Recovering the Wisdom of Jesus (Yeshua)

Dr. Lewis S. Keizer, Ph.D. (academia.edu); Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Let's make the Jesus of fantasy a Nordic Aryan to be more popular.

Disciples, listen carefully because in the future I'll be widely misinterpreted. And learn to write.

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8 I. RECOVERING THE AUTHENTIC TEACHING

The Gospels of the New Testament were composed thirty to seventy years after Yeshua was executed and all but possibly one of his disciples had died. 

They were composed by Hellenistic Greek-speaking gentiles whose only historical links with Yeshua were translations from Aramaic of teachings remembered by his disciples and sometimes transmitted as collections of isolated sayings and parables.

These consisted of davarim [1] or prophetic utterances that were more easily remembered in oral tradition because they were expressed in idiomatic rabbinic hyperbole and paradox, mashalim [2] or Kabbalistic allegories, and halakic [3] teachings or rules of behavior leading to individual spiritual rebirth that would gradually transform humanity and bring in the Messianic Age.

The Gospel writers embedded misunderstood and mistranslated Greek versions of these into their own framework of channeled Holy Spirit teachings, oral legends, and messianic proof-texts taken out of scriptural context to create a narrative about the birth, geographically impossible travels, death, and resurrection of the Pauline Lord Jesus [4].

Thus, little can be known about Yeshua, the pre-Christian Jesus of history. However, it is possible to recover and reconstruct his teachings from early Christian documents. This is not just a simple process of organizing all the sayings attributed to him in the Gospels, as Thomas Jefferson did in his Jefferson Bible [5].

He and other Deists of his day regarded Jesus as a mortal man who was a great moral teacher. Jefferson described his first attempt to recover the essential teachings of Jesus, which he entitled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, in a letter to Samuel Adams dated October 13, 1813:

• “We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphibologisms [6] into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines.”

Fantasy pair, goddess and god, mother and son

Since Jefferson’s time, scientific biblical scholarship has revolutionized our understanding of how, where, when, by whom, using what sources, and for what purposes both the canonical and non-canonical biblical literature was composed [7].

Using the many tools of peer-reviewed literary-historical biblical criticism available to scholars today, it is possible to recover and reconstruct the extant Aramaic davarim, mashalim, and other historical teachings of Yeshua and understand them as they were given and intended.

But the extant sayings and other teachings of Yeshua imply much more than the moral philosophy admired by Jefferson. They also comprise far more than the tiny collection of “most probably authentic” sayings identified by modern scholars of the Jesus Seminar [8].

It is necessary to distinguish what Jefferson tried to do, and what the Jesus Seminar did, from what I have set out to accomplish in this book. I have tried to recover and restore a coherent body of historical teachings — not to merely identify probable historical sayings of Yeshua that were memorized or remembered verbatim by his disciples, as the Jesus Seminar tried to do.

After more than a decade, the Seminar was able to confidently identify only eleven sayings as historical. I, however, will identify and interpret a much more comprehensive body of authentic davarim, mashalim, and other teachings using what I consider to be better criteria [9].

In Chapter III I detail my methodology for recovering the pre-Christian teachings of Yeshua. But for now I will say that it begins with a critical evaluation of sayings, parables, and other first- and second-century aspects of the Jesus tradition transmitted through the redaction and theological bias of all early sources, whether Jewish Christian, Pauline, proto-orthodox gentile Christian, or Gnostic.

There is a great deposit of early teachings attributed to Jesus not only in the Q material and the Aramaic Core of the Gospel of Thomas — the basic sources for what was declared authentic by the Jesus Seminar — but in the special material of Matthew, Mark, Luke-Acts, the Johannine writings, the Jewish-Christian Book of Revelations, various early New Testament epistles, and sayings or teachings we find quoted or summarized in the First and Second Epistles of Clement, the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, Papias [10], and Justin Martyr.

I have also found the excellent new reconstruction of the original New Testament or Evangelion of the second-century Gnostic Bishop Marcion recently published by Westar Institute [11].

Fellow Jason DeBuhn to be a useful resource [12]. This earliest New Testament consisted of the shorter early text of the Gospel of Luke and ten Pauline epistles, including all of the authentic ones but excluding the Pastoral Epistles and Hebrews [13].

Why cast such a wide net? Because in the first and second centuries, written “memoirs” of the Apostles were still circulating alongside oral traditions handed down through several generations of church leaders. The earliest forms of the canonical Gospels and other Christian writings were being composed and copied using both written sources and oral Jesus tradition.

Scribal glosses and other content would be added over the ensuing centuries. The extant writings from the first and second centuries constitute what we know today as the earliest versions of the Christian Gospels and Epistles, the works of the Apostolic...

• BOOK: The Pre-Christian Teachings of Yeshua

Table of Contents

• I. RECOVERING THE AUTHENTIC TEACHINGS...8
• A Coherent Body of Exquisite Teachings...11
• How to Read and Study this Book...14
• II. INTRODUCTION: “MEMOIRS OF THE APOSTLES”...15
• Resurrection Visions and Pneumatic Experiences...21
• Holy Spirit Channeling and the Foundations of Christianity...23
• III. CRITERIA FOR AUTHENTICATING TEACHINGS OF YESHUA...30
• Criteria Used by the Jesus Seminar...30
• My Criteria for Orality and Irony...31
• My Criteria for the Seminar’s “Trust in God” Category...34
• My Further Criteria for Reconstructing Redacted Sayings...35
• IV. THE PROPHETIC PROCLAMATION (BASOR) OF YESHUA...39
• Yeshua and Merkabah Ascent...39
• The Prophetic Basor of John the Baptist...41
• Reconstructing Yeshua’s Prophetic Basor...45
• Yeshua’s View of the Divine Malkuth...48
• Bar-Enash: The Son-of-Mankind Messiah...48
• The Son-of-Mankind Messiah of Yeshua...51
• Galilean Spirituality vs. Judean: Yeshua’s Opponents...59
• V. GLOSSARY: Important Words and Concepts in the Hebrew/Aramaic Language of Yeshua...63
• VI. COMPREHENSIVE LECTIONARY OF THE PRE-CHRISTIAN TEACHINGS OF YESHUA...73
• I. The Basor...73
• II. Exorcism: Defense and Release from Internal and External Psychic attack...75
• III. The Holy Spirit, Ruach ha-Qodesh...79
• IV. Beatitudes of the Basor...80
• V. Kabbalistic Davarim on the Humility of the Saints...83
• Baptismal Humility...84
• VI. Davarim: God’s Universal Spiritual Sovereignty [Malkuth] and the Sovereignty of the New Humanity [Bar-Enash]...85
• VII. Mashalim of the Malkuth: The Invisible Growth...89
• VIII. Halakah Against Religious Self-Righteousness...92
• IX. Halakah: Concerning Judgment [Mishpat]...94
• X. Mashal: Mishpat of the Bar-Enash...97
• XI. Halakah: Renewal of the Covenant (B’rith)...98
• XII. Halakah: Maintaining Spiritual Purity...102
• XIII. Mashal: Mixed Good and Evil Before the Messianic Age...104
• XIV. Yeshua’s Legal Halakah...105
• XV. The Lord’s Prayer...109
• Abba: “Father - Mother”...112
• Lechem Ha-Mahar: Bread of the Morrow...113
• Forgive us as we forgive...114
• Do not Abandon us unto our Trials...115
• Doxology: “For Thine is…”...116
• XVI. Halakah from the Jesus Traditions of the Sermon on the Mount/Plain...116
• Concerning Oaths...117
• Non-Retaliation and Kindness for Those Who Abuse You...118
• Loving Enemies...119
• XVII. Mashal of the Good Samaritan...120
• XVIII. Davarim about Yeshua’s Family...122
• XIX. Yeshua’s View of Devotion...126
• XX. Teachings on Sin and Forgiveness...128
• XXI. Mashalim of Persistence in Prayer and Seeking...129
• XXII. Davarim: Good and Evil Yetzerim...131
• XXIII. Mashalim of Teshuvah: Lost Sheep and Lost Coin...135
• XXIV. Mashalim of Teshuvah: Repentant Tax Collector and Prodigal Son...137
• XXV. Private Halakah for Overcoming Se’eph, the Dual Nature of the Heart...139
• XXVI. Davarim on Spiritual Initiation and Rebirth...141

