The Jewish Annotated New Testament (152 page)

Ancient Mediterranean family life, Jewish and otherwise, was frequently gender-segregated, with men and women spending much of their time in various daily tasks with others of the same sex. Among the more elite classes, though, this may have been somewhat less the case. Daughters were raised at home and rarely educated, although elite women, again, were sometimes highly educated. The women of the Herodian family, some of them raised in the imperial court at Rome, were almost certainly educated, and multilingual. The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria represents the women of a monastic community of contemplative philosophers as highly literate, able to spend their days reading allegorical treatises, and skilled at composition, although whether this is Philo’s imagining of an ideal community (not unlike Plato’s
Republic
in some respects) or an actual group, is unclear. Musonius Rufus, a Roman Stoic writer, appears to have written at least two short treatises arguing that training women in philosophy makes them better wives and mothers (and defending counterclaims that educating women masculinizes them). Some philosophical groups, such as the “Garden” of Epicurus, included women. Early rabbinic texts have very little to say about teaching women Torah: one of the only instances is actually a more narrow discussion of whether teaching women that meritorious deeds offset the effects of the punishment of the woman accused of adultery in Numbers 5.11–31 is a good idea, or encourages illicit sexuality (
m. Sot
. 3.4). Highly educated Jewish women are rare in rabbinic representation. A prominent exception is the figure of Beruriah, said in the Babylonian Talmud to have been the brilliant wife of Rabbi Meir, but there is no way to know whether Beruriah was a historical person, a rabbinic fiction, or some combination of the two. In any case, it is unwise to extrapolate from later rabbinic sources to the social realities of the first century.

In a few areas, at least, Jewish “family life”
might
have been distinctive. We do not have any real evidence for how many married couples observed the biblical restrictions on marital intercourse during and after menstruation (e.g., Lev 15.19–30; 18.19, let alone their elaboration in later rabbinic texts, such as
m. Nidd
. and
b. Nidd
.), but if these were widely practiced, they would have had some effect on marital relationships, and perhaps also on fertility rates. Tacitus claimed that Jews were unusual in that they raised all their children (
Hist
. 5.5), rather than abandoning unwanted babies at birth, or aborting unwanted pregnancies. If polygynous marriage, which was illegal under Roman law, was practiced by more than a few Jews, that would have been distinctive in the ancient Mediterranean, where serial marriage seems more the norm.

Some of the most evocative evidence for Jewish family life in the first century comes from the New Testament Gospels. Their often incidental vignettes of household life in the Galilee and Judea feature struggling widows (Lk 18.1–8), a household of unmarried, or possibly widowed, sisters (Lk 10.38–42), the occasional village wedding (Jn 2.1–10), a mother-in-law silently serving her son-in-law and his male guests (Mk 1.31), fathers and widowed or otherwise husbandless women desperately seeking healing for ill children (Mt 9.18–26; 15.21–28; 17.14–21; Mk 5.21–43; 7.24–30; 9.14–29; Lk 7.11–17; 8.40–56). They also depict relations between siblings, especially brothers, and strong mother-son ties. Adult fathers are generally absent from the Gospel narratives, as are grandparents and mother-daughter relationships; depictions of marital relations are also minimal. Peter, for instance, has a mother-in-law (Mk 1.30 and parallels), but there is never any mention of his wife, let alone any representation of interactions between them. Many followers of Jesus are depicted in ways that seem to detach them from larger family relationships. Some writings of the New Testament regularly construct the relationships between early Christians in terms of reconfigured kinship, especially that of siblings, although this language is more common in the letters of Paul and in Acts than it is in the Gospels, where sibling terminology often seems to designate persons with shared parents. Stories about Jesus and parables attributed to him might not reliably reflect the usual familial relations of the first century. For instance, by depicting individuals as detached from family ties, or at least by not presenting such ties, these stories and texts may authorize the kinds of new family arrangements associated with some of the teachings attributed to Jesus, which critique families based on ordinary kinship ties, and authorize, instead, new familial relations based on loyalty to Jesus.

One of the best exemplars of Jewish family demographics is the birth family of Jesus himself, at least as represented in the Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. These portray Jesus as one of a large family of perhaps four other brothers (sometimes named as James, Joses or Joseph, Simon, and Judas [Mt 13.55]) and two or more unnamed sisters. The age difference between Jesus’ mother, Mary, and her husband, Joseph, is never explicitly stated, but one way to understand the lack of any references to Joseph in the Gospel narratives, apart from the stories of Jesus’ birth and childhood, is that Joseph died before Jesus’ public career, consistent with the demographic pattern noted earlier. Neither Jesus nor any of his siblings appears to be married or to have children. We might, perhaps, imagine them all to be too young to be married yet, but this may also be another instance where the Gospel writers portray the family of Jesus in accord with their other interests.

THE CONCEPT OF NEIGHBOR IN JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS

Michael Fagenblat

The commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19.18) plays a central role in both Jewish and Christian ethics, yet it has also been the subject of Christian misunderstanding of Judaism. Two misunderstandings are paramount.

First, some Christian readers, influenced by the parable of the good Samaritan (Lk 10.25–38) and Jesus’ exhortation to “love your enemies” (Mt 5.44; Lk 6.27–35), accuse Judaism of having an exclusivist ethic: Jews only love fellow Jews; Christians expand the definition of neighbor and are to love everyone, Jew and Gentile, friend and enemy. This mistaken view of Judaism is based on a misunderstanding of the role of Leviticus 19.18 in Jewish thought.

Second, some of Jesus’ early followers understood his use of the commandment to love the neighbor, in conjunction with the commandment from Deuteronomy 4.6 to love God, as a substitute for the entire law. The understanding comes from Jesus’ response to the question: “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mk 12.28–31; see also Mt 22.34–40; Lk 10.27). Early interpreters took this combination to mean that Jesus abrogated all the other commandments. Conversely, Jews regarded the command to “love your neighbor as yourself,” as a principle for regulating other laws. In respect to both the definition of the “neighbor” as referring to a fellow Jew and the relation of Leviticus 19.18, to the rest of the law, the historical Jesus was probably closer to the Jewish position than to the interpretation advanced by later Christians.

The full range of the Tanakh’s
rea
, “neighbor,” is remarkably wide, like the English “fellow.” It can designate any human being (Gen 11.3) or denote a person with whom one has an intimate relationship such as a friend (e.g., Ex 33.11; 1 Chr 27.33) or a lover (e.g., Hos 3.1; Song 5.16). Often
rea
refers to a person encountered in everyday life: Proverbs 3.29 explains that “your
rea
” is someone who “lives trustingly beside you”; in Jeremiah 9.1–5 the prophet berates his people for the widespread deception among neighbors. In Deuteronomy 19.14 and 27.17
rea
refers to a landowner with whom one shares a boundary.

It is therefore not surprising that the term “neighbor” figures prominently in the legal literature of the Tanakh, for neighbors rely on laws to regulate their relationships. In the context of biblical law the term refers to a person with whom one has a legal relationship (e.g., Ex 22.25; Deut 4.42). Here it is perhaps analogous to “citizen” or “compatriot.” This is the case for Leviticus 19.18.

In its literary context, as in later Jewish interpretations, the commandment to “love your neighbor” is restricted to members of the covenant community. It appears within a set of laws aimed at regulating judicial impartiality and cultivating fraternity within Israel. These are
this nation’s particular laws
rather than a set of universal guidelines; in this context “neighbor” (
rea
) refers to a person encountered within the framework of covenantal relationships. Leviticus 19 opens with an imperative addressed “to all the congregation of the people of Israel … : You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy” (19.2). It then proceeds to address this specific audience through various synonyms that reinforce Israel’s covenantal fellowship: “your kinsfolk” (
a
ḥ
ikha
), “your people” (
bnei ‘amekha
), “your compatriot” (
amitkha
), and “your neighbor” (
re
‘
akha
). The Greek term
plēsion
, by which the Septuagint translates
rea
, also refers to someone encountered nearby. Like
rea
,
plesion
can refer to any other human being and not only to fellow members of the covenant; however there is no evidence that pre-Christian Hellenistic Jews understood Leviticus 19.18 in this broader sense.

