Customer Reviews

A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume 4: Law and Love (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library) (v. 4)

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This is the 4th of a projected 5-volume series investigating who Jesus was and how he was perceived as he walked this earth some 2000 years ago. This volume provides an exhaustive evaluation of what is known currently about the Mosaic Law and Judaism in the 1st centure of the Christian era, and how well Jesus followed that law. Like the previous volumes, Fr. Meier provides exhaustive scholarship. The footnotes are as long and fact-filled as the main text. Thus, reading is not for the beginner or faint-of-heart. But for those of us who are avid students of christology, it is an invaluable source of material for understanding the historic Jesus, and the relevance of this understanding to modern problems facing us. The 5th (and last??) volume is eagerly awaited.

John P. Meier is a well known and respected biblical scholar and authority on Jesus. He has contributed many significant articles and essays on historical Jesus research, with is magnum opus coming in his multi-volume series, 'A Marginal Jew.' Now we have the fourth contribution to the series, subtitled: 'Law and Love,' for it is an examination of Jesus' relationship to the Mosaic Law (with his final summary of it being the command to love). One should be quick to note the depth and breadth of this work, exploring many facets of background and context in which to place a first-century Jewish Jesus. In the first volume (A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume I: The Roots of the Problem and the Person (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library)) Meier establishes his methodology and intended goals for the project, and he has stuck to them throughout subsequent volumes well. But this will certainly leave many looking for more (by way of conclusion and application), which may lead to undue lack of appreciation for his contribution. But on this Meier makes a compelling point in saying, ". . . relevance is the enemy of history" (75).

The primary assertion made by Meier in this fourth volume is best summarized by the title of the introductory chapter: "The Historical Jesus is the Halakic Jesus" (1). This is present throughout the study, and is captured well in Meier's later assertion: "The historical Jewish Jesus must be seen as a Jesus immersed in the halakic discussions, debates, and actual practice of 1st-century Palestinian Jews" (267). If the historical quest is for the Jewish Jesus, then this contribution will help with much of that discussion.

Chapter 31 (the first chapter of this volume) introduces Meier's discussion of the relationship between Jesus and the Law, specifically how Jesus would have 'fit' into the first century Jewish context. From here the chapters are discussions upon specific topics from which we have Jesus' teaching and Mosaic Law intersecting - whether it be through Jesus' affirmation of the Law, his changing of the Law, or his contradicting of the Law. Specifically these topics are Divorce (ch 32); Prohibition of Oaths (ch 33); Sabbath (ch 34); and Purity Laws (ch 35). The final chapter before the conclusion then turns to the love commandments of Jesus (ch 36), with the exhortation to love one's enemies, the golden rule, and the 'double command of love' at center stage.

Throughout the work readers are presented with an engaging discussion of Jesus in relationship to the Law, even though I believe Meier fails to capture the essence of many passages. I believe that this particular approach to history is somewhat lacking in its historical imagination on certain points, dismissing passages which are not readily understandable to the author. Disappointingly, it appears as though Meier has often dismissed a passage's historicity before the discussion occurs, thus ignoring many of the competing perspectives on the text. There are times when Meier cannot see the possibility of historicity because a passage is so out-of-place for a first-century Jewish teacher, but then other times when he asserts the 'criterion of dissimilarity' as the primary reason for accepting a passage's historicity. That he does not take the time to interact case-by-case makes this a frustrating aspect of the book as a whole. (And thus demonstrates a slice of the 'lacking historical imagination.')

The primary challenge that I walk away with from this volume is that if we cannot accept anything which is out-of-step from a first-century Jewish teacher, then is there any particular reason why this rabbi made such a strong impact when other interesting, memorable and unique figures have been forgotten in history? This is perhaps the most significant fall-short of this work.

In the end, however, the research demonstrated here is strong enough to recommend to those seriously searching for Jesus - especially following the historical quest. Though I have my quibbles with some of his work, it is worthwhile to examine. And now the readers are informed that there will be a fifth volume to this increasing-series (which was supposed to be one, then three, then four . . .). Until then we will (with Morrel and Edmund) wait and hope.

John Meier, after an absence of five or six years, is now back with Volume IV of A MARGINAL JEW. He is in full form: the writing is clear, personal and yet scholarly and thorough. He has also brought back his extraordinary penchant for foot notes...some extend so long as to be sufficient for a few stand-along books by themselves. But he never drops the ball, never misses a piece of information and never preaches!!! I have read the first 3 volumes - along with footnotes - and I am curled up evenings now with Volume IV following his remarkable - almost unbelievable - scholarship. This is not a book for the quick reader, rushing to have everything explained and trying to apply then to now. Nor is it a book that makes conclusions that can then be applied to today's living as a guide to life. But it is a book that wrestles with the great difficulties in writing about what happened during Christ's actual ministry, piecing together all the possible references and through his scholarship and a good writing style makes the very best effort to give you a view of what was happening on these issues at the time of Christ and how Christ fits in based on the New Testament script which in most cases were a generation old went they were written and put together. It is a marvelous deep read based on reliable scholarship. What is more, he is now working on the close up - volume V!!!! Can't wait!!!!

Bill Sommers

John Meier has done it again. Coupling exhaustive textual analysis with broad knowledge of extra-Biblical contemporaneous sources, he shines important new light on the relationship of Jesus to the halakah or Jewish law of his day. This is important to understanding the materials within which Jesus engaged in arguments with scribes, Pharisees, elders and others. This is a work of originality, and thus worth the five stars.
That said, there are some basic questions I have after reading this one through. Meier, on the basis of textual analysis and contrast with extra-biblical source materials, distinguishes between what he concludes is the genuine teaching of the historical Jesus (the prohibition on divorce, the prohibition on oaths, the linking of passages from the OT into the 'first' and 'second' commandments (love God, love neighbor) in Mark, the concise statement 'love your enemies' in Q) and what he concludes are later Christian accretions (the 'love one another' commandment in John, the Golden Rule). He emphasizes that the historical Jesus engaged in Halakic disputes, because that is what other contemporaneous sources did (the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were earlier, and the Mishna, which was later, Philo, Josephus, etc). Oddly then, his principal methodological tool for distinguishing real Jesus materials from later Christian accretions, is that of 'discontinuity,' or the absence of a view presented as Jesus' in other sources. To the extent that Jesus' message was in fact the rather uninspiring view that divorce and the making of oaths are prohibited, to that extent is it not fairly necessary to conclude that Jesus was a 'marginal Jew'?
But by all means, read this book, if only to dispel the simplistic and all-too-common view that Jesus' message was that the Law has been superseded by the new commandment/covenant to love. Both Jesus and Paul need to be firmly set within the context of their fully observant Judaism.

(Me permito escribir en español. Gracias)
A los que hayan seguido los volúmenes anteriores no extrañará encontrarse con este ejemplo de rigor y seriedad que supone la investigación sobre el Jesús histórico que nos ofrece J.P. Meier. En un campo donde existe tanta palabrería y donde se multiplican obras pseudocientíficas que sólo buscan vender a base de decir tonterías, la obra de Meier sigue siendo un faro para no perderse y caminar sobre seguro.
Es un placer pensar que, al menos, queda todavía otro volúmen.

This is an excellent work of scholarship and meditative insight. It is a must read for preachers, priests, ministers, and scripture scholars. Scholar-friends recommended it to me, I now want to read the whole series.

John Meier again outdid himself in this long awaited fourth volume of "A Marginal Jew", exploring Jesus on the Law and love. I look forward eagerly to his fifth volume.

This is the fourth volume of Catholic scholar John Meier's seminal work on the historical Jesus. In this volume he tackles Jesus' teaching, in particular on the issues of divorce, taking oaths, the Sabbath, purity laws and the love commandments.

To take divorce and oaths, Meier argues that Jesus opposed divorce and opposed oath taking. On both issues Jesus broke with contemporary Jewish teaching. As Meier shows, Jesus can't be placed in any one category. At times he was stricter than his contemporaries, other times more liberal.

As with the previous volumes, Meier takes rather critical views with sources and their authenticity. (In fact, he seems to be more skeptical with the material discussed in this volume.) For example, he argues that Mark 2:23-28, in effect, describes Jesus as misunderstanding scripture. Meier argues that the story is a creation of the early church. It's unfortunate that Meier does not interact with more conservative scholarship on this, and similar, apparent problems.