Praise for

Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus

Lois Tverberg is a superb, scholarly guide.She immerses us in Jesus
Jewish context so that our deepened comprehension of Jesus words
can impel us to love God more fully and richly. This book will indeed
change your mind, your (Hebrew) heart, and your life!
Marva J. Dawn, theologian, speaker, and author of
Keeping the Sabbath Wholly and Being Well When Were Ill

Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus is a must-read for every follower

of Jesus. It takes us beyond the best-selling Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi
Jesus, which is the starting point for any student interested in the
background of Jesus message. Using the latest scholarship in the
languages and cultures of first-century Israel and the Mediterranean
world, Tverberg brings the results of this scholarship to Christian
readers. This book is filled with great practical wisdom that you can
put to work in your life immediately.
David Bivin, author and editor, Jerusalem Perspective

In this illuminating sequel to Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, Tverberg has again done the serious student of Scripture a favor. At once
edifying and challenging, Tverberg skillfully enables her readers to
understand and apply more of the master Teachers expressions in
their original Jewish setting. Let the feast begin.
Marvin R. Wilson, PhD, professor of biblical and
theological studies, Gordon College

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 1

12/7/11 12:36 pm

In Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus, Lois Tverberg joins the disciplined mind of a research scientist (which she is!) with the passion
of a true follower of Jesus (which she is!) to give us all an invaluable
window into the life and witness of Jesus. When I write or preach on
anything that Lois has thought or written about, I always consult her.
Her work is a treasure, and Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus is a mustread for all who love Jesus and long for his appearing!
Rev. Dr. Timothy Brown, president,
Western Theological Seminary

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 2

12/7/11 12:36 pm

Walk ing
in the
Dust of Ra bbi

JE S U S

How the Jewish Wor ds of

Jesus Can Change Your Life

L
OIS T VERBERG
Foreword by Ray Vander Laan
Afterword by Ann Spangler

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 3

11/11/11 2:56 pm

ZONDERVAN
Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus
Copyright 2012 by Lois Tverberg
This title is also available as a Zondervan ebook. Visit www.zondervan.com/ebooks.
This title is also availablein a Zondervan audioedition. Visit www.zondervan.fm.
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tverberg, Lois.
Walking in the dust of Rabbi Jesus : how the Jewish words of Jesus can change
your life/ Lois Tverberg.
p.
cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index [if applicable].
ISBN 978-0-310-28420-8 (hardcover)
1. Jesus ChristJewishness. 2. Jesus ChristWords. I. Title.
BT590.J8T842011
232.9'06 dc23
2011035954
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New
International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by
permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible.
Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are
offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement
by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for
the life of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy,
recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Published in association with the literary agency of Ann Spangler and Company, 1420
Pontiac Road SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49506.
Cover photography: iStockphoto
Interior illustration: iStockphoto
Interior design: Beth Shagene
Printed in the United States of America
11121314151617/DCI/22212019181716151413121110987654321

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 4

12/9/11 3:08 PM

Contents

Foreword by Ray Vander Laan

I Hearing Our Rabbis Words

with New Ears|13
1 Brushing Away the Dust of the Ages

15

2 Shema: Living Out What You Hear

31

3 Loving God with Everything Youve Got

42

4 Meeting Myself Next Door

55

II Living Out the Words

of Rabbi J
esus|67
5 Gaining a Good Eye

69

6 The Mystery of the Name

81

7 How to Have a Kosher Mouth

92

8 Taking My Thumb Off the Scale

104

9 Praying with Chutzpah 117

10 Thinking with Both Hands

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 7

130

11/11/11 2:56 pm

IIIStudying the Word

with Rabbi Jesus|143
11 The Treasure of the Text

145

12 The Secrets That God Keeps

154

13 Our Longing Father

165

14 Gods Image Stamped in Dust

180

Afterword by Ann Spangler

192

Appendix: The Shema

195

Acknowledgments

197

Notes

199

Glossary

217

Recommended Resources

223

Scripture Index

227

General Index

230

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 8

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Foreword

s an author, Bible teacher, and study tour leader, I have had the
privilege of walking the lands of the Bible with thousands of
Jesus followers who came to see where Abraham, Ruth, David, and
Jesus lived. I enjoyed watching group after group slowly come to realize that the Bibles stories are set in real times and real places. As they
learned more about the land, the people, and the culture of the Bible,
these believers saw that the context God chose for his redemptive
plan could help them apply the Word to their own lives. At the end
of their travels, I often heard people say, I will never read the Bible
the same way again.
Many returned home from Israel or Turkey or Greece with their
faith in Jesus deepened but hungry for moremuch more. The pilgrim excitement of walking where Jesus walked became a growing
thirst for a deeper understanding of Gods storya thirst as palpable
as their need for bottled water in the hot, dry climate of Israel.
I know their experience wellthat was my journey too. I began
to explore the Jewish world of Jesus with a desire to deepen my faith
in Jesus. I was familiar with the accounts of his life and believed them
to be true. I accepted his claims to be the Messiah and believed in
his redemptive death. But as I entered the world of Jewish thought,
I began to wonder about the faith of Jesus. I struggled to understand
what I should learn from the accounts of how he lived. Was it simply to
explain why he must die? Or was his life a pattern to be understood and
emulated? And what did it mean to imitate him in my walk with God?
As I explored the lands and cultures of the Bible, I realized that
I did indeed need to have not only faith in Jesus, but also to develop
the faith of Jesus. To be a disciple of Jesus I needed to know why and
how he lived out his faith, so that I could follow him more closely.
This insight seems so obvious now that I cannot imagine that I
9

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 9

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Foreword

had not considered it before. I grew up in a Christian community,

lived in a Christian home where the Bible was often read, attended
Christian schools through college, and received an advanced degree
at an outstanding seminary. I believed the Bible to be the inspired
Word of God and from my childhood was committed to Jesus as Savior and Lord. Yet I had not even considered the implications of the
fact that J esus lived among us as a Jewish man in a first-century Jewish
culture. Jesus was Jewish! What a radical thought!
From the beginning, God chose to speak and act within the context of human culture, so it is no surprise that his Son would do the
same. Jesus lived like a Jew, talked like a Jew, and worshiped like a
Jew. His words, actions, and teaching methods were in keeping with
the customs, traditions, and practices of the Semitic culture into
which he was born. He wasnt born in northwestern Iowa among
nineteenth-century Dutch immigrants. He was born in Judea, a land
that was a hotbed of political and religious turmoil, a country that
had been the crossroads of the ancient world for centuries. He grew
up among the Jews, a people chosen by God to bear his name to the
world. And he ministered under the mighty empire of Rome. While
Gods message was and is timeless, it was first revealed to a real people
in a real place and at a real time. Understanding this ancient world
is critical to interpreting and applying the biblical story to our own
lives.
In a sense, as we study the Bible, we must temporarily leave our
twenty-first-century culture and our Western attitudes and go back
to another time and place ... to the land of Israel, the birthplace
and home of Jesus. We must enter an Eastern culture that was passionately religious and that longed for Gods great redemption. The
Jews of Jesus time knew their story and fiercely debated how God
wanted them to live it out. The Hebrew Bible was their daily bread,
and discussion of it dominated their lives, as it would Jesus life. Paradoxically, stepping back into that setting makes the Bible even more
relevant to our own culture and time.
That was my journey from faith in Jesus to learning to live out
the faith of Jesus. What I had been taught from the Bible was not
wrong. Few, if any, doctrines changed for me as I studied the Bibles
10

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 10

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Foreword

ancient Jewish context. And after thirty-six years of intensive cultural

study, I still believe God is our Creator, Jesus is our Savior, and the
Bible is his inspired Word. But there are more riches in the Word
than I had ever imagined. To view Scripture through the perspective
of an ancient Near Eastern culture is to gain additional insights, as
certainly as reading the Bible in the original languages deepens ones
grasp of the text.
Somewhere on the journey of studying the context and culture of
the Bible, I met Lois Tverberg. Just like so many others I had known,
her first experience of the ancient world of the Bible produced an
ever-growing thirst for greater understanding of its story in context.
She was as intense and intentional in her search as any student I had
ever met, bringing her training and skill as a scientist to her pursuit
of deeper understanding of the biblical text. Her tenacity in learning
the ancient languages, in studying the land of Israel, in exploring Jewish thought, and in investigating archaeological discoveries provide
her with a unique set of tools to explore the text in context. Soon I
was learning from her, as her insights gave me a new understanding
of the Bible and particularly the life of J esusthe One we both knew
as Savior and Lord, for we share a faith in Jesus. Through her insights
Lois has deepened my understanding of the faith of Jesus and encouraged me to walk ... as [Jesus] walked (1John 2:6 NASB).
Loiss earlier work (with Ann Spangler), Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi
Jesus, was an entry step into Jesus world. The Jewish context into
which Jesus came and the implications of that setting for understanding him better are powerfully presented and have guided many
believers as they seek a greater understanding of the Teacher from
Nazareth. I believe the present work will have even greater impact
on those who desire to be disciples of Jesus. Readers will be deeply
challenged as they discover the implications of Jesus teaching for
their daily walk.
While each chapter is supported with careful analysis of contemporary scholarship, ancient sources, and recent archaeological discovery, as you read you will feel as if you are on a journey back to the
world of Jesus. You will see the beauty of the silvery green olive trees
on the Galilean hills, feel the rocky path under your feet, and smell
11

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 11

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Foreword

the dust as you follow the Rabbi. You will hear the sages discussing
the Torah as their disciples listen and will discover the greatest interpreter of all ... Jesus the Messiah. For he is not only God incarnate,
but also the Word incarnate. His life is in a real sense the Wordthe
Biblein living flesh. And you will be challenged to become ever
more passionate about being his disciplehaving the faith of Jesus.
So come along with us and follow in the dust of Jesusthe Jewish
Rabbiof Scripture.
Ray Vander Laan

12

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 12

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Part I

Hearing
Our Rabbis Words
with New Ears
W

hat would it be like to listen to J esus earth-shattering

words through the ears of a first-century disciple? The
first thing youd notice is how Jewish they are. His greatest
commandments begin with the Shema, the core statement
of Jewish faith. For over two millennia, each morning and
evening, Jews have committed themselves to loving their
one and only God with all of their heart, soul, and strength.
Learning more about J esus language, his Scriptures, and his
people will deepen our understanding of his most important
words.

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 13

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Chapter 1

Brushing Away the Dust

of the Ages
Just as rain water comes down in drops and forms rivers,
so with the Scriptures: one studies a bit today
and some more tomorrow, until in time the understanding
becomes like a flowing stream.
Song of Songs Midrash Rabbah 2:8

n 1977, Pinin Barcilon won the assignment of a lifetime when she

was asked to lead the restoration of Leonardo da Vincis Last Supper, one of the most well-known images of all time. But the renowned
Italian art conservator could hardly imagine how nerve-wracking the
next twenty-three years would be.
The centuries hadnt been kind to the mural that da Vinci completed on a monastery wall in Milan, Italy, in 1498. Always the experimenter, Leonardo had reformulated his paints in a way that proved to
be unstable, so that the paint began flaking off even before his death.
And even though his mural was immediately hailed as a masterpiece,
it was left unprotected from pollution and humidity. When Barcilon
began her restoration, five hundred years of dust, mold, and candle
soot had darkened the iconic work almost to the point of invisibility.
The real challenge for her team, however, was to undo the disastrous attempts at restoration that had begun back in the 1700s. Heavy
coats of varnish, glue, and wax had been brushed on, each of them
hastening the darkening process. Worst of all, hack amateurs had
painted over da Vincis work time and again, rendering its images
distorted, brushing out details they didnt understand, and filling in
gaps with their own interpretations.
After months of photographing every square centimeter of the
15

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 15

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Hearing Our Rabbis Words with New Ears

paintings surface and analyzing it using state-of-the-art technology,

Barcilons team members finally began their work. Then, for over
twenty years they hunched over microscopes, painstakingly scraping away five hundred years of grime and overpainting. On a good
day, one postage stamps worth of the image would emerge. In 1999,
when da Vincis brushstrokes were finally revealed, her teams meticulous, mind-numbing labor found its reward. Barcilon called it a slow,
severe conquest, which, flake after flake, day after day, millimeter
after millimeter, fragment after fragment, gave back a reading of
the dimensions, of the expressive and chromatic intensity that we
thought was lost forever.1
Gloomy shadows banished; a well-lit banquet hall emerged. Peters
beard and nose were free of the clumsy weight that later retouchings had given them. Matthew sported blond hair, not black. Thomas
gained a left hand. Andrews expression was transformedhe was no
longer sullen, but astonished. And Jesus face glowed with new light
after the dingy repaintings had been removed.
The essence of the scene remained unchanged. Da Vinci had
depicted the fateful scene at the moment Jesus revealed one of his
disciples would soon betray him. But after centuries of murky obscurity, restoration had brought to light the original beauty of the artists
masterful portrayal of the facial expressions and body language of
Christ and his disciples.2

Unearthing Jesus World

Just as modern technology enabled Barcilon to reveal da Vincis
original strokes, in recent decades scholars have gained new tools to
restore the picture of Jesus that the gospel writers first gave us. In just
the past fifty years, we have seen more advances in biblical archaeology and in the discovery of ancient texts than in all the centuries
since the time of Jesus. As dingy accretions of history are cleared
away, vivid details of Jesus life and culture are emerging.
The same year that the Last Supper was newly unveiled, I took my
first study trip to Israel. One of the scarier highlights of our tour was
exploring the water tunnel that King Hezekiah built under Jerusalem
16

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 16

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Brushing Away the Dust of the Ages

