Customer Reviews

A Rabbi Talks with Jesus

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

Listen folks, I don't think the polemics here (in some, not all, of the reviews) are exactly helpful in furthering meaningful dialogue-- something the author of this book deserves full credit for even attempting. If Christianity and Judaism have been talking at cross-purposes for 2000 years, it behooves those of us who call ourselves Christians to *LISTEN* and find out why.

I feel Rabbi Neusner on the whole does a fine job of addressing areas of contention and disagreement between the two faiths- however, he does miss some fine critical points:

- He contrasts the (Jewish/Torah) call to be holy because the Lord God is holy, over and against the Christian call to give up all and follow Christ- without, apparently, recognizing that for believing Christians as well as faithful Jews the chief motive for right living is to emulate God's character (why aspire to "be perfect"? Because our heavenly Father is perfect).

- He sees Judaism as addressing the practical concerns of living in the the here-and-now while Christianity is concerned with the future Kingdom Come- missing the relevance of applied Christian principles for daily living, and the idea that Christians no less than Jews are called to sanctify our days and hours, our waking and working and eating and sleeping; not just wait for "Pie in the sky by and by".

- Lastly, Neusner takes issue with the fact that that the Christian gospel message is addressed to the individual "you" and "I", not to the communal "we" of Israel. This is in fact largely true. We are called as individuals AS WELL AS corporately. But it is also a call to community, as the Body of Christ. How else to put into practice all those commands to love, serve, edify and encourage one another?

Torah, or Christ? At the end of the day, for Neusner, the question leads finally to a regretful parting of the ways.

I began reading this book excitedly, despite Neusner's rather limited premise: he sets out to argue with Jesus over whether his teachings actually stem from the Torah (Jewish Bible) or represent something completely different.

Neusner admits freely that he cannot debate against faith -- a person who believes in Jesus does so not only because of his compelling words. And he admits that he does not believe in Jesus... but claims he will debate Jesus' words (as they are passed on to us in the book of Matthew) to pay him the honour of listening to his words and considering them on their merit.

Although, as a Jew, I accepted Neusner's initial premises easily enough, I found his argument began to drone on tediously. His main points boil down to one or two: the Torah teaches holiness for all of Israel; Jesus (as depicted in Matthew), on the other hand, taught eschatological (end-times) lessons concerning salvation of the individual.

Neusner basically ends up insisting again and again that despite Jesus' urging, he would not give up the day-to-day holiness of Judaism for end times that may or may not occur in his lifetime. There's a little more to what he has to say than that, but it's difficult to see through his grandiose prose and excessive verbiage.

All in all, a worthwhile read, and definitely not your usual work of "why we don't worship Jesus" Jewish apologetics. There are plenty of excellent sources for that kind of thing, and Neusner has succeeded in creating something entirely different.

Whether or not it's something of lasting value -- for Jews or for Christians -- is up in the air because of the inaccessibility and redundancy of his style. Worth reading if you feel up to a good mental challenge, though... if you can tolerate his coming back to the same (very few) points over and over again.

Jacob Neusner's exceptional book, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, gets at the heart of why Jews struggle to accept the entirety of Jesus' teachings. While avoiding new age relativist methodologies in dialogue, Neusner capitalizes on the reality that differences in belief do exist between Christians and Jews, and only by understanding these differences, can one truly engage in dialogue. Making it, as Pope Benedict the 16th compelling stated, "...the most important book in Jewish-Christian dialogue in the last decade."

In the opening lines, Neusner candidly explains that if he would have been a Jew in first century Palestine, he would not have joined the circle of Jesus' disciples. Even more, he writes that, "If I heard what ... [Jesus] said in the Sermon on the Mount, for good and substantive reasons I would not have followed him." Throughout the book Neusner envisions himself talking with Jesus and sincerely provides cogent reasons as to why he would have found it difficult to accept what Jesus had to say. However, Neusner's objective is neither proselytism nor apprizing Christians as to why their claims about Jesus are erroneous, rather it is to delineate some of the essential issues that divide Christians and Jews. While doing this, Neusner shows the utmost respect for Christian beliefs and takes seriously the teachings of Jesus, which is an essential ingredient for religious dialogue. For that reason, reading this book not only provides the reader with a deeper understanding of Judaism but also becomes a model for how to engage in religious dialogue.

