The Jewish face of Jesus

Whether you believe it or not, and regardless of what you believe about it, the figure of Jesus is undoubtedly one of the most interesting in history. It is a story that most people know at least in a rough outline. Some of us know it intimately, but none of us can really be sure of anything.

When I recently came across a tiny book, almost a pamphlet, entitled Jewish Sources in Early Christianity by David Flusser, it captured my attention immediately. It caught my attention particularly because it was a published version of a series of lectures for the Israeli military. I simply had to know what the Israeli army was learning about Jesus in the late 80s.

The first bold proposal of the book was Jesus spoke Hebrew and that the gospels were originally written in Hebrew but remained preserved only in their Greek versions. Naturally, the content of the Hebrew versions must have been markedly more Jewish than the Greek edition.

It is true that Jews continued to speak Hebrew but also Aramaic and Greek to an extent. The scholarly opinion is generally that Aramaic was the dominant spoken language, but Flusser makes the distinction that it was the lower classes that preferred Aramaic and Jesus must have spoken Hebrew as that was the language used by the learned. As evidence, he claims that Jesus says things that can be expressed in both languages as well as things that can only be expressed in Hebrew and not in Aramaic, but he doesn’t say things that can be expressed in Aramaic only (we see it through the medium of Greek of course).

Therefore, this Jesus was an upper-class Hebrew-speaking scholar. Definitive evidence can’t be found but we do know he was able to read the Torah at synagogues so he must have had at least some ability in Hebrew.

Jesus the Hasid

Make no mistake, there have always been extremes in observance within Judaism as well as any other religion. Perhaps the “modern” Hasidism is the most well-known, but there seems to have been a group of extremely pious people in Jesus’s time as well. I’ll call them Hasids but know that they had nothing to do with the ones we know under that label today.

Matthew presents Jesus’s opinions as quite contradictory to those of Jewish scholars but in fact, they may have been contradictory only to a specific part of the Jewish scholarly spectrum. Jesus represented a group of scholars who brought together the requirement of strictness when it comes to morality and love for our fellow man.

17 ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter,[a] not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks[b] one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17–20)

Jesus saw the Torah as a world complete in itself. A world that the real world depends on for its existence. That is why the Torah had to be followed completely. Even the smallest commandment was to be treated as the biggest one. However, he also saw its human dimension and highlighted the ethical side of the Torah. This position puts him right in the middle between the competing rabbinical schools of Hillel and Shammai.

Jesus the Son of God

The title Son of God is the source of many a headache. We know what the Christians eventually came to make of it, but it seems that there were other Sons of God at the time. The ancient Hasids were a group close to the rabbinical scholars but disagreed with the study of the Torah being put forward as the highest value. They stressed the importance of good deeds. Eventually, the scholars settled on the study of the Torah as the most important deed because it leads one to other good deeds, but not everybody thought so at the time. Members of this super-observant group were often seen as possessing some special powers. They were said to be able to bring rain or cure sick people through prayer.

The pious ones also expected a lot from themselves and their followers. They had to be more righteous than anybody else. They attracted a large following, particularly among the poor and the marginalized. They saw themselves as having a very close relationship, a father-son relationship with God.

The Essenes

The Essenes were a particularly particular group of Jews that came to be known through the Dead Sea scrolls not so long ago. They hung out all alone in the Judean desert and their style didn’t exactly go with the rest of Israel or anyone else. The Essenes created their own community and religious institutions.

The Essenes were the real chosen people. They removed themselves from the corrupting presence of others and rid themselves of the desire for money.

Jesus seems to have encountered the Essenes primarily through the figure of John the Baptist who had been a member but went his own way for some reason. They were known as the children of light (mentioned in Luke 16).

Just like the Essenes, Jesus saw value in poverty but didn’t accept the separation of the community from the world of sin. His people were the somewhat leftist Hasids.

Paul, Oh Paul

I don’t know about you, but I have always had a profound dislike for the figure of Paul. It’s typical. You work yourself to death on something and then somebody waltzes in, changes the whole project, and you become the vice president of the company only to be wheeled out for big parties.

Paul is considered the second founder of Christianity. His grasp of Judaism was not particularly strong, but he knew its Hellenized version and caught up on the rest through other Christians.

We don’t know how, but the Essenes seem to have profoundly influenced the Hellenized Jewry in Asia Minor and other places. Just look at the similarity between Paul’s ideas and their theology.

The Essenes were the chosen nation. Chosen by God to be the children of light. In fact, God pre-determined who will be righteous and who will be evil. Man is chosen to be part of the community and must confirm this by actions. However, man lives in lethal sin all his life from birth to the end. It is only God who lifts the chosen ones above this sin. The chosen people form a spiritual temple that is the counterweight to the unclean Temple in Jerusalem. They are the ones who repent for all the sins of the world. Additionally, it is pointless to follow the commands of the Torah since they do not afford the Grace of God.

Who was Jesus then?

That’s an infinitely difficult question to answer and there is an innumerable number of unverifiable answers. I cannot purport to know the right one, but I can present you with an interesting one.

Jesus was a Jew. A member of a tribe in all senses of the word. He was a bit of a weirdo. A member of a sub-group that saw themselves as having a personal and individual connection with God. They were better than everybody else and they could do great things. In fact, they and their followers were called to do great things. However, they were not separate from the world of other Jews and Jewish scholars. They just emphasized different things and paid for it by being viewed with suspicion by the establishment. On the other hand, that went down well with the multitudes, and they could be bolder with their ideas.

In contrast, Pauline Jesus was a very different beast. A maniacally strict walking Temple consisting of only the best people.

Flusser, David. Jewish Sources in Early Christianity