Let me begin by thanking Lois Tverberg (co-author of "Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus") for being gracious enough to send me a copy of the book (especially when I'm in Malaysia, that is a considerable great distance from the States!) and giving me the opportunity to blog about it! A special shout out to Kurt as well over at Groans From Within who was thoughtful enough to recommend my blog as a possible reviewer of the book. Do follow his discussion of the book over at his blog:
Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus Intro; Can we find a more Jewish Jesus?
Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus 1; Do You have the 'anointin'?
Today I will start to do a blow by blow reflection as well as some thoughts on each chapter of the book. So if you have the time, join in the conversation. Your comments will be greeted with open arms. If you haven't been following, I have already done a review of the book here on my blog which you can see here.
Thoughts and Reflection
One of the things that has bothered me whenever I read the gospels before was the puzzling effect that it had on my mind. This has been a lifelong (well maybe not lifelong, i just tend to exaggerate sometimes) struggle for me from time to time. I had a hard time reading the Sermon on the Mount because it seemed to run counter with Paul's gospel. At some points Jesus seemed a far more striker Lord then some might want him to be; 'meek and mild'.
At points I simply get frustrated with Jesus' parables and sayings, simply foreign. Foreign might be an understatement but, foreign might be a better description for labeling Jesus' words. Why foreign? Because Jesus lived in a time when our values did not exist. He lived in a cultural background that had different thought patterns than what we might have now. Another factor to the foreignness of Jesus is, his nationality; he was a Jew.
In the introduction page, the authors says that,“The goal of this book is not so much to help you understand Judaism as to help you hear Christ’s life-changing words with greater clarity and force.” (8) With this, one could come to the conclusion that studying Jesus' Jewishness brings together clarity and force to words that would have been lifeless or sounded clueless to our ears. But some people might cringe to this proposal. Take these quotes from Piper in his book "The Future of Justification" on sources bearing in mind Jesus' cultural context,
"...the interpreter may misunderstand the first-century idea." (34)
"...while it may accurately reflect certain first-century documents, nevertheless it may reflect only one among many first-century views." (35)
"...while the New Testament writer may embrace the external idea in general, a scholar might misapply it to the biblical text." (36)
The overall view is that it is simply impossible to reach a consensus on what is true of Jesus' first-century context and therefore the probability of distorting the text is considered high. Though I am aware of the difficulty of this should navigating our way to clearly understand God's words in the context of his chosen people deter us from taking the plunge? Lois and Ann continue on to say that,
“We have also been careful to place Jesus within his first century Jewish context rather than that of later ages. We hope the end result will be of help to pastors, students, and lay people who find their reading of the bible all the more fascinating and life transforming as they come to appreciate and understand the Jewish context that shaped it.” (8)
For me, based on Lois and Ann's findings which they have projected in the book, their take on Jesus' first-century background is refreshing breath of fresh air. Although those who might be curious to find out where they got their sources could look up the page on the books that they researched through. I would not go as far as saying that they have covered all the bases on first century issues because i'm not an expert in this field yet (hopefully someday) but there is a degree of humility resonating all throughout the book.
To conclude this post, Jesus' Jewish context might be a new field of study, but non the less a minefield you might want to look at seriously simply for the fact that clarity abides there. This calls for a restructuring in how we used to view Jesus. For me personally, understanding Jesus in his Jewishness makes things more clearer. 
I'm beginning to see that we read the bible with many types of lenses. I say this because Piper just can't see eye to eye on Wright's way of reading the bible. Both of them have valid points, its just that I've out grown the reformed lens of reading and understanding the Bible.
I also think that as we journey in our lives our reading of the bible also takes on a journey together with us. It make me wonder, what if I had never grown tired of reading using reformed lenses, would I still come to the same conclusions now in the way I read the bible? There is a big chance I would just stay 'reformed'.
