Aleinu -Matthew 27:25

2013

2014

What is Messianic Judaism? Is it more than a “perplexing mixture of Judaism and Christianity”? Historians, traditional, modernist and Messianic Jews still argue about its definition, ranging from a Christian offshoot movement to a Jewish expression of Judaism. Modernist Jews (especially the Orthodox) and the State of Israel, to a certain extent, reject Messianic Jews as Jews claiming that they are apostates and Christians. Yet Messianic Jews argue their belief in Yeshua (Jesus) makes them complete and “fulfilled Jews” and does not affect or make them reject their Jewish heritage. The question they all try to define is “Who is a Jew?” Regardless of Jewish opposition, Messianic Judaism should be considered another expression of Judaism because of its Jewishness (both biological/physical and spiritual identification), its adherence to Jewish festivals and the Tanakh, and the acceptance of Yeshua as the Messiah. Although first a Christian crusade to reach the Jews with the gospel, Messianic Judaism has develop to be able to stand on its own. Because of these, Messianic Jews should be considered Jews.

How can Jesus be a Jew and yet also be the originator of Christianity? One needs to account for (1) Jesus within Judaism as well as (2) Jesus generating what became Christianity. Jesus’ singularity is found in how he is understood in regards to both. We should then search for “a Jesus who is plausibly placed within Judaism and, at the same time, plausibly generative of the later Christian effects.” The complication here has many areas that need to be examined. I will seek to chart a course for looking at the Jewishness of Jesus by giving particular attention to Jesus’ relationship to the Law in light of Matthew’s idea of fulfillment. And for the sake of more focus for this paper, I will limit my study to the gospel of Matthew, looking closely at Matthew 5 and the notion of Jesus’ "fulfillment" of the Law. Matthew’s gospel account showcases Jesus within the messy work of reformation, progress, and advancement, but not at the expense of the old. It is the struggle of new wine needing new wineskins, or the Lord of the Sabbath showing up to the Sabbath. It is the experience of hopes becoming seen, of what was anticipated as breaking into reality, what can be captured in the word: fulfillment. For John Howard Yoder, fulfillment- language best captures this phenomenon; but the same could be said of the gospel-writer Matthew. In one of the major issues between Judaism and Christianity - that of the position of the Law – Matthew’s Jesus uses the language of fulfillment. Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. What does this mean? How does this work out? And, with our underlying question exposed, what does this mean for the Jewishness of Jesus? As much as I would love to preserve the suspense, here is my conclusion: Matthew works from his christology, confronting the Law with Jesus as the Messiah who is inaugurating the Messianic age, and therefore Jesus’ fulfillment of the Law is tied to his authoritative and definitive interpretation of the Law. In this examination we will see that Jesus’ interpretation of the Law is not innovative or anti-Jewish in regards to any content, but what is really unique is his character as an authoritative interpreter. A close reading of Matthew 5:17-20 should set the study in the right direction.

Kesher Journal , 2022

Based in my PhD research (and articulated more fully in my thesis, later published by Wipf & Stock as ‘Atonement and the New Perspective’), this article in the leading Messianic Jewish theology journal finds its point of reference in one of the most established core themes in Scripture reflected in both Judaism and Christianity—namely, ‘covenant.’ The article proposes (a) freeing that theme from the pervasive supersessionism and theological anti-Judaism embedded in Reformed evangelicalism (through the insights of the ‘New Perspective on Paul’), (b) allowing the antecedent biblical relationship of the God of Israel and the people of Israel to positively inform our understanding of the nature of the Messiah's salvific work (rather than the negative perspective on that relationship that Reformed evangelicalism has largely presupposed), and (c), bringing these into conversation with the doctrine of atonement, in which the Christian understanding has been almost entirely ahistorical (i.e., depending scarcely at all on anything located in God's preceding relationship with his people, Israel). The proposal is consonant with a distinctly Messianic Jewish understanding of the atonement, in continuity with and in direct dependence upon the core tenets of historic Jewish faith.

Tyndale bulletin, 1993

Since the appearance of Franz Overbeck's commentary on Acts in 1870, scholars have struggled to define the role of Judaism in Luke-Acts. Following Overbeck's lead, much Lukan criticism has either asserted or assumed that Luke regards all Jews as sharing in responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus and so standing under God's condemnation. Speech material in Acts ascribing responsibility for the cross to Jews is consequently understood as a Lukan creation, a facet of the wider anti-Jewish polemic which characterises the Lukan corpus. This thesis addresses both of these issues: responsibility for the cross in the wider treatment of Jews in Luke-Acts and the origin of material in Acts ascribing responsibility for the cross to Jews. Close analysis of the relevant texts indicates that Luke in fact does not directly ascribe responsibility for the cross to all Jews but only to Jerusalem specifically. The Sanhedrin leaders, consistently associated with Jerusalem in Luke and Acts, are the focus of this indictment. In the speeches of Acts, however, the people of Jerusalem are likewise charged. The accusation against the people of Jerusalem is consistent with the actions of the crowd before Pilate in Luke's Gospel, but the specific identification of the crowd as Jerusalemite is found only in the speeches of Acts. Furthermore, Luke apportions responsibility for the cross to Gentiles as well. Thus, according to Luke not all Jews are responsible for Jesus' death, and not all those responsible are Jews. Though Luke does not directly indict all Jews for the death of Jesus, it remains possible that by focusing on Jerusalem and the Sanhedrin Luke assigns responsibility to entities which represent the entire Jewish people. Any indication that Luke regards the Jewish nation as a whole as having rejected Jesus and the gospel or that he regards all Israel lJon A. Weatherly, Jewish Responsibility for the Cross in Luke-Acts

The Pacific Journal of Baptist Research, 2015

An adaptation of a paper presented at a symposium held in Sydney by the Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand in May 2014. My contribution was a response to a paper presented by Darrin Snyder Belousek entitled, "Jesus’ Death and the Synoptic Gospels: New Exodus and New Covenant." Though I am basically in agreement with Belousek's case, I offer some critical reflections related to methodology and interpretive details, most notably the "ransom saying" in Mark 10:45.

Jesus the Messiah in Messianic Jewish Theology: The Shaping of Messianic Jewish Christology Paper given at LCJE International Conference, Finland, August 9th, 2003 and published in LCJE Conference Papers. The paper surveys the sources and emergence of Messianic Jewish Christology, examining five representative Christologies.

STUTTGARTER THEOLOGISCHE THEMEN 2007 Summary of Messianic Jewish thought on Doctrine of God, Christology and Torah

2005