestly youths would split his head with clubs.[39] One record tells how a priest’s daughter, caught in adultery, was burned at the stake by the Sadducean court.[40]

The lenient tendency of the Pharisees was based on their more democratic interpretation of the Mosaic Law. They believed that the accused was equal to his accusing brothers.[41] Later, even after a defendant was found guilty, every step was taken to alleviate the pain of the dying man; hence the custom found in the New Testament where the wealthy women of Jerusalem offered a potion to condemned criminals to deaden their senses before the execution (see Matthew 27:34 and Mark 15:23).[42]

Although the terms “scribe” and “Pharisee” often overlap, they are not entirely synonymous. All Pharisees considered themselves to be scribes, but not all scribes were Pharisees. In a general sense, a scribe was a scholar and teacher who was also a professional writer with the responsibility of copying and interpreting the Torah. In his book Jerusalem in the Times of Jesus, Joachim Jeremias points out that although Jesus sometimes addressed the scribes and Pharisees together, there were also times when he addressed each group separately.[43]

The scribes mentioned in Luke 11:43–52 and 20:46 were reproached for: (1) imposing strict religious laws on other people, while not keeping them themselves; (2) building tombs for the prophets of the past, while willingly condemning to death the present messengers of God; (3) preventing others from coming to God by keeping their learning secret, but then not even using it themselves; and (4) having inordinate pride in dress, salutations, and the order of synagogue seating.

Jesus’ rebuke of the Pharisees is listed in Luke 11:39–44 and includes: (1) the hypocrisy of carrying out laws of purity outwardly, while remaining impure inwardly and (2) the hypocrisy of paying tithes on green and dry vegetables not required by the Torah, while neglecting the spiritual and moral obligations of Torah.

Jeremias maintains that the scribal rebuke had to do with theological education, while the rebuke of the Pharisees dealt with the application of religious laws to everyday life. Although Matthew 23:25 is introduced by the statement, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,” verse 26 singles out the “blind Pharisee” and seems to stick with this separation. Matthew 23 appears to be divided, with verses 1–22 and 29–36 dealing with the scribes, and verses 23–28 leveled at the Pharisees.

The School of the Scribes

The School of the Scribes is thought to have been initiated by Ezra during the fifth century B.C.[44] These scribes, or sopherim, are generally considered the forerunners of Pharisaism and the initiators of the Jewish period, as distinguished from the Israelite period, before the Captivity. It was from these men that the Great Assembly (Keneset Gedolah) and the expounders of the Law (mevinim) came into being. Both were active for at least two centuries after the days of Ezra (see Ezra 8:18 and Nehemiah 8:7).

The tractate Sopherim, which is appended to the Babylonian Talmud, lists the many laws that the scribes were required to observe. As early as the First Jewish Commonwealth, the scribe occupied an important place in the king’s court, serving as a clerk whose duties included reading various documents and correspondence. The scribe not only expounded the written Law but also transmitted the oral traditions.

Credit must be given to the scribes for collecting, editing, and preserving the holy writings of the Jewish academies as well as the biblical texts. It was the scribes who adopted the Aramaic square script, which greatly facilitated writing.[45] Ancient records tell us that carefully annotated biblical texts were kept in the Temple court as standards for other copying.[46] This work of the scribes pioneered the way for the later Masoretes, as mentioned by Rabbi Akiva at Yavneh (A.D. 130).

Jesus’ Criticism of the Pharisees

Scholars Abraham Geiger and Joseph Klausner describe Jesus as a Pharisaic rabbi with some divergent opinions and declare that his criticism was actually not an attack, but a defense of true Pharisaism against hypocrisy.[47] It was a common practice for Jewish leaders to criticize those who did not live what they taught. For example, in his book Jesus the Pharisee, Harvey Falk mentions that it was common for the School of Hillel to refer to the School of Shammai with such biting epithets as “the firstborn of Satan,” “the synagogue of Satan,” or, as Jesus said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan” (Mark 8:33, John 8:44 and Revelation 2:9, and 13).[48] The Talmud describes the hypocrites among the Pharisees as being “sore spots” or “plagues of the Pharisaic party.” [49] We know that many Pharisees served God faithfully, in genuine devotion (see John 3:1, 19:38–39, Acts 5:34 and Acts 23:6–8).

Therefore, when Jesus charges the Pharisees with hypocrisy, this must not be viewed as a summary dismissal of the entire movement. Later, when Christianity left Judaism and became a predominantly Gentile religion, the word “Pharisee” took on a negative connotation to those who did not realize that not all Pharisees were hypocrites.[50] In fact, our Lord himself, being a believer in the entirety of the Word of God, would have allied himself with this group more than any other of his day. Like those fundamentalists who seem to be the most critical of other fundamentalists, so Jesus was only pointing out the error within his own group.

Pharisaic Study and Worship

A foundational aspect of Pharisaic philosophy was the idea that the Babylonian Captivity was the result of Israel’s failure to keep the Torah. Because of this, during the New Testament period the study of Torah was one of the highest forms of worship. Each synagogue had beside it or as a part of it a Bet Midrash (a House of Study), which was often more highly esteemed than the synagogue itself. We see this intensive commitment to the study of God’s Word in Paul’s admonition to Timothy: “Study to show thyself approved by God” (2 Timothy 2:15). The Pharisees were the chief scholars of their day and were in charge of these houses of study.

Chapter 6

Study Questions

1. Describe the meaning of Ecclesia and Synagoga.

2. The Hebrew word for “Pharisee” means ________________.

3. The word haver meant ___________________ and was used in what manner relating to the Pharisee?

4. According to Finkelstein, the Pharisees developed during the ___________ century B.C.

5. The Pharisees were the successors of earlier ___________, while the Sadducees were descendants of the priestly house of _________________.

6. If one of the Pharisees failed to maintain the required standards, he was declared ________________, and if guilty was expelled by a vote of the Sanhedrin and demoted to the status of the _______________.

7. The Talmud gives three ancient cases of scholars being excommunicated and all three had to do with Levitical _______________________.

8. The ancient criteria from which the name Pharisee was derived included the fourfold formula described as: Heedfulness leading to ___________________, diligence to __________________, then __________________, and finally _____________________.

9. Hyrcanus expelled the Pharisees from the Sanhedrin and branded them ____________________.

10. The Pharisees were regarded as “the most accurate ________________ of the laws.”

11. List nine points attributed to the Essenes that are thought to be close if not identical to the Pharisees.

12. According to Josephus, the Pharisees were distinguished from other Jewish sects by their adherence to and skilled 9. interpretation of the __________________.

13. The Oral Law, according to tradition, was handed down by Moses and consisted of _________ customs that were greatly expanded to cover every law and cultural aspect of the Jews.

14. In the New Testament, the observance of the Passover Feast was done according to the rules set up by the __________________.

15. Describe the fences set around the Torah.

16. These fences or hedges were called ______________ in the New Testament.

17. Based on Deuteronomy 17:9, the priests, Levites, and judges made the decisions as to the interpretations of Scripture and established new ____________________ to fill in the gaps where issues were not covered by Law. It was these new laws, called gezerot, to which ___________________, as well as many other Jews, objected.

18. Although there were many good rules relating to fasting among the Jews during the first century, Christ only rebuked three aspects. List these three areas.

19. The theology of Jesus and the New Testament held closer to the concepts of the _________________ than any other group.

20. A first-century document known as the ______________ of Moses sheds light on the reason some may have accused Jesus of being “gluttonous and a winebibber.”

21. The masses looked to the Pharisees for religious leadership because they ________________________ the written and _______________________ more than any other group.

22. The Pharisees interpreted the phrase “an eye for an eye” as referring to ______________________ compensation for personal damage.

23. During the New Testament period, the Pharisees gave more lenient rulings of the Law than did the Sadducees. The Pharisees were almost always against capital _________________. It was from this concept that we see the _______________ women carrying a potion to a condemned person to deaden the senses before execution(Matthew 27:34 and Mark 15:23).

24. The terms Pharisee and scribe often overlap, but were note ntirely synonymous. The Pharisees called themselves ____________________, but not all scribes were __________________.

25. The scribes were _______________ and teachers who were professional writers with the responsibility of copying and interpreting the ______________________.

26. List four things Jesus reproached the scribes for doing.

27. List the two basic rebukes of Jesus to the Pharisees.

28. Give a brief description of the School of the Scribes.

29. Scholars Abraham Geiger and Joseph Klausner describe Jesus as ____________________ a Pharisaic rabbi with some divergent opinions and declare that his criticism was actually not an attack, but a ___________________ of Pharisaism against ____________________.

30. During the first century, it was common for the School of Hillel to condemn the School of ___________________ with such phrases as “the firstborn of Satan,” or “the synagogue of Satan.”

31. Although the New Catholic Encyclopedia points out that many served God faithfully in genuine devotion, when Christianity left Judaism and became a separate religion, the word “Pharisee” became a __________________ term to those who did not recognize both the good and the bad.

CHAPTER 7

The Pharisees’ Rise to Power

According to Josephus, under John Hyrcanus the Pharisees had significant influence and enjoyed the support of the people. When they began to disagree with him, however, he started to favor the Sadducees.[1] On his deathbed, Hyrcanus advised his wife and successor, Alexandra Salome (76–67 B.C.), to put the government in the hands of the Pharisees. From this time on, the Pharisees were able to dominate the Sanhedrin.

For the most part, the Pharisees did not make obedience to their views a matter of life or death. According to E. P. Sanders, they only enforced the death penalty over the most serious issues of the Law. One example may be the occasion when a group of teachers, probably Pharisees, upon hearing that Herod was dying, incited certain young men to pull down the eagle that Herod had placed over the Temple gate.[2] In their opinion, this eagle violated the law prohibiting graven images (see Deuteronomy 5:8 and Exodus 20:4). According to Josephus, the Pharisees believed that “it was a noble deed to die for the law of one’s country.”[3]

Among the Pharisees who most bitterly opposed Herod and the Roman occupiers of Judea were Judah ben Zippori and Mathias ben Margalot. During the Jewish Wars (A.D. 66–73), Vespasian favored the Pharisee leader Yohanan ben Zakkai and permitted him to establish a rabbinical school in Yavneh. After these wars, the Sadducees disappeared, lacking the necessary official support, and after the Bar Kochba War of A.D. 135, the Zealots disappeared. This left the Pharisees the unquestioned leaders of the Jewish people.

Following the destruction of the Temple, in A.D. 70, the Pharisees continued living as if the Temple still stood, seeing the Jewish people as the Temple. They saw themselves as the priests of this Temple, observing the Laws which had formally applied to Temple worship in their homes and community. Drawing from texts such as Psalm 141:2, they substituted the dinner table for the altar and prayer three times a day for the animal sacrifices. By the year A.D. 200, the teachings of the Pharisees had become normative Judaism.

The Duties of the Pharisees

Historian Morton Smith points out that a man who was a Pharisee was not necessarily a Pharisee all the time. Smith says that the Pharisees played many roles in society. One example would be Gamaliel, whom Acts 5:34 describes as a Pharisee in the council of the Temple. Since the ancient world had no term that was the exact equivalent of our word “religion,” Pharisaism was viewed principally as a sect within the general “philosophy” of Judaism.[4]

According to Josephus, during the first century there were more than six thousand Pharisees who refused to take an oath of loyalty to Herod and who ruled the women of Herod’s court.[5] The king punished them with a fine, which was paid by Herod’s sister-in-law, the wife of Pherora. In return for her kindness, the Pharisees, who were thought to have foreknowledge of events through God’s appearances to them, foretold that Herod’s throne would be taken from him, and the throne would fall to her and Pherora and their children.[6]

In his book Jewish Law From Jesus to the Mishnah, E. P. Sanders suggests that if there were really only six thousand Pharisees in Jesus’ day, then it is not likely that they could have done all that scholars attribute to them.[7] A few of the jobs that Pharisees were thought to have done are: running most of the synagogues, controlling the schools and teaching in them, serving as scribes, going on missions to instruct Diaspora Jews, serving as magistrates, instructing the priests in how to offer sacrifices, regulating the paying of tithes and other Temple revenues, giving advice on all areas of Torah, and working secular jobs. Sanders suggests that many of the twenty thousand Levites did some of these jobs since they were forbidden to earn a living through secular work but only had to be on duty in the Temple one week out of every twenty-four. The Levites would have had both the time and education to serve as synagogue leaders. Verses such as Matthew 23:2 do not explicitly state that the Pharisees were synagogue leaders, as some have suggested; however, we do see, in Mark 3:6, that some Pharisees, who were indeed leaders, were present in the synagogues.

A division into two main branches of Pharisaism took place during the first century because of controversies between the party of the rigorist Shammai and the more liberal Hillel. Shammai came from a rich, aristocratic family while Hillel was a man of the people. The differences between the schools of Shammai and Hillel were severe enough to elicit the comment, “The Torah has become two Torahs.”

The Communities (Havurot) of Pharisees

The Pharisees drew strength from their havurot, the closed communities of like-minded men who encouraged one another in the exact fulfillment of the demands made on pious Israelites. Admission to these communities was strictly regulated. A candidate had to affirm his agreement with all of the detailed Pharisaic traditions, after which he entered a period of probation, the length of which was, according to Hillel, thirty days, but according to Shammai, one year. Each of these communities was under the leadership of a scribe, who served as a professional authority in the interpretation of the Law. The communities had regularly scheduled weekly meetings, usually on the eve of the Sabbath. Study of Torah and a communal meal were regular parts of these gatherings. Some have suggested that the pseudepigraphon known as the Psalms of Solomon was used as a liturgy in the Pharisaic communities. Every aspect of a Pharisee’s life, including his food, his clothing, and even the walls of his house, were under the regulation of the Law.

Josephus tells us that because of their biblically-based views, the Pharisees were extremely influential among the people.[8] The Pharisees’ belief system had no real organization, however; therefore they had no official ordination of rabbis. Although the havurot gradually disappeared, the term haver survived as an honorary title of anyone who voluntarily devoted a number of years to the mastery of Jewish religious literature.

The Pharisees and the Synagogue

Since the Pharisees stressed the concept that God could be worshiped outside of the Temple area, the synagogue became the focal point of their activities. Originally the synagogue was intended to be solely a place for study of Torah, not an alternative to Temple worship. But the Pharisees, recognizing the need for more than their closed community meetings, took their influence into the synagogues and forever changed their purpose. Many who did not join the closed communities nevertheless became followers of the Pharisees’ doctrines through their teachings of Torah in the synagogues.

Seven Types of Pharisees

In Matthew 23, Jesus denounced some of the Pharisees for their hypocrisy and pronounced upon them a succession of seven woes. The word woe means overwhelming sorrow or grief. Generally a woe was pronounced as a warning of impending calamity. Jesus, however, was not the only one of that time period who condemned the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. In rabbinic literature, the sages list seven plagues of the Pharisees.[9] It is also important to note, however, that in both the rabbinic literature and the words of Jesus there were some things said about the Pharisees that were good and commendable.

Jesus, for example, pointed out that the scribes and the Pharisees sat in “Moses’ seat,” which was a position of religious authority. He also said that the people should observe what the Pharisees taught them (see Matthew 23:2–3). He warned, however, “but do not do according to their works: for they say, and do not do” (verse 3, NKJV). The Jerusalem Talmud describes seven kinds of Pharisees, five of which were hypocrites. Two were good.

The writings of the Essenes and other rabbinic literature confirm that there were indeed many hypocritical Pharisees, like the ones addressed by Jesus. Was the Lord perhaps illustrating seven types of Pharisees by these seven proclamations of woe? These may be the same as the seven types of extremist Pharisees described in the Jewish Encyclopedia:

1. The Shoulder Pharisee paraded his good deeds before men like someone wearing a badge on his shoulder. Jesus began his diatribe against the Pharisees by mentioning the shoulder (see Matthew 23:4).

