This article is mostly by way of explanation, to clarify the purpose of the additional midrashim found throughout The Exhortations, especially in the first few books, such as the Book of Yochanan the Immerser, the Book of the Prophet Yeshua, and the Book of Yaʽaqov the Pious.
Just in case you don’t know what a midrash is, it’s basically an additional sentence or paragraph, not found in the original ancient text, but which has been put there by the translator or editor, purely to help the reader understand the context or reason for what it is appended to. This is a very ancient practice – you will find the technique used in the ancient Aramaic Targums (‘translations’) of the Hebrew Bible, such as the Targum Jonathan. There are additional sentences in it which the translator has added, almost as a commentary to the accepted biblical text. In short, midrash serves as an illumination or explanation of the text.
A modern reader therefore has to understand that the additional words – the midrash – has not been put there in order to deceive; there was never any attempt to claim that the additional words were actually part of the original sacred text. For example, in the Sefer Yeshua (the Talmidi equivalent of the gospels), most of the sayings of Yeshua have been given an ancient, contemporary Jewish backdrop, in order to assist the modern non-Jewish reader in understanding the cultural background in which Yeshua might have delivered his saying or teaching. This is in no way claiming that these additional details are really what happened, because religious writings are not meant to record historical truth, but rather spiritual truth. In the ancient mindset, such a practice as midrash was a perfectly acceptable way of expanding the traditional text.
Now, some people might then say, “Well, I don’t need all that stuff and nonsense! I’m perfectly capable of interpreting everything for myself, thank you very much!” Well, let’s put that to the test, shall we? I’ll use a non-biblical example first, and then an example from the New Testament gospels.
I’d like you first to take a look at a Korean phrase on its own, without any interpretation:
“It’s OK, I’m fine thanks” (일없습니다 irupsonneda).
If you, as a non-Korean speaker, think that it means that the speaker of those words is doing well or great, you would be completely wrong. Now read the same, using the Jewish literary device of additional illustrative cultural interpretation (midrash):
He caught sight of his old nemesis, a former school bully, and wanted nothing to do with him – he wished he would just disappear. The bully said, “So, four-eyes, how are things going with you?” At that, he grimaced and dismissed him saying, “I’m fine thanks,” and walked away.
That doesn’t sound like the speaker is doing well, does it?
Would you still say, “I need no interpretation – I can interpret everything perfectly well for myself”? The inclusion of the surrounding cultural midrash, although much lengthier than the original sentence, helps you to understand that in South Korea, the phrase, “I’m fine thanks”, actually conveys the force of, “Get lost, mind your own business!”
That’s the function that the additional midrash performs in The Exhortations.
I totally understand what people say about inserting anachronous, inappropriate or misleading interpretations, and this is a perfectly valid objection. When an insertion is completely inconsistent with the intent or culture of the original writer or speaker, it is unhelpful and misleading. However, if an added interpretation helps paint a more realistic background to a saying, a little contextual interpretation (midrash) can help the reader realise the original meaning behind the text. A little additional direction pointing the right way, helps someone who is lost to find their way through a narrative.
Talmidaism is an attempt to re-Judaise Yeshua, his ministry, and his teachings. In the Sefer Yeshua, the 3rd book in The Exhortations, most of his sayings have been given some brief midrashic (interpretive) background. Without the midrash, anyone reading his sayings will interpret his sayings from whatever culture and environment they were brought up in, not from the original Jewish background of Yeshua that the teachings were given in, two thousand years ago.
The gospels, written by Gentile Christian writers, often insert details around Yeshua’s sayings which are misleading and unsuitable, in order to make Yeshua’s Jewish teachings say something quite different to what they would mean in a Jewish context. If you strip away all the evangelists’ insertions, you are left with Yeshua’s plain sayings, and you are left to interpret them on your own, without any help.
In the Sefer Yeshua, there is additional midrash. This is because, without the brief midrash, once again the Jewish teachings of Yeshua can potentially be made to mean anything that any one of 8 billion human beings on this planet want them to mean. But with the midrashic background – that is, the reconstructed ‘Sitz im Leben’ into which Yeshua’s sayings have been set – the reader is instead encouraged to look at his Jewish origins, and the Jewish environment he taught in.
In short, the midrashic prose acts as a kind of in-text commentary to explain his teachings in a Jewish way. It prevents the reader from constructing an artificial and misleading non-Jewish universe in which the reader then places their personalised non-Jewish Yeshua.
The longest example of midrash is in passage 7 of the Sefer Yeshua (“Let the Dead bury their own dead”). When I was a Christian, Mt 8:21-22 meant precisely zero to me. I suspect it means very little to the other 2.6 billion Christians on this planet too, each one of them imposing one of 2.6 billion different meanings onto the enigma that is Mt 8:21-22. As a result, the importance of this Jewish saying of Yeshua is lost.
However, when I became Jewish, and lived a fully Jewish life, and understood the Hebrew Bible from a Jewish perspective (e.g. verses such as Dt 30:18-20, also Num 16:48, Prov 21:16, Isa 26:14), and after I had studied the writings of Josephus on the Zealots, it immediately became crystal-clear what Yeshua’s teaching in Mt 8:21-22 was referring to – it was obvious. The lengthy midrashic prose in passage 7 is there simply to explain the Jewish background in which Yeshua might have given the saying. The midrash immediately cuts off any wild, distracting, un-Jewish supposition that detracts the reader from looking at Yeshua’s Jewishness, and instead corrals the reader’s mind to look directly at the Jewish theological and cultural milieu that he taught in.
The interpretive midrash in the Sefer Yeshua, the midst of which his recorded sayings are set in the Sefer Yeshua, is purely there to help the non-Jewish reader focus on the Jewish environment in which he delivered his teachings.
A similar situation exists with the additional details which form the background to the Book of Yochanan the Immerser. The purpose of this book is to present the Talmidi Jewish view of ‘John the Baptist’. Without any additional midrash, the unversed reader might be tempted to understand Yochanan in his Christian role, as forerunner to the messiah. Similarly, a rabbinic Jewish reader might be tempted to view him against the backdrop of the rabbinic view of what a prophet like Elijah is meant to do. Instead, what the midrash in the Book of Yochanan the Immerser does, is to say, ‘No, these are not the interpretations of the Talmidi community – we view him in quite a different way: as a prophet like Elijah, yes, but not the rabbinic Elijah, or the Christian forerunner of the messiah, rather as a prophet of an impending tribulation’. You would not know that if there were no midrash. You would be reading the words, but you would not be understanding what they were saying.
The midrash is not there to deceive, or to claim that these things happened, or that these words were spoken by certain people. The midrash is there to given theological context and explanation.
I hope that explains the true purpose of the interpretive expansions throughout The Exhortations.