Ship of Fools: The Jewish Annotated New Testament

Thread: The Jewish Annotated New Testament Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

I came across The Jewish Annotated New Testament today. Published 2011 by OUP.

Some of the essays look quite interesting.

Has anyone heard of it/read it? Would you recommend it?

It hit me many years ago that contemporary Christian interpretations of the New Testament books might be quite different from contemporary Jewish interpretations of the New Testament books.

I suspect both are subject to anachronism but would be interesting to compare the two. Christianity did diverge from its Jewish roots in about the 2nd century after all....

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

Christianity didn't "diverge from its Jewish roots". Christianity wasn't just another Jewish sect.

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

Well.

There were second century Jewish Christians (that followed the Law) and second century Gentile Christians (that were mostly excused from doing so ala Paul vs the Council of Jerusalem).

Guess which ones won the day?

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

I don't buy the whole Paul versus James thing, even though it's become quite popular. Of course there was discussion but in the the end they both sung from the same sheet.

Anyway, I don't want to derail your thread anymore. I'd be happy to continue the discussion elsewhere.

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

I didn't realise there was anything to "buy". I thought the different array of Christian sects around in the second century spoke for themselves.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

I think that after the destruction of the temple and the spread of the Gospel into Gentile countries, the influence from Judaism waned. In the second century the church did indeed diverge from the Jewish thinking behind its theology and practice. Some of that simply is because there was no one to keep the link going; some of it, of course, was aggressive antiSemitism.

I think it's both historically valuable and theologically enlightening to see what the original Jewish thought processes were in the minds of the Apostles. Some things are certainly a lot different to how the Church has portrayed things over the years.

[ 26. April 2014, 09:18: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

I haven't read the JANT, Evensong, so am probably not much help here. I did wonder, though, would the necessarily limited-with-space approach of annotation be of use compared with, say, N.T. Wright's works on the background to the New Testament and Christian Origins? His several volumes in that series (project underway) offer useful material on the Jewish background.

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I think that after the destruction of the temple and the spread of the Gospel into Gentile countries, the influence from Judaism waned. In the second century the church did indeed diverge from the Jewish thinking behind its theology and practice. Some of that simply is because there was no one to keep the link going; some of it, of course, was aggressive antiSemitism.

You'd have to explain what you mean by "diverge from the Jewish thinking behind its theology and practice". Again, such a statement really only makes sense if you consider the early Christians to have been just another Jewish sect.

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I think it's both historically valuable and theologically enlightening to see what the original Jewish thought processes were in the minds of the Apostles. Some things are certainly a lot different to how the Church has portrayed things over the years.

And how are modern day Jews more likely to discover "the original Jewish thought processes" of the Apostles than modern day Christians?

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
And how are modern day Jews more likely to discover "the original Jewish thought processes" of the Apostles than modern day Christians?

Well that's the million dollar question. As I said above, both are likely to be anachronistic in importing contemporary ideologies into the old ones. But I suspect Jewish imports would be different from Christian ones. Some useful, some not so much perhaps.

quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
I haven't read the JANT, Evensong, so am probably not much help here. I did wonder, though, would the necessarily limited-with-space approach of annotation be of use compared with, say, N.T. Wright's works on the background to the New Testament and Christian Origins? His several volumes in that series (project underway) offer useful material on the Jewish background.

But NT Wright is a Christian. There's the difference. [Big Grin]

Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :

I have this book and sometimes use it. It is not as interesting as I was hoping, but is a decent annotated NT. One of my all-time favorite NT scholars is the late David Flusser, who was a devout Jew who became interested in the NT as one of the best sources available for 1st century life in the holy land. The perspective he brought to the text was just spectacular.

It was unfair to hope for that level of insight, but I did. The JANT is much more prosaic than that, though. You may know Amy-Jill Levine from the semi-popular The Misunderstood Jew. Like that, this book offers standard scholarship competently presented, but lacking in much original insight into the material. If that's what you are looking for, this book won't disappoint.

One irritating printing issue: the font and size of footnote text make the footnotes rather hard to read. This is not a problem unique to this book, but if the footnotes are your main interest, you should be aware of the issue. FWIW

--Tom Clune

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

I think the obvious 'disconnect' is the Eucharist.
How many people from 3rd century onwards would have been fully understanding of the Jewish nature of the last Supper?

To look at art and see how the ritual developed anyone would think that Jesus instituted the mass as practiced in most churches, that he stood behind a table with a paten and a chalice, and instituted a ritual.

How many people, even today, know that Jesus was sharing a complete Jewish meal with various courses and a number of cups of wine, one of which Jesus used to represent his blood?

There were deliberate moves ion the early centuries to distance the church from Judaism - the date of Easter, for example, and a number of accretions from Roman, Greek and Mystery religions, all of which have obscured the fundamentally Jewish nature of the Gospel.

How different would it have been today had we not lost our Jewish roots - instead of the westerm liturgical calendar that we observe now we might have been observing the Jewish feats of Passover, Pentecosts, Tabernacles, etc... all with Christian additions.

It may certainly have been 'apostolic', would have been a whole lot more authentic and would have shown just how much of a joyful fulfilment of the law Jesus was.

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

As I said, I don't buy that, that there was some kind of pure Jewish Christianity which at some point became corrupted with Hellenisms. The Eucharist was never a reconstruction of the Last Supper. Rather it was influenced much more buy the rituals surrounding the Day of Atonement.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Arguably, you can see the trajectory that led to a greater distancing of the early Church from Jewry in the pages of the NT ...

Sure, things could have turned out differently but they didn't. That's not to say that the eventual anti-Semitism was justified - far from it.

I don't think that anyone is seriously suggesting that early Christian eucharists looked exactly like those found in RC and Orthodox services today - but there are parallels and echoes. I've been to synagogues and immediately recognised elements that echo/prefigure aspects I've seen in both RC and Orthodox services - and non-conformist Protestant ones too as well, come to that.

I suspect you may be taking the artistic depictions more literally than intended - or perhaps there is a fault in some of those depictions too.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

It's stuff like This and This and This

Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :

At Shabbat meals I've been to, there are bread and wine which hold a special place, separate from the rest of what we're eating, with their own blessing and ritual.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
At Shabbat meals I've been to, there are bread and wine which hold a special place, separate from the rest of what we're eating, with their own blessing and ritual.

Would these be 'Christian' Shabbat meals or normal Jewish ones? As far as I am aware every element in a Passover meal has its own meaning, wording and blessings.

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

I think it's much more useful to view the Last Supper in the same light as Melchisedech's offering of bread and wine. After all, as David tells us in the psalm, Christ is a priest of the same order.

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I think it's much more useful to view the Last Supper in the same light as Melchisedech's offering of bread and wine. After all, as David tells us in the psalm, Christ is a priest of the same order.

And to add, Christ was instituting something new.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Sure, I've seen some depictions like that before, Mudfrog and apart from the middle one - they don't bother me unduly because they are 'iconic' and not to be taken in a 'literal' or photographically literal kind of way.

One may as well take issue with some 19th/early 20th century Quaker illustrations I've seen that show a 'ghostly' Christ appearing in the midst of a quiet Quaker meeting. Sure, we all know what it's trying to 'say' - that Christ is present where two or three are gathered in his name - but we don't take it as a 'literal' depiction.

I don't think that the artists who made those stained glass images or the people who commissioned them would have believed that the Last Supper looked like that. Rather, what they would be suggesting is that it is Christ who is offering the Eucharist in their particular setting ... all it is is a visual outworking of their theology.

I'm not saying I 'like' or 'dislike' these depictions, simply that I can understand what they are trying to portray. Whether I would choose to portray it that way if it was me is a different issue.

It reminds me of a sermon our vicar gave once in which he cited a 17th century Dutch painting of the Nativity as somehow more 'realistic' than some medieval or Catholic ones he'd shown on the screen earlier ...

The guy completely missed the point.

The Dutch scene was no more 'realistic' or closer to the narrative in visual terms than the more stylised and iconic depictions he was railing at.

All he was doing was demonstrating his own artistic and theological preference. Which is fair enough - but to suggest that it was somehow a 'realistic' depiction was to miss the point entirely.

Posted by IconiumBound (# 754) on :

Wasn't the separation between Jews and Christians primarily the claim of Jesus being The Messiah?

Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
At Shabbat meals I've been to, there are bread and wine which hold a special place, separate from the rest of what we're eating, with their own blessing and ritual.
Would these be 'Christian' Shabbat meals or normal Jewish ones? As far as I am aware every element in a Passover meal has its own meaning, wording and blessings.