2. The Wait-a-little Pharisee would ask someone to wait for him while he performed some good deed.

3. The Blind Pharisee would bruise himself walking into a wall because he had to shut his eyes to avoid seeing a woman.

4. The Pestle Pharisee walked with hanging head so as not to observe some alluring temptations.

5. The Ever-reckoning Pharisee was always counting his good deeds to see if they offset his failures.

The two good Pharisees were:

6. The God-fearing Pharisee, who was truly righteous, like Job, and

7. The God-loving Pharisee, who had a true affection for God, like Abraham.[10]

The Talmud mentions six types of hypocritical Pharisees which exhibit many of the same faults pointed out by Jesus.[11] It denounces certain persons as being “destroyers of the world,” among whom is the “female Pharisee,” who pretended to be excessively pious.[12] The Jerusalem Talmud also mentions the Shechemite Pharisee, who was similar to the Shoulder Pharisee, the Hebrew word for “shoulder” being shechem.[13]

The Good Pharisees

Both the New Testament and other Jewish literature describe various Pharisees who seem to have been sincere, honest, and godly. There were certainly those to whom Isaiah 29:13 applied, those who drew near to God with their lips, while their hearts were far from him. But there were also those, such as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who believed in Jesus and endeavored to follow him (see John 7:50, 19:39 and Mark 15:43). In Acts 5 we find Gamaliel, the teacher of Paul, arguing for tolerance toward the followers of Jesus. On at least one occasion, some Pharisees warned Jesus of an attempt on his life, and others are seen showing hospitality to the Lord (see Luke 13:31, 7:36, 11:37 and 14:1).

As ideally conceived, Pharisaism was a good thing. There can be no doubt that the Pharisees were the fundamentalists among the normative Judaism of the first century. Josephus wrote, “The Pharisees are esteemed most skillful in the exact interpretation of their laws.”[14] This may explain why, after the wars of A.D. 66–73 and A.D. 135, when other Jewish sects disappeared, the Pharisees continued, eventually forming what is known today as Rabbinic Judaism.

Was Jesus a Pharisee?

The teachings of Jesus had more in common with the teachings of the Pharisees, especially the school of Hillel, than with any other group of his time. In fact, there are many similarities between the Lord and Hillel himself, who was thirty years older than Jesus. For example, Hillel made this popular summation of the Law: “What you would not have done to you, do not to another; that is the whole Law, the rest is commentary.” This statement is almost identical to Jesus’ well-known statement of Matthew 7:12 known as “the Golden Rule.” Another of Hillel’s quotes is that men should “love peace and draw their fellow men to the Torah.”[15]

Some scholars believe that in his contentions with the Pharisees, Jesus was simply taking the side of the school of Hillel against the school of Shammai. Rabbi Jacob Emden, Samuel Edels, Harvey Falk, and the Tosafists have all pointed out that Hillel would have permitted prayer for the sick on the Sabbath, while Shammai would not have.[16] A similar situation is found in Matthew 15, where the Shammaite Pharisees are complaining to Jesus that his disciples did not wash their hands before eating. In Luke 11:37, in answer to the same complaint, Jesus goes into a familiar Hillel dissertation concerning the cleansing of the outside of the cup. Jesus is clearly referring to the dispute between the two schools of Hillel and Shammai over when the washing should take place.[17] According to Luke, Jesus upheld the ruling of the school of Hillel, that it was permissible to wash the outside of the cup later.

In Matthew 15 we again see Jesus taking up an issue that was debated between the two schools. In verses 4 and 5, he rebukes the Pharisees for consecrating all of their possessions to the Temple, which sometimes led to poverty and prevented proper care for aging parents. It was the Shammaites who taught that one could never be released from such a vow to the Temple.[18] Jesus did not hesitate to voice his opposition to this practice. Other divisive issues that Jesus took a side on were the paying of the tithes of mint, anise, and cummin (Matthew 23:23 and Luke 11:42), the money-changers in the Temple, and the permissibility of divorce.

Louis Finkelstein points out that although the early Christians and certain of the Pharisees were often in conflict over doctrinal issues, they did retain a certain degree of mutual respect for one another.[19] Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, one of the most orthodox sages of the first and second centuries, offered high praise for an interpretation of Scripture given by an early Christian.[20]

Similarities Between the Pharisees and the Greeks

In his book of essays Palestinian Judaism in the First Century, Morton Smith writes that the ancient world had no general term for religion and that the closest Hellenistic word for describing the beliefs and practices of the Pharisees was philosophy.[21] He points out that even the ancient Jews used this Hellenistic term to describe their faith. Note several characteristics of the Pharisees that were similar to Greek culture:

1. the Pharisees’ teachers, like the Greek philosophers, taught without pay;

2. like the philosophers, they had disciples who followed them and served them;

3. like the philosophers, in addition to their private employment, they were supported by gifts from their admirers;

4. like the philosophers, they were exempt from taxes;

5. like the philosophers, they could be distinguished on the street by their walk, their speech, and their peculiar clothing;

6. like some of the philosophers, they practiced asceticism; and

7. the Pharisees discussed the same sorts of questions the philosophers discussed and reached the same sorts of conclusions the philosophers reached.

Although the Pharisees separated from the Essenes, the Sadducees, and other groups, they had many differences among themselves, and it is unlikely that what we now call “orthodox Judaism” actually existed in the first century.

Some Zealots accepted the Pharisaic interpretation of tradition and believed in restoring the fortunes of Israel by war; others focused on spiritual reform.

In short, anyone who believed in the entirety of the Scriptures, the Oral Law, resurrection of the dead, angels, and eternal judgment was considered to be of the Pharisaic philosophy.

Pirkei Avot and the Pharisees

Although Pirkei Avot is only one of sixty-three tractates of the Mishnah, it is the most widely quoted. Containing no legal material, it is composed entirely of maxims and epigrams of the sages directed toward teachers Judges, and laymen. Because of the great wisdom it contains, this tractate has been called “the Talmudic Book of Proverbs.” Also known as the “Ethics of the Fathers,” this tractate has retained good readership throughout the centuries and is praised in Jewish literature as a moral guide. Even the Talmud says, “If one wishes to achieve saintliness, let him carry out the words of the Fathers.”[22]

During the time of the debate between the Sadducees and the Pharisees over which group was the leading authority on the Scriptures, Pirkei Avot became a major factor. The Sadducees contended that only the priest could teach the Torah, while the Pharisees maintained that their sages had this authority. To give them the edge with the people in this issue, the Pharisees deliberately introduced the public study of Pirkei Avot.

The Leaven of the Pharisees

In Luke 12:1, Jesus warns his disciples, “Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” According to William Coleman, to the Jewish ear of the first century, the term “leaven” denoted “second best,” thus, impurity and hypocrisy.[23] The ancient Jews usually fermented their dough by taking yeast (leaven) from a previous loaf and kneading it into the new dough. On occasions when they did use yeast, it was considered second best because of the part leaven had played in the story of the Passover. If a Jew baked with yeast during the annual Feast of Unleavened Bread, it was considered a desecration. The yeast was invisible, yet it permeated the whole loaf. When Christ used this term, his listeners recognized the insult of being second best and unacceptable.

The Pharisees: Heroes or Villains?

Many modern Christians think of the term Pharisee as being synonymous with term hypocrite or Christ-killer. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines pharisaism as “being hypocritical or self-righteous.”[24] Actually, however, the Pharisees were both the good guys and the bad guys on the New Testament stage.

According to rabbinic tradition, Hillel (50 B.C. to A.D. 10) was the most important figure in pre-70 Pharisaism. In reviewing his words, we must conclude that not all Pharisees were hypocrites. As we said earlier, Hillel taught the essence of Torah in a way very similar to Christ’s teachings. It was also Hillel who said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But when I am for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” Hillel exhorted his followers to “be disciples of Aaron, pursuing peace, loving mankind, and bringing them near to the Torah.”[25]

The fact is that many of the teachings of the Pharisees were quite sound and were never condemned by Jesus. He, indeed, told the people to follow these teachings (see Matthew 23:2–3). When Josephus wrote about the Pharisees, let us remember that he was writing to a Roman audience unfamiliar with Judaism. This explains why he compared them to the Stoics, since both groups practiced a strict discipline.

Although there is no group today that is identical to the Pharisees, it is fair to say that they were much like our contemporary conservatives, with some of both the good and the bad qualities that make conservatives controversial. During the time of Christ, the population of Jerusalem was between twenty-five and thirty thousand, and Josephus states that there were six thousand Pharisees.[26]

Before roundly condemning the Pharisees for their many rigid and excessive traditions, Christians should first look back over Church history, and not so very long ago. It was only one hundred years ago that D. L. Moody preached against the sin of men wearing ruffled shirts. During that same period Maria Woodworth-Etter was famous for teaching that women who did not wear long sleeves were sinners. Around the turn of the twentieth century, Billy Sunday preached that it was a sin for women to chew gum, and some considered it a sin to whistle.

Actually, we should be thankful to the Pharisees for a number of their contributions. First, it was the Pharisees who preserved the Old Testament Scriptures for us. They also formulated many of the major doctrines which are now important facets of Church theology. From the Pharisees came the synagogue organization, much of which spilled into the Church. In addition, the Pharisees fought stridently to protect and preserve the nation of Israel. The Pharisees were the first to evangelize and send out missionaries. They anticipated and watched with great expectancy for the Messiah. And from among the Pharisees came some of the first believers in Jesus Christ (such as Nicodemus and Joseph).

The Four Degrees for the Pharisees

There were four degrees, or levels, for those desiring to formally participate in Pharisaic philosophy. Anyone could join the society, including women and slaves, provided they were willing to fulfill all of the obligations.[27] A person of the first degree was called ne’eman, meaning “trustworthy.” This degree required a full acceptance of the obligations in the presence of three full-fledged members.[28] During this level, the candidate tithed what he ate, what he sold, and what he bought. He also pledged not to be the guest of an Am Ha-Aretz.[29] He was then accepted “for wings” (the second level), and was noted as one who washed his hands before eating and before touching ritually clean food.[30], [31] The third degree was more complicated, and prior to attaining the highest (fourth) level the candidate underwent a period of probation, either thirty days or one year. The main vows of the Pharisees can be summed up in the two areas of tithing and ritual purification.

According to Louis Finkelstein, although the Pharisees admitted only several thousand into formal membership, there were literally millions who followed their doctrines, including the Essenes, the Therapeutae, the Sect of Damascus, and the early Christians, many of whom were not Jews.[32] One example was the Alexandrian Jew who inquired of Hillel about the legality of their betrothal customs.[33] Another is the first-century historian, Josephus, who withdrew his formal membership from the society, yet maintained a close relationship with Pharisaism.[34]

The Pharisees did not require universal obedience to their strict disciplines. Their basic demands were that people confess their philosophies and accept their ethics. To admit belief in the resurrection or the validity of the Oral Law was not the same as taking on the full yoke of the Law, but it was enough to be considered a follower of Pharisaism.

The Pharisees disappeared as a visible, organized society in the third century A.D., but their influence on Western spiritual thought still endures, both in Rabbinic Judaism and in the many doctrines and practices that have overflowed into the Christian Church.

Chapter 7

Study Questions

1. Name two Pharisees who were opposed to Herod and the Romans.____________________and __________________.

2. Vespasian favored Yohanan ben Zakkai, the Pharisee leader, and permitted him to establish a rabbinic school at ________________.

3. After the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, the Pharisees lived as if the Temple still stood, as priests obeying the Laws at _______________ that they formally applied to the Temple. According to Psalm 141:2, among other texts, they substituted the dinner table for the altar and prayer three times a day for the basic ______________________.

4. By the year A.D. ____, Judaism and _____________ teaching had become synonymous.

5. Since the ancient world had no term for _____________, Pharisaism was a sect within the philosophy of ___________.

6. The Pharisees held many other jobs and were basically a Pharisee in the council of the ______________ who held to the ritual purity laws at home.

7. According to Josephus, there were more than ____________ Pharisees during the first century who refused to take an oath of loyalty to Herod. The______________ of Herod’s court were ruled by a group of these Pharisees. When these Pharisees refused to take an oath of loyalty to Caesar, they were fined. Because she favored them, Herod’s ___________-in-law paid the fines.

8. E. P. Sanders suggests that the Levites of the first century were some______________ strong.

9. During the first century, the Sadducees were centered around __________________ worship, while the Pharisees dealt more directly with the ________________ and outside life.

10. Describe the havurot.

11. The _______________________ was the chief organ of the Pharisee movement as they stressed God could also be worshiped outside the Temple.

12. Discuss briefly the seven woes compared to the seven types of Pharisees.

13. List the seven types of extremist Pharisees.

14. What does the Talmud say about the female Pharisee of ancient times?

15. List four examples of good Pharisees found in the New Testament.

16. The teaching of Jesus was most closely aligned to the Pharisees of the School of _____________.

17. In Luke 11:37 Jesus is clearly referring to the well-known dispute between the two schools of Hillel and Shammai over the __________________ of the cup and when the washing of the hands should take place. According to Luke, Jesus upheld the ruling by the School of Hillel concerning the outside of the cup and that it was permissible to wash _________________.

18. In Matthew 15:4–5, Jesus again addressed a heavily debated question in the two schools of Hillel and Shammai concerning consecrating all of their possessions to the Temple and neglecting to take care of their aged __________________.

19. Give two other examples of Jesus’ rulings concerning the first-century debates of the two schools of Hillel and Shammai.

20. List several traits of the Pharisees of the first century that were also familiar to the philosophers of the Hellenistic culture.

21. Although the Pharisees of the first century separated from the Essenes and other groups, they also differed among themselves. It is unlikely that what we call “__________” Judaism existed then.

22. In short, anyone was considered to be of the ___________ philosophy, who believed in all the Scriptures, the Oral Law, resurrection, angels, _______________ and future rewards.

23. The tractate of the Mishnah known as Pirkei Avot contains no ________________ material, but is composed of maxims and epigrams of the ancient teachers that have been passed down and are now considered standards for __________________, judges, and _____________________.

24. During the debates between the Sadducees and Pharisees over who had the leading ____________ of the Scriptures, Pirkei Avot became a major factor. To give them the edge, the _____________ deliberately introduced the public study of these principles to the people, giving them the favor.

25. During the first century, the term leaven was a sign of _____________________________.

26. All Pharisees were not hypocrites. In fact, many disciples of Jesus were of the sect of the Pharisees. List four things the Pharisees have contributed to the Church.

27. The population of Jerusalem during Jesus’ time was approximately __________ with _______________ of them being Pharisees.

28. List the four basic stages or degrees of the Pharisaic philosophy.

29. According to historic records, the main vows of the Pharisees can be summed up in what two areas?

30. Louis Finkelstein mentions that although the Pharisees only admitted ________________________ to their membership, they actually included _______________________ who followed their doctrines, such as the Essenes, the Therapeutae, the Sect of Damascus, early Christians and others.

31. The Pharisees did not demand universal obedience to their strict discipline. The basic demands were to _________________ their philosophies and to accept their ________________.

32. The Pharisees disappeared as an organized society in the ________________________ century A.D., but their influence on Western spiritual thought still endures, both in Rabbinic Judaism and in the many doctrines and practices that have overflowed into the Christian Church.

CHAPTER 8

The Pharisees and their Teachings

The Pharisees and the Publicans

The publicans were, perhaps, the most hated enemies of the Pharisees. These were Jews who collected taxes for Romans and were, therefore, looked upon as traitors to the Nation of Israel. Publicans were generally wealthy men who paid for the privilege of collecting taxes in a certain area. These taxes included the poll tax, the land tax, a tax on exports and imports, a tax on the transportation of slaves, tolls on roads and bridges, and even a market tax in Jerusalem introduced by Herod. The publicans often hired local Jews to do their dirty work.

These tax collectors often overcharged the people and pocketed the surplus. In rabbinical literature they are referred to as robbers, and in the Gospels they are looked upon as sinners. Jesus even used them to illustrate the lowest class of people (see Matthew 5:46, 21:31 and Luke 18:9–14). The Roman writer Cicero referred to these tax collectors as “the flower of the knighthood” and “the ornament of the state.” He also called them “the strength of the Republic.”[1] Obviously they were the strong arm of the Romans and, for this reason, were looked upon with utter abhorrence by the Jews.

The Pharisees developed a method for excluding publicans from all public and private functions. In fact, they were not even allowed to give testimony in a Jewish court, neither could they hold any office in the Jewish community. Charitable gifts given by publicans were usually rejected. Some rabbis hated the publicans so intensely that they declared repentance by a tax collector to be impossible because there was no way for him to make restitution. This may have been the background for Jesus’ story of the Pharisee and the publican in Luke 18. Obviously Jesus did not hold to such a belief since he permitted Zacchaeus to repent and pay back what he had stolen.

The Pharisees and the Samaritans

The feelings of the Pharisees toward the Samaritans were similar, though the background for their hatred was somewhat different. During the Old Testament period, Israelites had intermarried with Gentiles, resulting in Jews of mixed lineage, called Samaritans, who rejected the authority of the House of David. When they tried to return to the faith and were rejected, they built their own temple on Mount Gerizim and severed relations with the Jews in Jerusalem (see John 4:9, 20). Josephus mentions that Jewish guerillas staged raids into Samaria, and on one occasion, the Samaritans reportedly murdered Galilean pilgrims going to a feast in Jerusalem.[2]

With this background in mind, we can better understand the Pharisaic attitude held by some of Jesus’ disciples, when they asked if they could call down fire upon a group of Samaritans (Luke 9:51–56). It was this prejudice that Jesus was rebuking when he used illustrations of honorable Samaritans, such as the Good Samaritan and the Samaritan leper who was healed (see Luke 17 and Luke 10).

Around 90 A.D., as the New Testament period was drawing to a close, we can see the same group that carried the Pharisaic traditions into Rabbinic Judaism fomenting the same kind of hatred against those Jews who had chosen to follow Jesus Christ as against Samaritans. In fact, by the end of the first century the number of Jews following Christ had grown so large that, at the Council of Yavneh, the Pharisees added an additional benediction to the Shemoneh Esreh, the “Eighteen Benedictions” read in the synagogue. This prayer was actually a curse on the followers of Jesus and the Samaritans, which had the effect of expelling the followers of Jesus from the synagogue, which many were attending until that time.

The Pharisees and Miracles

According to ancient literature, Jesus was not the only rabbi of his day who healed the sick and performed miracles. Onias, also known as “Honi, the circle-drawer,” was famous for warning the people to cover their goods before he prayed for rain. He would then draw a circle around himself and refuse to leave until God answered his prayer. Honi lived in the first century and has been described as being “experienced in miracles.”

Another first-century rabbi, Hanina Ben Dosa, is remembered for the many miracles he performed, especially for healing the sick.[3] Early records indicate that it was not uncommon for miracles, such as the healing of blindness, deafness, lameness, and dumbness, to take place in the ministry of various rabbis. Even the casting out of demons was not unusual. Jesus referred to this when he said to the Pharisees, “If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children [students] cast them out?” (Matthew 12:27)

Arnold Fruchtenbaum, the Jewish Christian scholar, points out that there were four major miracles that the rabbis could not perform, which Jesus used to demonstrate his Messiahship.[4] According to Fruchtenbaum, Matthew 15:30 summarizes what he calls the general miracles of that time: healing the lame, the crippled, the blind, and the dumb. Even today, in Israel, both the Jews and the Arabs use the phrase “When Messiah comes, he will do that.” In other words, the Messiah will do what no ordinary man can do. It was this attitude that the first-century Jews had toward the four Messianic miracles that no one else could perform.

When John’s disciples asked Jesus, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?” Jesus replied by naming some miracles that were not being done in the first century (see Matthew 11:3–5). For example, the cleansing of lepers and the raising of the dead were not common in that day. From the time of the completion of the Mosaic Law, there was no record of any Jewish person who had been cleansed of leprosy. Miriam, the sister of Moses, was healed before the completion of the Law. Naaman, who was also healed, was a Gentile. The Jews considered leprosy to be “the finger of God” or “the stroke,” and anyone afflicted by it had to be cleansed, as well as healed.

This was such a significant issue that Leviticus 13 and 14 give detailed instructions as to what must be done when a healing did occur. First, the priest had to establish that the person had actually been a leper. Second, he had to establish that the person had really been healed. Third, he had to establish who had done the healing. Because no Jew had been healed of leprosy in such a long time, the Jews believed that an ordinary rabbi could not do such a miracle. Only Messiah, when he came, would be able to do it. This is bome out at Luke 4:27, where the Bible notes that there were many lepers in Israel as far back as Elisha, but none were healed except Naaman.

The Verification of Miracles

The action really began when Jesus healed the lepers and told them to take the required offering to the priest, in fulfillment of the Levitical Law. The priest was then required by the Law to verify that these persons had really been lepers, that they had actually been healed, and then, to investigate how or by whom this healing had been done (see Leviticus 13, 14).

The practice of the Sanhedrin was to send a delegation to investigate any serious Messianic candidates. This investigation involved two steps: The first was to simply observe. If there was convincing evidence, they proceeded to interrogate.[5] We can see this first step in Luke 5:17 and Mark 2:5–7, where the scribes and Pharisees who had come from Jerusalem simply sat and observed Jesus, reasoning in their hearts. It was after the healing of the lepers had been verified that the Sanhedrin began to take Jesus seriously. Then, when Jesus began to do other uncommon miracles, they went to the second stage and began interrogating him.

The second Messianic miracle Jesus did was the casting out of a demon of dumbness (see Matthew 12:22). Although Matthew 12:27 tells us that other rabbis were able to cast out demons, history tells us that they used a Pharisaic formula which required the exorcist to first ask the demon his name. They then used the demon’s name to cast it out. Even Jesus used this technique in Mark 5:9. But using this methodology left the rabbi powerless against demons of dumbness since they could not give their name. It was this kind of demon that the disciples could not cast out in Mark 9:17–18. It was when Jesus began doing miracles that no one else could do that the people started asking, “Is not this the son of David [the Messiah]?” (Matthew 12:23).

The third Messianic miracle Jesus performed was the healing of a man born blind. John 9:32–34 tells us that since the beginning of time not one case had been reported of a man blind being healed.

Jesus’ fourth Messianic miracle was the raising of the dead. Although there were examples of people dying and being brought back to life in the Old Testament, the case of Lazarus was an exception to the norm. John 11:39 tells us that Lazarus had been dead already for four days. The Pharisees believed that a deceased person’s spirit hovered over his body for three days, and that during that time there remained the possibility of resuscitation. This may be why Jesus intentionally waited until the fourth day to do the miracle. The resurrection of Lazarus left the rulers of the Jews with no alternative but to admit that he was, in fact, the Messiah of Israel. Because the callous hearts of many could not accept this, however, it was from that time forth that they looked for a way to have Jesus of Nazareth killed (John 11:53).

It was not the Pharisees so much who were threatened by Jesus’ demonstration of his Messiahship; it was the Sadducees who ran the Temple and profited from it. Their motives for wanting him dead are revealed in John 11:48: “If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place [Temple] and our nation” (NASB).

Jesus’ Endorsement of the Pharisees

In Matthew 23:3 Jesus exhorted his disciples to observe all that the Pharisees taught, but he also cautioned them not to follow the Pharisees’ example, since they often did not practice what they preached. It should be noted, however, that the Pharisees were the only group of teachers to whom Jesus gave his endorsement.

Although Jesus agreed with the theology of the Pharisees, it is obvious that he did not condone their hypocrisy. He rebuked them for praying long, public prayers, as well as sounding the trumpet to draw attention when giving public offerings (see Matthew 6:2, 7).

Pharasaic Traditions That Nullified the Law

In Mark 7:8 Jesus warned the Pharisees that some of them had placed so much emphasis on their traditions that they had actually nullified the Scriptures. One such example Jesus brought to their attention was the neglect of their responsibility to their parents. It was a common practice in the first century for the Pharisees to ignore their financial responsibility to their parents by declaring all their assets to be corban, a term used for any sacrifice or gift given to God (see Mark 7:10–11). Jesus pointed out that this popular tradition was in direct violation of the commandment to honor one’s father and mother.

It should be noted that although Jesus attacked several traditions of the Pharisees that nullified the Law (see Mark 7:13), there were also some valuable traditions that both Jesus and Paul passed on to the Church (see Galatians 1:14 and 2 Thessalonians 2:15). These included prohibitions against abusing widows and taking oaths, the need to pray and fast, the need to forego prejudice against one’s enemies, and various financial matters. The Talmud quotes Jesus Christ only one time: “I am come not to destroy the Law of Moses nor to add to the Law of Moses” (Matthew 5:17). This statement is used as a reference confirming that the Torah is binding for all time.[6]

The Pharisees and Evangelism

According to William L. Coleman, in his book Those Pharisees, the Pharisees engaged in aggressive and effective evangelism for three hundred years, especially during the time of Christ.[7] This is implied by such New Testament phrases as “You travel over land and sea to win a single convert” (Matthew 23:15, NIV), and “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in” (Luke 14:23, NKJV).

Jewish biblical scholar Yehezkel Kaufmann points out that during the Hasmonean era (second century B.C. to 37 B.C.), taking the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah that all nations would one day come to worship the One God, the Jews became very evangelistic (Isaiah 2:20 and Jeremiah 16:19).[8] During that era Judaism spread by means of religious conversio to all parts of the known world.

The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is the most well-known belief of the Pharisees, and some think it served as the main source of energy for their evangelism. Actually, long before Pharisaism, both the Egyptians and the Zoroastrians held to the idea of a resurrection, but neither covered the world with evangelism, as did the Pharisees.

During the first century B.C., Hillel set, as his main principle, the bringing of men closer to the Torah. In opposition to Shammai, Hillel consented to the admission of proselytes, even when unreasonable conditions of admission were laid down.[9] It is said that some in the Shammai school considered Gentile converts to be a leprosy in Israel. It was to this group that Jesus referred when he said that they imposed heavy and grievous burdens on others, in contrast to his burden, which, he said, was light (see Matthew 23:4 and 11:30).

Like Christ, Hillel favored taking the message of the resurrection to all mankind. He claimed to have had eighty personal students, thirty of whom the Shekhinah rested upon, thirty for whom the sun would stand still (as it did for Joshua), and twenty that were average.[10] It was probably the Shammaites Jesus was speaking to when he said, “For ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:13).

Whenever a person converted to faith in Yahweh, their conversion was often referred to as a “new creation” or “new birth,” terms used in the New Testament (see John 3:3 and 2 Corinthians 5:17). According to Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, the ancient Jews had at least six experiences they referred to as being “born again,” none of which applied to an old man such as Nicodemus (see John 3:4).[11] Each of the situations to which the Jews applied the term born again had to do with a drastic change or a new creation in one’s life. The first of these was a person’s conversion to Judaism. When a person came up out of the waters of the mikveh, which was considered the womb of the world, he was considered born again and rendered a new creation. Upon his welcome into the Jewish faith, he was said to be “under the wings of the Divine Presence.” It is this designation that Boaz gave to Ruth when she converted to the faith (see Ruth 2:12). Other experiences that merited the phrase born again included being crowned King of Israel, being numbered with the believers of Israel at age thirteen (bar mitzvah), marriage, ordination as a rabbi, and becoming the head of a rabbinical school.

The evangelism of the Pharisees attracted some of the most prominent pagans of the time, including the royal family of Adiabene of Mesopotamia. There was also Aquila, a Roman nobleman who became a disciple of the rabbinical academies, Shemaiah and Abtalion. The Pharisaic leaders of the first century prior to Herod were descendants of proselytes.[12]

Proselytes to Judaism

Most converts, or proselytes, after first taking instruction from a teacher or scribe, would then proceed to do three things to show their faith: undergo circumcision, undergo water baptism—mikveh—and offer a sacrifice. Because of the pain involved in circumcision, it is obvious why women converts outnumbered the men. There was, however, a procedure men could follow to show their faith without being circumcised, which involved becoming a God-fearer. These were not, however, fully accepted as proselytes. The God-fearers were Gentile believers who, like Cornelius, were devout in their faith, fearing God, leading their households, giving to the poor, and continuing steadfastly in prayer (see Acts 10:2).

During the period when the Pharisees were in control of the legislative powers, the status of the individual was elevated, especially that of women and servants. One of the bitter controversies between the Sadducees and the Pharisees was the position of slaves, who were to be treated humanely at all times, in accordance with the Laws of Moses. But the Sadducees maintained that a slave or maid was the property of his or her master, who could treat him or her as he pleased (see Exodus 21:1–11 and Deuteronomy 15:12–18).[13] According to this philosophy, the owner was held responsible for the actions of his slaves. The Pharisees, on the other hand, ascribed the same status to slaves as to free women, considering a slave responsible for his own actions.[14] [15]

Under the Pharisees, a security endorsing the woman’s rights in her marriage was placed in the father-in-law’s house. Simon ben Shetach introduced a ruling known as The Court’s Clause, which stated that all properties were to be included in the ketubah (marriage contract).[16] There were many other pieces of legislation favoring women’s rights, as a result of the Pharisees.

Josephus says that during the Second Temple period there was no city anywhere in the known world into which Jewish observances had not penetrated. He goes on to state that nearly all of the women in Damascus were addicted to the Jewish religion and cites the example of Queen Helena and her son, King Izates of Adiabene.[17] Rabbinic literature also mentions many converts in Mahoza, Babylon.[18]

William L. Coleman suggests four reasons why these three hundred phenomenally successful years of Jewish evangelism came to a halt. First, in A.D. 70, the focal point of Judaism, the Temple, was destroyed. Second, after the Jewish wars with Rome, at least four Roman emperors forbade the conversion of Gentiles. Third, the distrust of foreigners lessened Jewish interest in reaching out. Fourth, in A.D. 90, with the decisions at Yavneh, the believers in Jesus began to separate from the worship of other Jews in the synagogues and Christianity began to be an alternative to Judaism instead of part of it.[19]

Pharisaic Teaching Methods in the New Testament

According to The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion, Pharisaic rules for interpreting Scripture are as old as the text itself.[20] Although their exact origins are unknown, in the first century B.C. they were assembled by Hillel, who formulated them into seven exegetical principles. These seven principles are as follows:

1. Kal-ve-chomer — interpretation from a minor to a major case.

2. Gezerah Shavah — interpretation by word analogy.

3. Binyan Av mi-Katuv Ehad — interpretation from a single verse applied to a group of biblical passages.

4. Binyan Av mi-Shenei Ketuvin — interpretation from two passages applied to a group of biblical passages.

5. Kelal u-Pherat u-Pherat u-Kelal — interpretation involving the limitations of a general principle.

6. Ka-Yotze Bo be-Makom Aher — interpretation involving principles derived from similar passages.

7. Davar ha-Lamed me-Inyano — interpretation involving deduction from the biblical context.

The four basic types of biblical exegesis used by Christ and the Pharisees of his day were:

1. Peshat — the literal meaning.

2. Remez — a veiled allusion to a previous text.

3. Derash — a homiletic or aggadic interpretation.

4. Sod — an esoteric or mystical significance.

These four popular methods of teaching later came to be known as pardes, an acronym using the first letter of each teaching type. Besides these, there have been various collections of rules passed down from the Pharisees to Talmudic times that are referred to in rabbinic sources as middot. These include the thirteen rules of Ishmael ben Elisha and the thirty-two rules of Eliezer ben Yose ha-Galili, one of the last students of Akiva. According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, the majority of these rules are from earlier than the time of Hillel and have been passed down throughout the centuries.[21]

Chapter 8

Study Questions

1. Describe the publicans.

2. What is thought by many scholars to be the background of the story of the conversion of the tax collector in Luke 18?

3. Give a brief paragraph concerning the history of hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans and its cause.

4. What was the purpose of the extra prayer added to the eighteen benedictions by the Jewish leaders at Yavneh?

5. Name at least two other rabbis during the first century, besides Jesus, who healed the sick and had miracles in their ministry.

6. Give a summary of the general miracles done during the first century.

7. List the four Messianic miracles performed by Jesus alone.

8. What was another name for the finger of God?

9. The investigation delegation sent by the Sanhedrin to investigate the Messianic candidates involved what two steps?

10. Describe the Pharisaic formula for exorcism during the first century.

11. What false concept was Jesus correcting by waiting four days before raising Lazarus?

12. Describe briefly the corrupt practice of declaring “it is corban” that Jesus rebuked in Mark 7:11.

13. It should be noted that although Jesus addressed several traditions of the Pharisees that nullified the _____________ (Mark 7:13), there are other good traditions that Jesus, as well as Paul, passed on to the __________________ (Galatians 1:14 and 2 Thessalonians 2:15).

14. The Pharisees were responsible for the idea of _________________ and had by the first century already completed three hundred aggressive years of it.

15. The doctrine of the __________________ is the most publicized belief of the Pharisees, and some think it is the main energy of evangelism.

16. The school of Shammai considered Gentile converts to be a ______________ in Israel. It was to this group that it is thought that Jesus directed his rebuke in Matthew 23:4.

17. Hillel, on the other hand, encouraged others to become students of Torah and personally had _____________ students.

18. List six different experiences to which the Jews applied the term “born again.”

19. The mikveh or waters of baptism were known as the womb of the ________________.

20. The normal convert or proselyte would first take instruction from a teacher or a scribe and then proceed to do three things to show his faith. List these three things.

21. What term was used to describe the full Gentile believers like Cornelius who were devout in their faith, giving, attendance, and prayer, but were not circumcised?

22. Describe the ruling by the Pharisees known as The Court’s Clause and its relevance to the rights of women.

23. List four reasons why the three hundred years of successful Jewish evangelism came to a halt.

24. Summarize the seven rules of Hillel.

25. Name the four basic types of biblical exegesis used by Christ and the Pharisees of the first century.

CHAPTER 9

The Pharisees: Riding High

The Pharisees As Protagonists of Memra

Despite the influence of Greek philosophy during the Second Temple period, the Jewish writers of the New Testament clearly relied primarily on early rabbinic methods of interpretation. An example can be seen in the theology of the New Testament Logos, the Word. Early Jewish theologians had developed an entire philosophy around what they called Memra, or the Word of God, to which they ascribed six particular attributes. In John 1:1–18, we see these same six attributes ascribed to the Logos. Notice how John associates these Memra attributes with Jesus, the Messiah.

The first of these attributes of Memra was that it was sometimes distinct from and sometimes the same as God. Likewise, John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

The second was that Memra was the agent of creation, hence John 1:3 says, “All things were made by him.”

The third was that Memra was the agent of salvation, hence John 1:12 says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.”

The fourth of these attributes of the Memra was that Memra was the agent of Theophany. This attribute is seen in John 1:14, which says, “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” According to Dr. Jack Sternberg, “John is saying that in Jesus, Who is the Word, and the Glory of God, in Him, we beheld the Shekhinah Glory, as Jesus became the Agent of Theophany, the visible presence of God, as was the Memra of the Old Testament.”[1]

The fifth was that Memra was the agent of covenant signing, hence John 1:17 compares the covenant of grace and truth through Christ to the covenants of Abraham and Moses.

The sixth was that Memra was the agent of revelation. This attribute can be seen in John 1:18, which states that no man has seen God at any time, but that it is the Son who declares, or reveals, him. The writings of John confirm that his understanding of Memra was 100 percent Hebraic. He affirms that Jesus fulfills all six attributes and all Jewish expectations of Memra.

The Pharisees As Restorers of the Law

From the days of Judah ben Tabbai and Simon ben Shetach, in the first century B.C., the rule of Judaean Law began to be restored and brought back to its ancient splendor. The Sadducean members of the Sanhedrin were replaced, and the codes they had added to the Law given on Sinai were set aside. The Pharisees did away with the severe “eye for an eye” punishment principle of the Sadducean penal code, and the days of rejoicing that the Sadducees had disregarded were once again proclaimed as half-holidays.

The Pharisees also added new measures to lessen the number of divorces, which the Sadducean interpretation of the Law had failed to do. When the Pharisees reorganized the High Court, they ordered husbands to give their divorced wives a certain sum of money for support, which caused a husband to think hard before divorcing his wife. Another improvement made by the Pharisees, during the time of Simon ben Shetach, concerned education. According to The History of the Jews by Heinrich Graetz, “In all large towns, high schools for the use of young men from the age of sixteen sprung up at his urging.”[2]

Many details of the ceremonial Law which had been neglected during the rule of the Sadducees were reintroduced into Jewish life. One was the custom of pouring a libation of water upon the altar during the Feast of Tabernacles, a practice that had been ridiculed by Alexander Jannaeus. The Pharisees also introduced the illuminating of the Temple grounds with giant menorahs during that holiday. The annual feast became a time of dancing and merriment, with a torchlight procession of song and praise from the Pool of Siloam to the Temple. Another popular festival renewed by the Pharisees was the half-holiday of the wood-feast on the fifteenth day of Av (August), which was held in honor of the gathering of the wood that was offered on the altar of the Temple.[3]

As to the accusation that the Pharisees changed the Law through legislation and interpretation, it should be noted that Josephus said they were the most pious of all the groups of Jews, precise interpreters of the Law, and were superior in learning and understanding of the Law.[4]

The Pharisees’ Responsibility for the Study of Torah

From before the time of Christ, the Pharisees were the leaders in study. Hillel dedicated himself to the principle of “loving peace and drawing fellow men to the Torah.”[5] Gamaliel had eighty students in the first century, one of whom was the Apostle Paul (see Acts 22:3). Because of the Pharisees’ success in producing superior students of the Torah, study was considered an important form of worship during the first century.

During Alexander Yannai’s reign as high priest and king of Judah (103–76 B.C.), an evil man by the name of Eleazar ben Poirah said to the king, “These Pharisees are secretly against you.”

“How can I tell?” asked Yannai.

Eleazer’s reply was, “Put on the high priest’s gold frontlet.”

When Yannai put on the high priest’s garment, an old man named Judah ben Gedida spoke up saying, “The crown of royalty should suffice you! Leave the crown of the high priest for the descendants of Aaron!”

It is reported that the king’s anger over this remark set up a wall of resentment between him and the Pharisees. Later, the king was persuaded by Eleazar ben Poirah to slay six thousand sages of Israel. It is said that because of this, the world was completely devoid of learning until Simon ben Shetah, the brother of Queen Salome Alexandra, who had gone into hiding, restored the study of Torah.[6], [7]

For a Pharisee to be a good student of the written and Oral Law, he had to have considerable knowledge of anatomy, zoology, the calendar, mathematics, and astronomy. There were exceptional teachers among the Pharisees, such as Simeon the Righteous, Antigonus of Socho, and Jeshua ben Sira, who were known for their special genius in Torah.

After Pharisaism had become the dominant religious influence at the end of the first century A.D., a change occurred, especially among the Shammaites, who considered practice to be more important than study.[8] The debate over the significance of study lasted for more than fifty years following the destruction of Jerusalem and reached its climax during the time of Hadrian. The conclusion was finally reached that “study is great, for study alone can lead to appropriate practice.”[9], [10] Although study was always highly esteemed by the Pharisees, most Sadducees were contemptuous of scholarship.

Similarities Between the Puritans and the Pharisees

Although the Puritans did not recognize themselves as successors to the Pharisees, there are many points of resemblance between the Pharisees at the beginning of the Christian era and the Puritans of England and America. These include an emphasis on self-discipline; the determination not to remove their standards; the desire for learning; the pursuit of freedom; the mixture of idealism and realism, which was often confused with hypocrisy; the fluctuating affections of love and hate, which were often aimed at those who opposed their views; and the total devotion to a simple life-style.

Although some modern writers have held the Puritans in contempt, they are nevertheless held in high esteem by most fundamentalists. Two of the foremost literary figures of Puritanism during the seventeenth century, John Milton and John Bunyan, both displayed considerable Pharisaism in their writings. Even the Oxford Dictionary connects the term hypocritical with the terms Puritan and Pharisee.[11] Perhaps Christians, when criticizing the Pharisees, will view them with the same understandings we have of the Puritans, since both have so many of the same hero/villain-hypocrite/saint traits.

The Pharisees and the Church

The relationship of the Church and the synagogue during the first century was so close that the changes instituted in one affected the other. One example is the establishment of an obligatory evening service in the synagogue that was almost immediately followed by a similar service in the early Church. According to Jewish literature, the evening service in the synagogue became obligatory toward the end of the first century A.D.[12] W.O.E. Oesterly, in The Religion And Worship Of The Synagogue, points out that the book of Acts, which is sometimes cited as a source for the three daily services in the early Church, actually refers to only two.[13] The prayer of the ninth hour mentioned in Acts 3:1, was identical to the prayer recited “about the sixth hour” (Acts 10:9). These verses both refer to the prayer of the afternoon service, which could be recited either early or late in the afternoon. The first reference to three services in the Church occurs in Didache 8,[14] around A.D. 100. Although there was much hostility and intolerance during the Middle Ages between the Catholic Church and the synagogue, there were, nevertheless, many similarities in forms of music, worship rites, organizational structures, leadership synods, and scholarship.

Josephus’ Description of the Pharisees

Josephus was well-acquainted with the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, and described all three groups in detail.[15] In his book From Politics to Piety, Jacob Neusner compares what Josephus wrote about the Pharisees in his War (published ca. A.D. 75) with what he wrote twenty years later in Antiquities. According to Josephus, the Pharisees were sufficiently influential to be able to criticize the king, or even the high priest, with impunity.[16], [17]

Because Herod was Idumean and not a full-blooded Jew, the Pharisees never really accepted him as king of Israel. The Idumeans had been forced to embrace Judaism by John Hyrcanus, during the second century B.C. This non-voluntary acceptance, to the Pharisees, was a complete fraud.[18]

The Pharisees were extremely respectful of the elderly and would not contradict them in anything they introduced.

Because the reason for things was of major concern to the Pharisees, their study of Torah, as the revealed Word of God, was a search for the reason for living and how man could best fulfill his life through service to God.

According to Jewish history, during the final generations of the Second Commonwealth (first century A.D.), the Pharisees had control of all Jewish religion, with even the Sadducean high priest following Pharisaic practices.[19] It seems that, for the most part, the Temple ritual was conducted according to the principles of Shammai, rather than Hillel.[20]

Josephus points out that the Zealots faithfully followed Pharisaic rules, but were extreme in their pursuit of liberty, even declaring to Rome that the God of Israel alone was their sovereign Lord. Although the Zealots were in line, religiously, with the Pharisees, they had other traits that disassociated them from the main body of observant Jews. One Zealot action that did not find approval from the Pharisees was their action against Rome that resulted in the final rebellion of A.D. 66–73. Several Pharisaic scholars, including Rabban Gamaliel II, Rabbi Joshua, Rabbi Akiva, and Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah, visited Rome to explain the differences between their Pharisaic practices and the nationalism that led to the Jewish War.[21]

After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, many of the Pharisees and their followers went to Yavneh while others were scattered among the two hundred and four towns and hamlets in Galilee mentioned by Josephus.[22] These retained their rituals and separated themselves from their non-Jewish neighbors. According to the Mishnah, one of these devoted keepers of the traditions saved the ashes of the last red heifer when Jerusalem was destroyed. As late as the third century A.D., some scholars still “performed the purification ceremony” in Galilee.[23]

The Doctrines of the Pharisees

The Pharisees, who were considered by the masses to be the most accurate interpreters of the Law, attributed everything to fate and to God. They believed that men had freedom of will to act in accord with Torah, but that, with each action, fate was involved. While the Sadducees maintained that the soul of man did not have conscious existence after death and that there were no penalties or rewards, the Pharisees believed that the soul was imperishable. They taught that the soul of the righteous would enter into a glorified body in the future world and that the soul of the wicked would suffer eternal punishment.[24]

Even though all Pharisees held to a general belief in the afterlife, there were differences among even their best scholars. The Shammaites, for example, believed that on the Day of Judgment there would be three groups: the righteous, who would be resurrected to eternal happiness; the wicked, who would be condemned to eternal torment; and the intermediate, or backslider, who would descend into Gehenna, to be scorched by its fires and purified before joining the righteous.[25]

The Hillelite Pharisees taught that the soul was destructible and that the wicked would neither be resurrected nor judged.[26] The Hillel group also taught that the majority of people comprising the intermediate group would be forgiven. There was such a difference of theology on this point that some, such as Akiva (A.D. 40–135), took a middle position, declaring that there would be punishment for the wicked, but that it would only last twelve months.[27] Josephus held to the beliefs of the Pharisees and, for the most part, adopted the Shammaitic interpretation.[28]

The Pharisees and the Triumphal Entry

One of the obvious examples that Jesus affiliated himself with or was among the Pharisees was the way the people reacted to him during the triumphal entry into Jerusalem (see Matthew 21).

The triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is recorded in each of the Gospels. These accounts show how the people greeted Jesus at the beginning of his last week, proclaiming him to be King and throwing down garments and tree branches in his path. The excited people shouted, “Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest” (Matthew 21:9). This expression of exaltation was reminiscent of the Pharisees’ custom during the Feast of Tabernacles. They would march once a day for seven days with palm branches in their hands, singing “Hosanna.” On the eighth day they would march seven times, which was called the Great Hosanna, expecting Messiah to save them from their enemies. This was done exclusively by the Pharisees.

Both Josephus and the Talmud record the controversy between the Pharisees and the Sadducees concerning this ritual. The Pharisees had added several customs which were reverent, but not found in the Scripture, to which the Sadducees strongly objected. They especially opposed the march from the Pool of Siloam to the altar, crying “Hosanna,” and the water libation which was poured on the altar. After the procession, the willow branches were beaten against the floor of the Temple until the leaves fell off. Each night the Temple courts were the scene of frenzied celebration, with dancing, singing, and the carrying of torches. The Levites provided the music, being skilled in playing numerous instruments, including the harp, flute, cymbals, and trumpet. According to ancient sources, “There was not a court in Jerusalem which remained without illumination from the light of the water-drawing celebration.”[29]

The Pharisees and the Day of Atonement

One of the major differences between the Pharisees and the Sadducees concerned the high priest’s ritual on the Day of Atonement. The Sadducees, who served as the high priests, were fearful of making a mistake, since the Bible warns, “...that ye die not.” Because of this, they wanted to put the fire upon the incense in the outer hall so that the high priest could enter the darkness of the Holy of Holies with the sweet-smelling smoke before him. The Pharisees held to the exact reading of Leviticus 16:12 that commanded the high priest to put the incense on the fire “before the LORD.”[30], [31], [32] There was such a controversy in this area that the Pharisees made the high priest take an oath to do it their way.[33]

The Pharisees and the Red Heifer

Another difference between the Sadducees and the Pharisees concerned the requirement that the priest, who was to officiate at the sacrifice of the Red Heifer, be pure. Although the Scripture states that this function was to be done by someone other than the high priest, because it was one of the more colorful functions, the high priest assumed this responsibility.[34] [35] This was such a strict ritual, that to ensure that the red heifer was levitically pure, the heifer had to be watched from birth to guarantee that not even two black hairs appeared on its body. The location of the sacrifice had to be exact, and the care for the ashes was also of great concern (see Numbers 19).

