Dear Nathan,

I truly appreciate this forum, the civility and the substance. I am
forwarding you correspondence that I had on Losttribes with a poster
calling himself Senator Tacitus, I believe he is orthodox Jewish and
believes in the Messiah. His writings are very informative and his
spirit is kind.
I have invited him to this forum. He only posted about four posts and
then stopped.

I hope this is okay with you.

Thanks,
Christine

<<One of the things that became both under-rated and taken for granted in
the rush to form the "personality cult of Jesus" was the miracle of his
teachings. The perfection of his words. I think I agree with Thomas
Jefferson that we can take Yahshua's words and regard the rest of the NT
as commentary.
...................................
And certainly Yahshua did not come to promote himself, he came to teach
Torah and become the redemption price that restored men to their Father.>>

The points made above, are quite excellent, let me say.  I have had for quite some time believed this to be the case.  After all, when you separate the teachings/sayings of Yahshua from the text, a very different theological view point comes to the fore.  This idea that Yahshua, the Great Rebe, came as both an interpreter and a personification of Torah, seems to return the man back to his Jewish roots.  However, whenever I suggest we remove Yahshua's sayings, I get stiff, but not unexpected responses.  After all, for the past 1,900 years, Yahshua's words have been at some intimate level connected to the musings of the early Messianic community.  Most do not know this, but John 1:1-18 was actually a hymn sang in 1st century meetings of believers.  It's called "Ode to Logos," and is still sang in certain Eastern Orthodox churches today.  Shaul recites various hymns in his letters to the gentile congregations.
      As I started my search for an ancient text that might express the belief that Yahshua's sayings were all important, I first came across the Jefferson Bible, in my late teens.  In the Forward, Thomas Jefferson tells his readers how he believed that Jesus' philosophy was the finest he had ever heard.  He had decided to separate the sayings from the text, because he believed this was all that mattered.  The rest was commentary, as Christine had said.  
      Being naturally concerned about the historicity of this idea, I decided to start climbing backwards, through the sometimes disorganized and contradictory writings of the so-called church fathers, and try to figure out just what was going on here.  Along the way, I discovered another book, entitled "The Five Gospels; what did Jesus really say?" by the press shmoozing Jesus Seminar.  It was entertaining, but they were bent around discovering a Jesus who suited their tastes.  That is to say, a Jesus who was a gentle scholar, introspective, but ultimately ambivalent to religion and dogma.  (In short, a man not unlike themselves.)  If you know anything about 1st century Jewish society, you'll quickly take issue with the Jesus Seminar's idea of a man who was more akin to a philosopher, than a prophet.
      So I continued my search.  
      It wasn't until the very earliest writings of the church fathers, did I begin to find what I was looking for.  There was remarkable unity and clarity in their common voice, whereas in other issues their bickering reached the point of embarrassing.  Two common threads emerged quickly: Matthew was the first to write a narrative gospel; and it was done in the language of Hebrew.  Here are some quotes from various church fathers on Matthew's gospel:

Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 3.1.1
"Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the church."

Origen (Eusebius, H.E. 6.25.4)
"As having learnt by tradition concerning the four Gospels, which alone are unquestionable in the Church of God under heaven, that first was written according to Matthew, who was once a tax collector but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, who published it for those who from Judaism came to believe, composed as it was in the Hebrew language."

Eusebius, H.E. 3.24.6
"Matthew had first preached to Hebrews, and when he was on the point of going to others he transmitted in writing in his native language the Gospel according to himself, and thus supplied by writing the lack of his own presence to those from whom he was sent."

Jerome also asserts that Matthew wrote in the Hebrew language (Epist. 20.5), and he refers to a Hebrew Matthew and a Gospel of the Hebrews-unclear if they are the same. He also quotes from the Gospel used by the Nazoreans and the Ebionites, which he says he has recently translated from Hebrew to Greek (in Matth. 12.13).

