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Meet the Rabbis: Rabbinic Thought and the Teachings of Jesus

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Early in my exploration of Christianity (at age 40) it became apparent that most clergy are clueless about the relationship Jesus had with the Pharisees. Despite what Josephus wrote, Pharisees were always portrayed as one - dimensional Neanderthals. Gamliel's thoughtful words in Acts of the Apostles were seldom even mentioned. This was true for all of the hundreds of sermons I have heard live, on the radio, and over the Internet.

Prof. Young has been one of the voices calling out in the wilderness. I discovered his books in my mid-40s and then began to read other scholarly writers that he cited. I was trying to understand why G-d chose that particular time in history to send the Messiah. To understand the era, I revisited the worship of the First Century Church and Synagogues.

I learned that the Amidah was recited during the time of Jesus in the Synagogues and Temple. These prayers are virtually unchanged from when they were written. If Jesus attended group worship once a week from age 13 to 33, He recited the Amida over 1,000 times. Obviously that is a huge underestimate. More important, he did this shoulder - to - shoulder with the Pharisees! My point is, how can people who profess faith in Christ be so ignorant of what Jesus (and Paul) prayed... and with whom?

Now you do not have to! Brad Young has encapsulated my twelve years of part-time research...and a great deal more, into this wonderful book. Being a Hebrew scholar, he translates many great Jewish writings (including the Amida) into English that is precise and very readable. He explains the difference between the Oral Torah (you have heard that...) and the Written Torah (it is written that...) and explains why writings 400 years after the death of Christ still echo with the teachings of the Intertestament Period. Dr. Young also accurately portrays the Rabbis from 100 BCE to 400 AD as some of the religious and intellectual heavyweights of their time.

I would give this book six stars if I could. If you do not know the differences between the beliefs of Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes, I would recommend reading his Jewish Theologian books first. Then be prepared to have all of your preconceived notions about the Pharisees ground into dust.

First, it is important to understand a bit of scholarship that has been published. There has been a lot of scholarship inventing Jesus as being a gentile philosopher. Notably within that movement, the Jesus that is most authentic is the Jesus of the Gnostic (so called) "gospels". However, Brady Young's scholarship has been firmly rooted in a Jewish scholarship which subverts those lies and reinforces Jesus the Jew addressing His contemporary Jewish community.

This book is meant to be an introduction to Jewish religious traditions which are Jesus settings. It is not a comprehensive approach to all the various rabbis, but brief introduction to their views and practices. The book is broken up into three main parts with a fourth that serves as an appendix:

Part I: Introduction to Rabbinic Thought
1. Introduction to Rabbinic Thought
2. Master Teachers and Their Disciples
3. Torah is More Than Law
4. The Great Sanhedrin
5. Parallel Rabbinic and New Testament Texts
Part II: Introduction to Rabbinic Literature
6. Introduction to Early Jewish Writings
7. Ethics of the Fathers
8. The Amidah Prayer
9. Maimonides' Thirteen Principles of Jewish Faith
10. Hillel's Seven Principles of Bible Interpretation
Part III: Introduction to the Rabbis
11. Meet the Rabbis
12. Both Torah's Were Revealed on Mount Sinai
13. Utopia or Plan of Action?
Part IV: Study Helps
Of Books, Commandments, Laws, Holy Days, and Lineage
Glossary of Terms
Bibliographic Helps
Index of Modern Authors
Index of Subjects
Index of Ancient Sources

In Part I, Brad Young discusses key Hebrew ideals and Jesus within His contemporary settings. One of the most valuable aspects to Part I is found in Chapter 5 where Jesus teachings are shown nearly identical to other rabbis who came before and after His ministry. Nearly all of Part I is discussing topics discussed in the Sermon of the Mount.

In Part II, he introduces the reader to the Mishnah and Talmud; the Oral Tradition. Likewise, the author gives an introduction to the approximate dates for the rabbinic texts. Chapters 8 and 9 are valuable for understanding foundational rabbinical theology and prayer. Next Chapter 10 though only being 7 pages long is a great resource to understanding how the rabbis interpreted the Bible. But the greatest resource in Part II is Chapter 7, Ethics of the Fathers. This chapter is Brad Young's translation (interpretation) of one of the divisions within the Mishnah. "The Ethics of the Fathers is a moral code of conduct, filled with vivid, larger-than-lie personalities. For Christians, it is a valuable source of Jewish teachings that links the spiritual world of the Old Testament with the New Testament era."

