Was Jesus a Pharisee?

[Prodigal Girl]

Is breaking and entering illegal? Could you be arrested for doing that? Yes. But I can definitely think of situations where I would break and enter someone's home, uninvited, with no hesitation.
I really think that Yeshua's desciples were indeed very very hungry, just as David's men were; otherwise Yeshua would not have used that example to explain why he was "breaking the Law". Because sometimes, you do have to break one law to obey another higher law.
What I think confuses us, is that the church really does not teach about greater and lesser laws. They teach that all sins are the same. And anyway the church does not believe we are "under the Law" anyway, so why should they even give thought to this? Because Yeshua did, is the answer to that one.

[Mark]

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Romans 6:23)

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
(Matthew 5:19)

For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
(James 2:10)

[Prodigal Girl]

Matt. 5:19 Not working on Shabbat is NOT a "least commandment" Not when it is repeated more than any other commandment in the Bible. No one here, including Marc, from what I can see, (except many people in the church) use the section of scripture (where Yeshua is explaining why it was appropriate to let his disciples pick grain and thresh it in their hands), to try and teach breaking the Sabbath commandment. However, we ARE to work in certain circumstances on Shabbat; such as circumcision on the 8th day, healing, and the like. THAT is what Yeshua was teaching. And it is NOT offensive to G-d to do that. What WOULD offend Him, would be to NOT help someone on Shabbat that was very hungry. James 2:10 is talking about offending G-d. He clearly was NOT offended by what the disciples did.

[Mark]

The Phariseeic doctrine was only about 100 to 150 years old when Messiah walked the land. Before that, for over 300 years, the Israeli culture had been inundated with (and embraced) Greek philosophy and culture. This is why the Greek Septuigent (a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures) had been written: because the Hebrew language was no longer common for the people. Even if a liturgical vocaulary was there (sort of like Catholic Latin) it was largely interpretted from a Greek understanding.

To make this even more of a problem, Greek wasn't Greek. The Greek language that was spoken and written in Israel was Koinae Greek (or common Greek). I am well familiar with this biblical language; but if you hand me a document in classical Greek or modern Greek, I find that my vocabulary is extremely limited and the way sentence structures are put together is cumbersome. Koinae Greek is sort of the Yiddish version of Greek, or is comparable as Jamaican English is to our familiar dialect. Most of the words are the same, and you could probably follow along with what the person is saying; but it is very strange.

In biblical Greek there is only one word for "work". Picking up my mattress is the same word as going to the office. The word is "ergon" and will be found pretty consistently as translated "work" in your New Testament. It is not the same in Hebrew. In fact, there is a clear distinction between what you do for a living and any physical act of doing something. Throughout the Tanakh (the Old Testament), the work that is prohibited on Sabbath is "malakah" which is your deputyship or employment. The word "abad" which is the Hebrew equivelant of "ergon" is actually commanded on Sabbath. "You shall KEEP the Sabbath": "keep" is typically a translation of the word "abad" which means " any physical activity: to make or to do something".

You also have to understand that just because "the Pharisees" said something doesn't mean they were speaking for all Pharisees everywhere. In fact, this is never the case. Pharisees argue about everything. That's part of what made them Phariseeic, taking personal responsibility and ownership of the commands. Those condemning the practice of breaking heads off the grain were declaring their own interpretation of Sabbath obedience, not speaking of the universal definition.

[Eliora]

Sorry, Mark, I've gotta correct your Hebrew. ;P
"Keep" as in "keep the Sabbath" is almost always from the verb lish'mor, which means to guard something.
Once (Deu 5:15) the Tanakh uses the verb la'asot instead, which is to make or to do something.
La'avod (corresponding to your "abad") does mean to work.
From my own knowledge of Hebrew, I can't really tell you what the difference is between avodah (the noun form of la'avod) and m'lachah (which is what the Tanakh forbids)... but I do know that m'lachah comes from the same root word as the word for angel, which is mal'ach. And that makes sense, given that my concordance tells me m'lachah means a deputyship, which is labor in the service of someone else.

[Mark]

Thanks Eliora,

I appreciate the correction. I had about five things going through my head this morning and got some things mixed up. I apologize if I caused any confusion; but will leave the error posted as is so that your correction makes sense to future readers.