Regular Jewish weekly Sabbath meals. Not the Passover Seder. Shabbat means Sabbath, not Seder.

I've never been to an actual Seder, although I have been to Christian events called Seders. I have been told that the current Jewish Seder traditions developed after the first century, but I don't know any details, nor what people think might have been the customs in the first century.

I also don't know how far back the weekly Shabbat bread and wine traditions go that I have experienced. For me, the first time I experienced it, I thought of Jesus' blessing and sharing the bread and wine at the Last Supper. Come to think of it, the Last Supper wasn't on the Sabbath. But there are powerful similarities, and I can imagine something like this tradition being something that Jesus could draw on.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

The point about some mythical unitary Jewish background to the first century era is generally regarded as just that - a myth - now. Judaism was far more diverse back then, and post-exile some strands have vanished entirely. The current strands of Judaism are generally reckoned to be derived from but one of them (basically the pharisaic tradition).

That is going to be of relevance where other traditions are concerned. For example, the priestly tradition and the temple form an important part of understanding 1st century atonement thought. Maybe this work covers that of course, but it would be useful not to overestimate the extent to which modern Judaism represents earlier manifestations.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

I think this is where the little issue that buzzes around in my mind shoots front and centre whenever the question of Christians seeking a Jewish take on the NT is raised. Both sets of Jewish and Christian scholars (indeed, anyone for that matter) have the same historical information to draw on when it comes to an inquiry into the wide context of the times. No one group is privileged over another for this.

The danger of seeking a uniquely Jewish slant is the same one facing Christians - that of a reading back into the NT interpretations from a later date. I don't know whether the JANT falls for this, but even if not I don't see what added value it would bring compared to the renewed lease of life given to holistic second temple studies especially since the late 1970s by the likes of Sanders, Dunn and Wright. If we want to know what worldview(s), mindsets, and practices underlay the writings of the NT, wouldn't it be better to go to the trough to feed?

Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :

I wouldn't think of the JANT as giving historically Jesus-contemporaneous insights any more or less than a ChristianANT. I think it would be interesting in order to know how Jews today think about the NT.

[ 27. April 2014, 12:21: Message edited by: Autenrieth Road ]

Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :

Nigel, I could see your point if someone were seeking out only a Jewish perspective. That hardly seems to be Evensong's situation, however. But your worry,

quote:
The danger of seeking a uniquely Jewish slant is the same one facing Christians - that of a reading back into the NT interpretations from a later date.

is precisely why we may benefit from reading specifically Jewish interpretations -- how do we recognize our own parochialism if we parochially insist on reading only "our side's" analysis?

As it happens, most of the notes in this book are bland enough that any scholar might have written them. But that provides a measure of assurance that the notes in Christian texts are less insulated than one might otherwise imagine them to be.

--Tom Clune

[ 27. April 2014, 12:23: Message edited by: tclune ]

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

Were the essays at the end on various topics any different than ones that might be raised from a Christian perspective Tom?

Those looked more interesting than the annotations.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

Yes, I understand that one can read Jewish insights into the NT from a particular Jewish religious standpoint of today - or even from the third century A.D. It would assist with Evensong's interest when it comes to comparisons. It's just that the JANT blurb claims as one of its objectives to bring out the Jewish background of early Christianity New Testament writers. That sounds more like an historical investigation into the background as it was at the time the NT was written, rather than contemporaneous to us today.

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
That sounds more like an historical investigation into the background as it was at the time the NT was written, rather than contemporaneous to us today.

Both Christian and Jewish writers can claim the same thing Nigel.

Truth is, they can't.

So it's good to get a different slant, however anachronistic (from both sides).

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
So it's good to get a different slant, however anachronistic (from both sides).

In what way is it good, Evensong? I think I'm struggling to see what you are looking for from the JANT. If Jews and Christians are dealing with the same set of publicly available historical data (e.g., the archaeology, sociology, linguistic artefacts) - also available to any other student (whether religious or not), then I assume what is being looked for are samples of different interpretations of those data. If not, then I assume what is being looked for is a point of view of the NT writings from within a particular faith tradition, sort of how an Orthodox Jew, or evangelical Christian, or even Jewish Marxist for that matter, find of interest to them today when reading the NT from within their current tradition.

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
If Jews and Christians are dealing with the same set of publicly available historical data (e.g., the archaeology, sociology, linguistic artefacts) - also available to any other student (whether religious or not), then I assume what is being looked for are samples of different interpretations of those data.

