Shmuel Silberman
Missionaries rely heavily
on very non-literal readings of the Hebrew Bible. They call these “types” and
“foreshadows.” Jewish Scripture, we are told, “points to Jesus” even when the
text is plainly not discussing Jesus. Is this missionary claim at all
justified?
This missionary method is
not surprising, as the plain meaning of Scripture (pshat) does not support the
missionary agenda. Even missionaries concede prophecy fulfillment is generally
not based on pshat:
Don't fall into the
mistake of assuming that every time a New Testament writer cites an Old
Testament text and applies it to Jesus (even if a "fulfillment"
formula is followed), it must have been a direct/literal prediction coupled
with a direct/literal fulfillment. In most cases by far, the New Testament takes
a broader approach to the subject of messianic prophecy (e.g., typology,
thematic parallels, corporate solidarity, historical correspondences/analogies,
etc.). (http://www.churchinfocus.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26)
The Biblical
Approach to Prophecy
The missionary approach
to prophecy is alien to the Biblical view. When Jewish Scripture identifies
prophecy as fulfilled, we see a direct one-to-one correspondence between
prophecy and fulfillment. We present an example of Biblical prophecy to show
how it works:
"Joshua caused [the
people] to swear at that time saying, 'Cursed before G-d is the man who rises
up and builds this city
We read of the
fulfillment: "In his days, Hiel the Beth-elite built Jericho; with
Abiriam, his firstborn, he laid its foundations; and with Segub, his youngest,
he set up its doors, according to the word of G-d He spoke through Joshua son
of Nun (I Kings 16:34)."
We see that Biblical
prophecy is directly predictive, the opposite of the missionary method.
Examples Where
Jesus Does Not Fulfill the Pshat of Scripture
a. Matthew 2:15 claims
that when Jesus left
Hosea continues to teach
us that this son of G-d is not so righteous after all. “They sacrificed to the
Baalim, and burnt incense to graven images (11:2).” Is Jesus a personification
of idol worship? Missionaries do a cut-and-paste job since their types and
shadows ignore pshat.
b. Immanuel is clearly born in King Ahaz’s time, centuries before Jesus. Isaiah
predicts to King Ahaz that a young woman will give birth to Immanuel (7:14).
Isaiah tells Ahaz, “Before the child shall know to reject evil and choose good,
the land whose two kings you dread [Rezin and Pekah- see 7:1-2] shall be
forsaken (7:16).” The downfall of these two kings quickly took place (II Kings
15:29-30, 16:9).
Missionaries honest
enough to admit the timing of Immanuel’s birth nevertheless insist it is a
foreshadowing of another “Immanuel”, namely Jesus. (Missionaries do not dare
say the “first” Immanuel was born of a virgin, but we will not let ourselves be
disturbed by such facts right now)
c. Zechariah 11:12-13
reads, “Then I said to them, ‘If you think it good, pay me my wages; if not,
don’t.’ So they weighed out my wages, thirty shekels of silver. G-d said to me,
‘Cast it to the treasurer of the
Zechariah never says the
transaction predicts a future event. Pshat indicates no “prophecy” to be
“fulfilled.”
d. With this interpretive
license, we should not be surprised when missionaries actually admit that the
New Testament misquotes Biblical verses. Psalms 40:7 reads, “Sacrifice and meal
offering you do not desire, ears You have opened for me.” The New Testament
misquotes it as “a BODY you have prepared for me (Hebrews 10:5).”
“There’s no real
difficulty here since the writer of Hebrews views Psalms 40:7 as typologically
referring to Christ rather than as a literal or direct messianic prophecy.” (http://www.churchinfocus.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=25)
Supposedly, Psalms
“proves” that Jesus “fulfills” Psalms 40 and that crucifixion atones for
mankind. The pshat suggests otherwise: obedience, listening to G-d is greater
than sacrifice, similar to "I desire kindness, not sacrifice, and
knowledge of G-d more than burnt offerings (Hosea 6:6)."
Missionaries assume
without textual basis that Psalms 40 is a prediction, and (contrary to pshat)
posit the superiority of a particular sacrifice above all else. Since the
altered version in Hebrews 10:5 allegedly gives the “true sense” of Psalms, it
supposedly does not matter that Psalms 40:7 never mentions a body.
e. Missionaries press
even further, claiming that Jesus fulfilled Biblical verses that do not exist!
