On “The Jewish Gospels” by Daniel Boyarin *****

Boyarin sets out to show how Jewish and Christian were actually fluid terms until the fourth century—that what we think of as necessarily Jewish was sometimes Christian, and what we think of as Christian was sometimes Jewish. The idea in itself isn't terribly surprising to me, as it is one I largely share, though Boyarin's split may be a bit late, depending one the region he's talking about.

I gleaned much from the specifics in this book, however. A major portion of the work is given over to the study of the terms “Son of God” and “Son of Man” which ironically places as meaning essentially just the opposite of what we would think them to mean. “Son of God,” he shows, demonstrates Jesus's link to humanity and, specifically, to nobility, like David, or even the first man Adam. “Son of Man,” by contrast, is really about demonstrating the manner in which God has manifested himself among men; its great meaning, thus, is really about how God has come to dwell with us.

Another, later chapter focuses on Jesus's views about food. Boyarin discusses the, for me, familiar discussion regarding Jesus's usage of the term “clean” when he says that all things have been registered as such. There are two different words, both rendered “clean” in most English translations, but one has to do with purification and the other with dietary restrictions. Thus, when one reads the New Testament closely, Jesus is really talking about Pharisaical rituals, not about Biblical food laws.

Finally, Boyarin questions the popular theory among many contemporary scholars, such as Bart Ehrman, that the suffering Jesus linked to Isaiah was really understood as a passage about the nation of Israel as a whole. No, Boyarin says, some Jews, even before Jesus's time, understood that passage as being about a Messianic figure, a single person.

It's a short book, but Boyarin brings out a lot of great points on specific issues that have taken up discussions in recent scholarly works.