THE JEWISH ANNOTATED NEW TESTAMENT New Revised Standard Version Bible Translation

Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler Editors . •·

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EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Alan). Avery-Peck- The Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians

Herbert Basser- The Letter of james

Daniel Boyarin- Logos, A jewish Word: John's Prologue as Midrash

Marc Zvi Brettler, Editor- The New Testament between the

Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and Rabbinic Literature

jonathan Brumberg-Kraus- The Third Letter of john

Shaye). D. Cohen- The Letter of Paul to the Galatians; judaism

and jewishness; josephus

Michael Cook- The Letter of Paul to the Philippians

Pamela Eisenbaum - The Letter to the Hebrews

Michael Fagen blat- The Concept of Neighbor in jewish and

Christian Ethics

Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert -judaizers,jewish Christians, and Others

David Frankfurter- The Revelation to john

David M. Freidenreich - Faod and Table Fellowship

julie Galambush- The Second Letter of john

Aaron M. Gale- The Gospel According to Matthew

joshua D. Garroway -loudaios

Barbara Geller- The Letter of Paul to Philemon

Gary Gilbert- The Acts of the Apostles

Martin Goodman- jewish History, 331 BCE-135 CE

Leonard Greenspoon- The Septuagint

Michael R. Greenwald- The Second Letter of Peter; The Canon of

the New Testament

Adam Gregerman - The Second Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians

Maxine Grossman- The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians; The Dead Sea Scrolls

Susannah Heschel-jesus in Modern jewish Thought

Martha Himmelfarb- Afterlife and Resurrection

Talllan- The Second Letter of Paul to Timothy

Andrew S. jacobs - The Letter oflude

jonathan Klawans - The Law

Naomi Koltun-Fromm- The First Letter of Paul to Timothy

jennifer L. Koosed- The Letter of Paul to Titus

Ross S. Kraemer-jewish FamHy Life in the First Century CE

Shira Lander- The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians

Daniel R. Langton- Paul in jewish Thought

Rebecca Lesses- Divine Beings

David B. Levenson -Messianic Movements

Amy-Jill Levine, Ediror- The Gospel According to Luke; Bearing

False Witness: Common Errors Made about Early judaism Lee I. Levine - The Synagogue

Martin Lockshin -jesus in Medieval jewish Tradition

Michele Murray- The First Letter oflohn

Mark D. Nanos- The Letter of Paul to the Romans; Paul and judaism

Adele Reinhartz- The Gospel According to john

David Fox Sandmel- The First Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians

David Satran - Philo of Alexandria

Daniel R. Schwartz -jewish Movements of the New Testament Period

Naomi Seidman- Translation of the Bible

Claudia Setzer- The First Letter of Peter; jewish Responses to

Believers in jesus

David Stern - Midrash and Parables in the New Testament

Geza Vermes -jewish Miracle Workers in the Late Second Temple Period

Burton L. Visotzky -jesus in Rabbinic Tradition

Lawrence M. Wills- The Gospel According to Mark

Peter Zaas - The Letter of Paul to the Colossians

v

BEARING FALSE WITNESS

COMMON ERRORS MADE ABOUT EARLY JUDAISM

Amy-jill Levine

There are numerousChurc~ guidelines on how to present Jews and Judaism (e.g., Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, 'Notes on the Correct Way to Present the jews and Judaism in Preaching and Cateche­sis in the Roman Catholic Church" [1985); National Con­ference of Catholic Bishops, "God's Mercy Endures For­ever: Guidelines on the Presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Preaching" [1988); General Convention of the Episcopal Church, "Guidelines for Christian-jewish Rela­tions" [1988); Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 'Guidelines for Lutheran-jewish Relations" [1988)). How­ever, out of ignorance many pastors and religious educa­tors strip Jesus from his jewish context and depict that context in false and noxious stereotypes. This volume represents an effort to redress this significant problem.

There are five major reasons for this problem. First, most Christian seminaries and divinity schools do not offer detailed education about Judaism, whether at the time of jesus or subsequently. The Association of Theo­logical Schools in the United States and Canada, the ac­crediting organization for these institutions, does not as of 2011 recommend that candidates studying for the Christian ministry receive formal instruction in how to avoid anti-jewish preaching and teaching.

Second, whereas a number of churches have guide­lines on the presentation of Jews and Judaism, not all clergy know the guidelines. Even clergy who receive some education about Judaism need refresher courses: people forget what they have learned in graduate and professional schools, and these understandings change as research progresses. But too few church bodies spon­sor continuing education programs on Judaism, on jew­ish-Christian relations, and specifically on anti-Jewish biblical interpretation, and too few clergy attend the pro­grams that are offered.

Third, as church demographics shift increasingly to Asia and Africa, new forms of anti-Jewish biblical inter­pretations develop. Christians from these areas lack direct memory of the Shoah, the Holocaust, and so may be less sensitized to the dangers of detaching of Jesus from his Jewish tradition. Any negative stereotype flourishes more easily when there are no personal contacts to combat it, when there is limited access to Jews and jewish resources, and when the challenge to anti-Jewish teaching-such as

might be raised by a jewish Board of Deputies or the Anti­Defamation League-is not part of the culture.

Fourth, biblical studies does, appropriately, speak to contemporary issues. In the effort to deploy the biblical text for purposes of liberation, interpreters insensitive to the issue of anti-Jewish teaching sometimes present jesus as the liberator from his social context, namely Judaism, which they depict as analogous to present-day social ills. The motivations of such politicized readings are profound and laudable: social justice, alleviation of poverty, and cessation of ethnic strife, and the like; the real difficul­ties facing these interpreters must be acknowledged. However the means by which their argument is made are sometimes unintentionally anti-Jewish.

Fifth, and perhaps most pernicious, the problem of ahistorical, anti-Jewish interpretation is not always ac­knowledged. Fortunately, most ministers and religious educators take care in addressing the obviously difficult passages (e.g., the "blood cry" of Mt 27.25 that depicts "the people as a whole" [Gk pas ho laos) saying, "His blood be on us and on our children!"; Jn 8.44a, where Jesus accuses the "Jews": "You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father's desires"). But problems enter when homilists or teachers do not know Jewish history or theology and out of ignorance con­struct a negative Judaism over and against which they position jesus, or when they presume that Jesus' numer­ous insightful and inspirational comments are original to him rather than part of his Jewish identity.

Anti-Jewish stereotypes remain in some Christian preaching and teaching in the following ten areas. (For additional details, see annotations to the NT passages that this essay references.)

First, as part of a broader theological view that con­trasts jewish "law" with Christian "grace; some Chris­tians may believe that the Law (Torah) is impossible to follow, "a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear" (Acts 15.10), as opposed to jesus' "easy yoke" (see Mt 11.29-30).In actuality, jews, then and now, did not find Torah observance any mote burdensome than citizens in most countries find their country's laws today. As Deut 30.11a states, "surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you." Furthermore, modern states have more laws than there are in all the ancient jewish sources combined. In fact,

ESSAYS I 501

COMMON ERRORS MADE ABOUT EARLY JUDAISM

jesus sometimes makes observance more stringent: To­rah forbids murder (Ex 20.13; Deut 5.17), but jesus forbids anger (Mt 5.22); Torah forbids adultery (Ex 20.14; Deut 5.18), and jesus expands the definition of adultery to en­compass both lust (Mt 5.28) and remarriage after divorce

(Mt 19.9; Mk 10.11-12; Lk 16.18). jesus himself was halakhically obedient: he wears

fringes (tzitzit-see Num 15.38-39; Deut 22.12) to remind him of the Torah (Mt 9.20; Lk 8.44; Mt 14.36; Mk 6.56); he honors the Sabbath and keeps it holy; he argues with fellow jews about appropriate observance (one does not debate something in which one has no investment). It is from Torah that he takes his "Great Commandment" (Mt 22.36-40): love of God (Deut 6.5) and love of neighbor

(Lev 18.19). A second misconception, and correlate to the first,

is the view that jews follow Torah in order to earn God's love or a place in heaven. Therefore, judaism is a religion of"works righteousness" rather than of grace. This view fails to observe that the election of Israel is based on grace, not merit or works. jews do not follow Torah in order to "earn• divine love or salvation; the Mishnah (m.

Sanh. 10.1) states that "all Israel has a share in the world to come"-it is part ofthe covenant. Divine love is already present; it is not earned. Some texts contemporaneous with the New Testament (e.g., the Dead Sea Scroll text 4QMMT) can be re.ad to suggest a works-righteousness model, but this is by no means the majority view, at least as can be determined by the literature of the period.

A third misconception connected to Torah is the view that purity laws were both burdensome and unjust. For example, numerous commentators explain that the priest and the Levite of the parable of the good Samaritan (Lk 10.3D-37) bypass a wounded traveler because they are commanded by jewish law to avoid touching a corpse. The parable, however, does not give this as the rationale for the priest and the Levite's behavior. Indeed, it could not have been the rationale, since the priest is "going down" from jerusalem (Lk 10.31), not "up" to it, where pu­rity in the Temple would have been an issue. Although Lev. 21.1-2 forbids priests from contact with corpses save for those of near relatives, no such injunction applies to the Levites.ln rabbinic literature, the responsibility to save a life supersedes other commandments (e.g., b. Yoma 846). Next, Samaritans had the same purity laws as did jews. josephus (Ag. Ap. 2.30.211) insists that jews are "not to let anyone lie unburied; the Mishnah (m. Naz. 7.1) mandates that even a high priest must assure an unattended corpse receives proper burial. Consequently, jews would have expected the priest and Levite to provide care, and part of the shock of the parable is that they do not. The par­able mentions priest and Levite for rhetorical, not legal

502. I ESSAYS

reasons: it leads listeners to expect to hear "Israelite," the typical third member of the priest-Levite-lsraelite trio, and thus listeners are shocked again when the third per­son is revealed to be a Samaritan.

Similarly, many sermons claim, incorrectly, that by touching a woman suffering from hemorrhages (Mt 9.2o-22; Mk 5.25-34; Lk 8.43-48) and a corpse (Mt 9.23-26; Mk 5.35-43; Lk 849-56), jesus violates purity laws or social taboos. First, jesus does nottouch the woman; she touch­es him. Second, hands do not convey menstrual impurity. The point of the healing is that jesus restores a woman to health (and to ritual purity), not that impurity, which is a natural part of the world-order, is evil. Regarding the corpse: again, no law forbids touching a corpse; although corpses convey serious ritual impurity, being in a ritu­ally impure state is not prohibited unless one is going to the Temple. In fact, attending to a corpse is an important mitzvah (commandment) in the book of Tobit (2.1-7), in rabbinic literature, and in the New Testament, as we see, for example, when the disciples of John the Baptist claim their teacher's body (Mk 6.29; Mt 14.12), when joseph of Arimathea claims jesus' body (Mk 15.43-46), and when the women visit the tomb (Mk 16.1; Lk 24.1).

Women who have just given birth are ritually impure, but Elizabeth, the mother of john the Baptist, and Mary, the mother of jesus, were not marginalized or demeaned following parturition. Ritual purity along with Sabbath observance, avoiding certain foods such as pork, mak­ing sure meat was slaughtered in an appropriate manner, and tithing certain agricultural products also helped jews resist assimilation, served as a sign of jewish identity, helped support the poor, and otherwise reminded them that they were Israel, the covenant community. For ad­ditional details, see The "Law," p. 515.

The fourth misconception is the view that early juda­ism was so misogynistic that it made the Taliban look pro­gressive by comparison, and that jesus liberated women from this oppressive system. For example, numerous com­mentators express surprise that jesus would have permit­ted Mary to sit at his feet (Lk 10.38-42), because "rabbis" were forbidden to talk to women. This idea of a "feminist" jesus amid a retrograde judaism serves several expedient purposes. Since jesus is not proactive concerning women (e.g., no women are appointed among the twelve apos­tles; no women are explicitly mentioned as being present at the Transfiguration, the Last Supper, or Gethsemane), then if jewish women could be depicted as no better than property, any interaction jesus had with a woman would be seen as progressive. The case for describing women as oppressed by judaism was then made by very selec­tive citations of rabbinic statements, ignoring significant counterexamples (e.g., Beruriah, the well-educated wife

of Rabbi Meir, whose legal rulings are authoritative), and ignoring the role of patrons and guests in private homes.

The New Testament, as well as other jewish litera­ture of the period, from the deuterocanonical texts to josephus and Philo to inscriptional evidence to early rabbinic sources, tells us that Jewish women owned their own homes (see Lk 10.38 [Martha]; Acts 12.12 [Mary the mother of John called Mark]); served as patrons (Lk 8.1-3); appeared in the Temple (which had a dedicated "Court of the Women") and in synagogues; had use of their own property (from the poor widow who puts her coins in the Temple treasury [Mk 12.42; Lk 21.2] to the rich woman who anoints jesus, whether on the head [Mt 26.6-1311 Mk 14.3-9] or on his feet [Lk 7.36-50; john 12.1-3]); had freedom of travel (as with the women from Gali­lee who accompany jesus to Judea); appear in public; and so on. Clearly it was not because of jewish oppression that women joined jesus. Perhaps some women outside of marital situations (widows, single women, divorced women) were particularly attracted to jesus' movement given its possible focus on celibacy (see Mt 19.12), non­privileging of child-bearing (Lk 11.27-28), and alternative family structures (see Mt 12.50 II Mk 3.35).

The fifth misconception, related to the fourth, is that jesus forbids divorce in order to protect women, because "the rabbis" stated that men would divorce their wives for the flimsiest of reasons (see m. Git.). This view fails to note that in addition to some liberal rabbinic divorce comments, we find much more stringent ones that re­strict divorce to cases of adultery; this view also fails to note that the jewish wife had a marriage contract (Heb ketubah) that protected her financially in case of divorce. jesus' concern is not the protection of women, but theo­logical. Mark 10.6-9 explains: "From the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 'Forth is rea­son a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

The sixth problem is a matter substantially of vague rhetoric: the claim that jesus ministers to the "outcasts" and "marginals." Many pastors and teachers do not ex­plain: cast out by whom? Cast out from what? Marginal to what? For example, that jesus eats with "sinners and tax collectors" (e.g., Mk 2.16) is seen as an example of his ministering to the "cast out." Groups ranging from the sick, the women, and the Gentiles (such as centurions) to children and the poor are seen as "marginal." This is historically inaccurate. Sinners and tax collectors are not "cast out"; rather, they are people who violate the welfare of the community and who have deliberately removed themselves from the common good. Nor are

COMMON ERRORS MADE ABOUT EARLY JUDAISM

they "cast out" of anything: to the contrary, Luke 18.10 locates a "tax collector" and "sinner" in the jerusalem Temple. Second, the majority of people suffering from diseases in the Gospels are part of larger familial or social groups. Women are not cast out or marginal, and chil­dren are so loved that their parents and care-givers bring them to jesus for a blessing. Nor are Gentiles "cast out"; Luke reports that a Gentile centurion built a synagogue in Capernaum, and depicts the jewish elders as pleading on his behalf to jesus (Lk 7.1-10). Gentiles were welcome in the jerusalem Temple and in synagogues. judaism of this period was not an egalitarian or universalist utopia, but nor was it in general a system that "cast out" wom­en, children, the poor and sick, and so on. It is therefore important that pastors and teachers be more cautious when they use terms like "marginal" and "outcast."

The seventh misconception is the view that all jews wanted a militant messiah and therefore rejected jesus because he proclaimed love of enemies. First-century judaism had no single messianic blueprint. Some jews expected a priestly messiah, others a shepherd, still oth­ers thought John the Baptist was the messiah. And still others had no such expectations. Missing from this view of the pacifistic jesus vs. militant judaism is also contrary evidence from the New Testament. For example, jesus' followers are armed, as we see in the attempts to prevent his arrest in Gethsemane. jesus instructs his disciples, "The one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one• (Lk 22.36b) and disciples respond: "Lord, look, here are two swords" (22.38).

Eighth is the view that for early Judaism, God had become a transcendent, distant king, and that jesus in­vented the idea of a heavenly "father"; connected to this view is the still-heard claim that when jesus addressed God as "abba" (Mk 14.36; see also Rom 8.15; Gal 4.6) that he used an intimate term meaning "daddy" that would have been offensive to his fellow jews. These claims miss the numerous biblical and postbiblical uses of "father" for the divine, including Ps 68.5 [Heb v. 6]; 89.26 [Heb v. 27]; I sa 64.8; jer 31.9; Ant. 7.380, etc.; 1QH; b. Ta'an. 23b (on the grandson of 1-joni the Circle Drawer); and b. Ta'an. 25b (avinu ma/keinu-"our father our king").

Ninth is the insistence that jesus objected to the "temple domination system" that overtaxed the popu­lation, forced upon them oppressive purity laws (see above), and functioned as an elitist institution in cooper­ation with Rome. Thus we have the common stereotype that the "money changers• were overcharging pilgrims. jesus never makes this charge, although there are rabbin­ic notices that the high priests would sometimes take the tithes due to the poorer priests. Nor have we evidence

ESSAYS I 503

THE NT BETWEEN THE HB AND RABBINIC LITERATURE

that the Temple oppressed the peasants or overtaxed them. The vast majority of the jewish people loved the Temple, visited it on pilgrimage festivals, protected it from Roman profanation, and mourned its destruction. According to the book of Acts, jesus' followers, including Paul, continued to worship there. When in the first revolt against Rome, the Zealot factions gained control of jeru­salem, they did burn the Temple debt records, but they also appointed their own high priest. To some extent, the idea of the temple domination system stems from jesus' comment about the "den of robbers" (Mt 21.13) ; however, "den of robbers" is a quotation from the Hebrew Bible, from jer 7.11, and it refers not to where people steal but where thieves go to feel safe.

