Launch of Jewish-Christian Study Group - October 2007:

This group is meant to act as a platform for in-depth critical and respectful study of the New Testament from Jewish and Christian (hopefully also Muslim) points of view. We started with a small group of religious Orthodox Jews and Catholic Christian but hope to gradually include, with time, people of other affiliations.

We are very much aware of the fact that this is an innovative endeavor that does not characterize the usual encounter between Christians and Jews and we do look at it as an experimental enterprise. Yet, we believe it is an experiment that is worthwhile making and we do hope it will succeed.

We started from the beginning with the Gospel of Mathew. The book is dated by most commentators to the 80's of the 1st century. He writes in very good and high Greek and probably also knew some Aramaic. It is unclear if he knew Hebrew: he indeed quotes a lot from the Bible but through the Septuagint. The most common assumption is that he wrote for the community of Antioch – the first mixed community of Jews and non-Jews. His approach is polemic against the Pharisees and he follows very carefully the Gospel of Mark, which was written some 12-15 years before, even when it is difficult for him.

It was interesting to note that the first verses are self understood to any one who knows the Hebrew Bible but are completely unclear to any one who do not. We talked about concepts such as Messiah, son of David son of Abraham etc.)

When listing Jesus' lineage only in some case women are mentioned: Tamar, Rahav, Ruth, wife of Uriah and Miriam. The text makes an interesting connection between Rahav and Ruth – these women bring input from the nations to Yisrael, when the usual flow is the Nation of Yisrael being "light to the nations".

The lineage after the Babylonian exile is not historical. It is a kind of exegesis meant to locate Jesus within the common Jewish narrative, as part if the fabric of the continuation of the Nation of Yisrael. Mathew wants to build the image of Jesus as parallel to Joshua the son of Nun, who replaced Moses as the leader of the nation.

We mentioned what Rabbi Leon Ashkenazi said about Mathew – that he describes in parallel the creation of the Nation of Yisrael from Jacob who was the father "Yehuda and his brothers" and the creation of Christianity from Jacob who was the father of Joseph, the father of Jesus. Rabbi Ashkenazi says that here Mathew wants to present Judaism and Christianity as a manifestation of the old dual leadership of Yehuda and Joseph (which, of course, according to Judaism exists with in the Nation of Yisrael).

It was said that this was not a Christian understanding but we will see that Joseph was indeed responsible for the material needs of Jesus. The first we already saw: even though he was not Jesus' father, he was instructed by the angle to accept him as his son and give him his name.
 

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