Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] The Distinctly Jewish Roots of Jesus Ethics by Bart Ehrman One of the points I try to emphasize in my book Love Thy how the Teachings of Jesus Transform the Moral Conscience of the west is that Jesus teachings were not made out of whole cloth, but are deeply rooted in the Hebrew Bible and in teachings of other Jewish teachers of his day.
[00:00:23] Here is one place in my book where I try to stress this point.
[00:00:27] Throughout the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures, in Isaiah, in Amos and so on, we find a recurring emphasis that God is concerned for the poor, the outcast, the vulnerable, and he expects his people to be actively concerned as well, helping rather than exploiting those in need.
[00:00:44] Living centuries later and dealing with different situations, Jesus frequently aligned himself with such prophetic teachings.
[00:00:51] He shared their assumptions about what it means to live as God wants above all to care for others and especially those in need, rather than for one's own life and desires. Jesus was not alone in this. Similar views could be found in other Jewish teachers as well. The Golden Rule is one of Jesus best known sayings, often taken to summarise his entire message. Do unto others as you would have them do to you, or as Jesus expresses it in the Sermon on the Mount, Everything that you want people to do for you, do also for them, for this is the law and the prophets. That's Matthew 7:12. As he suggests for him. This rule summarises all of scripture.
[00:01:32] Jesus was not the first to articulate this rule. It had been around for centuries in a range of cultures from classical Greece to ancient China.
[00:01:41] Often it was expressed in the negative. Do not do to someone else what you don't want them to do to you. See for example Herodotus History 3.142 or the Analects of Confucius 15.23.
[00:01:56] Among Jewish teachers in Jesus day, it was given most famously by Rabbi Hillel. In a rather amusing anecdote, a Gentile approached the great teacher and asked him to teach him the Torah while standing on one foot.
[00:02:09] Hillel did so, lifting one of his feet and saying that which is hateful for you do not do to your fellow. That's the whole Torah. All the rest is commentary.
[00:02:20] That's from the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31.
[00:02:25] Many of Jesus other teachings can also be found through the Jewish tradition before his day. An interesting example involves someone else named Jesus, living two centuries earlier.
[00:02:35] This other Jesus calls himself the son of Eleazar, son of Sirach, and the book contains his teachings is therefore called the the Wisdom of Jesus, Son of Sirach or Ben Sira or Sirach for short.
[00:02:48] This is one of the deuterocanonical books that Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox accept as part of the Old Testament, but Protestants do not. Protestants call these other books the Apocrypha.
[00:02:59] Jesus son of Sirach wrote the book in Hebrew, but it was mainly preserved in a Greek translation made by his grandson and then in Latin where it is called Ecclesiasticus, which is not to be confused with the Hebrew Bible book of Ecclesiastes.
[00:03:16] Among the many ethical teachings of Jesus, son of Sirach, close to those of Jesus of Nazareth, consider the Sirach. Do not reject a suppliant in distress or turn your face away from the poor. Do not avert your eye from the needy and give no one a reason to curse you. That's Sirach 4:4:5 from the NRSV Jesus of Nazareth said, give to all who ask of you, and do not turn away the one who wants to borrow from you.
[00:03:45] That's Matthew 5:42.
[00:03:49] Sirach says, stretch out your hand to the poor so that your blessing may be complete. That's Sirach 7. 32.
[00:03:57] Jesus of Nazareth said, blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven. That's Luke 6. 20.
[00:04:08] Sirach says, the Lord overthrows the thrones of the rulers and enthrones the lowly in their place.
[00:04:14] That's Sirach 10:14.
[00:04:17] Jesus of Nazareth says, the first will be last and the last first. That's Matthew 20:16.
[00:04:23] Sirach says, the greater you are, the more you must humble yourself so you'll find favor in the sight of the lord. That's Sirach 3:18. Jesus of Nazareth says, everyone who humbles themselves will be exalted and the exalted humbled. That's Luke 4. 11.
[00:04:41] Sirach says, Someone becomes rich through diligence and self denial. And he says, I have found rest and now I shall feast on my goods. He does not know how long it will be until he leaves them to others and dies. That's Syracuse 11, 1819 Jesus of Nazareth speaking about the rich fool who builds bigger and better barns for all his produce, says, soul, you have ample good laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink and be merry. But God says to him, you fool, this very night your life is being demanded of you. That's Luke 12:16 21.
[00:05:18] Sirach says, do not delay to turn back to the Lord and do not postpone it from day to day, for suddenly the wrath of the Lord will come upon you, and at the time of punishment you will perish. That's Sirach. 5, 6, 7.
[00:05:31] Jesus of Nazareth says, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the good News. That's Mark 1:15.
[00:05:41] At that time there will be great suffering. Such has not been seen from the beginning of the world until now. No, and never will be. Truly, I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.
[00:05:54] That's Matthew 24, verses 21 and 34.
[00:05:59] Now, clearly these teachings are not identical.
[00:06:02] Moreover, not all of Ben Sira's teachings can be found in the Gospels or all of Jesus teachings in Sirach.
[00:06:08] My point is that they had very similar emphases along with distinctive twists of their own, as had other Jewish teachers at the time. Comparable teachings sometimes occurred in Greek and Roman moral philosophers as well. But many of the key foci of Jesus and the other Jewish teachers, such as a focus on the poor and the needy, are almost entirely lacking in pagan circles.
[00:06:30] If many of Jesus's ethical teachings were not revolutionary in his own Jewish context, then why have I been saying that those of Jesus that transformed the conscience of the Western world, why not say that Jewish teachings did? It's for two reasons. One is that, as I try to explain in the books, some of Jesus's distinctive emphases were not shared by most of his Jewish compatriots, so far as we have the record. Just as the distinctive comments of other Jewish teachers were not shared by everyone, and these became prominent among the views endorsed by his later followers and important to Christians still today.
[00:07:04] The other is that it was Christianity and not Judaism that took over the Roman world.
[00:07:09] By the 5th century, the majority of the Roman world was Christian, the emperors were Christian, and the thinking was Christian in terms of ethics. These later Christian teachings, many of which stood at odds with Greek and Roman moral philosophy, were were specifically rooted in the sayings of the Jewish Jesus and not say, in the teachings of Sirach or of Rabbi Hill.
