One
of the books that we have in our own home library is written by Rabbi Harvey
Falk (1932 – 2006). It was given to me by William Lowe, a great scholar friend
of mine from decades ago, who has since passed into eternity. The title of this
book is JESUS THE PHARISEE – A New Look at the Jewishness of Jesus. This
book was published by Paulist Press © 1985. This is a Roman Catholic publishing
house, which has been amazingly kind and embracing to the Jewish people.
Paulist Press also published FORGETTING THE ROOT – The Emergence of Christianity from Judaism, by Terrance Callan © 1986. Terrance Callan was a Roman Catholic scholar who taught at a Roman Catholic seminary in Ohio. In his book he wrote about the origins of the New Testament faith in the First Century, and the divisions that occurred in succeeding centuries. This is also a book that we have in our home library, which I value very much. I am certainly not a fan of Catholicism. However, there are some truly great Catholic scholars whom I greatly appreciate.
I had read through these books decades ago, and took to rereading them with great appreciation. Regretfully, neither of these books is available from Paulist Press today. However, Amazon.com claims to have Jesus the Pharisee by Rabbi Harvey Falk available for $18. If interested, I recommend ordering it immediately, as I doubt that many of these books are available, and I am reluctant to part with my volume. It might also be available from places that sell used books. Amazon.com gives the following great review of this book:
This book is an important and provocative study of the thought of the Pharisees in the time of Jesus and marks the first attempt by a rabbinic writer to demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth consistently upheld the views of the rabbis of the School of Hillel, and that all his criticism was directed at the School of Shammai and their followers. After the School of Shammai disappeared from the Jewish scene following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in the first century, Judaism developed according to the teachings of Bet Hillel. This alone increases the common grounds for dialogue between Jews and Christians.
Some important findings of this book include the following: The Pharisees of Bet Shammai controlled Jewish life and thought during the early first century; the School of Shammai denied salvation to the Gentiles; the Shammaite Pharisees and priests considered Jesus a danger to the Jewish people; the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed because of Bet Shammai's hatred of the Gentile world... These new insights will help achieve a new understanding of the seemingly anti-Jewish passages contained in the Christian scriptures, and make possible improved relations between Christians and Jews. It is acclaimed by scholars of both faiths.
Rabbi Falk is a descendant of Jewish grandparents who were murdered in the Holocaust. His parents were fortunate enough to come to this country and raise their family in the USA. Falk is also a great scholar. I’m not denying that. His research for this book spanned 8 years, quoting Talmud, Midrash, and many rabbis from over the centuries. He carefully footnotes his sources with additional commentary. He did all of this without the aid of the internet, which was still in its infancy in the 1980s. He is a truly great theologian.
However, I cannot agree with all his conclusions. He believed that Jesus and Paul had the purpose of creating a religion for the Gentiles which would include the Noachide[1] laws which rabbis believe are incumbent for all mankind. He makes the claim that neither Yeshua nor Paul intended this religion for the Jewish people. First of all, I make the claim that Yeshua did not come to Planet Earth to start a new religion. Yeshua came to this planet to be the Messiah for the old religion: Judaism.
Rabbi Falk seems to skip over the fact that all the early believers in Yeshua were Jews or proselytes to Judaism. In Matthew 10:5-6, Yeshua told his Talmidim (Disciples), “Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, nor enter any cities of the Samaritans. But rather, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” In Matthew 15:24, Yeshua said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” His original intended audience was the Jewish people. However, a notable change took place after Yeshua’s resurrection in Matthew 28:19-20, when He said to his talmidim, “Go therefore and make talmidim (disciples) of all nations… teaching them to observe all that I commanded you…”
It isn’t until we get to Acts 10 (almost halfway through the Newer Testament) that we find the Besorah (Gospel) going to the Gentiles. The unlikely candidate was a Roman centurion named Cornelius of Rome’s army that was occupying the Holy Land at that time. However, not all Roman soldiers were brutal occupiers. Cornelius was “a righteous and God-fearing man well spoken of by the entire nation of the Jews (Acts 10:22).” Shimon Kefa (Simon Peter) preached a very anointed sermon to Cornelius, along with his relatives and friends, and the Ruach HaKodesh “fell upon all were listening to the message (10:44).” The Jews who were there “were amazed that the gift of the Ruach HaKodesh had been poured upon the Gentiles also (10:45).”
Rabbi Falk correctly identifies Rav Sha’ul (the Apostle Paul) as the “apostle to the Gentiles.” However, he ignores the fact that Paul invariably first went to the synagogues of the Jews in each place he travels to with his message of the Jewish Messiah, as seen in Acts 13:43; 14:1; 17:4; 17:17; and 18:4.
Rabbi Harvey Falk correctly notes
that Jesus, Paul, and the Disciples remained Torah-observant Jews. On page 158
of this book,
Falk writes of Yeshua, “He himself remained an Orthodox Jew to his last moment.
He only wished to see his people return to the teachings of the School of
Hillel, which stressed love, humility, and the salvation of all mankind. His
attacks on the Pharisees were directed against the School of Shammai, who were
in control of the principal institutions of Judaism at the time.” I saw no
attacks on Yeshua or Paul at any place in the book.
Rabbi Falk defends his belief that Yeshua was indeed a Pharisee, but a Pharisee of the School of Hillel, not Shammai. Both Hillel and Shammai were Pharisees. There were also other schools of thought among the Pharisees. However, the most bitter disagreements were between the teachings of Hillel and the teachings of Shammai. Hundreds of disputes between Hillel and Shammai are recorded in the pages of Talmud. The language that they used against each other is similar to the language that Yeshua used against the Pharisees of Beit Shammai (House of Shammai) in the Gospel accounts. Shammai to the distress of Hillel was the primary power broker among the Pharisees, and Shammai continued to be so until the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.[2]
Rabbi Falk gave much commentary to the Judaism of later centuries. He uses terms like Talmud, Mishna, Midrash, Tosafists, Halakha, etc., assuming that his Christian readers will know what he is talking about, which is perhaps a major error.
He gives brief biographies of many great rabbis throughout the centuries, but is especially enthusiastic about Rabbi Jacob Emden (1697-1776). Emden was a leader in combating the heretical Shabatean movement that had infected much of the Jewish people at that time. He is also perhaps the first rabbi to advance the thesis that Christianity was established by its founders as a religion for the Gentiles in accordance with Halakha.
However, Yeshua and Paul were not seeking to establish another religion. The faith throughout the Newer Testament is Judaism. We read in Acts 21:20 that there were “many myriads (tens of thousands) of Jews who have believed, and they are all zealous for Torah (the Law).” There is no place in the Newer Testament in which a Sunday sabbath, Easter, or Christmas are mentioned. Shabbat was the weekly observance, as well as Pesach (Passover) and Shavuot (Pentecost). Christianity came along later, eventually becoming a separate faith severing all connections to Judaism, often becoming hostile to both Jews and Judaism. We are grateful to live in an age in which many Christians are looking into the Jewish roots of their faith, even discovering the Jewish Jesus.