According to Pharisaic tradition, there were only seven red heifers sacrificed during the entire Second Commonwealth. After the fall of the Temple, the ashes of the last one were preserved and used until as late as the third century A.D.[36] The controversy centered around the Sadducees’ insistence that the high priest undergo more than the standard bath of the Pharisees to ensure his complete purity.

The Pharisees and the Ritual Bath

Keeping ritually pure was difficult for the Pharisees in a metropolis such as Jerusalem where much of the population experienced daily defilement. To resolve this, they took up the practice of bathing every morning to wash away all impurity.[37] There was a ritual bath on the staircase of the southern entrance to the Temple which worshipers had to dip in before entering. Recent excavations of the Temple Mount area have uncovered some forty-eight of these mikvaot. The Talmud mentions that the Pharisees even bathed the menorah of the Temple. Although the cleansing of metals had a scriptural foundation in Numbers 31:22, the Sadducees not only disagreed with but mocked this practice.[38], [39] In contrast to this continual effort to maintain the ritual purity practiced by the Jews, Paul wrote that one baptism was all the Gentiles needed (see Acts 2:38, Romans 6:3–5 and Ephesians 4:5).

The Pharisees and Angels

The Pharisees received most of their doctrines from the schools of the prophets, as the prophets transmitted them to the men of Ezra’s Great Synagogue.[40] Although the same issues debated by the Pharisees and Sadducees concerning angels existed in pre-exilic times, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and the many angelic creatures whose names are mentioned in Pharisaic, rabbinic, and Christian writings are not mentioned in the earliest biblical texts. Between 400 and 100 B.C. a new angelology arose that differed from the biblical record. This is generally attributed to Babylonian influences, which many Jewish scholars came under, following the captivity of 586 B.C. During the century after Cyrus decreed the Jewish return to Jerusalem (538–430 B.C.), there was a continual influx of such scholars and teachers from Babylon to Israel.

Zechariah was a prophet who returned from Babylon and was the first to write about Satan in a manner significantly different from the descriptions in Job and other early texts. Zechariah describes Satan as an evil angel resisting Joshua the high priest (see Zechariah 3:1–2). It is from the writings of this period that the Pharisaism, Rabbinic Judaism, and Christianity derived many of their concepts concerning Satan’s appearance and characteristics. Many do not realize that they were borrowed from Babylon’s evil one, the Zoroastrian Ahriman.

Down through the years, scholars have attributed to Satan such Greco-Roman characteristics as the half-man, half-goat look of Pan, the ancient mythological god. He has also been assigned a goatee, a pointed tail, and a flute to play. It is from Pan and his propensity for frightening people that we get the English word “panic.” Louis Finkelstein points out that many of the Jews who were left in Jerusalem during the Babylonian Captivity remained loyal to the ancient prophetic teachings on angels and rejected these new developments in angelology.[41]

The theories and theologies concerning angels reached their apex when the apocalyptic book of Jubilees (135–105 B.C.) went so far as to describe certain angels as being circumcised.[42] There was so much controversy about angels during the time of Jesus that it is all but impossible to determine any definitive Pharisaic doctrine on angels. We do know that the Sadducees rejected their existence altogether, while the Pharisees and other sects constantly debated differing beliefs about them.

The Harshest Ruling of the Pharisees

Other issues that divided the Pharisees were the kindling of lights by women on Sabbath eve, the carrying of items from house to house on the Sabbath, the inheritance rights of daughters and granddaughters, and the punishment of false witnesses. According to ancient records, the only instance where the Pharisees demanded a harsher interpretation of the Law than the Sadducees was in the case of a false witness.[43], [44] The actual biblical Law, like other codes of the day, such as those of the Sumerians and Hammurabi, stated that a false witness should be penalized with the same disservice he had inflicted on another.[45] The Sadducees argued that this rule applied only when an injury had occurred, but the Pharisees held that the crime was committed as soon as the incriminating testimony was given, whether an injury had occurred or not.

The Greatest of the Conflicts

Of all the controversies between the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and other sects, the greatest conflict centered around the doctrine of the resurrection. Among the patrician teachers who denied the resurrection were Ben Sira (200 B.C.) and the Hasidean teacher, Antigonus of Socho. Others during this period, such as the prophet Daniel, taught boldly of the resurrection (see Daniel 12:2–3). The Pharisees were so strict concerning the resurrection that they would not permit those who denied it to recite public prayers in the synagogues. They also inserted an affirmation of the resurrection at the beginning of the main service in the Shemoneh Esreh (the Eighteen Benedictions).[46], [47]

The Pharisees: An Opposing Group Within Judaism

For fifteen centuries prior to the destruction of the Second Temple there was a continual war of words and theologies (and sometimes swords) between Pharisaic, prophetic, and rabbinic groups. Even in the environs of the Temple there was contention between the Levites and the priests. It is, therefore, not surprising that the New Testament records the same kinds of antagonisms between the Jewish followers of Jesus and the other sects of Judaism. Epithets such as “firstborn of Satan” and “the synagogue of Satan” were commonly used even against brothers to condemn differing attitudes or theologies (see Mark 8:33).[48]

During the latter part of the first century, the division between the Am Ha-Aretz, the common people, and the Pharisees became so severe that Rabbi Eliezer remarked, “If the Am Ha-Aretz did not need the Pharisees for trade, they would slaughter us.”[49] Rabbi Akiba stated that the feelings of the Am Ha-Aretz against the Pharisees and their scholars were more strident than those of the pagans against the Jews. Akiba, who was an Am Ha-Aretz for forty years before becoming a Pharisee, said of his previous feelings, “I used to say that if I had a scholar I would bite him like an ass.”[50]

The wealthy aristocrats of Jerusalem, many of whom were Sadducees, lived a life-style that was completely the opposite of the Pharisees. Some of the Sadducees were so extravagant that they used gold bindings for the palm branches they carried during the ceremonies of Sukkot and gold containers for the first-fruits they brought to the Temple at Pentecost. In fact, a law had to be passed to prevent the wealthy from covering their phylacteries with gold.[51] In contrast, when Hillel first came to Jerusalem from Babylon, he earned only half a zuz a day. This meager fare was barely enough to allow the great Pharisaic sage to buy meat once a week, which he probably did for Sabbath.[52]

There was such a deep division within the Temple ministry between the plebeians (the common people) and the patricians (the aristocracy) that the Levites became divided into two classes: “the singers” and the “gate-keepers.” These offices were passed down by inheritance from father to son. The feelings between these groups were so intense that when a singer once approached a gate-keeper and offered to assist him in his work, the gate-keeper cried out, “Go back; you are a singer; and a singer who closes the gates commits a capital offense.”[53] Finkelstein points out that even though the Levites accepted the aristocratic standards, they undoubtedly remained an effective force. If the general population of Jerusalem lived holy lives, it was due, not to the priests but to the Levites and scribes.[54]

The Schools of Hillel and Shammai

During the first century, the schools of Shammai and Hillel were the two leading religious groups among the Pharisees. Dating from the period between A.D. 10 and 70, most of the traditions codified by these schools eventually touched all of Judaism through the academy of Yavneh. The rocky relationship between these schools gave rise to many stories about their founders, including one where a sword was set up to ensure order. According to Josephus, the Pharisees were generally affectionate toward one another and had harmonious relations with the community, but the school of Shammai was noted for its severity and strictness and was considered the mouthpiece of the wealthy (patrician) Pharisees.

Hillel is said to have been gentle by nature, while Shammai has been labeled impatient. The Talmud exhorts men to be as “meek as Hillel and not as quick-tempered as Shammai.”[55] On occasion, the touchy Shammaites actually came to blows, both in the Sanhedrin and the school. Hillel himself was almost assaulted by the Shammaites for bringing a sacrifice to the Temple in a manner of which they did not approve.[56] Even some of the women were known for being quick-tempered. Beruriah, the wife of Rabbi Meir, once called an older rabbi a “Galilean fool,” and kicked a student who did not study in the manner she preferred.[57]

Finkelstein points out that none of the condemnations which Jesus uttered against the Pharisees exceeded the denunciations between the Shammaites and the Hillelites.[58] In an effort to keep the Hillelites out of his academy, Gamaliel II, a Shammaite leader, ruled that “no one who is different within from what he appears without may enter the school.”[59] The school of Hillel had equally demeaning words for the Shammaites, calling them “treacherous men, self-pleasers, dissemblers in all their own affairs and lovers of banquets at every hour of the day, gluttons...devourers of the poor, complaining, deceitful...impious, filled with lawlessness and iniquity from sunrise to sunset saying, ’we shall have feastings and luxury, eating and drinking, and ‘we shall esteem ourselves as princes.’ Though their hands touch unclean things they say, ‘do not touch me lest you pollute me in the place where I stand.’”[60], [61]

The Influence of the Pharisaic Schools

After the Hasmonean period, in the first century B.C., during the times of Salom Zion and Simon ben Shetach, the Pharisees began to rise in legislative power. It was during this time that both the Law and the Jewish religious teachings began to come to the commoners through various schools. The children were educated, and great scholars, such as Shemayah and Abtalion, rose to leadership positions among the Pharisees.[62] These two men were known as the “sons of the folk,” indicating that they were commoners or from the families of proselytes. They later became famous for founding an academy that drew many poor students, often from distant lands.[63] It was during this time that Hillel came to Galilee from Babylon and eventually rose to the presidency of both the Sanhedrin and the academy.

Hillel’s school liberalized the requirements for becoming a Pharisee, reducing the initiation period to only thirty days. The standards also allowed anyone, regardless of background, to enter the school. The result was: “There was many a sinner in Israel and in their acceptance of Torah-study, they turned out to be pious, righteous and upright.”[64]

Not all Pharisees went along with these liberal policies. It was during Hillel’s tenure that Menachem, the vice president of the Sanhedrin, resigned, taking eighty pairs of disciples, dressed in silk embroidered with gold, with him. Some think he did this in protest of Hillel’s liberalism.[65] The zealous Shammai replaced Menachem and later became the head of the second leading academy of the first century. In Shammai’s academy, initiation was open only to those select few who could meet the rules of the past, plus a number of other strict regulations. This usually eliminated all but those of the most notable aristocratic families, and those students who proved themselves wise and humble according to his beliefs.

The Popularity of the Pharisees in the First Century B.C.

By the end of the first century B.C., Hillel was teaching all who were teachable, including a high priest, Joshua ben Gamla, who had served for several years before the Temple destruction. He established a system of education throughout Israel in which he appointed elementary teachers in every district and in every town.[66] Josephus points out that during this time the precepts of the Jewish faith were known among old and young alike.[67]

Asher Finkel emphasizes that it was because of the Hillelite Pharisees’ emphasis on expanding educational opportunities that, after the destruction of the Temple, the leadership at Yavneh was given to Johanan ben Zakkai, a student of Hillel, who did not have the kind of pedigree which had once been required.[68] By the end of the Second Temple period, Zakkai had become the preeminent sage and was a leader of the peace party in Jerusalem. According to tradition, after being carried out of Jerusalem in a coffin, he then stepped out and predicted to Vespasian that he would one day ascend to the throne. He was rewarded for this act by being allowed to found an academy at Yavneh. This academy became the seat of the Sanhedrin, after the fall of Jerusalem.

Zakkai was instrumental in bringing significant changes to Judaism, including the replacement of Temple service with the synagogue and the Bet Midrash. He based these necessary changes on Hosea 6:6, which says, “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice.” For the time being, he concluded, prayer and charity would have to substitute for the offering of animals.

The Pharisees and the Bar-Kochba Revolt

In A.D. 132 the Bar-Kochba Revolt broke out, with the support of Rabbi Akiva, a famous member of the Yavneh academy.[69] When the revolt failed, the Jews were so persecuted by the Roman emperor Hadrian that they were banned from the city under penalty of death. Because of the severity of this restriction, the rabbis called the generation after the revolt “the generation of religious persecution.” The Bar-Kochba Revolt was the death blow to both the Essenic and Pharisaic communities, as they had existed up to that time.[70], [71] After the revolt, a new rabbinical academy and government were founded at Usha in Galilee. The patriarch of Usha was Simeon ben Gamaliel, who ruled from about 140 to 170 A.D. He was succeeded by his son, Judah.

The Pharisees and Ritual Purity

The Pharisees were rigorous in their enforcement of the rules of ablution (washing), especially concerning the Temple priests, since according to Mosaic Law, they always had to be in a state of purity. Their regulations were so strict that no one was permitted to enter even the court of the Temple without first bathing.[72] The High Priest administering the service on the Day of Atonement had to go through a ritual of five full baths and ten washings of the hands and feet.[73] Though there was some disagreement among various groups, the Pharisees insisted that a state of ritual purity could only be achieved by means of immersion in water.

Many of the common people of Israel did not observe the rules on tithing and were, therefore, ostracized by the Pharisees (see Nehemiah 13:10–13). Their produce was called demai, meaning that the tithe had not been given from it. Those who considered themselves to be Pharisees, or who associated with the teachings of the Pharisees, were quite a large section of the population. According to Louis Finkelstein, one in every four city families was formally associated with Pharisaism. Organized membership, counting only the males, was approximately six thousand at the end of the first century.[74]

According to Asher Finkel, when those who admired the work of the Pharisees, but who could not abide by their strict code of conduct, moved away from the vicinity of the Temple, a class division occurred.[75] As early as the time of Ezra (458 B.C.) there seems to have been such a class division between the Am Ha-Aretz and the members of the Pharisaic order (Haverim). These two groups remained in a continual conflict until long after the destruction of the Temple. Even when the Pharisaic academies were forced to relocate in distant cities, there were still bitter disputes between these groups.

The Pharisees and the Division of the Jerusalem Church

There is no question that the Pharisees had a notable influence on the early Church. According to David Flusser, Hebrew Christians who kept the Jewish customs existed up until the tenth century A.D.[76] It appears that the division of the Jerusalem Church occurred in three stages, the first involving the Jewish community in Israel, the second the Diaspora communities, such as Antioch, Ephesus, and Alexandria, and the third involving a faction of the Diaspora which left its Jewish roots and affiliated with the Roman Church. Because of the so-called Christian Crusades and later the Inquisition, there are few records of an innately Jewish community within the Church after the eleventh century.

Some of the Jewish believers in the Diaspora did not join themselves to the Roman Church, but joined “irregular churches,” as some have called them, such as Montanists, Novationists, Donatists, Paulicians, Albigenses, Waldenses, and Anabaptists. Unfortunately, detailed research shows that some of these groups held rather bizarre beliefs that would be offensive to some today who claim allegiance to such groups. Nevertheless, a historical line can be traced back through these irregular churches linking some present-day groups with the first-century Jewish community at Jerusalem.[77]

As early as A.D. 251 many of these irregular churches decided to take a non-fellowship position toward other churches who taught doctrines that were too closely associated with the Roman Church. Although there were judaizing groups during this period, such as the Ebionites, who were considered to be in error, the Hebrew Christians we have examined formed the earliest groups of believers to hold to the original beliefs of the Church.

Chapter 9

Study Questions

1. Early Jewish theologians developed an entire philosophy regarding what is known as Memra or the _____________ of _________________.

2. List the six attributes the Jewish scholars attached to the Word of God that are evidenced in John chapter one.

3. From the days of Judah ben Tabbai and Simon ben Shetach, in the first century B.C., the rule of the Judaean __________ began to be restored and brought back to its ancient splendor.

