Depths

Hundreds of linguistic and ideological differences between the commonly accepted Masoretic version of the Pentateuch and the Samaritan text indicate that editing may be one of the world's oldest professions.
Professor Yair Hoffman
Bible Studies / The things that you're liable to read in the Bible
Written for HAARETZ.com

In Israel, a new archaeological “discovery” of sorts is buzzing and making bold claims that they may be the next “Dead Sea Scrolls.” They include a collection of scrolls as well as 70 lead codices (ancient scripts bound in book form, rather than as scrolls). However, we have conflicting reports on the nature of these “newly found” artifacts. They are owned by “Hassan Saeda, a Bedouin farmer in Galilee who says they have been in his family’s possession since his great-grandfather found them in a cave in Jordan, a century ago.” Although there is still a lot of skepticism surrounding these artifacts, there are some strong voices that are willing to attest to their authenticity, wanting to avoid another possible Shapiro Affair.
from the Digging with Darren blog

How did the things we read now in the books of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John get written down in the form we now have them? There are many decisions to make if we try to reconstruct a possible or probably story of gospel transmission. I’ll try to make the story interested, not too bogged down with long lists of sources and proofs. I’ll keep that kind of writing short and refer the reader to various scholars such as Mark Goodacre, Richard Bauckham, Paul Anderson, and others that I know I will find along the way have added something significant to an understanding of gospel transmission.
Derek Leman
Chronicling the Formation of the Gospels #1
from the Yeshua in Context blog

All of the quotes you've just read have something in common. They are all the opening paragraphs of articles addressing the struggle we have in understanding, and in some cases locating, the Word of God. While many Christians in the world believe that the Bible, as it is translated into English (or as it is rendered in people's favorite English translation) is totally sufficient as the original, inerrant, Word of God; the source of truth and facts about God, Jesus, and everything, is this really so?

The quotes I posted and the articles they come from seem to indicate that the Bible, all by itself, as we have it today, isn't the end all and be all of the word of God.

I don't say this by way of complaint. I'm beginning to come to terms with the uncertainty that the Bible introduces as a "stand-alone" document and the requirement of interpretation and examination in "studying the Word". Yet, while we rely on the Bible for so many things, we can also be ignorant of what the Bible can't do for us.

He was born in Israel and lives in the north. He trains rabbinical court judges and writes essays on the weekly Torah portion, which he says are well-respected. Clearly possessed of a sharp, inquisitive mind, he could be described as a religious sage. During the flight, he was preparing a commentary on the Torah portion of Miketz, in Genesis, and he shared various questions and insights with me. I referred to variations of certain words in Genesis as they appear in the Samaritan Pentateuch, and to how the Greek Septuagint translation of the Bible contains sentences that do not appear in the Masoretic version.

My fellow passenger did not know what I was talking about. Not only was he unaware of the existence of ancient versions of the Bible, but he also lacked knowledge of the essence of the Masoretic text - the canonical Hebrew text redacted by scholars in Palestine and Babylon toward the end of the first millennium. He did not know, for instance, that the diacritical marks date only from the 10th century, or that manuscripts and later printed versions of the Masoretic text are not identical.

Yair Hoffman, professor emeritus of Bible Studies at Tel Aviv University, was describing a man he met on a recent flight from New York, a man who was an ultra-Orthodox Jew and who "trains rabbinical court judges and writes essays on the weekly Torah portion, which he says are well-respected." Yet, as Hoffman relates, this intelligent "religious sage" did not grasp some of the most basic facts about the Bible, what it is, and where it comes from. How can this be?

How can this be for any of us?

In my own case, I just didn't know any better. Fortunately I found out (the hard way) and once I got over my shock, I started consuming every text I could lay my hands on, specifically on the New Testament, and with a focus on Jesus and the "deity issue".

Our own Messianic Bible scholar, Derek Leman, addresses similar matters regarding the Gospels in a recent blog post and I certainly hope he continues to write articles for his series "Chronicling the Formation of the Gospels". It's not enough to "have" the Bible as it exists today. "Having" isn't understanding. Like a pool of unknown depths, we must go beyond the surface, brave the shadowy waters, and search for what awaits us as we dive into a sea of many hidden truths.

I had rather high hopes for the recently discovered lead codices before I found out that they were fakes. I did entertain the interesting question "are they Christian or Kabbalistic" with the hopeful thought that they could, in their own way, be both. That may sound strange to some of you, but I've found that looking at the mystery of the Jewish Messiah through a mystic and Chasidic lens has revealed more to me than most traditional Christian commentaries and dogmatic interpretations.

Saying "the Bible isn't enough" probably sounds horrible and maybe even a bit heretical, but if a surface reading of the Bible were enough, we wouldn't have commentaries, interpretations, and scholarly theological theses. Certainly observant Jews don't think the Bible is enough. Otherwise, we (they) wouldn't have Talmud, Mishna, and Gemara. When I introduce this topic among some folks associated with my congregation, I get the argument that we must rely on the Word of God, not the word of man. Yet the Bible we have today is as much (if not more) the word of the human writers, interpreters, and translators as it is the Word of the One, True God of the Universe.

