Basser takes his time developing arguments and often focuses on just one or two words within a statement made by one side or the other to clearly define their full position. He first provides the question of the debate in the title of each part of the book, then Basser gives the reader the passage from the New Testament Gospel record, and finally he attempts to tackle the “popular” notion of the significance and meaning of the passage.

He examines the fierce debates between Christians and Jews, which took place in the aftermath of the Christian break from Judaism. After the Christian-Jewish schism, church writers recast dialogues of law and lore into descriptions of bitter controversies between Jesus and the Pharisees. These reflected the strife then current between Christians and Jews. Jews ju

An example of one of Basser’s arguments concerns the three separate yet similar stories when Jesus cured a man, or woman depending on the Gospel writer, who had a “withered hand” on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:10-13, Luke 13:14-17, Luke 14:3-5). The Pharisees accuse Jesus of breaking God’s law, defined by the scribes, found in Mishnah Shabbat 24:1, which explains that if something is of small value, it could not be rescued by over-riding scribal law. Apparently the law had evolved into being inferred as to meaning that if something is of great value, it could be rescued and, if necessary, even at the expense of scribal law (21). To Jesus, the man or woman’s withered hand was worth over-riding scribal law for, however, it may still be possible to assume, like some Pharisees did, that the charge against Jesus for healing on the Sabbath was one of breaking divine Torah Law, as it says in Exodus 31:15, “When it is possible to do a commandment on another day, the Sabbath is not moved aside for it.” In cases presented in the Gospels, however, no incisions or reconstructions were made in the organs or flesh; Jesus heals by touching. As we can see in this debate, it is not merely a debate between Christians and Jews. The early debate is between Jesus and the Pharisees yet religious scholars also debate it after hundreds of years. Basser induces that “there is nothing at all to learn from these Jesus/Pharisee debates… Originally, they may have been preserved to show Jesus’ mastery of Jewish law and humane application of it (30).”

Basser, Herbert W. Studies in Exegesis: Christian Critiques of Jewish Law and Rabbinic Responses 70-300 C.E. Brill Academic Publishers, Inc.: Boston, 2002.

Basser’s book is, if nothing else, extremely organized. In each section of Studies in Exegesis, he gives the reader the argument, provides the sides of the argument in the form of each Gospel where the argument is presented, and finally provides a commentary on each. After he explains the argument, he then applies his knowledge (and sometimes other theologist’s research) as background to come to some type of conclusion. Each conclusion, however,

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