Christianity Is Jewish: Part 1, The Christian Bible Is Jewish

This series of blog posts will explore the theme of Christianityʼs Jewish origins. Even though Christianity has been the long-estranged daughter of Judaism for nearly two millenia, it is a daughter nonetheless (unless the Jewish family has officially removed their daughter from the family).

The title, Christianity Is Jewish, is also the title of a book in the same vein by Edith Schaeffer, wife of the late Christian apologist Francis Schaeffer and co-founder with her husband of the devotional LʼAbri community in France (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1981, originally published 1975). Before Jewish readers write this idea off as a Christian idea, let them read the following.

The statement Christianity Is Jewish may strike some readers as a non-sequitur or even complete nonsense. However, these posts will reveal that the origins, core, and future of Christianity is Jewish, even though it may not always seem that way. For Jews, Christianity is way too goyified to be Jewish, and for Christians, Judaism is way too, well, Jewish (usually associated with ritual barbarism and legalism) to be the spiritual mother of Christianity. Even though Christianity is Jewish, it may be more apt to, like Jews, say that Christianity is a goyified version of Judaism, because if Christianity was Jewish in a literal sense, then Christianity would merely be a sect of Judaism and not an entirely different and even antagonistic religion to Judaism. But the very antagonism that breeds between the two faiths (and their mutual cousin, Islam) is evidence of their relatedness: families fight, and those who are closest to us often hurt us the most. The very relatedness engenders the vilest hatred because they know each other too well. People who donʼt know each other have no reason to hate each other because they donʼt even know them. One must know before one hates.

This particular post will explore how the very Bible that Christians use is Jewish. I think everyone would agree that the Hebrew Bible (or Jewish Bible, or Tanakh) is Jewish, but not many would acknowledge that the New Testament and deuterocanonical and apocryphal books are also fundamentally Jewish. Nevertheless, I will still demonstrate the Jewishness of the Jewish Bible as well. Below is a chart of the book of the Bible and their authors, and to what degree they are Jewish or not.

NB. In the first table, I use the word Jew to refer to the inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah, which is the technical meaning, and not the general meaning of any descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which is designated by Israelite.

Tanakh

Book	Traditional Author	Jewish Status of Author	Subject
Torah
Torat Moshe or, Pentateuch	Moshe/Moses	Israelite	Creation of Jewish people
Neviʾim = prophets
Book of Joshua	Joshua	Israelite	Jews enter Cna'an/Israel
Book of Judges	Shmuʾel/Samuel	Israelite	Israelʼs judges
Book(s) of Samuel	Shmuʾel/Samuel	Israelite	Israelʼs kings Saul and David
Book(s) of Kings	Yeremyah/Jeremiah	Israelite	Israelʼs monarchy
Book of Isaiah	Yeshayah/Isaiah	Jew	Isaiahʼs prophecies about Israel
Book of Jeremiah	Yeremyah/Jeremiah	Israelite	Jeremiahʼs prophecies about Israel
Book of Ezekiel	Yehezqel/Ezekiel	Jew	Ezekielʼs prophecies about Israel
Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets	Various	Israelite/Jewish	Prophecies about Israel
Kethuvim
Book of Psalms	David + others	Jew + Israelite	Hymns to Israelʼs god
Book of Proverbs	Shlomo/Solomon	Jew	Jewish wisdom and maxims
Book of Job	Unknown	n/a	Godʼs sovereignty over suffering
The Song of Songs	Shlomo/Solomon	Jew	Love: human, and Godʼs love for Israel
Book of Ruth	Shmuʾel/Samuel	Israelite	The marriage of the Jewess Ruth to Boaz
Book of Lamentations	Yeremyah/Jeremiah	Israelite	Israelʼs sorrow
Book of Ecclesiastes	Shlomo/Solomon	Jew	The vanity of life
Book of Esther	Mordecai or Ezra?	Jew	Jewish Queen Esther saves the Jews
Book of Daniel	Daniel	Jew	Danielʼs life and visions about Israel
Book of Ezra-Nehemiah	Ezra + Nehemyah	Jew	God returns the Jews Israel
Book of Chronicles	Ezra	Jew	History of Israelite monarchy for exiled Jews