Matthew 2:23 quotes (if that is the right word) “He shall be called a
Nazarene.” There is no such verse in the Hebrew Bible! Missionaries say this is
no problem. Since Isaiah refers to Messiah figuratively as a netzer[shoot]
(11:1), Jesus “fulfilled” the invented words “he shall be called Nazarene” by
going to
In these and other cases,
missionaries claim it does not matter whether Jesus fulfilled the pshat of Jewish Scripture. He
fulfilled these prophecies anyway.
Unverified and
Unverifiable Interpretations
How does one test the
validity of types and shadows? Missionaries cherish them because THERE IS NO
STANDARD OF VERIFICATION. How can they determine whether Scripture ever
intended types and shadows, and which verses are intended as such and which are
not? Given the countless “type and shadow” meanings one can read into a text,
how can they know which meaning is meant? Claims that are not testable are
worthless.
Missionaries fail to
address other legitimate possibilities. What if Hosea is speaking only of
Circular
Reasoning of Missionaries
Missionaries would
respond that their types and shadows are valid because Jesus and his disciples
taught them.
Here we arrive at the
circular reasoning of missionaries. The types and shadows are true because they
come from Jesus. But how do we establish the credibility of Jesus? Easy- he
fulfilled so many types and shadows!
Missionary Double
Standard
The perceptive reader
will notice the double standard by which missionaries operate. Do they apply
the same poetic license in interpreting the New Testament as they do to the
Hebrew Bible? Not at all! They take the New Testament very seriously. Anyone claiming
to find “types and shadows” in the New Testament is labeled a Mormon, Moonie,
etc. (Certainly missionaries reject Charles Manson’s claim that the New
Testament hints to the Beatles)
In recent years, however,
missionaries have accused Judaism of practicing a double standard. They refer
to Midrash- Rabbinic homiletics, which supplement the pshat of Scripture.
Missionaries ask why they must be held accountable to the pshat given the
existence of Jewish Midrash.
According to Moshe Yosef
Koniuchowsky, Hebrew-Christian, counter-missionaries are guilty “by refusing to
make allowance, and give the New Testament writers the same liberty and
literary freedom in using Scripture to portray truth as they do the writers and
authors of the Tanach [Hebrew Bible] (Messianic
Believer’s First Response Handbook, p. 7).”
As we shall see, Midrash
and missionary prooftexting are not at all comparable.
There are at
least five critical differences between Jewish Midrash and missionary types and
shadows.
a. Midrash is used for
Midrash- homiletic meanings. Missionaries use types and shadows to establish
pshat.
There is no such thing as
a Midrashic fulfillment of a prophecy.
What is a Midrash?
According to Moses Mielziner in Introduction to the Talmud, “Where the Midrash
does not concern legal enactments and provisions, but merely inquires into the
meaning and significance of the laws or where it only uses the words of
Scripture as a vehicle to convey a moral teaching or a religious instruction
and consolation, it is called ‘Midrash Agadah’ Interpretation of the Agadah,
homiletical interpretation.” (Emphasis mine) (http://messiahtruth.com/midrash.html).”
Nachmanides, in a
thirteenth-century disputation with the Church said, "We have a third book
called Midrash, meaning sermons. It is just as if the bishop would rise and
deliver a sermon, and one of the listeners whom the sermon pleased recorded it
(Disputation at Barcelona, p. 7)."
In a sermon, the speaker
can relate a verse to person X without person X being the actual subject of the
verse. The same is true for Midrash.
This is why the Talmud
relates the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 with Moses, even though Isaiah is
speaking of a future event. Likewise the Rabbis homiletically link Isaiah 53
with the Messiah. Neither is meant literally. In general Midrash is not meant
to be taken literally (Maimonides:
Introduction to Mishnah Commentary).