Tenth is the claim that early judaism was narrow, clan­nish, and exclusivistic and that jesus invented universal­ism. For example, in Acts 10.28a, Peter states, "it is unlaw­ful for a jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile." The

claim is false, as the Gospel of Luke itself indicates (see Lk 7.1-10), as the Court of the Gentiles in the Temple proves, and as the presence of God-fearers and the conversion of pagans to judaism in the first century all indicate. Yes, some jews were narrow (the Qumran scroll tOM, which divides the world into the "Sons of light" and the "Sons of Darkness" is hardly a model of ecumenical and interfaith alliance); others were not. Universalism has important precedents in the Hebrew Bible, especially in texts de­scribing the ideal future ("the messianic age"; see, e.g., lsa 2.1-4), and such ideas continued in rabbinic texts as well.

These common stereotypes, and there are others, can be addressed by reading and teaching the entire New Testament carefully within its context. The commentar­ies and essays in this volume. should provide for readers not only a greater appreciation for the Scriptures of the Christian Church but should also prevent the false teach­ing that deforms the "good news" of jesus.

THE NEW TESTAMENT BETWEEN THE HEBREW BIBLE (TANAKH) AND RABBINIC LITERATURE

Marc Zvi Brettler It is impossible to read the New Testament aptly without knowledge of the jewish Bible, the Tanakh (an acronym for Torah, Nevi'im [Prophets), and Ketuvim [Writings), what the church calls the "Old Testament," and what is sometimes called the "Hebrew Bible"). Most of the books that comprise the New Testament presume the background of that collection of writings-usually in its Greek translation, the Septuagint (see "The Septuagint," p. 562); they quote it, allude to it, l!Se its thought forms and concepts, and in general rely upon it as a source of ideas, history, and religious meaning.

But such appreciation of the Hebrew Bible is not enough for a full understanding of how the New Testa­ment discerns this earlier biblical material. Informed reading of the New Testament must also take account of the development of jewish thought, including jew­ish biblical interpretation, through the time of jesus of Nazareth and his early followers. Of the approximately 8,ooo verses in the New Testament, more than 250 quote the Tanakh, and perhaps twice as many directly allude to it; if verses with more distant allusions are included, the number is far greater. For example, in Matthew 2.2,

504 I ESSAYS

the magis' question-"Where is the child who has been born king of the jews? For we observed his star at its ris­ing, and have come to pay him homage"-likely alludes to Numbers 24.17, "a star shall come out of jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel."

The New Testament authors also find significant con­tinuity between the Scriptures of Israel and the story of jesus: jesus is portrayed as a new Moses in Matthew 2-7 (both savior figures are rescued when children around them are slaughtered by royal decree; both descend to Egypt, cross water, endure temptation in the wilderness, ascend a mountain, and deliver a law); the depiction of the crucified jesus as an offering whose blood atones (Heb 9.11-28; cf. Mk 10-45) evokes the Priestly writings (Lev 16.1-19; Num 19.1-10). Gospel accounts, such as the multiplication of food (e.g., Mk 6.3D-44) or bringing a child back to life (Mk 5.22-24,35-43) recall the prophetic stories of Elijah (see 1 Kings 17.8-16,17-24); similar. multi­plication of food, and cleansing from leprosy (Mk i.4o-42) bring to mind those of Elisha (2 Kings 4.1-7; 5.1-19). (To a lesser extent, such miracle stories are found about a small number of rabbinic sages, such as f:loni the Circle Drawer [see b. Ta'an. 19a); see "jewish Miracle Workers,"

THE NT BETWEEN THE HB AND RABBINIC LITERATURE

p. 536). A wide variety of other stories, beginning with the creation narratives, are recalled (see e.g., 1 Tim 2.13). The New Testament frequently quotes or alludes to Israel's laws (e.g., Lev 19.18 and Deut 6.5 in Lk 10.25-28, where jesus elicits the references from a lawyer; in Mk 12.28-31 and Mt 13.16-17, jesus quotes the verses himself). The Christian texts frequently appeal to the book of Psalms, and sometimes regard them as prophecies (e.g., Ps 16.8-11 in Acts 2.25-28; Ps 2.7; 104.4; 45.6-7; 102.25-27; 110.1 in Heb 1.5,7,8,to-12,13); much of the description of jesus' crucifixion, especially as presented in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, draws upon Psalm 22. Some of jesus' aphorisms (e.g., Mt 6.27,34) are continuous with the Isra­elite wisdom tradition in Proverbs to-31, and the Prologue to the Gospel of john (1.1-s,to-18) is based on the idea of wisdom personified at the beginning of Proverbs (1.19-20; 8.22-31). Revelation, the last book of the New Testament, depends on the similarly apocalyptic Daniel, to which it frequently alludes (compare e.g., Rev 2.18 with Dan 10.6); it is by far the most allusive New Testament writing, with hundreds of allusions to many books of the Tanakh, al­though with no exact direct quotations.