While the "facts" of the Bible may be contradictory, and the truth of the Bible remains elusive, somewhere in the middle of man, God, and the words on the page, I see an inviting but mysterious portal. Paul said that in the present age, we see the things of God as "through a dark glass" (1 Corinthians 13:12). I believe we're looking at the surface of a body of water. We can't tell what's under that surface, how deep the water goes, how hot or cold it is, and what sub-sea enigmas it contains. If we want to know what God has to tell us, we have to dive in, sometimes half-blind, and pray that once we've made our "leap of faith", we will find the illumination under the blue waves that we can't find in the light of day.

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

Book Review: Yeshua in Context

The stories of Yeshua demand a response. The normal order of meaning, the rules of the game called life, are changed in his stories. We are each confronted with the problem of meaning, the possible ways his story intersects our story.

In a number of his sayings, Yeshua says something about himself or about a way of life that calls for action. He implies that when we have encountered him (in our case, through story and not in person), we will understand something about the realm above, about a deeper life, about a breakthrough from the present world to the world to come.

Derek Leman in the final chapter of his book
Yeshua in Context: The Life and Times of Yeshua the Messiah

Yeshua in Context is a book about stories. You might say that, from Leman's perspective, the writers of the Gospels are storytellers rather than reporters. Leman, a theologian who earned his Master's degree in Hebrew Bible studies from Emory University, and who is a Rabbi at Tikvat David Messianic Synagogue, addresses what many New Testament scholars view as inconsistencies in the Gospels, by presenting them as differences of intent in what the writers were trying to communicate about the Jewish Messiah.

Leman is also a storyteller. By writing this book, he's sharing with his audience his own perspective; his own story, about who the Jewish Messiah is to him and what Yeshua means in Leman's life. Leman tells us a story that is largely scholarly and somewhat personal, with just a hint of the mystic.

Yeshua in Context is also about giving the reader access to the story. At only 154 pages long and presenting no lengthy set of footnotes, no extensive bibliography, and not even a single appendix, Leman constructs a text that takes the complexity of the life of Yeshua (Jesus), his teachings, his 1st century Jewish context, and his Messianic identity, and opens them up to the rest of us with deceptive ease.

I say "deceptive" because there's a great deal of density contained just beneath the surface of each page in the book. For instance, Leman takes the familiar parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) and tells the reader something about Yeshua's role as a prophet as it relates to the prophetic tales of Isaiah and Jeremiah. He takes the much discussed and interpreted Beatitudes and presents his own story about the coming Kingdom of God. He engages the parable of the wicked tenants (Mark 12:1-12) and discusses the mystery of why a father would send a beloved son on an assuredly fatal mission.

He even says something about a topic near and dear to me; the divine nature of the Messiah as related to the Shechinah and seen through a Kabbalistic lens:

The Aramaic paraphrases of Yeshua's day, the Targums, said about this story that the Israelites looked for healing to the Memra of God, the Word of God, the manifestation of God on earth...This is exactly who Yeshua is claiming to be: the one with all the nature of God manifested on earth, the radiation of God's being, his Word or Presence. In kabbalistic terminology (from later Judaism), Yeshua is the sum of all sefirot (emanations) and the Father is the Ein Sof (the One without End, the unseeable One...).

I said before that there were no lengthy collection of footnotes in this book, but a brief Bibliography is offered right before Chapter 1, and in the body of each chapter, any of the works cited are referenced by the author's last name and page number. As teacher and student, the writer adequately points back to his research, albeit in a way that doesn't interrupt the flow of his narrative.

When I write reviews for technical books, I usually include a mention of any book-associated websites and the value added to the book by on line material. In this case, Leman has created a website (thanks to the power of WordPress) dedicated to continuing for the reader, the education found in his book. In a sense, it's a very large extension to what, on the surface, seems like a relatively short discussion.

One of the reasons I asked to review this book was because of my personal attempt to reconcile the internal discrepancies of the Gospels with the authority of the Bible. How can the holy writings of Christianity be authoritative if they don't perfectly and completely "line up", so to speak? Is the source material of Christianity flawed and, if so, how can we depend upon it as an accurate rendition of the author of our faith?

I'm not sure I found the whole answer in Leman's book, but I think I found some of the answer as related to other books and, more to the point, other perspectives. I'm coming to an understanding of the discrepancies recorded in the Gospels, in terms of what traditional Jewish scholars would view when reading the differences between Talmudic and Midrashic versions of the same story. From a modern, western point of view, we struggle with inconsistent reports from two or more witnesses of the same event, and attempt to harmonize the various iterations. From the Jewish student's vantage point however, no problem exists. Each "story" is accepted on its own merit without the need to have it completely make sense with other stories. The reader gleans the important elements from the story without trying to make it match up with what others have written about the same anecdote.

This is where, in my opinion anyway, the authority of the Bible can be discovered. Not in viewing it as a comprehensive report on testimony delivered in a court case, but as a collection of holy writings by righteous men (tzaddikim) who want us to experience the most righteous one of God through a series of mystic tales.

You might not find that all of your questions about the Jewish Messiah are answered in Derek Leman's book, but it's a good place to start.

Yeshua in Context is available for purchase at Mount Olive Press.