In this 64 page book Dr. Roy B. Blizzard
presents comparisons between the words of Jesus and the
words of rabbis prior to, contemporary with, and
following Jesus, recorded for us in the
Mishnah, Order Nezikin, Tractate
Avot, or the Chapters of the Fathers
(Pirkei Avot). Probably anyone who has ever
focused on the teachings of Jesus in any depth is aware
that he was a product of the religious milieu that
emerged in the 1st century of this present
era. The four gospels preserve for us the largest and
the best corpus of material relating to the ideas and
methods of teaching of the rabbis of that period. As we
compare the words of Jesus with the other rabbis of his
day, we can begin to understand where some of the ideas
originated, the way they were thinking, and the themes
upon which they were teaching. In the teachings of
Jesus, there is one underlying and overriding theme, a
theme on which Jesus consistently dwells, a theme that
serves as the foundation upon which biblical faith is
built. That foundational theme is summed up in the
Hebrew word tzedakah, the word frequently
translated into English as righteousness.
Tzedakah is the outstanding, overriding, and
yet simple, theme of Jesus. Biblical faith is not so
much man always directing his attention upward toward
God but, rather, through acts of tzedakah,
reaching out to others, meeting them at the point of
their need and assisting in making them whole.
Principles of biblical faith are not directed upward. It
is not something one does for God. It is directed
outward toward one's fellow man, but in so doing, at one
and the same time, one performs the will of the
Father. Throughout Mishnah and the Words of
Jesus, Dr. Blizzard points out how the Sages echo
one another and how it all harmonizes completely with
the words of Jesus. (Length: 15,500 words).
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