Deuterocanon

Now that we have seen that all the books of the Hebrew Bible were authored by Jews, we can now move onto the supposed Christian additions to the Bible. The authors of the deuterocanonical books (coming from the Greek phrase meaning second canon, that is, second from the protocanon, or Tanakh) are mostly unknown, and so the authorship and quote marks are taken from accepted scholarship, as from the Oxford Apocrypha.

Book	Author	Subject
Book of Tobit	a Jew	The Jew Tobit
Book of Judith	a Palestinian Jew	The story of the Jewess Judith
Additions to Esther	Lysimachus ben Ptolemy, a Jew	Jewish Queen Esther saves the Jews
Wisdom of Solomon	a hellenized Jew of Alexandria	Jewish wisdom
Book of Sirach	Yeshuaʿ ben Elʿezer ben Sirach	Jewish wisdom
Book of Baruch	Jeremiahʼs scribe, Baruch	Letter to exiled Jews
Letter of Jeremiah	Jeremiah	Letter to exiled Jews
Additions to Daniel	a Jew	Jewish folkstories about Daniel
1 Maccabees	an educated Jew	The Jewish revolt against Hellenized Jews led by haMaqqabim
2 Maccabees	a Jew	Same
1 Esdras	a Jew	Jewish history
Prayer of Manasseh	a Jew	King Manassehʼs prayer from 2 Chr 33
Psalm 151	a Jew	151st hymn from Psalter, found in DSS
3 Maccabees	a Jew	Alexandrian Jewish history
2 Esdras	a Jew	Jewish apocalypse
4 Maccabees	an observant Jew of the Hellenstic Diaspora who had a Greek rhetorical education	Jewish discourse on Torah

As all of the authors of the deuterocanon are Jews, and they are writing about Jewish themes, it would stand to reason to say that the Apocrypha is a collection of Jewish books. As such, Jews should feel free to learn about their history from its pages, and these books should be regarded by Jews as their heritage, and not shunned as another religionʼs—that is, Christian—literature. Now let us see about the collection of books known as the New Testament, whether that too is Jewish.

NB. Yeshuaʿ ben Yosef haNotsri/Natsrati is Hebrew for Jesus son of Joseph the Nazarene (or, of Nazareth). And Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos refers to he who is known in the Christian tradition as St. Paul. Rather than having a new name upon a conversion, he maintained two names all his life. Paulos was his Roman citizen name, and Rabbi Shaʾul was his Hebrew name, as he was a rabbi who learned at the feet of Rabbi Gamliel, of talmudic fame.

