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“Luke and the ‘Jews’ in Acts: ‘Anti-Semitic’ or ‘Too’ Semitic?”
Paper Presented to the Public for a Colloquium of the Jean & Samuel Frankel Center for
Judaic Studies
November 15, 2012
By
Isaac W. Oliver, PhD
To read the gospel of Luke and the book of the Acts of the Apostles as Jewish
texts is to lie on the borders of Jewishness, the theme of inquiry this year at the Frankel
Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies, in a twofold way. Certainly by now, all Jewish and
non-Jewish scholars of early Judaism and Christianity would affirm the Jewishness of the
historical Jesus. From a historical point of view, Jesus was not a good Christian who went
to church on Sunday, as I once read in an instructional handbook for Christian children,
but a Galilean Jew who, of course, attended the synagogue on the Sabbath day and never
intended to establish a movement outside the parameters of Judaism. A positive
affirmation of Jesus’ Jewishness has long been promoted by numerous Jewish scholars,
from Heinrich Graetz1 to Claude Montefiore2 and Joseph Klausner,3 passing through
David Flusser4 and Geza Vermes,5 to more recently Paula Fredriksen,6 just to name a
few. Among non-Jewish scholars, I only mention the gigantic and ongoing five-volume
project by John P. Meier, from the University of Notre Dame, entitled, Marginal Jew.7
Even Paul, that Jew accused by some of his compatriots, both ancient and
modern, of abandoning Judaism and inventing a new religion now called Christianity,8
today enjoys a more positive esteem among Jewish scholars such as Daniel Boyarin, who
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favorably yet critically labels Paul as a “radical Jew,”9 while others such as Mark Nanos10
and Pamela Eisenbaum11 have affirmed that Paul remained a faithful Torah observant
Jew throughout his life.
Indeed, we seem to be witnessing a significant cultural moment in JewishChristian relations, as Paula Fredriksen has recently noted, pointing to the quasisimultaneous publication of three new books dealing either with the historical Jesus or
the New Testament from a Jewish perspective.12 The Jewish Annotated New Testament,
edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Brettler, appeared in 2011 and reproduces the
English text of the Revised Standard Version with comments on each book of the New
Testament written by fifty Jewish scholars.13 Shmuley Boteach, admittedly not a scholar
of ancient Judaism and Christianity, has nonetheless written his own popular book on
Jesus with the catchy trademark title, Kosher Jesus.14 Finally, Daniel Boyarin has
produced a most original and provocative book that focuses primarily on the gospel of
Mark, entitled, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of a Jewish Christ.15
The editors of the Jewish Annotated New Testament seek not only to highlight the
Jewish heritage of the earliest Christian writings to both Christians and Jews, but also to
attenuate contemporary Jewish fears of approaching the canonical and foundational
corpus of Christianity: “Many Jews are unfamiliar with, or even afraid of reading, the
New Testament. . . . Other Jews may think that the New Testament writings are irrelevant
to their lives, or that any annotated New Testament is aimed at persuasion, if not
conversion. . . . [W]e strongly believe that Jews should understand the Christian Bible. . .
because it is Scripture for most English-speaking people. . . . Just as we Jews wish our
neighbors to understand our texts, beliefs, and practices, we should understand the basics
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of Christianity.”16 Boteach is even more affirmative in his Jewish reclamation, declaring
that Jews should re-accept Jesus as one of their own teachers, at least the Jesus
constructed in Boteach’s own image. Boyarin’s work is perhaps the most stimulating and
akin to my own project, dismantling the conventional perceptions of what we now call
ancient Judaism and Christianity, and arguing, among other things, that many of the
followers of Jesus were Torah observant, including the author of the gospel of Mark.
What Boyarin has posited for the gospel of Mark (and to a certain extent for all
canonical gospels) I have argued on behalf of the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the
Apostles. Perhaps, for the purposes of this presentation, some introductory words on the
gospel of Luke and the book of the Acts of the Apostles are of order. According to
Christian tradition, Luke is the author of the third gospel of the New Testament as well as
the Book of Acts. Together, these two works constitute about one third of the New
Testament writings. According to Philemon 24, Colossians 4:14, and 2 Timothy 4:11,
Luke was a disciple of Paul. Colossians 4:14 specifies that Luke was a doctor. This
statement in Colossians has nourished the belief that Luke, the beloved Gentile physician,
wrote to a non-Jewish audience that knew and cared little about the intricacies of
Judaism.
