Terumah - Exodus 25:1-27:19

Preface

The second verse of this week's parashah can be found in an aggadic tale, a legend in the Talmud. And because of that, I wanted to post that story and explain it in a way that is not, in my experience, taught to yeshiva students, because of some of the Christian views that are part of that story. 

This passage from the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin, near the bottom of page 39a) should not be taken as a bit of literal history. After all, the Talmud rarely presents an accurate and unbiased history. Often times, the rabbinical descriptions of history contradict what we know, historically.

The Talmud is a biased collection of stories and legalistic statement directed at a specific audience. It is also propaganda written to buttress up the rabbinical view of what Judaism should be. Because of that, when you have a debate between a Rabbi and a Jewish convert to Christianity, the Rabbi will always appear composed and wise, and the opposition, well, not so much!

However, the Talmud does often give some fascinating gems when it comes to views of how history was perceived to have been like. In the instance that I will be discussing, the perception was what Christians believed during the late 3rd and early 4th centuries.

There are a few points that you need to be clear about.

First, the Talmud often gets time periods wrong. In Tractate Sanhedrin (chapter 11) the authors have Rabbi Meir speaking to Queen Cleopatra more than a century after she is dead,. It even gets people mixed up, such as Emperor Vespasian and his son Titus are sometimes switched during a scene or used during the wrong period.

Non-Jewish beliefs have almost always been treated as idolatrous and bizarre by the rabbinical authors. They saw pagans tossing pebbles before a statue of the God Mercury, and they would infer that they held these pebbles to be holy to that God, and so a Jew was forbidden from using those pebbles. So while their belief about the pebbles was flawed, their report about this action does confirm some interesting things concerning the view of the God of gambling and luck by the Romans.

Now about Rabbi Abahu...

Rabbi Abahu, died at the beginning of the 4th century (approximately 320 CE). His period of life, therefore, was from the late 3rd century and through the early 4th century. And therefore, the Christians that he is debating with, time and time again, live during that same period.

Perhaps. Or, as in the case of Elisha Ben Abuya, any such debates with minim may have been assigned to him, if such debates took place at all.

We are going to assume that the text that I will be covering represents that period, and that Rabbi Abahu and no other Rabbi from an earlier or later period was the actual person debating. As I have already said, the Talmud is not reliable, so we will be looking at the text out of interest in seeing how the Rabbis perceived Christianity, and not what was the true history of Christianity.

Since Rabbi Abahu died around 320 CE, it is worth remembering that Emperor Constantine took sole power of the Empire shortly after that, and Christianity would become the religion of the Empire, with those who were part of the government being Christians as well. Despite this, the Talmud writes of Rabbi Abahu as being given special privileges by the Christian government, and mentions Christians government officials checking in on him from time to time.

It's a possibility.

So whether or not it happened as the Talmud states isn't as important as the fact that it is a tale that was used as anti-Christian propaganda for a Jewish audience. And what the story doesn't say is nearly as important as what it does say.

In other words, as a bit of anti-Christian propaganda, you would expect that the weirdest things about Christianity would be expressed in order to make it look bad. One could, I suppose, say that the weirdest parts were omitted to not offend a Christian government, except that there are many worse things within the text that were kept in.

One final point about the term "min"...

The word means "a species" and is also used to refer to those Jews who departed from normalized Judaism. It sometimes refers to the Sadducees, and other such sects, as well as converts to Christianity. When such a person is debating Rabbi Abahu,, a "min" is always a Christian, and possibly a Jew who converted to that religion. You can tell that based on the topics being discussed.

Now let's look at the text.

The Text

I am prefixing the portions of each statement to make them easier to reference. They do not exist in the actual text.

a) A certain min said to Rabbi Abahu,

b) "Your God is a priest, since it is written, 'and you shall take for me [My] terumah (portion)' [Exodus 25:2]

c) Now, when [God] had buried Moses [Deut. 34:6], where did He bath [to cleanse Himself from being with a corpse]? [See Lev. 22:4-6]

d) And should you reply, 'In water!', is it not written, 'Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand?' [Isaiah 40:12].

e) [Rabbi Abahu] replied, "He bathed in fire". For it is written, 'Behold, YHVH will come in fire.' [Isaiah 66:15]

f) [The min asked] "Is fire effective?"

g) [Rabbi Abahu] replied "It is preferred. Immersion should be in fire. For it is written [Num. 31:23], 'Everything that can abide by fire, you shall put through fire...and that which cannot abide the fire, you shall immerse in water."

The Debate by the Numbers

So lets go by the numbers.

a)  A Jewish Rabbi is interacting with an ex-Jew, one who has gone along the path of Christianity during the late 3rd century or early 4th century CE. This is a story being related by late 4th century sages. The min seems to be responding to an idea, stating a rebuttal concerning the question: "Which is superior: a formless God, or one with a form?" 

b) There is a current Christian view that Psalm 110 refers to Jesus and, specifically, 110:4 where they see it as claiming that the Messiah will be a priest of Melchizedek. From this debate, it appears that this is a very old view, and not a recent one. It is such an innocuous point that it could likely be an actual view held by early Christians. (As to who was Melchizedek and why it's an odd argument to make, I'll leave that aside for now).

As many of us are aware of, Christian apologists will often take a single word and force it to have a specific meaning and will take a single verse and reinterpret it without considering the other verses around it. Apparently, this has been going on for at least 1,600 years! The author's use of the term "terumah", was a brilliant choice in presenting this argument.

Now one key phrase here is min saying "YOUR God" as distinct from simply "God". In other words, YHVH is the God of the Jews, and Jesus is the God of the Christians.

While this could be an actual view by a sect of early Christians, it can also be a propaganda piece, stating that "their God is not our God". Either view is equally valid. It should be noted that some early Christian sects did have this view (Marcionism of the 2nd century, for example, and much later, Catharism of the 12th century), and would be later declared heretical by the Church.

But let's continue.

c) The Christian is claiming that YHVH is impure, tainted, and not the level as his God. In other words, the writer is claiming about Christianity: "They hold that their God is better than our God".

d) The Christian is claiming that an infinite YHVH has limits by virtue of His being infinite. It is as if to say that "What you see as a superior attribute, is really an inferior one". This is a point that the Rabbi will apply to the Christian God at the end of the story.

e) The Rabbi responds to an Isaiah text with a different Isaiah text that speaks not only of a perfect sacrifice, a view that Christians have concerning Jesus, although their view is one that will be beaten and crucified rather than burned. It is a likely view of the early Christians that Jesus was the perfect sacrifice. And given Christianity's love of Isaiah, it's a nice touch.

f) Can a God be cleansed in fire? Remember, the Christian story has Jesus descend for 3 days into fire, after which he is so pure he warns none to touch him. The point in this story is not that fire destroys or harms, but that it cleanses. This was the view of the Jews with Gehinnom. This also brings up the question, is it possible that early Christianity had the same view of Gehinnom as the Jews, a purgatory for all people, and that it later evolved into an eternal punishment of Hell-fire?

Perhaps. It seems likely.

g) And the Rabbi ends by declaring that a God that is capable to standing fire to purify himself is superior because one in human form cannot. And so it appears that the rabbinical view was that the early Christians held that Jesus was a God, but not the God of the Jews.

Of course, had this been a real debate, Rabbi Abahu would have lost since Jesus eventually descended into that same fire and became a God. This would have stalemated the debate.

The Christian view

So from this, we can see that the view of Christianity, as seen by the 4th century Rabbis, was as follows:

1. Jesus and YHVH were distinct Gods.
2. There was no trinity mentioned, just a God. (Trinitarianism is nowhere to be found except in much later texts).
3. Jews and Christians believed in a cleansing fire. Hell as a place of punishment is not considered.
4. Christians loved the Book of Isaiah and would cherry-pick verses.

The other items, such as the perfect sacrifice, a priest, and immersing in water, are things that Christians view today. But I find these other points to be more interesting.

It could just be propaganda by the Rabbis to keep Jews away from Christianity. But in the Talmud, amidst all of the debates with Christians, there is never a reference to a Trinity, which is very telling.

The other point about the lack of a hell, where sinners are punished for eternity, but a place of fire that is purifying is also interesting. And from what we know, Hell and the Devil evolved with the Church.

Finally, a trinity God(s) would have been the perfect bit of propaganda to mock Christianity with. And yet, nowhere in the Talmud is it mentioned. Of course, that lack of a mention doesn't necessarily mean that it was lacking. But it is an interesting point to consider.

End.