Both the Tanakh and New Testament incorporate multiple, contradictory traditions, as we see when the same story is narrated in Kings and Chronicles, or among the four Gospels. This is very different from modern books, which typically, especially when they deal with the past, take a single viewpoint. The variety of opinions on crucial ideas in the Tanakh (Is God corporeal? Are peo­ple essentially good? Is there intergenerational punish­ment?) anticipates the variety of ideas in the New Testa­ment (Is the new age imminent or has it been delayed? Should jesus' followers marry or live singly? Is jesus an incarnate divine being or an adopted son of God? Does early Christianity mean to replace the law?). Both the Tanakh and the New Testament do not participate in the either/or world of the twenty-first century.

And yet there is much in the New Testament that is not anticipated in the Tanakh, such as the core idea of a divine messiah who brings redemption by dying for Israel's sins. Some of these ideas exist separately in the Hebrew Bible-a messiah (though that term is never used there of the future ideal Davidic king), a future ideal king who has some supernatural or at least hyperbolically described characteristics (see lsa 11.1-5), though he is never called divine, and a suffering servant (see esp.lsa 53), though the identity of this servant is very unclear, and it is uncertain if the Hebrew Bible intends an individual or a group, and if this servant lives in the past, present, or future.

Thus, some of what is new in the New Testament re­flects a bringing together of separate ideas found in the Tanakh. Some of the New Testament's themes draw not

directly upon the Tanakh but upon Hellenistic jewisl erature. For example, the concept of the martyr, pu death by the state, whose sacrifice has salvific rriear for fellow jews, begins to be developed in the a pocry1 book 2 Maccabees (a book in the Roman Catholic and thodox but not the Protestant versions of the Old Te~ ment). The shift of Satan from a member of the heave court to a personification of evil likewise developec this milieu.

There is also, of course, material in the New Tes ment that is not anticipated in the Tanakh; the b examples of this are the epistles, letters written to dividuals or to congregations. Nor does the Tanakh ' fer "Gospels" in the sense of a focused biography of individual, although the stories of Moses and David, <

developed in detail. Furthermore, the Hebrew materh tend to point out the flaws of even the principal figur discussed; no figure in the Tanakh is depicted as perfe or sinless.

Much of what is new is found in the jewish texts fro approximately the same period of the New Testamer For example, the formula used to introduce many cit tions from the Scriptures of Israel in the New Testame is "(as) it is written" (e.g., Mk 1.2), like the rabbinic formu kakatuv (see, e.g., the Aleinu prayer, where kakatuv intn duces the citation ofDeut 4.39). (This term is also used some the latest texts in the Hebrew Bible, such as Ezra 3. which are closer in time to the NT.) There are also forn of argument well attested in rabbinic texts, such as tt argument from the minor to the major, also known the q, vahomer (lit., "light and heavy"; see the seven principii of Hillel, found at the beginning of the rabbinic midras Sifra), found several times in the New Testament usin the phrase "how much more so" (e.g., Mt 12.12). Rabbini readings of the biblical text are often fanciful and decor textualize the text from its original historical setting­feature of the New Testament as well. For example, Mat I

thew 13.14-15 and its parallels quote Isaiah 6.9-10, whic in its original context is about Isaiah's generation in th eighth century BCE, yet the Gospels understand thes verses as being fulfilled in the period of jesus. This is n' different from the way similar prophetic texts were under stood by the rabbis and the Dead Sea Scrolls communit; as being fulfilled centuries after they were first recorder (see esp. the pesher texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, o R. Akiva's understanding that Num 24.17 was fulfilled witt Bar Kochba [see y. Ta'an. 4.8)).

Reflecting on how rabbinic judaism appropriate! and interprets the Tanakh can also help readers under· stand more deeply the relation between the New Tes· tament and the Tanakh. A jewish reader might say th1 suffering servant passage in Isaiah 53, emphasized b)

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