Self Identity In The Gospel Of Jew

The issue between the Gospel of Matthew and Judaism is a convoluted one. The picture that emerges when talking about whether Jesus’s teaching is anti-Semitic or not becomes ambivalent and it is not easy to interpret, as Coogan has pointed out, “Matthew functions as a bridge between the two Testaments . . .”(Coogan, 1746). In the context of Jewish-Christian dialogue, the fundamental question is how much of Judaism’s principles and practices ascribed to Jesus are preserved from traditional Judaism? As much as Matthew’s Gospel has been considered to be an extremely anti-Semitic, especially in the Christian realm, there remains substantial evidence indicating how Jesus, as presented by Matthew, had preserved the quintessence of Judaism.

Matthew’s Christology is one that emphasises to a Jewish audience the Jewishness of Jesus. It will be the purpose of this paper to argue that the raison d’etre of Matthew’s Christology is to portray Jesus as entirely compatible if not with the Judaism of his day then with ancient Judaic tradition, namely the Old Testament. Whilst there are numerous titles given to Jesus that are exclusive/predominant within the Matthean account, such as that of Son of God, it is the writer’s assertion that these merely complement Matthew’s central theses; this being the portrayal of Jesus as Messiah and so, as such, will not be investigated except where they promote this conclusion. This fulfilment of Judaic tradition will be

Matthew’s Gospel has been understood as Jewish-Christian in outlook. Matthew had a number of purposes for writing the Gospel. One was “to instruct and exhort members of his community.” He has two broad categories of material: narrative and discourse. Many scholars conclude “Matthew’s primary intent was to write a handbook for church leaders to assist them in preaching, teaching, worship, mission, and polemic.” In his Gospel, Matthew focused clearly on

Craig Blomberg, New Testament Scholar and Professor at Denver Seminary, provides an insightful commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. Blomberg investigates the text using a historical, literary, and theology analysis. The commentary begins with an introduction analyzing the following 7 topics regarding the entirety of the Matthean Gospel: (1) structure, (2) theology, (3) purpose and audience, (4) sources, (5) date, (6) author, (7) and historicity and genre. Blomberg, then, throughout the rest of the commentary, provides a verse by verse discourse on the text by breaking it down into 3 main sections: (I) Introduction to Jesus’ Ministry (1:1-4:16), (II) The Development of Jesus’ Ministry (4:17-16:20), and (III) The Climax of Jesus’ Ministry (16:21-28:20).

Two thousand years ago, the birth of Jesus, arguably the most influential man the world has ever seen, altered history forever. Christians know him as the Messiah, the son of God who came to save all of mankind, and for others, he may just be a great teacher and person of history. It is the latter that Reza Aslan attempts to shed an unbiased light on by comparing the Jesus that modern Christians believe in to the Jesus that Aslan believes would have fit into first-century Palestine: a violet revolutionary, dedicated to the eradication of the Roman government in Israel and the deposition of the rich priestly class. Aslan paints a portrayal of Jesus using knowledge of the time period, Scripture that has been taken out of context and misinterpreted, and most of all, the author’s imagination and powerful rhetoric to cover up his faulty argumentation. In his book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, Reza Aslan recreates an interesting but purely speculative image of the historical Jesus through exploring the political and social history of first-century Palestine, the life and teachings of Jesus, and the development of early Christianity.

First of all, Matthew was a Jew who was convinced that the messiah had come. Many of his writings were Jewish, for that reason. However, he took issue with Jewish leadership and the blinding methods they used. He used this perspective and wrote anti- Jewish versus.

In Jesus of Nazareth, Paula Fredriksen seeks to answer one pressing question about the historical Jesus: Why was Jesus crucified? Through an exploration of written sources, including the Gospels, Paul’s letters, works by pagan authors, works by Jewish authors like Josephus, and Second Temple Judaism sources, as well as archeological evidence, Fredriksen attempts to pull different understandings of Jesus, the society in which he lives, and the Christian movement that followed him into an historical image of Jesus. His message, journey, and impact are all topics of Fredriksen’s discussion, but her emphasis is on the information we know for certain: Jesus was crucified and none of his followers experienced the same fate. Fredriksen introduces the book with background information about historical Jesus research. She is careful to outline significant amounts of disagreement among scholars because there are so many different research methods, sources, and interpretations involved in the process.

Levine’s book titled The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus proves to be a highly informative resource when trying to understand the intricate relationship between Christianity and Judaism. Levine’s primary objective seems to be a desire to address the idea that there is a vast, irreconcilable disparity between the beliefs and practices of Christians and Jews. Levine’s central argument focuses upon a common misperception of this dissimilarity: it is the result of Jesus being in direct opposition to Judaism. Furthermore, she contends that only a decided openness and interfaith dialogue between Christianity and Judaism can truly provide the most complete and compelling portrait of Jesus’s life and work. To me, the most edifying facet of Levine’s argument was her call to anchor Jesus within the historical and cultural context in which he was teaching in order to best understand his work and his message. Levine not only provides support for this idea throughout The Misunderstood Jew, but near the end of the novel also offers up ways in which both Christians and Jews can reconcile these two ostensibly conflicting perceptions of Jesus. Therefore, in this essay, I will analyze Levine’s arguments regarding the importance of historical/cultural context in Chapter One and Chapter Four while synthesizing it with her solutions presented in Chapter Seven.