4. Another improvement added by the Pharisees, during the time of Simon ben Shetach, was the promotion of better _______________.

5. The Pharisees also reintroduced forgotten customs such as the pouring of a __________of water upon the altar during the Feast of _____________ and renewing the half-holiday of the _____________-feast.

6. The Pharisees were responsible for the study of ____________. Gamaliel had __________ students in the first century, one of whom was the Apostle Paul (Acts 22:3).

7. Describe how the wall of resentment was established between Alexander Yannai and the Pharisees (103–76 B.C).

8. Name three exceptional teachers among the Pharisees who were known before the first century for their genius in study.

9. After the time of Jesus at the end of the first century, a change occurred, especially among the Shammaites, where the principle of ____________ became more important than _____________.

10. Make a brief comparison between the Puritans and the Pharisees.

11. Discuss how the first evening church service began. The first reference to three services in the church occurs in the Didache, section 8, in approximately A.D. _______________.

12. According to Josephus, the Pharisees were extremely respectful to the _____________ and would not contradict them in anything which they had introduced.

13. Although the Sadducees ran the Temple, the Pharisees had control of the procedure of Jewish religion and often restricted the rituals to be observed according to their rules. It appears that, for the most part, the Temple ritual was conducted by _______________ principles rather than ____________ methods.

14. Josephus points out that the Zealots faithfully followed the _____________ rules, but were extreme in their pursuit of liberty, even declaring to Rome their allegiance to God alone.

15. Name three Pharisee leaders who did not approve of the Jewish revolts against Rome.

16. According to the Mishnah, after the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., the Pharisees retained their customs, even to the saving of the ashes of the ___________.

17. The _____________ had a doctrine similar to the Catholic view of purgatory.

18. The Triumphal Entry of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey follows the custom of the _____________.

19. The Pharisees made the Sadducean high priest take an __________ on the Day of Atonement to obey the procedure of the Pharisees.

20. According to tradition, a total of ____________ red heifers were sacrificed during the entire Second Commonwealth.

21. During recent excavations some ___________ mikvaot have been located from the Second Temple period on the southern entrance to the Temple.

22. Explain the reason behind Paul’s statement that only one baptism was necessary for Gentile converts (Ephesians 4:5).

23. Between the years ________________________, a new angelology began to be taught that was different from the early biblical records.

24. Describe the new concepts that evolved concerning Satan and where they originated.

25. The theories and theologies concerning angels reached their climax during the period of apocalyptic literature with the book of __________________________ (135–105 B.C), This book went so far as describing angels being _________________________.

26. The only record of the Pharisees demanding a more harsh interpretation of the Law than the Sadducees was concerning the case of a ______________________________.

27. What was the greatest of the Pharisaic doctrines?

28. The common people were known as the __________________. There was a great division between the Pharisees and the common people mainly because they did not tithe or keep the purity regulations.

29. Many of the aristocratic Sadducees would use containers _________________ to carry their first-fruits and ___________________ bindings for their palm branches during the festival ceremonies such as Sukkot.

30. There was such a division in the Temple among the plebeians (common people) and the _______________ (aristocracy) that the Levites were divided into two classes. What were these two classes of Levites? _____________ and ________________.

31. During the first century, the two schools of Hillel and Shammai were the leading authorities among the Pharisees. These two schools dated from approximately ___________ to A.D. __________.

32. Finkelstein points out that none of the condemnations which Jesus uttered against the Pharisees exceeded the denunciations between the ____________________________ and the _________________.

33. Why were Shemayah and Abtalion known as “sons of the folk”?

34. Hille’s school initiated a liberal entrance requirement to become a Pharisee, in which the initiation was reduced to only _________ days compared to a longer period in other circles.

35. The rule of Hillel’s school was: “There was many a sinner in Israel and in their acceptance of __________ ___________, they turned out to be pious, righteous, and upright.”

36. How did the resignation of Menachem, the vice president of the Sanhedrin, lead to Shammai becoming the head of the second leading academy of the first century?

37. Describe how Hillel increased the study of Torah during the first century.

38. Briefly summarize the Bar-Kochba Revolt and the generation of religious persecution.

39. The Bar-Kochba Revolt was the death blow to the ______________ communities, as they were known before that time. After the Bar-Kochba Revolt, a new rabbinical academy and government were founded at _____________ in Galilee.

40. The produce of the common people (Am Ha-Aretz) was called ______________________ because they refused to observe the law of tithes. According to ancient records, one in every _____________ city families was formally associated with Pharisaism during the first century.

41. Jerusalem scholar David Flusser records that Hebrew Christians kept the Jewish customs up until the ___________ century A.D.

42. List the three stages of the earliest division of the Jerusalem Church: , _______________________, ________________________ and _____________________.

43. Explain the “irregular churches.”

44. These irregular churches decided as early as A.D. ___________ to take a non-fellowship position toward other churches and doctrines that were affiliated with the Roman Church.

Conclusion

The following eight conclusions of the preceding examination are not meant to be exhaustive, but include only the most significant areas covered in the text:

1. All of the evidence from the earliest period of Church history is both homogeneous and Jewish.

2. The methods and techniques utilized in this analysis are very different from earlier research, which was often done without the latest archaeological finds and without taking into account the Hebraic background of the Jerusalem Church.

3. The extant manuscripts of the early Church point convincingly to its Jewish roots.

4. The original language, idioms, customs, organizational structure, religious practices, and Scriptures of the early Church were Jewish.

5. Records confirm that the first fifteen pastors of the original Jerusalem Church were Jewish.

6. The earliest song book used by Christians, known as The Odes of Solomon, accentuates the fact that Christianity was not only born alongside of, but within the matrix of Judaism.[1]

7. The ninefold purpose of the Law and its many references in the New Testament and among Christian writers throughout history, argues against many of the misconceptions that have hindered accurate study of the Jewish origin of the Church.

8. An accurate understanding of the proto-rabbis and the Pharisees, along with their background in the Second Temple period, makes their influence on the early Church undeniable.

Based on the results of this examination, which reveal a complete lack of evidence for a non-Jewish Church before the end of the first century, and after researching this subject with numerous leading scholars of the field, both in Jerusalem and America, I am convinced, along with the celebrated theologian Karl Barth, that “the Bible is a Jewish book. It cannot be read, understood, or expounded unless we are to become Jews.”[2] It is, therefore, inconceivable to me that the early Church was anything other than a fixed part of the Judaism in which Jesus and Paul lived.

Conclusion

Study Questions

1. Review the eight conclusions of this book and give a summation of the most powerful four, in your opinion.

2. According to the celebrated theologian Karl Barth: “The Bible is a ____________________ book. It cannot be read, understood, or expounded unless we are to become __________________.”

Notes

Preface

[1] Roy Blizzard, Jr., and David Bivin, Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image Publishers, 1994), pp. 5,22–23.

Introduction

[1] Dwight Pryor, The Jewish Jesus (Dayton: The Center for Judaic–Christian Studies, 1991), p. 5.

[2] Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 10:5, 15 (Chicago: University Press, 1990).

[3] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., Soncino Talmud, Ber. 34b (London: Soncino Press, 1948).

[4] Philip Blackman, ed., Mishnah, Ta’anit 3:8 (New York: Judaica Press, 1983).

[5] David Flusser, Jewish Sources in Early Christianity (New York: Adama Press, 1987), p. 56.

[6] Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1968).

[7] Dwight Pryor, “God’s Kingdom” lecture (Dayton: The Center for Judaic-Chistian Studies, 1994), p. 2.

Chapter 1

[1] Isaac Boyle, trans., Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, H.E. 5 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1974), pp. 4–6.

[2] Ibid., H.E. 3, 32, 6.

[3] Ibid., H.E. IV. 5.

[4] Eus. H.E. III 5, 3; Epiph. paw. 29:7, 7; 30:2, 7.

[5] Ibid., H.E. 4, 6.

[6] Baring Gould, Lost and Hostile History, “Schonfield’s History” (London: Duckworth Publications, 1936), p. 35.

[7] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Sanh. 9:6; Yev. 90.

[8] Jerusalem Talmud, Meg. 3:1; Ket. 105a; Sot. 7:7, 8; Yoma 7:1 (Chicago: University Press, 1990).

[9] Alexander Roberts, ed., Ante–Nicene Fathers, Vol. I (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company), p. 186.

[10] Roswell Hitchcock, ed., Didache 8, (Willits, CA: Eastern Orthodox Publishers, 1989), chapters 11–15.

[11] Isaac Boyle, trans., Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History 3.25.4 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1974).

[12] John Lightfoot, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, Vol. II., Rev. 3:1, 7, 14 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publications, 1979), pp. 89–99.

[13] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Shab. 114a.

[14] Lightfoot, op. cit., p. 89.

[15] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit, I Pet. 5:5; I Tim. 5:1; Avot 5:21.

[16] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Meg. 4; Maimon. Tephillah, 12; Massecheth Soph. 10.

[17] Ray Pritz, Nazarene Jewish Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1992), p. 13.

[18] Roswell Hitchcock, ed., Didache 8, 12:4 (Willits, CA: Eastern Orthodox Publishers, 1989).

[19] David Freedman, ed., Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. I, (New York: Doubleday, 1992), pp. 925–26.

[20] David Freedman, ed., “Pliny Letters 10:96,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. I (New York: Doubleday), p. 926.

Chapter 2

[1] Jeffery Sheler, “Mysteries of the Bible,” U. S. News & World Report, (April 17, 1995), p. 61.

[2] David Flusser, “No Longer Hidden,” Jerusalem Perspective Research, Vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Synoptic Gospels in Jerusalem, August, 1989), p. 11.

[3] Samuel Tobias Lachs, A Rabbinic Commentary On The New Testament (Hoboken, NJ: KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1973), p. 172.

[4] Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. 16, p. 1187.

[5] Roy Blizzard, “Yavo Conference,” 1987; Dr. Ken Hanson, Commentary on Matthew.

[6] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit, Sotah 9:14; Nedarim 6:5–7; Demai 6:11.

[7] Brad Young, Kingdom Principles (Tulsa: Gospel Research Foundation, 1992), p. 21.

[8] A. M. Hunter, Interpreting the Parables (London: SCM Press, 1981), p. 7.

[9] Brad Young, Jesus and His Jewish Parables (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), p. 3.

[10] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Antiquities (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969), 15:395.

[11] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit, Middot 3:8.

[12] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Wars (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969), 1:269.

[13] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Parah. 3:8.

[14] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Niddah 2:1.

[15] Jerusalem Talmud, Moed Quatan 1:5 (Chicago: University Press, 1990).

[16] Ibid.

[17] Gordon Franz, Jesus and His Times (Jerusalem: The American Institute, 1994).

[18] Samuel Tobias Lachs, A Rabbinic Commentary on the New Testament (Hoboken, NJ: KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1973), p. 112.

[19] Alfred Edersheim, The Temple in Jesus’ Day (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s Publishing House, 1986), p. 49.

[20] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Bava Bathra, fol. 14.4.

[21] John Lightfoot, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, Vol. II, Trumoth, cap.4. hal.3 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1989), p. 156.

[22] David Flusser, Jewish Sources in Early Christianity (New York: Adama Press, 1987), pp. 7, 19.

Chapter 3

[1] Dwight Pryor, Discovering Our Jewish Roots lecture (Dayton: The Center for Judaic-Christian Studies, 1992), p. 6.

[2] David Flusser, Jesus (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), p. 75.

[3] Elgin Moyer, The Wycliffe Biographical Dictionary of the Church (Chicago: Moody Press, 1982), p. 263.

[4] Ron Moseley, Our Christian Heritage (Sherwood, AR: Mozark Publications, 1994), p. 15.

[5] Ray Comfort, The Cannons of God’s Law (Bellflower, CA: Institute in Basic Life Principles, 1992).

[6] Ron Moseley, Law and Grace (Sherwood, AR: Mozark Publications, 1994), pp. 21–22.

[7] Charles Finney, Revival Lectures (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1979).

[8] Ray Comfort, The Cannons of God’s Law (Bellflower, CA: Institute in Basic Life Principles, 1992).

[9] D. L. Moody, The Best of D. L. Moody (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1984).

[10] C. Cranfield, “St. Paul and the Law” The Yavo Digest (Austin, TX: Yavo, Inc.), and Roy B. Blizzard, Vol. V, No. 6.

[11] David Stern, Restoring the Jewishness of the Gospel (Clarksville, MD: Jewish New Testament Publications, 1990).

Chapter 4

[1] Dead Sea Scrolls, CD VI, 19; VIII, 21; XX, 2; I, 1–11; II, 14–III, 21; V, 20–VI, 3, trans. Geza Vermes (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1987).

[2] Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol.16 (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1972).

[3] David Flusser, Judaism and the Origins Of Christianity (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1988).

[4] David Flusser, Jewish Sources In Early Christianity (New York: Adama Books, 1987).

[5] Aaron Lichtenstein, The Seven laws of Noah (New York: Berman Books, 1981).

[6] David Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary (Clarksville, MD: Jewish New Testament Publications, 1992).

[7] Roy Blizzard, Jr., 1993 lecture at the University of Texas, Austin, TX.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Brad Young, “Paul and the Torah,” The Yavo Digest (Austin, TX: Yavo, Inc., 1994).

[12] Ron Moseley, Spirit of the Law (North Little Rock, AR: Mozark Research Foundation, 1993)

[13] Dan Harrington, Paul On The Mystery Of Israel (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992).

[14] Roy Blizzard, Jr. and David Biven, Understanding The Difficult Words Of Jesus (Dayton, OH: The Center for Judaic-Christian Studies, 1984).

Chapter 5

[1] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Gittim 56b; Tosef. Ber. 2:6.

[2] Paul Ellingworth, Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s Publishing, 1993).

[3] Dead Sea Scrolls, Cairo Damascus Document, XIII, 17 (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1987).

[4] Ibid., II, 23.

[5] Ibid., VII, 30, 31; IV, 33; IX, 9.

[6] Ibid., XVI, 12; XIV, 13.

[7] Dead Sea Scrolls, Thanksgiving Scroll I, VII, 20; XIV, 4; Manual of Discipline 1QS I, 8 (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1987).

[8] David Blumenthal, The Place of Faith and Grace in Judaism (Dayton, OH: Center for Judaic-Christian Studies, 1985).

[9] R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, ed., The Encyclopedia Of The Jewish Religion (New York: Adama Books, 1986).

[10] Romm. Vilna, ed., Midrash, Lev. Rab. 3 (1896).

[11] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Sanh. 32a.

[12] David Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1988).

[13] Dr. Brad Young, “Paul and the Torah,” The Yavo Digest (Austin, TX: Yavo, Inc., 1994).

[14] E.C. Blackman, Marcion and His Influence (London: 1948), p. 50.

[15] Dr. Brad Young, “Paul and the Torah,” The Yavo Digest (Austin, TX: Yavo, Inc., 1994).

[16] Abraham J. Heschel, God In Search of Man (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aaronson Inc., 1987).

[17] The Yavo Digest, Vol. IV, No. 4 (Austin, TX: Yavo, Inc. and Dr. Roy Blizzard, Jr.).

[18] Midrash, Ruth Rabbah 4:14 (London: Soncino Press, 1948).

[19] David Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, Hebrew University 1988).

[20] Aaron Lichtenstein, The Seven Laws of Noah (New York: Berman Books, 1981).

[21] Solomon Schonfeld, The Universal Bible (London: Hanbury, Tonsett & Co., Ltd., 1955).

Chapter 6

[1] Gabriele Boccaccini, Bible Review, (February 1995), pp. 38–40.

[2] Andre Paul, Le Judaisme Ancient et la Bible (Paris: Cert., 1987), p. 282.