in 701 BC. Half terrified, our group peered into the dark, stone-hewn
shaft before us and stepped down into the icy, rushing waters of the
Gihon spring. After groping our way through the cramped blackness
by flashlight for a third of a mile, waist-high water sweeping us along,
we heaved a sigh of relief when we finally glimpsed the exit.
Adding to the thrill, we were emerging at the site of the famous
Pool of Siloam, where a blind man miraculously recovered his vision
after Jesus sent him there to wash (John 9:7). The puddle-deep pool
was, admittedly, unimpressiveonly a few feet wide and a few more
yards long. But this was the famous site, according to Christian tradition that went back to the fourth century AD.
Or so we thought.
In 2004, five years after our visit, a sewage pipe broke underneath
a nearby Jerusalem street. Massive earth-moving equipment rumbled
in to make the repair. Pushing into the soil, a bulldozer blade collided
with a submerged object and came to a grinding halt. An ancient
plastered step emerged as the dirt was brushed away. Within minutes prominent archaeologists had rushed over, the word bulldozer
hurrying them to the scene. Excavation revealed several more steps
down one side of an enormous rectangular pool. Within weeks this
monumental reservoir (about 160 feet wide by 200 feet long) was
identified as the real Pool of Siloam, the main source of fresh water
within Jerusalems walls. Coins embedded in the plaster confirmed
that it was in use during J esus time.3
As they excavated the Pool of Siloam archaeologists also discovered a wide, stepped first-century street that leads from the pool up
to the Temple. This was one of the main Jerusalem thoroughfares in
the first century, and it would have been the final steps of ascent for
pilgrims after days or weeks of journeying to celebrate the feasts. The
Pool of Siloam was one of the places where they could have stopped
to purify themselves before entering the Temple.
And reading Johns gospel again, we discover that the Pool of
Siloam played a part in another scene in Jesus ministry. Each night
of the joyous weeklong Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), the high priest
would parade down this street amid great fanfare and fill a golden
pitcher with living water from the Pool of Siloam for the water libation
17

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 17

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Hearing Our Rabbis Words with New Ears

on the Temples altar. On the last day of the feast, the high priest
would process around the altar seven times as the crowds chanted
fervent prayers for living water, rain for the next years crops. The
roar grew ever more thunderous until the priest finally approached
the altar. A hush would descend as he filled a silver bowl and then
ceremoniously poured the living water onto the sacrificial pyre. It was
then when Jesus stood up and shouted, Let anyone who is thirsty
come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has
said, rivers of living water will flow from within them (John 7:3738,
italics added).

Details That Connect the Dots

My first exposure to this field of study was about fifteen years ago
when I signed up for a class at my church called The Land, the Culture, and the Book. Having grown up in a devout Lutheran family,
I figured that learning some historical background would be good
for my Bible study. My grandparents had been missionaries in Madagascar, and several uncles and cousins were pastors. My own world
was the sciences, so I was more used to facts and lectures. My graduate degree was in biology, and I was teaching human physiology and
molecular biology at a nearby college.
I admit that I cringed a little before starting the class, bracing
myself for what I thought would be a weekly dose of dusty, dry archaeological information. I didnt know much about the presenter except
that he had taught high school for twenty-five years and had been
leading study trips to Israel for twenty-five yearsmentally I calculated his age at about eighty-seven. How appropriate to learn about
the Old Testament from an octogenarian, I thought.4 (Not catching
that the presenter, Ray Vander Laan, had being doing these things
concurrently, I was off by about forty years.)
But from the first session the class was like drinking from a fire
hose. Everywhere the Bible started greening up, sprouting with new
life. It was there that I first heard of the biblical idea of living water
and learned about its association with the Feast of Tabernacles and
18

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 18

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Brushing Away the Dust of the Ages

with the outpouring of the Spirit during the messianic age (Ezekiel
47; Joel 2:2329; Zechariah 14:818).
As I started to see how important history, geography, language,
and culture were for unlocking the biblical text, my curiosity led me
to study in the land of Israel, to learn from scholars there about firstcentury Jewish culture, and to study Hebrew and Greek.5 A few years
later I left the world of teaching biology to write and teach about this
subject full-time.
You might think that you need to master whole textbooks before
this kind of study starts to enrich your Bible reading, but Ive been
amazed at how the smallest details can help connect the dots. Its like
when youre stumped doing a crossword puzzle but then finally decipher one word. Suddenly an adjoining word falls into place, which
yields clues to unlock yet more words, and then the rest of the grid
starts to fill in.
The simplest cultural details can unravel knotty mysteries, sometimes with powerful theological implications. For instance, how much
would the firewood weigh for an average burnt offering? You might
think that minutiae like this isnt worth studying, but this obscure
detail casts light on one of the Bibles most difficult chapters.
After reading the account in Genesis 22 about Gods asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, many people ask, How old was Isaac? Was he
a toddler, a teen, or an adult? Most paintings picture Isaac as a child
toting a bundle of sticks under his arm as he walks beside his elderly
father. This is because Genesis 22:6 says that Abraham carried the
knife while Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice.
But a sacrifice was offered by roasting an animal as a whole burnt
offering, which took several hours over a full fire.6 The large logs
needed for fuel would require the strength of a full-grown man to
carry them. There was no way the elderly Abraham could lift them
(remember, he was one hundred already when Isaac was born), so he
carried the knife while Isaac carried the wood. In fact, for most of the
journey, two donkeys bore the massive burden (verse 3).
Once you envision an adult Isaac bearing the heavy wood, the
story takes on an entirely different tone. Now we see that the story is
not just about Abrahams unshakeable faith in God; its about Isaacs
19

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 19

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Hearing Our Rabbis Words with New Ears

willing, heroic obedience to submit to his fathers will. And suddenly

the scene of Christ carrying his cross comes starkly into view.

Hearing J esus through a Disciples Ears

What does it mean that J esus lived as a Jewish rabbi who called and
trained disciples? And how does learning about his teachings in their
original context enable us to better live out our calling? Jesus first
followers responded to his words with actions that astound us. They
left home, family, and comfort behind to follow him, risking their
lives to change the world. As life-changing as his teachings were in
their original context, modern readers often struggle to see what provoked such a radical response. More than twenty centuries separate
us. Could it be that the debris of time and cultural change have taken
the edge off Jesus earth-shattering words?
What if we could scrub off the dust and dirt of the ages to see the
original Jesus in the Gospels? What if we allowed the scenery around
him to come to life, so that we could visualize him once again in his
native context? Jesus words would not change,
but they would burst with new meaning when
The world stands
understood in their original setting. We would
on three things:
see Jesus with new clarity as we bring into
on Torah, worship,
focus the fuzzy backdrop around him that is so
and loving deeds
foreign to our modern worlda place of rabbis
of kindness.
Mishnah, Avot 1:2
and synagogues, nomads, farmers, kings, and
shepherds.
Its hard not to wonder if the early Jerusalem church might have
had a few advantages in understanding Jesus that can help us as disciples today. In the first chapters in Acts we read of their amazing
passiontheir Spirit-filled prayers, their joyful gatherings, their loving generosity, and their dynamic witness to their neighbors.
Until a few years ago, it never occurred to me that the first believers of the infant Jerusalem church in Acts were all observant Jews,
men and women who continued to study the Torah and worship in
the Temple, even after they came to faith in Christ. In fact, for the
first half of Acts, the rapidly expanding church was almost entirely
20

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 20

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Brushing Away the Dust of the Ages

Jewish. It was only after God pushed Peter out of his comfort zone to
witness to the Gentile centurion Cornelius that the church considered the possibility that the gospel was for Gentiles too (Acts 10).
We Christians often neglect this as we retell the stories of the
early believers joyful fellowship. We assume that the remarkable
success of the Jerusalem church came from the fact that believers
were freshly filled with the Holy Spirit. But Pauls Gentile church at
Corinth had experienced the same outpouring, yet it struggled with
immaturity, division, and sexual immorality. Why the difference? As
wonderful as it was that the Corinthians found Christ, most had
come out of a pagan reality, and their lives had not been saturated by
the Scriptures that Jesus read, our Old Testament. They lacked the
Torahs training in moral laws that Christ built upon. They had a lot
of catching up to do.
Moreover, while the Gentiles worshiped Jesus as their Savior and
God, the Jewish believers also knew him as their rabbi. As Jesus disciples, they knew their obligation was to memorize his words and live
according his halakhah, his interpretation of how Gods Word teaches
us to live.

Why Havent We Known?

Nowadays, it seems only natural to wonder about Jesus Jewish cultural setting. Why havent we asked those questions in the past? A
stroll through the aisles of my local grocery store suggests one answer:
Sushi. Gyros. Kimchi. Tahini. Fifty years ago my mother had never
even heard of these ethnic specialties; it wasnt until the late sixties that she even tried making a new-fangled dish called pizza.
Until only a few decades ago, a startlingly short list of bland foods
comprised my familys entire culinary world. Creamed beef on toast.
Macaroni and Spam. Ground beef over rice. In my white-bread world,
I simply never thought to ask.
On my kitchen table is a little clay sculpture of Jesus healing a
blind man, with a sticker on the bottom that says it was handcrafted
in Peru. But you hardly need the label to guess where it came from
when you see the dark braids, the ponchos, the Peruvian faces. Of
21

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 21

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Hearing Our Rabbis Words with New Ears

course its creator imagined Jesus within his or her own reality, just
as white Americans have cast J esus as a blue-eyed Caucasian. As the
gospel has gone out around the world, people have, by default, pictured Jesus through their own cultural lenses.
You might be surprised that Leonardo da Vincis Last Supper does
the same thing. This masterpiece has influenced the Christian imagination of Jesus fateful last evening more than any other, yet it is
culturally wrong in every detail. In the background are windows looking out on a sunny mid-afternoon scene, whereas the Passover meal
always took place at night. And of course the faces of Jesus and the
disciples are pale-faced Europeans, not Semitic. Most telling is what
is on the table. Lacking are the essential elements of the Passover
celebration, including the lamb and unleavened bread. In their place
is a puffy loaf of bread, when leavening is strictly forbidden during
the week of Passover, and a shockingly unkosher plate of grilled eels
garnished with orange slices!8
Of course da Vincis goal was to portray the disciples reactions
at that critical moment, and he does so with brilliant technique and
emotive depth. But by not including the elements of Passover, a feast
that celebrated Gods redemption and brimmed over with messianic
expectations, we miss the fact that J esus was powerfully proclaiming
himself as the fulfillment of Gods ancient promises. Jesus uses the
symbols of Passover to point toward his coming atonement to redeem
those who believed in him and to inaugurate a new covenant for
the forgiveness of sin.9
Certainly much of the reason that we Christians have missed
these details is simply out of ignorance. But it also comes out of how
weve read our Bibles. As I was growing up, what I usually heard about
Jesus Jewish context was how much he opposed it and was bringing
it to an end. Unfortunately, that attitude is not just a relic of the
past. Just a few months ago I happened to tune my car radio to hear
a popular pastor put it this way:
When
Jesus came, everything changed, everything
changed.... He didnt just want to clean up the p eoples attitudes
as they gave their sacrifices, He obliterated the sacrificial system
22

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 22

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Brushing Away the Dust of the Ages

because He brought an end to Judaism with all its ceremonies,

all its rituals, all its sacrifices, all of its external trappings, the
Temple, the Holy of Holies, all of it.10

If this were what Jesus taught, his first passionate followers in

Acts certainly didnt catch his drift. Peter and the other early Chris
tians continued to participate daily in Temple worship (Acts 3:1;
21:2326). Jesus did, of course, speak against corruption within the
priesthood and prophesy the Temples destruction forty years later.
Other Jewish groups, like the Essenes, also denounced its corruption
and sought to purify their worship. But while the Essenes abandoned
the Temple,11 Jesus disciples never did, implying that Jesus did not
preach against the Temples ceremonies. And even though the Jerusalem church ruled that Gentiles did not need to observe Jewish law,
Jewish believers in Jesus continued to carefully observe the Torah
and were even known for their avid observance (see Acts 21:20, 25).12
When I used to read the passages in the New Testament about
the Jews as those who opposed the church and rejected Jesus, I
didnt realize that the people writing those words were also Jews.
Often they used the phrase the Jews to refer to the Jewish leadership
who opposed them. Acts tells us that thousands of Jews actually did
believe in Christ (Acts 2:41; 5:14; 6:7; 21:20). So the issue to Paul in
Romans 911 was not that none of the Jews had believed in Christ,
but that not all of them did. (Have all of us Gentiles, for that matter,
embraced him?)
Scholar Luke Timothy Johnson notes that many first-century
documents show a cultural habit of referring to ones opponents with
harsh epithets such as hypocrites, blind, or demon-possessed. By
our standards, every debate sounds overcharged and full of slander.
When you hear John the Baptist calling his listeners a brood of
vipers (Matthew 3:7), and Paul wishing that his opponents would
emasculate themselves (Galatians 5:12), their comments should be
heard in this light. Within its wider cultural setting, the New Testaments rebukes dont sound quite so harsh.13
The Jews were strongly divided over J esus in the New Testament,
and this within-the-family debate became heated. But it wasnt until
23

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 23

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Hearing Our Rabbis Words with New Ears

centuries later when the church became overwhelmingly Gentile that

the New Testament was understood as being hostile toward Jews as a
whole. This has strongly contributed to anti-Semitism over the ages,
and for many Christians has led to a disinterest in the Jewish setting
of the Bible and our faith.
I was hardly aware of this attitude myself until a stunning encounter I had before my first study trip in Israel. I was chatting with a
neighbor down the block and mentioned my upcoming travels. Since
he was active in his church, I thought he might be interested. But
he grimaced and blurted out, Why on earth would you want to go
there? Those Jews never did nothing good, except give us Jesus.14
Wouldnt that be enough?

New Tools to Know

Never before have we been more profoundly aware of the diverse
mosaic of peoples that blanket our planet. With such heightened
sensitivity, it seems only natural to ask about Jesus Jewish setting.
But ironically, as our world has become more sensitive to embracing
ethnic differences, some have done exactly the opposite with Jesus.
In 1999 the National Catholic Reporter magazine sponsored a Jesus
2000 competition, searching for a new image of Jesus for the next
millennium. The prize-winning painting, called The Jesus of the
People, portrayed Jesus as dark-skinned, thick-lipped, and feminine.15
Its understandable that this Jesus is not white. But what about the
fact that hes also not in any way Jewish?
This was the approach that the Last Supper caretakers took in
former centuries. Each time da Vincis scene grew dingy, the faces
were brightened by repainting right over the top of them, touching
them up in whatever way the current painter saw fit. In a similar way,
the Christ we often encounter has been repainted to blend into
everyone elses culture rather than his own. Each artist adds another
layer to suit their tastes.
Its hard not to wonder if this is why each new book of the Jesus
reimagined genre wildly disagrees with the previous one. In one J esus
is a wandering guru, in the next a subversive rebel, in the next a busi24