New Testament

Book	Traditional Author	Jewish Status of Author	Subject
Matthew	Mattityahu	Jew	Yeshuaʿ ben Yosef haNotsri/Natsrati
Mark	Yohannan Markos	Jew	Yeshuaʿ ben Yosef haNotsri/Natsrati
Luke	Loukas	?	Yeshuaʿ ben Yosef haNotsri/Natsrati
John	Yohannan ben Zavdi	Jew	Yeshuaʿ ben Yosef haNotsri/Natsrati
Acts of the Apostles	Loukas	?	the talmidim of Yeshuaʿ after he ascended
Romans	Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos	Jew, a Pharisee	Godʼs relation to Israel
1 Corinthians	Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos	Jew, a Pharisee	conduct of Corinthian kehilah
2 Corinthians	Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos	Jew, a Pharisee	conduct of Corinthian kehilah
Galatians	Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos	Jew, a Pharisee	should goyyim be circumcised?
Ephesians	Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos	Jew, a Pharisee	Godʼs plan for those who are no longer aliens from the commonwealth of Israel
Philippians	Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos	Jew, a Pharisee	epistle to assemby in Philippi
Colossians	Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos	Jew, a Pharisee	avoid ascetism and critics
1 Thessalonians	Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos	Jew, a Pharisee	the coming of haMashiach
2 Thessalonians	Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos	Jew, a Pharisee	the coming of haMashiach
1 Timothy	Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos	Jew, a Pharisee	instructions for leading a congregation
2 Timothy	Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos	Jew, a Pharisee	same
Titus	Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos	Jew, a Pharisee	same
Philemon	Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos	Jew, a Pharisee	what to do about a runaway slave
Hebrews	Rabbi Shaʾul/Paulos ?	Jew, a Pharisee	Yeshuaʿ in relation to Temple rituals
James	Yaʿakov, brother of Yeshu'a	Jew	instructions for the Twelve Tribes in the Diaspora
1 Peter	Shimon Kefa, aka Simon Petros	Jew	epistle to the sojourners of the Diaspora in Asia Minor
2 Peter	Shimon Kefa, aka Simon Petros	Jew	Peterʼs final teaching
1 John	Yohannon	Jew	keeping Godʼs commandments if you love him
2 John	Yohannon	Jew	epistle to the elect lady
3 John	Yohannon	Jew	epistle to Gaius about outsiders
Jude	Yehuda	Jew	fate of the wicked
The Revelation	Yohannon	Jew	Jewish apocalypse

As one can see, all of the New Covenant literature were written by Jews, with the exception of Luke, whose Jewish status is uncertain. Additionally, every New Covenant book has a Jewish theme, whether it be the supposed Jewish messiah, Yeshuaʿ haNotsri, or how Godʼs people should act, the relationship of goyyim to Israel and Jews, and the last days (acharit hayamim). Some of the New Covenant epistles were written to Jews in the Diaspora. Due to their authorship and content, the New Covenant books can rightly be considered Jewish literature. As such, Jews should feel in good company reading the New Covenant literature (preferably in Hebrew or in a translation that retains Hebraic terms), as all the authors were fellow Jews. As Jewish scholars Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler conclude in their preface to The Jewish Annotated New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011),

We hope that non-Jewish readers will learn to appreciate that significant sections of the New Testament derive from the heart of Judaism, and that they will be able to understand these texts without importing false notions of the tradition of Jesus and his earliest followers. We further hope that this volume will make the New Testament more welcoming to Jewish readers (many of whom are unfamiliar with its contents), that these new readers may become better acquainted with the traditions of their neighbors, and that perhaps they may even experience holy envy in the reading (xiii).

Similarly, in his afterword, translator Willis Barnstone states,

Jews should be able to read this book of marvels, of their authorship, about themselves, about some Jews who believe they have found the Jewish messiah, whose offspring become known as messianics or Christians....This translation—having made Yeshuaʼs Judaism obvious through its restoration of Jewish names and its annotation and afterword—should encourage Jews to read the New Covenant without terror, without fear for their very lives and souls

(The New Covenant, Commonly the New Testament: Newly Translated from the Greek and Informed by Semitic Sources, volume 1, The Four Gospels and Apocalypse [New York: Riverhead Books, 2002], 439).

That is my hope. Now that I have demonstrated that the whole Bible—from Genesis to Revelation—is Jewish, Jews especially should feel comfortable reading all of it. However, just because it was written by Jews does not mean that other Jews will agree with all of it, nor that its teachings line up with modern Judaism (which differentiated itself from Christianity in the early centuries of the Common Era). Rather, Jews can read religious books written by other Jews and not, as Willis Barnstone said, fear for their very lives and souls. A Jew should be able to pick up the Apocrypha and New Testament and find therein a close friend, maybe a cousin, and even to see themselves therein. No, Jews need not consider the Apocrypha and New Testament canonical, but they should at least read it. They owe it to themselves, not only as inhabitants of the Western tradition, but more importantly, as part of recovering a lost Jewish legacy. This is their book, and they should make it theirs. The time of the gentiles is nearing its end, and Jews around the world ought to reclaim their lost and trampled-upon heritage. When this occurence takes place, it will be nothing short of the redemption of the world.