[3] R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Religion (New York: Adama Books, 1986), p. 299.

[4] Dan Cohn-Sherbok, The Blackwell Dictionary of Judaica (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992), p. 212.

[5] Abraham Cohen, ed., Soncino Midrash, Sifre Zutta 19:2 (Brooklyn: Soncino Press, 1990); Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Menuhot 416.

[6] L. Baeck, The Pharisees—Essays (New York, 1947), p. 6.

[7] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Berakhot 5:5; Zabim 3:2.

[8] Louis Finkelstein, The Pharisees (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1962); Asher Finkel, The Pharisees and the Teacher of Nazareth (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964).

[9] Asher Finkel, The Pharisees and the Teacher of Nazareth (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964).

[10] Ibid.

[11] The Apocrypha, I Macc. 2:42; 7:13; II Macc. 14:6 (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 1970).

[12] Finkel, op. cit.

[13] Dead Sea Scrolls, CD XIII, 12; XIV, 3, trans. Geza Vermes (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1987).

[14] Ibid. CD X 1,2; XV 5, 6.

[15] Ibid. I Qsa. I, 8.

[16] Ibid. CD XIII, 11, 12; XV, 11.

[17] Ibid. CD XV 6.

[18] Ibid. CD XX 1–13; MD, I QS VI 24–VII 25.

[19] Ibid. CD XIV 8.

[20] Ibid. CD XIII 10; IX 18, 22; XII 12.

[21] Ibid. CD XIII 10.

[22] Ibid. CD XIV 13.

[23] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Eduyyot 5:6; Baba Mezi’a 59b; Jerusalem Talmud, Mo’ed Katan 3:1 (Chicago: University Press, 1990).

[24] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Eduyyot 5.

[25] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Life (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[26] Philip Blackman, ed., op cit., Hagigah 1:8; Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op cit., Hagigah 1:9.

[27] James H. Charlesworth, ed., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol II, Jubilees 2:23 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1985).

[28] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit.

[29] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Antiquities III, 10:5 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[30] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Pesahim 5:3; Sifra 23:5; 100b (London: Soncino Press, 1948).

[31] R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, Encyclopedia of Jewish Religion (New York: Adama Press, 1986).

[32] Dan Cohn-Sherbok, The Blackwell Dictionary of Judaica (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992), p. 177.

[33] William Coleman, Those Pharisees (New York: Hawthorne Books, 1977).

[34] James H. Charlesworth, “Assumption of Moses,” Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. I, vii, 4, 7, 8 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1985).

[35] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., b. Betz. 14b.

[36] Paul Maier, trans. Josephus: Antiquities XVIII, 1; Wars II, 117 (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications), p. 260.

[37] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Antiquities XII, 10.6 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[38] Philip Blackman, ed., op cit, Mishnah, Mak. 1:11.

[39] Philip Blackman, ed., op cit., Mishnah, Sanh. 9:6.

[40] Philip Blackman, ed., op cit., Sanh. 7:2; Tosefta, Sanh. 9:11 (London: Soncino Press, 1948).

[41] Sifre, Deut. 25:3 (London: Soncino Press, 1948).

[42] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit.

[43] Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Times of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969).

[44] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Baba Bathra 21b; Pesahim 50b.

[45] Tosefta, Sanh. 4:7 (London: Soncino Press, 1948).

[46] Tosefta, Sanh. 4:7; Sifre, Deut. 160–105b n.6 (London: Soncino Press, 1948).

[47] Asher Finkel, The Pharisees and the Teacher of Nazareth (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964).

[48] Harvey Falk, Jesus the Pharisee (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1985).

[49] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Sot 3:4, 22b.

[50] William J. McDonald, ed., New Catholic Encyclopedia (Palatine, IL: Jack Heraty Associates, 1967).

Chapter 7

[1] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Antiquities XIII, 10:5–7 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[2] E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985).

[3] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: War, 2:650 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[4] Morton Smith, A Comparison of Early Christianity and Rabbinic Traditions (Philadelphia: Journal of Biblical Literature, 1963).

[5] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Antiquities XVII, 2:4 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[6] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Antiquities, 17:41–44 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[7] E. P. Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah (Philadelphia: Trinity Press, 1990).

[8] Paul Maier, trans. Josephus: Antiquities XIII, 407; Wars I, 107 (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1988), p. 225.

[9] Jerusalem Talmud, Berakhot 9, 14b (Chicago: University Press, 1990).

[10] Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1970).

[11] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Sot. 22b.

[12] Ibid., Sot. III. 4.

[13] Jerusalem Talmud, Ber. 14b (Chicago: University Press, 1990).

[14] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Wars II, viii. 14 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[15] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Avot 1:12.

[16] Tosefta, Betsah 8a, Shabbat 17:14; 12a (London: Soncino Press, 1948).

[17] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Berakhot 51b.

[18] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Shab. 127B; Nazir 9A.

[19] Louis Finkelstein, The Pharisees (Philadelphia: Jewish Publications Society, 1962).

[20] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Aboda Zara 17a.

[21] Morton Smith, Palestinian Judaism in the First Century Essays (1956).

[22] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Baba Kamma 30a.

[23] William Coleman, Those Pharisees (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1977).

[24] John Bethel, ed., Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield: Merriam Publishers, 1960), p. 631.

[25] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Avot 1:12–14.

[26] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Antiquities (Philadelphia: Winston Press, 1969).

[27] Tosefta, Dem. 2:16,17 (London: Soncino Press, 1948).

[28] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Bek. 30b.

[29] Ibid., Dem. 2:2.

[30] Tosefta, Dem. 2:11.

[31] Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. VII (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1970), pp.1489–90.

[32] Louis Finkelstein, The Pharisees (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1962).

[33] Tosefta, Ketubot 4:9.

[34] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Life, 8 (Philadelphia: Winston Press, 1969).

Chapter 8

[1] Max Radin, Jews Among the Greeks and the Romans (Philadelphia: 1915), pp.220–235.

[2] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Antiquities (Philadelphia: Winston Press, 1969).

[3] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Ber. 34b.

[4] Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Messianic Miracles (Tustin, CA: Ariel Ministries, 1983), p. 4.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit, Shabbat 116B.

[7] William Coleman, Those Pharisees (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1977).

[8] Ezekiel Kaufmann, Matenot Ha-Kodesh, Ziyyunim, Simhoni Memorial Volume (Berlin, 1929), pp. 101–115.

[9] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit, Shab. 31a.

[10] Ibid., Suk. 28a.

[11] Arnold Fruchtenbaum, The New Birth (Tustin, CA: Ariel Ministries, 1983).

[12] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit, Git. 57b; Yoma 71b.

[13] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Yad. 4:7.

[14] Ibid., Ber. 8:4; Ber. 2:6.

[15] Jerusalem Talmud, Ber. 5b (Chicago: University Press, 1990).

[16] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Ket. 8:8; Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., b. Ket. 82b; Tosefta, Ket. 12:1.

[17] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Against Apion II, 40, Wars II, 20, 2; Antiquities XX, 2:1–4 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[18] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op cit., Kidd. 73a.

[19] William Coleman, Those Pharisees (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1977).

[20] R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Religion (New York: Adama Books, 1986).

[21] Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1970).

Chapter 9

[1] Dr. Jack Sternberg, Christianity, Its Jewish Roots (Little Rock: Fellowship Bible Church, 1992), p. 117.

[2] Heinrich Graetz, The History of the Jews (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1891).

[3] Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. 16 (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House), p. 630.

[4] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Wars I, 5:2 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[5] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Avot 1:12.

[6] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Kid. 66a; Berakhot 48a.

[7] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Antiquities XIII, 10:5 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[8] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Avot 1:15, 17.

[9] Sifre, Deut. 41 (London: Soncino Press, 1948).

[10] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Kiddushin 40b.

[11] Eugene Ehrlich, ed., Oxford Dictionary (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 499.

[12] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., B. Berakhot 27b.

[13] W.O.E. Oesterly, The Religion and Worship of the Synagogue (London:1911), pp. 120–139.

[14] Roswell Hitchcock, ed., Didache 8 (Willits, CA: Eastern Orthodox Publishers, 1989).

[15] Dr. Rivkah Fishman, “Second Temple History” lecture notes (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1994).

[16] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Antiquities XIII, 10:5, 6 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[17] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit, Yoma 1:5.

[18] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., B. Yeb. 47a.

[19] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Yoma 1:5.

[20] Louis Finkelstein, The Pharisees, Vol. I (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1962).

[21] Meyer Waxman, The History of Jewish Literature, Akiva (Cranbury, NJ: Thomas Yoseloff Publishers, 1960).

[22] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Life, 45 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[23] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Hagigah 25a, Nid. 6b.

[24] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Wars II, 8:14 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[25] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit, Abot of R. Nathan I, 67a, p. 41.

[26] Tosefta, Sanh. 13:7, p.435; Avot of Rabbi Nathan I, p. 36, 53b (London: Soncino Press, 1948).

[27] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit, Eduyyot 2:10.

[28] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Antiquities IV, 8:35 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969); Louis Finkelstein, The Pharisees, Vol. I, cxxi (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1962).

[29] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Suk. 4:5,3:18; Tosefta 3:1; Rosh ha Shanah 16a; Yer. 1:3, 57a.

[30] Sifra, Ahare, Perek 3:81a; Yoma 19b, 53a (London: Soncino Press, 1948).

[31] S. Lieberman, ed., Tosefta 1:8 (Jerusalem: 1938), p. 181.

[32] Jerusalem Talmud, Yer. 1:5, 39a (Chicago: University Press, 1990).

[33] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Yoma 1:5.

[34] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Parah 3:5.

[35] Tosefta 3:8, p. 362.

[36] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Hagigah 25a; Niddah 6b.

[37] The Apocrypha, Judith 12:8 (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 1970).

[38] Tosefta, Hagigah 3:35, p. 238.

[39] Jerusalem Talmud, Yer. 3:8.

[40] Philip Blackman, ed., op cit, Avot 1:1.

[41] Louis Finkelstein, The Pharisees, Vol. I (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1962), p. 173.

[42] James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Jubilees 15:27 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1985).

[43] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op cit, Makkot 1:8.

[44] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Antiquities IV, 8:15 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[45] Stephen Jones, Code of Hammurabi, Sect. 3 (Batesville, Arkansas: God’s Kingdom Publishers, 1990).

[46] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Antiquities 188, 1, 4 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[47] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Sanh. 90b; 10:1.

[48] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Yevamot 16A.

[49] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Pesahim 49b.

[50] Ibid.

[51] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Bikkurim 3:8; Migillah 4:8.

[52] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Yoma 35b; Hull. 84a.

[53] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Antiquities XX, 9:6 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[54] Louis Finkelstein, The Pharisees (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1962).

[55] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Shabbat 30b.

[56] S. Lieberman, ed., Tosefta, Hagigah 2:11 (Jerusalem: 1938), p. 236.

[57] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Erubin 53b.

[58] Louis Finkelstein, The Pharisees (Philadelphia: Jewish Publications Society, 1962), pp. 83, 100.

[59] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Berakhot 28a.

[60] James H. Charlesworth, “The Assumption of Moses 7:4,” The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1985).

[61] Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1962), p. 120.

[62] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., Git.57b.

[63] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., B. Yom.71b; Git.57b.

[64] Tosefta, Dem. 2:12; 48:8, 9: b. Bech. 30b.

[65] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Hag. 2:2.

[66] S. Lieberman, ed., Tosefta, Ber. 7:24; 17:16 (Jerusalem: 1938).

[67] William Whiston, trans. Josephus: Cont. Ap. I, 42, 43 (Philadelphia: Winston Company, 1969).

[68] Asher Finkel, The Pharisees and the Teacher of Nazareth (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964).

[69] Jerusalem Talmud, Taan. 68d (Jerusalem: 1866).

[70] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Sot. 8:17; b. Meg. 21a.

[71] Tosefta, Shab. 7; 8:18.

[72] Rabbi Isidore Epstein, ed., op. cit., B.Yoma 30a.

[73] Philip Blackman, ed., op. cit., Yom. 3:2.

[74] Louis Finkelstein, The Pharisees, Vol. I (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1962).

[75] Asher Finkel, The Pharisees and the Teacher of Nazareth (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964).

[76] David Flusser, Jewish Sources in Early Christianity (New York: Adama Books, 1987), p. 82.

[77] J. M. Carrol, The Trail of Blood (Lexington: Byron-Page Publishing Co., 1931), p. 10–14.

Conclusion

[1] James H. Charlesworth, The Odes of Solomon (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1977), preface.

[2] Geoffery W. Bromiley, trans., Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh, Scotland: T & T Publishers, 1956), p. 511.

Glossary

Aggadah. The nonlegal contents of the Talmud and Midrash, including the ethical and moral teachings. This information is usually given in the form of parables, stories, and legends that are used as teaching tools.

Ahriman. The spirit of evil or darkness in the Zoroastrian religion.

Aiyin Ra’ah. A Hebrew term meaning “bad eye,” which describes a person being stingy.

Aiyin Tovah. A Hebrew term meaning “good eye,” which describes a person being generous.

Akkum. A non-Jew who does not observe the Noachide Laws.

Almoner or Parnas (pl. Parnasin). Member of an ancient synagogue whose responsibilities included caring for the poor and distributing alms.

Am Ha-Aretz. (lit. “the people of the land” The ancient Jewish concept of the “common people” as opposed to the religiously pious, who practiced the rituals and tithing laws.

Amidah. The standing prayer known as the shemoneh esreh or the “eighteen benedictions.”

Ancient of Days. A Hebraic title for God, or the Messiah of God, found in Daniel 7:9.

Antinomianism. The belief that faith frees a person from all obligations to observe the Law of God. Also, an attitude of hostility toward God’s Law.

Apocalyptic. Ideas and teachings pertaining to the revelation (apocalypse) of the last days and the end of the world.

Apocrypha. The body of Jewish literature written between the second century B.C. and the second century A.D., not included in the canon of the Hebrew Bible.

Ascetic. One who renounced social life and comfort for solitude, self-mortification, and religious devotion. Often these individuals practiced a life-style resembling that of a hermit or recluse.

Assumption of Moses. A composite Jewish writing containing a speech of Moses to Joshua, an account of the death of Moses, and other ancient stories.

Bar Enash. The individual in Jewish literature who is more than a human judge, who sits on the throne of God and separates the righteous from the wicked, and who is involved in the Messianic concepts of ancient Judaism.

Bar Mitzvah (lit. Son of the Commandment). The ceremony in which a Jewish male at the age of thirteen, having come of age to perform the commandments, goes through a ritual of acceptance by the community.

Batlan (pl. Batlanim). A scholarly Jewish teacher who in ancient days was either independently wealthy or on some type of support so he could be available to provide the congregation with accurate academics and answers.

Ben-ha-keneset. A term used to distinguish the regular members of a synagogue from the exalted leaders, who were known as scholars or scribes.

Ben Noah. A non-Jew who observed the Noachide Laws.

Bet Midrash. A house of study or investigation that was a part of or adjacent to an ancient synagogue.

Boethusians. A religious-political party in the century preceding the destruction of the Second Temple and for some time afterward. Members were associated with the high priesthood and were closely identified with, although not identical to, the Sadducees and Herodians.

Book of Jubilees. A pseudepigraphic work sometimes called the Lesser Genesis, consisting of a history of mankind as related to Moses by an angel with dates centered around the years of Jubilee.

Chazan. A community official in a synagogue during the Second Temple period as well as today, usually called the Cantor in modern congregations.

Chukim. A Hebrew word meaning “decrees.”

Commonwealth. A group of people united by a common interest such as a state or nation. In ancient times Israel was known as a commonwealth because the people were united under an everlasting covenant of faith in Yahweh.

