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Reading What You Want It to Say

Thursday, July 05th, 2012 | Author:

“You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell?”  Matthew 23:33 NASB

Brood of vipers – Do you read the Scriptures with an ear toward what you want it to say?  Do you read with your past associations, instruction and cultural background as the interpretive pattern?  Or do you read Scripture as if it were written to you like today’s newspaper?  Don’t brush off these questions too quickly.  If you don’t begin by attempting to understand the words of Scripture in the historical and cultural setting of their authors, you will end up with outrageous and erroneous conclusions.  Let me give you an example.

Shmuley Boteach purports to have written an accurate analysis of the real Jesus.  In his book, Kosher Jesus, he examines Jesus’ declaration recorded in Matthew 23:33.  He concludes:  “There are many reasons to believe that this verse is a forgery.  First of all, common sense dictates this doesn’t sound anything like the Jesus we know.  These poisonous words, ‘You snakes!  You brood of vipers!  How will you escape being condemned to hell?’ seem utterly inconsistent with the beautiful teachings on ethics in the Sermon on the Mount about the meek and humble inheriting the earth.  Was Jesus really prone to such vulgar outbursts and temper tantrums?  Indeed, this later, interpolated Jesus sounds like a man with serious anger issues who can’t control his rage.”[1]

What can I say?  Apparently Shmuley has the inside track on what “fits” the vocabulary of the “correct” Jesus.  His comment makes you wonder if Mahatma Gandhi ever uttered an invective against the British or if Mother Teresa ever said an unkind word toward the uncompassionate Christian leaders of her own Church.  What’s worse is that Shmuley doesn’t seem to understand the power and indictment of the Sermon on the Mount either.  In his view, all of Jesus’ words must be peace and light.  Otherwise, they are forgeries.  Of course, he is the proper authority to tell us when a forgery has occurred.  How does he know?  Because “forgeries” don’t fit the way he wants the text to read.

Boteach seems to ignore the fact that Yeshua is speaking about hypocrites and that He is quoting John the Baptist, who also addressed his remark to unrepentant inspectors.  Boteach apparently doesn’t realize that this is an idiom from the first century, an insult used by others in antiquity.  Boteach requires Yeshua to meet his standards of self-control which, of course, can never include emotional outbursts in the face of self-serving depravity.  Apparently Boteach hasn’t read Essene literature either.[2]  One thing is quite clear.  Boteach is a contemporary liberal.  He might be Jewish by birth, but he seems to have forgotten the outrage of YHWH found throughout the Tanakh.

I beg you not to make the same mistake.  It is so easy to read the text the way we want to read it, to understand the word according to our definitions.  It is so easy to be “offended” by Scripture because it doesn’t fit our ethical view.  But that is like dismissing Tolstoy’s War and Peace because it doesn’t accurately describe tactical nuclear weapons.  Context matters!  Dismiss the context and you can make the text say whatever you wish.

Topical Index:  brood of vipers, Matthew 23:33, Matthew 3:7, Boteach, exegesis


[1] Shmuley Boteach, Kosher Jesus, p. 130.

[2] The community of the Essenes referred to unfaithful Israelites as “dragon’s venom and viper’s poison.”

Category: Today's Word  | Tags: , , , ,  | 7 Comments

Political Suicide

Wednesday, July 04th, 2012 | Author:

Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.  Romans 13:1 NASB

Governing authorities – Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has written a lot of books.  Two in particular are blockbusters:  Kosher Sex and Kosher Jesus.  I can’t say much about the first since I haven’t read it, but the second, Kosher Jesus, is a great piece of fiction.  Of course, it was meant to be a serious study, even a scholarly one.  But it contains so many mistakes in exegesis, such a lack of understanding of the New Testament text and ethos, and such a tangible polemic against Paul that it is hard to think of it in any other terms than a work of imagination.  Boteach goes to great lengths to “demonstrate” that the authors of the New Testament documents edited and altered the true story of Jesus, a Jewish political rebel.  He sets himself up as the correct interpreter of the documents, telling the reader again and again what pieces of the gospels are true and what pieces have been “heavily edited.”  Of course, how he determines the difference remains unexplained, except for the fact that the “edited” portions are the ones that don’t portray Jesus as the political rebel Boteach wants him to be.

But the most egregious reconstruction of the New Testament comes in his treatment of Paul.  Boteach is willing to accept Jesus as a misguided political zealot but still a hero of first century Judaism.  But Paul?  No, he was a traitor to Judaism, a convert to a new religion and ultimately responsible for accommodating Jesus’ teaching to Gentile ears.  Paul, according to Boteach, made Jesus palatable to Rome!

One of the arguments Boteach uses is Paul’s remark about submitting to authorities.  It doesn’t surprise me that Boteach uses this passage.  He is historically correct when he recognizes that the Christian Church has used Paul’s words to endorse submission to the most vile and corrupt leaders (including, as he notes, men like Hitler).  Boteach draws the conclusion that such advice cannot possibly be in line with the ethics of Jesus and must, therefore, have been constructed by Paul in order to make Paul’s new religion acceptable to the brutal powers of the Roman Empire.  Boteach would be correct – if his exegesis weren’t so flawed.  His history is right.  The Church did and does use this verse to assert control over its followers.  But Boteach didn’t read Nanos (and probably doesn’t even know about him).  Mark Nanos clearly shows that the letter to the Romans is not about pagan politics or governments.  Paul’s remarks must be read in the context of his audience, and that audience is the Gentile-Jewish members within the synagogue.  Nanos demonstrates that Paul is calling for submission to synagogue leaders.  These are the only ones put into position by God and they are the only ones who “will have praise” for righteous behavior.  Boteach understands correctly what the Church has taught.  He just doesn’t understand Paul (and neither does the Church).

Why should we care about a book that contains such blatant inaccuracies and deliberate misunderstandings?  We should care because a lot of people read Boteach as if he were the gospel.  This only leads to further schism.  Was Jesus Jewish?  Of course!  Was he a political zealot who mistakenly thought of himself as the Messiah?  Boteach says so, but his basis for saying this is the most tenuous re-reading of the text.  Was Paul to blame for Christian pogroms against Jews?  Boteach says “Yes.”  But Bo doesn’t know Paul.  (I wonder if he even read Paul’s work).  He certainly knows what the Church says about Paul, but he stops well short of real scholarship.  Unfortunately, his efforts only contribute to greater antagonism between Christians and Jews.  And his claim that all faiths lead ultimately to God makes me wonder if he actually represents Judaism accurately.  He does sell a lot of books.

Nevertheless, Boteach’s big mistake grants us a learning opportunity.  We must correct the exegetical nonsense about submitting to political authorities!  We must read Romans in context!  We must stop the terrible proclamation that God endorses whomever happens to be in power in the government.  God desires righteousness and when the government does not display righteousness, it is wrong, sinful and destructive!  God is not on the side of the king, the prime minister or the president (although they would like us to think so).  Boteach shows us just how ridiculous and immoral it is to offer a blanket endorsement of political entities.  It’s time to bring Paul’s context back into play.  It’s time to say “No,” to unrighteousness no matter where it is found.

We do not submit to evil authorities and Paul never suggests that we should.

Topical Index:  governing authorities, submit, Boteach, Kosher Jesus, Romans 13:1

Category: Today's Word  | Tags: , , , ,  | 19 Comments