#967: A Few Questions for Yeshua bar Yosef haNotzri (Jesus the Son of Joseph the Nazarite)
Jesus of Nazareth - as he possibly looked
First and foremost, Reb. Yeshua, please permit me to wish you a חג מולד שמח (chag molahd samayach) - Hebrew for “Merry Christmas.” I know that for some, it’s got to seem a bit we outré, perhaps even an act of chutzpah, for a rabbi to be addressing himself to Jesus, the son of Joseph, on December 25th. But that’s the way things go. Believe me, this blog is neither an attempt at effrontery, nor a diatribe against the religion (נַצְרוּת - natzrut - Hebrew for "Christianity) which bears your name. And while we’re at it, please do pardon me for occasionally translating a Hebrew word or expression into English. I am fully aware that as a lifelong Jew, your father, Yosef, would have taught you to pray in the Holy Tongue. But from what I’ve learned over the years, you like most Jews today, didn’t speak it: your lay tongue was either Aramaic or Koine Greek.
Today, Christians all over the world celebrate your birthday, despite the fact that the precise date of your conception, let alone birth, are at best, mere guesswork. Having annotated the Constantinople manuscript of seder olam rabbah (“The Great Order of the World” by the 2nd century tanna R. Yose ben Halafta) for my rabbinic thesis back in the late 1970s, I remember the great difficulties besieging ancient scholars on trying to figure out how old the world was, and to fix an historically accurate date for your birth. The best they could settle on was not based on the Gregorian (i.e. January-December) calendar, aaand for a simple reason: that calendar did not go into popular usage until 1582 C.E. following the papal bull Inter gravissimas (Latin for “In the Gravest Concern”) issued by Pope Gregory XIII. In your time and place, you and your neighbors would have been using the Jewish calendar and as such, the date of your birth would have been, likely, the 5th or 6th of the month Cheshvan in the year 3756.
The luach (the Jewish calendar) is a complicated hodge-podge wherein the years go according to the sun (solar) and the months by the moon (lunar). When held up against the utter consistency of Pope Gregory’s calendar, your birthday falls on a different day (and sometimes, different month) each year. In 2023, the 5th/6th of Cheshvan occurs on either December 20 or 21; next year it will be either the 6th or 7th of November. Moreover, nowhere in the Christian Bible (which Christians refer to as the “New” Testament) is there a single reference or mention about observing Christmas on December 25; this would not come about for several centuries.
During a long life of study and reflection, I have managed to make my way through the Christian Bible from cover to cover - sometimes in Aramaic, sometimes in Latin or Greek, and always in both English and Hebrew. In this way I could discover and compare for myself the similarities of theme, narrative structure and worldview with the Hebrew Bible (in Hebrew, the תנ"ך [Tamakh], in English, the “Old” Testament). It has also permitted me to see the vast differences between the 2 holy texts.
Among the greatest - and most obvious - similarities are the two tomes’ stress on moral action: on feeding the hungry and freeing the captive, of not doing unto others that which we would never want done to ourselves (that’s the decidedly Jewish take) and doing justice, loving mercy and living our lives with humility. It never ceases to amaze - and deeply trouble - me how so many self-identified “Christian Nationalists,” people who firmly believe that the Holocaust never happened (but nonetheless should once again be carried out), seek to do it in your name. Or that those who push for the dismemberment of programs that feed the starving, heal the sick or provide shelter to the homeless, are justifying their civic cruelty and Dickensian hardheartedness in your name - by referring to themselves as “G-d fearing Christians.” I guess they have never read or contemplated your words: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
Among the greatest - and again, most obvious - differences between the two testaments are how the two texts deal with the universality of the differing religious traditions. in Judaism, there is next to nothing said about going out and converting other people to the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Oh yes, we do have a complete set of laws and guidelines for bringing people into the fold . . . for those who of their own free will seek to convert. Our feeling has long been that Judaism is the best religion there is . . . for Jews. On the contrary - and as I have come to understand it - going out and bringing new converts into the fold vis-à-vis many approaches to Christianity is akin to a mitzvah - a religious commandment. As Jews, we have studiously avoided spending our time growing our religion.
Another great difference between Judaism and Christianity is that, in the main, we are far more devoted to the deed, rather than the creed. We don’t follow G-d’s commandments for the sake of gaining eternal life; we follow them because it is the right thing to do.
For as long as I can remember, I have wondered how it is that many Christians - of many different approaches, sects and stripes - could carry out horrific acts of hatred, murder, mayhem and torture in yourname; you, Yeshu bar Yosef haNotzri, who lived virtually every minute of your life as a Jew. “Don’t they know?” I can still hear in my 6- or 8-year-old voice “that Jesus was a Jew?’” It always troubled me that every painting or representation of Jesus I ever saw (which is actually against strict Jewish law) portrayed you as a blond, blue-eyed Aryan . . . looking ever so much like Max Von Sydow, Jeffrey Hunter, Victor Garber (who is both Jewish and gay) and Willem Dafoe.
Today, I wonder how many people would opt not to sit next to a person on an airplane if he looked like the picture at the beginning of this essay. (That computer-generated photo is An image of Jesus created by Richard Neave, a former forensic artist from the University of Manchester, using forensic investigation methods and archaeological evidence.)
Leet’s face it: the historic Yeshu bar Yosef looked a lot darker than, say, Joaquin Phoenix, who hails from a Hungarian-Jewish family and played You in 2018’s Mary Madelene. Racism and anti-Semitism are rife in our age, and much of it is being done in your name. And herein lies my question.
Dear Yeshu: what in the how do you cope with a diabolical neo-Nazi like the 25-year old Nick Fuentes, who vows to dish out the “death penalty” for Jewish people if Donald Trump is re-elected. This is the same Nick Fuentes who not so long ago dined at Mar-a-Lago with “Ye” (rapper Kanye West) and received plaudits from the putative Republican nominee for presidency in 2024. My question here is how are we supposed to convince those who really, truly believe they are your most fervent followers that seeking to destroy the Jewish people means that they wish to destroy you? How can you or your modern-day disciples come to understand that they are spending so many of their waking hours organizing and urging against the very principles of love, tolerance and acceptance upon which you preached. You never asked anyone to deify you, but to merely follow your teachings. Indeed, how can we help you to safeguard your people from destruction?
Fortunately, there is a group called Evangelicals for Democracy, which works tirelessly to communicate the fact that: “As evangelicals, we believe that protecting democracy is being obedient to Jesus’ commandment to “love our neighbor as ourselves.” Therefore, we believe that every person in our society has an equal voice and representation in their governance. We also believe that access to democracy is undercut by “Christian nationalism,” which confuses the Gospel with the American state and promotes identity politics.” They are doing their best to spread this noxious concept of identity politics and push the likes of Nick Fuentes, Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Green and their trolls off the highway of American politics.
Dear Yeshu bar Yosef: We neither have to accept everything you said nor everything you believed in order to join hands with you in a quest to rid our nation and our times against the scourge of hatred. For when all is said and done, we are family . . .
Wishing you and yours a Happy, Merry Everything!
Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone