I
continue to be intrigued by the similarities I find in the New Testament and
the Jewish Talmud. Because we do not know when the Talmud was written or if
each passage dates back to an earlier oral tradition, it is difficult to say
which way the inspiration went. At some point, however, broad similarities are no longer a matter of universal concern shared by all religious
peoples. When you can detect similarities in phraseologies, logic, and conceptual framework, the argument of borrowed theologies becomes substantially more attractive.
New
Testament scholars have long suspected that 2 Peter might have been combined
with the text of Jude when it was originally circulated. The question of whether
the writer knew certain Hebraisms along with Greek, as these two texts are some
of the farthest removed from Jesus’ Aramaic/Jewish world, is certainly a
question that cannot be glossed over.
Bava
Metzia 59b, from the Babylonian Talmud, tells the story of Rabbi Eliezer who
tries to convince a group of rabbinim that he is right in debate about the
purity of an oven by performing miracles that attest to his authority. When he
has exhausted this approach, and appeals to a voice from heaven to show how he
was favored by the Divine, another rabbi named Yehoshua tells him that the
Torah is not in heaven, an allusion to Deuteronomy 30. By this, the meaning, adds another gemara, was understood that all things
needed for life and judgment rest in the Torah that was already given by God
[one assumes the one given by God is not Moses’ Torah, but the Oral Torah].
One
passage that I do not recall seeing examined within a Hebrew context is 2 Peter 1-7. It
reads:
"His
divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our
knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through
these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through
them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in
the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to
add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge,
self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance,
godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For
if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from
being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But
whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have
been cleansed from their past sins. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make
every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things,
you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal
kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
What is interesting is how 2 Peter appears closer
to Bava Metzia than to Pauline Christianity where faith in Christ is
justification of one’s righteousness. Unlike Pauline theology, this passage has
little to do with a doctrine of justification by faith in Christ. Instead, the
emphasis appears to be on the language of promises that were made in the past
to the covenant people of God, language that would have been familiar to a
Jewish audience and that was connected to mitzvot by those with knowledge of God. Similarly, to “confirm your call and
election,” the phrase used in 2 Peter, is to act with a sense of Jewish
propriety. Jews did not perform mitzot and keep halakha to earn salvation but
to reinforce their standing as they saw themselves already and forever in covenant with God. The purpose of mitzvot is not to earn salvation. Likewise, the keeping of the
knowledge of God does not afford salvation in Peter either, since the writer
acknowledges both an ineffectual faith and its more attractive, productive alternative. Rather, faith
that is effectual is the kind reinforced by good works (mitzvot). Finally, one possible reason for an appeal to a decidedly Judaic
influence here is that unlike Paul, the writer of 2 Peter could have been
calling upon language similarities to encourage Christians to godly behavior in
light of the depressing delay of the Second Coming, by reminding them that the
Jews also had for many centuries awaited their messiah.