Yes.

quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
If not, then I assume what is being looked for is a point of view of the NT writings from within a particular faith tradition, sort of how an Orthodox Jew, or evangelical Christian, or even Jewish Marxist for that matter, find of interest to them today when reading the NT from within their current tradition.

What makes you think people's current tradition does not impact their interpretation of "publicly available historical data", be the bias acknowledged or not?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

Okay I'm wading into waters I am not familiar with, hoping the undertow won't take me down, but I have a question or two:

Am I right in saying that we know that there were Jewish rabbis at the time of Christ and the early church who were writing about theology and God and Man and such, whose writing are preserved? Gamaliel is the name that comes to mind. I don't pretend to know the difference between "midrash" and "talmud" and other words that describe the eventually-written-down oral traditions of the time, but surely many people here do.

If so then these ancient writings might give some insight into the society in which Christianity arose that is unfamiliar to many present-day Christians, and as such might be useful for us to read. (Not saying that's why books like this get written, of course.) And certainly modern Jews will have a different relationship to these ancient Jewish writings than modern Christians do. As such this JANT could be valuable for us to take seriously and learn from.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
What makes you think people's current tradition does not impact their interpretation of "publicly available historical data", be the bias acknowledged or not?

I don't - but it is a different question to that of looking at the surrounding contextual material/artifacts and seeking an answer to the question: What lies behind the original intention of the NT writers? If we want to understand the NT from within its original horizon, then no one tradition has more claim to the background material than any other tradition. On the other hand if a modern/contemporary tradition seeks to interpret the NT writings from within their own tradition, then they have a claim on that interpretation.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Am I right in saying that we know that there were Jewish rabbis at the time of Christ and the early church who were writing about theology and God and Man and such, whose writing are preserved? ...

If so then these ancient writings might give some insight into the society in which Christianity arose that is unfamiliar to many present-day Christians, and as such might be useful for us to read. ...

That certainly is the basis of the research from much of the recent past (past few decades), mousethief. I think there is an issue over the horizon of NT writers and their contemporaries in the assorted Jewish communities at the time, and those who followed after the collapse of the Jewish state (AD 70-135). The NT fits well into the horizon of the second-temple period with its literature and, of course, the Jewish scriptures. So certainly it helps to read around the material than came out of that horizon.

I'm less sure how helpful for understanding the NT it is to read into it from a more modern horizon.

Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Okay I'm wading into waters I am not familiar with, hoping the undertow won't take me down, but I have a question or two:

Am I right in saying that we know that there were Jewish rabbis at the time of Christ and the early church who were writing about theology and God and Man and such, whose writing are preserved? Gamaliel is the name that comes to mind. I don't pretend to know the difference between "midrash" and "talmud" and other words that describe the eventually-written-down oral traditions of the time, but surely many people here do.

If so then these ancient writings might give some insight into the society in which Christianity arose that is unfamiliar to many present-day Christians, and as such might be useful for us to read. (Not saying that's why books like this get written, of course.) And certainly modern Jews will have a different relationship to these ancient Jewish writings than modern Christians do. As such this JANT could be valuable for us to take seriously and learn from.

I'm not an expert but here is my stab. They may well have been writing though oral teaching seems to have been preferred but their own writings haven't survived. What we do have is from a later period. Around 200CE for the Mishnah (a deliberate writing down of what was previously transmitted orally) which is included in the Jerusalem Talmud from the 4th century and the Babylonian Talmud from the 5th century. Midrash are stories told to explain and can be found in the two versions of the Talmud as well as elsewhere. Certainly it is a treasure trove that could shed light on life within the Jewish communities of the first few centuries CE (probably more on the post temple destruction time though); however, I don't think there are many academic scholars studying its formation, tracing the manuscripts, and trying to glean that information (among other things it requires knowing Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and possibly Latin and the Talmud is long).

Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Were the essays at the end on various topics any different than ones that might be raised from a Christian perspective Tom?

Those looked more interesting than the annotations.

I didn't see a table of contents in the link you provided in the OP. In case you don't have one, the Amazon site provides that in its "Look Inside" feature. My guess is that you are already familiar with most of the people writing those essays, and what they have to say in these short essays is in keeping with their more developed work elsewhere. Oddly, there is no "About the author," either at each essay or collected into a single intro. I would also have expected a (preferably annotated) "further reading," but there is none.

