Archive for the ‘Book & Media Reviews’ Category
Just this week I became aware of the amazing work of Shmuel Greenbaum and his efforts with Partners In Kindness. I spent some time browsing the Web site and found it incredibly moving. I remember very well the bombing at the pizza place on Jaffa road in 2001 but I had not heard of the response and subsequent efforts of this widower who lost his wife Shoshana to find kindness in our world of darkness and light.
I just subscribed to the e-mail newsletter called “Kind Words” and I have also just ordered the book, A Daily Dose of Kindness. I have written and talked a lot about YHVH’s self-proclaimed “character description” in Exodus 34:5-7 (see my full discussion in Restoring Abrahamic Faith, pp. 23-26). In that formulaic statement, subsequently repeated in the Torah, Prophets, and Writings, YHVH is described as both Rav-Chesed and Notzer Chesed–full of loving-kindness and “keeping” kindness. In my studies of the word Chesed I have come to the view that we have no precise English equivalent. Our English world “love” is unfortunately used in so many ways that it can hardly serve to carry much specific meaning. “Kindness” works quite well I think, but perhaps the notion of loyal-kindness should be included–thus “keeping” kindness, or even “guarding” kindness. It is not feeling alone, but something that involves work, commitment, and action.
This past Thursday morning, July 23rd, Nehemia Gordon, Keith Johnson, and I were guests on the NPR interview show “Charlotte Talks” with Mike Collins, talking about their new book, A Prayer to Our Father: The Hebrew Origins of the Lord’s Prayer. I thought it went exceptionally well and is worth taking time to listen. Lots of important information both from the new book, and related thereto, is covered. For those of you who are outside the Charlotte area you can listen now on-line by downloading the Podcast or streaming it live. Just go to the Web site for details and click on “Listen to Show”:
A Prayer to our Father: Hebrew Origins of the Lord’s Prayer by Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson was just released last week (June 1, 2009). It represents a rare and uncommon collaboration between Nehemiah Gordon, a Jew devoted to the ancient Hebrew faith, and Keith Johnson, a dedicated African American Christian believer and pastor. The book is as much about the remarkable relationship of these two men, and how they embarked on a common quest for the historical and Hebraic origins of the prayer, as it is about the understanding of the prayer itself.
Both men reflect truly incredible life stories. Gordon, a Chicago native, who now lives in Jerusalem, is a scholar with B.A. and M.A. degrees in Biblical Studies from Hebrew University. Son of an orthodox Rabbi, he is a self-styled “Karaite,” or “Scripturalist,” as he was fired at an early age to forge his personal understanding of his Jewish faith based on a direct study of the Hebrew Bible. Johnson, who now lives in Charlotte, NC, has his Masters of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. He has served as pastor of Park Avenue Church in Minneapolis, and as chaplain of the Minnesota Vikings.
The book is written in an autobiographical style that pulls the reader into an engaging, unfolding story, that is every bit an adventure in learning and discovery. The most remarkable aspect of this story for me was to see how Johnson, as a devoted Christian seeking the Hebraic roots of Jesus (Yeshua), was drawn to study Hebrew with Gordon, and how Gordon in turn, without sharing Johnson’s messianic views, could nonetheless wholeheartedly participate in the historical quest for the Hebraic roots of Yeshua’s most famous and well known teaching–the Lord’s Prayer. This symbiotic relationship alone makes the book stand out as a unique and singular contribution that can be of great interest to both Christians and Jews.
But what is just as remarkable are the results of the historical investigation itself. Johnson and Gordon take turns narrating their stories in a gripping first person style. Central to the book is an analysis of Prayer as it appears in the various copies of Hebrew Matthew preserved by Ibn Shaprut, a 14th century Rabbi living in Spain. This is the text of Hebrew Matthew (called Even Bohen) that Professor George Howard brought to the attention of the academic world in 1987 (see my notes and summary on the Web at: http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/JDTABOR/shemtovweb.html).
I agree with Howard, as do Gordon and Johnson, that this version of Matthew is not merely a translation of our Greek New Testament manuscripts, but represents an independent and ancient source written originally in Hebrew that was passed down in rabbinic circles for centuries. Hebrew Matthew offers us an opportunity to examine the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples in the original Hebrew, rather than an approximated version based on a translation from the Greek.
The book is divided into two “terrains,” one geographical and the other textual. Gordon and Johnson first examine all available evidence as to where Yeshua might have taught the prayer. They take the reader to all possible geographical locations, from Jerusalem to the Galilee, based on references in the New Testament and other early Christian sources. At each place they relate their own experiences and analysis of what appears to have been the most likely setting for the “mountain” scene depicted in Matthew 5 and Luke 6. They then turn to a line by line, phrase by phrase, analysis of the prayer in Hebrew, compared with the traditional English translations that are based on the Greek. There are surprises and insights at every turn, and frankly, I don’t want to spoil the adventure for readers by revealing in this informal review much about the content. Let me just tantalize a bit here and say that no one reading this book, whether Jew, Christian, Muslim, or secularist, will ever be able to think of, much less pray, the AVINU (Hebrew for “Our Father”) prayer in the same way again. One’s understanding of the simple power and meaning of this prayer will be thoroughly enlightened and transformed. I am pleased to recommend this book to any and all who will take up the challenge to expand their horizons and experience the excitement of historical and textual investigations. You will not be disappointed.
James D. Tabor
Chair, Dept. of Religious Studies
UNC Charlotte
Charlotte, NC 28223
Ross Nichols, founder and director of Roots of Faith introduces something new to his podcast audience this week. Nichols, having just completed an intensive 11 week series of studies on Dr. Tabor’s latest book, Restoring Abrahamic Faith, conducted a half-hour interview with Dr. Tabor about the book, how he came to write it, its essential message, and what how he envisions it contributing to an understanding of biblical truths. Toward the end of the interview Nichols also has Dr. Tabor talk a bit about his forthcoming book on the apostle Paul, scheduled to appear in Spring, 2010 with Simon & Schuster.
You can listen to or download this interview at the Roots of Faith Web site here.
http://rootsoffaith.org/blog-and-podcasts/2009/02/27/ross-nichols-interviews-dr-james-tabor.htm
More details about the book, Restoring Abrahamic Faith, including readers responses and reviews can be found at the publisher’s Web site: genesis2000.org.
You will not want to miss this exciting interview with Dr. James D. Tabor.
United Israel Staff
Through this summer I have listened to the new CD by Sinead O’Conner titled Theology many dozens of times–every chance I get. It is the most amazing collection of songs, put together with a skill, a unity of vision, and a power that one seldom encounters. I have not been moved so deeply on a spiritual level by a CD since Ten New Songs by Leonard Cohen (2005), whom I consider to be the high priest of a prophetic musical genre of this type. The power of O’Conner’s work is based on the raw power of her soul, as with all her work, but shaped, often word-for-word, by the words of the Hebrew Bible–namely Jeremiah, Isaiah, Job, and several of the Psalms, cast at times with a Jamaican flavor (Yah for Yahweh, etc.). For me at least the effect was to leave me speechless, sort of “slain in the spirit,” I think the term is, and I have no “charismatic” background or experience.
Cohen is Jewish, so one might expect to find biblical/Jewish themes in his words and music. But Sinead is an Irish Roman Catholic in background, so one has to wonder how she has come to her spiritual vision of things as expressed in this album. O’Conner clearly senses that the message of the original Jesus movement (John the Baptizer, Jesus, and James the Just) is that the group was powerfully shaped 
by the visionary perspective of the Hebrew Prophets (particularly Isaiah and Jeremiah) and certain of the Psalms. That vision centered on the notion of the Kingdom of God, with the will of God being realized on earth as in heaven, through a new world characterized by peace, justice, and righteousness. In my book, The Jesus Dynasty, I try to bring to the public a perspective that many scholars share–namely that there is a vast difference between the message Jesus preached and “Jesus as the message,” as touted by later “orthodox” Christians shaped by the visions of Paul, which wholly removed itself from a Jewish or Hebrew vision of things. Sinead seems to have tapped into that in an extraordinary way, but without any reference whatsoever to the “person” of Jesus per se, or anything one could recognizably call distinctively “Christian,” in the later dogmatic sense of the term. I noticed that Christianity Today eagerly latched onto Sinead for an interview when the album came out, but I sensed in reading it that the content must have been quite disappointing to those who might have hoped for something more along Christian evangelical lines. Sinead clearly values her Catholic upbringing on a cultural level, and she “loves Jesus,” as a “spiritual energy,” but she is sharply critical of orthodox Christianity and clearly rejects any kind of exclusive views of Jesus. If anything her view of “religion” and “faith” is shaped almost exclusively by the Hebrew Bible.
There are two discs with eleven songs each, with mostly the same songs recorded in different settings. The first, “The Dublin Sessions” is more acoustic and simple; the second, “The London Sessions,” has a full instrumental arrangement. I much prefer the former for its vocal intimacy and expression. Each disc ends with an interview with Sinead where she talks freely about how she came to do this particular album and what it means to her. You can listen to samples at Amazon.com.
James D. Tabor