With this comes other questions again. What made me tired of reading the bible in Piper's dimension? Was it the curiosity element? I mean there are some people who like to learn new stuff and posture their minds in that direction. But then I'm not saying that we are swept away easily by various trends. In a big way, we reason through and wrestle this new wave. Thinking, "I wonder how will this work out?"
But with this new lens in motion, brooding it's growth in me, it's pretty difficult to present this new way of reading the bible to people. My recent attempts in lending N. T. Wright's "Surprised by Hope" has been met by some disapproval, but thankfully not the heresy kind of vibe. Is reading the bible taking Wright's lens in taking the Jewish context seriously new? Maybe, to some degree.
But right now people are still happy, reading Piper (to some degree), Rich Warren (at an elevated level) and people who write about their heaven infused visitation (these books sell like hot cakes!).
I'm going through John Piper's "The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright" at the moment and just arrived at chapter 3. Obviously I'm taking my time to read and think through the book. One thing that I found notable to note at the moment upon the few pages that I have just skimped through is that Piper 'disregards' reading the NT taking into consideration of it's Jewish context. Although he criticizes Wright's heavy usage of first-century thought in understanding Paul and also the NT and gives some needed warnings on leaning too much on it in our reading and understanding I'm not convinced with his argument. Reading the first chapter kind of gave way to the framing of his ideas and understanding the doctrine of justification which seems obvious taking the cover of his book into consideration.
One of the things that has attracted me to Wright's writings and thought of Jesus and the NT is namely the framework that he uses to frame the understanding. I like the stance of understanding Jesus in his Jewish context. I would say it illumines the NT to the point of understanding it better. Why so?
Let me frame this in one of the struggles I had with the bible and my christian faith. Being a new christian, one of the things that bothered me was Paul's constant use of "first for the Jew, then for the Gentile". Although I was happy being a follower of Jesus, it bothered me that reading the NT there was a lot of Jewish stuff having notable mention (I secretly wished that I was a Jew to be honest because Gentiles seemed second class citizens!). The framework of Jews working for their salvation (self righteousness) and the notion of Jesus coming to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law because we could not fulfill it was something I found incomplete. Even the gospel message that explained Genesis 1-3 where we in the beginning were supposed to have relationship with God and sin came in the was by route of the Fall. God's remedy was to send Jesus to die for our sins and we to believe in this wonderful sacrifice.
In all this framework shaping our christian faith, it seemed that there was no room for the OT, particularly in God's election of a nation, Israel, as God's plan of redemption. The gospel presentation that I was taught cut out this vital element of God's plan by simply throwing Jesus in the picture without any reference to his Jewish upbringing and thought life as a Jew. The OT and NT seemed very different reflections on God and by far miles apart.
My first encounter with taking Jesus' Jewishness seriously was Philip Yancey's "The Jesus I Never Knew". I'm sorry to say that I thought that this understanding was revolutionary, something new even. I think it shows how far we have wandered off in taking Jesus' Jewish context seriously, at least that is how I would state it. My journey in taking Jesus' Jewishness seriously was further aroused reading an article from Christianity Today (February 8, 1999 edition) with a special section entitled "The New Theologians". The article focused on 5 theologians of note; Richard Hays, Kevin Vanhoozer, Miroslav Volf, Ellen T. Charry and N. T. Wright. I like the article so much that I vowed to own and read books by these authors of whom I put as my new heroes. I can say that this was the day that I stared to think that being a scholar was cool or in the eyes of some the day I was converted to dweeb land. I can safely say that I own a substantial amount of their works in my library (I have 3 of Hays', 4 of Vanhoozer's, 1 of Volf's and Charry's and the bulk of Wright's work!). Of all the authors mentioned here it was my reading of Wright that propelled and compelled me further in really taking Jesus' Jewishness seriously.
Reading the bible after reading it 'Wrightly' has made the bible more readable in the sense that the context and framework that Wright proposes for us to gives understanding of God's big picture; His grand story of redemption (Genesis- Abraham and Israel- Jesus and the Church).