The Gospel according to Matthew is the first book in the New Testament, and also serves as a bridge between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The gospel tells us of Jesus and his teachings. It is believed that the Gospel originated with Matthew, one of Jesus' disciples, and it circulated anonymously (Harris 149). The message in this gospel was compiled to minister to a Jewish and Jewish-Christian community when tensions between early Christians and postwar Jewish leaders aggravated bitter controversy. The Gospel of Matthew was written as an encouragement to the Greek-speaking Jewish Christians and Gentiles who were, at least partly, Torah observant during the 80s C.E. probably at Antioch in Syria

In recent years, I have gained an interest in the Jewish culture which most likely began when my Ethics of Jesus professor mentioned and emphasized that Jesus was Jewish, lived in Jewish society, and fulfilled the Law. As I saw how Christianity's roots were in Judaism, I realized that I knew little about the religion and practices of people who I have grown up knowing as friends, neighbors, and teachers. This meant that I knew relatively little about the society and culture that was prevalent in Jesus' time. As a Christian, I seek to gain new insight on Jesus' parables and what they meant to his contemporaries who listened to him. I also wish to gain more insight on the structure of the society at that time and how external influences may

Pharisees were one of three major Jewish sects at the time, the other two being the Sadducees, which we hear a lot of in the Gospel, and the Essenes, whom we here almost none of. The word Pharisee comes from the Hebrew word ‘pharisaios’, which means “Separated One”, and they definitely separated themselves from other beliefs and customs of the Jewish lands. Before the Jewish Exile in, the Jews worshipped in the temple of Jerusalem, after the exile, the Jews worshiped in the synagogue, having taken on pagan religions of the Greek upon being Hellenized.

To understand the way Jesus, the disciples, and most of the Jewish community lived, 7-2 B.C. to 30-33 A.D., one must look into further detail at the surrounding communities. One of the surrounding nations to the Jewish were the Samaritans - ‘…an offshoot the Jewish religion, from which they split over the question of the location of the temple as week as other matter; the descendants of settlers who were transplanted into palestine in 722 B.C. by the Assyrian king Sargon…’. It is possible to summarize their alienation and and their main differences saying that it was a process that began with the Kindgom of Israel being divided, and with promoted antagonism it continued through successive incidents, including the foreign tribes sent into Samaria by Assyria, rejection of this new Samaritan community by Jewish people, the building of a temple on Mount Gerazim instead of Jerusalem, the political and religious opportunism of the Samaritans, and the destruction of both the Samaritan temple and their capital of Shechem by John Hyrcanus during the 2nd century B.C. The Samaritan religion at the time of Jesus had become strongly anti-Jewish, but was also Mosaic and quasi-Sadducean. Jesus recognized their pagan origins and the falsity of their religious claims. To fully understand how this knowledge aids are interpretation of the people living in Jesus’ time and the Gospels, one must analyze the Samaritans origins, their beliefs and writings, and their relationship with the Jewish

I do not think that Jews, Catholics, or Muslims should have to change their ways just to accommodate the beliefs of someone else. People should be able to dress how ever they please, and if they want to wear a kippa, a cross, or a headscarf, then they should have the freedom to do so. It is not their fault that others do not “like” their religions; people like ISIS extremists should be the ones punished not those whom they are punishing.

Jesus' decision to physically cast out the moneylenders from the temple stands as one of the most interesting events of his life, because it represents what seems to be the only moment in the Gospel narratives where he becomes visibly angry to the point of physical action. While one could argue that Jesus is frequently (and justifiably) angry with the disciples from time to time, this is the only moment that Jesus' anger moves him to physical force. Although the event is recorded in all four of the Gospels, this study will focus specifically on its rendering in Matthew, because when considered in the context of Matthew's larger narrative, one can see how Jesus' decision to cleanse the temple does not represent an aberration in either his character or theological message, but rather the natural culmination of Jesus' life and works prior to that point, and demonstrates a kind of revolutionary, anti-authoritarian element of Jesus' message of salvation that is all too often overlooked by Christians and critics alike.

The Book of Matthew, he said, is the most complete account of Jesus’ life on earth, and of His message to the world. The professor says that Gospel of Matthew was written for the conversion of the Jews. He further stated that the writer of this book was obviously interested in the establishment and maintenance of the Church, and the coming of Christ. Hence, the presenter was quite adamant about his