The Bible, the Talmud, and the New Testament. Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik

      

      The Bible, the Talmud, and the New Testament

      The Bible, the Talmud,

      and the New Testament

       Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik’s Commentary to the Gospels

      Edited, with an introduction and commentary, by Shaul Magid

      Translated by Jordan Gayle Levy

      Foreword by Peter Salovey

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia

      JEWISH CULTURE AND CONTEXTS

      Published in association with the Herbert D. Katz Center

      for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania

       Series Editors: Shaul Magid, Francesca Trivellato, Steven Weitzman

      A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

      Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from the Herbert D. Katz Publications Fund of the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.

      Copyright © 2019 University of Pennsylvania Press

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review

      or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form

      by any means without written permission from the publisher.

      Published by

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

      www.upenn.edu/pennpress

      Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

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      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Solovaitsik, Eliyahu Tsevi, ha-Levi, author. | Magid, Shaul, 1958– editor, writer of added commentary. | Levy, Jordan Gayle, translator. | Salovey, Peter, writer of foreword. | Translation of: Solovaitsik, Eliyahu Tsevi, ha-Levi. Kol kore, o, ha-Talmud veha-Berit ha-hadashah. | Commentary on (work): Solovaitsik, Eliyahu Tsevi, ha-Levi. Kol kore, o, ha-Talmud veha-Berit ha-hadashah.

      Title: The Bible, the Talmud, and the New Testament : Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik’s commentary to the Gospels / edited, with an introduction and commentary, by Shaul Magid ; translated by Jordan Gayle Levy ; foreword by Peter Salovey.

      Other titles: Kol kore, o, ha-Talmud veha-Berit ha-hadashah. English | Commentary on (work): Bible. Matthew. | Commentary on (work): Bible. Mark. | Jewish culture and contexts.

      Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2019] | Series: Jewish culture and contexts | Includes bibliographical references and index.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2018049427| ISBN 9780812250992 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 0812250990 (hardcover : alk. paper)

      Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Matthew—Criticism, interpretation, etc., Jewish. | Bible. Mark—Criticism, interpretation, etc., Jewish. | Bible. New Testament—Relation to the Old Testament. | Rabbinical literature—Relation to the New Testament. | Judaism—Relations—Christianity. | Christianity and other religions—Judaism. | Solovaitsik, Eliyahu Tsevi, ha-Levi. Kol kore, o, ha-Talmud veha-Berit ha-hadashah.

      Classification: LCC BS2575.53 .S6513 2019 | DDC 226/.206—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018049427

      Frontispiece. Rabbi Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik. From Yahadut Lita: Temunot ve-Tsiyunim (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1959). Courtesy of Menachem Butler.

       To Annette

      “There is always something limitless in desire.”

      —Simone Weil

      It is vain to think of the conversion of the Jews to Christianity before Christians themselves are converted to Judaism.

       —Stanislaus Hoga

      The emergence of Christianity belongs to the history of Judaism.

       —Franz Delitzsch

      Contents

      Foreword, by Peter Salovey

       Introduction: Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik, the Jewish Jesus, Christianity, and the Jews

       A Note on the Text

      A Translator’s Foreword, by Jordan Gayle Levy

       THE COMMENTARIES

       Dedication

       A Word to the Reader

       Author’s Preface

       The Gospel According to Matthew, with Commentary

       The Gospel According to Mark, with Commentary

       Bibliography

       Index of Names

       Index of Texts

       Acknowledgments

      Foreword

      Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik’s maternal grandfather was Hayyim Volozhin, the disciple of the Vilna Gaon, who founded the great yeshiva in Volozhin. And his brother, Isaac Zev Soloveitchik, was the father of a rabbinical dynasty. That dynasty began with Isaac Zev’s son, Joseph Dov Soloveitchik (the Beit ha-Levi), who was the father of Hayyim Soloveitchik (the Brisker Rav), who was the father of the next Isaac Zev Soloveitchik (Velvele Brisker) and Moses Soloveitchik (a distinguished rabbi who emigrated from Volozhin to Khislavishi to Warsaw to New York, where he taught at Yeshiva University), who was the father of Joseph Dov Baer Soloveitchik (the Rav), late of Boston and New York, and one of the founding figures of what we now think of as Modern Orthodox Judaism. So that’s the side of the family that I think of as the “Volozhin-Brisk [Brest Litovsk] connection.”

      But if we track Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik’s