Mark

[jewishjediguy]

Sept 26, 2008 11:49:50 GMT -8 Eliora said:

Sorry, Mark, I've gotta correct your Hebrew. ;P
"Keep" as in "keep the Sabbath" is almost always from the verb lish'mor, which means to guard something.
Once (Deu 5:15) the Tanakh uses the verb la'asot instead, which is to make or to do something.
La'avod (corresponding to your "abad") does mean to work.
From my own knowledge of Hebrew, I can't really tell you what the difference is between avodah (the noun form of la'avod) and m'lachah (which is what the Tanakh forbids)... but I do know that m'lachah comes from the same root word as the word for angel, which is mal'ach. And that makes sense, given that my concordance tells me m'lachah means a deputyship, which is labor in the service of someone else.

Shalom,
this is going to be off the top of me 'ead.

M'lakkah pertains to the work of business, occupation and trade, or the work of making, or of administration and ministry, which is why angels in Hebrew are called Mal'akhim. whereas Avodah, stemming from Eved, pertains to servitude and slavery in the mundane, but for the Holy, pertains to the divine service of God, which is why sections of the Siddur (Prayer book) are called the Avodah.

now, was Yeshua a Pharisee? no, not at all. He was/is the Author of the from which Pharisaism derived their doctrines and traditions. did the Pharisees have teaching agreeable to the ? yes, though of course, not all. even the -you-sees had some things in common with in general. Yeshua was the root and offspring of David, but not the offspring of Pharisaic thought. or, so it seems to me

Much B'rakhoths and Ahavoths
Yochanan

[Prodigal Girl]

Sept 26, 2008 3:42:15 GMT -8 Mark said:

The Phariseeic doctrine was only about 100 to 150 years old when Messiah walked the land. Before that, for over 300 years, the Israeli culture had been inundated with (and embraced) Greek philosophy and culture. This is why the Greek Septuigent (a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures) had been written: because the Hebrew language was no longer common for the people. Even if a liturgical vocaulary was there (sort of like Catholic Latin) it was largely interpretted from a Greek understanding.

To make this even more of a problem, Greek wasn't Greek. The Greek language that was spoken and written in Israel was Koinae Greek (or common Greek). I am well familiar with this biblical language; but if you hand me a document in classical Greek or modern Greek, I find that my vocabulary is extremely limited and the way sentence structures are put together is cumbersome. Koinae Greek is sort of the Yiddish version of Greek, or is comparable as Jamaican English is to our familiar dialect. Most of the words are the same, and you could probably follow along with what the person is saying; but it is very strange.

In biblical Greek there is only one word for "work". Picking up my mattress is the same word as going to the office. The word is "ergon" and will be found pretty consistently as translated "work" in your New Testament. It is not the same in Hebrew. In fact, there is a clear distinction between what you do for a living and any physical act of doing something. Throughout the Tanakh (the Old Testament), the work that is prohibited on Sabbath is "malakah" which is your deputyship or employment. The word "abad" which is the Hebrew equivelant of "ergon" is actually commanded on Sabbath. "You shall KEEP the Sabbath": "keep" is typically a translation of the word "abad" which means " any physical activity: to make or to do something".

You also have to understand that just because "the Pharisees" said something doesn't mean they were speaking for all Pharisees everywhere. In fact, this is never the case. Pharisees argue about everything. That's part of what made them Phariseeic, taking personal responsibility and ownership of the commands. Those condemning the practice of breaking heads off the grain were declaring their own interpretation of Sabbath obedience, not speaking of the universal definition.

The common assumption which has been in vogue for quite a while, is that Hebrew/Aramaic was not in common use in the land of Israel (e. e., Judea and Galilee) in the Second Temple period.
However, there are a number of scholars who have raised serious challenges to this, in recent years.

[yeshuafreak]

Yes, Yes he was. though i cannot get into the proofs now, he probably was.

we must realize that there was an overall denomination of the pharisees, but there were also sub groups. the pharisees are the closest to what Yeshua taught than any other goup. in fact, he even eats with pharisees, perhaps those he teaches with. leter howeer, he did rebuke them and ointed out there wrong. often, Yeshua would get on to the pharisees for petty things, but this showed that Yeshua demanded a higher expectation from them.

also, it is evident that yeshua agreed with hillel and may have been trained by his school as a rabbi. this is also something i wont get into now. but hillel was a pharisee, right?

anyway, he is almost irrefutably a pharisee, something you never hear in a christian audiance.

shalom - john