New Testament: An Introduction: Luke and Acts V.2

As there is no "search inside" function, I thought that this would help, in Tarazi's own words: In the previous volume of this series and in the ones yet to come, I have shown and will show how the Pauline "school" was behind each of the gospels. In so doing I am suggesting that we bid farewell once and for all to the quagmire the scholarly world has stuck us into. We are told that the New Testament presents us with different voices and different, often contradictory, viewpoints: Paul, Peter, John, Luke, Mark, Matthew, even sometimes Stephen as representative of so-called Hellenistic Christianity. Lately, since the Second World War, we are even told that Paul himself not only misunderstood the Old Testament and the Judaism of his time but also often changed his mind from one letter to the other over the years! Nothing could be farther from the truth. The main reason behind this blunder is what I call "retrojection." Very often, knowingly or unconsciously, scholars start with the assumption that the Jews and Christians of today are in direct connection with, or are virtually a photocopy of, what they were 2,000 years ago. Consequently, they retroject "project backwards" their contemporary situation: Jews see Jews throughout the ages as basically mirror images of themselves, and Christians see Christians through all ages right down to the first century as mirror images of themselves. Jewish scholars read Rabbinic literature that was written after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. and consider it to be representative of Judaism in the time of Jesus and Paul. Christian scholars read fourth-century church fathers and consider them to be saying in another form what Jesus and Paul said. What is worse is that contemporary Christians, each group in its own way, assume a priori that they have the "biblical mind" and effectively give the New Testament writers and the early Christians no other choice but to agree with them. By the same token, many a contemporary Jewish scholar reads the Old Testament as though Abraham, Moses, David, and Isaiah were all "Jews" and "Jewish" in the same way as the scholar himself is.This attitude loses sight of, or rather fails to understand the significance of, two very important and closely interrelated facts. The first is that both the Jewish and the Christian traditions consider their respective scriptures to be something unique, fundamentally unlike and apart from the remainder of their own writings. Only scripture is "the word of God." The second is that the names given to the various books of these scriptures are specific persons' names: Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, David (for the Psalms), Solomon (for wisdom literature), Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, etc. In other words, the "word of God" for Jews and Christians is not given to them as if it were spoken or written directly by God himself but always "according to the writer of the book." This means that words written by a particular human being, who lived and wrote at a particular time, in a particular place, and for a particular purpose, function for the believer today as the "word of God." And if so, then God's word is not, as it were, free-floating around, ready to speak directly to our own situation and in our own language. To the contrary, the "word of God" is as ancient and as foreign to us as the biblical authors are, and a "word of God" addressed directly to us will never be produced because the scriptural canon is closed. For believers, then, what was canonized as scripture is the sole valid form of the "word of God," ancient and difficult to understand as it is. And that means we have no choice but to find God's word in the actual words as they stand in the Bible. To speak of Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox "readings" of, or "approaches" to, the Bible--as is often done in contemporary theological jargon--is at best nonsensical and at worst misleading. By asserting that any "approach" or "reading" may be equally valid we are effectively asserting our own control over the text and its meaning for us."

Review of Fr Paul Tarazi's The New Testament: Introduction Luke and ActsAs we Orthodox have very few modern commentaries on the scriptures I had high hopes when I first purchased Fr Paul Tarazi's "orthodox" commentaries. Tarazi's work was published by Saint Vladimir's Orthodox seminary, Tarazi himself is an Orthodox priest and highly competent in Hebrew and Greek, so one can understand my excitement. I own most of Tarazi's commentaries: NT intro Paul and Mark, NT intro Luke and Acts, NT intro Johannine writing, OT intro Prophetic Traditions, commentary on I Thessalonians). What I found, frankly, was German higher criticism re-worked. Some of the material appears to be original, but in the same way that higher criticism can be original: debunking historical Christian understanding for something "novel," "bold," or "rebel." Most of the conclusions are NOT text-based, but built upon wild speculation after speculation. For a taste, I submit the following:From NT intro Paul and MarkAs his point of departure, on pages 153 - 154, Tarazi takes Mark 3:13 to 6:6 as a "second cycle." Speaking of the call of the apostles in this text he writes:This James is said to be the son of Alphaeus, i.e., the "brother" of Levi (2:14) and thus the "priest" of the Jewish believers in Jesus as the Christ. Though Jesus relocated the new "priesthood" "along the sea" in the land of the Gentiles, James wants to chain it to Jerusalem. Simon is here the KANANAIOS, which means the zealot in Aramaic and alludes to the party of those who were stirring up Judea and Jerusalem to rise in armed revolt against Rome. The last apostle's name, Judah (Judas in most English translations), as directly as possible refers to the Jews of Judea. His surname ISKARIOTH is an Aramaic transliteration of the Latin SICARIUS, meaning one carrying a SICA (sword), and thus corresponds to KANANAIOS. The connection between "Simon" and "Judah" is intentional and reflects what Cephas/Peter did at Antioch: according to Paul, Peter was trying to compel the Gentiles "to live like Jews" (IOUDAIZEIN; Gal 2:14). The verb IOUDAIZEIN was coined by Paul from the name IOUDA (Judah).Treating Acts 5:1-11 on pages 199 - 200, Tarazi writes,Ananias is the Greek for Hananiah and alludes to James as leader of the early Jewish Christian community; Sapphira (`sappheire') is the feminine corresponding to the masculine `sappheiros,' or sapphire, the precious stone symbolically linked in scripture to Jerusalem, the divine throne, and the high priest's breastplate. Thus, both Ananias and Sapphira point in the direction of the Jerusalemite leadership, and their behavior parallels its vacillating attitude: after apparently wholeheartedly endorsing Paul's gospel at a Jerusalem meeting (Gal 2:1-10), later they chose to hold back from acknowledging one of its key components (Gal 2:11-14).The whole commentary runs this way. Tarazi's infatuation with forcing the entirety of Acts to be simply a highlight of Paul's gospel is dangerous and absurd. One concludes that the author of this commentary sees both the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts as fictitious accounts. Mark is a fictitious account written to equate Paul with Jesus...? Mark is "making up" stories to defend Paul's version of the gospel....? Peter is really Judas....? Tarazi may throw out interesting etymologies (unsubstantiated sometimes) in the appearance of "staying with the text" but really these are fanciful conclusions. From an Orthodox perspective, the work may very well be heretical. I highly DISCOURAGE its use in bible studies.