In
my last email, “Let’s not call him
‘The Jewish Jesus’”, I discussed how much I appreciated Dr. David Flusser’s
work on Second Temple Judaism and Early
Christianity. I pointed out that Flusser called Jesus “the Jesus of history” and “the historical Jesus” – but he did not call him “the Jewish Jesus.” Today I want to share
two more things that set Flusser apart from other Jewish and Christian
scholars.
While Flusser understood Jesus belonged fully to
the diverse and competing streams of Jewish thinking of
the first century,
he felt no need to deny Jesus his high self-awareness.*
Flusser’s
point about “diverse and competing
streams of Jewish thinking of the first century” is critical for understand
the people Jesus interacted with in the Gospels:
●
Pharisees
●
Sadducees
●
Essenes
●
Hellenists
●
Herodians
All
of the groups above had their own interpretations of Jewish Scriptures and other writings. The historical Jesus added
his interpretations to the mix. He made sure the people that knew him best
clearly understood what he believed God had called him to do. He announced it
at his hometown synagogue on a Shabbat (Luke 4:16-21):
“The
Spirit of Yahweh is upon me,
because
He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor;
He
has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to
proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,
to
set at liberty those who are oppressed . . .
Today
this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus
told the people that he was the person God called to fulfill those words – he was “the anointed one.” When the Hebrew
word translated “the anointed one”
was translated into Greek it became “christos” – and when that was
transliterated into English it became “Christ.”
By the way, in the Jewish Scriptures and Jewish culture
there have been many christs (anointed ones).
That
is something that most people don’t know -- there
were other people claiming to be “the anointed one” in the first century, too.
For Flusser, Jesus seeing himself that way -- and others viewing him that way – wasn’t a problem. That is probably
why Flusser said, “even Jesus’ most
radical conclusions would have been unthinkable without the innovations of
those in the generations of Jewish teachers before him and the nurturing
environment of Jewish thought at the time he lived.”
However,
because most people are not familiar with the Late Second Temple Period and the environment in which
Jewish people lived, they cannot see
the Jesus of history the ways his contemporaries saw him – or the way he saw himself.
Because of how the human brain biologically works,
the only thing any human can do is “use the beliefs he or
she has acquired
about Jesus and his world to give meanings to the words of
the New Testament.”
Flusser
did something else that I encourage others to do – apply the teachings of Jesus to current circumstances to see their
relevancy. A graduate student of his provided this example:
On
the eve of the Gulf War, January 15,1991, the streets of Jerusalem were
virtually empty in anticipation of the outbreak of war and the consequent
launching of scud missiles on the civilian Israeli population. The student went
over to Flusser’s house to discuss a research project. Flusser opened the door
and said, “Interesting days we are living
in. What would Jesus say? Let’s go and find out.”
In
closing let me challenge you to do the following:
1.
Learn more about the diverse and
competing streams of Jewish thinking of the first century.
2.
Apply the teachings of the Jesus of
history to current circumstances.
I
hope you found this informative and thank you for reading it.
Shalom,
Jim Myers
Sources:
● Jesus by David Flusser ©
1997 The Maness Press , the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel; pp. 10-12.
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