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 24

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Brushing Away the Dust of the Ages

ness CEO, in the next a dreamy mystic.16 Instead of photoshopping

Jesus into yet another improbable reality, a helpful corrective would
be to restore Jesus to his original setting. And now we are gaining
more and more tools to do so, with the discovery of ancient texts and
archaeological remains of his day.
What would it look like to peel back the layers of time and to see
the real Jesus? Obviously, it would be a mistake to project on him
Jewish realities of later centuries. If we picture him with a bagel in
one hand and a dreidel in the other, wed be guilty of distorting his
reality too, because both things are from later centuries and practices.
But Jesus did eat matzah (unleavened bread) and celebrate Hanukkah,
traditions that go back to before his time.17
How much can we know about the world of Jesus anyhow? A
wealth of literature actually exists that preserves Jewish thought from
the centuries before and after Christ. Best known are the Mishnah
and the Talmud, two compendiums of discussion on the laws of the
Torah, which contain teachings preserved orally from about 200
BC until AD 200 (Mishnah) or AD 400500 (Talmud, in two editions).18 Orthodox Jews still study these writings today. Of course
Christians dont read these texts as authoritative, but they reveal an
ancient river of thought that flowed through J esus world, which can
fill in gaps in our understanding. Other first-century documents like
the writings of Josephus and the Dead Sea Scrolls shed light on Jesus
world too.
You might be surprised to learn that some of Judaisms most
influential thinkers, including Hillel and Shammai (30 BC to AD
10), lived in the decades right around Jesus time. Hillels grandson,
Gamaliel, was Pauls teacher, who came to the defense of the early
church in Acts 5:3339. The words of these and other early rabbis
allow us to reconstruct the conversations going on around Jesus. They
used the same kind of logic to answer questions, interpret Scriptures,
and weave parables, which yields fascinating clues to J esus words.
Of course, scholars disagree about the exact details of Jesus reality,
and Judaism is known for its wide diversity of opinion. My thoughts
will hardly provide the last and best word. But as a Christian, I grew
up without knowing the most basic details of Jesus Jewish world,
25

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 25

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Hearing Our Rabbis Words with New Ears

aspects of his reality that have persisted in Judaism from the first century until today. What Ive chosen to share in this book are a few core
concepts that Christians have hardly known about, yet shed light
on Jesus teachings. Often this Hebraic perspective unlocks biblical
wisdom that our culture has forgotten over time.
Ken Bailey has spent decades traveling in the Middle East to study
Arab p eoples, showing how traditional societies there preserve the
Bibles cultural perspective in ways that Western societies have not.
He comments, For us as Westerners the cultural distance over to
the Middle East is greater than the distance back to the first century.
The cultural gulf between the West and the East is deeper and wider
than the gulf between the first century (in the Middle East) and the
contemporary conservative Middle Eastern village.19
Christians may also be surprised at how Jewish traditions have
preserved biblical attitudes. To catch the emotional power of Jesus
claim to be the source of living water in John 7, you can go to the
parched Middle East and ask an Arab about how precious rain is to
him. Or, go to the synagogue in your own hometown, where youll
hear passionate prayers for living water each day during the weeklong feast of Sukkot. (In one Jewish prayer book, these go on for over
fifty pages.) Some liturgies preserve cultural memories that go back
thousands of years.20
Why is God allowing us to discover these insights now? Perhaps
its because we need them now more than ever. Indeed, for much of
the world, the culture of the Bible makes more sense than it does to
us. Eugene Nida, a pioneer in Bible translation, has commented:
In a sense, the Bible is the most translatable religious book
that has ever been written.... If one were to make a comparison
of the culture traits of the Bible with those of all the existing
cultures of today, one would find that in certain respects the
Bible is surprisingly closer to many of them than to the technological culture of the Western world. It is this Western culture
that is the aberrant one in the world. And it is precisely in the
Western world ... that the Scriptures have seemingly the least
acceptance.21
26

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 26

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Brushing Away the Dust of the Ages

Throughout history people have lived in extended families, practiced subsistence farming, and lived under the shadow of slavery and
war. And around the world, many traditional cultures focus their childrens training on sacred stories and order their lives around religious
practices. With our individualism, secularism, materialism, and biblical illiteracy, we in the Western world are the ones who have moved
farthest away from Jesus world. Could it be that were the ones who
have the most to learn?

Not Just a Rabbi

One thing I dont want you to misunderstand. You might think that
by calling Jesus rabbi Im implying that he was just an innovative
teacher trying to promote a new idea, like Edison with a light bulb
or Bill Gates with a new operating system. Were so used to thinking
this way that we assume that Jesus goal was to compete in the realm
of thought. We mistakenly hear Jesus message about the kingdom
of God as if hes trying to sell an exciting new plan for establishing
world peace. But to Jesus Jewish audience, to proclaim the kingdom
of God was to make a shocking announcement that Gods promised
Messiah had arrived, because the task of the Messiah was to establish
Gods kingdom on earth. J esus was making an earth-shattering claim
that he was the Christ, and that Gods redemption of the world would
come through him.22
The reason I point this out is because it allows us to release J esus
from the age-old competitive game of Jesus vs. Judaism, where his
ideas can only be right if everyone elses are wrong, and vice versa.
If, as a Christian, you start out by assuming that J esus is the Messiah
and the Son of God, he simply doesnt need to compete. He speaks
with divine authority whether he disagrees with the Jewish thought
of his day or affirms it. We can grow as his disciples when we hear his
words in their Jewish context and learn how to better live them out.
Bearing this in mind, it is still appropriate to speak of Jesus as
rabbi, because part of his mission was to teach his redeemed people
how God wanted them to live.23 He did so by using the methods
that other early Jewish sages used for teaching and raising disciples.
27

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 27

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Hearing Our Rabbis Words with New Ears

Throughout the Gospels Jesus was called teacher and rabbi by

those around him, and members of the early church universally called
themselves disciples. They were mathetai (Greek for students), followers of the Way that Jesus had taught them for living.

