The thirteenth passage of the Sefer Yeshua is based on Mk 2:21, Mt 9:16, Lk 5:36, and Thomas 47:5. The main source of this saying is from Mark (Matthew and Luke both borrow from Mark, and so they both place the saying where Mark places it; and Luke makes quite a few changes to the original, possibly to make the analogy fit better with the subsequent saying on new and old wine. The form of the saying in Thomas reverses the new and old (old cloth is sewn onto new garments instead).
13. 1Now there were many scholars who spoke of new ways of piety, inventing new laws and false teachings that God never gave us; but Yeshua spoke to his followers of the Teaching given to our ancestors at Sinai and said, 2’No one sews a piece of new, unshrunk cloth onto an old garment. 3If he does, the new patch will pull away from it – the new from the old – and a worse tear will eventually result.’
Overview
The way this saying is used in the gospels, it implies that Jesus’s teaching is the new cloth that should not be attached to the old religion, because Jesus’s teaching is incompatible and irreconcilable with Judaism. Luke’s Jesus makes it seem like Jesus cannot be adapted to fit in with Judaism. However, I believe that the Christian gospel writers have used the saying differently to how the Jewish Yeshua might have originally intended. It seems to me that the saying has been taken from its original Jewish context, and made to sound like the Christian Jesus was making a clean break from Judaism.
Instead, in this saying it would seem that there is concern that what is old should not be damaged (Nineham’s commentary on Mark, page 104) – this doesn’t fit with the context it is placed in the gospels. Nineham suggests that the present place the saying appears in Mark’s gospel is artificial, and so we don’t know the original context (see also FG Cremer, or William Lane in their commentaries, and Rawlinson’s Westminster Commentary).
There is also concern that what is new should first be adapted to fit the old, which also doesn’t fit in with the saying’s gospel use in Mark and Matthew (hence Luke’s need to change the saying).
We therefore need to ask ourselves, what did Yeshua himself consider to be ‘old’ and open to damage, and what did he consider ‘new’ (i.e. rather than what the gospel writers considered old and new).
There are a number of possibilities – old and new beliefs, religious practices, ways of approaching issues and dealing with them, and so on. This is a short saying, and yet there is a lot to explore and examine.
Understanding the allusion: Sewing new, unshrunk cloth onto old cloth
Until not too many generations ago, people put off buying new clothes, especially if they were poor, and instead they repaired what they had. This was much more the case in ancient times, when you couldn’t just go to a local clothing store to buy new clothes, because they were only found in the main cities; and cloth was all hand-made, and therefore expensive relative to disposable income. Poor people had to repair what they already had and make do.
If you were repairing an old item of clothing, firstly the cloth had to match – linen for linen, cotton for cotton, wool for wool – because different fibres shrink at different rates when washed. This was one of the main practical reasons for not mixing different fibres in Jewish clothing (Lev 19:19, Dt 22:11).
If you need to repair an old garment with new cloth, then the second issue was that it had to be pre-shrunk, something which a fuller would do by washing it to remove the natural oils and then bleaching it. It would then be washed and dried several times before using it. Thereafter, when the repaired older garment is washed, the new patch will not pull at its stitches and rip the older garment.
Valuing the ‘older garment’
The next point to examine is that the older garment is valued, and not simply thrown away and completely replaced. However, there is a subtle understanding that, given the condition that the old garment is currently in during the late Second Temple period, it is in need of repair and restoration.
To find out what is being referred to, we might look at what the ancient prophets considered old and valuable. Jer 6:16 says,
Thus says YHVH: Stand at the crossroads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good Way lies; then walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.
The ‘good Way’ is an allusion to the original Israelite faith, the Way of YHVH (see Gen 18:19, Jdgs 2:22, Jer 5:4, Lk 20:21). Now, most people are not aware of it, but there are subtle yet important differences between the Israelite faith before the Babylonian Exile, and the Jewish faith after the Exile and the return to the Land. For example, the awareness of the purifying and cleansing fire of God’s Glory, and its central role in cleansing us of the blemish of sin, is not present in most religious works written after the time of the Babylonian Exile; this belief is entirely absent from rabbinic Judaism.
With regards to the Hebrew Bible acknowledging that these differences exist, Isaiah 58:12 says,
Then there will arise from among you those who will rebuild the ancient ruins; they will restore the age-old foundations. And they will be called ‘the Repairers of the breach’, and ‘the Restorers of pleasant streets to dwell in’.”
Isaiah was prophesying that there would come a time when people would seek out the ancient ways and rebuild them. They would be restoring the original Israelite faith, and make Jewish society a better one to live in.
New things that had already been sewn onto old
There were also certain beliefs that had crept into Judaism which were not part of the original Israelite faith, especially ones which were predominant during the late Second Temple Period. These were things such as messianism (that the messiah is our saviour, and plays a pivotal role in our salvation), apocalypticism (that the world is coming to a final and unequivocal end very soon), fallen angels, battles and conflict in heaven, Satan and demons, and so on.
Many of these new beliefs had their origin in other religions, most notably in Zoroastrianism (the chief religion of ancient Persia). It must be said that while Zoroastrianism is a good and decent monotheistic religion, there are a number of beliefs which were introduced from it into Second Temple Judaism which are incompatible with the Jewish faith.
