I just finished Jacob Neusner’s A Rabbi Talks with Jesus this morning. It is thought-provoking. It helped me to see the Matthean Jesus in a fresh way. The book is valuable for that achievement alone—helping a Christian to hear Jesus and his teachings anew. It’s given me a great deal to think about.

Rabbi Neusner parts ways with Jesus, in the end, because he hears Jesus speak to individuals (the singular “you”), whereas the Torah speaks to the community (the collective “you”). In a similar way, he says the Torah locates the kingdom of God in how the community lives now, whereas Jesus calls for individuals to prepare for a coming kingdom. Thirdly, he sees Jesus claiming to speak authoritatively to supplant the authority of the Torah, on occasions, in ways that only the God who spoke to Moses on Sinai would have the right to speak. This means, in the end, that he (Rabbi Neusner), cannot hold distinct the Jesus of the Gospel and the Christ of the Church, because it is precisely the claim to divine authority that conflates the two. But, as I read it, this is exactly the claim that the Christian faith makes in confessing that God is triune, so the Rabbi’s concern makes absolute sense from his perspective.

Here’s a quote that captures the distinctions:

The Torah has told me things about God’s kingdom that Jesus neglected, and Jesus has told me things about God’s kingdom the Torah has not affirmed. Jesus’ account of God’s rule drew my eyes on high, to heaven. But I lived, and now live, in the here and now of goring oxen and quarreling families. The kingdom of heaven may come, perhaps not even soon enough, but until it is upon us, the Torah tells me what it means to live in God’s kingdom—in the here and now. (p. 156)

How did I find this book? Rabbi Neusner was one of the voices that Pope Benedict XVI engaged in his book, Jesus of Nazareth.