The Jewish Elements in the Gospels

Abstract

T is often said that Jesus was substantially in agreement with the Pharisaic Judaism of his day, and that the separation of Christianity from Judaism resulted from the work of his followers, especially Paul. This notion is not certainly false, but the probabilities seem to be against it. To weigh the evidence we must first notice the nature of the Gospels. None is an account of Jesus' life. The authors had evidently no interest in doing what is nowadays expected of biographers. They give no description of the development of Jesus' character, nor the sources of his knowledge. They merely collect stories of the things he did and said, and only those stories which go to confirm their beliefs about him. Consequently the Jewish elements in the Gospels cannot be taken as equivalent to the Jewish elements in Jesus' life and teachings. They are rather the Jewish elements in some stories about Jesus which some later Christians found useful--some, not all, later Christians, for it seems likely that the Gospels were local products and reflect the interests of special groups within the Christian movement. Our information about Judaism, too, comes largely from a period somewhat later than Jesus' lifetime and reflects the interests of a special group of Jews. The variety and the extent of the movements which made up Judaism in the first century are not accurately known. Josephus, Philo and Christian writers on heresies indicate that there were many Jewish sects and at least one other Temple, in Egypt, competing with Jerusalem. Scattered references and archaeological material--especially the many magical amulets with Jewish words on them-suggest that there were many Jews and persons interested in Judaism whose religious beliefs and practices lay even outside the limits of the various sects, in the vague realm bounded by magic on one hand and philosophy on the other. But there is little certain and exact evidence from the first century as to the doctrines of any of the various sects, even of the Pharisees. Few decisions of teachers who flourished before A.D. 70 are cited in the legal discussions which have come down to us. This has been explained by the tradition that only after divisions of opinion multiplied did it become customary to report decisions in the names of the teachers who made them. But this