In Part III, Chapter 11 is self explanatory. The author is giving a quick introduction to a great many rabbis and a known characteristic for each of them, many of which he has already mentioned. In Chapter 12, there is a bit more of an explanation of the Oral Tradition. And the most valuable Part III is the last chapter where the author is making it known that the Sermon of the Mount is more ethical and moral faithful redemptive obedience in action than wishful thinking of utopia.

Brad Young's book is great work for anyone looking to understand Jesus within His historical settings.

The truth of it is, you will never really understand Jesus or the New Testament until you at least become acquainted with Rabbinic thought. You will be amazed to find a lot of what Jesus said had already been said by one of the earlier Rabbis before him. For example the Golden Rule was first quoted by Rabbi Hillel only in the negative form "don't do to others what you would not want them to do to you". Christians have been debating over the method of Baptism and how it was to be performed for over a century. If only Christians where familiar with the Mishnah they would have known all along how it was it be performed, why it was performed and when it was to be performed. I highly recomend this book.

As a teacher of Hebraic-Christian studies, I want to applaud Dr. Brad Young on all of his books. However, his new work "Meet The Rabbis: Rabbinic Thought and the Teachings of Jesus" is filled with truth that many Christian will never read because in the Church there is no one teaching Rabbinic thought. This book will become required reading for all those who come to Mayim Hayim Ministries House of Study to learn of Jesus' and his Judaica Rabbinic Biblical Roots. Oh how I wish the Church had never thought-out the baby with the bath water. Please keep writing books like this one, we need more books because the Body of Messiah is suffering from severe anorexia in this area. Todah rabbah Dr. Young for your brilliant work!

We live in a time where it is okay to address certain issues about Cristianity and the Jewishness of Jesus. A couple of decades ago (the other day for that matter) It was not okay. The book that Dr. Young has written is outstanding, most all of the issues that he tackles can not be better said. I've known this for a long time and I know many people did too, but if you don't have the proper credentials (degrees) most of your claims are blown into the wind. But I knew it was just a matter of time, and that time is now. If you are a Christian, be it Catholic or Protestant or any other denomination. THIS BOOK IS A MUST.
By the way, one other very important thing I must add is that this book is NOT a religious tug of war between Judaism and Christianity. He simply and in very understandable language shows you the Jewishness of Jesus. Thank you, Dr. Young.

Brad Young has produced another great book on the jewishness of Jesus. I enjoyed both the content and style of this book. Mr. Young is very academic and also very sincere. I'm impressed by his overall balance of intellect and spiritual maturity. In the end, the author brings it back to the intent of Jesus' person and sermons: It's all about action. Live like you believe. The only issue that I still struggle with is the seemingly overstated piety of the Pharisees. While I agree that the Pharisees are often given a very unjustified hateful review by Christians, Mr. Young seems to tout them a little bit more than I'm comfortable with. However, that's just me. Great book...Great author...Can't wait to see what work he produces next.

This is a Great Book. Although it is easy to read it is not written in a way to insult the reader's intelligence. Moreover, the citations he gives open a door to many other valuable resources.

I learned quite a bit from reading this book and generally enjoyed reading it. However, I was frequently confronted by problems. For example, the author's selection and use of materials meant to illustrate and reinforce key points of his analysis are often either ill conceived or distorted. Next, there is a paucity of dates provided for material from the Rabbis that purport to parallel the teachings of Jesus. Whether these teachings were within twenty five years or four centuries of Jesus does matter. Another problem is this book's designation of historical time periods that do not conform to common terminology in this field of scholarship. And, then there is at least one glaring editorial mistake. Ultimately, this is a work of apologetics. It is many times scholarly and informative, but it also strays away from or avoids what is known fact too often. Young's operating premise is that Jesus' teachings were largely in harmony with the Pharisaic thought of His time. Many readers are acquainted with and have reacted negatively to the "hippy, liberal, cynic Jesus" primarily offered up by the Jesus Seminar. But, a far less perceived and discussed problem is the "Jewish Jesus" of recent scholarship. Consciously or unconsciously, this is many times motivated by scholarly attempts aimed at the expiation of guilt for the Holocaust and is often characterized by a cloying political correctness. All portraits of the historical Jesus so far offered by scholars seem to reflect a great deal about those who write them and the cultural concerns of their own times.

