Righteous Atonement

The Christian belief that Jesus Christ is God incarnate has been around so long that many people familiar with Christianity do not realize just how astonishing such a claim was and still is. Jesus was very much a real human being. He grew up in a dusty village as the son of a carpenter. He lived during a time of political turmoil for his people. He experienced the full range of human emotions, from unbridled joy to deep sorrow. He had friends and enemies. He perspired and got tired; he slept and awoke; he got hungry and thirsty; he bled and he died. Indeed, by some measures, he was not a particularly remarkable man. He led no army, held no political office, wrote no books, had no wife or children, left no estate, and never traveled even a hundred miles from his home. Yet billions of people during the past two millennia all over the world have worshiped him as their Lord and their God. How did that happen?

from Chapter 1: All Glory, Laud, and Honor
Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ

I've recently been exploring the topic of Christianity's origin, how we got the Bible we have today, and particularly the issue of Christ's deity (or lack thereof). I've already read books by New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman and Bible scholar Maurice Casey and I'm about 100 pages into Bowman's and Komoszewski's book. I'll write a full review when I'm finished, but I'll tell you up front that the book admits to making some fairly sweeping assumptions, such as the belief that the Bible we have today is correct in every aspect and 100% reliable as a source of theological and historic information (which is in conflict with a number of other NT scholars, including the aforementioned Ehrman and Casey).

I wasn't going to mention the Bowman and Komoszewski book, but I read the following last Shabbat and it got me thinking.

Rav Aharon Kotler, zt”l, explains how, when Hashem treats his tzaddikim with strict justice, He is feared and exalted and praised. “Our sages teach that—like Yom Kippur—the death of the righteous atones for sins. It follows that just as Yom Kippur does not atone without teshuvah, the same is true regarding the death of tzaddikim. But where do we find that one does teshuvah when tzaddikim die?

“The answer can be found on Zevachim 115. There we find that the verse ' — Hashem is Awesome from Your Mikdash,’ can be read instead as — from Your holy ones. The gemara learns from this that when Hashem punishes tzaddikim, He is feared, exalted, and praised. This means that people are catalyzed into doing teshuvah when Hashem’s stern justice is manifest in the world.

“Just as during the ten days of teshuvah the verse states '— Seek Hashem when He is to be found,’ when tzaddikim leave the world and are eulogized properly, this inspires people to do teshuvah as well. It is easier to do teshuvah during aseres yemei teshuvah precisely because during this time middas hadin (justice) is revealed in the world. When tzaddikim pass away, the eulogies cause distress and easily arouse us to teshuvah. This time is auspicious from on high and it is easier to do teshuvah than at other times.

“This explains why a heavenly echo proclaimed that all who had attended Rebbi’s funeral merited olam haba. They all merited olam haba since during that holy time they all became complete ba’alei teshuvah!

From Daf Yomi Digest
Shabbos, March 5, 2011
Zevachim 115
Stories off the Daf
Seek Hashem When He is to be found

Interestingly enough, Casey's book referenced this concept as well and it's not something you hear in Christian circles. I started wondering, if it's so obvious that Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, must be literally God in order to fulfill the role of Messiah, why don't we see this concept more clearly in the Tanakh (Old Testament) or Talmud? In fact, Judaism is very specific that the Messiah will not be God and, for the most part, will be an ordinary human being.

I suppose that you could argue that, after the dramatic schism between Gentile Christianity and Judaism in the first few centuries of the Common Era, both movements amended their teachings and authoritative documents to make sure that both faiths appeared as unalike as possible, despite the Jewish origins of Christianity. That would mean, from a Jewish point of view, that anything in their authoritative documentation that might even hint at the Messiah being a Deity would be deleted or re-interpreted to make sure that Godhood was not part of the Messiah's resume.

On the other hand, what if it never was? What if the reason the Jewish people in modern times don't believe the Messiah will be God is because Jews never expected him to be God? What does that mean about the Messiah and his death? Could the crucifixion of Christ still have any meaning in the eyes of a Jew?

Given the reference I quoted from Zevachim 115, I'd have to say "yes". I'm not making a final decision on the matter of Yeshua's deity just yet, but I would like to suggest that the Messiah could be a unique and even a supernatural being, without absolutely having to share co-identity with God the Father.

Jesus answered, ‘If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, “He is our God”, though you do not know him. But I know him; if I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and I keep his word. Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.’ Then the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. -John 8:54-59

Without getting into the issues some NT scholars have with John's Gospel, I want to take a look at what Jesus said, how his audience interpreted his statement, and why they were ready to stone him to death. Jesus made a claim that he was God, not necessarily that he was the Messiah. Claiming that you're literally God, to a group of people as strongly monotheistic as the Jewish people, especially in that place and at that time, was an outrageous thing to do. If Jesus had claimed to be the Messiah, they might have believed him, disbelieved him, ignored him, or laughed at him, but the Jews listening to him wouldn't have tried to kill him. "Messiahs" have come and gone throughout Jewish history, and one more man claiming to be the (or a) Messiah, particularly in Roman-occupied Israel, wouldn't seem too unusual.

On the other hand, an itinerant carpenter turned Prophet, claiming to literally be God, was not only unique, it was a heinous blasphemy which carried the death penalty. If Jesus had meant to tell the crowd that he was the Messiah (and even that seems odd, given how he warned Peter not to tell anyone about it in Mark 8:29-30), he most likely would have used scripture and metaphor that the Jews around him would have associated with the Messiah, rather than outright claiming equality with God.

I'm saying all of this because the Jews in Yeshua's day (as well as today), didn't expect the Messiah to be God and likely didn't interpret the Master's (supposed) claim to be God to be equal to a claim of being the Messiah. In Christianity, we miss this because the belief in Jesus's deity is so ingrained in the church, that we don't consider how such claims would have been received within the lived context of Christ in the early 1st Century. The Messiah would be expected, but God in living flesh, not so much.

We do see, based on Zevachim 115 though, that the death of a righteous man was believed to atone for the sins of the nation. This somewhat counters one of the Jewish arguments against Jesus being the Messiah based on God's abhorrence of human sacrifice. If we consider that a righteous man's death and the sincere repentance of the witnesses, results in the atonement of sins, how much more meaning can we attach to the death of the most righteous man to have ever walked the earth; the Messiah Yeshua, God's lamb, who takes away the sins of the world?

‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done. -Luke 22:42

Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’ -Luke 23:34

Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last. -Luke 23:46

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.