BibleScribbler

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Judaism at the time of Paul

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Yesterday I bought Paul by Bornkamm at the library book sale.

I got 5 books and the funniest part was that 3 of them were about the apostle Paul. I guess they have served their time at the public library! Here is an interesting quote from the opening pages:

“Temples were still erected for the old gods, priest continued to serve and sacrifice to be offered, but these were obsolete; and the myths about the gods were a spent force, no longer capable of satisfying the individual’s longing fr protection and blessing, salvation and redemption, in this world and the next. Everywhere a process was afoot of syncretizing the old religions with new ones streaming in especially from the east, and the odder and vaguer these were, the greater their attraction. A whole host of mystery cults and doctrines of salvation poised eternal salvation and deliverance from the powers of fate and death. But this was also te time when there was a radical rationalistic criticism of the various religions, which, in the shape of diverse philosophies reaching even the man in the street, strove fora spiritualization of religion and therefore looked down on the rival miracle-workers and alleged purveyors of salvations bustling about in the market place.

“This is the background against which we have to view Judaism with all its differences and strangeness, its belief in the one, invisible God, Lord of heaven and earth, the rigor of its law, its ethical and ritual commandments (observance of the Sabbath, the dietary laws, etc.), its uniform way of life throughout the whole world, the venerable antiquity of its history, its call to turn away from all idolatry and moral confusion, and its proclamation of the judgment about to overtake the impenitent and of the peace and righteousness which the Messiah, soon to come, would bring in his train.” – p.7

It kind of boggles my mind to realize that people were attracted to the rule of law and the moral standards of Judaism. On the other hand, when I think of the spiritual anarchy that would come from being MUCH more diverse and multi-cultural, I can see the draw of moral standards. We are pretty mono-cultural in the United States, as much as we like to think we are a melting pot. Imagine if every state were a sovereign nation with its own language, laws, customs, and religions? That is more like the world around 20 A.D. Traders would pass through from all different nations because they could all travel by land from one nation to another. You put a 10,000 mile-wide moat around a nation and you really close it off. Considering that the god of the Jews is the one true god who wrote His name on the heart & soul of all mankind, it makes sense that people would be drawn to Him wherever the message went.

The other part that surprised me is that Judaism had been made portable. I didn’t realize this either, but I can’t help but have a little conservative/fundamentalist sadness that Judaism had made this turn:

“To all intents and purposes, the temple had been superseded by the synagogue, sacrifice by the exposition of the Torah, and the priests by the scribes and lawyers.” – p.8

Joseph paid their debt

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Genesis 43:23 “Everything is fine,”t the man in charge of Joseph’s household told them. “Don’t be afraid. Your God and the God of your father has given you treasure in your sacks.s I had your money.”t Then he brought Simeon out to them.

“I had your money,” is also “I got the money for your grain.”
The guard got his money for their grain, which means that when Joseph had his men put money back in their bags when they were there last, he put money from his own account in there. He stayed right with the accounting of Pharaoh and didn’t steal any grain, he just paid for their grain himself!

Punishment Without Shame

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I was reading John 19 about Jesus and Pilate and followed a reference from a friend to Deut 25.

Deut. 25:3 but he must not give him more than forty lashes. If he is flogged more than that, your brother will be degraded in your eyes.

Punishment under Levitical law was not intended to degrade one person in the eyes of another. Rules like this were in place to deliberately keep someone from being degraded. A notion of punishment without degradation seems so foreign to us. In our law system, the degradation begins with the mug-shot on the web version of the newspaper. then comments and mockery are allowed toward the person. There were 4 people arrested for dealing & making meth yesterday in Evansville. As usual, they looked absolutely miserable. When I saw the article there were already 4 comments under the article about how the people looked.

It seems really foundational to understand that God never desired shame to be carried along with punishment.

Judging the Law Rightly

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“Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all astonished. Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a child on the Sabbath. Now if a child can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing the whole man on the Sabbath? Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment.””
(John 7:21-24 NIV)

More and more I am seeing that Jesus just does things differently than we have thought things should be. I am reminded of Isaiah 58, where God says “Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?” (Is 58:5 NIV)
By the warping of the Law, fasting became fasting for the sake of fasting, and it was just about not eating. The Sabbath became a day when you COULDN’T do this and that, instead of a day of resting and reflecting and looking at all the things God had done in the past week and allowing Him to be the focal point and One and Only Achiever for that day.
I almost want to go back and start reading in Exodus and Leviticus, and look at every law from the perspective of God wanting to do something or show Himself through that Law. One day and the Donut Bank a guy quizzed me when I walk talking about the Babylonian exile.
“Why did God haul all of those people off?”
“Because they had turned away from God.”
“What was the main way they did that?” He asked me with a look on his face like he knew the answer and was just testing me.
“Be…cause they did not give the land a Sabbath rest every seven years. God exiled them and the land had 70 years of Sabbath rest.”
“Well why does God care so much about land?! I thought he cared about people and not land resting?”
I had to think for a minute, and he sat there and didn’t break the silence, and none of my Bible study buddies chimed in b/c I think they were afraid of getting the interrogation next! Then I thought of the answer, “Because God wanted them to know that He would provide for them if they followed His ways. It wasn’t about the land getting a break, it was about the people seeing that God would provide for them on that 7th year when they did not plant or harvest.”

That answer must have been the one he was looking for, because he laughed and we all went back to talking about God in a more conversational and less quiz way.

That conversation and this section where Jesus is telling the Pharisees to judge rightly about healings taking precedence over the Sabbath makes me want to investigate these laws. The Father did not give these laws in the same spirit that people put the ten commandments up at a courthouse, He gave them to be a magnet to Himself.

When a student of a rabbi got something in his teaching wrong, the rabbi would shout at him and tell him he had abolished the entire law by getting that one point wrong. Whenever the student got one thing right, just one little slice of understanding of the law, the rabbi would commend him and tell him that he had just fulfilled the whole law, just by getting that one thing right. (they were seriously into hyperbole)

The Law was given to draw people to God. After a sufficient time of scrambling that Law into a horrible system, God sent Jesus to fulfill the task of drawing people to God. He fulfilled the Law by showing us the intent of the Law.