To illustrate Christian scholarly attitudes towards Judaism, Young reaches back to John Lightfoot in the seventeenth century. More contemporary expressions of anti-Judaism in Christian scholarship abound right up into the nineteen fifties. But, they would lack the pungency of Lightfoot's shockingly crude anti-Semitism. Also, the author offers a paraphrase of a Tannaitic saying that he renders without quotes as "Hillel is said to have had seventy disciples. The least of which was Yochanan ben Zakhai, ..." No mention is made of the fact that this saying is universally considered hyperbolic and that Yochanan ben Zakhai was actually the most distinguished of Hillel's disciples. Also, Hillel had far less than seventy disciples. Current scholarship views these statements as aggrandizements of the Hillel school by later Rabbis. The presentation of the Amidah prayer as rendered and explicated is misleading. First, the prayer as presented is a late recension and dates from far after the time of Jesus. Second, the Amidah was the prayer of the "eighteen benedictions" at time of Jesus. The general scholarly opinion opts for a nineteenth benediction added at Yavneh before 100 CE, and it was the "Birkat haMinim" which is in English the curse against the heretics. And, it may well have been formulated to remove Jewish Christians from the Synagogues. From beginning to end, Young's consideration of the Amidah prayer is a deep minority position. For the latest work on the topic, see "Birkat haMinim: Jews and Christian in Conflict in the Ancient World" by Yaakov Y. Teppler.

Dating protocols are generally accepted for the history herein assessed. The period of Second Temple Judaism begins circa 518 BCE and closes in 70 CE which then inaugurates the Rabbinic period of Judaism. The Tannaim thrive from about 20 BCE through 220 CE. What does the term "ancient Rabbis" that Young refers to really mean in terms of chronology? The early Rabbis are the heirs of the Pharisaic Tannaim who operated up to 70 CE. Next came the Tannaitic Rabbis of Classical Antiquity followed by the Amoraic Rabbis of Late Antiquity. Attempting to retroject the Rabbinic period back into the time of Jesus or beyond is ingenuous. That the ethical and Kingdom teachings of Jesus have many points of contact with its contemporary Judaism and the teachings of the somewhat later Rabbis goes without saying. After all, this was the milieu in which Jesus grew up, taught in, and was comfortable in. The vast majority of the New Testament is populated by Jewish-Christian documents. Jesus' teachings were in Jewish-Christian literary forms. But by no means does this mean that Jesus was a "Hatorah" Jew. There were profound conflicts between Jesus and Pharisaic Judaism, and one need look no further than matters of ritual purity and sabbath observance. The early Jewish Christian Church in Jerusalem was deeply enmeshed in conflict with Judaism within a decade of the death of Jesus. And, it turned deadly with the executions of Stephen and James the son of Zebedee.

Then there are the multiple assertions by Young that the early Jewish Christians worshipped and prayed in the Temple. The New Testament makes it very clear that the Jewish Christians taught and preached at the Temple. Never are early Jewish Christian or Jesus associated with the sacrificial cult of the Temple. With the exception of the attestation by Josephus and Hegisippus, an early Church father, that James, the relative of Jesus, prayed continually at the Temple, I find no other evidence that Young's assertions are correct. The degree to which both Jesus and the early Church were indifferent to the Temple and its cult is well illustrated in the book, "No Stone on Another ...," by Lloyd Gaston. As to editorial flaws, I will but mention one. A full chapter is devoted to Young's fine and accessible translation of the "Pirke Avoth" which appears in the Mishnah. Sixty five Rabbis or Pharisaic Tannaim are quoted in this document. Many of them multiple times. However, when one goes to the book's subject index, less than thirty of these sages are listed and not one entry regarding any of them cites their contribution in the chapter containing the "Pirke Avoth." This is inexcusable. I could go on. But, this litany of problems should suffice. In essence, this is a seductive apologetic work which is far more an advocacy piece than a serious consideration of all the available data and the widely divergent scholarly opinions on the materials covered. It is written so as to be easily accessible to any literate adult. If one is widely read in this area of scholarship, one can make the required differentiations inherently necessary for a proper assessment of this work. However, in style and content, this book is not aimed at scholars. Therefore, by reading it in a vacuum, the average inquiring reader may well be deeply misled.

The book was well written and easy to understand. I highly recommend it to Christians who want to gain a better understanding of the historical/religious context of Jesus' life and ministry.

There seems to be a flood of books in the market currently on Jewish thought and the origins of Christianity. Young does a good job of bringing academia to the field and closing the gap of uncertainty that's surrounded Christianity's roots and essence within Judaism.