Free The Jewish Gospels by Daniel Boyarin Page B

Boyarin does not deny, that Jesus attacks the Pharisees, the forerunners if not the founders of Rabbinical Judaism, but few Christian commentators have recognized how clear a distinction Jesus draws between them and Moses and how much he is at pains to defend Moses and therewith to defend the Torah. It is by stressing that distinction that Boyarin brings the quarrel back into the Jewish family.
    Now to the personal example. On October 30, 2011, I heard the following Gospel passage read in my church (Church of the Messiah, Santa Ana, California):
Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. (Matthew 23:1–12; New Revised Standard Version)
    Jesus was surely one of the greatest polemicists of all time. It is thanks to him that the very word “Pharisee” has as its second definition in Webster’s College Dictionary “a sanctimonious, self-righteous, or hypocritical person.” And it’s clear, isn’t it, in this passage from the Gospel ofMatthew that the sanctimonious, self-righteous, hypocritical persons whom Jesus has in his crosshairs do call one another “rabbi.” But all texts, including scripture, are read through the filter of what one “already knows.” Episcopalians who call their priests “Father” and Roman Catholics who call the pope “Holy Father” slide easily enough past “call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven” because “everyone knows” that the term father is innocently used in these Christian contexts. More to the point, most Christian interpreters slide with equal ease past Jesus’ injunction: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’s seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it .” I myself have read and heard this passage for years but only on October 30, 2011, thinking about my draft of this foreword, did I really lock on to do whatever they teach you and follow it. Post-Boyarin, I can only read this passage as a defense of un-sanctimonious, un-self-righteousness, un-hypocritical adherence to the Law of Moses against sanctimonious, self-righteous, hypocritical exploitation of it.
    So, then, I repeat the question: did Jesus keep kosher? If he had nothing against the Law, why couldn’t he keep kosher? And come to think of it, is it not a rather absurd notion that the Jewish Messiah should disdain to eat like a Jew? But if you happen to be a Jewish reader of this foreword, please double back now and reread the quoted first paragraph of Boyarin’s chapter 3 , especially its ending:“The ideas of Trinity and incarnation, or certainly the germs of those ideas, were already present among Jewish believers well before Jesus came on the scene to incarnate in himself, as it were, those theological notions and take up his messianic calling.” The Trinity a Jewish idea? The incarnation a Jewish idea? Yes, indeed! And if such thoughts as these seem unthinkable, I can