Capisco o Conosco

Your testimonies are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live.  Psalm 119:144

Understanding – “Your testimonies.”  We’ve seen this before.  A lot.  ʿēd^ewōtê, the continuing story of God’s involvement with His chosen.  The poet proclaims that the events and circumstances of this story are ṣedeq l^eʿôlām, and as you will recall, that’s like saying they are accurate, justified, ethically correct, and the moral standard for as long as humanity exists—and beyond.  Let’s think about this for a minute.  What the poet proclaims is that the history of God with Israel is not a stage, a precursor to something else.  It’s not a build-up to the emergence of a new way.  I’m sorry to say that all of this is not the Hebrew roots of Christianity.  Christianity isn’t built on this foundation.  If it were, it would never have rejected Torah for without Torah there aren’t any ʿēd^ewōtê.  Christianity might appear to have Hebrew roots, and it certainly claims that it does, but when you really examine where Christian thought originated, you’ll discover Plato, Parmenides, and a host syncretized pagans.  The most amazing thing about Christianity is that it can incorporate nearly any idea into its system somewhere, as the Catholic Church clearly demonstrated over 1500 years.  The psalmist isn’t interested in accommodation.  He wants something else.  Understanding.

You might think that this means comprehension.  You know, an encyclopedic command of all the facts of the faith.  In layman’s terms, a storehouse of religious information.  That’s how the Greek mind works.  Understanding means data collection.  But that’s not Hebraic.  And that’s why the title of this little exercise is “capisco o conosco,” the two Italian verbs for knowing.   Capisco—I know, that is, I have the correct information, the facts.  Conosco—I know, that is, I am acquainted with (a person, a place, etc.)  One is data gathering.  The other is personal involvement.  I know what time the train goes to Milano, but I know Milano Centrale.  So, what is the psalmist asking for?  What he needs to live.  And that isn’t “the facts, ma’am, just the facts.”  He needs the familiarity of relationship.  His idea of understanding means maintaining and growing the connection with the history of God and Israel.

The Western religion abandoned this incredible intimacy!  When philosophically-minded Gentiles decided to distinguish themselves from Judaism, they left that personally-involved history behind.  It wasn’t just a matter of seeking a new path. It was literally throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  As a result of this desperate need to mark themselves as different (see Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines), they had to find a new foundation.  They couldn’t build on the priorʿēd^ewōtê because that source was laden with Jewish ethnicity.  To fully embrace the testimonies, they would have continued to be Jewish and grafted-in to Judaism.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Judaism was monolithic in the first century.  Clearly not, as hundreds of Jews accepted Yeshua as the Messiah.  But that’s not the same as “converting” the testimonies into Greek, and that’s what the Church had to do in order to justify its existence.  The psalmist would be appalled.  How could you claim to continue the deeply personal relationship with YHVH if you fundamentally altered His historical choice?  When the psalmist asks for understanding, he’s banking on that history.  What would a religion be like that dismissed it?

Topical Index: understanding, comprehension, acquaintance, capisco, conosco, ʿēd^ewōtê, Psalm 119:144