Corban (or Korban). The Hebrew word for a sacrificial offering, taken from the word karav and the idea of “drawing near.” This was a popular word in the first century when many were abusing the gifts of God by using the phrase “It is corban,” referring to money which was not a gift to the Temple (see Mark 7:11).

Dath. The Aramaic word for “law.”

Davar. The Hebrew word for the “Word” ( of God).

Demai The Hebrew word describing produce on which tithes were not paid.

Desposynoi. A Greek term meaning “heirs,” used during the first century to refer to the family members and relatives of Jesus.

Diaspora. The Greek word meaning dispersion, which has been applied since classical times to the Jewish settlements outside Israel.

Didache. A Church manual of the second century A.D. known as The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.

Ebionites. A Judeo-Christian movement intertwined with the early Church which held many questionable beliefs, including the requirement that all Christians adhere to Jewish Law. This group is also known as Judaizers.

Ecclesia. A statue or image of a triumphant Church, used during the Middle Ages by church leaders to contrast Christianity with the supposed broken image of Judaism.

Edot. A Hebrew word meaning “witnesses,” used for such items as the mezuzah and the tefillin.

Esoteric. Views or teaching only experienced by a select group of initiated individuals. Something not made public.

Exegete. One who is skilled in explaining the meaning of words and studies such as the Bible.

Gabbay Tzedakah. A warden or treasurer in an ancient synagogue whose job was to collect taxes or dues.

Ger Toshav. One who declared before a Jewish court his intentions to observe the Noachide Laws and was permitted to live in Israel.

Gezerah (pl. Gezerot). Laws or traditions added by the Pharisees as fences around the existing Law in an attempt to prevent it from being broken.

Gnostic. An adherent or advocate of Gnosticism, an ancient Greek and Oriental philosophy based on secret superior knowledge modified by an attempted synthesis with Christian doctrine.

God-Fearers. A name used to describe non-Jews in ancient times who believed in God, attended synagogue, prayed, feared God, and gave financially, but did not take the final step of circumcision (Acts 10:22).

Hakhamim. “Men of wisdom,” referring to the Pharisees or Haverim.

Halakhah. A Hebrew word for religious law or legal rulings.

Halluq. A simple tunic worn both at home and work as the primary dress by men of the first century.

Hammurabi Law Code. The code of laws promulgated by Hammurabi, the king of Babylonia during the first dynasty, around 2000 B.C. Although there are many similarities between Hammurabi’s Law Code and the Mosaic Law Code, Hammurabi’s was based on his will whereas Moses’ was God’s will. Some scholars identify Hammurabi with Amraphel of Genesis 14.

Hasideans (or Hasidim). A pious group of Israelites preceding the Pharisees. In the 18th century A.D., this title began to be used to designate a sect of European Jews. There is no direct connection to the earlier group.

Hasmonean period. The period of the Maccabean dynasty, 165 to 37 B.C.

Haver (pl. Haverim) A Hebrew word meaning companion or comrade, used in ancient times to denote a scholar or pious man among those faithful to the Law. This concept was taken from the text of Psalms 119:63, “I am a companion of them who fear the Lord.”

Havurot. The closed communities of like-minded men who encouraged one another in the exact fulfillment of the demands made by the pious Israelites, such as the Pharisees.

Hessed. A Hebrew word meaning grace, mercy, or lovingkindness.

Hillelites. Those who held to the more liberal view of the Law as taught in the Second Temple school of Hillel.

Idumean. An individual from Edom, an area southeast of Israel also known as Idumaea.

Iessaioi. An early name for the believers of Jesus before they were called Christians, thought to be taken from the Greek word for “Jesus.”

Inquisition. A judicial system within the Roman Catholic Church established for the purpose of discovering, examining, and punishing heretics.

Judaizers. A term applied to those who required non-Jews to keep the Jewish Law in order to become Christian believers.

Kal ve–chomer. A popular Jewish teaching method of the first century, translated as “light and heavy.” This method was used extensively by Jesus.

Karaites. A Jewish sect who rejected the Oral Law, originally known as Ananites.

Keneset Gedolah. The Great Synagogue or Great Assembly, founded during Ezra’s time.

Logos. A Greek term used to designate the Word of God.

Maggid. A migratory Jewish evangelist in ancient times who spoke to various congregations.

Masoretes. A group of scholars whose purpose was to safeguard the integrity of the biblical text and facilitate its study. Over many centuries they established a variety of rules with which they protected the correct text.

Memra. An Aramaic word used by ancient Jewish sages for the Word of God.

Menuddeh. The Hebrew word for defiled, used to designate those found guilty by the Sanhedrin.

Messianist. An early name for an individual following Jesus as the Messiah.

Meturgan (pl. Meturganim). An ancient interpreter who was skilled in languages and stood by the one reading the Law or teaching in the Bet Midrash to interpret.

Mevinim. Expounders of the Law who were active after the time of Ezra.

Mezuzah. The Hebrew word for doorpost, used for the small parchment on which are inscribed the first two paragraphs of the Shema prayer of Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21. A mezuzah is affixed on the doorposts of virtually all Jewish homes in accordance with the concept of Deuteronomy 6:9.

Middot. Various collections of rules passed down from the Pharisees to the Talmudic times.

Mikveh. A Hebrew word meaning the gathering of waters, but used to refer to the pool for ritual immersion of persons or utensils for purity.

Minim. The plural form of the Hebrew word min, meaning heretic. This was an early epithet attached to Judeo-Christians.

Mishnah. A technical textbook giving the essence of the Oral Law, which according to Jewish tradition was handed down to Moses along with the written Law at Sinai. The Mishnah describes how to do what is commanded in the Law.

Mishpatim. A Hebrew word meaning judgments, used to refer to moral or ethical laws.

Mitzvah. The Hebrew word for commandment or good deed.

Moreh. The Hebrew word for teacher.

Nasi. The president or administrator of a synagogue.

Nazoraioi. The Greek root of the word Nazarenes, used as an early name for believers in Jesus of Nazareth.

Ne’eman. A word meaning trustworthy, used as the first of the stages or degrees in becoming a Pharisee.

Niddui. A process whereby an individual is demoted to the status of Am-Ha-Eretz and shunned by the Pharisees.

Nisan. The first month of the religious year and the seventh of the civil year, according to the Jewish calendar. In early biblical texts, its name is Aviv. This month corresponds to April.

Noachide Laws. According to tradition, a series of injunctions originally given to Noah and therefore binding on both Jews and non-Jews. According to ancient writings, there were seven such laws or categories of rules taken from the early chapters of Genesis. These later became recognized as the basic laws that a non-Jewish believer must observe to show that he had withdrawn from idolatry (Acts 15:28-29).

Nomos. The Greek word for law.

Odes of Solomon. A collection of forty-two Christian odes or poems which are heavily influenced by Jewish thought and filled with apocalypses similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Many scholars believe they were used as a hymnal in the first-century Church.

Ossuary. A bone box used in ancient times to keep the bones after the flesh had decomposed. The ossuary was also known as a secondary burial.

Pardes. An acronym using the first letter of each of the four basic types of Jewish exegesis used during the first century. These methods were peshat (simple), remez (hinting), derash (complex), and sod (secret) and were utilized by Jesus and other rabbis. The meaning of the word pardes is orchard (from which one gleans).

Patrician. Pertaining to the aristocracy, nobility, or upper classes. An honorary title later bestowed upon the Roman emperors.

Pharisaioi. A Greek word meaning separatists, from which we get the English word Pharisees.

Pirkei Avot. One of the tractates of the Mishnah, known as The Talmudic Book of Proverbs because it is composed of maxims and epigrams of the sages and contains no legal material.

Plebeian. Pertaining to the common people of ancient times.

Proselyte. A person who has converted to Judaism.

Proto-rabbi. A rabbi during the period prior to 70 A.D.

Proto-rabbinic Judaism. The religion of the Jews during the time before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D.

Psalms of Solomon. A pseudepigraphic book which condemns sin and looks forward to the advent of Messiah. It is believed that much of the liturgy for worship among the Pharisees was taken from this book.

Publicans. A group generally made up of wealthy men who paid for the privilege of collecting taxes in certain areas. The Publicans were often called tax collectors.

Replacement Theology. A concept that emerged from the teachings of some non-Jewish leaders of the second-century Church who taught that the Church had replaced Israel as God’s chosen people.

Sadducees. An ancient Jewish group who adhered to the Mosaic Law but repudiated the Oral Law and the traditions of the Pharisees.

Sectarian. Pertaining to or belonging to a particular sect, group, or party.

Segan hacohanim. A servant who was the chief assistant to the high priest in his Temple duties.

Selichah. The Jewish prayer of forgiveness.

Shaliach. A messenger sent out by ancient Jewish congregations to perform a task or make an announcement.

Shammaite Pharisee. One who held to the strict view of the Law as taught in the Second Temple school of Rabbi Shammai.

Shekhinah. A Hebrew word meaning indwelling, used to represent the Divine Presence of Yahweh. Some modern groups refer to it as the anointing or the glory of God (Exodus 25:8 and Leviticus 16:16).

Shemoneh Esreh. The ancient Jewish prayer known as the Eighteen Benedictions, prayed each day by faithful Jews.

Shivah. The Jewish mourning period of seven days after the death of a family member.

Son of Man. A Hebraic title of the Messiah found in texts such as Daniel 7:13.

Sopherim. The Hebrew word for scribes. This word is also the title of a tractate in the Babylonian Talmud listing the laws of the scribes.

Sukkot. A Hebrew word meaning tabernacles. This is the title of one of the three pilgrim-festivals held each year in Jerusalem. Sukkot, or Tabernacles, begins on Tishri 15 (during September or October) and lasts seven days.

Sumerian Law Code. The code of laws developed by the ancient non-Semitic people from Sumer (approximately 4000-3000 B.C.), which was a part of lower Babylonia. Its culture was the basis of the Babylonian civilization.

Synagoga. An image of a blindfolded wanton carrying a broken staff and crushed tablets of the Law. Used during the Middle Ages by the church to portray a fallen image of Judaism in contrast to the victorious Church.

Tallit. A four-cornered cloth used by Jewish men as a prayer shawl as prescribed in Numbers 15:38.

Talmud. A Hebrew word meaning teaching, used as the title of a unique literary work containing the study and discussions of ancient scholars covering eight centuries, including the work passed down from the academies in Palestine and Babylon.

Tefillin. A Hebrew word for the phylacteries worn on the head and arms of Jewish men over the age of thirteen.

Tanakh. The Hebrew term for the Old Testament Scriptures, derived from the initial letters of Torah, Neviim, and Ketuvim, which corresponds to the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Writings.

Theophany. A physical manifestation or appearance of God to man.

Tosaphists. The authors of the Tosaphot, the additions written in the Talmud on detailed legal subjects.

Tzitzit. The Hebrew word for the fringes appended to each of the four corners of the prayer shawl according to Deuteronomy 22:12.

Vidduy. The Jewish prayer of confession.

Zaken. An ancient Jewish elder who was both mature and able to give counsel to the younger.

Zealots. A group of extreme and uncompromising partisans in the cause of Jewish freedom who refused to bow to any government or power other than God. They were fanatics who hated Rome and even fought against their Jewish brethren who sided with Rome during the decades of the Second Temple period.

Zorastrianism. The ancient religion of Persia which saw history as a constant struggle between good and evil, light and darkness. This concept has been termed dualism and has affected almost every religion since then with its ideas.

Zuz. An extremely low amount of exchange on the ancient economic scale.

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Table of Contents

Foreword by Dr. Marvin Wilson

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

C HAPTER 1

Evidence of the Jewish Background of the Early Church

Jewish Leadership in the Early Church

The Influence of the Synagogue on the Organizational Structure of the Church

Jewish Customs in the Early Church

Hebraic Names for the Early Church

Study Questions

C HAPTER 2

Jewish Idioms and Ideas in the Teachings of Jesus

The Tzitzit and Prophecy

Binding and Loosing

The Parable of the Reed and the Oak

The Priestly Family

The Golden Vine

Disqualifying the Servant

Kal-ve-chomer

Secondary Burial

Sounding the Trumpet

The Good Eye

Study Questions

C HAPTER 3

Misconceptions Concerning the Law

The Goodness of the Law

The Law and Grace

The New Testament, A Better Covenant

The Holy Spirit and the Law

Paul and the Law

Marcion, the Source of Much Confusion Concerning the Law

The Law Was Only “Until John”

The Letter of the Law

Great Christian Leaders and the Law

The Purpose of the Law

The Curse of the Law

Study Questions

C HAPTER 4

The Old and the New: Different Covenants?

The New Covenant before Paul

Jews and Gentiles: Different Covenants?

The Noachide Laws

The Origin of the Term “Law”

Different Kinds of Law

The Problem With the Law

Paul Remained A Faithful Jew

Paul’s Conversation With James

Neither Jew Nor Gentile In Christ

Those Under the Law Must Keep It All

Fourth-Century Theology

Study Questions

C HAPTER 5

The New in the Old and the Old in the New

Changes after A.D 70

Old and New: The Same Basic Covenant

The Age of Grace before Paul

Grace and Gifts Before Christ

Confession and Forgiveness in Judaism

The Development of the Idea of Grace Replacing the Law

Understanding the Words “Abolish” and “Fulfill”

Understanding Being Delivered From the Bondage of the Law

The Relationship of the Law to the New Testament

Today’s Application of God’s Law

What the Law Is

Study Questions

C HAPTER 6

The Pharisees and Their Influence on the Original Church

Ecclesia and Synagoga

The Pharisees As Separatists

The Pharisees and the Essenes

The Pharisees and Excommunication

The Pharisees and the Oral Law

The Pharisees and the Passover

The Pharisees and Their Fences Around the Torah

The Theology of the Pharisees

The Authority of the Pharisees

The Pharisees, the Scribes and the Sadducees

The School of the Scribes

Jesus’ Criticism of the Pharisees

Pharisaic Study and Worship

Study Questions

C HAPTER 7

The Pharisees’ Rise to Power

The Duties of the Pharisees

The Communities ( Havurot ) of Pharisee

The Pharisees and the Synagogue

Seven Types of Pharisees

The Good Pharisees

Was Jesus A Pharisee?

Similarities Between Pharisees and Greeks

Pirkei Avot and the Pharisees

The Leaven of the Pharisees

The Pharisees: Heroes or Villains?

The Four Degrees for the Pharisees

Study Questions

C HAPTER 8

The Pharisees and their Teachings

The Pharisees and the Publicans

The Pharisees and the Samaritans

The Pharisees and Miracles

The Verification of Miracles

Jesus’ Endorsement of the Pharisees

Pharisaic Traditions That Nullified the Law

The Pharisees and Evangelism

Proselytes to Judaism

Pharisaic Teaching Methods in the New Testament

Study Questions

C HAPTER 9

The Pharisees: Riding High

The Pharisees As Protagonists of Memra

The Pharisees As Restorers of the Law

The Pharisees’ Responsibility for the Study of Torah

Similarities Between the Puritans and the Pharisees

The Pharisees and the Church

Josephus’ Description of the Pharisees

The Doctrines of the Pharisees

The Pharisees and the Triumphal Entry

The Pharisees and the Day of Atonement

The Pharisees and the Red Heifer

The Pharisees and the Ritual Bath

The Pharisees and Angels

The Harshest Ruling of the Pharisees

The Greatest of the Conflicts

The Pharisees: An Opposing Group within Judaism

The Schools of Hillel and Shammai

The Influence of the Pharasaic Schools

The Popularity of the Pharisees in the First Century B.C.

The Pharisees and the Bar-Kochba Revolt

The Pharisees and Ritual Purity

The Pharisees and the Division of the Jerusalem Church

Study Questions

Conclusion

Notes

Glossary

Bibliography