Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 31 March 1972 — Page 8

THE JEWISH POST AND OPINION

Friday, March 31, 1972

Passover Greetings and Best Wishes to the Community

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Passover Greetings and Best Wishes to My Many Jewish Friends JUDGE RUFUS C. KUYKENDALL ^Superior Court Room 6 Indianapolis, Indiana 46204 <70 D

Jesus Like Elijah, Elisha

By RABBI H. BAUMGARD It is my thesis this evening that Jesus, who lived perhaps 850 years after Elijah and Elisha, had a great deal in common with this kind of earlier prophet. While Jesus quotes Jeremiah, who lived 600 years before him, and while he quotes Isaiah, who belongs to a like period of Jewish history, nonetheless, Jesus appears in the New Testament more in the mould of the earlier Elijah, than of Jeremiah or Isaiah. Let us pursue this thesis. The New Testament presents Jesus as a phenomenal figure because, amongst other things, he heals the sick, he performs miracles like walking on the water, and he rises from the dead. Jeremiah and Isaiah did not pretend to do any of these things; they represent a more sophisticated era of Herbraic history. But Elijah and Elisha, as we shall see, were precisely this kind of figure, and we can actually show how some of the Jesus stories seem to be but a retelling of some of the Elijah-Elisha stories. OUR SOURCE is the Book of Matthew, first of the New Testament books. In the eighth chapter of Matthew, we are told that Jesus heals a leper of his disease (vv. 1-4). In the ninth chapter, a paralytic is enable, according to the text, to rise up from his bed (vv.1-8). Also, in this chapter, a blind man is enabled to see (v. 27). These things are used in the New Testament as part of the evidence that Jesus is greater than a man, indeed, that he is divine. Elijah and Elisha do these things, and the Old Testament does not make a claim that these men are divine. For example, in the second book o£ Kings, chapter five (vv.1-14), we are told. that the King of Syria writes the King of Israel and asks that he help to cure a certain Syrian, named Naaman, of his leprosy. The King of Israel ^rends his clothes in despair and says (v.7), “Am I God to kill and make alive?” The prophet Elisha, however, is not at all dismayed at this request. He sent a messenger to the Hebrew king, saying (v.8) “Why have you rent your clothes? Let him (i.e. the Syrian) come to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel.” In other

Chinese And Japanese (Continued from Preceding Pg.) Faculty members are encouraged to write regularly for periodicals and other publications. The Department has submitted articles to various Hebrew encyclopedias. Another aspect of this aim is work on translations. Mr. Grauze has just completed a Hebrew translation of Lao-tzu, the classic of Taoism, one of the great works in Chinese literature and philosophy. THE DEPARTMENT is a relatively new unit which has only been in existence a couple of years and has recently been amalgamated to include Japanese studies. In a short time it has built up a reputation. As Dr. Schiffrin remarked, “They know about us in Russia and they probably know aboht us in China, if they keep up with the work being done by the China watchers.”

words, Elisha clearly considered it to be one of his ordinary functions as a prophet to heal people of leprosy. The text then recounts how Elisha cures Naaman, who happens to be Captain of the Syrian army. The cure is described as being miraculous in nature. In the fourth chapter of the Second Book of Kings, we are told that a woman from Shunam comes to Elisha and complains that her son has died. We are told that Elisha brings the boy back to life (4:25-37). A similar incident is asscribed to Elijah (IK 17:17-24). Indeed, we are told that contact with the piophet was so vital that when a dead man was thrown into Elisha’s grave, he was returned to life by contact with the bones of the deceased prophet (2K 1321). In spite of this apparent ability to work miracles, these prophets were never deemed more than mortal by the ancient Hebrew. Whatever they did, it was believed, was by virtue of a special gift of God to them, but they were not identified with God Himself.

The woman whose son Elijah brings to life merely says, “Now I know you are a man of God . . .” (IK 17-24) THE CONCLUSION of all this is that Jesus is not as unique as some would like to describe him as being. His teachings, in many cases, are quotations from the Jewish Bible and from the Talmud. His miracle working is largely a restatement of stories told about Elijah and Elisha who lived 850 years before him. The interesting point for us is that after Elisha the Hebrew people substantially outgrew this earlier tradition of the miracle worker and developed what we consider to be a higher type of religious personality in the later prophets, who were unique in their zeal for the cause of the people, but' who did not pretend to resort to magic. If it were not for the fact that the New Testament suggests that Jesus is divine, we could place him, a least in part, as a Jewish figure comparable on the one hand to Elijah and Elisha, and, on the other, to Jeremiah.

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Passover Greetings

“A Fresh Clean Wind Of Justice And Decency Blows

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Passover Greetings

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