Modern scholarship, however, has questioned some (though not all) of these long
held notions. First of all, it is clear that the author who wrote Luke and Acts composed
his writings after the first generation of Jesus’ disciples had passed away. The prologue
of Luke’s gospel presents the standpoint of a writer who relies upon previous traditions,
writings, and testimonies handed down to him (I refer to the author in the masculine, for
he speaks of himself in the prologue using the Greek masculine participial form,
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παρηκολουθηκότι [Luke 1:3], although unfortunately he never mentions his name). The
author of the gospel of Luke, therefore, does not provide us with an eye witness account
about the life of the historical Jesus. He relies on written sources, including the gospel of
Mark, which was most likely written before Luke, as well as a hypothetical document,
dubbed “Q” (standing for Quelle, which means “source” in German). Both the gospel of
Luke and the Book of Acts were written after 70 C.E. when the temple of Jerusalem was
destroyed. Two clear allusions to this event appear in gospel of Luke,17 while the book of
Acts addresses an audience that is aware of Paul’s death.18 Other than this, we cannot
make further precisions concerning the dating of these two documents. They were written
sometime after 70 but before 132 C.E., the beginning of the Second Jewish Revolt
against Rome spearheaded by Bar Kokhba.19
As for the identification of the author, we will never know any of the specifics. As
I noted earlier, the writings of Luke and Acts are anonymous texts. It is possible that one
of Paul’s disciples, maybe even Luke himself, wrote the gospel of Luke and Acts after
Paul’s death and the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem. Much hinges on determining
whether the author also composed the so-called “we sections” found in Acts that
suddenly employ the first personal plural (rather than indirect speech), implying that the
person who wrote these portions personally knew Paul and had accompanied him during
his voyages across the Mediterranean basin. Strong arguments can be made in either
direction, and I remain undecided on this matter.20 Nevertheless, for the purposes of this
presentation, I will henceforth use the name “Luke” as a convenient shorthand for
describing the author of Luke-Acts without assuming that Luke actually composed these
texts. In my dissertation, “Torah Praxis after 70 CE: Reading Matthew and Luke-Acts as
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Jewish Texts,” I have argued that the writings of Luke and Acts are just as Jewish as the
“most Jewish” gospel of the New Testament, namely, the gospel of Matthew. Inasmuch
as one can make inferences about an author from a text she or he has written—and this is
quite common in New Testament scholarship—I would stubbornly argue that Luke was
probably born a Jew and raised with a rigorous Jewish upbringing. His precise knowledge
of halakah, his usage of Palestinian Jewish traditions, his familiarity with the
environment of the Diasporan synagogues, and his extensive citations of the Septuagint,
the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, whose language and style he event tries
to mimic in his narration, all point to an individual who has spent considerable time
interacting with Jewish thought and space.
Personally, I find it somewhat perplexing to notice that though no one today
would deny the Jewishness of the historical Jesus, it is often forgotten that the “Jewish
historical Jesus” emerges from a careful and critical reading of the synoptic gospels. In
other words, the “synoptic Jesus” is just as Jewish as the many modern and hypothetical
reconstructions of the historical Jesus, and I feel compelled, given the long held tradition
among many New Testament scholars to speak about the identity of the authors of such
texts, to state that the final authors or redactors of the gospels were themselves Jews, if
only to disarm long held presuppositions concerning the essential “Gentileness” of such
texts that continue to govern to a large extent how they are read and interpreted,
particularly in the case of Luke, the Gentile author of Gentile texts for a Gentile Christian
audience par excellence. Thus, the late Israeli scholar and orthodox Jew, David Flusser,
whose work I greatly admire and am heavily indebted to, correctly noted the many salient
Jewish features contained in the gospel of Luke, leading him to posit that Luke often
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contained the most primitive traditions regarding the historical Jesus that could be traced
back to biography supposedly written in Hebrew (I do not subscribe to this latter point).21
On the other hand, Flusser failed to appreciate the significance of his findings for
understanding the Jewishness of Luke proper, how the persistence of Jewish
compositions could inform us about the Jesus movement well after 70 CE when the first
generation of Jesus’ disciples had passed away.
I now turn to perhaps the most problematic and controversial issue related to the
study of Luke-Acts, namely, the serious charge of “anti-Semitism” launched against Luke
by certain Jewish and non-Jewish scholars alike.22 I would like to state from the outset
that by questioning this assessment I by no means intend to downplay the gravity of this
matter nor to sanitize the entire New Testament from any potential anti-Jewish statement
or representation, for, unfortunately, as we know, the documents now contained within
the New Testament frequently became “anti-Semitic” texts, once appropriated and reread
in contexts other than the intra-Jewish environment from which they originally sprang. I
am not here to engage in apologetics nor to claim that problematic passages in the New
Testament are harmless. The theme of anti-Semitism is very personal: my own
grandparents had to flee Germany because of anti-Semitism; my mother was born as a
refugee in Lausanne during WWII; her own grandparents were deported from Germany
and met their end in a concentration camp in Latvia.
One of the tasks of the historian, however, is to situate and read documents such
as Luke-Acts in their original Jewish historical matrix, at a time when the boundaries
between “Judaism” and “Christianity” were by no means firmly established. A
provocative volume, entitled, The Ways That Never Parted, has opened promising new
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avenues for reassessing Jewish-Christian relations in antiquity, arguing for ongoing
relationships between Jews and Christians, in different and complex ways, for the first
few centuries of the common era.23 What might seem to us as disputes between two
separate and autonomous entities may well have appeared to both ancient Jews and nonJews as intra-Jewish affairs internal to the concerns and problems of the Jewish people. I
would also add that the term “anti-Semitic” is not entirely appropriate for describing
Luke’s relationship to the Jewry of his day, as it was coined in more recent times to refer
to a different form of prejudice quite foreign to Luke’s worldview.24 Nevertheless, many
scholars who explore the relationship between the New Testament and Judaism have
employed this term in their own research.25
It is undeniable that Luke does frequently use the term “the Jews” in a rather
polemical and generalizing way. Luke is not the only New Testament author to do so.
