David Flusser

David Flusser
Jesus by David Flusser
Born	Vienna
Died	September 15, 2000(2000-09-15) Jerusalem
Occupation	Academic
Spouse	Chana

David Flusser (Hebrew: דוד פלוסר) (born 1917; died 2000) was a professor of Early Christianity and Judaism of the Second Temple Period at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Biography

David Flusser was born in Vienna on September 15, 1917. He grew up in Příbram (Przibram, Pibrans, Freiberg i.B.), middle Bohemia, Czechoslovakia and attended the University of Prague. There he met a pastor who piqued his interest in Jesus and Christianity.^[1] Flusser immigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1939, and completed his doctorate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1957. He later taught in the Comparative Religions department for many years, mentoring many future scholars.

David Flusser is the cousin of Vilém Flusser.

Flusser died in Jerusalem on September 15, 2000, on his 83rd birthday.^[1] He was survived by his wife, Chana, and 2 sons, Yochanan and Uri, and 7 grandchildren.

Scholarship

Flusser was a devout Orthodox Jew who applied his skills in Torah and Talmud to the study of ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic texts, as well as the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Flusser on Jesus

Flusser scrutinized the ancient Jewish and Christian texts for evidence of the Jewish roots of Christianity. While critically distinguishing the historical Jesus from the portrayal in the Gospels and other Christian writings, Flusser saw Jesus as an authentic Jew, misunderstood by his followers.

David Satran, a professor of comparative religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said, "Dr. Flusser was rather remarkable in his strong insistence that not only was Jesus a Jew from birth to death, but that Jesus did nothing that could be interpreted as a revolt or questioning of the basic principles of the Judaism at the time." ^[2] Personally, Flusser viewed Jesus as a tsadik with keen spiritual insight and a "high self-awareness" that near-contemporaries similarly expressed, such as Hillel the Elder in the Talmud and the "Teacher of Righteousness" in certain Dead Sea Scrolls.

Flusser pursued his research at a time when many Jews blamed Christianity for Nazism. During his trial in Israel, the Gestapo officer Adolf Eichmann refused to take an oath on the New Testament, insisting he would only swear "in the name of God." Flusser commented in an editorial in the Jerusalem Post: "I do not know who is the God in whose name Eichmann swore, but I am certain that it is neither the God of Israel nor the God of the Christian church. It should now become clear to the strongest Jewish opponents of Christianity that Christianity per se imposes limitations, and that the greatest crime against our people was not committed in the name of the Christian faith".

Flusser published over 1,000 articles in Hebrew, German, English, and other languages. The results of his many academic writings can be found in his book, Jesus (1965), whose augmented second edition The Sage from Galilee (1998) was updated to incorporate his later research and views on Jesus.

One of Flusser's views which was particularly influential in Germany, being taken up and advocated also by Joachim Jeremias, was the suggestion that the name Yeshu used of Jesus in the Talmud was "in no way abusive" but was in fact a Galilean dialect version, since according to Flusser, Galileans found the final ayin of the name Yeshua difficult to pronounce.^[3]

Awards

Flusser was a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and received the Israel Prize in 1980, for his contributions to the study of Jewish history.^[4] Lawrence Schiffman, chairman of the Skirball department of Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University, credited him with pioneering "the modern study of Christianity in the state of Israel in a scholarly context".

See also

• Jerusalem school hypothesis
• Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research
• List of Israel Prize recipients

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Jerusalem Perspective Online Premium Content Authors
2. ^ http://www.chretiens-et-juifs.org/article.php
3. ^ David Flusser Jewish sources in early Christianity - 1987 p89 "The Hebrew name for Jesus, Yeshu, is evidence for the Galilean pronunciation of the period, and is in no way abusive. Jesus was a Galilean..."
4. ^ "Israel Prize Official Site - Recipients in 1980 (in Hebrew)". http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/PrasIsrael/Tashlag/Tashmab_Tashlag_Rikuz.htm?DictionaryKey=Tasham. 

Published work

• Jesus, second ed. augmented (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1998) ISBN 965-223-978-X.
• Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1988) ISBN 965-223-627-6.

External links

• "One of the world's foremost Jewish authorities on the New Testament and early Christianity"
• Jewish-Christian Relations

Persondata
Name	Flusser, David
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1917
Place of birth	Vienna
Date of death	September 15, 2000
Place of death	Jerusalem