Customer Review
- Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2015Brave Old World
Christianity was issued from a dissident faction of post-Temple Messianic Judaism that underwent powerful second century Hellenistic influences more conform to Greco-Roman ideals. We know little about 2nd-3rd-century CE Christianity tempting post-Temple Judaism and the counter-reactions. And out of academic circles, the rabbi’s seventh century messianic literature and homilies cover only a restricted audience. Schaffer’s book repairs these important lacunae.
Schaffer’s Jesus in the Talmud offers a useful preparation to tackle his present publication: it trains the reader with the rabbi’s tortuous exegesis and Schaffer’s enlightening interpretations.
Chapter 1-2 of The Jewish Jesus posits that Christians with two divine figures, God and his Son, were provocatively pointing to all the biblical textual references that could mirror their own theology: Genesis where on several occasions God is mentioned in plural and in Exodus where God is depicted as a young warrior God in Egypt very different from the Mt. Sinai old God of justice and mercy. Using the OT as a springboard that announces Christianity, 2nd century CE church fathers could argue that even the Jewish Bible had two Gods. During the early centuries CE the rabbis were trying to talk themselves out of such difficulties. Attempting to explain the apparent contradictions the rabbi’s were in for a spell of exegetical acrobatics difficult to understand without Schaffer’s clear explanations. (It would have been more realistic, on behalf of the rabbis, to accept that early traditions were different, that several writers intervened and that dogma had evolved over the centuries BCE)
I find it difficult to follow Schaffer when he believes that pre-Christian Jewish texts elaborating on Wisdom and the Logos were instrumental in establishing Christianity’s divine family. The Christian bi- and Trinitarian concepts of the divine owe more to Hellenistic Docetic doctrines than to oldest Judaism. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus has no divine status and his messianic standing is very hesitant in Mark.
Chapter 3. Schaffer shows that marginal factions of Judaism were attempting to promote a different Messiah-King than Jesus Christ. With the Apocalypse of David, writers in Babylonia responded to the “Jesus” literature as found in the Book of Revelation. The short analysis of third century CE frescoes from the Dura Europos Synagogue is a remarkable addition to Shaffer’s demonstration.
Chapter 4 continues with the figure of Enoch. Schaffer carefully exposes Enoch’s transformation from a biblical figure walking with God into a celestial scribe then an angelic figure before becoming a Lesser God under the name of Metatron in the third Book of Enoch.
All these later apocalyptic texts had BCE Jewish antecedents, essentially in Jubilees, Daniel and the Song of Songs. (Qumran literature also gave Melchizedeck an outstanding messianic rank next to God and their Teacher was elevated to messianic eminence).
The second to fourth century CE Babylonian texts promoting divine Messiahs that remained in the Jewish fold intended to propose an alternative to Jesus Messiah that the nations had taken out of Israel’s hands. Schaffer revives the influences Christianity’s divine Messiah had on Babylonian Judaism. The process was tortuous and contested, and here again Schaffer’s analysis is very helpful. These local apocalyptic theologies nevertheless remained marginal. The Jewish Messiahs “catching up with Jesus” did not receive official theological recognition on behalf of centrist Rabbinical Judaism and only survived in fringe communities.
Chapter 5. God’s family
Schaffer settles scores with Maier who attempts to purify rabbinic traditions of all anti-Christian implications.
Chapter 6. The Angels
The Palestinian rabbis are caught in endless exegetical gossip: when were the angels created, did God consult them before creating man, do they have a higher or lower standing than Adam?
The Babylonian rabbis step in to give a resolutely anti angelic version of God’s consulting them before the creation. Behind the discussions the uniqueness of God is at stake. The traditions of angels attending God and transmitting the law to Moses are contested because negatively used by Christian writers. (God didn’t give the law himself because it was not the final one). Worship and sacrifice for angels are prohibited.
Chapter 7. Adam
This is a wonderful chapter that shows how the two creation accounts in Genesis were used to validate an earthly Jesus and a heavenly, immaterial and incorruptible Jesus.
Chapter 8. The Birth of the Messiah, or Why did Baby Messiah Disappear?
Interesting in this strange and wonderfully commented story that counters the NT birth narrative, the fact that this Davidic Messiah, born in Bethlehem, is a post-Temple affair, and not some 35 yrs before stretching from Herod to Pilate. Schaffer does not try to explain this oddity. But the rabbis knew that there were no Jesus traditions while the Temple was standing. Facing its destruction, all strains of Judaism had to react. To dissident Jewish factions, the Temple’s fall meant that God was displeased with the present day administration and was asking for things to change. The Jesus-for-Messiah forwarded by a Nazarene community was a Temple replacement answer: a Messiah that held in his hands the Holy Spirit, replacing Elijah (the prototype of the Temple’s Messiah) and Moses (so silent on eternal life). They started setting the contours of their new messianic party in script around 75 CE (Mark’s). It was expanded and completed over the following century.
Chapter 9. The Suffering Messiah Ephraim
We find here a tradition that derives the Messiah from the house of Joseph and not the house of David.
The first homily stresses that Torah tradition is not enough if messianic expectations are neglected.
The second homily reverts to a more traditional: “Torah obedience leads to salvation.” And then changes it’s course. The Messiah was created before the creation and his light hides under God’s seat. God negotiates Messiah-ship against seven years of suffering. The Messiah will take on all the sins of all generations! Salvation here is exclusively for Israel and the Messiah gains a throne of glory.
During the first half of the seventh century, at a time when Christianity was better established and Islam was rapidly expanding, taking over Jerusalem, some Jewish writers were again in an apocalyptic mood, catching up with messianic expectations now coming from two sides. Contrary to much earlier texts, these homilies were not mocking the Jesus Messiah, but attempting to create a credible alternative facing Jesus and Mohamed.
Schaffer’s book is complex and well documented. It opens a window on mutual influences between the Christian Messiah that was taken out of their hands and the rabbi’s conflicting attempts to restore Israel’s Messianic role.
