Jesus Was Not A Jew

“We’ve got to have a historical understanding. The Word “Jew” is greatly misused, misunderstood, and mistaken today. If fact I will tell you that there is a vast difference between the way that term is used in the Bible and the way it is used today. The very first occurrence of the word occurs is in II Kings 16:6. This is the very first time the word “Jew” is used in our Bibles.

“At that time Rezin king of Syria recovered Elath to Syria, and drave the Jews from Elath: and the Syrians came to Elath, and dwelt there unto this day.” KJV

Note if you will the phrase “he drave the Jews from Elath.” Now if you were to read the entire context of II Kings 16 you would find that there was a war between Israel (more explanation later) the Northern tribes and the Syrians against Judah. What happened here is this; there were some Judahites that were living in Elath and so the King of Syria defeated them and drove them from Elath. That’s all vs. 6 means.

Now the Hebrew word translated “Jew” here is the Hebrew word, “הַיְהוּדִ֖ים (hay·hū·ḏîm),” which literally means a Judahite or a descendent of Judah. Now the word is used in the Bible at least 5 ways

1.) Refers to a person or persons of the tribe of Judah
2.) Refers to the Kingdom of Judah
3.) To the land of Judea
4.) The the nation of Judah
5.) The House of Judah

Anyone belonging to the tribe, the land, the nation or the house of Judah could be called a “Judahite.” So all that II Kings 16:6 says is that there were some folks of the house of Judah or of the tribe of Judah or of the land of Judah or of the King of Judah that were in Elath and the King of Syria drove them out of the land.

Now when you come to the New Testament the Greek word is Ἰουδαῖος (Ioudaios) which means “Judean” and that means Judean in the sense of a country or a land or someone from the land of Judah. For instance, we talk about Samaria being the Capital of the Northern Kingdom. What do we call people who lived in Samaria? We call them “Samaritans.”

So the “Judeans,” or the “Judahites” would be someone of the tribe or house of Judah or someone who lived in the land of Judah.

Now what we do today is this is that when we use the word “Jew” today it is not used to refer to someone who is the house or tribe or land or Kingdom of Judah. No, instead we use the word “Jew” today to primarily refer to someone who embraces the religion of Judaism.

For instance look in your Bibles to Galatians 1. This is one of the few times that you will see the word “Jew” used to refer to the religion of Judaism. Most of the time in both the Old Testament and New Testament the word “Jew” just refers to someone from the land, house, kingdom or tribe of Judah. Now in Galatians 1:13 Paul says,

“For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.…”

Now the Jewish religion, or “Judaism” was antagonistic to and contrary to the Christian faith. It was “Judaism”… it was the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all who embraced the religion of “Judaism” who always opposed Jesus and the Apostles and the Prophets.

Now we need to listen up here. We are not and cannot be considered to be Judeo-Christians. We simply are not because Christianity has never had anything to do with Judaism. Moreover, as Western Christians we are not connected to the land of Judea and as such we are not Judeo-Christians. No, we are Christians.

If one wants to talk about the OT influence on Christianity you might talk about Hebrew Christians or maybe even Israelite Christians or even just historic Christianity but you would never talk about being Judeo-Christian. However, to talk about Judeo-Christianity is to mix two things that cannot be mixed by definition. Judaism adamantly opposes Christianity and Christianity adamantly opposed Judaism and they are not and never will be the same.

So, let us say it plainly then…. Jesus Christ was not a Jew. Jesus was a Judahite, that is He was from the tribe of Judah but He was not a Jew because he did not embrace Judaism as a religion. He was never in the Jews religion. Indeed, if you read your Bibles you will discover that one reason the enemies of Jesus were so upset with Him was because He was always attacking what the Pharisees had done to God’s religion as stated in the OT. You see this attack on the Jews, by Jesus the Judahite in Matthew 5, 15, 23, and elsewhere in the NT.

Years ago you would see bumper stickers that said, “My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter.” That should make us cringe since Christ was not Jewish but a Judahite. Jesus never taught Judaism as it comes now from the Talmud. Jesus stood opposed to the traditions of the Elders that is the definition of Judaism since the traditions of the Elders replaced the OT religion that pointed to Jesus the Christ.

