“Most Jews fear to read the New Testament, and most Christians read the New Testament unaware it is permeated with Jewish ideas and images”

Most Jews fear to read the New Testament, and most Christians read the New Testament unaware it is permeated with Jewish ideas and images. As a consequence, both Christians and Jews miss an opportunity to share a common treasure.

Jesus spoke primarily to Jews. His parables reflected and expanded the Jewish experiences of his audiences. Cleared of centuries of Christian interpretations and presented within their Jewish context, these parables can be a mine of information for Jews about Judaism in the first century – about how Jews behaved then, what Jews believed, and why some Jews responded to but most rejected Jesus’ teachings.

Frank Stern, A Rabbi Looks at Jesus’ Parables (Lanham, MD, Boulder, CO, New York, Toronto, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2006), 1.