The gospel of John, for example, infamously goes as far as branding all “Jews” as
children of the devil (8:44). Fortunately, Luke does not demonize the Jews in such strong
terms, but his writings contain some very serious and problematic passages for anyone
interested in fostering Jewish-Christian dialogue in the contemporary, ecumenical, and
pluralistic context we live in.26 This issue stands even if we translate the Greek οἱ
Ἰουδαῖοι as “the Judeans” rather than “the Jews.” Steve Mason is probably correct to
plead with historians to discard the usage of the term, “the Jews,” in treatments of ancient
Jewish history. “According to both insiders and outsiders, the Ἰουδαῖοι (just like
Egyptians, Syrians, Romans, etc.) were an ethnos with all of the accoutrements.”27 Using
the term “Jews” or even “Judaism” for describing ancient Jewry can be misleading as
these words may convey the impression that Jewish identity in antiquity should be
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understood primarily from a religious perspective, that ancient “Judaism” constituted a
“religion” much like Christianity. Being a Judean in antiquity, however, was not simply
a matter of religion, education, or even geographical provenance; it meant representing an
entire local culture in a manner similar to being Egyptian, Libyan, or Greek.28 In fact
Mason, Boyarin, and others assert that the phenomenon of religion, as a discrete category
of human experience, disembedded from a local culture, is foreign to the ancient
civilizations of the Greco-Roman world and the product of the Christianization of the
west. Particular during the first century of the common era, we should speak of a Judean
culture or civilization rather than of a Judaism, if by the latter we refer primarily to a
religion.29
Still, these nuanced approaches only modify our understanding of the terminology
employed and do not absolve Luke from his problematic depiction of the “Judeans.”
Indeed, the verdict could prove even more serious: Luke would not “simply” be
condemning a “religion” but an entire civilization. Some modern translations of the New
Testament, out of sincere concerns for combating anti-Semitism, occasionally translate
the Greek οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι as “the Judeans” rather than “the Jews,” as if the generalizing
attacks in certain passages of the New Testament would only concern those Judeans
living in Judea.30 Luke, however, employs οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in a polemical way most often to
condemn Judeans living in the Diaspora, not Judea—as if he and his audience had
experienced alienation and rejection from the synagogues of the Greco-Roman Diaspora.
The institution of the Diasporan synagogue appears to have once been a familiar and
intimate environment for Luke and his readers. This, at least, is the impression one
gathers from reading Luke’s depiction in the book of Acts of Paul’s habitual visits to the
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synagogues in Asia Minor, Macedonia, and elsewhere.31 A clear pattern emerges in
Luke’s narration, easily perceptible even to the uninitiated reader: Paul visits a synagogue
in the Greco-Roman Diaspora on the Sabbath, announces therein the “good news” about
the messiahship, death, and resurrection of Jesus, only to then be expelled by “the
Judeans.”32 According to Luke, the Judeans sometimes go out of their way to have Paul
removed from the city where they reside, occasionally appealing to the local non-Judean
civic authorities.33 At other times, they allegedly incite local violent crowds or devise
plots against Paul’s life.34 This pattern mirrors Luke’s unique account about Jesus’ visit
to his hometown, Nazareth, where he visits the local synagogue on the Sabbath day,
reading and expounding the Jewish scriptures, only to then experience hostility by the
native residents who attempt to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:16–31). This report might
inform us more about Jewish-Christian relations in Luke’s day rather than about the
relationship of the historical Jesus to local, Galilean-Judean institutions.
Probably, one of the most controversial and puzzling depictions in Acts involves
Peter’s sermon delivered after the resurrection of Jesus to a Jewish crowd gathered in
Jerusalem from all over the Diaspora for the celebration of the Jewish festival of Shavuot,
known to Christians as the feast of Pentecost. Here Peter curiously blames his audience
for having Jesus crucified (Acts 2:23). This is quite striking, to the modern reader at least,
since presumably some of those allegedly listening to Peter would have probably not
have even been present in Palestine during Jesus’ crucifixion, which, according to the
narrative, had occurred only fifty days earlier during the feast of Passover. Nevertheless,
Luke seems to think that the audience Peter addressed was primarily composed of
individuals residing in Jerusalem, despite their international profile (2:5, 14). At the very
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least Luke collectively blames all Judeans living in Jerusalem and its vicinity for Jesus’
crucifixion.
These problematic passages, however, must be counterbalanced by a positive and
rather nuanced depiction of the people of Israel, Jewish groups, and practices that runs
throughout Luke-Acts. Only Luke, for example, chooses to open his gospel in the holy
temple of the city of Jerusalem, where we are told that John the Baptist stemmed from a
distinguished lineage of Jewish priests. In this so-called Infancy Narrative of Luke,
John’s parents are portrayed in positive terms as Torah abiding Jews, “righteous before
God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord”
(1:6). In accordance to Jewish custom, they circumcise John on the eighth day (1:59).