So, Judaism, and Pharisee-ism and Talmudism is a perversion of the OT. These follow the traditions of the Fathers and not the Word of God. It was Judaism that repeatedly attacked Jesus and the Apostles. It was Judaism that killed the Prophets, killed Jesus and the Apostles and continues to kill those who lift up Jesus.

Thus when in the NT you read the word “Jew” usually it refers to someone who is of the house, tribe, land, or Kingdom of Judah. It has nothing to do with Judaism as a religion. There are a couple of exceptions to this where it refers to the Jewish religion.”

Rev. John Weaver 
Jesus Was Not A Jew

Further here, we note that even the Jews of Jesus age did not think of Jesus as a Jew. R. T. France, in his worthy commentary of the Gospel of Matthew offers, seven differences between Jesus of Nazareth, the Galilean and the Jews

“Racially the area of the former Northern Kingdom of Israel had had, ever since the Assyrian conquest in the eighth century B.C., a more mixed population, within which more conservative Jewish areas (like Nazareth and Capernaum) stood in close proximity to largely pagan cities, of which in the first century the new Hellenistic centers of Tiberias and Sepphoris were the chief examples.

Geographically Galilee was separated from Judea by the non-Jewish territory of Samaria, and from Perea in the southeast by the Hellenistic settlements of Decapolis.

Politically Galilee had been under separate administration from Judea during almost all its history since the tenth century B.C. (apart from a period of “reunification” under the Maccabees), and in the time of Jesus it was under a (supposedly) native Herodian prince, while Judea and Samaria had since A.D. 6 been under the direct rule of a Roman prefect.

Economically Galilee offered better agricultural and fishing resources than the more mountainous territory of Judea, making the wealth of some Galileans the envy of their southern neighbors.

Culturally Judeans despised their northern neighbors as country cousins, their lack of Jewish sophistication being compounded by their greater openness to Hellenistic influence.

Linguistically Galileans spoke a distinctive form of Aramaic whose slovenly consonants (they dropped their aitches!) were the butt of Judean humor.

Religiously the Judean opinion was that Galileans were lax in their observance of proper ritual, and the problem was exacerbated by the distance of Galilee from the temple and the theological leadership, which was focused in Jerusalem.

The result, R. T. France offer, is that

“even an impeccably Jewish Galilean in first-century Jerusalem was not among his own people; he was as much a foreigner as an Irishman in London or a Texan in New York. His accent would immediately mark him out as “not one of us,” and all the communal prejudice of the supposedly superior culture of the capital city would stand against his claim to be heard even as a prophet, let alone as the “Messiah,” a title which, as everyone knew, belonged to Judea (cf. John 7:40-42).”

The above is not merely ho-hum context for the life and times of Jesus the Messiah. The above provides the necessary lay of the ground over which the battle would occur between Jesus and the Jews. The first two Gospels structure their whole narratives in terms of this tension between North (Galilee) and South (Jerusalem).

Professor France writes: “To read Matthew in blissful ignorance of first-century Palestinian sociopolitics is to miss his point. This is the story of Jesus of Nazareth,” and not Jesus the Jew.

Pilate at the end of Jesus’ life put a sign over the head of Jesus saying, Jesus was “The King of the Jews.” However this was done by Pilate as a thumb in the eyes of the Jews. It was sarcasm meant to attack the Jews. It was not done because Pilate believed it. It was done in order to mock the Jews. The fact that the Jews so earnestly desired to have it altered is proof that they did not consider Jesus a Jew.

Jesus Himself, seemed to work diligently to not be known as a Jew. All of the disciples that Jesus chose were Galileans except for one Jew named Judas Iscariot.

So, we rightly note that “Jesus was not a Jew.”

So, if Jesus was not a Jew, what was He?

Well, His Jew enemies called him a “Galilean,” and a “Nazarene,” in order to indicate Jesus was distinct from them. The enemies of Jesus said “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and, “By the prince of the demons He drives out demons.” The enemies of Jesus implied Jesus was a Bastard (John 8:41). The Jews, as the enemies of Jesus did not recognize Jesus as a Jew. All of this is illustrates the truth of prophetic Scripture when it said that Jesus would be despised and rejected of men. This is why Scripture teaches that “He came unto His own, but His own received Him not.”

So, if Jesus was not a Jew, what was He?

I would say we should refer to our Lord as a Hebrew, or, as an Israelite, or as the long awaited descendant of Judah through the line of David.