I think that when Christians talk about going back to ‘Hebrew roots’ in their understanding of scripture etc. they are recognising that there are many metaphors, wordplays and allusions which require a sensitivity towards or knowledge of Hebrew language and culture to understand. When contrasting so-called ‘Hebrew thinking’ with ‘Greek thinking’, my impression is that in laymen’s terms people are actually attempting to critique Western/enlightenment thinking vs pre-modern thinking.
A more precise investigation reveals that there are at least three distinct scriptural traditions that form the backdrop to the new testament. There is of course the Hebrew canon of Torah + Prophets (although these can be subdivided further into different camps), but then there is also the merkevah mystic tradition of rabbinic Judaism (the ‘inner torah’) and there is the Greek philosophic-mystic-prophetic tradition as well. Most people who read the Bible are familiar with the first of these but are completely ignorant of the other two and how they are referenced and quoted alongside the torah in the NT.
The new testament synthesises both hebraic and hellenic elements in its treatment of the gospel, revealing how Christ appears in both – and transcends both. In fact, to paraphrase the scripture, ‘the cross of Christ is foolishness to a Greek mindset and a stumbling block to a hebraic mindset‘. When investigating these things it’s important not to fall into the trap of idealising one tradition over the over. ‘These things are only shadows – the reality is found in Christ himself‘.
As a side observation, I notice that many of those who are looking into the merkevah/inner torah influence on the NT are doing so with reference to Maimonides and Kabbalic commentaries which reiterate the merkevah tradition but also innovate it. For example, the idea that Hebrew letters form the elemental building blocks of reality is a Kabbalic idea formed some 1,000 years after the writing of the new testament and not a merkevic idea. The Hebrew script referred to by Kabbalic commentaries didn’t even exist when the biblical texts were written. Ironically, both Hebrew and Greek written forms are based on a common proto-phonecian alphabet, so the idea that there is something intrinsically mystical about modern Hebrew lettering itself is anachronistic.
