by Mark Huey
An important article entitled “10 Ideas That Are Changing The World” appeared in a recent issue of Time Magazine (18 March, 2008). As the article states,
More than money, more than politics, ideas are the secret power that this planet runs on. Here are a few you need to know about
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1720049_1720050_1721663,00.html
Of these ten ideas, the last one, which the article labels as “Re-Judaizing Jesus,” should be very intriguing to today’s Messianic community of faith. Allow me to reproduce the report on this phenomenon:
Recently a popular blogger — let’s call him Rabbi Ben — zinged the scholarship of a man we shall call Rabbi Rob. R. Ben claimed R. Rob did not “understand the difference between Judaism prior to the two Jewish wars in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. and later Mishnaic and Talmudic Judaism.” He helpfully provided a syllabus.
Actually, neither man is a rabbi. (Sorry.) Ben Witherington is a Methodist New Testament scholar, and Rob Bell a rising Michigan megapastor. Yet each regards sources like the Mishnah and Rabbi Akiva as vital to understanding history’s best-known Jew: Jesus.
This is seismic. For centuries, the discipline of Christian “Hebraics” consisted primarily of Christians cherry-picking Jewish texts to support the traditionally assumed contradiction between the Jews — whose alleged dry legalism contributed to their fumbling their ancient tribal covenant with God — and Jesus, who personally embodied God’s new covenant of love. But today seminaries across the Christian spectrum teach, as Vanderbilt University New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine says, that “if you get the [Jewish] context wrong, you will certainly get Jesus wrong.”
The shift came in stages: first a brute acceptance that Jesus was born a Jew and did Jewish things; then admission that he and his interpreter Paul saw themselves as Jews even while founding what became another faith; and today, recognition of what the Rev. Bruce Chilton, author of Rabbi Jesus, calls Jesus’ passionate dedication “to Jewish ideas of his day” on everything from ritual purity to the ideal of the kingdom of God — ideas he rewove but did not abandon.
What does this mean, practically? At times the resulting adjustment seems simple. For example, Bell thinks he knows the mysterious words Jesus wrote in the dust while defending the adulteress (”He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone,” etc.). By Bell’s calculation, that showdown occurred at the same time as religious Jews’ yearly reading of the prophet Jeremiah’s warning that “those who turn from [God] will be written in the dust because they have forsaken [him].” Thus Jesus wrote the crowd’s names to warn that their lack of compassion alienated their (and his) God.
A trickier revision for readers involves Paul’s Letter to the Romans, forever a key Christian text on sin and Christ’s salvific grace. Yet this reading necessitates skipping over what seems like extraneous material in Chapters 9 through 11, which are about the Jews. Increasingly, says Jason Byassee, an editor at the Christian Century,, [sic] scholars now read Romans through those chapters, as a musing by a lifelong Jew on how God can fulfill his biblical covenant with Israel even if it does not accept His son. Byassee the theologian agrees. But as a Methodist pastor, he frets that Romans “is no longer really about Gentile Christians. How do you preach it?”
That’s not a frivolous query. Ideally, the reassessment should increase both Jewish-Christian amity and gospel clarity, things that won’t happen if regular Christians feel that in rediscovering Jesus the Jew, they have lost Christ. Yet Bell finds this particular genie so logically powerful that he has no wish to rebottle it. Once in, he says, “you’re in deep. You’re hooked. ‘Cause you can’t ever read it the same way again.”
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1720049_1720050_1721663,00.html
As you can read in this excerpt from Time Magazine, people are beginning en masse to recognize the Jewishness of Jesus. While ideas pertaining to the Jewishness of Yeshua, Paul, and the Apostolic Scriptures have been present in Christian scholasticism for the past fifty years—only now they are they significantly getting the publicity they deserve. Apparently, articles about Jesus and the Apostle Paul being First Century Jews are coming into so much prominence in other publications, that the editors of Time are including what they consider the “Re-Judaizing of Jesus” as one of the ten ideas that is going to change the world. These same editors astoundingly conclude that these ideas will have more power to change how the planet runs than money or politics.
