The Jewish Gospels [Hardcover]

Daniel Boyarin (Author), Jack Miles (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2012

In July 2008 a front-page story in the New York Times reported on the discovery of an ancient Hebrew tablet, dating from before the birth of Jesus, which predicted a Messiah who would rise from the dead after three days. Commenting on this startling discovery at the time, noted Talmud scholar Daniel Boyarin argued that “some Christians will find it shocking—a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology.”

Guiding us through a rich tapestry of new discoveries and ancient scriptures, The Jewish Gospels makes the powerful case that our conventional understandings of Jesus and of the origins of Christianity are wrong. In Boyarin’s scrupulously illustrated account, the coming of the Messiah was fully imagined in the ancient Jewish texts. Jesus, moreover, was embraced by many Jews as this person, and his core teachings were not at all a break from Jewish beliefs and teachings. Jesus and his followers, Boyarin shows, were simply Jewish. What came to be known as Christianity came much later, as religious and political leaders sought to impose a new religious orthodoxy that was not present at the time of Jesus’s life.

In the vein of Elaine Pagels’s The Gnostic Gospels, here is a brilliant new work that will break open some of our culture’s most cherished assumptions.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"If Boyarin is right, the consequences go beyond making a few adjustments to our understanding of the past. As the Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jack Miles writes in his foreword to The Jewish Gospels, Jews and Christians will have to radically rethink their identities and relationship to each other."
—Moment

"Boyarin proposes that by constructing the categories of religious orthodoxy and heresy,second-century Gentile Christians created the concept of religion which pervades the Western world to this day . . . intensely provocative and innovative."
—Shofar

"A brilliant and momentous book."
—Karen L. King, Harvard Divinity School

"Raises profound questions . . . this provocative book will change the way we think of the Gospels in their Jewish context."
—John J. Collins, Yale Divinity School

"It’s certainly noteworthy when one of the world’s leading Jewish scholars publishes a book about Jesus . . . extremely stimulating."
—Daniel C. Peterson, The Deseret News

"[A] fascinating recasting of the story of Jesus."
—Elliot Wolfson, New York University

About the Author

Daniel Boyarin, Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture and rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. His books include A Radical Jew, Border Lines, and Socrates and the Fat Rabbis. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The; First Edition edition (April 1, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595584684
• ISBN-13: 978-1595584687
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #61,517 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Judaism > Theology
  • #28 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Judaism > History of Religion
  • #37 in Books > History > World > Religious > Judaism

More About the Author

Daniel Boyarin, Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture and rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. His books include A Radical Jew, Border Lines, and Socrates and the Fat Rabbis. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 88 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant and Original View of the Origins of Christian Theology March 18, 2012

By Prufrock

Format:Hardcover

Daniel Boyarin is one of the world's great scholars of Jewish Theology. In this book, Boyarin argues that the concept of the Trinity, which has always been considered the great original contribution of Christianity, is really derived from ideas that were common in Jewish thought before the time of Christ. He also demonstrates with great learning that the irreconcilable schism between Jews and Christians did not really come about until several hundred years after Christ. Boyarin demonstrates how there were Jews who believed in Jesus and Jews who didn't, but they were all part of the Jewish identity.

I imagine that this book is going to generate some very heated debate. It won't be popular with Jews who think of themselves as the first and longest standing monotheistic religion. And it is certain to make Christians uncomfortable, because he argues with great learning that the idea of a God who is both father and son is not original to Christianity.

I think that the conversation evoked by this book will be heated, but very interesting, indeed.

50 of 53 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A book all serious students of the New Testament and the Jewish Roots of Christianity cannot do without. April 17, 2012

By Mike Davis Th.D

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Daniel Boyarin has done a great service for the Body of Christ and especially for those who are involved in the study of the Jewish Roots of Christianity.

Over the past few decades it has become increasing clear that to understand more fully the New Testament writings we need to have a greater, more in-depth understanding of the conceptual and cultural world in which these texts were written...and this is primarily the world of Judaism.

Understanding the Jewish conceptual and cultural world in which Jesus, the disciples and writers of the New Testament lived and moved in has open up the richness of Scripture and given it greater clarity in innumerable ways.
One area that has now been greatly enriched by understanding the Jewish Background involves the Deity of Jesus.

Boyarin's work deftly demonstrates through the use of various streams of Jewish thought and literary works that the idea of a Divine Messiah was not foreign to Jewish thought and belief....and was even expected. He lays out the various beliefs about the Messiah down through the centuries before and during the time of Jesus using texts such as Daniel 7:13-14, the Similitudes of Enoch, First Ezra as well as insights from the Talmud and other rabbinic literature that may reflect earlier Jewish thought on this subject.

Boyarin view is that the seeds of the concept of a divine Messiah were present in Judaism before and during the time of Jesus. This is important for three reasons :
1. It explains how the first century disciples and followers of Jesus could believe that Jesus is God/deity. Boyarin's work demonstrates pretty well that such a belief and concept was NOT outside the scope of Jewish belief within the First century

2. It helps present day believer in Jesus, who also study the Jewish roots of the faith to see that there is no contradiction between Jewish Monotheism and belief in the deity of Jesus. This has become an increasing problem and a source of cognitive dissonance for some within the "Jewish Roots" movement and Messianic Judaism. "Would first century, observant Jews who hold that there is but one God also hold to a belief that the Man Jesus is also God? How does this fit with Jewish/rabbinic belief in monotheism?"

This has led some to deny the deity of Jesus while holding to his Messiah-ship as they are seeking to be faithful to their understanding of Judaism of the First Century and of the Bible. Hopefully Boyarin's book will help many to see that if they take into account that there are different and various views concerning the Messiah within early Jewish thought itself (and not just within the Talmud) then they will see that Jesus as a "divine messiah" is not a contradiction at all but rather is in harmony with different streams of Jewish thought in the First century Jewish World.

3. It locates Jesus divinity in his Identification of Himself as The Son of Man from Daniel 7:13-14; This helps us to see that Jesus view of Himself was NOT shaped by later Christians borrowing these ideas from the Roman concept of Cesar as the divine son of god (or borrowing the concept from other pagan sources concerning a god-man)

This work is also important because it helps to clarify Paul's presentation of Jesus in his epistle's as a cosmic, transcendent Being. Boyarin's work does not directly or specifically focus on Paul or his portrayal of Jesus but it does help to give an understanding as to how Paul may have come to his view of Jesus. Paul's view of Jesus is the Jewish View of the Divine Messiah/Son of Man.

What I would like to have seen in the book is more development of some of Boyarin's ideas in detail. But what is written is enough to motivate myself and others to do further research on this fascinating subject by seeking out at my local theological library the numerous scholarly articles and books listed in his footnotes.

Another great aspect of the book is chapter three "Jesus kept kosher" . Here Boyarin demonstrates that Jesus, far from doing away with the laws of Kashrut was actually Kosher himself and was giving his halakha on a question concerning the rules of clean and unclean. I had read David Biven's synopsis of Yair Furstenberg's article (Defilement Penetrating the Body: A New Understanding of Contamination in Mark 7:15 in New Testament Studies #54, 2008) in a Jerusalem Perspective online article a few years ago and then later read the full article by Furstenberg himself. Boyarin does a great job of simplifying and clarifying what was really going on in Mark 7:1-15. I especially liked the distinction he makes between the categories of clean and unclean and permitted and prohibited -with Mark 7 being about clean and unclean and Kashrut being about what foods are permitted and not permitted (or prohibited for food) -an important distinction that has been missed by many Christian commentaries on Mark 7:1-15 , leading to a misinterpretation of the meaning of the entire passage.

Boyarin s not a Christian nor a Messianic believer in Jesus. The book is thus not an attempt to try and win Jews over to a belief in Jesus and his divinity. Boyarin stated goals early in the book (pages 6-7) are to change the vilifying dialogue between Jews and Christians that has gone on for centuires and to foster a better understanding of each other; and also to offer a challenge (and I would say critique) of liberal Christian scholars who see the idea of a divine, suffering Messiah as having been invented by the later Christians leaders who foisted these ideas upon the church. Boyarin again shows throughout the book that these ideas pre-date the time of Jesus and are found within Judaism itself.

The book is an easy read and one that I feel further advances the understanding of the Jewish Roots of Christianity. I thought the book important enough that I bought a copy for a friend of mine and plan to re-read it myself. This is a book I highly recommend.