Rabbi Moshe Shulman explains in What is a Midrash? :
“In Sotah 14a, Isaiah 53
is interpreted as referring to Moses. The ancient Jewish view and that which
appears continually in the words of the commentators (as we will discuss later)
are that the Servant is
… The first is that many
times verses that deal with categories of people are used to apply to
individuals. It's pretty much like the concept of set inclusion. Something is a
member of the set, and then it has all the properties that the set has… Since
the Jewish understanding is that Isaiah is about
To better understand the
nature of Midrash, let us look at an actual Midrash:
“From the beginning of
the word’s creation, the Holy One foresaw the deeds of the righteous and
wicked. This is like what is written, ‘For G-d knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked shall become lost (Psalms 1:6).’ AND THE LAND WAS
CHAOS AND VOID- these are the deeds of the wicked-G-D SAID LET THERE BE LIGHT-
these are the deeds of the righteous. But I would not know which of them G-d
desires- the deeds of the righteous or of the wicked. But when it is written,
G-D SAW THE LIGHT THAT IT WAS GOOD [I conclude] He desires the deeds of the
righteous and not the deeds of the wicked (Genesis Rabbah 2:5).”
This passage is neither
historical nor predictive. Obviously it does not mean human actions took place
in the beginning of creation. It is not a prophecy to be “fulfilled”. The
Midrash is teaching a moral lesson: human action is analogous (not identical)
to light and darkness, but goodness is G-d’s purpose in creation
Missionaries try to have
their cake and eat it too. They use non-pshat methods to get pshat results.
They do not merely say that Jesus is homiletically connected to Immanuel; they
claim he is Immanuel, period. They do not simply relate Jesus homiletically to
the Passover Lamb; they maintain he is actually the fulfillment of this legal
datum.
b. Midrash reveals deeper
meaning of an existing religion. New Testament needs types and shadows to claim
its religion even exists.
Judaism does not rely on
Midrash to establish there is such a thing as Judaism. It’s not as if Judaism
took a scripture of someone’s religion and then demonstrated through “Midrash”
that Judaism alone is the true successor to that religion. Were that the case,
dismissal of Judaism would be entirely justified.
From the Written Law the
practices and essential beliefs of Judaism are known. While the details of
Biblical commandments are absent, there is no doubt for which commandments a
Jew is responsible. As for beliefs, Maimonides' famous formulation of the
Thirteen Fundamentals of Judaism is all based on Scriptural verses he cites.
c. Jewish Midrash
supplements pshat. Types and shadows replace pshat.
Basic Jewish doctrines,
found in pshat of Scripture, are denied by missionaries. These include: the
binding character of the commandments, their ongoing validity, practice of the
commandments brings righteousness and salvation, commandments can be kept, G-d
is not a man, G-d is immutable, the exclusive chosenness of the Jewish people,
the Messiah inherits David’s throne solely through paternal birth line, etc.
The Rabbis have a rule
that “Scripture does not depart from the plain meaning (Shabbat 63a).”
Midrashic interpretation reveals deeper meanings but does not reject pshat. By
contrast, types and shadows are employed to deny basic Biblical doctrines.
d. Jewish Midrash is
rooted in an oral transmission from Sinai. The New Testament does not even
claim to be rooted in an unbroken tradition going back to the revelation of the
Torah.
Judaism posits that that
two Torahs were revealed at
Leviticus 23:40 commands
taking the “fruit of the tree of splendor (pri
etz hadar)” on the Feast of Tabernacles. Pri etz hadar is a botanically meaningless statement even
to Hebrew-speaking scientists. There is no clue which species is mentioned
without a clarifying Oral Law.
The Passover holiday
begins on the fifteenth day of the first month (Leviticus 23:6). To identify
this day requires knowing when is the first day of that month, which the
Written Law does not say.
Exodus 12:15 bids us to
eat matza on seven days of Passover, while Deuteronomy 16:8 says to eat it for
six days. Only the Oral Law can reconcile the contradiction.
It is prohibited to leave
one’s "place" on the Sabbath (Exodus 16:29). Does this mean one’s
house, property, neighborhood, city or state? Only the Oral Law tells us.
It is obvious to any
objective reader that one cannot know how to perform the Biblical commandments
based on Written Law alone. G-d must have given an Oral Law to Moses to explain
what the Written Law means. It follows that Moses would transmit this Oral Law
to his disciples, who then taught it to future generations of Sages.
These Sages have taught
us that Oral Torah encompasses both Halacha (law) and also Midrash. Midrash is
also given at Sinai (Yerushalmi Peah 2:6). If there is an Oral Torah, only in
the hands of Jewish Sages, why not believe those responsible for transmitting
it that Oral Torah contains Midrash too?