FOOTNOTES

1. Singular davar.
2. Singular mashal.
3. Halakah was the body of teachings, scriptural interpretations, and moral behavior transmitted by a Jewish hakim or Sage in the proto-rabbinic period of Yeshua. The only non-Christian reference to Yeshua by a contemporary historian was made by Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews, where he described him as an hakim — not as a prophet. He also described John the Baptist as a Jewish martyr and gave details about the political murder of James the brother of Yeshua “who was called Messiah.”
4. Paul’s epistles are the earliest extant Christian writings. They consist of letters to the gentile churches he founded: First Thessalonians (ca. 51 AD), Philippians (ca. 52–54 AD), Philemon (ca. 52–54 AD), the First Corinthian redaction of several epistles (ca. 53–54 AD), Galatians (ca. 55 AD), the Second Corinthian redaction (ca. 55–56 AD), and Romans (ca. 55–58 AD), in which he expounds upon his fully developed Christology. They were copied and disseminated throughout the early churches and were seminal to the development of proto-orthodox theology and Christology. The Pseudo-Pauline pastoral epistles were composed in his name a generation later when gentile church offices and order had become institutional.
5. The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Cf. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible.
6. For Jefferson, this word meant misrepresentations, misunderstandings. The supernatural miracles appear as early as Mark’s story of about Jesus walking on water similar to later docetic legends that Jesus had an illusory body, didn’t leave footprints, abandoned man Jesus or substituted another body for his crucifixion. The Docetics included the ascetic Thomas Gnostics who correctly said the resurrection body of Jesus was a spirit, as Paul also maintained, but were vigorously opposed in the Fourth Gospel which described semeia or “signs” in favor of miracles, but portrayed a doubting Thomas who did not believe in the resurrection of flesh.
7. For an excellent presentation on what archeology has revealed about the ancient Hebrews, their legends, and the writing of the so-called Old Testament, I recommend the long YouTube video linked here. Don’t be put off by the sensationalist title given by the producers of this NOVA documentary youtu.be/tQBQ1wIsIdM.
8. westarinstitute.org/projects/the-jesus-seminar/jesus-seminar-phase-1-sayings-of-jesus.
9. See my discussion of criteria for authenticity of sayings and teachings in the next chapter.
10. Papias transmits a 2nd century Jesus tradition very similar to that of Matthew’s Gospel. Many scholars have assumed he was quoting from Matthew, but there are enough differences to suggest that both were dependent upon the same oral Jesus tradition. In my collection of teachings, I cite both Papias and Matthew for their common sayings that I deem authentic.
11. The Jesus Seminar project was founded by Prof. Robert Funk in 1985 and was sponsored by the Westar Institute who published its findings and continues to sponsor public lectures and publish new work in the area. westarinstitute.org.
12. Luke-Acts and certain Pauline letters formed the first New Testament collection in A.D. 144 by the Gnostic Bishop Marcion, which many think forced the proto-orthodox churches to create their own New Testament versions, which wouldn’t conform into the modern 27 -book canon until the edict of Bishop Athanasius in the 4th century. The groundbreaking scholarship to reconstruct Marcion’s New Testament was done by Jason D. BeDuhn and published in 2013. He painstakingly compiled, evaluated and drew from all extant 2nd century sources.
13. According to the Muratorian Canon it also included two pseudo-Pauline Gnostic epistles: The Epistle to the Alexandrians, and the epistle to the Laodiceans.