Jesus parents’ are no less faithful in their Torah observance. Remarkably, Luke repeats
the theme of circumcision, explicitly referring to the circumcision of Jesus on the eighth
day (2:21). No other “Christian” author chooses to depict a “circumcised Christ” in their
writings. The circumcision of both John and Jesus firmly circumscribes these two
foundational figures with the parameters of Judaism. Furthermore, the depiction of the
“circumcised Baptist” and the “circumcised Christ” also underscores the importance for
Jewish followers of Jesus to continual to observe this rite by circumcising their own boys,
a practice Luke affirms later on in the Book of Acts (16:1–3; 21:21). Jesus’ parents also
observe ritual purity, redeem their firstborn (pidyon haben), and make regular pilgrimage
to Jerusalem, either to offer sacrifices in the temple or celebrate Jewish festivals such as
Passover (2:22, 41). During the presentation of Jesus at the temple, pious Jews such as
Simon and Anna the prophetess enthusiastically announce the forthcoming liberation and
glory of Israel (2:25, 32, 38). The consolation and liberation of Israel, expressed here in
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terms also carrying political and national overtones, is never explicitly revoked
throughout Luke-Acts.
During his adulthood, Jesus himself continues to follow the Torah. He regularly
attends the synagogue on the Sabbath (4:16). It is true that he does perform healings on
the Sabbath of non-chronic diseases, but Luke takes great pains to justify these acts by
soliciting halakic arguments, ethical considerations, as well as scriptural antecedents. The
verdict is clear in Luke: Jesus does not intend through his actions to abrogate the Sabbath
day; the debate always concerns how Jesus is to relate to the Sabbath in light of his
eschatological mission and messianic credentials. Even during Jesus’ crucifixion and
burial, Luke is eager to portray Jesus’ followers and sympathizers as Torah observant
Jews who strive to bury Jesus before sunset in order to honor the sanctity of the Sabbath
day (23:54, 56).
In the book of Acts, this tendency continues. The disciples of Jesus regularly
attend the temple of Jerusalem. Jewish followers of Jesus, such as Ananias, are singled
out for their fidelity to the Torah (22:12). Particularly, Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles,
observes and upholds the ancestral customs of the Jewish people. Like Jesus, he regularly
attends the synagogue on the Sabbath (16:13; 17:2; 18:4, etc.), seeks to observe Jewish
festivals such as Shavuot and Passover (20:6, 16), prays and offers sacrifices in the
temple (21:23–27), denies to the very end allegations stating that he has taught other Jews
to cease observing the Torah (21:21; 28:17), and, most strikingly, even circumcises
Timothy, a follower of Jesus whose mother was Jewish but whose father was Greek
(16:1–3). In Acts, Paul openly and proudly identifies himself as a Jew before other Jews
and Romans alike (21:39; 22:1). Likewise, Luke ascribes the term “Jew” or “Judean” to
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several other important followers of Jesus without ever implying anything negative
through the usage of this label (18:2: Aquila and Priscilla; 18:24: Apollos).
In Acts, Jews do not always react in a hostile way to the Jesus movement and the
proclamation of the gospel. One prominent exception concerns the Jews of Berea, a city
in Macedonia (Acts 17:10–12). The Jews in Berea welcome Paul to their synagogue,
attentively listening to his message and examining the scriptures to cross check his
claims. In the earliest history of the Jesus movement, Luke even claims that thousands
upon thousands of Jews became followers of Jesus while remaining zealously faithful to
the Law of Moses (21:20). Of course, Luke, like many ancient writers, is using numerical
figures and “statistics” quite loosely, exaggerating his claims to make a theological point,
namely, that a visible body of Jews sufficiently representative of the people of Israel had
recognized Jesus as their messiah.
Even Jews who are not followers of Jesus nor convinced by the message
associated with the Jesus movement are frequently portrayed in positive terms (e.g., Acts
2:5, 10). Indeed, it is quite remarkable how nuanced and complex, at least according to
ancient standards, Luke’s presentation of the Pharisees proves to be in comparison to
other gospel accounts, including and especially the gospel of Matthew, the supposedly
most Jewish yet most anti-Pharisaic of all New Testament writings. Contrary to some of
the other canonical gospels, the gospel of Luke never depicts the Pharisees as attempting
to eliminate Jesus. Certainly the gospel of Luke retains invective traditions against the
Pharisees, but these polemics do not reach the aggressive heights of Luke’s synoptic
cousin, Matthew. Often Luke states that only some of the Pharisees opposed Jesus (e.g.,
6:2). Likewise, only Luke entertains the notion that Jesus and the Pharisees could enjoy
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commensality, with Jesus often entering as an invited guest into Pharisees’ homes where
he shares meals with them (11:37; 14:1).35 At some points, some of the Pharisees even
intervene on behalf of Jesus and his followers. Thus, in Luke 13:31, some Pharisees warn
Jesus about Herod’s intent on eliminating him. In Acts 5:34, the prominent Pharisee,
Gamaliel, known in rabbinic literature as Rabban Gamaliel Hazaken, purportedly
succeeds in dissuading a hostile council, probably led by the (Sadducean) priests, from
putting Jesus’ followers to death. Finally, during his own hearing before the council of
Jerusalem, composed of Sadducees and Pharisees, Paul openly identifies himself in the
present as a Pharisee who believes in the resurrection of the dead, a doctrine closely
associated with the Pharisees in ancient Jewish sources.36 This public and persistent
identification with the Pharisaic party prompts the Pharisees to oppose the Sadducees and
side with Paul during his hearing.