Walking in His Dust

The way Jesus taught his first disciples was not unique but part of a
wider tradition in Judaism that began a few centuries before his time.
Jesus didnt hand his disciples a textbook or give them a course syllabus. He asked each one of them to follow himliterally, to walk
after him. He invited them to trek the byways at his side, living life
beside him to learn from him as they journeyed. His disciples would
engage in lifes activities along with him, observing his responses and
imitating how he lived by Gods Word.
Out of this unusual teaching method arose a well-known saying:
you should learn from a rabbi by covering yourself in his dust. You
should follow so closely behind him as he
traveled from town to town teaching that
I did not go to
billows of sandy granules would cling to your
the rabbi to learn
clothes.24 As you walked after your rabbi,
interpretations of the
your heart would change. This will be our
Torah from him but
task in this book, to stroll through Jesus
to note his way of
ancient world at his side, listening to his
tying his shoelaces
words with the ears of a disciple.
and taking off his
But in Hebrew, the word for halakh,
shoes.... In his
walk,
encompasses so much more. Your
actions, in his speech,
walk in life refers to your overall lifestyle,
in his bearing, and
his faithfulness to the
how you conduct yourself morally. A rabbis
Lord, man must make
interpretation of the Torah was called halthe Torah manifest.
akhah, how to walk by Gods Word. When
Aryeh Leib Sarahs
Jesus called his disciples to walk after him,
he meant the word in both ways. First they
would follow in his literal footsteps; later they would follow in his
teachings, taking his message out to the world.
Closely related was the word derekh, meaning road, path, or
28

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 28

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Brushing Away the Dust of the Ages

way. The imagery was not of four-laned freeways that are paved for
permanence, but the track left behind by peoples footprints. Some
paths led to good places, and some to dangerous, evil places. Your
way was a spiritual metaphor for how you lived. This is still true
today, as Jesus lovingly walks before us in the way we ought to live.
And then he bids us to put our feet in his own footprints to follow
after him, to become part of his Way, as his early followers once did.
In Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, my coauthor Ann Spangler
and I began by looking at another first-century idiom, that to sit
at the feet of a rabbi meant to study with him. We pondered what
Jesus words might have sounded like if we had gathered in Marthas
house and sat alongside Mary at Jesus feet, enjoying an after-dinner
discussion with his disciples. Ann and I examined basic aspects of
Jesus Jewish reality like the yearly feasts, the daily prayers, and the
way rabbis trained disciples. Through them we discovered many new
insights on Jesus life and mission.
In this book, I will be looking more closely at Jesus words and
teachings in their Jewish context. Well push beyond externals to
explore the world of Jewish thought. Well contemplate some of the
cultural ideas and biblical images that gave meaning and depth to
Jesus words. And, well discover some of the wisdom that Jewish culture has preserved over the ages that reveals ways we can become
more like Rabbi J esus.
Well look at some key Hebrew words that Jesus knew from his
Scriptures and discover how their deeper meanings cast light on our
faith. We will listen with new ears to Jesus interpretation of how
to live out the Shemathe daily pledge to love God with all your
heart that formed the very center of Jewish commitment from ancient
times until today. As we do, well hear our Saviors calling in ways
that will transform our lives today.

29

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 29

11/11/11 2:56 pm

Hearing Our Rabbis Words with New Ears

Wisdom for the Walk

1. Reflect on your own cultural and spiritual heritage. How may it
have distorted your view of Jesus and his teachings? In what ways
do you feel it portrays J esus accurately?
2. Why have we lost an understanding of the Hebrew culture and
context of J esus? How might those things still affect our thinking
today?
3. Read John 7, keeping in mind that J esus followers as well as his
opponents were all Jews, and often the words the Jews refers
to Jewish leaders who opposed him. How does that cast light on
your reading?
4. The chapter points out the contrast between the maturity of the
Jewish believers in Acts and the Gentile believers of Corinth,
who were plagued with sins and scandals. Consider your own life
and the life of your church. Do you exhibit signs of maturity, or
do you have a long way to go, like the Corinthians? How can you
and your church pursue spiritual maturity?
5. How does understanding Jesus culture help us to better interpret
and live out his words?

30

0310284201_WalkDustRabJ_hc_cs5_int.indd 30

11/11/11 2:56 pm