Jesus in the Feasts of Israel

by Richard Booker / Bridge Publishing, Inc. 1987 / 115 pages

As the beginning of another cycle of Biblical festivals approaches, we look ahead to Pesach, Hag HaMatzah, Yom HaBikkurim, and Shavu’ot. Those of us who want to learn more about the spring feasts and how they picture the work of the Messiah would do well to examine such texts as Barney Kasdan’s God’s Appointed Times or Eddie Chumney’s Seven Festivals of the Messiah.

Another familiar title is Jesus in the Feasts of Israel by Richard Booker. My evaluation of this particular volume is, "Handle with care!"

Booker is to be commended for acknowledging that the Levitical feasts demonstrate "spiritual truths" which the Believer can apply to his or her life [p. 3]. However, he undermines the strengths of his work repeatedly. For example, he equates the festivals with children’s toy blocks used to learn the letters of the alphabet. But the blocks "are not the real alphabet": Booker claims that the Messiah’s life should have shown "the Jews [that they] were to put away these physical symbols and enter into the spiritual reality which they portrayed." The festivals were only "temporary visual aids" [pp. 2-3] for their instruction.

Booker’s problematic argument continues: "Jesus apparently offered a physical kingdom to the Jews as well as a spiritual one?but they didn’t like the kind of offer Jesus made, so they rejected Him as their king. Jesus then offered the spiritual blessings of the kingdom to the Gentiles" [p. 81]. It would be difficult to defend Booker’s line of reasoning from charges of replacement theology. His first chapter, titled "The Jewish Calendar," offers a useful, concise description of the sacred and civil calendars and places the festival cycle into them. This is good. But Booker brings the reader up short with another grating conclusion: "A study of the Jewish calendar is certainly not important in itself" [p. 12]. Could he not have emphasized the significance of the spiritual lessons of the cycle without distancing himself self-consciously from the appreciation of anything "Jewish" for its own sake? Perhaps he is guilty only of clumsy phraseology, but it is hard to tell.

Booker understands and interprets many of the truths of Scripture accurately; his explanation of the precision of the Messiah’s fulfillment of the Passover, to the very moment of His death, is evidence of that [pp. 11 ff]. Yet the author cannot seem to resist expressing his replacement ‘bent’. "When the Jews rejected Jesus, God directed His attention towards the Gentiles," he writes. Therefore, for the last 2000 years, "the Gentiles, not the Jews have been greatly blessed by God." However, "we understand that there will come a time when God will turn His attention back to the Jews" [pp. 74-75]. Whatever this theology may represent, it is not Messianic!

Booker resorts to other questionable claims, all supported by his creative ‘time chart’. He concludes that "God raised up Martin Luther in the 1500s for the purpose of restoring the spiritual significance of the Feast of Passover to the Church." Perhaps equally surprising is Booker’s deduction that "the Feast of Unleavened Bread and First Fruits are connected with the Wesleys [founders of Methodism in England]" [p. 43]. And finally, "Pentecost" began to be restored in Los Angeles in the early 1900s with the Azusa Street revivals [pp. 69 ff].

These and other findings typical of this volume seriously diminish its value for any readers who want to fortify their understanding of the Bible’s message. Even those whose grasp of Scripture is sound should approach this volume only with extreme caution. I certainly would not recommend its use as an introduction to friends or family interested in the Messianic movement.

Reviewed by Rae Wineland Newstad, Ph.D.

Associate Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA