𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐘𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐮𝐚 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐞 𝐑𝐚𝐛𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐜 𝐉𝐮𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐦? 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡

I was always told that Christianity grew out of Judaism. That was the natural order of things. First, we had Moses, then the prophets, then Yeshua, and after that, Christianity split off in its own direction. Clean, simple, and orderly.

But what if we had it backwards? What if Yeshua and the New Testament played a role in shaping Rabbinic Judaism as we know it today? What if some of the most Jewish traditions in the world—the Haftarah readings, the Oral Law, and even the Aramaic translation of the Torah—developed as a reaction to the early believers in Yeshua?

That idea rattled me. It felt like someone had just told me that Pepsi came before Coke. But when I started looking at the evidence, I had to admit—it was compelling.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐬

If you go to synagogue on Shabbat, you will hear two readings. One comes from the Torah. The other comes from the Haftarah, a passage from the prophets that is supposed to relate to the Torah portion. This tradition is one of the oldest in Judaism.

But here’s the twist. Some of the most famous Messianic prophecies—the ones quoted in the New Testament—are missing from the Haftarah cycle.

Take Isaiah 53. It’s the passage that speaks about a suffering servant who was “pierced for our transgressions” and “led like a lamb to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:5-7). Christians and Messianic Jews see Yeshua all over that passage. It’s one of the most quoted prophecies in the New Testament.

But if you look at the synagogue reading schedule, Isaiah 53 is nowhere to be found.

Professor Hananel Mack, an Israeli scholar, noticed this and started digging. He found a pattern. Other famous Messianic passages were missing too. Isaiah 7:14 (“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son”) and Micah 5:2 (“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come one who will rule over Israel”) had also disappeared.

Was this intentional? Did the rabbis remove these passages to avoid fueling Yeshua’s claims? Or was it just a coincidence?

Defenders of the current Haftarah cycle say it was never about dodging Messianic verses. They argue that many of these passages were just too theologically complicated to read in synagogue. But that’s an odd defense. The rabbis never shied away from complicated passages. They wrestled with Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones and Daniel’s apocalyptic dreams, but somehow, Isaiah 53 was too difficult? That’s like saying a mathematician avoids algebra because it’s too tricky.

The truth is, we don’t have a direct confession from the rabbis. No one ever wrote, 𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠, 𝑤𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑒𝑟. But the evidence is hard to ignore. The New Testament quoted these passages. Then, somewhere down the line, they vanished from the Haftarah readings. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐋𝐚𝐰: 𝐀 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭?

The Mishnah is the foundation of Rabbinic Judaism. It’s the reason why Jewish tradition continued even after the Temple was destroyed. But here’s what’s strange—the Oral Law was supposed to have been passed down from Moses for thousands of years before it was written down.

So why was it only recorded after the New Testament was written?

A Midrash explains why Moses didn’t write the Oral Torah. It claims that G-d deliberately kept it unwritten so that Gentiles wouldn’t claim it as their own. The Midrash even says that Gentiles would one day translate the Torah into Greek and say, We are Israel! (Talmud, Gittin 60b). That sounds like a direct swipe at the early Christians who saw Yeshua as the fulfillment of Israel’s promises.

Israeli historian Israel Yuval takes it even further. He argues that if Paul had never existed, Rabbi Akiva wouldn’t have been necessary (Two Nations in Your Womb, 2000). Paul preached a faith centered on grace and Yeshua’s fulfillment of the Torah. Rabbi Akiva, on the other hand, emphasized strict halachic tradition and oral rulings.

Think about that. Paul is considered one of the founders of Christianity, and Akiva is one of the pillars of Rabbinic Judaism. If Yuval is right, then Rabbinic Judaism wasn’t just a continuation of ancient Jewish tradition. It was also a response to the early believers in Yeshua.

Of course, not everyone buys that theory. Some scholars argue that the Oral Law was written down for practical reasons. After the destruction of the Temple, Jewish leaders feared their traditions might be lost. Writing them down ensured their survival. That explanation makes sense. But does it tell the whole story?

𝐎𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐬 𝐯𝐬. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐭: 𝐀 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

Most people don’t realize that the first Jewish Bible translation wasn’t in Aramaic. It was in Greek. The Septuagint (LXX) was translated by Jewish scholars before the New Testament existed.

The rabbis at the time loved the Septuagint. The Talmud even says that G-d inspired the translators to all agree on the exact wording (Talmud, Megillah 9a). That’s a huge endorsement.

So why did Jewish communities abandon the Septuagint after the New Testament was written?

The answer is simple. The early believers in Yeshua used it.

Most of the Old Testament quotes in the New Testament come from the Septuagint, not the Hebrew Bible. That made it problematic for Rabbinic Judaism. If their rivals were using the LXX to prove that Yeshua was the Messiah, then it had to go.

Instead, a new translation took its place—Targum Onkelos, an Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah. But here’s the kicker: Onkelos doesn’t just translate the Hebrew. It adds Rabbinic traditions directly into the text.

For example, Deuteronomy 21:23 says, Anyone who is hanged on a tree is under G-d’s curse. Paul uses that verse to show that Yeshua bore the curse for our sins (Galatians 3:13).

But Onkelos changes the wording. It adds that the person was crucified for his own sins (Targum Onkelos on Deuteronomy 21:23). That looks an awful lot like an intentional pushback against Paul.

Scholars like Gideon Stoutman argue that Onkelos was designed as a response to the New Testament. It replaced the Septuagint because the Greek translation had become too “Christian” (Jewish Bible Translations and Their Theological Implications, 2019).

𝐒𝐨 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐕𝐞𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭?

Did Rabbinic Judaism develop as a response to Yeshua and the New Testament? The evidence suggests that it at least played a role.

• Some of the most famous Messianic prophecies disappeared from the synagogue readings.

• The Oral Law was written down only after Messianic Judaism had begun to spread.

• The Septuagint was abandoned in favor of a translation that supported Rabbinic tradition.

That doesn’t mean Judaism copied Christianity. It means that both traditions shaped each other. The early believers in Yeshua influenced how Rabbinic Judaism developed, just as Rabbinic Judaism influenced Christianity’s growth.

If that makes you uncomfortable, don’t worry. The truth is always a little messy. But as any good detective knows, sometimes the most interesting cases are the ones that turn your assumptions upside down.

B"H