The Sign of Lazarus (Continued: 2)
Out of my respect for the Jewish people, I will continue to view the Passover of our Jewish Messiah’s death and resurrection in the context of his own Jewish tradition; particularly the Jewish priestly tradition. Using the paper entitled To die for the People , originally published in 1996 in The Priest: A Journal of Catholic Theology , by Reb HaKohain, as a starting point, I will offer some thoughts which, I hope, will be more sympathetic to the Jewish people than is typically the case. What I will suggest concerning the role of the Jewish priests in the arrest and trial of Yeshua is not exactly spelled out in the surface text of the Gospel accounts, but it is supported by the Jewish messianic tradition. I therefore ask you to seriously reconsider the commonly accepted 'facts' in the light of the following: 1. There is an accepted rabbinic principle in the studying of biblical texts; that the plain meaning of a text represents only the surface layer of what...