Thus, charging Jews with failing to interpret “the neighbor” in a universal sense amounts to charging them with failing to
mis
interpret the language of their own scriptures. Moreover, claiming that the Jewish reading is morally restrictive is like condemning a modern nation for legislating for its own citizens rather than for the whole world.

Early rabbinic literature retains this view of Leviticus 19 as a national charter.
Sifra
, a halakhic midrash on Leviticus from approximately the third century, states that Leviticus 19 was recited at
hakhel
, a national assembly held every seven years (see Deut 31.10–13). The rabbis accord this special status to Leviticus 19 because it commands “all … of Israel” to “be holy” and then enumerates laws that “most of the essentials of the Torah depend (lit., hang) on” (
Parashah Aleph
).

The fact that Jewish tradition understood Leviticus 19.18b in the context of national law and not as a universal moral principle, however, does not imply that Jews are legally obliged to love only each another. This view of ancient Judaism as restrictive ironically restricts Jewish ethics to one verse and neglects the full charter of Leviticus 19. The chapter goes on, in v. 34 (cf. Deut 10.19) to mandate: “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” By using the same love language as Leviticus 19.18b, verse 34 equates the love prescribed to one’s fellow Israelite with love for the stranger.

Moreover, biblical and Jewish ethics provide alternative avenues for cultivating a “universalistic” moral attitude. For example, Genesis 1.27; 5.1–2; 9.6 insist that all humanity is created in the image of God. The Noahide laws, fundamental principles that the rabbis regard as binding upon all people, include renouncing idolatry, establishing judicial systems, and prohibiting murder and theft (
t. Avodah Zara
8.4;
b. Sanh
. 56a; cf. Acts 15.29). The first-century Jewish historian Josephus remarks that the function of Jewish law includes “mutual communion” among Jews as well as “a general love of mankind” (
Ag. Ap
. 2.15). Ancient Jews thus understood the Torah as implying not only laws for Israel but also universal moral precepts; they simply did not derive these precepts from Leviticus 19.18.

The significance of Lev 19.18 in Jewish tradition is also seen in its interpretation by the great Rabbi Akiva, who lived in Israel a century after Jesus and was, like Jesus, executed by the Roman state. Akiva claimed that love of the neighbor is “the great principle of the Torah” (
y. Ned
. 9,3,41;
Sifra Kedoshim
4.12;
Gen Rab
. 24.27). For Akiva, this verse was the foundation for the rest of the Torah, and all other commandments are to be interpreted in its light. Rabbi Meir, Akiva’s student, invokes Leviticus 19.18 to justify releasing a man from a vow when it has unforeseen consequences (
m. Ned
. 9.4). He reasons that had the man known that the oath would require him to transgress Leviticus 19.18, he never would have taken it. Another of Akiva’s students, Rabbi Judah, cites that verse in a discussion of capital punishment. Opposing the view that execution by fire means burning the convicted felon alive, Rabbi Judah insists: “It says love your neighbor as yourself—select for him a good death” (
t. Sanh
. 9.1). As with Rabbi Meir, for Rabbi Judah the obligation to love the neighbor implies that one should interpret another law, in this case the law of execution, in a charitable way. While modern readers might have difficulty seeing “a good death [sentence]” as an expression of “love your neighbor,” in a context where resurrection of the body was a fundamental belief, it was indeed an act of charity to ensure that the integrity of the body was maintained at death. Moreover, in this case the person to whom love is rendered has been convicted of a capital offense and is therefore a clear contender for an “enemy” who is being loved by means of a charitable interpretation of the law.