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Throw Out Your New Testament March 29, 2012

By S. E. Moore

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This short but sweet book challenges the assumption that Jesus and his earliest Jewish followers had a theology which was completely at odds with the New Testament and orthodox "gentile" Christianity. Daniel Boyarin is a Jewish scholar looking at Christianity from a Jewish perspective. He is not a fundamentalist Christian trying to defend his faith. I would also recommend his other outstanding book, "A Radical Jew, Paul and the Politics of Identity". In this book, he clearly demonstrates that the core doctrines of orthodox Christianity such as the incarnation, the trinity, and the vicarious suffering of the messiah/redeemer were ideas which originated in Judaism and which were firmly rooted in the Jewish faith in the time of Jesus. These doctrines were neither Hellenistic ideas nor were they elements of pagan mystery religions which were foisted upon the Christian faith by the early Greek church fathers or the Romans.

This book challenges theories put forth by modern liberal Christian apologists who draw a distinction between a "good Jesus" and a "bad Christ". In other words, we can no longer see the historical figure of Jesus as merely an ethical sage who, under the influence of Hellenism, was promoted to a divine status. The conviction that Jesus was elevated to a divine status as the "Son of Man" goes back to Jesus' earliest Jewish followers and was probably planted in their minds by Jesus himself. The charges of blasphemy leveled against Jesus can only be the result of his identifying himself as the future Son of Man and using the term "I Am" as a self designation. I would add that according to Hegesippus, an early Palestinian Jewish Christian, James was charged with heresy for making the same claims about his brother, Jesus. As another Jewish scholar, Hugh Schonfield, wrote, Jesus didn't just read the prophets, he read himself into the prophets. Boyarin clearly demonstrates that the idea of a divine redeemer figure goes back to a much earlier strata of Judaism.

The author shows how Judaism in Jesus' day was more diverse than it is today. The idea of Yahweh being a second manifestation of the highest god was present in Israel long before Jesus and was the precursor for what later became the doctrine of the trinity. Rabbinic Judaism later condemned the idea of a dual godhead or two powers in heaven as a heresy. I highly recommend Margaret Barker's book, "The Great Angel" for anyone who wants to explore this further.

Many Jews in Jesus' day were expecting a saviour or messiah. To some, this redeemer figure would be an earthly Davidic king adopted as the Son of God. To others, the redeemer would be a divine preexistant heavenly being known as The Son of Man who would be given authority by the highest god "The Ancient of Days" to have dominion over the earth. Boyarin makes his case by citing the book of Daniel written in the second century BCE and the Similitudes of Enoch and Fourth Ezra which were independent Jewish writings contemporaneous with the gospel of Mark written in the first century CE. The only thing that distinuished the followers of Jesus among their fellow Jews was that they identified the redeemer figure as Jesus. With Jesus, the Davidic Messiah Son of God was merged with the divine Son of Man. These ideas came from apocalyptic Judaism, not Hellenism.

Using independent sources, Boyarin demonstrates that the two biblical figures identified with Jesus by his earliest followers, Daniel's Son of Man and the "Suffering Servant" of Isaiah 53, were originally interpreted as individual messianic/redeemer figures and not as allegories for the nation of Israel.

Boyarin states that there were divergences of Christology even among Jewish Christian groups. Some Jewsih Christians believed that Jesus was God's son by adoption. Others , known as the Nazarenes, believed in the tenets of the Nicene creed. To the Nazarenes, there never was a conflict between their high Christology and Judaism. They continued to worship in the synagogue and kept the sabbath and kosher food laws. Tragically they were rejected by both Rabbinic Judaism and a newly institutionalized Christendom. Ray Pritz's "Nazarene Jewish Christianity" goes into greater depth regarding the Nazarene Jewish Christians.

Boyarin focuses on the Gospel of Mark as the earliest gospel which portrays Jesus as a thoroughly Jewish messiah. Jesus never disputed the Torah itself but only the Pharisaic innovations to the Torah known as the "Oral Law". In some respects, Jesus was more of a purist than his Pharisaic counterparts.

This book effectively refutes the artificial wedge that has been placed between Jesus and his earliest followers and the New Testament. I would add that much of what has been published in regard to original Jewish Christianity versus "Pauline" or gentile Christianity is a bogus attempt to discredit the Christian faith. Don't throw out your New Testaments.