Jesus’ Place in First-century Judaism and His Influence on Christian Doctrine

How to cite this article: David Flusser, “Jesus’ Place in First-century Judaism and His Influence on Christian Doctrine” Jerusalem Perspective (2014) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/11528/].

According to the Christian tradition (Mark 6:3; Matt. 13:55), it was stated—as being a matter of common knowledge—by Jesus’ contemporaries in his home town Nazareth in Galilee, that he was the son of a carpenter there, and he perhaps became a carpenter himself. In Jewish society in Jesus’ day, carpenters were reputed to be learned^[20] and, although Jesus did not receive the academic title “rabbi,” he acquired a considerable amount of Jewish learning. He was extremely well-versed in the Hebrew Bible and its traditional interpretation; he was familiar with Jewish ethical and religious teaching;^[21] and he was able to observe the manifold legal prescriptions involved in the Mosaic Law and in Jewish oral tradition.

• ^[1] On the interpretation of this difficult verse, see Peter J. Tomson, "Jewish Food Laws in Early Christian Community Discourse," Semeia 8 (1999): 205-206. ↩
• ^[2] Mechilta de Rabbi Ishmael on Exodus 31:14 (103^b) (eds. Horovitz and Rabin; Jerusalem: Wahermann, 1970), 314. ↩
• ^[3] See Shlomo Pines, “The Jewish Christians of the Early Centuries According to a New Source,” Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 2 (1966): 63; idem, “Gospel Quotations and Cognate Topics in Abd al-Jabbar’s Tathbit,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 9 (1987): 258-259. See also, Shmuel Safrai, "Sabbath Breakers." ↩
• ^[4] David Flusser, Jewish Sources in Early Christianity (trans. John Glucker; Tel Aviv: MOD Books, 1989), 27-31. ↩
• ^[5] See David Flusser, "A New Sensitivity in Judaism and the Christian Message," in Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988), 469-492. ↩
• ^[6] David Flusser, "Some Notes on the Beatitudes," in Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988), 115-125. ↩
• ^[7] See Huub van de Sandt and David Flusser, The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity (CRINT III.5; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), 140-190. ↩
• ^[8] Eric Robertson Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951), 215. ↩
• ^[9] Wilmer Cave Wright, The Works of the Emperor Julian (LCL; New York: Putnam, 1923), 3:431. ↩
• ^[10] On these charismatic wonder workers, see Shmuel Safrai, "Jesus and the Hasidim." ↩
• ^[11] Andre Vaillant, Le livre des secrets d'Henoch, Texte slave et traduction francaise (Paris: Institut D'Etudes Slaves, 1952). ↩
• ^[12] Vaillant, Le livre des secrets d'Henoch, 81. ↩
• ^[13] David Flusser, "Melchizedek and the Son of Man," in Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988), 186-192. ↩
• ^[14] The use of the terms Zion or Jerusalem as a symbol for the Christian Church is to be found already in the New Testament (Gal. 4:26; Heb. 12:22). ↩
• ^[15] David Flusser, "At the Right Hand of Power," in Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988), 301-305. ↩
• ^[16] See R. Steven Notley, "Jesus and the Son of Man." ↩
• ^[17] See David Flusser and Shmuel Safrai, "The Essene Doctrine of Hypostasis and Rabbi Meir," in Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988), 306-316. ↩
• ^[18] David Flusser, "Mary and Israel," in Mary: Images of the Mother of Jesus in Jewish and Christian Perspective (eds. Jaroslav Pelikan, David Flusser, and Justin Lang; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1986), 11-12. ↩
• ^[19] David Flusser, "Martyrology in the Second Temple Period and Early Christianity," in Judaism of the Second Temple Period: The Jewish Sages and Their Literature (trans. Azzan Yadin; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 248-257. ↩
• ^[20] Jacob Levy, Wörterbuch über die Talmudim und Midraschim (Berlin: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1924), 3:338. Cf. y. Avodah Zarah 3:1 where Ashian the carpenter reports a halachah in the name of R. Yohanan. ↩
• ^[21] See David Flusser, “Hillel and Jesus: Two Ways of Self-Awareness,” in Hillel and Jesus: Comparative Studies of Two Major Religious Leaders (eds. James H. Charlesworth and Loren L. Johns; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 93-94. ↩