Indeed, it is quite striking how much emphasis Luke places on the Pharisaic
teaching on the resurrection as constituting the fundamental belief of the Jesus
movement. Surprisingly, the belief in the power of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus’ death
fades into the background in the book of Acts. For Luke, the resurrection of Jesus,
serving as a first fruit of what is yet to come, firmly establishes the reality and certainty
of the resurrection, providing hope and reassurance for Israel’s eschatological restoration.
Luke even innocently insinuates that the fundamental differences between the Jesus
movement and the rest of Jewry really only amounted to a dispute about the veracity of
the belief in the resurrection. So Paul claims during several of his hearings and
appearances before various authorities and delegations that the real reason for his arrest
was due to his hope for Israel as prefigured in the resurrection of Jesus (26:8; 28:20).
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How to reconcile these two opposing representations of Jews in Luke-Acts? Was
Luke bipolar? First of all, I would argue that Luke did not hold the Jewish people
accountable for the crucifixion of Jesus as much as he blamed them for not recognizing
the reality of Jesus’ resurrection, a manifestation, for Luke, of God’s vindication of Jesus
as the special one chosen to fulfill Israel’s destiny. According to Luke, it was necessary
for Jesus to experience suffering and death on the cross. This surprising event, Luke
claims, conforms with divine will and was even proclaimed long ago in the Jewish
scriptures (Luke 22:24). The Greek impersonal verbal form, δεῖ, meaning “it is
necessary” or “must, should, or ought to be,” appears throughout Luke-Acts, signaling a
belief in a historical predeterminism asserting God’s preordained intention to have the
messiah die and rise from the dead in order to bring salvation to Israel and the nations.
Thus, already in Luke 9:22, Jesus solemnly warns his disciples of the fate awaiting him,
declaring that “the Son of Man must (δεῖ) undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the
elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”37
Similarly, when the Pharisees warn Jesus of Herod’s plan to kill him, Jesus nevertheless
insists that it is necessary (δεῖ) for him to make his final pilgrimage and die in Jerusalem
(13:33).
According to this perspective, nothing could prevent Jesus from fulfilling his
“semi-suicidal” mission. It was part of God’s plan from the beginning, and Luke sought
to incorporate Israel within this grand scheme, for it was Luke’s conviction that salvation
had to be channeled into this world with Israel playing a central role in this cosmic series
of events known in theological jargon as “salvation history.” In Luke’s opinion, this
necessity would, paradoxically, even involve Israel crucifying and rejecting the messiah,
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since divine will mysteriously intended for events to occur in this way. However history
would unfold, according to Luke’s worldview, salvation had to occur via Israel. As the
seminal Norwegian scholar of Luke-Acts, Jacob Jervell, so daringly states about Luke’s
vision of Israel’s role in history, “Extra Israel nulla salus est.”38 Thus, when Peter
“blames” the Jewish crowd in Jerusalem for supposedly handing Jesus to lawless men to
be crucified, he states that this event had to occur in conformance with God’s
predetermined plan and foreknowledge (Acts 2:28). Similarly, when Paul delivers a
sermon in the synagogue of Pisidian Antioch, he claims that the people of Jerusalem and
their rulers, not knowing (ἀγνοήσαντες) Jesus or the words of the prophets, unwittingly
fulfilled prophecy by condemning Jesus to death (13:27). In other words, the people of
Jerusalem inevitably and despite themselves fulfilled God’s will. Accordingly, Luke,
unlike certain subsequent Christians, never claims that “the Jews” should be perpetually
punished for having Jesus crucified. Although Luke does hold them accountable for this
outcome, he seizes the crucifixion event as an opportunity to call Israel to collective
repentance and recognize their salvation in light of God’s vindication of Jesus through
the resurrection. Luke’s perspective on free will and predeterminism is not too far from
the pharisaic view on this matter, at least as reported by Josephus, who claims that the
Pharisees held everything in this world as preordained by God, but nonetheless asserted
the human power to choose between good and evil.39
The theological dilemma that especially disturbed Luke was not the supposed
Jewish crucifixion of Jesus, but a more perplexing and present reality, namely, the
persistent Jewish objection to the “good news” proclaimed by the Jesus movement in his
own day. This greatly troubled Luke, given his Israel-centric worldview and conviction
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about the integral role divinely assigned to the Jewish people in salvation history. Rather
than relinquishing Israel’s central role in the grand scheme of things, Luke, like many
Jews from the Second Temple period, returned to the Jewish scriptures searching therein
for evidence of the divine anticipation of Israel’s rejection of the messiah. Thus, at the
end of the book of Acts, Paul, in a final speech to a Jewish delegation from Rome, citing
the Septuagint version of Isaiah 6:9, states:
You will hear indeed and not understand at all, and you will indeed see but not
perceive at all. For the heart of this people has become thick, and with difficulty do
they hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn back, and I will heal
them. (Acts 28:26–27; author’s translation)
According to Luke, even Israel’s hardness and failure to perceive God’s
mysterious plan as revealed through Jesus was predicted in scripture. Luke, however,
timidly leaves hope for the collective restoration of Israel. Following François Bovon, I
have literally translated the last phrase of the Septuagint version of Isaiah 6:9, as cited in
Acts 28:27, in the future: “I will heal them.”40 The LXX differs at this point from the
Hebrew Massoretic text, offering a more affirmative stance toward the possibility of
Israel’s collective restoration, which Luke holds onto. I find, therefore, that Luke’s
perspective on Israel’s final destiny is not too far from Paul’s own views as voiced in his
Letter to the Romans where he also affirms the eventual salvation of all of Israel (Rom
11:26). Luke, however, wrote a generation or so after Paul. While Paul was certain that
the present age would pass away within his own lifetime, Luke had to deal with the
problem of the delay of the Parousia, the return of Jesus (Acts 1:6–8). Paul had asserted
that the proclamation of the gospel to the Gentiles would arouse the jealousy of the Jews.