This does not mean that
every Midrashic statement was said verbatim at Sinai. It does mean that
midrashic concepts and methodology are essentially Sinaitic.
The charge that the Sages
basically falsified the Oral Torah is incoherent. An unwritten tradition by definition
is only known from the Sages who transmit it. No outsider can claim to know the
Oral Law better than those who teach it in the first place.
e. The Rabbis of Midrash
have Biblical credibility. Deuteronomy 17 requires obeying them in matters of
law. If G-d trusts them, we can too. Nothing in Jewish Scripture tells us to
trust the New Testament writers.
“If a matter for judgment
is too difficult for you, between blood and blood, between verdict and verdict,
between plague and plague, even matters of controversy in your gates; you shall
go up the place that the L-rd your G-d shall choose. You shall come to the
priests, the Levites and to the judge that shall be in those days. You shall
ask and they will tell you the word of judgment. You shall do according to the
word that they will tell you, from the place that G-d will choose, and keep the
law according to what they teach you. According to the Torah that they teach
you and according to the judgment that they say to you, you must do. Do not
turn aside from the word that they tell you, neither right nor left. And the
man that does willfully, not listening to the priest standing to serve L-rd
your, G-d or to the judge; that man shall die, and you shall remove the evil
from your midst (Deut. 17:8-12).”
This passage clearly
establishes that the Jewish judiciary has authority in matters of Jewish law.
“The place that G-d shall choose” means, throughout the Bible, the Sanctuary
site. The judiciary that sat there is the Sanhedrin.
Midrash is not from a
separate group with separate ideas. The masters of Midrash are the same
Talmudic Rabbis who themselves were members of the divinely ordained judiciary
known as the Sanhedrin, together with their students. We are obligated to
follow this judiciary. There is no good reason not to believe these same Rabbis
when they present Midrash as valid and authentic.
Establishing
Jesus’ Credentials
We would like to ask
those who preach types and shadows: how could Jesus’ credential have been
established in the first place? The New Testament had not been written yet
during early first century. Jews did not then know missionary types and
shadows. Their only basis to judge was the plain words of the Hebrew Bible.
Assuming the missionary viewpoint, how could those Jews have possibly known
what to look for? How can the credibility of a would-be messiah depend on types
and shadows? Yet Jesus is portrayed in the Gospels as demanding people’s
obedience early in his career!
“Didn’t Jesus
Fulfill Pshat Also?”
Missionaries may also
deny their dependence on types and shadows by pointing to certain Biblical
prophecies that they claim were fulfilled by Jesus according to pshat. Space does not permit a
discussion of the mistranslations; misquotations and out-of context readings
missionaries use to make such claims. No one has ever shown this writer one
prophecy that Jesus clearly and literally fulfilled.
One point is in order,
however. It would be disingenuous of missionaries to make such an argument! The
missionary enterprise does not generally make distinctions between pshat and
non-pshat fulfillments. Websites and missionaries on the beat, that claim Jesus
fulfilled 100, 200, even 300 prophecies present an undifferentiated package.
Were they to scale down their list to alleged pshat fulfillments, it would be
an embarrassingly small list. We quote again from Church in Focus:
In most cases
by far,
the New Testament takes a broader approach to the subject of messianic prophecy
(e.g., typology, thematic parallels, corporate solidarity, historical correspondences/analogies,
etc.) (emphasis
mine).
We appreciate Church In
Focus advising fellow missionaries to practice greater honesty: Evangelicals must seek to reform their messianic
apologetics with a greater appreciation for the different ways in which the New
Testament cites the Old and with a tad less sensationalism in how Jesus'
messiahship is presented to unbelieving Jews (e.g., such tract titles as
"300 Prophecies Fulfilled in One Day!" or "70 Prophecies
Fulfilled at the Cross!").
We are not optimistic
that their advice will be heeded. Missionaries must inflate their own claims by
conflating pshat with non-pshat.
Summary: Missionaries rely on types and
shadows because they know pshat does not justify their beliefs. Types and
shadows fly in the face of how Biblical prophecy works, and actually
contravenes the meaning of Scripture. The New Testament writers present
unverifiable homiletics. These men have no Scriptural basis for their authority
and credibility as Biblical interpreters. Analogies to Jewish Midrash have no
validity. Missionaries cannot afford to dispense with types and shadows because
they aim to promote a false messiah.