Answering Critics: The Anti-Missionary's Double Standard

My main point of contention in my previous work was that anti-missionaries use one standard when evaluating rabbinic tradition and another when evaluating the New Testament.


Non-Existent Prophecies

The issue with Ezra 9:10-12 is that it is parallel to Matthew's quote in chapter 2.

“And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken your commandments, which you commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land that you are entering, to take possession of it, is a land impure with the impurity of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations that have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness. Therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.’ (Ezra 9:10-12)

 And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene. (Matthew 2:23)

 Both claim to use the words of the prophets. However, just as Matthew's quote cannot be found in the Tanakh, neither can Ezra's quote be found there. If the anti-missionary wants to fault Matthew for quoting a non-existent passage, than the author of Ezra will have to be faulted as well, and for the same reason.

And for the record, Matthew's quote is a reference to Isaiah 11:1.

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. (Isaiah 11:1)

 The branch is (נֵצֶר) Netzer. Jesus was from Nazareth (נָצְרַת) Netzeret.
So Jesus is the branch and he is from branchland.

Burden of Proof

The second issue is regarding the burden of proof. The burden of proof in philosophical discourse is merely a statement that the person who makes a claim has to give some good reason for it. This keeps someone who is asserting a claim from appealing to ignorance. If we are going to debate the messiahship of Jesus, the default position should not be that is is or is not the Messiah, but that we do not know. The two sides will then give arguments for their respective positions.

It is an appeal to ignorance to state that if Jesus did not complete messianic actions A-Z, he is therefore not Messiah. One would still need to argue that Jesus will not ever complete these actions in order to establish such a claim to knowledge. This is why Pinchas Lapide is agnostic over the identity of Messiah. He admitted that in a debate that he does not know whether or not Jesus is Messiah. He could be, but we will not know until the end of days.

I am not arguing that if we cannot prove Jesus is not Messiah, he therefore is. I am arguing that unless you can show he is not, your claims that he is not are unwarranted.

PaRDeS

The rabbinic tradition speaks of four levels of interpretation: Pashat (literal), Drash (homiletical), Remez (hint), and Sod (secret). The Pashat is the primary meaning; none of the other senses can contradict it. However, what the other senses teach is considered just as true and as binding as the Pashat. My first example is from the threefold reference to cooking a kid in its mother's milk.

“The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. (Exodus 23:19)

The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.” (Exodus 34:26)

 “You shall not eat anything that has died naturally. You may give it to the sojourner who is within your towns, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. (Deuteronomy 14:21)

The plain literal interpretation of all of these verses is that you do not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. Period. Archaeology in Israel has showed us that one of the ancient Canaanite fertility rituals was to boil a young goat in its mother's milk. The Israelites were forbidden to do that. There is no grammatical-historical exegesis that one can do in order to get a different plain, literal meaning than that.

Rabbinical tradition does not assign that as the full meaning to the verses. Instead, the laws of basar b'chalav (meat in milk) were derived from it. According to rabbinical law, the first instance means that one cannot cook a combination of milk and meat. The second means that one cannot eat such a combination. The third means that one cannot derive any benefit from such a combination.

Either this law is based on a non-Pashat reading, or we lose any objective basis to distinguish Pashat from the other levels of interpretation.

One might object that the milk and meat example addresses legal interpretation (halacha) while messianic prophecy is non-legal interpretation (aggadah). Such a distinction is interesting, but irrelevant, and one only need to read enough material published by Artscroll to realize this. The Encyclopedia of Jewish Personalities is filled with aggadic material which is treated as absolute historical truth.

There are also lots of fun rabbinical interpretations of the Tanakh. Keep in mind that in most cases of interpretation, there is no label that the rabbis use to say "this is Pashat" or "this is Sod." The Midrash is Drash. Rashi sometimes labels which sense is which. Still, one Orthodox rabbi told me that when interpreting prophecy, it is often unclear which sense the commentator is talking about. Therefore, it is simply question-begging claim that all Pashat interpretations of Isaiah 53 call the Servant Israel. How do you know that? By defining all non-Israel interpretations of the Servant as non-Pashat? How circular of you.

Genesis 37 contains the story of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. When Joseph arrives in the fields, the brothers plot to kill him.

And a man found [Joseph] wandering in the fields. And the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” “I am seeking my brothers,” he said. “Tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.” And the man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan. They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams.” (Genesis 37:15-20)

The rabbi Tur interprets the phrase "they conspired to kill him" as "First they tried to cause his death from a distance by shooting arrows at him, so that they would not kill him with their bare hands." The Midrash states "Then they incited dogs against him."

In the book of Numbers, the sorcerer Balaam is hired by the king Balak to cast a curse upon Israel. The angel stops him and makes his donkey speak.

Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, with his drawn sword in his hand. And he bowed down and fell on his face. And the angel of the Lord said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out to oppose you because your way is perverse before me. (Numbers 22:31-32)

The rabbis note that the word for "times" is the same as the word for "feet" or "footsteps" (רְגָלִים) regalim. They then interpret this to mean that Balaam wanted to keep the regalim festivals, which are the three pilgrimage festivals. This then means that Balaam was unable to keep the festivals due to some condition that kept him from being allowed to do so. A missing eye would be a condition like that, and so rabbinical tradition believes that Balaam had only one eye. 

The Haredi rabbis I spoke to about this treat this interpretation as absolutely literally true history. The only question is as to how Balaam had one eye. One tradition says he was a cyclops, and another says that he had one eye hanging out of its socket, turning independently and looking at people. Hence, it is plainly and obviously false that the rabbis only take the Pashat to be the only literally true sense of the verse.