What if the Pharisees weren’t the villains many were taught to hate? What if they served an important position in Jewish society, religious observance, and Biblical interpretative tradition that Jesus himself affirmed?
Peter’s vision in Acts 10 is often interpreted as evidence of the nullification of the Torah’s dietary laws. Yet a closer reading reveals a different story. Further, this episode reads like a Midrash on Gentile inclusion, shaped by Biblical imagery and a distinctly Rabbinic style of storytelling.
Long before Chasidic Judaism, the Bible and the sages spoke of the chasid, one who serves the Creator with love, humility, and holy intention. In this article, we begin an exploration of this concept and examine how it may have shaped the spiritual worldview of Jesus.
Did Jesus reject Jewish dietary laws, declaring all foods clean? In this article, we unpack the discussion in Mark 7 to challenge the popular tradition that Jesus abolished Torah-given commandments, and reflect a misreading of first-century Judaism.
The New Testament is often misread due to a lack of understanding of its rabbinic nature. What can we take away from this story when we view it through the lens of Jewish midrash?
When Jesus said, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” he wasn’t only sidestepping a political trap, he tapped into a rabbinic debate on coins bearing idolatrous images. But beneath the surface lies a deeper theme: coins as symbols of the soul, each human being stamped with the divine image.
What did Jesus mean when he mentioned the "living water" during the festival of Sukkot? What is Hoshana Rabbah? Discover how this final day of Sukkot connects ancient Jewish rituals, the pouring of living water, and Jesus’s words in John 7.
In this article, we explore John 4 through the lens of Rabbinic Midrash and its links to Ezekiel 16 and 2 Kings 17. Is the Samaritan woman a creative representation of Ezekiel's prophetic narrative, and if so, how does this change the way we read the Gospels.
For nearly two thousand years, the world has viewed Jewish tradition, and especially the rabbis of the Apostolic era, through a distorted lens. This distortion is derived from various disputes in the New Testament, but the picture is not complete. There is a deeper context that has been overlooked.
In part 2 of this video series, we look at the parallels between the teachings in the New Testament and the emerging Rabbinic Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple. Learn the deeper message behind key teachings of Jesus, and the point of the healing on Shabbat conflicts.
Paul's teachings are seen as a break from Judaism, but what if his ideas on Jewish and Gentile identity are not a rejection of Rabbinic thought, but deeply rooted in it? How does that change how we read a pivotal verse in 1 Corinthians?
The New Testament, particularly the letters of Paul, reflects the Jewish legal process (Halacha) in the era before the codification of the Mishnah (cir. 2nd century). In this podcast episode, learn the fundamentals of Jewish law and see how these ideas transform your understanding.