But in the aftermath of 70 CE, Luke and the Jesus movement had reached a new impasse:
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the gospel has been proclaimed as far as Rome, yet the Jews still remained divided, if not
largely indifferent and opposed to the Jesus movement. The messiah had still not come
back, and the first generation of Jesus’ followers had all passed away. How was the Jesus
movement, during the delay of the eschaton, to relate to the Jewish people and Jewish
custom? Even while experiencing alienation from the Jewish world, Luke affirmed that
Jewish followers of Jesus were to retain their distinctive Jewish identity by remaining
faithful to the Torah and circumcising their children (16:1–3; 21:21). The large segment
of Israel that did not believe in Jesus would continue to remain opposed to the Jesus
movement until the end, in conformance with divine will and prophecy, after which God
would finally heal them. No one, however, except for God, Luke claimed, would know
the exact timing when this would happen.
The following presentation has probably illustrated how the writings of Luke-Acts
could and still can become “anti-Semitic” documents when placed in the wrong hands.
From a historical perspective, however, it has been my contention that, ironically, Luke
was acting in a very Jewish way as he tackled the theological problems and social reality
that confronted the Jesus movement during its infant stages. Forced to explain the
unexpected suffering of the messiah, to justify the veracity and certainty of the doctrine
of the resurrection as prefigured in Jesus, and to account for the Jewish opposition to the
“good news,” Luke went back to the Jewish scriptures hermeneutically reading this
literary corpus in ways similar to other ancient Jews, finding therein “proof” and
consolation of God’s predetermined plan to execute these rather surprising set of events.
We might conclude that, ironically, Luke’s “anti-Jewish” perspective stemmed from his
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own very Jewish attempt to make sense of Israel’s role in the divine plan for the human
economy.41
1
Heinrich Hirsch Graetz, History of the Jews (6 vols.; Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of
America, 1891–1898), 2:149ff.; trans. of Geschichte der Juden von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die
Gegenwart (11 vols.; Leipzig: O. Leiner, 1853–1876).
2
Claude G. Montefiore, The Synoptic Gospels (rev. ed.; 2 vols.; London: Macmillan, 1927).
3
Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth (London: Macmillan, 1925); trans. of Yeshua Ha-Notsri: Zemano,
hayav, ve-torato (Jerusalem: Shtibl, 1922).
4
David Flusser, The Sage from Galilee: Rediscovering Jesus’ Genius (4th ed.; Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Eerdmans, 2007).
5
Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels (London: Collins, 1973).
6
Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity
(New York: Knopf, 1999).
7
John P. Meier, Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (5 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1991–). So
far four volumes have appeared, with a fifth one under preparation.
8
Hyam Maccoby, The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity (London: Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, 1986).
9
Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1994).
10
Mark D. Nanos, The Mystery of Romans: the Jewish Context of Paul's Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1996); The Irony of Galatians: Paul’s Letter in First-Century Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002).
11
Palema Eisenbaum, Paul Was Not a Christian (New York: HarperOne, 2009).
12
Paula Fredriksen, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” Jewish Review of Books 9 (Spring, 2012). Cited 11
November, 2012. Online: http://www.jewishreviewofbooks.com/publications/detail/what-a-friend-wehave-in-jesus.
13
Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Z. Brettler, eds., The Jewish Annotated New Testament (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2011).
14
Shmuley Boteach, Kosher Jesus (Jerusalem and New York: Gefen, 2011). Lawrence H. Schiffman, “Is
Jesus Really Kosher?” (24 February, 2012). Cited 11 November, 2012. Online:
http://www.jewishjournal.com/books/article/is_jesus_really_kosher_20120224, writes a devastating
critique of Boteach’s non-academic treatment of the historical Jesus. I fully concur with Schiffman’s
criticism of Boteach’s “historical” analysis of the gospels and rabbinic texts. On the other hand, if I may
momentarily cease speaking as a historian and simply as a Jew, I do not share Schiffman’s ambivalence
toward the Jewish reclamation of Jesus as “one of our own.” Schiffman states: “Jews are better off
continuing to see Jesus as ‘the other,’ but at the same time treating our neighbors with respect. Most
importantly, such an approach allows us to define ourselves and Jesus in a way that makes clear the lines
between us and our Christian neighbors—lines that must be clear both to our community and to theirs, and
especially to our children and youth.”