The heart of Neusner's argument is based on the Jewish belief that the Torah gives the necessary guidelines for how to live in God's kingdom and according to Neusner, "by the truth of the Torah, much that Jesus said is wrong." Neusner proves this by envisioning himself responding to Jesus' teachings in the context of a Jew who saw Israel's religion as genuine and faithful, in comparison to a religion that needed reform and renewal. Yet at the same time, Neusner takes to heart what Jesus preached and finds some things very appealing, but he significantly struggles with the nuances of Jesus' teachings, because he believes that if examined closely, it is incongruent with the Torah.

Thus, Neusner begins vicariously placing himself amongst an intrigued crowd who are listening attentively to Jesus preaching what will become known as the Sermon on the Mount. Neuser is at first impressed with Jesus' moving proclamation of the beatitudes' and finds it compatible with the Torah; nonetheless, Neusner's positive reaction suddenly changes as Jesus continues with his sermon: "You have heard that it was said, `An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil" (MT 5:38-39). Jesus' shocking words leave Neusner bewildered as he struggles to find parallels between resisting one who is evil and "an eye for an eye," but even more, to find parallels between what Jesus said and what the Torah teaches.

Stepping out of the first century and into the present, Nuesner explains that from a Jewish perspective "it is a religious duty to resist evil, to struggle for good, to love God, and to fight against those who make themselves into enemies of God." He goes on to mention that the Torah says nothing about resisting evil and actually looks down on those who behave cowardly and submit. In fact, the Torah expects Israel to always struggle for God's purpose, and in light of that cause, sanctions warfare. Sardonically, Neusner writes how amazing he found "...Jesus' statements that it is a religious duty to fold before evil." Neusner does, however, acknowledge the twenty-fifth proverb which stresses the importance of providing good, ethical treatment for one's enemies, but "not resisting one who is evil" is a completely different concept than fair treatment of one's enemies, and more importantly, it opposes the Torah. Neusner also argues that Jesus' teachings address a group of disciples and not internal Israel. "Jesus has spoken only about how I, in particular, can do what God wants of me. In the shift from the "us" of Sinai to the "I" of the torah of the Galilean sage Jesus takes an important step - in the wrong direction. And If I had been there, I would have wondered what he had to say to not me but to us: all Israel, assembled, that day, in the persons present, before him to hear his torah." This issue over addressing the "I" vs. "us" is a major problem for Nuesner, and he continues to point out throughout his book how Jesus neglects to address Israel as a whole and only concentrates on the individual.

In an another context of Neusner's book, he argues that Jesus is teaching people to violate some of the Ten Commandments, in particular, "take care to keep holy the Sabbath day." Neusner's allegations are based on Matthew 12:1-8, where Jesus and his disciples pluck ears of grain and eat them on the Sabbath. When Pharisees accuse Jesus of `doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath,' Jesus refers to the great King David who did similar unlawful acts and then declares that he, the Son of man, is lord of the Sabbath. Jesus then enters a synagogue, where he continues the debate with a parable, and in conclusion avers that "it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath" (MT 12:12).