Nonetheless, the essays do provide a reasonable introduction to these scholars. As you would expect, there's not much out of the mainstream of historical Jesus scholarship from these folks. Perhaps the most interesting reading is in the few essays in the section labelled "Jewish Responses to the New Testament."

BTW, the essays also have that awful unreadable font. Virtually the only part of the text that is easily readable is the text of the NT itself, which is the NRSV (which I imagine you have multiple copies of already.) For all my luke-warm comments, however, I am happy to have it in my library. There are probably a score or more other Bibles in my library I would part with before I would get rid of this one.

--Tom Clune

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

quote:
Originally posted by tclune:

Nonetheless, the essays do provide a reasonable introduction to these scholars. As you would expect, there's not much out of the mainstream of historical Jesus scholarship from these folks. Perhaps the most interesting reading is in the few essays in the section labelled "Jewish Responses to the New Testament."

Perhaps Nigel M is correct after all then. [Biased]

Posted by Dubious Thomas (# 10144) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:
Originally posted by tclune:

Nonetheless, the essays do provide a reasonable introduction to these scholars. As you would expect, there's not much out of the mainstream of historical Jesus scholarship from these folks. Perhaps the most interesting reading is in the few essays in the section labelled "Jewish Responses to the New Testament."

Perhaps Nigel M is correct after all then.

Nigel M has offered some very cogent comments here. But I think he's somewhat missing the point of the JANT. It isn't supposed to be a study Bible that focuses on the New Testament in its original historical context. It's specifically a study Bible based on asking Jewish scholars to read and comment on the New Testament as Jews. It's part of a whole "stable" of Oxford study Bibles that have explicit "confessional" identities, including the excellent, Jewish Study Bible on the Tanakh (Jewish Bible, a.k.a., "Old Testament), which I regularly use in my teaching.

So, if you're looking for a study Bible that focuses on the NT in its first century Jewish context, the JANT isn't the one for you. However, if you'd like a convenient, between-two-covers source for Jewishly-informed readings of the NT, then this is a very good resource. It's a sort of "who's who" of Jewish scholars who work on the New Testament.

(And, yes, alas, Oxford U. Press's Bible department seems to have been taken over by people who love tiny, difficult-to-read fonts! The fourth edition of the "classic" New Oxford Annotated Bible is set in terrible, tiny fonts! [Mad]

)

[ 30. April 2014, 04:57: Message edited by: Dubious Thomas ]

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
So, if you're looking for a study Bible that focuses on the NT in its first century Jewish context, the JANT isn't the one for you. However, if you'd like a convenient, between-two-covers source for Jewishly-informed readings of the NT, then this is a very good resource. It's a sort of "who's who" of Jewish scholars who work on the New Testament.

But then why does it have to be packaged as a Bible? Leave out the Bible text and just give me the words of the scholars. Make it a lot cheaper, and easier to read.

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
So, if you're looking for a study Bible that focuses on the NT in its first century Jewish context, the JANT isn't the one for you. However, if you'd like a convenient, between-two-covers source for Jewishly-informed readings of the NT, then this is a very good resource. It's a sort of "who's who" of Jewish scholars who work on the New Testament.

Then I see even less reason why this would be relevant to any Christian seeking to find a deeper understanding of of the Holy Scriptures.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
...[The JANT] isn't supposed to be a study Bible that focuses on the New Testament in its original historical context. It's specifically a study Bible based on asking Jewish scholars to read and comment on the New Testament as Jews. It's part of a whole "stable" of Oxford study Bibles that have explicit "confessional" identities...

That's helpul, DT; it does however make it a double shame that the publishers confuse things in the blurb. The set of four achievements they claim for the JANT are:

quote:
[1]First New Testament annotated by Jewish scholars
[2] Brings out Jewish background of early Christianity, New Testament writers
[3] Explains Jewish concepts (e.g., food laws, rabbinic argumentation) for non-Jews, Christian concepts (e.g., Eucharist) for Jews
[4]Helpful for non-Jewish readers interested in the Jewish roots of Christianity

I read numbers [2] and [4] as being a claim to provide historical understandings of the NT, not something related to a modern Judaic (confessional) understanding of those books.

Now I wonder if the book is selling a cheat(!), or if the publishers have mistaken the proper aim of the series.

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