15
Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ (New York: New Press, 2012). Peter
Schäfer, “The Jew Who Would Be God,” (18 May, 2012). Cited 11 November, 2012. Online:
http://www.tnr.com/article/103373/books-and-arts/magazine/jewish-gospels-christ-boyarin, writes a very
polemical and unfair review of Boyarin’s book. Schäfer claims: “The long chapter about the Son of Man in
the Similitudes of the First Book of Enoch and the Fourth Book of Ezra does not add much that is new, but
merely builds on Boyarin’s dubious reading of Daniel 7. Anyway, it has long been recognized that the Son
of Man of the Similitudes is obviously a major source for the conception of the New Testament’s Son of
Man.” This is not entirely true. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, there had been some
affirmation of the importance of the Book of Parables (Similitudes) for the understanding of the concept of
the Son of Man in the New Testament paralleled by an equal, if not greater, ambivalence and indifference
18
toward this Enochic text. Once Milik argued for a very late dating of this text (i.e., after the composition of
the canonical gospels), noting its absence from the Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament scholarship largely
ignored this work. Arguably, the Enoch Seminar, held in Camaldoli, Italy (2005), marks an important
transition, with most Second Temple specialists now positing a pre-70 dating for the Book of Parables.
New Testament scholarship has not yet fully appreciated the implications of such findings, and Boyarin is
to be commended for taking these results into consideration in his own work. On the history of research on
the Book of Parables and its relation to the New Testament, see Gabriele Boccaccini, “The Enoch Seminar
at Camaldoli: Re-entering the Parables of Enoch in the Study of Second Temple Judaism and Christian
Origins,” in Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables (ed. Gabriele Boccaccini;
Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2007), 3–16. Schäfer also adds: “And then there is the chapter called
‘Jesus Kept Kosher,’ which offers a new interpretation of the controversy between Jesus and the Pharisees
about eating with defiled hands. Boyarin argues that Mark is not referring to kashrut, but to laws of purity
that the Pharisees tried to impose on their fellow Jews; and that Jesus railed not against keeping kosher as
such but against these Pharisaic innovations. No serious New Testament scholar would doubt the former
part of this argument (Jesus did not want to do away with the laws of kashrut); and the latter part (Jesus
quarreled with the Pharisaic concept of ritual purity) is heavily indebted to the work of the young Israeli
scholar Yair Furstenberg.” Boyarin, however, unlike most scholars on Mark, is not only arguing that Jesus
kept kosher but that Mark is also not referring to kashrut in Mark 7:1–23, but simply to ritual purity.
Virtually, all New Testament scholars have understood Mark 7:19b as referring to the abrogation of kashrut
(one important exception would be Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, “Markus-Evangelium,” Reallexicon für Antike
und Christentum 24 [2010]: 173–207 ), and so Boyarin’s thesis is especially innovative and original at this
point (even if he relies on Furstenberg who does not deal with the Markan level of this pericope).
16
The Jewish Annotated New Testament, xii.
17
Luke 19:43–44; 21:20–24. Nevertheless C.H. Dodd, “The Fall of Jerusalem and the Abomination of
Desolation,” JRS 37 (1947); 47–54 and Flusser, The Sage of Galilee, 123, try to contest the consensus that
sees these prophecies as vaticinia ex eventu. Cf. Alexander Mittelstaedt, Lukas als Historiker. Zur
Datierung des lukanischen Doppelswerk (TANZ 43; Tübingen: Francke, 2006). For a refutation of Dodd,
see Philip Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 27–
28.
18
Acts 20:25, 36–38; cf. 21:4, 11–14.
19
Contra Darrell L. Bock, Luke (2 vols.; Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament 3; Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1994), 17. Some scholars experiment with the possibility that Acts was
written in the second century of the common era. I suggest the terminus ad quem must be 132 C.E., the
outbreak of the Second Jewish Revolt, as no allusion appears in Luke-Acts to this event.
20
Michael Wolter, Das Lukasevangelium (Handbuch zum Neuen Testament 5; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2008), 8–9.
21
Flusser, The Sage from Galilee, 35; Robert L. Lindsey, A Hebrew Translation of the Gospel of Mark
(Jerusalem: Dugith Publishers, 1973), 9–84. At other times, Flusser seems to have promoted a modified
thesis of the synoptic problem that occasionally favors Matthean priority. See Malcolm Lowe and David
Flusser, “Evidence Corroborating a Modified Proto-Matthean Synoptic Theory,” NTS 29 (1983): 25–47.
