The Jewish Gospels

March 19, 2012
This little book claims to pack a big punch, yet Boyarin (A Radical Jew), professor of Talmudic studies and rhetoric at University of California, Berkeley, may not surprise as many readers as he (or his publisher) hoped he would. The author explains that his goal is to counter a popular assumption: that Jesus brought about a radical change in the theological imagination to include ideas alien and abhorrent to Judaism. Such assumptions indeed exist; but within mainstream biblical scholarship, the Jewishness of Jesus is no longer a source of contention. General readers will appreciate Boyarin’s discussion of passages from Daniel and early Jewish Enoch showing how they anticipate ideas of the Messiah that Jesus represents in the gospels. And Boyarin’s rereading of Mark for its kosher-keeping Jesus is compelling in the best midrashic ways. That the New Testament isn’t simply “a misappropriation of the Old” is also a welcome corrective. The best part of the book, though, is the foreword by Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Jack Miles.

February 15, 2012
Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at Berkeley, offers something a little different on the Jesus discovery path. He makes the case that while most people believe it is the duality of Jesus' nature (god/man) that separates Christianity from Judaism, the seeds of incarnation are to be found in Jewish writing, especially the book of Daniel and the esoteric books of Enoch, the writings of Isaiah. And while many suspect that the Gospels were written to conform with the details of Jesus' story, the important memes were actually composed hundreds of years previously. Thus, Jesus' followers recognized him as the Messiah precisely because they were familiar with the Jewish texts that described the coming savior. Boyarin starts off simply enough, but by the time he gets to Enoch (a part of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church's bible), he is whacking in the weeds a bit. Still, this compact book doesn't take much time to read as it makes its challenging points. Ruminating over the conclusions will take longer.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)