Jews and Jesus

A provocative exploration of pride and providence | Marvin Olasky

Passover and Easter are upon us, and so is a book with a fascinating title and audacious subtitle: David Klinghoffer's Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History (Doubleday, 2005).

On the title's crucial theological point: Mr. Klinghoffer, an orthodox Jew, rightly takes to task the "well-meaning Christian" seeking to improve Jewish-Christian relations by saying that Jesus' teaching was very close to that of the rabbis of the time. He also jumps past "New Perspective on Paul" theologians who do not find "substantial points of disagreement between Jesus and His contemporaries."

Both groups err, Mr. Klinghoffer notes, by not taking into full account the doctrine of the "oral Torah" that was sweeping through Judaism 2,000 years ago: "What Jesus rejected was the oral Torah that explains the written Torah. Essential to rabbinic Judaism, this concept of an oral Torah recognizes the Pentateuch as a cryptic document, a coded text. It posits that the Bible's first five books were revealed to Moses along with a key to unlock the code." That key was purportedly passed on orally throughout the generations.