Through the window of a single New Testament episode we can gain insight into how Jesus and his Jewish contemporaries employed sacred texts with creative ingenuity to grapple with the complex issues of their day.
A great deal has been written about the importance of Jewish sources for our understanding of Jesus and the Early Church. Unfortunately, there remains a lack of corresponding recognition regarding the contribution of the New Testament to our knowledge of Jewish life and thought during the closing days of the Second Commonwealth. The New Testament serves as an invaluable historical witness, because it often is our earliest written record.
I cite only a couple of examples to illustrate. For archaeologists and historical geographers the New Testament provides seminal information because it possesses the earliest written references to the Jewish cities and villages founded in Galilee during the Hellenistic and Roman periods — e.g., Tiberias, Capernaum, Chorazin, Bethsaida. On the other hand, Jewish and Christian students of the history of Jewish tradition rarely recognize that the earliest evidence for the common Jewish practice to name one’s son at his circumcision on the 8th day is the Lukan birth narrative about John the Baptist (Lk. 1:63) and Jesus (Lk. 2:21). Outside of the New Testament, the next mention in written Jewish sources appears in the seventh-century A.D. work, Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer (Safrai, “Naming,” 1-2).
The parents of Moses saw that his ap
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