In Jesus' time teachers had a custom of always asking their audience at the end in Aramaic: "Mai kô mashma lan?" which means "What does this mean for us?" Observing the same custom Paul too says at least five times in his letter to the Romans: "What then shall we say to this?"⁷⁶

Faced with every study we should ask ourselves if the presentation of the problem is reasonable and relevant:- does the treatment of the subject cover a sufficiently wide body of data? Is the way of handling this data such that it does justice to the way of thinking of the period under study? Can these things be applied to and possibly projected into the present day?

Sometimes we forget the Bible's intrinsic character and make demands of it which go beyond what it itself offers. First and foremost the Bible is a library, which contains literally a "numberless" amount of things. Hardly anyone could give unprepared an exhaustive lecture on any of the OT books; the New Testament is in this aspect more familiar to us. The Bible is also a sanctuary, whose beautiful stained glass windows can only be fully appreciated from the inside. The most important thing is to know the Lord of this sanctuary. The well-known French-Jewish etcher of Bible themes Marc Chagall once said to his engraver, "It is to be sung, it is to be cried -- that's the Bible!" To this we could add, "It is to be prayed, it is to be lived, it is the handbook of life!"

But it is also taught that the Bible is the "inspired" word of God. Some speak of verbal inspiration; some say that the Bible only contains the word of God. The doctrine of Inspiration sounds quite foreign to Jewish learned ears and it has caused much controversy in the West too. It would be better to use the words of the New Testament in 2 Tim. 3:16:

"Every scripture INSPIRED BY GOD is also useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" (RSV margin).

"Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God AS THEY WERE CARRIED ALONG BY THE HOLY SPIRIT" (2 Pet. 1:20--21).

The Christian should never disparage any criticism which seeks honestly after truth, aware of its own limitations. Peter says that, "concerning this salvation, the PROPHETS... SEARCHED INTENTLY AND WITH THE GREATEST CARE", and that they "TRIED TO FIND OUT the time and circumstances to which the SPIRIT OF CHRIST in them was pointing... " This was REVEALED to the church "by those who have preached the gospel... by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things" (1 Pet. 1:10--12). The written word must not of course be set alongside the "inner voice", but in the idiographic disciplines, to which theology belongs, the topos of the message must always be found in man's consciousness. It is always essential for the practitioner of theology to be at one with his subject.

The Bible is also a testament. The Old Testament is not particularly "old", neither is the New particularly "new" -- both are given to us between the same covers. The inheritors may not change the form or meaning of the words in the will -- the attestors see to that. In the same spirit Paul says that we "must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught" (Tit. 1:9).

When we follow the situation in the Christian world we are forced to acknowledge that the waters of Bethesda have been "stirred up" once more. Theology often brings to mind the Israeli folk dance hôrâ, in which the participants actually take two steps backwards to every one forwards, and yet the impression given is that the whole circle of dancers is going round at quite a speed. Perhaps the swing of the pendulum is almost at its extremity and we will soon return to nearer the point of origin. Already at the beginning of the century, when the so-called "mythological" school which denied even Jesus' historicity was dominant in Germany, two well-known Jewish scholars, Leo Baeck and Gottlieb Klein, put forth the thesis that the crisis of Christendom resulted primarily from critics' ignorance of the Judaism of the time of Christ. Knowledge of the old Rabbinic literature is not the decisive factor since the New Testament as it stands is actually the most reliable source from the period of the second Temple. Many of the passages we have discussed could also be interpreted in another way, but if they are repeated a number of times in the old writings then they have their own value as witnesses.

One leading theologian has stated of the current Bible debate that he wants Biblical research to be even more critical than it is. "This also means," he says, "that criticism ought constantly to adopt a critical attitude just as much to its own presuppositions and methods and their reliability and limitations". It was for this very reason that we dealt with questions of methodology both at the outset and throughout the exposition, since the choice of an appropriate source material is also an essential part of methodology.