22
Jack T. Sanders, The Jews in Luke-Acts (Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress, 1987) is probably the name most
often associated with this charge. Samuel Sandmel, Anti-Semitism in the New Testament? (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1978), 73, claiming a “subtle, genteel anti-Semitism” in Luke-Acts. Michael J. Cook, “The
Mission to the Jews in Acts: Unraveling Luke’s “Myth of the ‘Myriads,’” in Luke-Acts and the Jewish
People: Eight Critical Perspectives (ed. Joseph B. Tyson; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1988), 122, a reform
Jewish scholar states: “I do not feel Luke intended to elicit sympathy for the Jews, and certainly do not feel
it elicited from me.” Cook then adds: “There is, additionally, still other tragic irony in Romans 11, where
Paul is apprehensive that Gentiles would boast and, becoming proud, no longer stand in awe and respect of
Jews in their midst (Rom 11:18ff.)—not only Jews in theory but also Jews in reality, perhaps in Rome
itself. The real Paul’s apprehension of Gentile attitudes towards Jews ironically and tragically became
fulfilled in the person of what some might term his unauthorized biographer, Luke. That indeed is not only
ironic; it became tragic for Jews—and for relations between Jews and Christians—throughout history”
(123).
23
Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed, eds., The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in
Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007).
19
Sandmel, Anti-Semitism in the New Testament, xix–xx: “It is also technically wrong to use anti-Semitism
in connection with the New Testament. That term arose in the nineteenth century, appearing for the first
time in the writings of a Wilhelm Marr around 1878. At that time it was not used in relation to matters of
religion or to Christian sentiments. It had emerged as result of a mingling of notions about race and
nationalism.”
25
Sandmel, Anti-Semitism in the New Testament, xix–xxi, aware of the inaccuracy of the term, still uses it.
Marcel Simon, Verus Israël. Étude sur les relations entre chrétiens et juifs dans l’empire romain (135-425)
(2d ed.; Paris: E. de Boccard, 1964), 488, despite the criticisms, justified the usage of the term for premodern times: “ Il est arbitraire de limiter la signification du terme comme le fait Dom Botte. Saint Jean
Chyrsostome n’est certes pas raciste. Ses invectives ne traduisent pas davantage une opposition de classe. Il
mérite néanmoins de prendre rang parmi les antisémites de tous les temps, si l’on entend par antisémitisme
une attitude fondamentalement et systématiquement hostile aux Juifs, fondée par surcroît sur de mauvaises
raisons, sur des calomnies, sur ne image incomplète, partiale ou fausse de la réalité : il y a un certain type
d’argumentation ou d’imprécation que l’on peut, quelles que soient les racines profondes, qualifier
d’antisémite.” It is probably better to employ the term “anti-Jewish” or to speak of “anti-Judaism.” Cf.
Paula Fredriksen and Adele Reinhartz, eds., Jesus, Judaism, and Christian Anti-Judaism (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox, 2002).
26
Authors such as John and Luke are not the only writers of antiquity to engage in such generalizing
polemics and stereotyping. Among ancient Jewish authors, we note the most anti-Gentile writing known as
the Book of Jubilees, which claims all Gentiles are under the spell of evil spirits (Jub. 15:25–32). On this
matter see my forthcoming article “Forming Jewish Identity by Formulating Legislation for Gentiles,”
Journal of Ancient Judaism (2013).
27
Steve Mason, “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,”
Journal for the Study of Judaism (2007), 484.
28
Mason, “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism,” 490.
29
Daniel Boyarin, Borderlines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 224–25.
30
Most recently the new Traduction Œcuménique de la Bible (Paris : Cerf, 2010), 1737.
31
It is interesting that the crowds in Jerusalem as well as the people (laos) living in the land of Israel are
often more favorable to the Jesus movement, especially toward the beginning of the narrative in Acts (e.g.,
4:1–4, 21; 5:26), than the “Jews” living in the Diaspora. Indeed, even during Paul’s final visit to Jerusalem,
Luke claims that certain Jews from the Diaspora initiated opposition against Paul, which eventually led to
his arrest (21:27; 24:19).
32
Acts 13:45 (Pisidian Antioch) 14:5 (synagogue of Iconium); 19:9 (withdraws from synagogue in Ephesus
and preaches in the school of Tyrannus )
33
Acts 18:13–17 (Corinth).
34
Acts 9:23; 20:3, 19; 23:12, 20
35
Admittedly, Jesus then rudely condemns the teachings and acts of his hosts. Nevertheless, the unique
Lukan entertainment of table fellowship between Pharisees and Jesus is striking.
36
Acts 23:8; Josephus, J.W. 2:163; Ant. 18:16; Avot R. Nat. 1 ch. 5; cf. b. Sanh. 90b.
37
Cf. Luke 17:25; 22:37; 24:7.
38
Jacob Jervell, “The Future of the Past: Luke’s Vision of Salvation History and Its Bearing on His
Writings of History,” in History, Literature, and Society in the Book of Acts (ed. Ben Witherington III;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 123.
39
Ant. 18:13: “[W]hen they determine that all things are done by fate, they do not take away the freedom
from men of acting as they think fit; since their notion is, that it has pleased God to make a temperament
whereby what he wills is done, but so that the will of man can act virtuously or viciously.” Cf. J.W. 2:163.
M. Avot 3:16: “All is foreseen, but freedom of choice is given.”
40
François Bovon, “Studies in Luke-Acts: Retrospect and Prospect,” Harvard Theological Review 85
(1992): 175–96 (189–90).
41
Cf. Helmut Merkel,“Israel im lukanischen Werk,” New Testament Studies 40 (1994): 371–98 (98).
24
20