Sitting at the feet of Jesus

[Maria Burger]

ZONDERVAN
Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus
Copyright © 2009 by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg.
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
ISBN 978-0-310-29375-0
International Trade Paper Edition
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from (1) the Holy Bible, New
International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society;
(2) the Holy Bible, Today’s New International Version™. TNIV®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by
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Printed in the United States of America
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Contents
Introduction 7
1 Joining Mary at the Feet of Jesus 11
2 Why a Jewish Rabbi? 21
3 Stringing Pearls 36
4 Following the Rabbi 51
5 Get Yourself Some Haverim 66
6 Rabbi, Teach Us to Pray 78
7 For Everything a Blessing 91
8 A Passover Discovery 101
9 Discovering Jesus in the Jewish Feasts 113
10 At Table with the Rabbi 128
11 Touching the Rabbi’s Fringe 145
12 Jesus and the Torah 163
13 The Mysterious Kingdom of God 180
14 Becoming True Disciples of Our Jewish Lord 197
Appendices
A Prayers Jesus Prayed 211
B The Feasts 218
C Recommended Resources 222
D Glossary 226
Notes 234
Scripture Index 253
General Index 257
7
W
Introduction
Writing this book has been for us a joy and a privilege. How lucky
can you get to spend the better part of your day, month after
month, steeping yourself in the life of Jesus and the Jewish world in
which he lived? Even as we worked, our own lives were often affected.
For instance, as Easter approached this year, we found ourselves writing
the chapter on Passover. Delving into that feast, already ancient
by Jesus’ time, made it easier to visualize and understand the profound
events of Holy Week. It was not difficult to picture Jesus in agony on
that lonely night in Gethsemane, his own disciples too exhausted to
stay awake and pray, oblivious to the events unfolding around them
after consuming the heavy Passover meal with its multiple glasses of
wine. Their beloved rabbi was about to be consumed by forces that
would set things in motion for the promises imbedded in the feast to
be fulfilled. But they had no understanding of its rich depth of meaning
until much later.
As we tried to place ourselves in Jesus’ Jewish world, layer after layer
of history seemed to peel away until we could almost imagine that, for
a while we, too, had joined the disciples and were sitting at Jesus’ feet.
Gabi Barkai, an eminent Jewish archaeologist, has said that “every
day in Jerusalem is a day of discovery.” Indeed, the last fifty years have
seen many exciting archaeological discoveries in the land of the Bible
that, far from undermining faith, have bolstered the historical reliability
of the Gospels. What’s more, a growing number of Chris tian scholars
have begun to explore the Hebraic roots of Chris tian ity because
they realize they have much to learn from their Jewish counterparts
about the Jewish customs and traditions that have shaped the Bible.
Their research has yielded valuable insights that are not easily available
to the general reader.
You might wonder if the authors of this book are Jewish, and the
Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus
8
answer is no. We are Chris tians who are fascinated with our Savior
and his life and teachings. If Jesus had been an Eskimo, we’d be studying
Inuit (Eskimo) language and culture, learning about igloos, ice
fishing, and polar bears. The goal of this book is not so much to help
you understand Judaism as to help you hear Christ’s life-changing
words with greater clarity and force. God promised Abraham that the
Gentiles would be blessed through his descendants. When we honor
this ancient people by learning about their culture and customs, God
blesses us with a deeper understanding of our Scriptures and of Jesus,
our Messiah.
No book, however carefully researched and written, is without its
flaws and for these we take full responsibility. We are aware, too, that
the study of the Hebraic roots of Chris tian ity is a developing field and
that future research may well cause us to revise certain details of Jewish
life in first-century Israel. Scholars themselves disagree as to the dating
of some details, whether they describe Jesus’ time or arose afterward.
With these issues in mind, we’ve done our best to explore and weigh
the most current research in the field. We have also been careful to
place Jesus within his first-century Jewish context rather than that of
later ages. We hope the end result will be of help to pastors, students,
and lay people who find their reading of the Bible all the more fascinating
and life transforming as they come to appreciate and understand
the Jewish context that shaped it.
Ann is grateful for the privilege of beginning her study of the Jewish
world of Jesus with someone who has dedicated more than twelve years
of her life to carefully investigating the Jewish context in which Jesus
lived and ministered. A molecular biologist by training, Lois Tverberg
has shifted her interest and expertise to this emerging field of study,
dedicating her considerable intellectual gifts and academic training to
the kind of careful, balanced, and inspired research that both authors
hope is evident in this book. Time after time as Ann questioned her
about a particular statement or point of view, Lois’s answers surprised
and delighted her, revealing not only a wealth of knowledge but something
even rarer — a depth of wisdom. Indeed Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi
Jesus is a book Lois has wanted to write for many years. Ann is thankful
that she waited until she could come alongside to write it with her.
Introduction
9
Lois is especially grateful to her scholarly mentors over the years,
David Bivin, Randall Buth, Steve Notley, Dwight Pryor, and of course
Ray Vander Laan, who instilled this fascination in her life many years
ago. For Bruce and Mary Okkema, good friends through this journey,
and for the love and prayers of Laura Tverberg, and David and
Lora Tverberg and the rest of Lois’s family, she has never ceased to
give thanks. Most of all, Lois thanks the Lord for these months of
writing with Ann, whose mentorship, honest critiques, and delightful
creativity have given her a new approach to the craft of writing. Seeing
how perfectly the circumstances fell together for our meeting, she
hardly has enough words of praise for what God has begun through
this relationship.
For those who regularly prayed for us as we wrote and researched
— for Linda Bieze, Leslie Dennis, Joan Huyser-Honig, Hillari Madison,
Dorothy Spangler, Patti Swets, and Stephanie Wiggins — we are
amazed and grateful for how faithfully you kept it up. Special thanks go
to Josa Bivin for her helpful feedback and to Marylin Bright, Kathleen
Coveny, and Shirley Hoogeboom, true haverot who grappled with each
chapter in its roughest form and whose prayers lifted Lois all the way
along.
For associate publisher and executive editor Sandy Vander Zicht,
who has enthusiastically supported this project from day one and who
has offered many helpful suggestions along the way, we say thank you.
For Jana Reiss, we are grateful for your careful and insightful review
of the manuscript. Your grasp of the material combined with your understanding
of the needs of the general reader is truly amazing. We
also greatly appreciate the feedback of senior editor at large Verlyn
Verbrugge, as well as of Marvin Wilson and Ed Visser on the historical
content of the book. Thank you for taking the time to offer such
helpful critiques. For Marcy Schorsch, associate marketing director at
Zondervan, we are grateful for the creative ways in which you have
spread the word about this book. And for Verne Kenney, executive vice
president of sales at Zondervan, as well as for his dedicated staff, thank
you for caring about this book and for doing your best to get it into as
many hands as possible.
11
B
CHAPTER 1
Joining Mary
at the Feet of Jesus
Let your house be a meeting place for the rabbis,
and cover yourself in the dust of their feet,
and drink in their words thirstily.
— Attributed to Yose ben Yoezer (second century B.C.)
Bethany’s steep dirt roads are hard on your legs, especially when
you’ve spent a hot day walking uphill the entire way from Jericho.
But the smell of Martha’s lamb stew wafting from a cooking pot in the
front courtyard of her house beckons your dusty legs to keep climbing.
You try to ignore your aching feet and the sweat-soaked dirt that
clumps beneath your toes, thinking instead of the cool drink she will
soon offer. The long hike has been worth it, because the conversation
along the way has been absolutely profound. Didn’t you feel your heart
burning within you as you listened to the rabbi?
A person has to have some chutzpah and sturdy legs, you think, to
push to the front so that he can hear the conversation. But this afternoon
you haven’t missed a word even on those narrow paths along
Wadi Kelt, where only two or three could be in good listening range.
Usually Peter, James, and John would angle their way up toward Jesus,
but this time you got there first. Finally you had a chance to ask him
some of the questions that had been piling up in your head.
But before you have time to make sense of his answers, your
thoughts are interrupted by the cackles of chickens that strut across
the courtyard and by Martha’s joyous laughter greeting you, the sweat
beading on her forehead from her last-minute flurry of preparation. She
and Mary share a small stone house that seems to miraculously expand
to embrace all the guests that enter. Mary is there, too, greeting each
Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus
12
person. Before you can even sit down, she asks
you what Jesus has been talking about on the
walk from Jericho.
When family responsibilities allow, Mary
sits in on the study sessions at the local synagogue,
and she has questions of her own that
she’s been waiting to ask. She often joins the
group for Jesus’ after-dinner discussions, and
today, even with supper only half-ready, she
sits down at Jesus’ feet, oblivious of the look
on Martha’s face, laughing readily with the
others over a heated debate that started along
the road (Luke 10:38 – 42).
Wouldn’t you love to have joined the boisterous
crowd in Martha’s house that evening?
To have sat with Mary and those incredibly
fortunate disciples who were able to travel with Jesus, to listen to him
and learn from him for the three years of his public ministry?
What would it have been like to have been counted among Jesus’
closest friends? To have him stay at your house whenever he was in
town? Besides being an eyewitness, you would have had the great advantage
of being a first-century Jew, someone whose life and experience
were shaped by the same culture and religious beliefs that helped
shape the life and ministry of Jesus. Like Jesus, you would have observed
the laws and traditions of Judaism and would have been familiar
with the issues of the day. You would have caught the humor and the
nuanced remarks that made his words even more captivating, more
life-changing.
Much as we might wish to have seen and heard the Lord in person,
we are grateful that we can still experience him in Scripture. And yet
the Jesus we meet in the Gospels is not always easy to understand.
Partially, this is because we perceive his words at the distance of many
centuries, from an entirely different culture, and in a different language.
Instead of making our hearts burn, sometimes Scripture makes
us scratch our heads in confusion.
I (Ann) remember the first time I met one of my roommates in
Female Students
in the First Century
Women were encouraged
to sit in on the advanced
discussions at the synagogue
if they were able. A few
even acquired the highlevel
education required
to contribute to rabbinic
debates, and their words
are still on record. Some
restrictions on women, like
separating men and women
during worship, actually
arose several centuries later.1
Joining Mary at the Feet of Jesus
13
graduate school. Gladisín was from Panama and had only been in the
country a week when we first met. I liked her immediately. We seemed
to get along well despite the language barrier. But I recall how stumped
I was when Gladisín turned to me one day and declared, “I have a
pain.”
“What is it? What can I do?” I asked. But Gladisín merely stared at
me with wide brown eyes and repeated, this time more emphatically:
“I have a pain!” The more I tried to discover what was wrong with her,
the louder she spoke: “A pain, a paaaiiiin!” I wondered if I should call
an ambulance or drive her to the hospital myself. But before I had the
chance to do anything, it dawned on me. She was merely asking for
a pen, a ballpoint pen to fill out some paperwork! I was so relieved I
couldn’t stop laughing. A simple request had mushroomed into a medical
emergency — all because I couldn’t understand Gladisín’s repeated
attempts to say, “Can I have a pen?”
Now consider the challenge of communicating across centuries and
religious traditions as well as languages and cultures. No wonder we
sometimes find it hard to grasp what Jesus is trying to tell us in the
Gospels. But what if we could find a way to fine-tune our hearing, so
that we could develop first-century Jewish ears? The words of Jesus that
electrified crowds, incensed his enemies, and changed so many lives
would have a much greater impact on us.
Is it possible to retune our hearing and thinking so that we can
understand Jesus better? We believe it is, because that is exactly what
happened to us the moment we began studying Jesus’ Jewish culture.
Passages that had previously left us cold or puzzled suddenly came to
life. Lights turned on, stories took on new meaning, and the mist began
to clear.
Tuning into the customs of Jesus’ time and to the conversations of
the rabbis who lived at that time can deepen your faith as it has ours,
transforming the way you read the Bible. With that in mind, we invite
you to embark on a journey that will take you back to that house in
Bethany to hear Jesus’ words again — this time from inside his culture.
We hope to teach you how to listen to the Gospels with the ears of a
first-century disciple. And once you start tuning in, we are confident
you will become even more curious, eager to learn more.
Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus
14
Take the current setting. Why, for instance, were Jesus and his disciples
camping out in the home of Mary and Martha? If you had been a
first-century Jew, you probably would have heard a saying in circulation
for at least a hundred years: “Let your house be a meeting place for the
rabbis, and cover yourself in the dust of their feet, and drink in their
words thirstily.”2
The Jews of Jesus’ day greatly prized the study of the Scriptures.
Many of their most gifted teachers walked from town to town teaching
from their Bible, asking no pay in return. People were expected to open
their homes, providing food and shelter to these wandering teachers
and their disciples. So, as much as we honor Mary for her desire to
learn from Jesus, this saying shows us that Martha’s hospitality was an
important help to Jesus’ ministry too.
If we were first-century visitors, we would have recognized the significance
of something else in that story. It was customary for rabbis
to sit on low pillows or chairs while they were teaching. Their disciples
would sit on the ground or on mats around them. That’s how
the phrase “sit at his feet” became an idiom for learning from a rabbi.
In Acts 22:3, Paul described himself as someone who had learned “at
the feet of Gamaliel” (NRSV).3 So when Mary was described as “sitting
at Jesus’ feet,” she was being described as a disciple. Clearly, Jesus
welcomed her as such.
But what about the phrase that speaks of “covering yourself in the
dust of their feet”? Some scholars think this is yet another reference
to the practice of sitting on the floor as a way of honoring a rabbi and
submitting to his teaching. Others think that it refers to how disciples
traveled from place to place by walking behind their rabbi, following
so closely that they became covered with the dust swirling up from his
sandals.4 Both ideas describe the context of the story of Jesus’ visit to
Mary and Martha’s house with his disciples and add color and meaning
to God’s Word.
Yearning to Dig Deeper
Now that you’ve begun to get a taste for why we think it’s helpful to
understand the Jewish background of Jesus, we want to let you know
Joining Mary at the Feet of Jesus
15
how Lois first became intrigued by the topic. The granddaughter of Lutheran
missionaries, she had plenty of Sunday school knowledge. But
Lois didn’t get serious about her faith until her last year of college. Even
then, she was wary of classmates who seemed overly pious. Still, she
longed for a way to dig deeper into the Bible — a way that challenged
her mind as well as her heart. So she signed up for a course on the New
Testament, hoping it would provide some insight. “Instead,” she says,
“I was discouraged to learn that my professor believed, as did many
others, that the New Testament was generally unreliable, composed of
documents that had been written very late and were filled with legends
from the early church.” Her first exposure to the world of biblical criticism
deterred her from further academic study of the Bible. Instead she
channeled her efforts into obtaining a doctorate in biology.
Many years later, after Lois had become a college professor, her
church hosted an adult class on the land and culture of the Bible. The
emphasis was on archaeology, history, and the Jewish cultural background
of Jesus. “I wondered,” she says, “why the presenter didn’t share
the radical cynicism that my college professor had displayed about the
historicity of the Bible.” Uncertain what to believe, her instincts as a
research scientist drove her to examine the sources behind the course
she had recently attended. Her efforts led to a surprising conclusion. In
the past few decades an emerging field of study had unearthed a wealth
of information confirming and strengthening the Chris tian faith. In
the years since her college class, many new discoveries had changed
the way scholars have understood the New Testament texts, particularly
in light of their Jewish setting.5
The more Lois read, the more fascinated she became with how much
richer Bible study can be when you know about Jesus’ first- century context.
That’s when she started some serious study on her own. Each day
seemed to bring some new insight, another a-ha moment, like the one
from the story that follows. It takes place in the home of Martha and
Mary, this time toward the end of Jesus’ ministry.
You are probably familiar with a dramatic gesture Mary made one
day, sitting at the feet of Jesus once again. John 12:3 describes the scene
like this: “Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive
Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus
16
perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair.
And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”
Without understanding the cultural background in which this
event occurred, it’s easy to miss the full significance of Mary’s gesture.
What exactly was she trying to communicate? Jesus himself clarified
one aspect of the story by commenting that Mary was preparing him
for the day of his burial (Matt. 26:12). We understand that her act of
devotion pointed toward Christ’s death at the end of the week. But we
miss something else that the disciples would have immediately realized,
something so obvious that Jesus didn’t even need to mention it.
By anointing him with expensive fragrances, Mary may well have been
making a statement about who she believed Jesus was, proclaiming him
as Messiah. In fact, the Hebrew word for Messiah
is Mashiach, which literally means “the
Anointed One.” Christos, or “Christ,” is the
Greek equivalent.
But why “the Anointed One”? The word
“Messiah” alludes to the ceremony used to set
apart someone chosen by God, like a king or
a priest. Instead of being crowned during a
coronation, Hebrew kings were anointed with
sacred oil perfumed with extremely expensive
spices. Only used for consecrating objects in
the temple and for anointing priests and kings, the sacred anointing oil
would have been more valuable than diamonds. The marvelous scent
that it left behind acted like an invisible “crown,” conferring an aura
of holiness on its recipients. Everything and everyone with that unique
fragrance was recognized as belonging to God in a special way.
In the ancient Middle East, the majesty of a king was expressed
not only by what he wore — his jewelry and robes — but by his royal
“aroma.” Even after a king was first anointed, he would perfume his
robes with precious oils for special occasions. Listen to a line from King
David’s wedding song:
You love righ teous ness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
Anointing
Anointing a guest with oil
was a common, expected
act of hospitality (see Luke
7:46). But Mary’s use of a
breathtakingly expensive vial
of perfumed oil in John 12
made her action hint at the
anointing of a king.
Joining Mary at the Feet of Jesus
17
by anointing you with the oil of joy.
All your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia.
(Psalm 45:7 – 8)
Consider, too, this passage about King Solomon:
Who is this coming up from the desert
like a column of smoke,
perfumed with myrrh and incense
made from all the spices of the merchant?
Look! It is Solomon’s carriage,
escorted by sixty warriors,
the noblest of Israel. (Song of Songs 3:6 – 7)6
During royal processions, the fragrance of expensive oils would inform
the crowds that a king was passing by.
Now take a look at another scene from the Old Testament. It describes
a newly anointed Solomon being led into Jerusalem from the
spring of Gihon, just outside the city, and then parading through the
streets on a mule while people stood by and cheered:
So Zadok the priest . . . went down and put Solomon on King
David’s mule and escorted him to Gihon. Zadok the priest took the
horn of oil from the sacred tent and anointed Solomon. Then they
sounded the trumpet and all the people shouted, “Long live King
Solomon!” And all the people went up after him, playing flutes
and rejoicing greatly, so that the ground shook with the sound.
(1 Kings 1:38 – 40)
Now consider a striking parallel in the life of Jesus. It happened
the week before his death, right after Mary anointed him with the
expensive perfume.7 Just as Solomon had done a thousand years earlier,
Jesus rode a donkey on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Imagine the
scene as recounted in John 12. The crowd was not greeting an ordinary
rabbi. No, people were shouting out: “Hosannah! Blessed is the king of
Israel.” They were remembering Solomon, the son of David, who long
ago had ridden through their streets on a mule, and now they were
proclaiming that Jesus was the promised “Son of David,” whom God
had sent to redeem his people.
Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus
18
But the significance of Mary’s action doesn’t stop there. It seems
likely that the smell of the perfume with which Mary anointed Jesus
would have lingered for days. God may have used Mary’s act of devotion
to telegraph a subtle but powerful message. Everywhere Jesus went
during the final days of his life he had the fragrance of royalty. Jesus
smelled like a king.
Imagine, in the garden of Gethsemane, as Judas and the guards approached
Jesus to arrest him, the guards must have sniffed the air and
wondered who stood before them. When Jesus was on trial, mocked,
whipped, and stripped naked, even then the aroma may have clung to
him. What an amazing God we have!
But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession
in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance
of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ
[the Anointed One] among those who are being saved and those
who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the
other, the fragrance of life. (2 Co rin thi ans 2:14 – 16).
What a fascinating parallel, which shows what Paul meant by the
“aroma of Christ.” As Jesus’ followers, we spread the fragrance of our
anointed Messiah everywhere we go.
Why Focus on Jesus’ Jewishness?
Ken Bailey is a prominent biblical scholar, known for his unique insights
into the gospel, based on his long familiarity with Middle Eastern
culture and languages, past and present. When asked whether his
discoveries threaten to overturn what Chris tians think they know
about the Bible, Bailey responds, “Suppose I’ve spent my life going to a
beach. I’ve seen waves splashing against rocks, ships on the water, fishermen
casting lines. One day at this beach someone says, ‘Ken, I have
two snorkels. Let’s go.’ Suddenly I see coral, seaweed, and fish. These
undersea views in no way invalidate the beauty of what’s above. In my
work, I’m looking for the coral and the fish.”8
Similarly, instead of undermining our faith, looking at the Jewish
background of the Bible deepens our understanding of Jesus and his
Joining Mary at the Feet of Jesus
19
times, increasing our awe as we look more closely at this extraordinary
rabbi and his astonishing claims. In The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip
Yancey wisely comments, “I can no more understand Jesus apart from
his Jewishness than I can understand Gandhi apart from his Indianness.
I need to go way back, and picture Jesus as a first-century Jew with
a phylactery on his wrist and Palestinian dust on his sandals.”9
As Chris tians we can never forget that the Bible — from Genesis
through Revelation — is essentially a Jewish document. Once we begin
to read it from a Jewish perspective, our experience of it will be transformed,
as though we have just swapped an old black-and-white TV
with its scratchy image for the latest flat screen, high-definition set.
Suddenly the Bible takes on new depth and color as we read the familiar
stories once again, but this time from the perspective of its original
audience.
A couple of cautions. It’s not hard to become fascinated with Judaism
for its own sake simply because of the antiquity of its traditions
and because many of its practices are wise and biblical. But keep in
mind that more than two thousand years have passed since Jesus was
born. Over the centuries a lot has changed. Some Jewish practices
and traditions hearken back to his time, but
many others do not. Bearing these cautions in
mind, let’s dive in and begin looking for the
“coral and the fish,” the wonders that lie just
beneath the surface.
A Glimpse of Life
in the First Century
As we begin to explore, looking beneath the
surface of things, let’s take a quick look at Israel
in the first century. Already the picture
of Jewish life painted by the Old Testament is
hundreds of years out of date. During the Old
Testament, for instance, there is no mention
of rabbis, synagogues, Pharisees, Sadducees,
or Zealots.
Sadducees
The Sadducees came
primarily from the ruling
priestly and aristocratic
classes. Unlike the Pharisees,
they did not believe in the
resurrection of the dead,
and they considered only the
written Torah (i.e., the first
five books of the Hebrew
Bible) as binding. Despised
as collaborators with Rome,
they controlled the temple
worship. Their influence
ceased with the destruction
of the temple in A.D. 70.
Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus
20
Most of the people living in the land of Judea and Galilee are the
descendants of pious Jews who returned to Israel after their exile in
Babylon. Since then, life for the chosen people has been anything but
idyllic. Their Roman occupiers are universally hated for their brutality
and pagan ways, to say nothing of the oppressively high taxes they
levy. Little wonder that everyone is longing for a Messiah to come and
deliver them by throwing out their harsh oppressors.
Though anticipation is high, opinions vary about just how or when
the Messiah will finally arrive. Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes, and Pharisees
— each has a different take on what has happened and why, and
on how the future will unfold. Political tension and spiritual fervor are
both on the rise. It is into this time of intense spiritual searching that
another rabbi comes striding onto the scene. He hails from Nazareth.
Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

[Maria Burger]

http://www.ourrabbijesus.com/images/uploads/RabbiJesus_samptxt.pdf