According to Neusner, Jews do on the Sabbath what God did on the seventh day of creation, and keeping the Sabbath "...is not about doing good or not doing good; the issue of the Sabbath is holiness, and in the Torah, to be holy is to be like God." Keeping all of the laws centered on the Torah may seem senseless to non-Jews, but Neusner points out that "Israel is Israel on the Sabbath" by living out those seemingly senseless Sabbath rules. Hence, Neusner doesn't see how Jesus' teachings on the Sabbath relate to him as "a member of a family, on the one side, and as part of a community, sharing in the social order of the holy people, on the other?" Furthermore, Neusner affirms that "only God is lord of the Sabbath" and that "the Torah teaches me to rest on the Sabbath, because that is how I learn to act like God." Thus, for Neusner, not only is it obvious that Jesus has violated the commandment to "keep holy the Sabbath" and taught others to do so, but just as in the previous example, Jesus continues to address only the individual instead of the community as a whole.
These two examples capitalize on Neusner's central points that, firstly, Jesus was not harmonious with the teachings of the Torah: "the Torah had told me things about God's kingdom that Jesus neglected, and Jesus had told me things about God's kingdom that the Torah had not affirmed," and secondly, Jesus' teachings tended to address the individual, neglecting the community or Israel as a people: "he has spoken to me, but not to us." Overall, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, coherently and concisely facilitates Jewish reasoning for not being able to accept the teachings of Jesus. Even more, it challenges readers to step away from post-modern relativist approaches of dialogue and instead lay claim to the truth that defines one's own religion.

Throughout the past few centuries, religious dialogue has taken on new shapes and forms as nascent views have immerged arguing that one cannot determine which religion holds "the truth" or is "the best." Thus, there is no objective truth to religion and each religion is true to the one holding it. This post-modern view differs significantly with medieval times when disputing the truth-claims of religion took center stage. One actually believed that their religion was the truth and having dialogue meant to engage in polemics. However, this medieval modus operandi diminished as the ideals of the Enlightenment led many to become indifferent to the truth-claims of religion. What soon emerged was a general toleration and respect for all religions. And the differences between religions were dismissed as trivial and unimportant. These fundamental ideas and concepts of the Enlightenment have continued to affect the West up to the present where now relativistic approaches to dialogue with other religions has led many westerners to believe that fundamentally all religions are relatively true for the beholder. Furthermore, the only way to have authentic dialogue would be to suppose, in principle, that the other can be as right, or more right than your beliefs. In light of this ideology, Pope Benedict the 16th wrote an extensive essay titled Relativism: the Central Problem for Faith Today. In this essay he explicates the perils of engaging in religious dialogue from a relativist perspective and states that it would seem as if it is a miracle that religions in general still exist. It is no surprise then that Benedict favored Neusner's approach, in A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, for they both have asserted the many differences that exist between Christianity and Judaism and believe that is through coming to a better understanding of these differences that one can have true religious dialogue. This contrasts significantly with a relativistic approach to dialogue which does not necessarily seek religious inquiry, but emphasizes, for the most part, that it doesn't matter what one believes to be true just as long as they seek to be good people.

At any rate, Neusner's book, under the auspices of Pope Benedict, challenges the Western world to not only strive to respect and develop a better understanding for other religions but to identify itself and be an apologist to whatever truth that their religion claims. This book definitely gave me a new perspective on why Jews struggle to accept the teachings of Jesus but also challenged me to not only strive to truly understand the differences and similarities amongst other religions but to identify and lay-claim to the truths of my particular religion.

Most Christians do not understand the conflict between the Jesus and the Pharisees. Was Jesus enlightened to God's intent and the Pharisees in the dark? Read this book and the foundation of that dispute opens in front of you. Neusner did not change my religious convictions, but he opened my heart and mind to the reasons the Pharisees did not accept Jesus and felt threatened by his message. It was not about mere political power. Their refusal was based upon deeply held convictions. Please, read this book.

This book does a nice job in its judeo-christian dialogue. I was raised Christian but now I am marrying a Jew and have decided to convert to have a single faith marriage.

To start with, this book is written for Christians (emphasis), not Jews per se, so it goes into some repetition to emphasize its distinctions between Jewish interpretations of the Torah vs. Jesus' intepretations. I like its candor and it is very respectful of the Christian viewpoint. Though the writing at times can be a bit "klunky", I read the book quickly in a two day period so it is not too theroetical and states its main points clearly. What is discusses includes: interpretation of the Sabbath; ritual purity vs ethics; God's (Moses/Scripture)thou and community message vs Jesus' I and you message; following the religious message vs. any conflict to commitment to parents, etc.

My only drawback to this book is that the Rabbi considers Judaism "the only way" not "a way", hence his rightness on his position again and again. Judaism (at least Reform) doesn't take this stance, and when looking at the chapter headings, I feared a hidden negative diatribe against Christianity. But not to worry! If anything, he goes over backwards trying not to offend Chrsitians, even at the cost of his fictional "dialogue" with Jesus (who wants to be accused of putting words in his mouth?)

Book gets five stars from me. It is clear that Judaism and Christianity are two distinct, ethical religions and there is nothing incomplete or inferior with Judaism. To bad religion historically has been used is such negative ways.

Many reviews posted here on this controversial book fall into polemic. Neusner, read carefully in this uneven but thought-provoking study, demands that both Jews and Christians avoid fruitless harangue and take Jesus seriously on his own terms. Neusner argues that neither Jews who want to make Jesus just another rabbi or Christians who nod to Jesus' teachings as rooted in the Torah are making the right move.

He takes a central text that shows Jesus preaching to convince the Jews to change Torah and follow him. Why? Matthew 5-7 appeals to the Jewish community. It, before John's vitriolic gospel against the Jews, or Paul's messianic deification of Christ, represents an earlier stage in what we can learn about the core teachings of Jesus as he proclaimed them to his fellow Israelites.

Neusner, with his erudite incorporation of Talmudic passages and contrasts the message on another mountain, that of the Torah to Moses on Sinai on behalf of the community of Israel. The Torah requires a collective response and defines familial and cultic responsibility to ensure devotion of the Hebrews to their God on a daily, detailed, and sanctifying basis. Jesus, in the Sermon, addresses not the gathering of Jews at the base of the Mount-- who were amazed at his speaking with such bold authority against tradition even as he promised to fulfill the Torah-- so much as the smaller band of disciples at the top of the hill.

To his followers, Jesus began, Neusner explains, speaking to "you" as often in the singular as the plural. Rather than the incorporation of the communal and the domestic, the national responsibility of Israel and the actions prescribed to the priests in the Temple to attain holiness by ritual and practice, Jesus began to appeal to his disciples. In conversations, Jesus starts-- as Matthew describes it-- to place the personal ahead of the collective ''you." This, in turn, ties into the promotion of commitment to the Master instead of the Torah. Neusner demands that both Christians and Jews take seriously this crucial difference. The rabbi argues that Jesus did not follow Torah faithfully-- even long before the claims of messianic rule were attributed to him. By evidence in Matthew, which Neusner interprets as much as possible rather than using later New Testament texts that elaborate on earlier gospels, the rabbi asserts that following Jesus leads, inexorably, away from the communal Torah into an individual's reliance upon salvation through a decision to follow Jesus rather than stay behind with one's family and community in the Jewish tradition. Holiness, rather than perfection, and sanctity inched towards in the here and now rather than salvation in the world to come, are what distinguish Torah-true Judaism from Jesus's Sermon.

A Jew, Neusner imagines then (as now), cannot have it both ways. Jesus invites one to follow him towards holiness rather than remain totally loyal to the Torah of the Pharisees and scribes, of keeping holy the Sabbath, or of looking after one's parents instead of taking off with Jesus as he leaves Galilee for Jerusalem. These chapters, which take passages from the Sermon and juxtapose them with challenges made by Jews then to Jesus and other scriptural and Talmudic passages, do move in fits and starts, perhaps in homage to yeshiva discourse with its give-and-take as well as Neusner's own quickly paced method of scholarship.

Neusner is an astonishingly prolific critic on rabbinic-era texts; he notes how he wrote this book at a chapter or so a day and finished it in a week. (He wrote this in 1993 on his sixtieth birthday and already takes credit for 480 books.) This speed of composition implies a vast and rapid command of texts and ideas. In this book, aimed at the everyday reader, this accustomed pace may present a drawback for this short book; it could have been at least a third more brief as it is. Editing could have sharpened his argument. It rewards attention, but the critique unfolds in a recursive rather than linear fashion that may frustrate those less familiar with this venerable tendency of Jewish discourse about texts. I find it touching that Neusner looks forward to arguing in the Heavenly Yeshiva with Moses and the sages.

Chapters tend to drift about, although they do accumulate into a thoughtful consideration of why Jewish believers deserve, after two thousand years of condemnation and condescension by the majority faith, a chance for autonomy. Neusner posits that only now, in our climate of intermarriage, conversions across both communities, and interfaith dialogue, can Jews finally gain respect from Christians and return it in kind. A pioneer in Jewish-Christian dialogue, Neusner knows both sides well, and with his command of the Mishnah, he instantly can conjure up the proof-text he needs. This book comes with a pre-papal nod on the back jacket from no less than Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger!

Neusner, as a believer but also as a scholar, looks at Matthew's primary appeal to the Jews, the Sermon on the Mount. He asks that both Jews and Christians look at Matthew's earlier gospel not as refined scholars (who take into account extra-textual sources) but on the level of the believer of the text-- and the inquirer who comes from the outside to the text and regards it (how else could it be thousands of years later?) as the primary instigation for dialogue and interfaith inquiry. Matthew sought to convert the Jews to the teachings of this radical rabbi, and Rabbi Neusner takes him on with respect in the Jewish tradition of a long conversation continuing over the centuries about how best to live life according to the Torah, and talks to as well as with Jesus, as one sage to another.

In a moving chapter, he concludes his study of the Sermon by defending his own Jewish observance against the new faith that Jesus creates. Neusner would not join the disciples, but would have remained at the foot of the Mount, "because, for Jesus, 'you' is as often singular as plural. But for the Torah, from Sinai onward, 'you' is always plural. 'You shall have no other gods before me.' 'We'-- eternal Israel-- are here to respond: 'We shall do and we shall obey.' And I do not believe God would want it any other way." (143)

This is a unique treatise carefully dissecting the issues that differentiate Jews and Christians. Written with deep respect for Jesus Christ and his message; while clearly and deliberately identifying the boundaries that separate Jewish thinking, philosophy, and theology.
No other text has been written in the history of these religions that approaches these differences in the style Rabbi Neusner brings.
Read it, and understand.

I thought the book was a neat idea. Let's go back in time and hang out with the Master as he teaches the Sermon on the Mount and other assorted lessons.

The book is 161 pages long, and Neusner takes 36 pages to tell us what he's going to do and why he didn't focus on the other gospels and on other teachings and stories of Jesus. Obviously, this is necessary, but I felt it took too much space and too much time. Moreover, I had some issues with some of the things Dr. Neusner shared in this section. He mentioned that he couldn't bring himself to dialogue with the Jesus of John's Gospel because John and the Johannine Jesus abhorred the Jews.

But it could be possible to see John's Gospel as reflecting a "sharp family disagreement" between the Jewish Jesus and Jewish leaders. The books division of Jesus' ministry according to the Jewish calendar is strange indeed for a supposedly anti-Jewish work. The same goes for the sharp disagreements the Matthaen Jesus has with the Scribes and with the Pharisees.

When we get into the book proper, we see that Neusner agrees with many of Jesus' teachings. The stuff he really struggles with are the teachings which showcase the authority of Jesus, like when Jesus says "You have heard that it has been said, but I say to you," or when he says "Leave everything and follow me," or when He says "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath," or when He says "Something greater than the temple is here." Neusner cannot envision anything greater than the Torah given by God on Mount Sinai, and so he is great puzzled by Jesus' unique authority.

At this point, I wanted to say "Nu? Is not the uniqueness of Jesus Christ the main theme of Matthew's Gospel? We see this right from the get-go: His unique genealogy, His unique conception, His unique birth narrative, His unique baptism, His unique encounter with the devil, His unique teachings, and yes, His unique authority.

Neusner also struggles to grasp how Jesus can declare all foods clean when we have the food laws in Leviticus and Numbers. It goes back to the main issue: The unique authority and person of Jesus.