While there are a number of notable theologians and scholars who believe that Yeshua was a typical apocalyptic preacher, and thus a natural product of his time, I don’t go along with this. If he simply taught what everyone else was teaching, then why would he stand out? If he merely held all the same beliefs as everyone else, then why choose his ethics over anyone else’s?
It is my profound conviction that Yeshua didn’t just go along with what everyone else believed, and he wasn’t a mere product of his time, simply parroting off everyone else’s beliefs and teachings. He very well could have learned from other teachers about what the original Way taught, in contradistinction to what late Second Temple Judaism taught in his day. Certain scholars (like Bart Ehrman) insist that Yeshua couldn’t read, and therefore couldn’t possibly have studied or learned anything more than a simple form of Judaism, teaching beliefs no different to those around him.
However, you don’t have to know how to read in order to learn things which are different from the majority of your peers – you can learn things from your elders, and from influential religious teachers (such as Yochanan the Immerser, and other teachers in the Temple at festival times during his formative years). Priestly teachers especially might still have been aware of the older Israelite faith and its beliefs, and Yeshua could have picked up some of his ideas from them – he wasn’t duty-bound to only accept the predominant beliefs of the time.
The new will tear the old
When you take on a belief or practice which does not suit the original Israelite faith, then you fracture and destroy what the original faith intended – what God originally intended.
For example, messianism was not part of the original Israelite faith – neither Abraham, Isaac, Jacob nor Moses had any yearnful longing for a messiah, because YHVH and YHVH alone was acknowledged as their Sovereign and their Saviour. When you start believing that there are fallen angels and conflict in heaven (which were prevalent apocalyptic beliefs in the late Second Temple Period), you lose faith in the ultimate, absolute and unbreakable sovereignty of God in heaven. Same with believing in Satan as the leader of all evil – because that means that God is no longer Sovereign in heaven and on earth, and illnesses become the afflictions of demons.
Looking at modern times, there are people who are so disconnected with Yeshua’s original values, teachings and outlook, that when they hear or read what Yeshua actually taught, they reject his teachings as too ‘woke’ or ‘left-wing’. This is because their own views have moved so immeasurably far from anything that Yeshua taught, and from any of the fundamental social values that Moses or the Prophets taught in the Hebrew Bible, that genuine Jewish values are far too radical and revolutionary for them.
When you start adding beliefs and doctrines which are incompatible with the original Message of God, then those doctrines start tearing at the Message and fracturing it, and ‘a worse tear will eventually result’.
The importance of adapting the new to suit the old
One important point to make in all of this, is that times change, and if something old cannot adapt to changes, then it will soon become irrelevant and outdated. Worse still, it will die and become fossilised, unable to adapt to new trials and challenges.
The new cloth had to be prepared before it could be sewn onto the old cloth; Yeshua was aware that new challenges would come along. The original Message would only stand up to these new challenges if ‘repairs’ were made which were in keeping with its original goals, and were not alien to it.
New laws and false teachings
In the first verse of passage 13, the explanatory midrash mentions ‘new laws and false teachings’. Sometimes Torah is ambiguous; there will even be things for which Torah has no opinion, and so we turn to wise and learned scholars for advice and clarification. If what these teachers and sages decide is in keeping with the spirit of Torah, then it is good. However, if their decisions overturn Torah, or contradict the spirit and intent of Torah, then they become nothing more than new cloth tearing at an old garment.
This is very much like the Oral Law. There are many good things in it, which help to clarify ambiguities in Torah, but there are also laws which overturn and contradict Torah. There are even things which make Torah more difficult than it ever needs to be. That is all I will say for the time being – I will leave the topic for a greater treatment under those passages where Yeshua criticises the Oral Law (eg SY passages 116-123).
Other thoughts
One has to wonder if Yeshua would even recognise the religion which has made him into a god. Would Yeshua recognise any of its beliefs, doctrines, practices or values? When you look deeply at the core teachings and values of Yeshua, you realise that he had no intention of starting up a new religion – quite the opposite: he was trying to restore the ethics and values of the original religion of the Jewish people.
I believe that Yeshua was a prophet of the ancient paths – a prophet who was trying to save the Jewish people from the tribulation to come, by calling them back to the original values and ancient principles which they had lost over time.
This is a mission which I believe we ourselves can also take up. By returning to the original ways of the Jewish faith that Yeshua and his earliest followers would have been familiar with, alongside the original values and goals of the faith given to us at Sinai, we can return to the paths that our God designed for us to walk along.
In addition, an old garment that is repaired doesn’t have to look miserable and patchy. If restored with sufficient care and skill, it will look just as good as it did when it was new – this is what people who restore dusty paintings, broken pottery and antique clothing do with great artistry and expertise. We too can restore the original beauty of the Yahwist Israelite faith, and adapt it so that it functions well in the 21st century and beyond.
It is like going back, making course corrections, so that we can go forward again. It’s like retracing your steps along a route, back to the place where you first started veering off-course. Only then can you go forward again, this time along the correct route, the route that God originally intended us to walk on our journey into the future.
What is old, does not have to mean something irrelevant and outdated. It only becomes that when it cannot change, evolve and adapt. There are some things, some ways of seeing the world, which do belong firmly in the past. A responsible faith will leave those things behind; a wise faith will remember the important lessons of the past, instead of abandoning them.