Everyone knows that a computer outputs only what has been "fed" into it, and even then only in accordance with the principles by which the operator has commanded it. Man is also limited in this way and bound by his fundamental attitudes. The problem of western Theology is that it has arisen from Greek philosophical thought and has proceeded on the basis of the terminology of the Greek New Testament, mirroring the message of the Christian faith in the light of Greek mythology, from which the tenor of the New Testament certainly differs. In the 1950's a doctoral thesis "Hebrew thought in comparison with Greek" by the Norwegian Thorleif Boman was published, which has since then even in Japanese gone through four editions, as well as being translated into a number of European languages.⁷⁷ Boman stresses that "hearing", "action", and "practical" aspects are typical of the Jew, whereas Greek thought moves more in "conceptual" or "abstract" ideological problems. In the words of Paul ,"Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom." There is no specific verb "to be" in Hebrew in the same sense as in other languages. The Hebrew says "Me Tarzan, you Jane," when expressing "I am". Hebrew thought is not a question of a static condition but of action and dynamism, to which Hebrew grammar also testifies. Even if we cannot agree with every aspect of the way in which Boman characterises the essence of Hebrew thought, it must be remembered that the Jew has no need to prove and theorise about that which he feels existentially to be true. Theoretical Biblical criticism, in which a "code" is first determined by which the gospels, for example, are screened to see what may be approved of as the words of Jesus, may actually pull everything to pieces without finding the heart of the matter. In the Hebrew way of thinking we ought to "listen" to what is at issue and ask if it "works" in "practice". Christianity is "discipleship" and "life". It is bread and water. It is walking in the light. Jesus did, after all, say that if anyone does the will of his Father in heaven, he will know whether the teaching is from God or if he is speaking from himself. The word "disciple" appears 264 times in the New Testament. In this way doctrine and life are seen as one.
 
When we play back these witnesses from the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament which we have set out we become convinced of at least this much, that the older Synagogue and the oldest, least censored source texts speak of the same type of Messianic hope as we find in the New Testament. From the scientific point of view we can only study whether the New Testament faithfully reflects the thought of its own time. If this is the case, then we can trust in it. Sometimes the critic tries to force his way into the theological temple, wreaking havoc as he goes. When, however, he becomes convinced himself of the genuineness of the NT a change takes place in him. This was the case with the Bishop of Woolwich John A.T.Robinson, for example, who wanted to be "honest to God". When he went on unprejudicedly with his research into the thought of the New Testament he concluded with approximately the same time scale for the re-dating of the gospels as the "Jerusalem school", of which we will speak in our NT section. The establishment of the early date of the writing of the gospels meant for him, according to the newspapers, that he had to withdraw his earlier negative claims, although he is generally remembered only for his enfant terrible phase, as it had more sensation value.

The main thing in our study has been to quote Rabbinic interpretations associated with the roots and foundations of our faith. There is in fact in Hebrew a saying which goes that, If we quote the Wise be-Shem omrô or 'in their name' we will pass on salvation to the world. Martin Buber in his day said to me in a discussion that his "only criterion is his ear", and we leave the reader himself to sound out whether the matters we have presented have a relevant connection to the message of the New Testament or not. It is thus for the reader to decide whether Klausner was right in denying the belief in a personal Messiah and maintaining that Isaiah 53 is to be studied only as a picture of the suffering of the nation of Israel.

When we play our presentation back we see the Messiah's supra-historical features in the light of the Old Testament and Rabbinic interpretation. Although Judaism endeavours officially to avoid all discussion of the Messiah question, these sources contain all the interpretations on which the New Testament bases its Christology. The Rabbinic Messiah interpretation in its oldest aspects is grounded on the creation account and the description of the Fall, and it promises that one day there will be a tiqun or 'restoration' in which humanity's sin handicap will be "corrected". The Messiah's origin, birth, character, office, heavenly position as God's intermediary, logos theology, his redemptive work and resurrection, when he will swallow up death are all reflected in these sources. We can even shed light on the Lord's Supper, which is seen as the "Messiah's meal", which will be enjoyed one day in eternity. And not even the Doctrine of the Trinity is a mere ecclesiastical invention.

Many things appear in Jewish Messianic expectation in pairs. This fits in well with the spirit of the Bible, since Joseph had two dreams and God gave his people two tables of the law. Firstly we find a parallel between the Messiah person and the Israeli nation in its Messianic call. We saw in the prayerbook a mention of the "two days of the Messiah". The Rabbis align with one another the Messiah Son of David and the Messiah Son of Joseph, Ephraim, with whom the Old Testament picture of the Lord's suffering servant is often associated. The Dead Sea Scrolls make a distinction between "the Messiah of Aaron and Israel"⁷⁸. The Rabbis, particularly in connection with Zechariah 3:8 and 4:14, distinguish between the Messiah's priestly and kingly offices. Moses and Aaron also represented this distinction, although Moses was primarily the founder of the image of prophetic Messianism. The first and the second Moses, the first and the last Saviour again underline this duality. In the same way Elijah and the Messiah often appear together. Generally speaking, however, Jewish Messianic expectation is by its very nature "political, national, and worldly".⁷⁹ Jesus' words to Pilate, that his kingdom "is not of this world", represent a different stance. Jesus gives himself consistently to his redemptive work after fighting out his Messianic crisis with the Tempter at the beginning of his public ministry.

Many Messianic prophecies could hardly have contained a Messianic motif in their early stages. Often a historical theme for the Messianic pericopes can be found in the prophetic books, a theme to which the Messianic hope has through time become anchored. In this sense "the prophets... searched intently and with the greatest care trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing". It is a mistake for us to set our own conditions for the Bible's Messianic expectation and to narrow down the different aspects of the Messianic hope. Jesus himself avoided vain speculation about his own kingship and the time of his second coming. In actual fact the study of the Bible's Messianic typology and concept world as such teaches us how to understand New Testament thought. And the fact that we may find from the Targum and Midrash literature interpretations from a very early stage supporting the New Testament's understanding helps us to listen more trustingly to the message of the gospels.

It may be that some readers are confused by our approaching the ROOTS of our Christian faith from the Hebrew thought world. The reason is that I have had to tailor-make both the Old and New Testament sections of this same study for a Hebrew reading public. This version before you has been through a certain amount of editing without which it would have been difficult to get the message over to non-Hebrew readers. I understand that I have led the reader onto strange soil and possibly even cast him far back in time. This is the "Nahson's leap" we will in any case have to make every time if we seriously wish to familiarise ourselves with the grounds of our belief. The author cannot demand that his point of view be accepted, but he would be very happy if he were at least given a fair hearing. We are perhaps on the threshold of a completely new period in Theology, once we begin to acknowledge, at an ever deepening level, the content of the inheritance we have in the Bible, and that from the Bible's own soil.

The well-known Jewish writer and theologian Shalom Ben-Chorin stated not long ago that, "The time has already come to discuss the Jewish-Christian issue publicly and to handle it objectively and in the spirit of tolerance and democracy".⁸⁰ It is particularly Messianic Jews, these friends of ours who believe in Jesus, who find the return to their roots important. We "gentile christians," however, also have reason to beware that we do not forget the actual cradle of our faith.

When the Lutheran World Federation held a 'consultation' in Bossey in August 1982 on "The Significance of Judaism for the Life and Mission of the Church", in which there was a strong Jewish contingent, the main theme was "Christians' relationship to their Jewish inheritance". The consultation felt that, "All have been impoverished by an understanding of the Bible that minimizes our Jewish roots". And "In the encounter with Judaism and the Jewish people the church gains a fuller understanding of its own biblical roots". Such a discovery could bring about "a new lease of faith" in every area of church life.⁸¹
 

This miracle I wish for these ROOTS books.
 

RISTO SANTALA
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76.    Rom. 4:1, 6:1, 7:7, 9:14 and 30.
77.    Thorlief Boman, Das Hebräische Denken in Vergleich mit dem griechischen, Göttingen 1968, p5. See also his study, Europas kultur - og den jödiske arv, Oslo 1972.
78.    See eg. Josef Heinemann, The Messiah of Ephraim and the Premature Exodus of Ephraim, Tarbiz 40, 1970-71 and the studies of the Qumran literature in our Bibliography.
79.    J.B. Frey, Le Conflit entre le Méssianisme de Jésus et le Méssianisme des Juifs de son temps, Biblica 1933, pp133-149 and 269-293.
80.    Shalom Ben-Chorin, ISRAEL NACHRICHTEN 15.7.77, Judenchristen in Israel, ein ungelöstes Problem.
81.    LWB-STUDIEN, Die Bedeutung des Judentums für Leben und Mission der Kirche, Bericht April 1983.