Dear Rabbi,
I am) a theology professor at Anglican Seminary in Recite (where Jews from Europe first established in the New World (During Dutch colonization. Recently I read an article about Judeo-Christian movement B Dr. Ulrich Kortner from Universitat Wien. It was published in Concilium (theological review). Dr. Kortner wrote that this movement would be a kind of continuation of the earliest Christian communities (which only Jews belonged to). I was wondering if its Chistology follows the Nicea formula or whether it is more close to that of those earliest communities. Being more specific. For the Judeo-Christian movements is Jesus truly God and truly human?
Theologically Attuned
Dear Theologically Attuned,
Dr. Kortner is correct in that the ancient Sect of the Nazarenes hears
the closest resemblance to the mod-ern Messianic Jewish movement. To over
identify the two would be naive a lot of water has passed under a 2 000-year
bridge. We would be creating castles in the sky to imagine that we could-or
would want to-return to an imaginary theologically pure first-century state.
In the matter of Christology the Messianic Jewish movement gener-ally
endorses the Nicean formula, but with reservations. Messiah Yeshua is clearly
presented in Scripture as, in some sense, fully God and fully man. However,
our best thinkers are doing some good work in reformulating this truth
in terms consonant with the categories of thought of the earliest followers
of the Messiah. Though, as men-tioned above, a complete return to the first-century
Jewish world would not be possible, still, a more thor-oughly Jewish mode
of expressing New Covenant truth can serve two important functions.
First, there can be no doubt that the Nicean formulation and those of the later ecumenical councils were the product of a non-Jewish, Greek philosophical approach to truth. There seemed to have been no Messianic Jews (of course, using the term anachronistically) at the Council of Nicea. We wonder how its pronouncements would have looked had Jewish believers been tepresented. Probably a more truly biblical feel and even content would have emerged. After all, the apostles who wrote the Book were all Jewish
Second, in the early centuries of our era, the coalescing post-Temple Jewish world and the developing Church closed ranks against each other. A polarized atmosphere resulted in the Church's formulating its doctrines in ways which seemed almost intended to short-circuit pro-ductive communication with the Jewish world. The first example that we think of is the strong tradition of referring to Mary as the Mother of God. Jews have had a tough time with idea that the very God of Israel has a mom! The concept plays like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Similarly, the Jewish community tended to define itself in counter-distinction to the developing Gentile church, emphasizing for example the absolute indivisibility of the God of Israel. Some modem Jewish scholars see this over-reaction to the Trinitarian formulation as both reactionary and out of keeping with ancient Jewish understanding. For example, some have noted that Deuteronomy. 6:4, the She'ma says nothing about God's absolute singularity. Rather the declaration that "God is one" is better translated as "God alone." He is Israel's only God, the one who rescued us from Egypt and who deserves our love (obedience to the covenant). If God is an absolute singularity-a monad-this impor-tant passage sure doesn't teach the idea. Sadly, the Diaspora Jewish world wasn't in the mood to nuance its understanding of God in any way by which the Church might score doctrinal points.
Modern Messianic Jews share a heartfelt identification with both Church and traditional synagogue. Our point of reference is our Jewish identities, but we embrace the fact that in this age of the Spirit God has called all followers of the Messiah into profound spiritual union. From this unique vantage-point we hope to pick up where the earliest Jewish followers of Yeshua left off-to bring two worlds together under the chuppah of the King. In the first century it was the Jews and the Gentile world that needed reconciliation. Today we are called to interpret two historically antagonistic religious tradi-tions to one another. Both the Church and the mainstream Synagogue have truths to share. Our desire is to be a con-duit of mutual blessing by distilling the best God has revealed to each and to model a way of life which Jews can affirm as genuinely Jewish and Christians, as genuinely faithful to the Master. Ours is no lowest-common-denominator ecumenical-ism, but a unity of Jew and Gentile rooted in eternal covenants initiated by the God of Israel, the lover and ruler of the nations.
Rabbi Rich
RICH NICHOL is the rabbi of Ruach Israel, Needham, Massachusetts.
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