The Jewish Roots of our Faith

   In this post I would like to make a couple of points about the Jewish roots of Christianity. There are a number of reasons for why I consider this to be important. The first of these is that the New Covenant or ברת חדשה which Jesus the Messiah brought was promised and offered first to the House of Israel and then to the Gentiles. The second reason is that I believe this issue, though often addressed in some circles, still needs to be discussed by wider groups both Jewish and non-Jewish. Thirdly, considering the years of bad relations between the Church and the Jews both recently and in more ancient times, I feel it is good to make this reminder about the common links we share in order to help people make informed decisions about Judaism and Christianity. As always, my words will serve merely as an introduction to this subject, and I hope they will encourage people to do their own personal study.

   My first point is that Jesus is Jewish. When I was at school, I remember a friend of mine observing how commonly Jesus is depicted in European art as blond-haired and blue-eyed. While I make no claims as to Jesus' actual appearance, I would like to highlight, as my friend did, the tendency to imagine Jesus  according to our own ethnic background. In reality, he was born not of Germanic or African parents, but to Mary, who was Jewish. He was a descendant of David, who was a descendant of Jacob/Israel, who was the grandson of Abraham, who was descended from Shem (see Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38). 

  Similarly, our Western art and the largely Gentile composition of the Church has led some to imagine the disciples, Apostles, and early Christians as Gentiles, whereas in fact they were largely Jewish. In the early days of the Church, which started in Jerusalem, Jesus' followers met to worship God in the Temple or in people's homes (Acts 2:42-3:1). The Apostle Paul, or Sha'ul as he was formerly known, whenever he came to a new town would generally preach in the local synagogue first, before preaching elsewhere (e.g. Acts 17:1-4). So far as we can tell, Christian communities often started out among the local Jews of a given city and Gentiles would join them, meeting in people's homes (Acts 18:1-8). It is hard to say at what point exactly Christian evangelists dropped Paul's pattern of preaching to the Jew first and then the Gentile (see Romans 1:16), but this appears to have set in by the Late Antique period (3rd century AD onward) - but your guess is as good as mine.

   This leads on to another point: that the New Covenant was promised first to the Jews and then the Gentiles and that Paul maintained this priority in his Apostolic and evangelistic ministry. I'm not sure how well known this is, but the New Covenant was not plucked out of thin air when Jesus came - it had been declared by God through his holy prophet Jeremiah, centuries before Jesus was born to Mary (or Mariam מרים, if you prefer). The relevant passage is Jeremiah 31:31-34, and it is discussed at Hebrews 8:7-13 (but see the preceding passage and chapters for fuller context). Throughout the Law and the Prophets God makes a series of Covenants, some of the most famous being the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, and the Davidic Covenant. A notable feature of these covenants is that they are often connected with God's people Israel. The same is true for the New Covenant - God speaks it through the Jewish prophet Jeremiah to the Jewish kingdom of Judah. The verses that follow this announcement, interestingly, are a promise that Israel will always be a people before God - this promise is witnessed by history: the Jews have never ceased from being a distinctive people among the Gentiles, known for their special connection to the One and Only God. The Church is a recipient of the New Covenant, but one must remember how Paul explains this in Romans 11:11-36. We Gentile believers are grafted into the tree of Israel; Israel's roots support us, not we them. Therefore a  degree of respect, gratitude and humility is to be shown the Jews by Gentile believers - it is through Israel that Messiah came who brought the New Covenant whereby our sins are forgiven, as God promised. Jesus himself says, 'salvation is from the Jews' (John 4:22, NIV).

  Lastly, I would like to point out that Jesus' title, Messiah, is Jewish. He is commonly referred to as 'the Christ' by Gentiles because the New Testament was written in Koine Greek and Christos is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Mashiach (Hellenized to Messias), which means 'Anointed One'. The coming of the Messiah was formally announced to the prophet Daniel by the angel Gabriel:

“Know therefore and understand,
That from the going forth of the command
To restore and build Jerusalem
Until Messiah the Prince,
There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks;
The street shall be built again, and the wall,
Even in troublesome times.

 “And after the sixty-two weeks
Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself;
And the people of the prince who is to come
Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
The end of it shall be with a flood,
And till the end of the war desolations are determined." 

(Daniel 9:25-26, NKJV)

There are of course many other prophecies that are held to refer to the Messiah by both Jewish and Christian scholars, but this is one of the occasions where the word Messiah is used directly. Thus the Messiah is not a concept dreamed up by Christians - God proclaimed that He would send the Messiah at the right time.
  More could be said on this topic, and I intend to address it again in a future post, but for now, this is plenty of food for thought.

Shalom al-Yerushalaim.
God bless.