The Galilean Jewishness of Jesus: Retrieving the Jewish Origins of Christianity

by Bernard J. Lee

In The Galilean Jewishness of Jesus, the first of a three-volume series, author Bernard J. Lee, S.M., reconstructs the historical, cultural and religious fabric of Galilee in the time of Jesus and examines four kinds of Jews who would have been familiar to the religious landscape of Jesus' teacher, Pharisee, wandering charismatic, eschatological prophet. Author Lee shows how Christians today can interpret the meaning of Jesus in a way that is both adequate to their religious experience and yet does not violate Jesus' Jewishness. "This work is especially innovative in its placing of the discussion of Jesus' Jewishness and its christological implications clearly within the context of the contemporary discussion of theological hermeneutics. Bernard Lee's stress on the Jewish-Christian dialogue as the primal form of interreligious dialogue picks up on a crucial understanding initially articulated by the Protestant theologian Karl Barth. His recognition that in the effort at developing a non-supersessionist christology the church must still probe the uniqueness of Jesus is right on target. The work is excellent in showing the positive linkages between Jesus and the much maligned Pharisaic movement within Second Temple Judaism....it is an important, well presented, well documented book that will prove enriching both for the generalist as well as the scholar in the field." ―John T. Pawlikowski, O.S.M., Catholic Theological Union "If Christians had been more sensitive to the absolute Jewishness of Jesus from the very beginning, the Holocaust would have been unthinkable. The conscious retrieval of Christian Jewishness which Bernard Lee provides us with here will help make history safer for Jews and Christians." ―Harry Cargas Webster University "Interest in the empirical-historical Jesus not only does not die out, but scholars like Bernard Lee are exploring new, more fruitful, and potentially revolutionary ways of approaching Jesus.... What Lee ingeniously attempts in this volume is to set Jesus, not simply within the context of Judaism, but within the context of Galilean Judaism. That Jesus was a Jew but a non-Judean Jew, a northern, Galilean Jew, is a point so obvious that, like the forest, it has been missed by those who have minutely examined individual trees. Bernard Lee does not miss it." ―Clark Williamson Christian Theological Seminary †

158 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1988

Reviews

[Nathan Albright · Rating 3 out of 5]

While reading this book there was something that nagged at me and bothered me about it.  There was a sense of a lack of integrity about the way that the author was going about the study of the Jewish origins of Christianity, a belief that the beliefs and practices of the early church amounted to a road not taken in the Church's adoption of a non-biblical Hellenistic tradition in later generations, and a decided disinterest in changing his own practices in light of understanding the truth of the Jewishness of Jesus Christ and the early Church of God.  And besides that the book itself is filled with an extreme degree of phoniness in terms of its jargon, its fondness for theological fads and fashionable poses that demonstrate the author to be more of a trend chaser than someone who studies the Bible and ancient history in order to learn from it and grow from it.  Rather the author strikes one as someone who is complacent to know the past and to know that things could have gone differently but not interested in changing in light of a better understanding of the roots of Christianity.  And that is a great shame.

This book is first volume of three and after reading the author's turgid prose in this mercifully short book I have no interest in completing the series.  The book as a whole consists of three chapters with numerous smaller sections that takes up 150 pages.  The author begins with a preface and introduction that demonstrates the author to be well-read and interested in questions of counterfactual history.  After that there is an opening chapter that looks at early Christianity from the point of view of it being a historicist conversation involving questions of empricism and rationalism, and generally the author takes an intellectualizing approach to the whole subject.  The second chapter looks at what Galilean Jewishness means, pondering the extent of Hellenization of Galilee and sociopolitical matters relating to the rise of the zealots and matters of ambiguity and religion.  Finally the author concludes with a chapter that looks at Jesus as a Jew as well as the perspective of other Jews, including the Pharisees, and the perspective of the imaginary Q text used by Matthew and Luke, as well as a list of various texts consulted for this volume to demonstrate that the author did sufficient reading.

By and large this book feels like an extended exercise in intellectual wankery.  The author appears to want others to feel impressed that the author understands the Jewish origins of Christianity and the context of Jesus Christ within the second temple Judaism of his time.  The author wants the reader to be impressed with the name of books and their authors that he drops, to show that he is a cultured and sophisticated textual critic.  But in majoring in the minors, the author fails to grasp the straightforward notion that the point of understanding the past, whether it be about the Bible or anything else, is for that knowledge to shape one's behavior in light of what one knows.  Mere knowledge acquired for the point of showing off oneself as intelligent and knowledgeable without that knowledge having an influence on one's character and behavior is mere window dressing and puffery, and if there is one thing this book has too much of it is puffery of all kinds.  The author seems to believe that simply by acknowledging that Jesus Christ was a Torah-observant Galilean Jew one is able to come to terms with Judaism and with the mistakes of the past in rejecting aspects of the law that are foreign to Christians like the Sabbath and holy days and clean and unclean meat, all of which were conspicuously kept according to the biblical command by the earliest believers.  Sorry, that isn't sufficient.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A CATHOLIC THEOLOGIAN INTERPRETS JESUS VIA HIS JEWISH BACKGROUND

Bernard Lee (born 1932) is a Catholic (Marianist) systematic/philosophical theologian, who has also written books such as 'The Beating of Great Wings: A Worldly Spirituality for Active, Apostolic Communities,' ;Gathered and Sent: The Mission of Small Church Communities Today,' 'The Catholic Experience of Small Christian Communities,' etc.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1988 book, "retrieving the Jewishness of Jesus means refinding what was a less traveled road in the very early years of Christian life. That less traveled road became a virtually abandoned road... While I am also deeply interested in what an indigenous Japanese or Indian appropriation of Jesus might be, I am convinced that the Jewish option is perhaps the most important test case. I am not, of course, talking about Jews appropriating Jesus. I mean the Christian retrieval of Jesus' Jewishness... Jesus was after all precisely the Jew whose Jewishness the mainstream Christian tradition has at least suppressed and at worst hated." (Pg. 2, 4)

He cautions, "I do not doubt that many of my Jewish brothers and sisters will find my proposals insufficient. Many of my Christian sisters and brothers will find them over-sufficient in their Jewishness, but insufficient for carrying the weight of two thousand years of accumulated Christian experience." (Pg. 9) He explains, "Christian continuity with Jewishness is my concern in these pages. If Jesus did not step outside of Judaism to be who he was in his life, can he still be that for Christians today? What ways of interpreting his christological meaning are available to us that do not themselves step outside of Jesus' Jewishness? My goal in this book is modest... I want to have a conversation about Jesus' meaning today which honors both the Jewishness of Jesus and the faith of Christians." (Pg. 18)

He suggests, "Jesus' experience of God is interpreted already in the process of his experiencing God as a Jew (a Buddhist COULD NOT have had Jesus' experience of God.)" (Pg. 42) He states, "To interpret the meaning of Jesus accurately means hearing him on his own ground. I am suggesting that when he says 'God' it is a thoroughly Hebrew meaning that rings in his ears, and that for more of Western theology, when WE hear Jesus say God, it is a quite Greek meaning that we hear." (Pg. 82)

He clarifies, "My point is not the validity of IDENTIFYING Jesus with Halakah, but rather us using Halakah as a metaphor for interpreting the meaning of Jesus. Recall that a metaphor is based upon some genuine likeness shared by two entities. And in this case, the likeness is grounded in an historical situation in which Jesus and the Pharisees live. The fact that Jesus is not simply identified as a Pharisee also means that some un-likeness haunts the metaphor. Had Jesus formerly been a Pharisee, I do not see how this could have escaped the early records so totally. But deep resonances between the proclamation of Jesus and the teaching of the Pharisees must be acknowledged." (Pg. 105) Later, he adds, "While it does not seem likely that Jesus was literally a Pharisee, his teaching and his style are clearly Pharisaic..." (Pg. 118)

This is a very interesting perspective on Jesus' life and teachings, that will be of interest to a wide variety of readers.

[J.J. Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent book, but not for new Christians. It's one of those books that will challenge almost any Christians theology which would scare most readers away. There was only one page that I had major disagreement where the author gives his particular insight on sin. As for all the other material in the book I found it very insightful. Learning the background from which Jesus taught can teach us a lot about the deeper and often times more accurate meaning behind his words and deeds.