For a Messianic Believer today, this represents a unique opportunity if this specific prognostication proves correct over time. Providentially, God has uniquely positioned people in the Messianic community to be able to speak knowledgeably, confidently, and most important Scripturally about what is transpiring in this particular spiritual realm.
From our perspective there is no doubt that the Spirit of God is and has been revealing the truths about the Hebraic and Jewish Roots of our faith with increasing measure over the last forty years. In the last ten years the intensity has exploded across many spectrums of not only the evangelical community, but has also reverberated back to the Jewish community—who for the most part are curiously scratching their collective heads. Jews in the Diaspora and Israelis in Israel are increasingly hearing bold statements from obvious Gentiles like: “I am returning Ephraim,” or “I am one of the Ten Lost Tribes,” or “I am Jewish due to some remote ancestor,” or “I am a follower of Torah like the mixed multitude leaving Egypt.”
These kinds of statements and sentiments (whether accurate or not) are generating considerable discussion not only among some Jewish people and their rabbis, but also among some Christian pastors and theologians. There is an opportunity for knowledgeable people assist among those who place their faith in the God of the Bible, helping them to and who understand that they are a part the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16) and have a much greater spiritual heritage than they properly understand. The Prophet Amos foresaw this time happening millennia ago:
“‘Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth; nevertheless, I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob,’ declares the LORD. ‘For behold, I am commanding, and I will shake the house of Israel among all nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, but not a kernel will fall to the ground. All the sinners of My people will die by the sword, those who say, “The calamity will not overtake or confront us.” In that day I will raise up the fallen booth of David, and wall up its breaches, I will also raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old; that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by My name,’ declares the LORD who does this. ‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘When the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows seed; when the mountains will drip sweet wine and all the hills will be dissolved. Also I will restore the captivity of My people Israel, and they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them; they will also plant vineyards and drink their wine, and make gardens and eat their fruit. I will also plant them on their land, and they will not again be rooted out from their land which I have given them,’ says the LORD your God” (Amos 9:8-15).
The Jewish people who are getting ready this year to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel are already seeing the fruit of this prophecy to a certain extent, as they have flourished in the Promised Land. On another hand, those Messianics who are unable to yet participate in the greater physical promises as seen by Amos, are still able to see through the veil of the ancient texts to what is eventually going to happen in the Father’s perfect timing as His eschatological plan is realized (cf. Acts 15:15-18). Even though we cannot all live in the Land of Israel, we can still appropriate the best that the “land” of the Scriptures has to offer!
The fact that secularists like the editors of Time Magazine are recognizing aspects of what is happening today, via the “Re-Judaizing of Jesus,” is yet just one more confirmation that what is happening is more than an ephemeral wish by “holy rollers.” Instead, what we are beginning to witness is the restoration of God’s people and a fuller understanding of who our Messiah is. It might take some time, but progress is being made steadily. May all of us who call on the God of Israel, be we Jewish or non-Jewish, seek to be like King David whose tabernacle is being restored. Let us understand the blessings of being in the House of the Lord:
“The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the defense of my life; whom shall I dread? When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell. Though a host encamp against me, my heart will not fear; though war arise against me, in spite of this I shall be confident. One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD and to meditate in His temple. For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle; in the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock” (Psalm 27:1-5).
I pray that our Father would give each of you the patience and wisdom, so we can wait upon Him for His right timing as His restoration is accomplished. I pray that He would grant each of us wise understanding and sensitivity, to lovingly share what is right, pure, of good repute, and edifying when given the opportunity with others. My friends, whether we want to believe it or not, a change is coming on the horizon. We need to all ask the Lord how we can be part of His solution, encouraging greater spiritual growth and oneness among His children. For as David says, “how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1).
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