      So, according to those who lived closest to the time in question, all evidently believed that Matthew's gospel was written first, not Mark (as some have claimed today) and that it was the sole gospel whose target audience was that of the Jewish believers, in Palestine/Israel.  A unique version of Hebrew Matthew has survived to this day, in the form of Shem Tov's manuscript.  This gospel of Matthew was recorded by a wealthy Jew living in 14th century Spain, and the entire text was printed out in a dissection of early Christian/Jewish beliefs in regard to Matthew.  Some of the differences between Hebrew and Greek manuscripts is startling.  Such as in the "great commission" scripture, in which Yahshua instructs his followers to make disciples of the nations.  Rather than the Trinitarian formula pronounced in Greek texts, the Moshiach instructs us to "go and teach them to carry out all that I have commanded you fore! ! ! ver."  No mention of baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Eusebius (who lived in the early 4th century) quotes a Greek version of Matthew, and perhaps not surprisingly, it matches almost exactly that of Shem Tov's Hebrew Matthew.  
      Another startling difference in Hebrew Matthew, is the command not to preach to gentiles, unless the gentiles are willing to make themselves "fully Jewish."  Here is the quote from Hebrew Matthew:
      Matt 24:14-15: "And this gospel will be preached in all the earth for a witness concerning me to all the nations and then the end will come. This is the Antichrist and this is the abomination which desolates which was spoken of by Daniel as standing in the holy place. Let the one who reads understand."
      Suddenly, other puns begin to make sense in this context:
Matt 7:6: "Do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you."
      Here it appears that Yahshua, like most Jews of his time, considered gentiles ritually impure, "swines" as it were, completely against any of the koshered regulations that ruled 1st century Jewish life.  If one takes these scriptures out of their context, it might appear that Yahshua was against teaching gentiles the Law.  However, this isn't the case: he wanted "gentiles" to make themselves "Jewish" by their acceptance and pledge to fulfill the Law.  (This also explains why Yahshua instructed his followers to avoid gentile cities; and why Shaul's ministry to the gentiles became such a heated issue for the early Messianic community.)
      This was an exciting find; but not entirely what I was looking for.  Then I was introduced to the Nag Hammadi, a "library" of early Gnostic and pseudo-Gnostic literature.  It then struck me, (as it had many before me) that there was a concrete tradition which the Nag Hammadi community took seriously, concerning gospels which preserved the words of Yahshua, over that of the record of his actions.  The gospel of Thomas, though stinking with Gnostic tendencies, was an early example of the continued refusal to accept the newer narrative tradition, which had been adopted by the church.  (Aside from the four gospels appearing in our canon, today known as the "New Testament," there were other memoirs of the apostles also being read and recommended in various churches.  The most notable was the gospel of Peter, which had canonical status until the ruling of  Irenaeus, and the introduction of the "four gospel" formu! ! ! la which serves as the current core of N.T. writings.)
      But this was still outside of mainstream Messianic thought.  Obviously the Nag Hammadi community was not entirely basing themselves and their doctrine around the pure teachings of Torah.  Instead, they became a form of "extremist Christianity" as I've taken to calling it, where heaven is the place we hope to go, and Yahshua was the mystical man of enlightenment, freeing us from the "burdens" of the unkeepable Law.  After two solid years of intensive study, I was on the verge of giving up, when I noted an obscure passage in the works of Eusebius, (the same Eusebius) quoted above, in which he preserves the far earlier writings of a man known as Papias, who lived in the first century, and came into the "church" just the age of the Apostles was coming to a close.  He was born around 70 C.E., during the terrible destruction of the 2nd temple, and the catastrophic defeat of the Jewish people at Roman hands.   
      Papias quickly became a pillar of the early church, and served as a bridge between the largely Jewish world of Messianic Judaism (which was by this time quickly fading, Messianic Judaism was centered in the wrong place at the wrong time) and the gentile world of Christianity.  He wrote extensively on the apostles, biographies and such (most all of which are now lost) and was noted for his critical revision of the gospels.  The long ending of Mark, found in most modern bibles, was attributed to his authorship, though a more authenticated tradition holds it was by the hand of the Elder Ariston.  (Mark originally ended his gospel at 16:8, from there onward is an epilogue; no one is sure who wrote it.)
      He wrote, concerning the first gospel Matthew:
       
Papias (Eusebius, H.E. 3.39.16)
"Matthew collected the oracles (ta logia) in the Hebrew language, and each interpreted them as best he could."

      This statement might not at first seem as shocking as it should; but it confirms two suspicions which have long been held as fact among various scholars.  There was apparently a sayings gospel, which recorded Yahshua's predictions of the future.  Most of the parables of Yahshua are in one or another prophecies.  For instance, you'll usually find that after a parable he will say such things as "That is how it will be at the end of this age" or "that's what it'll be like when such-and-such happens."  
Not only do we have confirmation of the "teaching gospel" as it has come to be dubbed, (also known as Q, among scholars) but it has also survived for 2,000 years, buried in the narrative of Matthew's memoirs.  So, should we bother to remove the Oracles of Yahshua from the text?  You bet!  It's worth while just to see what the man was about, without Matthew's commentary.  
      The reason for removing the Oracles may not at first seem clear,  but it must be remembered the reasons Matthew wrote his gospel in the first place.  He was apparently leaving the Jews of Palestine, which Eusebius notes, and so felt it necessary to write of his experiences concerning Yahshua to replace what had earlier been an oral testimony of the events he witnessed.  According to this more historical line of thinking, his narrative gospel, which related his testimonies, was not at any moment meant to replace the oracles, which served as the core of his gospel to begin with.  Rather, the purpose was to reinforce and edify the Prophecies of Yahshua, and the early messianic community.  
      Does that mean we should throw out Matthew?  Not at all.  It's a holy text, but as Papias said, Matthew was interpreting the sayings of Yahshua as best he could.  The prophecies/teachings of Yahshua then should be the focus of our faith, not the commentary that surrounds it.  Again, the New Testament seems to be more of a Talmudic caliber writing, than outright scripture.  It also gives considerable credence to the idea that the Torah is the center and sole foundation of our belief and our hope, and that indeed the Hebrew bible (along with the teachings of Yahshua) are alone the G-d breathed scripture which Rabbi Shaul refers to in 2nd Timothy 3:16.

Hope everyone had a great Shabbos,
                                                     Micah