Jesus, the Sabbath and the Jewish Debate: Healing on the Sabbath in the 1st and 2nd Centuries CE

The claim that Jesus was criticised by the Pharisees for performing cures on the Sabbath has been continuously repeated for almost 2,000 years. But a meticulous, unprejudiced evaluation of the relevant gospel texts shows that the historical Jesus was never criticised by historical Pharisees for performing Sabbath cures. In fact, Jesus and the Pharisees were in complete agreement for the need for cures on the Sabbath day. It is also clear that the Sabbath healing events in the gospels have preserved a significant part of the history of the early Jewish debate which sought to resolve the apparent conflict between the demands of Jewish law, and the performance of deeds of healing and/or saving life. This debate, from its Maccabean origins through to the end of the second century CE, is the subject of this book. The story of the debate has escaped the attention of historians partly because it relies on the evidence of both the early postbiblical Jewish texts and the Christian gospels, which are not generally studied together.

• Table Of Contents
  
  
• Chapter 1. The Problem
• Chapter 2. An Overview of the Sabbath Events in the Gospels
• Chapter 3. The Sabbath and Post-Sabbath Healing Events in the Gospels
  • 1. Saving life from starvation
  • 2. The cure of a man with dropsy
  • 3. The cure of a woman with a bent back
  • 4. The cure of a withered hand
  • 5. An unidentified Sabbath cure, (John 7:14)
  • 6. Galilean Sabbath cures,
  • 7. The cure of the mother-in-law of a disciple of Jesus,
  • 8. The removal of an evil spirit
  • 9. The cure of a crippled man
  • 10. The cure of a man blind from birth
  • 11. Post-Sabbath cures
• Chapter 4. Sabbath healing in the gospels - Summary of conclusions of Chapter 3
• Chapter 5. Terms and arguments of R. Eleazar b. Azariah, R. Akiva and R. Ishmael and their schools
• Chapter 6. Direct Interaction between R. Akiva and Matthew?
• Chapter 7. 2nd century interpretations of biblical verses based on Pentateuchal Jewish law
• Chapter 8. Two symbolic seals of approval from the amoraim
• Chapter 9. Specificity versus generality
• Chapter 10. Other Indications for Dating
• Chapter 11. The Earliest Dates of Composition of Tannaitic directives on Healing and/or Saving Life
• Chapter 12. A summary of the history of the early Jewish debate on acts of healing and/or saving life, and the contribution of the gospels and the historical Jesus to this Jewish debate