Dr. Neusner also wishes that Jesus would have used the plural form of "you" more often. He wanted Jesus to speak to Israel corporately and not just to individual people within the community. In fact, this is one of the other big reasons why Neusner chooses not to follow Jesus.

I would say that everything written in the Scriptures has implications for our individual lives and our corporate lives and while there is a lot of eschatological teaching directed at the individual, there are texts where Jesus does address the community (Luke 19:19-43 for instance), and he does this without rehashing and reprising all that was written in the Torah (Exodus 21-24).

I couldn't help but think of how Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3 that even when Moses is read in the shuls, a veil covers the hearts of those who hear, and only in Christ is the veil taken away. I realize some may cry "foul" at this, but I couldn't get that scripture text out of my head as I read Neusner's book. I feel sheepish, because the truth is that I deeply respect him as a careful scholar of Judaism and writer and editor of over 900 books. He is a wise and learned man.

I recommend this book and thank Dr. Neusner for writing it.

I'm a Christian so I didn't quite know what to expect when I read this book. I found though, that I was deeply interested in it once I started and found it hard to put down. the book outlines the conflicting beliefs of Christianity and Judaism. It also shows some of the similarities. Regardless of whether or not you're Jewish or Christian or atheist or any other religion for that matter, by the last page you're going to have something new to think about.

Like Mr. Llugany (a reviewer of the book) I have come upon this particular one by Neusner through Cardinal Ratzinger's (now Benedict XVI) Jesus von Nazareth, who gave it high praise. I agree with other reviewers that the diction tends at times to be repetitive and one wants Neusner "to get on with it." This is why he got four instead of five stars.The book is important because it clarifies the issue and is devoid of rancor. Neusner evaluates the views of both sides and gives us the reason why he stays with Judaism rather than following Jesus. The essential point is that Jesus modified the ordinances of the Torah and only God has this right. To assign divinity to Jesus, as Christians have done, is unacceptable to Jews.
Although I had familiarized myself in the past with Judaism and written about it in some of my own books and on [...], Neusner did clarify two essential points. In the past I have at times been grated by critiques of some Jewish respondents to my writings. I am not referring to obnoxious ones, but those which made a valid point. When I then answered that point, further objections were raised and this went on until I finally said, "enough is enough;" let us just agree to disagree and be done with it. My respondents expressed annoyance over this stance and what started with good will on both sides ended up with disappointment. As a result of Neusner's book I now know that Jews who have been schooled in yeshivas regard argument as the best way to exercise the intellect and it can become "argument for the sake of argument" rather than to settle a given question to mutual agreement. The Jewish heaven, as described by Neusner, consists of arguing with the "sages," possibly even with God, over Torah passages. For me this would amount to hell.
The other point refers to what Neusner calls "the eternal Israel," which is not necessarily a meaningful term for outsiders. When one reads how Jews define themselves one is struck by the lack of cohesion: belief in God and the rituals of Jewish religion are not necessary, neither is identification with the State of Israel. It seemed to me, and I have stated this in The Moses Legacy that the only agreement is in regard to the sense of being a beleaguered minority, which has to close ranks in view of past persecutions. While I still believe that this is a common denominator, Neusner has clarified the point further when we think about what he really means with "eternal Israel." He refers to what I would call "the nation" in the original sense of the Latin word "natio" which means: birth, a tribe, race or people. As such it is the larger community one is born into. If we look at the situation from that point of view one could say that with the advent of Christianity the Jews were asked to give up their own nation and emigrate into Christ's. Most of them felt, and still feel, no need to do so because they are perfectly content at home, regardless of persecutions.
While Neusner uses the word "arguing," throughout his book I would prefer "discussing" because it has less of an emotional tone to it. We should have discussions about our differences, in the manner of Neusner, because they allow us to clarify our own viewpoint. But if attempts at proselytizing are made, from either side, animosity is likely to ensue. One can plant a seed in these discussions but the extent to which it may later bear fruit is up to the individual and cannot be prejudged.
Please read the book, with an open mind as most of the reviewers have, because it will help you to clarify your own thoughts.